Goodman Games

finarvyn wrote:The point being that a dragon or other monter might not be interested in hoarding pennies and quarters but would be interested in big-price coins like gold. And those coins might be a real pain to spend anywhere. "Sure it's worth $1000, but I aint got any change for that kind of coin. Give me the coin and I'll let you eat and sleep here for a week or so." A pain for players, but a load of fun for a GM who wants to torment players.

Good point Marv, maybe that's how all innkeepers level up, so wonder they're all rock hard in a fight . In one of my games the general store owner made so much off the characters he decided to shut up shop, retiring with his fortune, depriving the players of easy access to supplies.

I got the old Swordbearer rpg a few days ago and it may have been the first game to go with using no money. Instead you have a social status stat that determines what you can afford. Each item in the equipment list is given a status rating. If the item is rated above your social status, you can't afford it. If you find a treasure that is rated above your status, your status improves up to the treasure's level. The treasure's level is reduced by one for each other person in your group. If you get robbed or lose money in gambling or something, your status would go down. It's a pretty simple system and requires virtually no paperwork. I think I might use a system like this for whatever game I run next. I really could care less about shopping in game anymore.

finarvyn wrote:The point being that a dragon or other monter might not be interested in hourding pennies and quarters but would be interested in big-price coins like gold. And those coins might be a real pain to spend anywhere. "Sure it's worth $1000, but I aint got any change fot that kind of coin. Give me the coin and I'll let you eat and sleep here for a week or so." A pain for players, but a load of fun for a GM who wants to torment players.

Also those big-price coins may be from ancient, lost civilizations or from distant kingdoms. So a piece of gold may be worth $100 or $1000 but the engravings on it may be from the fallen Dwarven kingdom thousands of years ago. Or the Lost City of the Underdwellers. Or something.

Dragons might have them because they're so old. And perhaps demanded them in tribute centuries ago. Or presently. So the accumulation of them is over centuries. If you want the wisdom of the dragon, you must present him with X gold pieces. But not the ones from Frostmarch. Because the dragon finds those offensive.

Or something like that.

mshensley wrote:I got the old Swordbearer rpg a few days ago and it may have been the first game to go with using no money. Instead you have a social status stat that determines what you can afford. Each item in the equipment list is given a status rating. If the item is rated above your social status, you can't afford it. If you find a treasure that is rated above your status, your status improves up to the treasure's level. The treasure's level is reduced by one for each other person in your group. If you get robbed or lose money in gambling or something, your status would go down. It's a pretty simple system and requires virtually no paperwork. I think I might use a system like this for whatever game I run next. I really could care less about shopping in game anymore.

An interesting notion is that there could be "combat XP" and "status XP."

Killing things might be useful for level advancement but gold would be used to improve a "wealth" or social status rating. As a character gathers gold it wouldn't ever be kept to spend but instead would improve the character's overall lot in life.

Hmmm.

finarvyn wrote:An interesting notion is that there could be "combat XP" and "status XP."

Killing things might be useful for level advancement but gold would be used to improve a "wealth" or social status rating. As a character gathers gold it wouldn't ever be kept to spend but instead would improve the character's overall lot in life.

Hmmm.

Wouldn't tracking status xp be about the same as keeping track of gold? I don't see a real difference there.

mshensley wrote:

finarvyn wrote:An interesting notion is that there could be "combat XP" and "status XP."

Killing things might be useful for level advancement but gold would be used to improve a "wealth" or social status rating. As a character gathers gold it wouldn't ever be kept to spend but instead would improve the character's overall lot in life.

Hmmm.

Wouldn't tracking status xp be about the same as keeping track of gold? I don't see a real difference there.

It would be roughly the same, but gold put into status XP would be gold not spendable elsewhere. In otherwords, one would effectively "buy" status. I suppose characters could opt to keep some of the gold for actual spending rather than banking it into status, but that would defeat the purpose of the rule.

What it would do is make equipment cost charts obsolete. You'd have to re-do them to account for status level with the idea that if you have enough status you could just assume that you picked up what you wanted as needed.

And magic item value wouldn't add to status, since it's something you could use otherwise.

Of course, doing this would mean some sort of rewrite of the old XP rules, since you wouldn't want to count gold for level advancement anymore. Which is why Joseph won't like it.

finarvyn wrote:It would be roughly the same, but gold put into status XP would be gold not spendable elsewhere. In otherwords, one would effectively "buy" status. I suppose characters could opt to keep some of the gold for actual spending rather than banking it into status, but that would defeat the purpose of the rule.

Social status should only be based on social action. The "act" of having lots of gold gives a certain social level. But spending money on nicer clothes and jewels also increases social level. Buying land and providing jobs, though, is the only sure way to attain high social rank.

What it would do is make equipment cost charts obsolete. You'd have to re-do them to account for status level with the idea that if you have enough status you could just assume that you picked up what you wanted as needed.

This is not a new concept. There are lots of games with a "Wealth" characteristic. And that use abstract wealth for equipment.

D20 modern is one of them: http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org ... ealth.html

If we're talking equipment, I think that characters in DCC RPG should have some mechanic whereby they lose equipment between adventures. Something I've used in the past is having a player roll a d6 for every piece of equipment they own at the end of an adventure. On a 1-2, it's lost.

Characters also got the option to "franchise tag" some of their equipment to avoid the possibility of losing it.

I had a lot of fighters with a nice sword and nothing but a loincloth in those campaigns.

Nice idea, smathis. It certainly helps to create the feel of many of the Appendix N books!

You might also consider some sort of rule for attrition of cash, such as deducting 50% of all unspent money in between each adventure or something like that. Conan was always broke or a king. Fafhrd and the Mouser were usually broke as well.

Just a thought.

finarvyn wrote:Nice idea, smathis. It certainly helps to create the feel of many of the Appendix N books!

You might also consider some sort of rule for attrition of cash, such as deducting 50% of all unspent money in between each adventure or something like that. Conan was always broke or a king. Fafhrd and the Mouser were usually broke as well.

Just a thought.

I typically use jrients' Ale & Wenching house rule for this. Works fairly well. Would be nice for DCC to have something comparable.

smathis wrote:I typically use jrients' Ale & Wenching house rule for this. Works fairly well. Would be nice for DCC to have something comparable.

Jeff has some cool ideas. I'd forgotten about this one, so thanks for the reminder!

smathis wrote:I typically use jrients' Ale & Wenching house rule for this. Works fairly well. Would be nice for DCC to have something comparable.

I agree - but I bet some player spends as much money as possible on carousing to get the XP.

Not all PC's need to be wenching & carousing types, so how about linking it to Alignment - if the player thinks up something to spend it on in line with what drives him he gets the XP e.g. on the community, building up contacts, acquiring a rare map, bribes, or getting off his head on pipeweed. Maybe that's too complex if you're just doing one-shots but in a campaign it'd be a way to seed further adventures.