Simon Smith wrote:
[brutal snippage]
> In fact, while computers may make it easy to track every last credit a
> character has, I'm not sure that's necessarily such a good thing for
> roleplaying, especially in settings with a presumably heroic tone like
Star
> Wars or high fantasty D&D. I feel that characters in these settings
> shouldn't care how much money they have, and they shouldn't really need
to
There are some problems with this.
For instance, in modern systems (as opposed to age-of-dinosaur systems)
character creation is a process that consists of the player making a
series of choices, with each choice having (fully!) knowable
consequences[1], and with the player being free to tweak a large amount
of axes of variation, including the axis of wealth - in other words, he
can choose to pay character creation currency in exchange for starting
out richer, or he can chose to take on the burden of poverty in exchange
for recieving a character creation currency *bribe*.
The second problem is how to handle wealth fluctuation. A character's
wealth is not at all guaranteed to remain constant throughout the entire
campaign...
[1] Notice that being smacked down by the GM with accusations of
munchkinry (e.g. if you buy too much DX or IQ in GURPS), in public, is
an example of a surprise consequence, which therefore violates the
"fully knowable" requirement.
> care either. Even Han Solo didn't care that much how much money he had -
he
> just wanted to be rich. I hope you see what I mean.
....However, there are solutions.
One is Lifestyles, which has existed at least since the publication of
the previous (3rd) edition of Shadowrun, and probably they're much older
than that. It consists of the player paying a specific amount of cash
every month, which includes costs for food, rent, and replacement
clothes (i.e. to replace your clothes as they are worn out, or
increasingly with higher standards of lifestyle, to replace them in
order to keep up with fa****on).
Sagatafl uses (or will use) something similar. I'm not sure how radical
Shadowrun's implementation is, but Sagatafl's Monthly Lifestyles also
include such things as drinks and snacks at bars, brothel visits (if
appropriate for the setting), other entertainments (purchasing a few
novels per month, or going to the cinema), personal services (hair
cuits, or even hired servants, mais and a butler if the Lifestyle is
high enough). All without giving the player the power to micromanage
(i.e. you can't reduce your Lifestyle cost by a few percent by going
celibate, so as to remove the cost of going on dates or visiting
brothels). In exchange for this, players are empowered to buy drinks at
bars without the GM going "you want a single malt whisky? OK, subtract
60 cents."
Probably Shadowrun's implementation is equally "radical", but I don't
know this for a fact, that's why I've explained Sagatafl's
implementation instead.
There'll be a range of lifestyles. I believe Shadowrun has 5 or 6.
Sagatafl will need a few more, to cover true extremes of wealth
(Shadowrun makes some assumptions about the PCs never reaching wealth
levels appropriate for Decadent Galactic Emperors, for instance - it
would be a crime for Sagatafl to assume something like that).
Certain character traits, such as being addicted to a non-cheap
substance, will include a modifier to the Lifestyle's cost (a flat
multiplier, rather than a percentage multiplier. If you're a
multi-billionaire, your heroin habit won't cost hundreds of thousands
times more than if you were a "street" criminal.)
Now, on to the really neat part, which is how the Modern Action RPG
(the former Action Movie RPG) handles wealth.
During character creation, each character is given a basic Wealth
rating. This is always at least Normal, because MA RPG is not a "fully
flexible" system in the style of GURPS, Sagatafl, Hero System, Ars
Magica, or so forth. (Although make no mistake: It is still *vastly*
more flexible than the majority of systems in existence). Thus players
can only chose to increase starting Wealth, they cannot chose to
decrease it in exchange for a bribe (they can, in theory, chose to
decrease it in exchange for *no* bribe, but if I address that at all
it'll be in one of the Advanced sections, and the main point will most
likely be a warning to the GM to put a stop to "underbid duels" among
the players).
The game has 7 wealth levels (which is insufficient to cover the "high
end". Nevermind Galactic Emperor (Decadent or otherwise) - MA RPG can't
even get withing rifle range of Bill Gates[2]). They are:
Destitute, Very Poor, Poor, Normal, Wealthy, Very Wealthy and Extremely
Wealthy.
All PCs have a default Wealth Level of Normal, except for one subtype
(out of a total of - so far - 41 subtypes) which has a default Wealth
Level of Wealthy. The player may then pay a modest amount of character
points (character creation currency) to increase Wealth by one level, or
a large amount of points to increase Wealth by two levels.
