An excellent notion.

[Jaeger]

I found this in a review of the new conan rpg. It is the best way I have seen of dealing with the "kill them and take thier stuff" mentality yet.  TROS, is very much in the same Sword and Sorcery genre as the origional conan tales, and I intend on implementing this idea in all my future campaigns...

The game deliberately assumes that PCs are going to be blowing their money on various vices (even Scholars who don't go out drinking and whoring will still be collecting a lot of reading materials, for instance). Every week, every character spends at least 50% of any wealth over 50 silver pieces. Otherwise, they wouldn't need to adventure, obviously. As the authors put it: "Conan the RPG, in keeping with the stories, encourages characters to be larger-than-life action heroes capable of achieving their ends with little more than a broadsword and whatever can be found around them. The Game Master is always at liberty to cross items off a character's character sheet in between adventures without compensation if characters begin to become laden down with junk- after all, if they really need something, they can always steal it."

 Simply brilliant. Although nobles, and those who want to be nobles would not give up their nest egg - the same philosophy should be applied to all their loose cash. And naturally if the PC is saving up to buy a fine sword or piece of armor allowances would be made...

[Jake Norwood]

For the record, the guys at Mongoose, who put that book out, are TROS players.

Jake

[kanseg]

I like it.

Give them another plausible motivation to be adventuring beyond of course the excellent one of their spiritual attributes.  I think I will use this with my next campaign.  Of course if they do become more solvent during the course of the adventure then by that point they should have made enough enemies and be following plot lines they have discovered to ensure they maintain interest in the campaign.

Harry

[kenjib]

Yeah, it always bugged me how rpg characters spend all of their money on phat upgrades.  I have a few of logistical issues with this idea though, the primary one is that it seems to encourage players to want to quickly go out and use all of their money to buy lots of gear right after an adventure, since they are going to lose it anyway.  Also, taking stuff away arbitrarily sounds like an argument waiting to happen.  With the right players though, it sounds great.

The overall results, I would wager, is that money would become much less important in the game - easy come, easy go.  Money only becomes a motivation to adventure insomuch as the players roleplay it to do so.  Money becomes a roleplaying prop and little else.  I think that's totally in genre.

[Ingenious]

Excellent topic. Sorry for the rant ahead of time.

In the case of past TROS sessions, and one character in particular..
donated some ill-gotten gains to his local church. His church was burnt down by a psychotic Fey woman.. so that money went to rebuilding his church/orphanage.. and to the church in general as tithes and so forth.
The PC's(including myself) blew up a pirate ship via the thirst for revenge after a double-cross... and it was quite spectacular in its own right.
My character(who was recently hired as a cityguard) took watch over the wreckage at night.. while the other PC's pilfered the sunken ship.
We each received about 180 gold(there were gold bars involved with Gelurian markings).. but the main concern and realization of most of us was 'holy shit that is alot of gold'.. the priest felt like he could use the money for good.. the thief-type used it for personal gain(now that he's married to a noble's daughter.. it will help)Though we did kill the noble as he was in the way, etc.

The main thing is that most of the money the priest got was spent on intangible things.. by now the theif-turned-noble is spending the money rebuilding his war-torn country/province... and giving some of it to the upper nobility.. the accountant used it to buy a mechant company and put his rival's company out of business(though he got killed by the pirate lol)

Most of this was solved by the seneschal out of game.. which is fine by me because it really stuck to the story-line and the major motivating factors of the PC's.. Except the player with the priest, he spent his money on his own accord. As for me.. the character that had the money is dead.. so it really was not an issue with me.

However, I shall offer this alternative to spending X amount of money every adventure or whatever the suggestion was.
Simply make the economy more volatile. Raise taxes, which will then increase prices.. dramatically. Instead of an average sword costing a gold, or however much.. double it. Triple it if need-be. Have thieves steal some of it. If your character has daily/weekly/monthly expenses like ours did.. such as a horse, some hunting dogs, a mule.. etc.. increase the cost of that if there is too much gold floating around. Wars accounted for alot of the volatility in the world back in the middle ages.. taxes were increased in order to fund troops, food for the troops, equipment.. etc. That has to come from somewhere.. so when the nobility pinches the peasants, the consumer pays for most of it. And let us not forget the standard of living that one is accustomed to. If a noble has the funds for it.. he'd rather stay in a '5 star hotel' than the shack down the street. What is more interesting and fun to see played out though.. is when funds for that noble character are exceedingly low and he HAS to stay in that run-down shack in the middle of Podunk.

