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Thread: More realistic D&D Economy?
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2014-06-08, 03:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
It's not just pacific islands. Peru had an economy based on bat guano for a while - they had a lot of caves, bat guano was a really good source for nitrates used in gunpowder (and other explosives), and Peru wasn't particularly wealthy at the time. So, bat guano was harvested at a mass scale, though it dwindled to some extent as Peru got wealthier, and basically vanished once the Haber Process was developed.
It's a needlessly complicated way to balance spells that sucks down a huge amount of playing time. If one wants to focus on it it works just fine, but it's hardly necessary. There are other ways that work just as well for similar effects, from just powering down the spells, to geographic restrictions (a mage might get all of their wind spells from the power of the sea breeze, which means that they are going to suck something awful on an inland mountain - the easiest way to handle this would be to actually sort spells by terrain), to
As for shops and stores everywhere - I have never seen that assumed in any game. The closest I've seen is games that specifically take place in cities, wherein getting to a shop is generally pretty easy. Your depiction of the New Way doesn't even vaguely resemble any game I've ever seen.
This is a pretty nice house rule. Another way would be to incorporate the spells into the economy, or restrict what spells can do. An example I've liked is with a fairly restrictive magic system - there's transmutation of materials, and that's it. You can take something and change what material it is made of. The actual shape doesn't change at all, so worked goods are still valuable - though magic is useful in worked goods, as it's much easier to shape, say, clay into a particular shape then turn it into bronze than it is to just shape bronze.
That said - the simplest method where you aren't specifically focusing on the meticulous tracking of items (and there are other things that games can focus on and still be good) is to simply pare down the spells and get rid of those that are particularly powerful. Then the rest of the economy can just be stolen from ACKS wholesale.I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
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2014-06-08, 05:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
More accurate to say: You can't cheat and play a broken spellcaster. Is it a bad thing to drop spellcasters down to like Teir 3? I don't think so....
As for dropping casters down a tier, there's far better ways to do it then trying to 'weaponize' what was meant to be Fluff against them. The Material components of spells are largely there for flavor, it has almost nothing to do with the spells actual power, and trying to balance the spells by them is just so scattershot and random.Last edited by Thanatosia; 2014-06-08 at 05:53 PM.
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2014-06-08, 10:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
If your goal is to drop wizards to tier 3 messing with spell components is not gonna do it most non valuable material components could be acquired so trivially and stock piled that any limitations would break suspension of disbelief so wait all the bull are bald? There arnt any spider web in the whole city? No bakers in the city no how to cook a tart even one that tastes bad?
A single feat negates the whole thing and it punishes player regardless of whether they are breaking the game or not.
You make fire ball impossible to cast becuase apparently there are no bat anywhere nearby despite them living on basically every continent and being one of the most widely distributed mammals of the real world living in forest, field, cave and more. he can just use explosive rune shenanigans for basically the same effect at much greater raw power.
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2014-06-08, 10:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
So if the group is okay with a brief detour to hunt bat guano, so are you?
My wizard has taken eschew material components. What spell can he potentially not cast now?
So you have a list of all components and where they can and cannot be bought (can I see this list) as well as a list of what spells are not cast in a certain area because there is no necessary component there and no trade for it? (Can I see this lis
No. When I have a 20th level wizard RAW legally teleport in, curse and geas your character, teleport out before you can react, I am not simply "playing an NPC" I am doing so in a manner that deliberatly screws over your character.
No, it doesn't work that way. If Boccop, the neutral god of magic, has decided that evil and good cannot use magic, that has sweeping effects on the game that need to be discussed during character creation. This is not a minor detail, it is a setting defining attitude, it cannot simply "reveal" itself as the game plot advances.
Assumptions that are not necessary correct, and even if they were I addressed why it still wouldn't be a big deal."It doesn't matter how much you struggle or strive,
You'll never get out of life alive,
So please kill yourself and save this land,
And your last mission is to spread my command,"
Slightly adapted quote from X-Fusion, Please Kill Yourself
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2014-06-11, 11:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
Depends on the context. To take the example of gods: if your 20th level wizard is about to defile the temple of a deity, there's no obvious reason why that deity can not send a servant to teleport in, curse and geas you and teleport out again before you can react.
Now, whether the same god can do the same thing if you are about to defile some other deity's temple is a different issue but, as I hinted before, by the time the characters are at 20th level the players will have had lots of time to figure out, or at least closely estimate, how this sort of thing works without a 20 page hand-out or whatever you're imagining.