Wealth has no use in itself, but instead divides into six
sub-attributes: Home, Lifestyle, Direct Spending (Cash), Equipment,
Vehicle and Legal Counsel.
The player can chose to pay a small amount of points to increase one of
these sub-attributes by one level. This means that a player can buy up
general Wealth one level (to Wealthy) and then buy up Equipment a
further level, so that with regards to Home, Lifestyle, Direct Spending,
Vehicle and Legal Counsel, he is Wealthy, whereas with regard to
Equipment he is *Very* Wealthy.
Lifestyle covers clothing, food and entertainment, accessories (jewelry
and so forth) and traveling (coach class, first class, Concorde, or
private jet), including standards of accomodation when travelling
(quality of hotel and food). Lifestyle matters little (except for speedy
travelling), and so is mostly for "roleplay flavour".
Direct spending is the character's ability to spend cash, primarily on
bribes and on incidental purchases (but of course only those purchases
that are not already covered by one of the other five sub-attributes of
Wealth).
The standard Wealth level, Normal, gives a specific amount of "free"
direct spending, which requires no dice roll. This is always safe. The
character may chose to try to spend 10 times as much, which involves the
GM making a roll of 2d6 *against* the player. Or he can try to spend 100
or 1000 times as much, which involves the GM making a roll of 4d6 or 6d6
(respectively) *against* the player.
If the GM's roll goes "well" (i.e. "badly" from the character's
perspective), then the character suffers a tem****ary reduction of wealth
level, of one step (this is ***ulative, if it happens several times in a
row), for a period of time depending on how "well" the roll went.
Equipment, Home and so forth are not lost, but direct spending suffers
and the character may have to change travel arrangements and down****ft
to a cheaper hotel.
Home defines the character's permanent accomodations, the size and
degree of luxury. It matters even less than Lifestyle (which at least
matters in some cases), and hence is mostly for "flavour" (the standard
advice for players is to never chose Home as the "specific Wealth
upgrade", and to think twice before chosing Lifestyle).
Vehicle controls the quality of vehicle that the character may own.
Normal allows one "normal" vehicle, whereas ****ps, large boats, luxury
cars or airplaines will require above-Normal wealth.
Legal Counsel controls the quality of the legal counsel available to the
character when (*when* - not if. MA RPG assumes that the PCs will
frequently get involved in exciting sitautions) the character gets in
trouble with the law (poor characters get to make a roll on the "pro
bono" table, to see how poor their free legal counsel is).
Equipment controls the quality of the character's equipment. I'm not
clear on the specifics yet, but each Equipment Wealth level will
probably say something along the lines of "start with 3 class F items
and up to 20 class E items, and an unlimited quantity (within reason) of
class A-D items, or start with 4 class F items, 4 class E items, 4 class
D items, and an unlimited quantity (within reason) of class A-C items".
During the campaign, the character can then re-supply as he wishes,
provided that "outlets" are available (i.e. he may need Contacts, either
his own or provided by a friend, in order to be able to buy black market
weaponry).
[2] I've been thinking about adding one or two additional wealth levels,
but there are some reasons, not all entirely rational, for why I have
not done this yet and may never do it.
As for the second problem, wealth fluctuation, I have decided that it is
not an issue given the period scope of MA RPG. People don't stumble over
buried treasure, with any measurable frequency, in the 18th century or
later (the focus period of MA RPG is roughly 1920 to 1990, but it can be
used for earlier, or for near future, or with expansions for science
fiction). You might find a nuclear warhead, or some pounds of cocaine,
in a modern era campaign, but then you just write that down on your
character sheet, and then you start looking for an op****tunity to
"barter" your treasure for something that is useful for you (i.e.
something which is normally outside of your financial means). It is not
like it is trivial to "translate" such "treasure" into comfortably
flexible money bills.
Increases in wealth are handled strictly metagame (as are increases in
skill), in that the players have to pay experience points for them. The
downside of this is that it is highly abstract (as is the larger issue:
That the characters cannot never actually tell their players how much
money they have in their wallets!!), but the upside is that a player can
always chose to pay points to make his character wealthier (between
sessions, that is). The GM is not empowered to prevent this or to even
object to it. At most (I think this will be included in the rules text)
the GM may prevent that the player announce the decision to "upgrade
wealth" ahead of time, by 2 or even 3 sessions, so that a too sudden
change does not put anyone's SoD at risk.
