D&D 5E What could 5E do to make wealth worthwhile?

Have gnomes create a virtual currency that can't be held or traded in any fashion and the virtual storage places (crypts) occasionally get robbed by unknown culprits.

Lanefan said:

OK, got it.

Other than the "already at their disposal" piece, this is almost word for word our rationale for expenses as well.

We assume the materials etc. are being sourced fresh every time and that the facilities are both quasi-permanent and equally accessible to student and tutor. Therefore...

...there's no significant jump in the training cost formula at-after name level when you start self-training. It just takes a bit longer.

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Whereas I have it take the same five or six days, but the cost per level changes depending on class. For barbarians, bards, fighters, paladins, and rangers, the per level cost goes down. For all others, it goes up, and for sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards, it goes up by a lot. The rationale being that training facilities are part and parcel of the strongholds and colleges established by the first group while magical and thiefly training continues to rely on expendable and increasingly expensive materials for research and experimentation. It's completely arbitrary, but it works for me.

Reynard said:

Carousing is one way to encourage spending for XP but I don't think it is sufficient for what we are talking about here. I am more interested in robust, meaningful uses for wealth in 5E specifically.

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The key is finding what players want to spend their time on, not what they want to spend their gold on.

Maybe they want to build a Keep so they can have a Keep and we can do the mini game for that. And there are lots of ideas out there on the costs for bases and stuff, but not a lot of them out there for why they’d want one other than just collecting stuff like Keeps. But if they need a Keep, and a fully staffed one, to control the Goblin situation on the southern peninsula to earn the trust of the King, so the King will loan out the Legendary Mind Flayer Slaying Sword so they can chew the colony of them slowly draining the brain of the Gold Dragon who knows the last known location of the Crown that when placed on the rightful kings head will restore the kingdoms soil to full fertility, we’re on to something.

Many PCs are happy sleeping on the forest floor to go on more adventures and finding gold is meaningless. They find story reasons, what happened to so and so’s brother, are really the only things that pull them in one direction rather than another. So you need to find non-intrusive ways to make gold and treasure a motivating force. Some players may like the “mini-game” of buying social influence fun, lots of talking to people and getting their brothers a manor (maybe they buy it, maybe they just clear it of orcs, maybe they pay the orc to leave) and all that, lots of ways to pay for parties and political campaigns to curry favor that influence that will get you an audience with someone that knows a thing, or that can permit a thing. If your players are into that social questing thing, great, but not all are.

You don’t have to make magic items “for sale” in your world, but perhaps they can still be purchased. Like a Ferrari, or Patek Philippe watch, you can’t just show up an buy one, the list of people with the funds to buy one is longer than the supply, you must first demonstrate you are worthy of buying one. And so they can indeed buy a +3 thing, but that requires demonstrating they know how to use a +2 thing, and obtaining that requires demonstrating utility with the +1 thing. Or maybe bribing to bypass.

It’s all about giving gold a use that the players want to use it on to forward what they’re interested in and not making it a tax, but a real reward. So the players have choices, they could team up with the thieves guild to rob the corrupt bishop and get 20k GC to set up a keep to clear the southern peninsula of goblins or they could get the kitten out of the tree, which curry’s favor with Sandra who’s brother is friends with the leader of the goblins on the southern peninsula so you learn they are robbing caravans it get a 5k stack for xyz so you can just bribe them out for 5k you already have or you can just go kill them all and take home the 1k the goblins have already stolen.

To make gold matter, it’s got to be useful to move the world/story which is what the players are more than likely actually interested in. Downtime stuff is great, other than “penalty” ideas like gold to gain levels, if players want to to them. It’s all got to be a currency used in table activities the players are interested in spending time talking about, and obtains it is they byproduct of ding things they want to do, not a grinding activity.

Osgood said:

I have struggled with this very issue many times. On occasion I have found something the players are interested in investing in, like a keep or a ship, but usually they just want to buy magic items. But I find that any time I allow that, it hurts the game—both by slowing things fine with shopping trips and with the detailed exploitation of the system (no one even thinks about buying one rare item when they can get like a half a dozen uncommon ones). I’m toying around with only having consumable items available for purchase. I’d like to hear things others have had luck with.

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I tried that. It worked great but the players hated it. They wanted ubiquitous magic shops with endless racks of magic gear.

One solution, that I’m sure was already suggested, is bring back XP for gold…only use the far more interesting variant of XP for gold spent on things that don’t normally go on the character sheet. No gear or potions, no arms or armor. Bribery, carousing, gifts, donations, parties,

overgeeked said:

One solution, that I’m sure was already suggested, is bring back XP for gold…only use the far more interesting variant of XP for gold spent on things that don’t normally go on the character sheet. No gear or potions, no arms or armor. Bribery, carousing, gifts, donations, parties,

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I was skeptical of gold-for-XP with Shadowdark, but it works great. My players spend their characters' gold immediately upon returning to town via carousing, so they all are motivated to send them back out into the dungeon next time around.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

I was skeptical of gold-for-XP with Shadowdark, but it works great. My players spend their characters' gold immediately upon returning to town via carousing, so they all are motivated to send them back out into the dungeon next time around.

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Exactly. It closes the play loop. Go in to get gold, go out to spend it and advance, go in to get gold…repeat. Without that little switch, you don’t need to go out, really, and you’ve nothing meaningful to spend gold on after 2nd or 3rd level. Most groups handwave ammo, encumbrance, food, light, etc which just happen to be all the pre-installed gold sinks. So without those, gold just keeps piling up and there’s almost nothing to spend it on.

Smackpixi said:

The key is finding what players want to spend their time on, not what they want to spend their gold on.