I do agree that it's not something you can introduce mid-campaign, but it can be there from the start without any need to explain the details.
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2014-06-11, 12:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
Again, no. Divine intervention is not something you can just casually mention, it needs parameters.
Very few players are going to see "Occasionally deities will directly step into the material realm to prevent our counteract actions that harm their followers, establishments or portfolios" as a good piece of setting lore, and a lot will translate it as "Occasionally I will use DM fiat to make stuff happen I want it to", and you can hardly blame them.
Now compare that to: "Occasionally deities will directly step into the material realm to prevent our counteract actions that harm their followers, establishments or portfolios. Here are a brief list of the more commonly known incidents when a deity has interviewed, including the cause, who they interviewed against and what the result was" and now you have a legit piece of setting lore that players can actually understand and prepare for.
The most common interpretation is that the deity cannot/will not to that to prevent another deity from pulling something similar on one of their followers.Last edited by Boci; 2014-06-11 at 12:16 PM.
"It doesn't matter how much you struggle or strive,
You'll never get out of life alive,
So please kill yourself and save this land,
And your last mission is to spread my command,"
Slightly adapted quote from X-Fusion, Please Kill Yourself
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2014-06-11, 01:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
To make a subsystem even faintly resembling a simplified economic system, you'd have to take into account spells. And I'm not talking about simply seeing what they can do, I mean actively changing and restricting it, and how easily you can access them. (I won't even go into the spell component debate here.)
I'd probably restrict "level up spells" for wizards, maybe making them follow (probably much harder) spell research rules for those spells - or simply finding scrolls to scribe in their spellbooks. This has one advantage: I'd be able to restrict the wizard to the spells I want to see cast but not completely shut him out from all the others. With this, I could direct the player towards more "setting-friendly" spells. (Of course, this doesn't mean I wouldn't reserve myself the right to outright ban some spells, but this is a balance consideration, not an economics one). It might also be a good idea to tweak a few spells ("hmmm, this spell can be cast no problem, but it needs this costly focus in this setting", for example). Of course, all these changes would have to be informed to the player when he's choosing new spells to learn at the latest, though it might make things easier to ask the player to inform you which spells s/he's thinking of learning on level up beforehand so you can tell him what's changed and what's available.
Tweaking full divine casters might also be a good idea. Taking a page from the Archivist, maybe the Cleric will need a prayerbook, and the Druid some kind of runic staff. Mind, this isn't to introduce these casters to the risk of losing their spells: they could just as well need only to inscribe these spells as a mantra in their respective media and not need to reference them when preparing. It's just a way to say "you need to find or research this prayer before casting it".
I agree with most everything here, except for the transmutation part. I'm not so sure how I'd do it, but maybe something along these lines might make sense:
- You need a specific "philosopher's stone" for each and every kind of transmutation. Want to turn lead into gold? Nice, you'll need this stone as a focus. Want to turn copper into gold? Too bad, you'll have to find another one.
- These stones (they don't even have to be actual stones, it's just an example) must be extremely rare and expensive (if they're available in any market at all). They also can't be replicated by mortal magic (yes, including Wish).
This way, you have an extremely high fixed cost along with a mild variable cost. You should eventually be able to turn up some profit, but not so soon.
If you want to further limit things, you can say that each stone is only good for a fixed amount of transmuted matter (say, 100 lbs. of gold), going completely inert after it has been used up. This way, you can fine tune how much the stone can affect the economy.
Sorry, I'm Brazilian and an economist. The meaning is exactly the same in Portuguese.Metal Perfection - a template for creatures born on Mirrodin.
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2014-06-11, 02:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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2014-06-11, 02:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
Sounds good to me.
3E is the worst for making the whole world ''bland and the same''. Going by the rules, every place in the whole world, is rules-wise, exactly like every other place in the world. It is bad enough for things like ''the spell component pouch has tentacles, seaweed, or a live insect'' even if the caster is say in the desert or arctic. It is lots worse when ''the spell component pouch has a humanoid brain or an oni eyelash''.
And it is only worse for the dreaded optimizers. They will demand the ''best'' weapons in the book and try and quote some words and say ''if it is in the book I can have it''. Even though it makes no sense for a barbarian from a stone age tribe to have a steel greatsword (but the optimizer must have that weapon to do the most damage...er, that is ''have fun'').
