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Post by tetramorph on Jan 5, 2018 13:54:21 GMT -6
That would make leveling WAY too fast. But surely not if you are following the ratio of treasure to rooms and the treasure descriptions suggested in U&WA. If only half the rooms have treasure and, for example, with only 5% chance of gems/jewelry and an average of only 350sp and 35gp per treasure on level one, leveling too fast does not seem like a big problem. Seems like this approach would allow leveling, at all!
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EdOWar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 315
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Post by EdOWar on Jan 5, 2018 14:06:47 GMT -6
Finarvyn , Scott Anderson , @gronanofsimmerya , EdOWar , talysman , howandwhy99 , sixdemonbag , hamurai , Zenopus , Piper , lige, starcraft , foxroe , have you ever played or ruled XP awarding in the way suggested by graelth ? Either way, what do you think of his approach? When we played B/E & AD&D as kids, we didn't really understand XP for gold, so we mostly just got XP from killing monsters, plus the occasional "quest" XP handout. In some of our games, whichever PC got the killing blow on the monster got the XP for it (something I never liked). Since playing in high school/college though, we've always divided all XP between all surviving party members. And since discovering OD&D, I've used XP for gold because I think it works well for this style of gaming. While splitting XP may not be explicitly state in the rules, there are plenty of examples from back in the day that show splitting XP was the norm. Many of the 'iconic' OD&D characters solo adventured precisely so they wouldn't have to split XP. That said, I think it could be interesting to try not splitting XP sometime. You can give out less treasure for more-or-less the same XP effect, and then the lower XP awards for monsters make a bit more sense too (assuming you don't use 100 XP per HD).
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graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by graelth on Jan 5, 2018 16:15:38 GMT -6
That would make leveling WAY too fast. It would also remove most of the incentive for solo adventuring. Well, leveling depends entirely upon how much treasure you hand out, of course. I tend to run a grittier game, where the heroes have spent nearly all their savings in the brothel house on mead and women soon after a big adventure. This keeps them hungrier. I will say this, however... my system does NOT work well if you are trying to get your player-characters to build castles once they get to name level, which certainly seemed to be one of Gary's assumptions (you would know better than I). If you are trying to run an rpg that turns into a wargame, you will need some method of filling their coffers and lining their pockets with gold (unless you expect the players to pool gold and build a collective compound together). Of course, there are also other ways to get a castle... Knowing my players, though, I think making them rich would only spoil them! But you're right, I personally do not go out of my way to incentivize (or disincentivize) solo adventuring... that's entirely up to the players. Given the small army of followers or hirelings you can bring along on an adventure, the two actually end up not being very different at my table, if I'm being honest. But as others have said, solo quests will make you more wealthy and net you more of the magical items you find (if you bring followers, they might demand some of those as well). Greed, not desire to challenge yourself to become more experienced, drive solo adventuring in my world... it's certainly less heroic, intentionally so. And sometimes a smaller, stealthier party can do things that a big, blundering one could not. It all depends on the mission.
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Post by tetramorph on Jan 5, 2018 17:54:48 GMT -6
I will say this, however... my system does NOT work well if you are trying to get your player-characters to build castles once they get to name level, which certainly seemed to be one of Gary's assumptions (you would know better than I). If you are trying to run an rpg that turns into a wargame, you will need some method of filling their coffers and lining their pockets with gold (unless you expect the players to pool gold and build a collective compound together). Of course, there are also other ways to get a castle... Knowing my players, though, I think making them rich would only spoil them! Money never prevents characters in my campaign from getting a castle and a barony. They wander about. They find an enemy character with a stronghold/barony in the wilderness. They take it.
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Post by howandwhy99 on Jan 5, 2018 19:41:21 GMT -6
I don't think I could go back to XP for GP, especially since I try to put a price on everything in the game. Treasure is valuable enough for me as it is and I'd be giving out XP for everything.
@gronanofsimmerya is right too. Swapping individual XP for undivided group XP would level players far to fast for them to competently play the game. It sounds like story play rather than game play.
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Post by foxroe on Jan 5, 2018 19:44:39 GMT -6
I'm with @gronanofsimmerya on this one. I've always played by splitting the XP. By not splitting the XP, the system rewards large group play and advancement is probably too fast. Splitting XP encourages small group play (and individual play as Mike points out).