Essentially.. turn yourself into a much much much younger and more interesting and average version of Alan Greenspan, preferably speaking in a manner that is easily understandible and not mono-tone... The treasury department sets interest rates, takes excess money from circulation if it has to.. or increases the amount of money in circulation.
So, do it damnit. It's easy.. and you get to teach your players an economics lesson.. or learn some economics yourself.

YMMV
-Ingenious

[Edge]

After reading this post this morning i bought the conan book during my lunch break.  It sounded really cool and when i saw it i just needed it

[Mike Holmes]

Yay, I get to be the downer again. :-(

First, the idea of money draining away is an old one. The basic concept probably originated with Champions first edition 1980. In that game, it's handled explicitly - if you don't pay character points for it, you don't get to keep it. You'll find that a lot of systems do this, Hero Quest being a good modern example. In fact, if you look up one forum here you'll see that Ethan at Simple Phrase has created an entire game called Thugs & Thieves that has your character's Vice as the central concept driving exactly just this.

All of which is to say, yes, this works great, and you guys need to look at more games.

Ingenious (whatinthehell is your real name anyhow?), the problem with your first edition AD&D Gary Gygax DMG essay on fantasy economics method is that it tries to deny that it's metagame. You're saying to the player, "See it's all part of an internally consistent in-game construct." At which point the player can turn around and reasonably say, "My character eats nothing but rice, and lives under a bush for the next month," because, hey, it's theoretically possible. That's not to say that you don't have to make it plausible, you do. But you ought to make sure that they player understands your intent as the GM. Instead say, "I'm taking away all of your character's cash. In game, that's explained by sudden inflation caused in fact by your money, and your character spending with abandon. Sound good?" At which point the player says, "Sure, cool."

Basically, Ingenious is correct that the X amount of money idea is just not needed, however. Instead of thinking of cash as a metric in game, make it part of conflicts. Don't bother to record it precisely at all. If you need a character to have a cash motivation, just discuss it with the player and make it happen. If the player wants the character to obtain a fine sword or something, make it into a conflict of some sort, instead of some boring accounting routine. Give him something interesting he has to do or give up to get the money he needs. Making the sword just another element driving action.

Alone, this doesn't affect the "kill them and take thier stuff" attitude. If the players still think that money is important, then this will just be an impediment to their gaining more, and won't change their attitude. To make it work it has to be combined with an alteration of the player goals to dealing solely with persuing SAs. Once that's accomplished, you'll find that the money issue becomes irrelevant anyhow.

That is, if you still have players who are after money, and it's not an embodiment of an SA, they're still playing D&D, and need an attitude adjustment.

Mike

[Mokkurkalfe]

Personally, I like dribling around with coppers and silvers and stuff. It's fun to see the players argue on wether to use their money to help the poor (Conscience), or buy a new sword.

Whenever I get the time, I'll put together a list of weekly costs for different lifestyles. Of course, I've said that for months now.

One idea I was thinking on to improve roleplaying in my own group, which is pretty gamist, is to allow Passion: Live Well. It would increase every time you spent money one something luxurous yet not strictly necessary. Granted, it's not a passion for a thing or person, which I *think* was the definition, but it would lead to some pretty interesting scenes when one player uses all their money to arrange a huge feast.

[[MKF]Kapten]

(...)"My character eats nothing but rice, and lives under a bush for the next month," because, hey, it's theoretically possible.(...)

I found out a solution to that problem a while ago. Maybe someone else can use it:

For starters it is like every living standard pricing in almost every RPG; you pay for either nothing (living in the wilds eating rice, as in your example), very poor, poor, average, rich or regal.

If someone pays for average, rich or regal it's nothing strange, really; mark of the cash, get a pat on the head for being a good roleplayer etc.

But if you pay less than average you have to do a disease check at the end of every week. You are living in cold housing (or no housing) and eat food that lacks in nutrition. If you fail the disease check you catch a disease. The check is very easy to make on poor and get worse the less you pay.

This system has actually killed a PC once; the PCs had escaped from slavers and were making it through the woods in october without proper equipment. The low HT guy caught a pneumonia and died. It made clear that weather and wind can be as dangerous as an armed opponent at times.