Now, I'm sure that such a system would fail miserably in any low-tech
fantasy setting, because in such settings treasure is common. But I
believe it will turn out to be workable in a modern era campaign. In a
"swashbucklers / age of sails" campaign, the wealth system might be
stressed, because buried treasure will be found from time to time, but
the stress might not be critical.
> Golden Heroes (superhero) characters had a Financial Resource Level stat
> which quantified what resources a character had without needing to track
> every last bit of cash. I'm wondering if this way of managing things
might
TSR's Marvel Super Heroes had something similar.
> be a better way of doing it. (n.b. having used gleichman's on-line
example
> to make my point, I want to switch perspective to consider conventional
> off-line RPGs as well)
>
> Briefly, a character with a very low resource rating owned the clothes
on
> his back, ate cheap food, sometimes had to sleep rough, and so on. A
> character with a very high rating would have his own chauffeur and
private
> helicopter, would fly everywhere business class or on chartered flights,
> would own multiple houses and the occasional chateau, and so on.
>
> When a character needed something out of the ordinary - such as
adventuring
> gear - then the richer they were the easier it would be for them to
obtain
> what they wanted at short notice. Our poor character has to make do with
a
> rusty second-hand sabre, while the rich character has a jewelled rapier
made
> by his personal armourer. In extreme cases, a wealth 'skill roll' might
be
> needed, and getting too greedy might permanently depress a character's
> wealth skill.
There's no such thing as permanent wealth loss in MA RPG. I think it is
a bad idea, and it also fails to be realistic, even if implemented well.
And it isn't always implemented well at all. Look at d20 Modern, for
instance. IIRC, *any* purchase with a Wealth Requirement of more than 15
involves a permanent loss of wealth level. That's just retarded. Utterly
retarded. Bill Gates could purchase an F-22 fighter jet if he wanted to,
without suffering permanently, and I do believe that the cost of an F-22
fighter jet is well above the level 15 wealth requirement in d20 Modern.
Verdict: Blatant unrealism.
> This way means you don't have to keep track of every last penny -
> characters' living standards and available resources automatically
'track'
> their current level of wealth, which can fluctuate a bit as time goes
on.
Sure, but this is nothing new. Lifestyles have been around for a long
time. Especially if you allow for solutions more primitive than
Shadowrun's. GURPS has had a "monthly cost of living" system for more
than a decade (probably ever since 1st edition, which must have been a
couple of decades ago). I'm not sure how "radical" GURPS' "cost of
living" is, relative to Shadowrun or Sagatafl, but it certainly isn't
bad, nor is it (as far as I know) particularly unusual in the world of
RPG design.
> Provided characters keep their wealth to themselves, the system seemed
> to work well. It's also reasonably easy to grade items in terms of value
and
> rarity (as a first-pass approximation, just use a rough formula based on
its
Sure. But it means that when I assign stats to equipment (especially
guns!) in MA RPG, I'll have to carefully zero-sum everything within the
same "wealth bracket", so that from a "generalized" point of view, all
wealth class D weapons are equally desirable. If a weapon does more
damage and has longer range (higher Range Increment), for instance, I
must make sure that it is less concealable and has a lower ammo
capacity, in order for it to not be better than other weapons which are
in wealth class D.
> price), and that means you can produce a game mechanic that determines
who
> can obtain what, how easily, and how long it takes to be delivered. I
would
> also suggest that buying a 20GCr 2000-man battlecruiser ought to have a
lead
> time of six months or so even if you're so rich you can pay for it out
of
> petty cash, and that's another thing few games if any bother to model.
I'll suggest that it is the game text's duty to remind the GM of the
possibility of such a battlecruiser, used, coincidentally being
available for sale, because a random NPC owns one but no longer needs it.
> Problems may also come when a rich character obtains a job lot of
goodies
> and makes them freely available to other poorer party members - or
indeed to
Sure, that's a potential problem, but in reality I don't think it is all
that serious. Keep in mind that (assuming a modern rules system) the
rich PC will have had to pay character creation currency for the
privilege of being rich. Character creation currency which he would
instead have chosen to spend on directly useful abilities, such as
skills or intrinsic Advantages.