Yes. Though few groups of mine have bent over backwards for the spellcaster. They won't side track the game to look for stuff.
All the spells with material components with a cost, plus all creature parts and any component I house rule as being worth more then a gold coin.
Of course. It is easy enough to make. But I'm not going to post it...it is secret. A player or two might see it....Last edited by jedipotter; 2014-06-11 at 02:32 PM.
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2014-06-11, 03:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
Well, if you mean "written rules" I don't agree. If you mean "some sort of logic", then I agree.
Very few players are going to see "Occasionally deities will directly step into the material realm to prevent our counteract actions that harm their followers, establishments or portfolios" as a good piece of setting lore,
and a lot will translate it as "Occasionally I will use DM fiat to make stuff happen I want it to", and you can hardly blame them.
Now compare that to: "Occasionally deities will directly step into the material realm to prevent our counteract actions that harm their followers, establishments or portfolios. Here are a brief list of the more commonly known incidents when a deity has interviewed, including the cause, who they interviewed against and what the result was" and now you have a legit piece of setting lore that players can actually understand and prepare for.
The most common interpretation is that the deity cannot/will not to that to prevent another deity from pulling something similar on one of their followers.
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2014-06-11, 04:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
What is the difference in your mind between the two?
Just because it happened in mythology doesn't mean its good for a D&D game. They are two entirely separate mediums.
Right, and the setting lore you are proposing sounds like the latter, not the former. If the DM needs divine intervention to give the PCs interesting obstacles, they may want to re-examine their planning method.
Because my PC, even if they are low leveled, is a part of the world and this is lore of the world? I imagine most people in ancient Greece knew not to mock the gods for example, because they had a mythology that stated that such events could lead to the gods intervening.
That changes nothing. A LG deity still may not want to intervene to save one of their temples if that means a CE deity can then do the same to prevent a paladin cleaning their temple.
Would they allow a ranger out of arrows to craft some new ones?
Can you PM it to me? You're saying its a great system, and I agree. Its the work required that I'm doubtful about. If I can see a complete system I could judge how long it would take for me to do it well.
Sounds great. Now all you need is the hours of work that are left assigning this attitude to your campaign world. Remember to take trading into account, so some wizards may have bat poop despite having npo native bats because they trade for it.Last edited by Boci; 2014-06-11 at 04:18 PM.
"It doesn't matter how much you struggle or strive,
You'll never get out of life alive,
So please kill yourself and save this land,
And your last mission is to spread my command,"
Slightly adapted quote from X-Fusion, Please Kill Yourself
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2014-06-11, 05:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
Saying "hey, can I take 30 seconds of RL time/3 hours of in-game time to go gather components" is being a problem player? Seriously?
More accurate to say: You can't cheat and play a broken spellcaster. Is it a bad thing to drop spellcasters down to like Teir 3? I don't think so....
- The disruptive munchkin ignores it, argues it, or forces the rest of the group to suffer through it. His power remains the same, and he gets more annoying to play with.
- The inappropriate powergamer figures out how to circumvent the restriction. His power remains the same.
- The reasonable player either figures out how to circumvent the restriction (rendering it moot), avoids the class (turning it into a ban) or suffers through it. His power remains the same and/or his enjoyment goes down.
- The new player avoids the class or suffers through it. His enjoyment goes down.
Notice how the problem players feel the least impact?
And yeah, you can yell and fiat at your players all you want to stop them from "cheating" the system, but that only works if you have a reasonable group to start with-- ie, one that's not going to disrupt the game through munchkinry.Last edited by Grod_The_Giant; 2015-01-12 at 11:06 PM.
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2014-06-11, 10:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
If one doesn't feel like putting effort into one's campaign settings, that's one's own business. But it's not that difficult to deal with this line of thought. I dare to assume that a DM has an idea of where all the "warm marshes" are in their setting. A rakshasa is listed as living in a warm marsh, and only in a warm marsh. So if the only warm marshes are thousands of miles from Genericsvale, the odds of finding a rakshasa eyelash are pretty low, even if the GP limit for Genericsvale easily accommodates a spell component pouch. A DM who puts a little more effort into their campaign settings than that probably knows that rakshasas only live in a specific region, and that the equatorial marshes a continent over are not a source of rakshasa eyelashes.
