So, I come to my least favorite part of game design. Can anyone here share some of the ways they've handled character starting equipment, as well as equipment gained through play, without managing monthly income and having books of prices for each specific kind of weapon and item, ala Shadowrun? I hate doing that stuff, but most of my games end up being GM fiat "Yeah, you can have one of these, but NOT one of those", and I acknowledge that I need some sort of mechanic.

The coralary to Mike's rant about combat systems is that if you don't want the game to be about equipment, don't have extensive price lists.

If you want to have some focus on wealth and equipment, but don't want to run an accounting game, you might look at D20 Modern or Fireborn, both of which have wealth systems where the PCs have a wealth score, and equipment has a cost. Some things you can get automatically and not affect your wealth score, others you need to roll dice to see if you can afford them, and if the purchase reduces the wealth score.

I'm guessing you may not even need this much. Do you expect PCs to use more than pistols? If not, just allow the player to declare the weapons he has. And exception might be if you have "special" "magic" weapons.

As far as other stuff, unless you plan on a real mechanical difference between a beater 1960 Ford sedan and a 2005 Porche, just let the player decide what kind of car if any he has. Same for things like homes and apartments.

Frank

Personally, I have really come to like the resources system that is used in Exalted. There is a decent list of various items which are all given a resources cost ranging from 1-5. If the item in question is of lower cost than the character's resources trait, they can have the item, no questions asked. If the item's cost is equal to the PC's resources, then they can have it, but they temporaily lose a resources level for the time being, usually a session, but your mileage may vary. Obviously, if the item's cost outstrips the PC's resources, it just can't be bought.

If you are doing a martial arts based game, your not wanting character in a fullplate mail with a flamethrower and other stuff I'd assume...

I think you should divide equipmen into categories, traditional simple categories.

Weapon:
Armor:
Accessory:

Each category should have a few basic items, and maybe a basic property (nothing too extensive..maybe damage for a weapon, protection for an armor, and nothing for an accessory)

Then, have basic modifiers for the categories that cannot be overridden. Like, "short" for a sword, to make a "Short Sword" etc etc.

Then have advanced modifiers, that are like special magical or better crafted bonuses into the items. Like, "purge" for an pendant that causes all your blows to deal extra damage to evils, or something.

Ok; Now, have your characters get this at the beginning:
1) Basic weapon or Armor
2) Basic modifier for that Item
3) One Accessory.

Then, as they quest, have offers and the such to forge the legendary/more magical properties in that normal people can't make; thus eliminating a need. I guess you'd need to be arbitrary in that sense. ;)

I'd say give your characters a choice of primary weapon and secondary weapon, and assume access to others (given time and permission) through a dojo. Let them pick a particular outfit they want to fight in (if they want actual armor, let it pay for itself with a penalty to movement; otherwise it's just going to be a gi or some pants). Assume that each player has a small home, used car, wardrobe, et cetera. If you plan on doing any kind of bonus / handicap thing as part of character generation, put other financial resources under that--eg no car gives you +1, homeless gives you +3, a chauffeur costs -2, and so on. As for magical equipment... well, we already know what magic costs.

Give them a Yellow Pages and a stack of Monopoly Money and have the players go shopping.

NO I AM NOT KIDDING (and apparently, I'm posting again here).

Exalted sounds like they do it well. If a GM could 'just tell' which rating a piece of equipment belonged in (like, a stick of gum is zero and a helicopter is 5), then that would eliminate the need for an equipment list- outside of a list of weapons to show damage ratings and so on.
Another thing I would like to account for, is that I can picture characters easily becoming fugitives from the law, and if they are on the run, they don't have jobs. One of the running themes of the game is that getting involved in a violent, magical lifestyle, they have a hard time maintaining normal lives.
The temptation of committing real crimes to get enough money to sleep in a hotel instead of out on the street, or to repair the car, would be a factor in the game. So, It's no so much that I'm worried about them affording a Lear Jet, but I may be worried about them affording to gas up the Buick, if things come to that. If finances get that tight, though, I may just role-play it out with monopoly money like someone said.

If you're having trouble determining what category to put an item in, like from 1 to 5, then you could have a list of questions to determine this:

Is it rare? +1
Is it useful? +1
How much damage/defense will it provide? +x (x being the amount)
Is it poor quality? -1
Does it have or give special abilities? +x

Something like that, tailored to your game and setting of course. This way you won't have to have any long lists of items. Maybe if a character wants an item that turns out to be 0, they could have it for free. After all, it wouldn't be that useful.

Jesse

Uccisore wrote: The temptation of committing real crimes to get enough money to sleep in a hotel instead of out on the street, or to repair the car, would be a factor in the game. So, It's no so much that I'm worried about them affording a Lear Jet, but I may be worried about them affording to gas up the Buick, if things come to that.

Exhalted's systems sounds similar to D20 Modern and Fireborn. I'm sure there's other good examples of this kind of system. From the sounds of it, a system like that is what you want. While you don't want to get carried away with lists, one thing to consider is how much you value consistency and how you will handle "But last week a Colt 45 was only a cost 3, not a cost 4!"

Frank

Ah, stuff all these ratings, you'll just prompt gamism with it (I'm assuming that isn't the goal).

Just have money based karma system. One week you might be able to afford a fridge, the next you can't even scrape up the money for petrol. Just have a roll with a set target number that doesn't change.

You probably yearn for the causality behind why it happened. But what do you want to explore? Why it happened? Or what happens when they can't get what they want? Choose.

Do you want them to roleplay out paying for their necesities? Ugh.

A monthly "cost of living" trait would be a good thing to institute. They can opt to lower their monthly costs by foregoing luxuries (cell phone, car, clean clothes) and eventually even start to suffer stat loss due to starvation. Yay. That would raise their resources for the next month temporarily as they save up for a purchase.

This seems like a pretty easy variant on the WoD resources system, or the D20 modern equivalent.

Of course, a good hold-up also offers that temporary increase for the next month, but I think it should be only temporary. Once you have the stolen 50s in your pocket you're not just going to walk past McDonalds when your stomach growls.