[Lance D. Allen]

I generally downplay the importance of money in my fantasy setting games.. sort of a "petty cash" mentality. If it's something like buying a meal and a room at an inn for a night, I don't worry about it too much. If it's paying for a week at an inn with meals and medical care, I work up a round number, and they pay it if they've got it (which they usually do.. Money is easy to get for the unscrupulous or the gently born)

On the other hand, I'm much more likely to "sweat the small stuff" when it has a direct effect on the character's Effectiveness. They buy 3 daggers, I make 'em pony up the cash precisely. If they commission a perfectly balanced sword, I make them pay up front, and wait for the item to be made.

I suppose the way I'd do it if I really worried about the characters accumulating too much wealth is simply establish a "lifestyle" cost, like in Shadowrun.. And enforce it realistically. Joe-Schmoe the brigand can say that he sleeps in the forest and eats rice and whatever he can take down with a bow.. So I make him devote a certain amount of time per day to hunting, and make him buy his rice in bulk. On the other hand, Joseph Regal, Knight of the Realm is going to have to upkeep a slightly higher lifestyle, part of which may be offset by income from land taxes (if he's got lands) or what have you, but he'll still have to pay for it. On the other hand, he'll never have to worry about the petty costs of paying for food or room and board, etc. because it's already assumed in his lifestyle.

If beyond the "Lifestyles" that Joe Schmoe and Joseph Regal have chosen they begin to amass large fortunes.. So be it. Spiritual Attributes make Weyrth go round, not money.

[Ingenious]

Rant alert.

Mike, good job guessing on the inspiriation for my Al Gore-like robotic post lol.

Back to the issue. You say that a character might eat nothing but rice and live under a bush for a month.. That's fine. My character is going to be spending most of the adventure outside of town.. where I assume the PC's are going to stay. He 'bought' no food at the start, to add to the storyline of him being there for quite a while...hence running out of food.
But that is so i can use the hunting skill.. and get more involved into that.
Because we just havent used it yet. But my character has some knowledge of the woods, the ways of survival.. etc.

If your character Mike, the one that eats rice all the time.. wanted some H20 to boil his rice in.. does he have the survival skill to find some out there? Or does he just go back into town and take some water?
If you run into a character that does not like the economy and starts becoming a penny-pinching Scrooge of sorts.. in order to keep as much as he can.. consider that a flaw that was earned in-game through role-playing then. Do you think he might get attacked by animals or something out in the woods all alone? What if the guy sees a mushroom after 3 weeks of nothing but rice and decides to 'kick it up a notch' ala Emeril Legasse? And what happens when that particular mushroom was not exactly.. edible.

You see, if a character becomes too selfish or pissy about the economy.. he will only in turn be role-playing and adding to the storyline anyways.
And you act like that is a bad thing for someone to react negatively to the economy... Does GBW say 'Hey, the hell with the economy.. nobody spends money anyways.. so why not disregard it?' No. So saying that the money in TROS is less significant than it should be is CRAAAAP. Then again I am of the mindset that realism is king as compared to D&D, so I'd like to have an economy where the majority of the world barely eeks out an existance. Compare that to D&D where you(even a peasant) go out adventuring and suddenly amass 20,000 gold... in one single adventure. At that point money becomes useless.

In TROS, what if your character IS a peasant.. and has to turn to theivery in order to live eh? To break the law so that one might be able to eat every day? That's a big motivating factor.. And theives wouldnt have an MO for SHIT if the economy was sooooo fuckin' great eh? Damn right. 'downplay the importance of money' indeed. Hmmmph.
Without an importance of money.. you wouldnt be challenged so much. If that broke-ass peasant from before had money, I'm sure he'd be thrifty enough to buy alot of small cheap.. poorly cooked stuff as compared to having a blast with the best damned food in town for one meal. It goes with common sense that a noble is going to spend more money than he has brain cells.. and that a peasant has to keep his standard of living down.. otherwise he runs out of money. And then starves. Or their kids starve.. or they turn to stealing food..

I hope you guys see my point with all of this stuff. Aside from my essay on the economy.. it's just more interesting, detailed, and fun IMO to have these situations be possible. Otherwise that peasant that used to be poor, down on his luck, barely ate once in the last 3 days.. suddenly hits the jackpot and goes out and buys a sword? No.. first I'm sure he'd look to eating like a pig before purchasing a weapon.

-Ingenious
Oh, and Mike.. my name is God. err I mean it's Cory.
Remember people, taxes!!!! TAAAAAAAAAAAXES!!!!

