Money Perk or Accounting?

[Alcamtar]

Do you use the perk system for wealth, or coin-based accounting like in D&D?

 

I've tried wealth systems a few times now and it always feels very arbitrary. It seems to boil down to "do I want you to have that right now or not?" and takes away a lot of the detail of adventuring. Accounting provides motivation (when you run out), it can provide a goal to work for, keeps things fair and non-arbitrary, and lends an aspect of realistic detail. On the other hand, some players find it tedious and annoying.

 

Do the two systems work better with different styles of campaign? I can imagine that a purely political campaign would work well with a wealth perk (fortune is constant, everyone has money, treasure and money are insigificant to the story) The more traditional traveling adventurer campaign perhaphs works better with accounting (fortunes rise and fall, treasures are found and lost, and heroes always need to replace/upgrade gear and spell components). Why would a wealthy and sane person crawl into a dark hole and face undead when he can hire a more capable person to do it for him, assuming he even has a reason for it?

 

Also related is encumbrance. Anyone use this? None, partial (armor only), or complete? It seems important when you're looting a dungeon, carrying all your worldly possessions on your back through the wilderness, or wearing a personal arsenal into battle; and not very important when you're living in a house in town and rarely wearing armor into battle.

 

Looking for discussion and perspectives,

 

Mike

[bjbrown]

I have players who are willing to engage in extensive and complex mathematical calculations to get the most possible effeciency regarding character points for powers, and yet find keeping track of money and equipment to be an unbearable chore. The D&D style of accounting has thus been abandoned against my will.

While I would prefer exacting bookkeeping from my players, I don't don't think that it's done a great deal of damage to the campaign. Well, except for the part where I ask, "Do you have a hundred gold pieces," and then they spend the next ten minutes trying to figure out which of them is supposed to keep track of the gold. But anyway, the characters are long past the point of struggling beginners. So depending on what I think is appropriate, either I take their word on what they insist they "should" have, or I enforce the rule that if it's not recorded on a piece of paper somewhere, it doesn't exist.

The accounting is probably appropriate for low-level campaigns. A higher power campaign, or one in a cinematic style, should probably rely more on perks and what seems reasonable.

I worry about encumbrance less too. One is for the reason described above as to the bookkeeping of my players. The other is that 5th Edition seems to allow characters to carry much, much more before suffering encumbrance penalties. Thus I don't worry about encumbrance unless what the players propose that their character's carry challenges what I think is reasonable. I apply separate DCV/Dex roll penalties based on armor type.

[Roland]

If you want your players to keep track of how much wealth they have in gold and various other forms, you need to give them an incentive to do so. You need to have markets where they can buy and sell things. You need to have officials collecting tolls, taxes, and tithes.

 

So the real question is how much work you, as GM, want to do in fleshing out an economy for your players to interact with.

[Blue Jogger]

The last one that I was in used both.

 

The Wealth Perk was used to describe some form of income based on investments or holdings or the like or (as a disadvantage) a debt that had to be paid off. Now, characters couldn't start out with a high income because as you stated, "Why would a wealthy and sane person crawl into a dark hole and face undead when he can hire a more capable person to do it for him?"

 

But, remember there are several reasons to crawl into a dark hole besides treasure. Magic items and research, rescue a friend, promises/deals made, and yes treasure (not just wealth, but information!). The treasure gained by crawling into a dark hole has to be more than can be earned farming lands or trading trinkets. Of course, it might be just insanity.

 

That being said, the Wealth Perk was rarely as useful as say in the Superhero game. "We buy seven first-class tickets on the Concord" vs. "we smuggle ourselves into a giant box that says THIS SIDE UP"

[Tom Carman]

Originally posted by bjbrown

The accounting is probably appropriate for low-level campaigns. A higher power campaign, or one in a cinematic style, should probably rely more on perks and what seems reasonable.

I had an idea a while back for a hybrid approach, but I've never actually tried it out. Use Wealth Perks to determine how much a character "ought to have" on him at any given time. To spend more, he can make an Activation roll (maybe with Jammed or Burnout) to see if he has it. The roll gets a bonus if the player says, several game sessions in advance, that he is saving up for something. Give out Favors of buying power as treasure, with the description of "You found 200 silver, 50 gold, and a couple medium-quality rubies".

[Killer Shrike]

Hybrid. The Wealth perk is for a permanent source of income such as land, estates, investments, allowance, pension, stipend, etc. This converts into a gc or dollar or credit amount whenever the character can get to a suitable withdrawal point and extract the funds. If they leave it sit for a while it accrues.

 

Similarly its for a permanent lack of funds, like someone with high interest rates, a vow of poverty, a social driven inability to have funds over a certain amount, etc. In most cases I treat it like a debt, where the character needs to feed excess funds to it whenever possible. If they dont feed the disad, I either take appropriate in-game action (debt collectors come around, promissory officers impound property, warrants are served, etc) or just hold back XP and pay the Disadvantage off as a GM fiat.

