[sinistersnare]

I had a couple strategies

1) Do not give too much wealth to PCs. Keeping the heroes poor is a kind of dramatic tension that not many campaigns explore!

2) Give them ways to spend their money! If the PCs need to go to an island, make the waters dangerous, and drive the price of the safer boat up. The danger is not fully evaded, but perhaps now they have a crew to help in any encounters. The party of course is always free to think of more creative ways around.

Make sure you as a DM always have an idea of the goals of the PCs, that includes economically. If a PC is aiming to purchase a nice item, keep that in mind when doling out gold, but always be sure to keep dramatic tension of the economy in place.

[IggleSniggle]

An alternative to keeping PCs poor is to make them "rich-poor." They are effectively so rich that money does not matter, but the setting is such that there is nothing they can buy that will make them better off. When they reach a town, they can always afford to do whatever they like (when it comes to coin), but they might not be able to afford the narrative consequences of their choices.

The key aspect of "keep them poor" is really just "limit the availability of upgrades." In a desolate world, there's nothing to buy. With super-hero tier PCs, even in an abundant city, there's nothing to buy that matters that doesn't also come with knock on consequences.

[jprete]

This is 5E's default strategy, but I don't think it works well - it means that the PCs becoming rich will remove, rather than add, gameplay. They won't spend any time thinking about paying for necessities of life, but there won't be much else to do with gold, nor any reason to go after it.

(It's sort of like the 5E Ranger. 5E has a bunch of wilderness survival rules, spells, etc. that can be used for campaign gameplay - but one Ranger in the party makes most of them irrelevant. The Ranger player will get personal satisfaction from using those abilities for a handful of minutes per campaign, then all of it will be forgotten.)

[mcv]

Money in a total wasteland is completely worthless of course. But if there's people, money will at the very least let you hire people. Hirelings were a big thing in earlier editions of D&D that kinda got forgotten at some point, but there's certainly something to the idea of high-level PCs hiring people to form an army to take on the army of the evil lich-king.

[dcow]

I guess it kinda depends on the type of role playing the party is looking for. If you want to role play the survival then great, probably don’t use a rich-poor dynamic where survival is handled by coin. I tend to think most parties prefer to just get to the dungeoneering and not spend too much time haggling with the shopkeepers and in-keepers for affordable rates on amenities, though.

[pclmulqdq]

This sort of thing only works with relatively inexperienced PCs, who don't realize that 1000 GP can hire all of a typical town for a few weeks to do almost anything, no questions asked. That quantity of hirelings is a relatively effective replacement to magic items. All you have to do afterward is turn combat problems into non-combat problems, which is relatively easy if you can think outside the box.

Need to clear a dungeon? Divert the nearest river to flood it and then use some other means (magical) to clear out the water.

Need to cross a bridge guarded by trolls? The new bridge you build won't be guarded by anyone.

[pavel_lishin]

I like that both of your suggestions include spending money and time.

You can flood a dungeon or build a new bridge, but both will take at minimum weeks, if not months.

If the King's daughter was kidnapped by those who live in the dungeon, or if the outcome of a battle hinges on you being able to cross that bridge over a chasm, they're not going to be happy when you come to them with a three-year plan for civic improvements.

[pclmulqdq]

Just use a little bit of magic or a different solution if you want things to go faster. I trust a set of clever players to be able to come up with something to totally fuck up the DM's plans.

Also note that Caesar's crossing of the Rhine (a notoriously tough river to bridge) took 10 days, and several similarly amazing feats of quick river diversion have occurred in Chinese history. All without magic. If you don't care whether your works are permanent, the work can be done very quickly.

[com2kid]

> Need to clear a dungeon? Divert the nearest river to flood it and then use some other means (magical) to clear out the water.

In a future setting (Eclipse Phase), the party was sent out to investigate rumors of a downed spaceship.

We bought a rover, bought a wagon to go behind the rover. Filled it up with the setting's equivalent of C4. The GM tried to stop us on route, we planned very far and ended up hauling the trailer by hand (the rover got destroyed by a landmine, we specified a 10m rope between the rover and the wagon full of explosives just for such an occasion, the GM had forgotten about that, we didn't, we wrote it down).

We kept lobbing explosives into the ship (low G) until bits of alien started flying out. The GM looked... a bit sad.

High lethality games encourage creative problem solving.

[mcv]

Best story I've heard about clearing a dungeon was a group that drove a flock of sheep into the dungeon. Later, while exploring the dungeon, they'd find tons of traps with dead sheep in them.

[djur]

In practice I've found this strategy to be pretty frustrating as a player. If treasure is going to be part of the campaign, give me something to spend it on. If it isn't, don't bother -- but in a system like D&D, you need to then provide an alternate method for obtaining equipment and upgrades.