[Jaeger]

Peasants turned thieves would do the same thing many poor people do today with ill gotten gains: by a flashy car, big screen tv and other stuff they don't need to live - but since they got cash they blow it. They then need to steal to get more cash to support thier lifestyle.

The thing is people don't have common sense with money...
Especially adventurers.

Now if the PC's were trying to hold down a job and build a life - fine money is important. But most PC's live on the fringes of society - and like most peole today who hustle for a buck - it gets blown on vices.

Besides spending binges followed by chronic shortages of cash is the reason for many an adventure. Read anything conan by R. E. Howard. And anything three musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. the greatest adventure group of all time lived large when they were flush and scammed how to make a few easy livres when they ran out.

I just have a thing against the average bladeslinger turning accountant everytime he whacks someone or goes to buy a beer...

[Ingenious]

Ah yes, I am forgetting my post awhile back concerning the flaw of debt.
And the whole process of living outside of one's own means thing that Jake reinforced.

As long as money does not get benched on the sidelines and coined 'unimportant'.
-Ingenious

[silburnl]

As long as money does not get benched on the sidelines and coined 'unimportant'.
-Ingenious

I don't like doing the 'count every copper' (CEC) thing that comes out of old-school D&D; but also I don't discount the importance of money to most characters in some way, shape or form. Having said that, I don't think it can be argued that money has differing importance for different people. Some spend like water and are constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul because they live beyond their means, others are very close with their pocketbooks and never undertake a notable expenditure without a huge amount of thought and preparation. Most fall somewhere in between.

My argument with CEC play (and the mechanics, or absence of mechanics, that encourage it) is that it doesn't scale very well and is generally most suited for hard-scrabble situations where wealth is hard to come by and must be deployed with care.

This is fine if your favoured mode of roleplaying is focused upon the borderline destitute or the notably thrifty; but, as others have said, this is generally not where the sort of heroic fiction a lot of RPGs get their inspiration is really coming from. Sure Conan et al are often pretty broke, but they are rarely completely on their uppers and there's usually something they can be doing that will keep the wolf from the door while they line up their next big score.

A lot of the characters I play are strongly motivated by wealth (albeit generally as a intermediary goal for what they are *really* interested in) - however I as a player am not remotely interested in tracking their incomes and outgoings in anything but the broadest of strokes (I have enough of that IRL what with tax returns and mortgages and such like). I like to have a general idea of what their thresholds are for "That's a lot of money" vs "That's pocket change", what sort of things are big-deal purchases for them and what sort of amounts would make them seriously think about Doing Bad Things, but beyond that I'm not really bothered.

As a DM this goes double. I don't have time any more to think too hard about detailed economic models for the games I run. I need to know what it is that will make the PCs sit up and take notice and have some devious ways to drain excess wealth from PCs so they'll have a reason to personally engage with whatever nastiness I have in store for them rather than pay someone else to deal with it. However I also have to accomodate players who like more detail than I do when it comes to counting those coppers which is why I like Ars Magica's wealth rules - enough fiddly bits to satisfy the CEC crowd but the mechanics drive towards answering the sort of questions I listed in the previous paragraph.

Regards
Luke

PS
The earliest game with an explicit 'Blow Your Stash' I can think of was 'Star Frontiers' which assumed that all characters immediately blew 50% of any booty they acquired on flashy threads and hearty parties as soon as they got anywhere remotely civilised. Can anyone come up with an earlier game than that?

[Mike Holmes]

Cory, nobody is saying that money is unimportant, or that it should be downplayed. Just that it should only be important when it's important. Your idea seems to espouse the idea that we ought to always think about it because something cool "might" happen from it's consideration. My point is that money is just one thing out of many that a GM should look at as a hook or element of a story. As such, it should be used in ways that relate to my character's SAs. And that only require's abstraction. I have enough money, I have too little money. I have no money. I have too much money. That's all anyone needs to know for money to become contentious. And further, getting to that point should just be arbitrary when it helps the story.

I mean, it's just as important to have the PCs encounter people who are potentially hostile to them, right? But do you leave that to wandering monster charts? Because, sure, it "might" be cool to have some particular thing wander along. But in fact, it's best if the GM just decides what the player's encounter. Sometimes GM fiat is just a lot better than mechanistic methods of determining events.

Money is one of those places IMO. When you leave it detailed, it tends to lead off into all sorts of odd peregrinations that really aren't that interesting.

Mike