FWIW, the Holmes rules specifically state in the section on experience:
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Post by Malcadon on Jan 5, 2018 20:15:49 GMT -6
I was not a fan of "1gp = 1xp" rule until I read about Arneson's original seed of that rule. Basically, how he had it, to convert GP into XP, PCs need to spend gold earned form adventuring (not business investments, gambling, or tax revenue) on things that do not further their adventuring interests. So, you do not get XP form treasure spent on adventuring gear/transportation, magical items, hiring henchmen (including advertisements), and the like — although, magical research is the exception to this. But you can get XP for spending money on family, revelry, companionship, charity/tithes, bribes, luxuries, etc. I like this rule, as it reinforces the "work hard; party hard" Murder Hobo lifestyle where characters risk life and limb to pull a huge haul of swag out of some dank, dark hole, only to piss it all away on wine and women, so they are forced to go on more adventures to maintain a lavish, self-indulgent lifestyle. In other words: W.W.C.D., or "What would Conan do?"
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graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by graelth on Jan 5, 2018 20:38:36 GMT -6
I'm with @gronanofsimmerya on this one. I've always played by splitting the XP. By not splitting the XP, the system rewards large group play and advancement is probably too fast. Splitting XP encourages small group play (and individual play as Mike points out). FWIW, the Holmes rules specifically state in the section on experience: Just to be clear, you want to encourage small groups? This is interesting to me, since I've never done it. What do you prefer about small group play? Is it just less for the referee to keep track of, or faster play or something? For the record, I haven't found undivided XP has made leveling "too fast." I just hand out less treasure and everything balances out the same. For example, in a session where a different referee would hand out 800 gp to 4 characters (thus 200 gp and 200 XP per character), I just hand out 200 gp (so each character gets 200 XP and 50 gp). I'm not sure if I am being clear... Do you see what I mean?
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Post by hamurai on Jan 6, 2018 2:44:10 GMT -6
I'd like to add: while we always played without dividing the XP, we never had an army of henchmen with our group. I think at most our group would have been of about 8-10 people with half of them being PCs. Not sure if that would be considered a small group, I'd think of it as a "normal" group.
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Post by foxroe on Jan 6, 2018 2:52:34 GMT -6
It's all strictly opinion on my part; play however you wish to play (if you're reducing the treasure rewards from the standard, then level progression will obviously not rocket the characters through levels).
All I meant was, if the players know that XP is split (just like treasure), they aren't going to be as willing to partake in large adventuring fellowships. If the XP is the same regardless of the number of party members, then players will want to pad their party roster with as many warm bodies as they can (success/survival in numbers, etc.).
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EdOWar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 315
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Post by EdOWar on Jan 25, 2018 16:18:41 GMT -6
On a related side note, has anyone ever played awarding XP only for gold recovered? In other words, no XP for monsters, traps, puzzles, quests, role-playing or anything else. After all, if the point is to just get treasure, then it shouldn't matter so much how you get the treasure.
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graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by graelth on Jan 25, 2018 17:48:01 GMT -6
On a related side note, has anyone ever played awarding XP only for gold recovered? In other words, no XP for monsters, traps, puzzles, quests, role-playing or anything else. After all, if the point is to just get treasure, then it shouldn't matter so much how you get the treasure. I only give XP for gold (nothing else), but I modify that in a few ways. Firstly, it includes reward money. If a king offers the party 4,000 gp for slaying a Dragon, then they will get XP for the 4,000 gold (as well as any treasure they accumulate from the dragon's horde, naturally). Secondly, I don't split the experience award. Indeed, nothing to my recollection in Men & Magic actually suggests that you should, and it has never been intuitive for me to do so (in fact, I only heard about the "splitting XP" idea after years of running the game without doing so). If a party hauls 2,000 gp out of the dungeon, all player characters earn 2,000 experience points (their individual share of the wealth has nothing to do with the prestige of their party earning a haul like that, and it has little if anything to do with the difficulty of braving that level of the dungeon). It doesn't matter if there are 2 characters or 20, they all get the same experience regardless. I do this for a few reasons... half of what a level means to me is prestige and reputation (which is how a fighting man becomes a "lord"... not just being a skilled fighter, but being recognized by others as such). Secondly, it speeds up levelling, which I like. Lastly, I encourage players to explore the dungeon with a "full" party, and that means one character per player and the full compliment of followers (mostly intelligent monster types, but usually some class-types as well). With four player characters, this averages about 16 followers or 20 characters total. Thus I can hand out gobs of treasure and still not have a "maunty haul" problem... a take of about 2,000 gold pieces from a dungeon adventure will make sure each player gets to second level with about 100 gold pieces in their pocket to show for it (all followers always require an equal share of the loot as the player characters... it's standard practice in my campaign world... but they don't earn any experience, aside from a single protege that a player may "split" his own experience with to build his backup character... think of it as banking your XP). I do and I fully recommend it!