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2014-06-12, 05:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
How close do you need to be to a marsh to have rakshasa eyelashes? 10 miles? 100 miles? Your saying such a system would is "not that difficult" and only requires "a little more effort". Well put your money where your mouth is. Don't just do one component at a time, take the "little effort" and apply it to them all.
Also, Europeans traded for pepper in China and India in the Renaissance era. Pretty sure that was more than 1,000 miles."It doesn't matter how much you struggle or strive,
You'll never get out of life alive,
So please kill yourself and save this land,
And your last mission is to spread my command,"
Slightly adapted quote from X-Fusion, Please Kill Yourself
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2014-06-12, 10:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
Dascarletm, Spinner of Rudiplorked Tales, and Purveyor of PunsThanks to Artman77 for the avatar!
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2014-06-12, 02:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
Written rules can not cope with the complexities of a role-played situation like this. A DM can handle it easily using the context of situation, characters, and the specific actions, not to mention their personal design for their campaign.
Just because it happened in mythology doesn't mean its good for a D&D game. They are two entirely separate mediums.
Right, and the setting lore you are proposing sounds like the latter, not the former. If the DM needs divine intervention to give the PCs interesting obstacles, they may want to re-examine their planning method.
Because my PC, even if they are low leveled, is a part of the world and this is lore of the world? I imagine most people in ancient Greece knew not to mock the gods for example, because they had a mythology that stated that such events could lead to the gods intervening.
That changes nothing. A LG deity still may not want to intervene to save one of their temples if that means a CE deity can then do the same to prevent a paladin cleaning their temple.
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2014-06-12, 03:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
I agree. So why are you so against a logic being worked out for the DM to operate by? It doesn't have to be written rules.
That a game is based off mythology means very little. There are more differences then there are similarities. "The chosen one" for example is classic trope of mythology that may not work so well in a D&D game because its a group game. It still can, but it needs more care. You cannot just slap something from mythology into a D&D game and expect it to work.
I saying dieties shouldn't be played. They work best as passive characters, unless you start at an obscenely high level, because, well they are gods. If they can influence the material world, what are the PCs needed for? The thing that stops a diety's temple from being defiled should be the followers of the diety, not the diety themselves.
Frequent divine intervention has never made a D&D game better in my experience.
The players don't know that, because every DM employs setting lore different. Unless its a pre-published setting, you're gona want to clarify things with your players.
I never said the DM should explain the exact balance, but they should list well known examples, because they are well known. Just like (if its plot relevant) they should tell me the basic details about famous historical battles, then I can find out the details in game, but if its a famous battle, you should tell me upfront who fought who, who lost, some other details.Last edited by Boci; 2014-06-12 at 03:19 PM.
"It doesn't matter how much you struggle or strive,
You'll never get out of life alive,
So please kill yourself and save this land,
And your last mission is to spread my command,"
Slightly adapted quote from X-Fusion, Please Kill Yourself
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2014-06-14, 10:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
I guess I just don't believe that it can be done. The DM can handle logic just fine for their game; others may make suggestions but there's a poor effort:utility reward in getting detailed.
You cannot just slap something from mythology into a D&D game and expect it to work.
If they can influence the material world, what are the PCs needed for?
Frequent divine intervention has never made a D&D game better in my experience.
The players don't know that, because every DM employs setting lore different. Unless its a pre-published setting, you're gona want to clarify things with your players.
I never said the DM should explain the exact balance, but they should list well known examples, because they are well known. Just like (if its plot relevant) they should tell me the basic details about famous historical battles, then I can find out the details in game, but if its a famous battle, you should tell me upfront who fought who, who lost, some other details.
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2014-06-14, 12:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
I don't understand what you mean here.
Can you name an official setting with a precedent for the kind of divine intervention you are talking about? (Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Dragon Lance, Dark Sun?)
Granting spells, legitimizing philosophies and giving epic level characters someone to interact with. And setting lore.
Again, if this is so obvious, can you name an official setting with a precedent for this kind of divine intervention? (Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Dragon Lance, Dark Sun?)
But doesn't it hinder roleplay to not be told stuff about the setting your character would know? Not every little detail, but then divine intervention generally isn't little."It doesn't matter how much you struggle or strive,
You'll never get out of life alive,
So please kill yourself and save this land,
And your last mission is to spread my command,"
Slightly adapted quote from X-Fusion, Please Kill Yourself
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2014-06-14, 04:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
I go to a pawn shop run by a reasonably intelligent person, and buy a few things. I return regularly, buying a few more each time. I always have enough money to do so.
