Post/Author/DateTime	Post
fig314 02-18-08, 03:10 PM	I recently had a chance to see how wealth has been changed in Modern (I haven’t played d20 in a while). It’s interesting, and I like it. At least, you don’t have to run around counting coins anymore. What I don’t understand is the bit in “Lifestyle Gear” that says the characters don’t have to worry about mortgage payments, it just replaces their “rent” which is covered in the Wealth section. But, I saw nothing in the Wealth section that talks about rent. Is it just “understood” that their rent is paid and not actually part of the game? I’d like to use this in my group, but we’re looking to do things a bit differently for our next game and I’m wondering how I could make an abstract wealth system work. What we are planning is to have a more resource-driven campaign. It’s not going to be the foundation of the game, but a real concern. While they won’t have to worry about paying bills per se, we were thinking along the lines of a monthly maintenance fee. I suppose that I could just have them make wealth checks every month, but I don’t see the point unless I set the DC high enough that failure is a very real possibility. If I do that (and they fail), what then? Eviction? Furthermore, what would be the incentive of living in a nice place? They might as well take a low-maintenance craphole, right? Overall, it seems that there isn’t a whole lot of risk involved in the abstract wealth system. I can also see a variety of ways it could be abused. I mean, it’s great if economic resources are not meant to be a large part of the game. But has anyone (who puts a little more emphasis on economics) maybe retooled the system a bit for their own games? I’m interested to hear what people have done with this.
Cinanev 03-14-08, 11:02 PM	The wealth system on first blush looks pretty broke and wide open for abuse. A simple money system such as I have $30,000 and I spend $20,000 to buy my new car is pretty strait forward. The concete of the wealth system is that in addition to cash on hand a character also has access to credit cards, mortgages, lease agreements, lines of credit, and so on. This means that a character with $30,000 cash could also have a access to various forms of credit totaling over $300,000. That would mean a character could spend $20,000 cash for a car and then leverage credit to buy a $200,000 house, $50,000 in house furnishings, and $60,000 in various equipment. They now have no disposable income (wealth bonus +0) but are able to maintain everything they now possess through cash and credit. The idea is to remove the extra book keeping from play that says a character is $300,000 in debt, their job gives them $15,500/mo, spend $500/mo on food and gas, and they make $15,000/mo in various debt payments. Now it is just a wealth bonus that accounts for all these elements at once and that extra burden is lifted from the game. Now your twist here is to add the threat of too few financial resources for the player(s) to keep what they have together. In this case I would break out the above example as a general game element to force financial choices on the players. Up front it requires a little math to figure out the value of what the players possess but once you have that value it is easy to figure out the financial points. Wealth bonus = level of disposable income, use the cost DC chart to convert 10 + (wealth bonus), this is the amount of disposable income a character has each month. For greater financial threat you can reduce the 10 to a lower number to reach a more dire financial situation. Asset value = the total price of all possessions a player has as reflected by their individual purchase DC. Debt payments = this is the aggregate of all debts the player makes payments on each month. This figure is 1/20 the Asset Value reflecting cash and credit acquisitions. Income = the character's employment provides them an amount equal to their Debt Payments + Disposable Income (from wealth bonus). Now the character has a glaring figure in front of them highlighting the stark reality of their financial situation. When they acquire a boon such as a cash reward they can then use it to pay off debt providing a bonus to their wealth bonus, thereby showing an increase in disposable income and a reduction in debt payments by this new level, income level did not change. Alternately a character can use a cash boon to purchase new items directly (per purchase DC value) and nothing changes for wealth bonus or debt payments, but the asset value increases accordingly. When a character sells an asset they lose the debt payment associated with it and increase their disposable income thereby increasing their wealth bonus. While this seems needlessly complex, it becomes even more complex when you reduce games to an exercise in financial accounting rather than adventuring. Believe me, to work with a realistic modern monetary system you will spend upwards of half your game time just running balance sheets. Not fun.