Maybe they want to build a Keep so they can have a Keep and we can do the mini game for that. And there are lots of ideas out there on the costs for bases and stuff, but not a lot of them out there for why they’d want one other than just collecting stuff like Keeps. But if they need a Keep, and a fully staffed one, to control the Goblin situation on the southern peninsula to earn the trust of the King, so the King will loan out the Legendary Mind Flayer Slaying Sword so they can chew the colony of them slowly draining the brain of the Gold Dragon who knows the last known location of the Crown that when placed on the rightful kings head will restore the kingdoms soil to full fertility, we’re on to something.

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I don't personally find it that difficult or complicated to incentivise stuff like that. Downtime... or just time passing really..
allows the DM to introduce events that make stuff like having castles worthwhile. Keeps can serve to protect the town if goblins come raiding while the PCs are off between adventures. (Good-aligned and a decent percentage of neutral PCs will tend to care about this). Or possessing property might guarantee status and respect amongst the nobility if the party ever needs to deal with them. And likely keeps out the elements if nothing else.

Smackpixi said:

Many PCs are happy sleeping on the forest floor to go on more adventures and finding gold is meaningless. They find story reasons, what happened to so and so’s brother, are really the only things that pull them in one direction rather than another. So you need to find non-intrusive ways to make gold and treasure a motivating force.

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The most obvious response I can think of, if the players try to ignore housing, is to impose minor penalties or just narrate unpleasantness if the PCs choose to go that route. It IS part of the GM's job to dramatize the world, after all. Living without a permanent shelter can be harsh. Maybe let the vagabond PC make a quick survival check before the next adventure session to represent their ability to rough it in the wild without unpleasantness (some character types are likely skilled and/or used to such things afterall). Failure may result in stuff like...

* The PC being filthy and/or smelling bad (disadvantage on charisma checks with civilized humanoids and a suffering a host of microaggressions from them)

* The PC starts the next adventure with a temporary max HP reduction and possibly a level of exhaustion from cold or hot weather exposure in the absence of good shelter.

* The PC suffers from a host of mild but longer term ailments like malnutrition, fleas / lice / or other parasites, frostbite, scratches, bruises, or other minor not-fully-healed injuries, torn and weathered equipment. The DM imposes disadvantage on up to three d20 rolls the PC makes over the next couple sessions that would not otherwise have it.

Smackpixi said:

Some players may like the “mini-game” of buying social influence fun, lots of talking to people and getting their brothers a manor (maybe they buy it, maybe they just clear it of orcs, maybe they pay the orc to leave) and all that, lots of ways to pay for parties and political campaigns to curry favor that influence that will get you an audience with someone that knows a thing, or that can permit a thing. If your players are into that social questing thing, great, but not all are.

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Yeah, I would tend to advise against forcing or even encouraging players too strongly to engage with social or base management types of mini-game. I know many people who are just not into that sort of thing. I get around this by offering some default or "simple" options when I give the players downtime between sessions - they can work a day job for a little bit of money, research various plot subjects, or just party... gaining heroic inspiration at the start of the next adventuring session. I try to keep things uncomplicated and fast-moving.

Smackpixi said:

You don’t have to make magic items “for sale” in your world, but perhaps they can still be purchased. Like a Ferrari, or Patek Philippe watch, you can’t just show up an buy one, the list of people with the funds to buy one is longer than the supply, you must first demonstrate you are worthy of buying one. And so they can indeed buy a +3 thing, but that requires demonstrating they know how to use a +2 thing, and obtaining that requires demonstrating utility with the +1 thing. Or maybe bribing to bypass.

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Always made more sense to have magic item "brokers" than magic shops to me personally. Given the level of expense relative to commoners' wages in one's presumed fantasy-medieval world. With magic items being registered and sometimes requiring a license from the King or other government official.

overgeeked said:

Exactly. It closes the play loop. Go in to get gold, go out to spend it and advance, go in to get gold…repeat. Without that little switch, you don’t need to go out, really, and you’ve nothing meaningful to spend gold on after 2nd or 3rd level. Most groups handwave ammo, encumbrance, food, light, etc which just happen to be all the pre-installed gold sinks. So without those, gold just keeps piling up and there’s almost nothing to spend it on.

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I'm not intimately familiar with Shadowdark's carousing mechanics. But it's just as easy to introduce longer-term gold sinks that operate under similar principles. Maybe a PC is trying to funnel money to the Rebellion. Or fund an orphanage. Or raise a temple. Or buy an expensive business so they can retire. Or fund their plans for world domination. Or, you know, just provide for their kids...

Shadowdweller00 said:

Living without a permanent shelter can be harsh.

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Not in 5e. Let's see what we have.

Prestidigitation - dry cleaner, food chiller/warmer/flavorer ; cantrip
Unseen servant - magical house maid/ cook/ server; 1st level ritual (no slots needed)
Tiny hut - creates dry, comfortable, mostly spell proof, burglar/assasisn proof shelter; 3rd leve ritual (no slots needed)

Any level 5 wizard or bard will take those and use them as rituals. High level wizards can go all extravagant and use Magnificent mansion when they want to impress or just enjoy luxury.

If you have cleric or paladin of 5th level, they can use one 3rd level slot and you enjoy 20kg of food per day. Sure it's bland, but then you use prestidigitation to flavour it and voila. Or you can just Goodberry it on the cheap side for one 1st level slot.

Magic in 5e let's you live pretty good for almost nothing if you have bard or a wizard in the party. Add cleric/paladin/ranger/druid and you don't have to spend penny on trivialities like food, drink, lodging, basic services etc.