 

"Found" money is found money and is freely spendable -- but once its gone its gone. If a character wants to invest it, they need to buy the Wealth perk if they want it to do anything for them like gain interest or show returns. If they just want to bank it and let it sit, they are welcome to do that, but of course bank fees, robberies, and officiousness can always be used to keep it under control if I deem it necessary.

[Alcamtar]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

"Found" money is found money and is freely spendable -- but once its gone its gone. If a character wants to invest it, they need to buy the Wealth perk if they want it to do anything for them like gain interest or show returns.

 

I like this hybrid approach, especially the debt idea for low wealth.

 

Do you allow "buying" a wealth perk with money as an investment? For example, to get $100,000 annual wealth as an ongoing perk, the character may need to invest $1 million in a suitable source, but otherwise need not pay character points for it. ("it takes money to make money") Of course that would imply that you could also convert a wealth perk into hard cash as a "sale", more than the perk is worth, but losing the perk in the process. Sort of like liquidating your estate to raise huge sum of money.

 

Mike

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Alcamtar

I like this hybrid approach, especially the debt idea for low wealth.

 

Do you allow "buying" a wealth perk with money as an investment? For example, to get $100,000 annual wealth as an ongoing perk, the character may need to invest $1 million in a suitable source, but otherwise need not pay character points for it. ("it takes money to make money") Of course that would imply that you could also convert a wealth perk into hard cash as a "sale", more than the perk is worth, but losing the perk in the process. Sort of like liquidating your estate to raise huge sum of money.

 

Mike

I would consider a perk loss such as what you suggest for high returns if a player wanted to liquidate their holdings, but it would need to be carefully handled -- it introduces the precedent of trading character points for money and that is a slippery slippery slope indeed. More likely I would rather handle it as a advance payout, probably at a 15 to 25% penalty -- a disbursement in modern language.

 

As far as investing, I would allow (and in fact often require) a character to invest that money as the justification for paying character points for the Wealth perk, but not instead of -- again, allowing the Wealth perk to be bought with gold/money in this case would introduce the concept of buying character points with money which is a bad precedent to set.

[Alcamtar]

Originally posted by Tom Carman

Use Wealth Perks to determine how much a character "ought to have" on him at any given time. To spend more, he can make an Activation roll (maybe with Jammed or Burnout) to see if he has it.

 

That works for large spending, but the problem I usually run into is free unlimited mundane items, especially for expendable items. If a character can afford to hire some guards, and those guards get killed, he just goes and hires some more. And if they keep shopping in small amounts every day, pretty soon they're packing around hundreds of arrows, spell components, and so forth. Then they start bartering a large pile of regular stuff for something superior. At some point this beggars belief, because he's obviously spending way too much, but there's no way to manage the minor day to day purchases. It's abuse-by-micromanagement (which is weird because complaints about micromanaging money is what prompted us to use wealth in the first place! I guess micromanagement becomes attractive if you find you can abuse it for personal gain...)

 

I used a burnout roll to handle this at first (and also spell components), but uun into a problem where "you reach into your pouch and discover it's empty", which of course prompts the response "why didn't I notice it was getting low?" This can lead to very frustrated players.

 

A second approach was to forget money and equipment lists altogether and give each player a backpack with an activation roll based on his wealth. Need some rope? Roll to see if you have some... But this leads to arguments that "of COURSE I would bring that!"

 

Savage Worlds has an ammo mechanic where you make a burnout roll and if you fail, your supply drops to low; if your supply is low and you fail a second time, you have enough for one last shot, but then it's gone. If your supply is low and you resupply, it returns to normal. Something like this would at least provide some warning that you're getting low and continued expenditure will leave you broke.

 

Mike

[AnotherSkip]

While the Savage Lands mechanic is interesting, I personally would suggest a variant of accounting.

 

even though some games begin to bog down I would "handwave" accounting and only state it for truly large purchases.

 

Here is a tough question do you make players account for food and other day to day adventuring expenses?

 

another option is Essentially the characters roll activation rolls until they run out of money. Rolll once per day to afford an extravagant lifestyle, reduce the time between rolls . admittedly it wont help with minimal acccounting.

[Alcamtar]

Originally posted by AnotherSkip

Here is a tough question do you make players account for food and other day to day adventuring expenses?

 

That is a good one. Personally I prefer to account for everything. I don't generally treat food ala carte, characters pay a flat per-day cost for either rations or lodging/accomodations. If they have a house, they have a weekly or monthly "grocery bill". They often pay a week in advance to avoid the daily hassle.

 

Personally I don't think it's difficult to keep track of it at this level. You buy two weeks of rations or accomodations, and once per day add a mark to the tally until you run out.

 

In a tavern, I let them order what they want in keeping with roleplaying, but generally still charge a generic flat sum for the meal. (On occasion I've made up menus with strange foods and prices ala carte, and these are fun, as long as they are the exception and not the rule)

 

I also account for adventuring gear individually, and if it isn't written on your sheet you don't have it. This keeps arguments to a minimum. Of course players forget to mark things as used unless I remind them.

 

I think one source of complaints about shopping is when players have thousands of gold in money but still have to haggle over a mere dagger or bottle of wine. It seems like pointless trivia. I have taken to limiting money in the game to make the accounting seem meaningful, but that seems to cause different complaints.