In fact, I foresee that it will be standard practice for
"efficiency-minded" player groups to always have one character be of the
Special/Wealthy subtype and to upgrade Wealth the full two levels (i.e.
to billionaire level: Extremely Wealthy). This does not, after all,
violate genre (think Doc Savage, or Batman's secret identity). But I
also foresee that it will be a bit like "having to play the Cleric"
(perhaps more as in AD&D than as in D&D3): Every party needs a rich guy,
but almost all players would rather pick some other character concept
for their own character.
On the other hand, the idea of playing a healer character in a fantasy
genre campaign kinda appeals to me. Not so much an actual Cleric, in
D&D3 (or for that matter a Priest in WoW - I've tried that, and it
wasn't all that much fun), but if the D&D3 Healer class or the D&D3
Cloistered Cleric variant class got beefed up slightly, it'd look real
appealing to me.
I'm sure the same will be the case with the "wealthy" character concept,
in the sense that a few players (but probably less than one per group,
on average) will happily spend character creation currency on an ability
that benefits everyone else in the party as much as it benefits the
player's own character, provided the character creation currency cost is
correct (i.e. not too high).
Also, of course, it's good to have a back-up. Just as in D&D3 it is neat
to have a Paladin or Ranger or Bard (with a Wand of CLW), it may be
useful in MA RPG for the party to have a back-up millionaire in case the
billionaire runs into severe "cash flow problems" (by having suffered 3
or more instances of ***ulative temproary wealth level reduction).
The real problem is if players can opt to have below-average Wealth,
during character creation, in exchange for a character creation currency
bribe (as seen in many systems, such as GURPS, Hero System, Ars Magica
or Sagatafl). That's the main reason I've opted not to allow this in MA
RPG. With good rules engineering skills, the problem can be solved, but
the solution won't be simple enough to be suitable for MA RPG.
Another problem, in some settings (but perhaps more common in Star Wars,
or similar space opera settings, than in modern era settings, even if we
acknowledge that Buddhist begger monks with kick-ass unarmed combat
skills are perfectly in genre for "modern"), is that certain character
concepts require a "vow of poverty" of some sort (although this is not
wholly separate from the above issue). But I think that can be handled
by simply forbidding the character to use any item above a specific
wealth grade (class E, class F, class D, or whatever feels right to the
game designer).
(Or the vow could forbid the character to *own* such an item, but allow
him to "use" it, although that would require some thoroughly written and
thought-out rules in order to be enjoyable to play.)
If such a vow also bans the character from riding on too-luxurious
vehicles, such as Concordes (or at least privately owned jets), then you
get a situation in which the player character cannot always go along
with the other PCs on their adventure, which is what I've started to
refer to as a "showstopper" (specifically a "showstopper disad").
And that's one major difference between Sagatafl and MA RPG. Sagatafl
assumes that the players are very mature, and not only able but also
inclined to utilize foresight, so as to avoid creating characters that
cannot function with the campaign's intended theme (which will
presumably be "adventuring" of some form, in almost all cases). The
reason for this is that in terms of Sagatafl's design goals, flexibility
is valued highly, mechanical flexibility in the sense of
freedom-of-character-creation.
MA RPG differs, in that true showstopping character creation options
should be nonexistent, or when that cannot be avoided, they should be
marked with clear warning labels. Of course many options are not
showstoppers in the true sense of the word, which is that they will make
any character unplayable (or nearly so), but rather they are valid
choices for most character concepts, but a few they'll render
unplayable, usually due to "synergizing negatively" with other chosen
traits. This cannot be guarded against (if you ascribe any value to
mechanical flexibility at all).
> all comers. Perhaps one also needs a 'Party resource level', which is
> roughly the average of the PCs' individual wealth. This represents a
degree
> of sharing, but without the rich character having to bankroll the entire
> operation. IRL there are limits to the amount of largesse people feel
able
> to offer (or accept) and I think there should be some way to represent
that
> in-game.
>
> Another issue which has to be handled is what happens when a poorer
> character obtains a valuable item outside his normal price range. If
it's a
Yup. There's some good thinking in your post.
> fantastically jewelled sword, he may be able to sell it and possibly
even
> bump his wealth level up a notch (although doing so could also get him
in
> trouble), or keep it for the combat bonuses (and that could get him into
> trouble too). OTOH if it's a star****p with ongoing running costs, he may
not
> be able to afford to keep it and it may even impoverish him further.
>
> This trick can also work well for characters like Jedi and paladins; you
can
> have a Jedi with a high resource 'skill' meaning he can get the items he
> needs when he needs them, while still living a relatively simple
existence.