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EdOWar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 315
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Post by EdOWar on Jan 25, 2018 19:01:38 GMT -6
On a related side note, has anyone ever played awarding XP only for gold recovered? In other words, no XP for monsters, traps, puzzles, quests, role-playing or anything else. After all, if the point is to just get treasure, then it shouldn't matter so much how you get the treasure. I only give XP for gold (nothing else), but I modify that in a few ways. Firstly, it includes reward money. If a king offers the party 4,000 gp for slaying a Dragon, then they will get XP for the 4,000 gold (as well as any treasure they accumulate from the dragon's horde, naturally). Secondly, I don't split the experience award. Indeed, nothing to my recollection in Men & Magic actually suggests that you should, and it has never been intuitive for me to do so (in fact, I only heard about the "splitting XP" idea after years of running the game without doing so). If a party hauls 2,000 gp out of the dungeon, all player characters earn 2,000 experience points (their individual share of the wealth has nothing to do with the prestige of their party earning a haul like that, and it has little if anything to do with the difficulty of braving that level of the dungeon). It doesn't matter if there are 2 characters or 20, they all get the same experience regardless. I do this for a few reasons... half of what a level means to me is prestige and reputation (which is how a fighting man becomes a "lord"... not just being a skilled fighter, but being recognized by others as such). Secondly, it speeds up levelling, which I like. Lastly, I encourage players to explore the dungeon with a "full" party, and that means one character per player and the full compliment of followers (mostly intelligent monster types, but usually some class-types as well). With four player characters, this averages about 16 followers or 20 characters total. Thus I can hand out gobs of treasure and still not have a "maunty haul" problem... a take of about 2,000 gold pieces from a dungeon adventure will make sure each player gets to second level with about 100 gold pieces in their pocket to show for it (all followers always require an equal share of the loot as the player characters... it's standard practice in my campaign world... but they don't earn any experience, aside from a single protege that a player may "split" his own experience with to build his backup character... think of it as banking your XP). I do and I fully recommend it! Ah, sorry, somehow I missed your earlier post. How does it affect play? Are players more hesitant to dive into combat? Or does it not matter much? Thanks.
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graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by graelth on Jan 25, 2018 21:39:23 GMT -6
I do and I fully recommend it! Ah, sorry, somehow I missed your earlier post. How does it affect play? Are players more hesitant to dive into combat? Or does it not matter much? Thanks. Yep, as you'd expect. They spend a lot of time listening at doors and try to evade monster encounters... there is a lot of sneaking around, scouting out locations, mapping, planning routes and such. The way OD&D plays, in my experience, is that your hit dice is pretty much the number of hits you can take before you need to leave the dungeon and go back to civilization to heal and regain your spells. In my current game, the party (all around 7th level) is exploring a dungeon that is several days away from town. The cleric only has 3 heal spells at most, so the party has to be very economical about how it tackles the dungeon... a single 7th level character can only withstand 7 enemy attacks. A few tough fights and they might be leaving the dungeon with their hands empty (and travel back and forth from the city takes a whole week). Time lost to travel brings all sorts of complications. Most missions are time sensitive, or have reduced rewards if the mission isn't accomplished in a timely manner. Plus there are weekly and monthly costs... rations are consumed, hirelings need to get paid, the characters pay 1% of their experience totals every month to general upkeep costs (about 600-700 gold each month, at their level). If each expedition nets you only 3 healing spells and involves a week of travel, then four attempts at the dungeon is a month of time and twelve attempts is a season... with seasonal change you have roads that become treacherous or impassible, not to mention ample time for the dungeon to change and new factions to move in. If you can get it all in one sneaky, cautious and careful raid, then that is much, much more convenient and economical. In my last game, the party (7 characters total) spent 12 turns in the dungeon (2 hours), used 2 flasks of oil, 1 arrow and hauled out 168 gold per character. This barely covers a week of upkeep at their level, so they weren't too happy about that, but it was enough experience (1176 xp) for two of the fighters to level up. When they return to the dungeon next week, they'll have new plans for what areas to avoid and what areas to scout out in search of easier pickings.