 

A possible solution would be to account in 'thresholds'. Anything that costs less than 5% of your total wealth is "free" and you don't need to account for it. Large collections of small items are accounted as a group -- the party spends all day shopping, and the GM charges them $300 for everything without breaking it down. This would be an estimate, not that the GM is keeping track of it all behind the screen. Wealth might be recorded as "16700 gold (threshold = 835)"

 

Players also sometimes to balk at complicated coinage systems. Mine will put up with gold/silver/copper at 1:10 ratios, but not with english pence/shillings/pounds. And they hate to make change. I'm thinking of going to a pure silver standard in the next game -- different types of coins exist, but everything is accounted in "royal pennies" without regard for specific denominations or metals of coins... the same way we keep track of $167.63 without worrying about dollars, nickels, pennies, dimes, etc. Using a generic undifferentiated decimal system will greatly ease bookkeeping with only a slight loss of detail.

 

I also want to experiment with counters. Give the players a physical pouch with plastic faux coins and let them spend as they wish. No more accounting, just look in the bag and see what you've got! I also want to try this with daily rations (perhaps using candy).

 

Mike

[bjbrown]

Using some sort of counter (like poker chips) might be a good way of keeping track of money. Someone else on another thread posted an idea about putting equipment on cards for the players to hold on to. I might try both of these ideas.

[tetsujin28]

I hate accounting. I prefer a wealth-level system like that in d20Modern or Exalted (which themselves are descendents of the status system in Swordbearer).

[eepjr24]

Accounting

 

The last big fantasy game I was in used 3x5 cards to account for anything that was awarded or purchased. From money to magical items to expendables (food, arrows, etc). Everyone just kept a carrying case with those in it. With expenable items there were boxes drawn on it, and they were marked off as the item was used. Like this:

 

[10] +1 OCV Arrows:

 

[           ]

 

Each one would get filled in or X marked as it was used. It was much easier to trade with other players or barter with merchants this way as well. Just hand the cards around. And charges of things were handled without arguments.

 

The GM would typically initial changes made to the cards (adding 3 charges from a mana stone or whatnot) or just write a new card. I also did some cards printed up on the deskjet, that worked pretty well, too, since I would drop a small black and white bit map of the item on the card. Scotto (GM) would do hand drawn stuff, but my pen and ink skills stink.

 

- Ernie

[Tom Carman]

Originally posted by Alcamtar

That works for large spending, but the problem I usually run into is free unlimited mundane items, especially for expendable items. If a character can afford to hire some guards, and those guards get killed, he just goes and hires some more. And if they keep shopping in small amounts every day, pretty soon they're packing around hundreds of arrows, spell components, and so forth. Then they start bartering a large pile of regular stuff for something superior. At some point this beggars belief, because he's obviously spending way too much, but there's no way to manage the minor day to day purchases. It's abuse-by-micromanagement (which is weird because complaints about micromanaging money is what prompted us to use wealth in the first place! I guess micromanagement becomes attractive if you find you can abuse it for personal gain...)

As we frequently say around my gaming group, "The GM may prevent absurdities." Tell the munchkin that the money arrangement is there for your mutual convenience, not for him to game the system, and reduce his allowance. You could also make the Activation-Jammed rolls cumulative, with each successive roll within, say, a week, dropping another level down the chart. But then you're back to more record keeping.

[Earen]

Re: Accounting

 

Originally posted by eepjr24

The last big fantasy game I was in used 3x5 cards to account for anything that was awarded or purchased.

 

This sounds like a great system ... I'll probably use it for my campaign. I was dreading making my players keep track of everything. (We already did that for ShadowRun and it gets into lots of little debates.)

[Markdoc]

Depends what you want.

 

In my last game I deliberately de-emphasised money by saying "yeah, you have plenty" or "no, you don't have enough" and pointing out that the players could just request (politely) food and lodging from peasants who would offer what they could without complaint (at least while the players were in earshot).

 

That's because I did not want kill-them-loot-their bodies

 

In other games I counted every groat - because I wanted the players to do the same.

 

cheers, Mark

[PhilFleischmann]

Originally posted by Markdoc

That's because I did not want kill-them-loot-their bodies

This is one of the main reasons why I don't keep strict count of money in my games. I don't want game time spent picking over corpses for every last trinket that might fetch a few silver pieces at the pawn shop. Players will do whatever it takes to get ahead in the game you create. If exact accounts are kept, you give players incentive to scrounge for every bit of money they can find. As I've said before, I want my players to be heroes, not accountants.

 

(Nothing against accountants, they just don't make exciting characters.)

[Xiawarr]

I started a similar topic on these boards a while back. Here is the link to it:

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=306

 

I hope you find it helpful.

Thanks,

Xiawarr

[pinecone]

Hmmm...I used to use Both...if you do not take a wealth/poverty perq. then you acount for your bux, if you want to be a wealthy Baron, then I basicly hand wave expenses..."Even though you were left naked by robbers, the innkeeper is Happy to extend credit to the 14Th earl of Chesterfeild" if not, then "Well? have you got 10 gold or not?"