[glitchc]

This unfortunately can kill a great deal of incentive for the player. If there's nothing to look forward to, there's no dopamine hit. While too many dopamine hits are clearly bad, the absence of a reward can lead to a very boring game. There's a balance there somewhere.

[mcv]

I'm thinking about a system where you slowly accumulate stress and money, and you need to spend the money (on carousing, helping the poor, or other expensive habits) to get rid of the stress.

My goal would be to have lots of money moving through their hands without them being able to hold onto it for long.

I also remember an article from the 1980s that recommended having thieves steal their money if they got too rich. That sounds a bit unfair to me, although maybe it could work as part of a system there they stay at increasingly more expensive lodgings in order to keep their accumulating wealth safe.

[jstarfish]

> an article from the 1980s that recommended having thieves steal their money if they got too rich. That sounds a bit unfair to me, although maybe it could work as part of a system there they stay at increasingly more expensive lodgings in order to keep their accumulating wealth safe.

IIRC this was a frustration of mine with Rimworld. It was annoying and made wealth very toxic. The more you had, the more frequently (and more powerful) thieves showed up and wrecked your shit.

I didn't even have nice things, I just polished the floors so colonists wouldn't be so miserable with bunker life but apparently that raised collective wealth to the point of inviting raids.

[LaffertyDev]

Check out Blades in the Dark -- it has _exactly_ this mechanic! (And is also my favorite RPG system)

[mcv]

I've played Blades in the Dark, and while you accumulate stress, you roll to get rid of it. I don't think it costs actual money, although they do call it vices. My plan was to really tie it into the excessive accumulation of money in D&D-style games, which is a problem BitD wouldn't have even if it didn't have the stress mechanic.

Money in BitD is very abstract, and a single coin represents a serious amount of money. And you don't buy stuff with it because you can only take so much stuff with you, and what that is depends on your character. Instead you use it to upgrade your lair or bribe people, I think.

So it's not quite what I was thinking of, although it certainly has some of the elements. Maybe it has shaped how I'm thinking about it now.

I remember how longer ago, I was thinking of a Robin Hood game where character progression depended on how much money you gave to the poor. That way you can still buy stuff for yourself and not level up, or give to the poor and level up.

[LaffertyDev]

For the games I've DM'd there's almost always been too much Stress and not enough Downtime Actions. The players would spend a good chunk of their Payout on downtime actions for stress reduction/healing. I don't know if I ever saw a player actually put a coin into their retirement stash.

A game centered around moving money, but not acquiring it, could be very interesting. You could tease out a few interesting scenarios and have meta-progression where helping others can create a network of skills. (i.e. you helped the baker pay her debts, now she will bake bread for you at cost.)

[mcv]

Can you get extra downtime actions for coin? I don't think I've ever done it. If I start spending it on that, I'll never accumulate any coin. Because to be honest, that stress mechanic is giving me stress. It really felt to me like a game that you're always going to lose. But maybe spending coin on it helps.

[LaffertyDev]

Yup! RAW.

https://bladesinthedark.com/downtime-activities

> A PC can make time for more than two activities, at a cost. Each additional activity from the list costs 1 coin or 1 rep. This reflects the time and resulting resource drain while you’re “off the clock” and not earning from a score. When you complete a new score, you reset and get two “free” activities again.

Spending coin on stress reduction certainly helps. If a player gets a 2-coin reward for a score, I'd hope they stashed one and burned one on something.

[breischl]

>having thieves steal their money if they got too rich

Money attracts that kind of thing, even in the real world. There's a reason rich people have guards. Also bodyguards - I was just listening to a podcast about how a fairly rich (and flashy) drug dealer got kidnapped and ransomed because he didn't think about what a target he was. Obviously more challenging when you're talking about heroes who are personally formidable, but think about friends, family members, retainers, etc.

[awithrow]

I've always wanted to run a campaign that does the opposite: give them an obscene amount of wealth.

First problem would be how do they even transport, store, and guard it without being jumped, ripped off and robbed? Did they think millions of coins would fit in a few sacks?

Maybe a "No Country For Old Men" type situation? Sure they're rich as kings but there are more powerful beings that know about their wealth and they are coming.

[caseysoftware]

Another fun approach is to make THEM the target of other groups.

It's cool to have a pile of gold and treasure until you have to figure out how to protect it:

- banks are few and far between and how much is "too much" for a bank?

- does the local lord or king appreciate rich, unchecked groups active in their area?

- bands of thieves are great but what about another group of adventurers?

- if their wealth is truly amazing, do rumors make it to a dragon's ears?

Odds are, the party has figured out how to break into and raid many dungeons and keeps. What happens when they have to secure one?