By your logic, the logical response is for the prices to shoot upwards each time I go there, because I obviously have an infinite supply of money, based on the fact that I spend some without an obvious source of income.
If, in reality, I'm just a guy from another part of the country who travels to this region in the off season of my work (I come to this region during my vacation, for example), then this man has screwed himself over because by upping his prices massively to account for my infinite money that I don't have, he's lost me as a customer.
Unless people gaining infinite gold happens regularly, then the logical conclusions are more like:
-This guy is obviously a noble from a different region.
-This guy has obviously inherited a significant amount of money.
-This guy earns a lot of money via not super obvious means; he could work from home as an artist for a wealthy patron, for example.
Eventually, as those get crossed off, criminal activities or similar are the logical conclusion. "He has infinite gold, because he doesn't sell things to me or come begging" is not a logical conclusion, unless people gaining infinite gold is a normal thing or people always buy/sell everything to the same person and put their lack of wealth on display regularly.
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Regarding gods: In a lot of settings, gods are relatively inactive on the mortal planes. If your setting has gods that do something more than once every thousand years, then it changes things, as does frequent divine communication and such.
Gods can be anything from ways to explain the unexplainable (ranging from 'why does that mountain sometimes explode' to 'why do seasons happen' to 'why can that guy close a gaping wound by touching your shoulder') to some of the movers and shakers of a setting, who regularly shape the course of history.
A lot of settings restrict divine activity for good reason - imagine if the patron deities of two regions or nations go to war with those regions/nations. Imagine if the deity of magic saw itself threatened by the rising deity of alchemists, and called for the destruction of all alchemical knowledge. Monarchies operating by divine right would experience occasional purges as the deity in question came down to the mortal world to keep some undesirables off the throne. Suddenly the world is defined far more by the whims and clash of deities than it is by mortals.
It can work, but putting active deities into an otherwise 'normal' setting makes no sense. Everything will have repercussions.
Making deities do things like protect their sanctuaries mean that temples will probably swell in size massively, becoming huge complexes where, depending on the deity and society, the rich/privileged or the common folk rush to whenever the city is under attack. Temples will probably serve other functions as well - if the throne room of King Rules In Deity X's Name is a temple of Deity X, then they're better protected and more open to Deity X's instructions.
If I'm not told anything about stuff like this, but suddenly a deity curbstomps me because I did something they didn't like in their temple, I'm going to be confused and angry, just like how if I say "I take first watch" and get a reply of "you explode, because in this world taking first watch kills you if you didn't make the fire". It's something that changes the setting and should be well known, not assumed to be a standard assumption of players.
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2014-06-14, 05:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
It would take a huge effort to codify all "logical" rules for a role playing setting for little reward since the DM can do it on the fly with their intimate knowledge of their setting.
Can you name an official setting with a precedent for the kind of divine intervention you are talking about? (Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Dragon Lance, Dark Sun?)
Granting spells, legitimizing philosophies and giving epic level characters someone to interact with. And setting lore.
But doesn't it hinder roleplay to not be told stuff about the setting your character would know? Not every little detail, but then divine intervention generally isn't little.
I've literally never played with anyone that would be surprised that defiling a major temple runs the risk of their character simply being killed by a "bolt from the blue" (something that I would not actually do, but people kida expect it when you tell them the gods are real.
I think that's the disconnect - as DM I'm saying "the gods are real" and as a jaded and experience player/DM you're saying "they're not real like an NPC cobbler is real; they're rule constructs"
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2014-06-14, 05:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
Most people see a half orc and and think barbarian warrior. Me on the other hand? I think secondary trap handler and magic item tester. Also I'm not allowed to trick the next level one wizard into starting a fist fight with a house cat no matter how annoying he is.
Yes I know it's sarcasm. It's a joke. Pale green is for snarking
Thread wins: 2
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2014-06-14, 05:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
You don't have to codify all logic, but have a basic idea of how it works.
Okay, I'll bite. What fantasy and mythology are you referring to? Greek mythology established that mocking the gods was a bad idea, but even then it wasn't an instantaneous consequence. Plus the weaver, the most famous example, she technically won, thus proving her claim right. Also LotR, another famous inspiration for D&D, has very little divine intervention (I don't know of any aside from possibly Gandalf being resurrected). Any other works you feel I've missed?