> So a rich Jedi and a poor Jedi can both live like monks, money does not
need
> to be explicitly tracked, and yet there is still some sense that
financial
> or material wealth are available resources.
Another thing I'll need to do, but which I haven't gotten into yet, is
dealing with characters who are not "independent adventurers", but are
instead employed by agencies such as militaries, law enforcement
agencies, espionage departments or organized crime. These characters
will need a Budget Wealth, wholly separate from Personal Wealth, with
all the same sub-attributes as Personal Wealth has, but obviously with
some things functioning differently (and with the exact nature of these
differences not yet being clear to me).
One might then assume that a player who creates such an "agency"
character will always chose to buy up Budget Wealth while leaving
Personal Wealth at normal, except in some cases he'll do it the other
way around (personally Wealthy, but only normal Budget-wise), with no
one opting to buy up both. But of course, that's a mistake. There are
some good character concepts that require both to be bought up (the
protagonist in one of Desmond Bagley's novels, for instance, is a
fairly cinematic government agent/spy who is also independently wealthy).
There is also the issue of Legal Counsel. If a police officer, FBI agent
or spy gets in trouble, the agency may very well decide that
"disavowing"(sp?) him is the prudent thing to do, rather than provide
the legal aid that he needs. That's one area where personal wealth can
be highly useful.
> I'd be interested in comments on running a game using generic wealth
> 'skills' rather than tracking every last coin, particularly how other
GMs
> would handle abuses and characters obtaining items outside their normal
> financial means.
I haven't run any MA RPG yet, except for a single short test combat last
year (actually two, but the first consisted of one character running
away since he felt discinlined to fight and was anyway not created
primarily as a combatant - certainly not as a melee combatant). But the
above contains my thoughts on the issue.
> I shall also mention the RQIII wealth rules, which quantify the costs of
> differing standards of living, and the resources characters have at each
> level, something like:
Hah! So you *do* already know about Lifestyles after all...
> 360 per year - peasant, simple clothes, no armour, knife/club, plain
food
> ...
> 3600 per year - journeyman, good clothes, leather armour,
shortsword/cudgel,
> good food
> ...
> 3600000 per year - king, sumptuous clothes, jewel-encrusted armour,
> jewel-encrusted weapons, regular banquets
>
> This too works well, because if a PC decides to literally 'live like a
king'
> for a few weeks, it's easy to tell roughly what it will cost him to do
so.
>
> When I played Golden Heroes, we used the game's wealth levels, and they
> worked nicely for us. But like most superhero settings, GH is very
> unconcerned with money, and I do wonder how well the same idea would
work
> elsewhere. Has anyone tried it?
I haven't tried Golden Heroes, but MA RPG is primarily based on
modern-genre action movies, television shows and novels, and in those
the characters are only very rarely concerned with money.
Of course, any abstract wealth system will create issues in campaigns in
which the PCs are freelancers, i.e. private detectives, mercenaries or
similar, because the players then must have their characters act as *if*
they *need* money, even though they don't need money from the "system's
point of view". If you know what I mean...?
It's like... The GM is not empowered (by the MA RPG rules) to punish the
PC group if they turn down a potential client, because they think that
the mission he wants them to do sounds too boring or too risky. But if
they turn down *too* *many* clients in a row, we have SoD issues
(Basically: Where do they get their money from????). I don't believe
this will constitute a major problem, but the game text needs to
*mention* it, otherwise there's a real risk that the players will hit
the GM with a nastily surprising question.
There's also the question of what sub-attributes to divide Wealth into.
I think that my six makes sense. Home is 100% "flavour", so that's just
there as an option, labeled "do not waste points upgrading this".
Then there's Equipment, Vehicle, Legal Counsel, Lifestyle and Direct
Spending, with Lifestyle being of limited (but not zero) utility
(travelling, and impressing people).
Is that enough? It recent occured to me that Medical Service could also
be an attribute. But I won't do that. I think that's splitting things
too finely, and that Medical Service as an axis of differentiation will
matter only in very rare cases. Also, surgical aid won't work well as a
"nano-game" at all, I think, unlike court cases.
Collective vehicle owner****p (several PCs pooling their wealth to own a
bigger vehicle than what either one of them could own alone) is an issue
that I have dealt with in the rules. Not necessarily with great
elegance, perhaps, but I've dealt with it and I hope that my solution is
workable.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
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