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Post by Starbeard on Feb 4, 2018 0:09:09 GMT -6
I’ve given all party members full experience points on a couple of occasions, and am currently doing it in a T&T game. I think it has its merits, specifically because it is a way to speed up advancement. Just like the class xp tables, the rate of xp gains isn’t a science, and the only way it can be ‘unbalanced’ is if characters are advancing levels at a rate other than what you were intending.
Play by post games are good candidates for full xp, since those are so slow that keeping all treasure and xp by the book might mean no one ever progresses at all. Short and focused campaigns are also good candidates. The campaign might last one game year, or 16 sessions, or however fits the scenario, and xp rates are compressed to allow for whatever range of play the scenario is designed for. For that matter, you could just as easily alter the xp tables instead of altering xp rates.
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Post by Starbeard on Feb 4, 2018 0:37:05 GMT -6
My only problem is: XP division among party members is exactly how my group has awarded XP for years now. So we have important, developed characters in the campaign who leveled on the old system, and who have, thusly, acquired ludicrously gargantuan hordes. I don't know what I would have to do to get my group to switch to this new approach. I don't know if they would even consider it. And I don't know how we could grandfather in the old characters developed through the old XP division way. This is just to play the Devil’s advocate, since I’ve always tried to stay strict and consistent with my xp awards and will likely continue to do so forever, but I wonder if as a community we are too reliant on the assumption that all xp rules must be measurably consistent for all characters and across all times? OD&D is a toolbox for running fantasy scenarios and campaigns that include anything ranging from roleplaying to wargaming, and as game umpires we are normally happy to alter combat rules, class rules, monster stats and whatever else from the standard when playing. These things are free to change from session to session, or from situation to situation, but at the heart of it, the art of quality DMing is in learning to apply and adjust the toolbox appropriately and wisely to fit the particulars of the in-game scenario, and the real-world needs of actually playing the game itself. Why should xp and how it is obtained be at all different?
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Post by sixdemonbag on Feb 4, 2018 14:51:16 GMT -6
The campaign might last one game year, or 16 sessions, or however fits the scenario, and xp rates are compressed to allow for whatever range of play the scenario is designed for. This is really sage advice. I've stumbled into this philosophy indirectly it seems. I award session XP because I'm lazy, and I would need to witness XP = GP in person before attempting it myself for fear of screwing up the pacing. Here's my situation and background if anyone has any advice for me: I ran a steady online group of three players (Roll20). I don't have random players coming and going. Everyone is totally fine with PC death (coming from 5E this was my first big achievement!). Last year, we progressed to name level (more or less) over the course of 40ish online sessions. I was simply awarding a new level every 3-5 sessions (on average) and everyone seemed happy with this (no complaints at least). If a PC died, I let the player take on an NPC or create a new one at any level they wished (not higher than any current PC, of course). We had a 1st level PC join and had a PC join equal in level to the party. Both worked out fine. My question: Let's say this year, I want to change from session XP to XP for gold (I do). How would I go about doing this for the first time? Should I strictly follow the XP charts and random tables? Should I create a unified table like 5E? Should I design adventures so that a reasonable amount of treasure is found? It feels complicated and I think it would be hard to pace. Am I overthinking it? I feel like XP for gold is my last big hurdle before I can truly claim to be playing "OD&D". How does everyone do it? Session XP is just so easy!! For those curious, my current XP system in more detail: A PC needs to survive a number of sessions equal to their next level to level-up. Example: a Hero needs 5 session XP to get to 5th level. A 2nd level Cleric would need 3 session XP to become a 3rd level Cleric, etc. We played once a week, skipping a week here and there due to scheduling/holidays and whatnot. At this pace, the final party roughly reached name level in a year. We have just started a new campaign with a couple new faces (5 players this year!! The old PCs "retired" but may show up again, naturally). So, the XP system still has time to change. Thanks in advance!
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Post by howandwhy99 on Feb 6, 2018 13:47:30 GMT -6
XP is the score for each player indicating how well they are playing the game.
When you determine what you will be giving XP out for, you need to tell the players so they can seek that game objective.
Then you need *everything* in the game design to revolve around that. That's true OD&D, not XP for GP. Dungeon! does XP for GP, your particular design does not need to.
Like a judge in the Olympics you set the bar for each level (element of the game world) and balance it over and over again through playtesting so you know that the players' scores will be fair measures.