Plus as I said before, just because its in mythology doesn't mean its good in a game. Having a female cleric raped on the floor of her church by another god is straight out of Greek mythology for example.
I think that's a good thing. The world should be about mortals, not gods. If you want to ficus heavily on the gods either have all players be heavily religious or gods themselves. You don't need gods in the flesh to make a world interesting, and making an interesting world without gods in the flesh makes it more relocatable for the PCs.
Err, no. The newer settings of D&D are less artificial than than previous ones. That's simply fact. There's nothing wrong with preferring them, but D&D settings have gotten less artificial overthe years, not more.
So temple guards don't exist then I trust? Why would there be, if the god is going to personally guard each and every one.
No they exists, and you can interact with them directly, you just have to be very high level to do that."It doesn't matter how much you struggle or strive,
You'll never get out of life alive,
So please kill yourself and save this land,
And your last mission is to spread my command,"
Slightly adapted quote from X-Fusion, Please Kill Yourself
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2014-06-14, 05:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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2014-06-14, 06:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
In regards to published setting with a lot of divine intervention planescape is the easy answer.
Dragon lance has a lot of divine intervention. forgotten realms has some pretty active deities as well off and on
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2014-06-14, 06:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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"It doesn't matter how much you struggle or strive,
You'll never get out of life alive,
So please kill yourself and save this land,
And your last mission is to spread my command,"
Slightly adapted quote from X-Fusion, Please Kill Yourself
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2014-06-14, 07:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
I feel a bit tentative about jumping into a 5-page thread only having skimmed the posts, but what the heck, I'm bored and it's Saturday, let's do it.
I have some suggestions based on my past 22 years of DMing experience. You may find them useful. Note that my perspective comes primarily from the storytelling school of roleplaying, rather than the simulationist school.
First, making major overhauls to any aspect of 3.5 is a lot of work and potentially encounters resistance from players. I find that it's less work and I get less resistance if I ask my players "how would you do this?" and get their ideas and input. Sometimes one of them even gets excited and writes up a big chunk of the material for me, and all I have to do is edit it. That saves me a lot of time.
In the vein of creating player agency, let me introduce the idea of Speaking Authoritatively and how that can apply to spell component pouches, item creation, and mining. Essentially, you create a game mechanic whereby players can use Knowledge and Profession skills to add canonical information to the setting. Then, at a later time, when the player asks "How can I double production at this mine?" or "What material do I need to craft a ring of regeneration?" You can respond with, "I don't know, you tell me." The player proposes an answer to his own question, you negotiate for something that seems reasonable to both of you, then the player makes a skill check to turn his idea into canonical material and permanently add it to the setting. If the player fails the roll, you adjust the answer to something that is somewhat less favorable for the player but still reasonable, and play continues. If illogical or contradictory situations arise, you simply resolve the contradiction by turning it into a plot twist or interesting adventure (or, if you can't think of anything cool, just admit that there's a problem and implementing an out-of-character fix to solve it).
The Speak Authoritatively approach is nice because you can design the system in a piecemeal way, adding detail only when and where it's needed and putting a lot of the creative burden on your players. Additionally, you'll probably end up with a better system overall, because anything that one creative person can invent, six creative people working together can probable improve upon.Last edited by jiriku; 2014-06-14 at 08:25 PM.
Subclasses for 5E: magus of blades, shadowcraft assassin, spellthief, void disciple
Guides for 5E: Practical fiend-binding
D&D Remix for 3.x: balanced base classes and feats, all in the authentic flavor of the originals. Most popular: monk and fighter.
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2014-06-14, 07:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2009
Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
not that I could see, in theory dragon lance had a balance thing going on but it got cheated all the time.
personally I kinda assume there are something's you just shouldn't do. Pcs who steal from a god's alter should expect a curse unless they have some kind of special protection.
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2014-06-14, 07:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2008
"It doesn't matter how much you struggle or strive,
You'll never get out of life alive,
So please kill yourself and save this land,
And your last mission is to spread my command,"
Slightly adapted quote from X-Fusion, Please Kill Yourself
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2014-06-14, 07:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2009
Re: More realistic D&D Economy?
usually without. Getting rid of it should take a quest (unless that would interfere of the flow of the game to much in which case paying for some kind of cleansing should be enough)