An excellent notion.

[Lance D. Allen]

Cory, nobody is saying that money is unimportant, or that it should be downplayed

I am. But I'm not recommending this way of playing as the One True Way. To me, CEC play is distracting and annoying, so I'm much more likely to downplay the importance of money. It's a preference of mine. I can see a lot of the potential that you describe.. But the players, and I, have to be interested in playing that for it to be viable.

I, frankly, am not. I play fantasy RPGs because I want excitement and adventure, not grubbing in the dirt to make my next meal. It's a matter of different strokes though.

[Ingenious]

I see what you all say, but I still like to have a somewhat existant economy. SA's driving the storyline? They better damn well be. Greed was a particular SA of my last character.. and it motivated him to do such things as risk his life in the search of it.. and even going so low as to steal from the recently deceased. The guy was a low-freeman with not the best economic opportunities ahead of him for his station... so he took up to assassinating people(mainly nobles, which ties into another SA), for the reasons of pleasure and for monetary gains.

In particular, when he was aboard ship with the PC's going to Farrenshire.. he ended up spending a sizeable amount on frivolous items and un-necessary stuff...though all of it was consumable.

I was merely offering suggestions from different vantage points on this issue.. each gamer is different.. and each gaming group and GM has a different style of play.. and neither one of them does it 'wrong' or the 'universally correct way' because there is no such way Wolfen.

And then sometimes I would like to see a bit more realism in RPG's than is normally afforded to such. I don't want to see any piles of 30,000 gold pieces, etc.

If I were a real stickler for the economics issue people, I would highly recommend and/or demand that my seneschal actually use the exchange rates and differening currencies. But I am not an avid supporter of the whole CEC philosophy.. in fact.. I don't like it that much since it is heavily tied to D&D.

My newest character(only the 3rd one), spent 75 gold on a fine suit of full plate. This annoyed me, but I got what I wanted.. and it took much sacrifice. I still didn't ask for a price check on aisle 4, if you know what I mean. I accepted the price and moved on.

Though one funny revelation occured last session when a player noticed that 'oh we are using golden standard?.. I was paying too much for my stuff then!!'...

-Ingenious