For XP = GP you can pretty much copy exactly how Dungeon! balances random treasure values paired with random monster challenges. It doesn't have anything else. It is an exceedingly small game compared to D&D, but it's a start.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 15:11:13 GMT -6
On a related side note, has anyone ever played awarding XP only for gold recovered? In other words, no XP for monsters, traps, puzzles, quests, role-playing or anything else. After all, if the point is to just get treasure, then it shouldn't matter so much how you get the treasure. I have always done it that way. This is on purpose. If you can get the treasure through trickery, good for you.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 15:12:32 GMT -6
It's all strictly opinion on my part; play however you wish to play (if you're reducing the treasure rewards from the standard, then level progression will obviously not rocket the characters through levels). All I meant was, if the players know that XP is split (just like treasure), they aren't going to be as willing to partake in large adventuring fellowships. If the XP is the same regardless of the number of party members, then players will want to pad their party roster with as many warm bodies as they can (success/survival in numbers, etc.). Exactly. This is a feature, not a bug. Not only do I not want to have to referee a group of 15 players, I don't want to referee a platoon of NPCs.
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Post by sixdemonbag on Feb 6, 2018 16:49:05 GMT -6
For XP = GP you can pretty much copy exactly how Dungeon! balances random treasure values paired with random monster challenges. It doesn't have anything else. It is an exceedingly small game compared to D&D, but it's a start. Great suggestion using Dungeon! as a starting point. Thank you, sir.
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Post by sixdemonbag on Feb 6, 2018 16:52:34 GMT -6
It's all strictly opinion on my part; play however you wish to play (if you're reducing the treasure rewards from the standard, then level progression will obviously not rocket the characters through levels). All I meant was, if the players know that XP is split (just like treasure), they aren't going to be as willing to partake in large adventuring fellowships. If the XP is the same regardless of the number of party members, then players will want to pad their party roster with as many warm bodies as they can (success/survival in numbers, etc.). Exactly. This is a feature, not a bug. Not only do I not want to have to referee a group of 15 players, I don't want to referee a platoon of NPCs. Minimizing the size of the party is a goal of mine as well, considering I have extra players this year. Makes my life much easier. This is good advice to remember, in my case, and I'll be sure to keep it in mind.
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graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by graelth on Feb 8, 2018 11:20:49 GMT -6
It's all strictly opinion on my part; play however you wish to play (if you're reducing the treasure rewards from the standard, then level progression will obviously not rocket the characters through levels). All I meant was, if the players know that XP is split (just like treasure), they aren't going to be as willing to partake in large adventuring fellowships. If the XP is the same regardless of the number of party members, then players will want to pad their party roster with as many warm bodies as they can (success/survival in numbers, etc.). Exactly. This is a feature, not a bug. Not only do I not want to have to referee a group of 15 players, I don't want to referee a platoon of NPCs. Fair enough, everyone should play how they want to play! I really enjoy large groups and have never found it a difficulty to referee, but I also do have a lot of refereeing tools at my disposal (I use a spreadsheet that automates encumbrance, movement, treasure and XP awards, damage, attacks and the all-important Ego test for magic swords/lycanthropy). In fact, if you want to play like me, then some level of automation is a must in my view... keeping the game moving quickly is the golden rule at my table. I will say though that I have NOT found that players are unwilling to partake in solo-adventuring using my method... quite the opposite, in fact! A great case in point is my current campaign. In the last several sessions, the players have pulled only around 2,500 gold pieces... split among all the followers and player-characters evenly (another house rule of mine), the players haven't even made enough to pay for their monthly upkeep of 1% of their XP! The players are all levels 6 or 7, and now their followers are considering abandoning them because they cannot live the lifestyle that high level characters ought to be accustomed to... the followers will think twice when the players knock on their doors and ask them to go on another adventure this week! Not to mention the creditors, which will soon be calling on the players... Because every dungeon adventure takes 1 week time, and the players have typically taken 1 week to recover and scribe new scrolls and advertise for specialists, they were only able to do two dungeon-delves in a month's time. They needed to pull out more gold in those two adventures than they ended up with. If they adventured solo or in small groups, that would not have been a problem! Plus, there are some pretty obvious advantages to small groups. For one, large groups have a very, very small chance of avoiding wilderness monsters (which often number in the hundreds) according to the rules. I also use evasion in dungeons as well, and their large size is NOT helping them there. Having a Hill Giant in the party as well as a Copper Dragon is not helping either... I apply additional evasion penalties for large companions. So keep in mind, I keep VERY strict time, encumbrance, upkeep and evasion rules and I apply them to the letter... no fudging it to give the players a break! There are advantages to large parties and there are advantages to small ones as well (like greater stealth and bigger shares of the loot). Players like to bring followers, but they may not be so happy when one of those followers demands the new magical sword for himself!
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Todd
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by Todd on Feb 8, 2018 12:19:59 GMT -6
Question: do folks tend to let the party instantly appraise treasure objects or make them get them back to town first?
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Post by howandwhy99 on Feb 8, 2018 12:27:27 GMT -6
Depends on the group. Learning via the trade game can be fun and effective. It also gives the players something to do with all that treasure. Not to mention it's an advantage to playing the game the more you understand pricing in any given area. Be that a regional area or type of purchase.
But I've been in groups where they simply did not want to do this. what I've seen done then is: a generic item handout with prices. And the warning "prices and availability are subject to change". (Meaning not to trust it implicitly)
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Todd
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by Todd on Feb 8, 2018 12:28:59 GMT -6
Depends on the group. Learning via the trade game can be fun and effective. It also gives the players something to do with all that treasure. Not to mention it's an advantage to playing the game the more you understand pricing in any given area. Be that a regional area or type of purchase. But I've been in groups where they simply did not want to do this. what I've seen done then is: a generic item handout with prices. And the warning "prices and availability are subject to change". (Meaning not to trust it implicitly) Yeah. I haven’t been giving my party cash values for stuff but this thread has me rethinking that.
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Post by sixdemonbag on Feb 8, 2018 14:00:18 GMT -6
Question: do folks tend to let the party instantly appraise treasure objects or make them get them back to town first? Part of the fun for us is being in suspense as to how much something is worth. After appraising a few gems, I don't mind telling them the rough value. But the more unusual stuff is akin to Antiques Roadshow!!
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graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by graelth on Feb 8, 2018 14:04:51 GMT -6
Question: do folks tend to let the party instantly appraise treasure objects or make them get them back to town first? I've found that it's kind of a moot question if the players can't actually get the listed price for the gem/jewelry. That is, if they still have to haggle the price, why not tell them? The way I do it is I tell the players the true price for the gem/jewelry once they leave the dungeon at the end of the session, since that is when I am totalling XP from treasure and it becomes relevant to disclose its value at that point. Sometimes they groan at the fact that the heavy piece of jewelry they've been carrying around all session turned out to be nearly worthless, but that is the way it is! Then, and usually between sessions, they can take it to jewelers and I'll give them a price... might be higher or lower than the true value of the item (I usually roll 2 dice to determine a sale price between 20% and 120% of true value, but obviously trying to sell expensive jewelry in a small village will reduce this roll). They can either take it and cash out their gems and jewelry on the spot, or they can hang on to it and hope for a better price later (they usually just take it, though). I typically do one roll for all their gems and jewelry, unless they have something that warrants its own modified roll (like selling jewelry that clearly has the royal insignia on it!). There is also a mage who is always looking for emeralds for some reason... he gives a special price for those, if you are willing to make the trek out to his manse!
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Post by howandwhy99 on Feb 8, 2018 15:32:09 GMT -6
Yeah. I haven’t been giving my party cash values for stuff but this thread has me rethinking that. I do not use XP = GP, but I do balance treasure that way, sort of. If XP = GP, then a creature's wealth (PC, NPC, or Monster) should have an average hoard equal to their XP total. But there's variety. And there's the actual use of treasure in the game. Theft, loss, or just poor play of what I called the trade game. Given logarithmic XP scaling, I see the possible totals span as Zero->Double (or just before level advancement). I'd say dragons horde everything and share nothing, so they likely aren't optimized for treasure. But with their exceptional focus on gaining and hoarding wealth (and their iconic status) I tend to shoot for double for dragons. If you use a trade game, then the players need to be careful about how they spend their money as their total wealth could decline in value. But of course it could go up some too. What it also means is they commonly engage in another action with the monsters of the game. Whether that bartering is with shopkeeper monsters or, say, dragons. If you don't want to track fluctuations in price and availability for everything -- and everywhere!, then you could keep all prices static the whole game. Just price for game value and forget it. But there is a game design challenge to accounting for all kinds of nuances in a trade game, at any scale. It doesn't have to be heavily rules-laden to be fun and a complex game itself.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2018 15:41:53 GMT -6
I wait until they're back. I also roll individually for everything because of the unexpected results. My NYC D&D group found 27 gems, and when I rolled them, one was worth 10,000 and two were worth 5,000.
Getting that much money at first level changed the entire course of the campaign.
That's why rolling for everything matters. It takes things in a direction you could never guess.
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