>> If I have to puzzle over what every bit of treasure or cow is worth
>> to the players by doing "only if" sorts of pondering I certainly
>> haven't had my work made any easier.
>Rather than work out what every bit of treasure is, or exactly how
>many cows they own at any given point in time you just use wealth.
>"You manage to pick the lock on the chest - Inside is a whole pile of
>coins and gemstones - you'd estimate them to be worth around 5 wealth"
>or "While you were out adventuring the Black Oaks raided your stead
>and made off with 7 Wealth's worth of cattle..."
I still would like some idea of how many gems or coins that is, at least a rough idea.
>> What effect does having an iron chain hauberk and sword have on
>> your wealth?
>Very little unless you want to sell them!
I disagree, these things are worth something and potential wealth has to be accounted for especially if this system is going to work in societies where a person's worth isn't measured in cattle. An Issaries wealth isn't going to be measured in just cows either.
>You run an adventure in which a player "acquires" said items. The
>player decides to keep it and spends a HP to "cement" the item. Why
>should he get a "free" wealth rise as well? Of course if he wants to
>spend a HP to increase his wealth he could justify it as being
>related as his new shiny toys show him to be a rich and successful
>adventurer...
Why should he have to pay for it twice though if you accept that these things are elements of wealth and I think they should be.
>>Wealth isn't supposed to be actual cash value.
>Exactly. That's why questions like "How much wealth does raiding
>three cows get me" are extremely difficult to answer!
I think we need approximations though to make it easier on us narrators. Maybe a points=wealth system like Alex's proposed Big Table.
>>An owned cow should be worth as much as a sold cow.
>I don't follow. If I own a Cow then it will cost me something in
>terms of food and care (While I'm looking after the cow I'm not doing
>anything else that might make me money). It will also earn me
>something (in terms of milk, calves and possibly meat, leather, horn
>etc). If I sell the cow then I'll stop incurring the costs, but also
>stop earning me the income. If the income is > the cost then it is
>worth me having the cow. If the cost is > the income then I should
>sell it and take the money.
It's all a question of assets. If wealth equals your assets or net worth then a cow is a cow is a cow. Now you could sell it and get cash I guess or goods but the value is the same. Yes a cow or a thrall bring income but the connection between income and wealth isn't that direct. Ugh, this is getting uglier and uglier.
>But this is far to involved for what is supposedly a fast "adventure"
>system like HW, so we just abstract it all to wealth and say "I have
>12 Wealth of Cows", and assume that I sell or slaughter
>"unproductive" cows and buy sufficient new ones that are not replaced
>naturally to maintain that level unless I do something to increase or
>decrease my wealth
I agree it's getting too involved but something so simplistic that it over generalizes everything doesn't really help us much. We can't get stuck on wealth equals cows but it doesn't always.
>> If we have to worry about potential value and sold value this is
>> worse than the old lunars system.
>
>The trick is not to worry about them at all, just like most
>Roleplayers I know don't worry about living expenses "Between"
>adventures (You earn 1000gp/lunars/credits in adventure 1. Adventure
>2 takes place "later" (once everyone has healed and trained) and
>opens in a bar - you buy a drink for 1 gp/l/c and carefully amend you
>r character sheet to read 999 ....)
That's fine and I agree that wealth level should cover that. What the present wealth system doesn't cover very well is adding to that level.
What I think might work, though it's a big departure, is to set wealth level as a logarythmic scale like those used for values in Master Book. A given wealth level is assigned a value number, say 5W is equal to 320 wealth points. Individual items like cows, iron hauberks etc., can be assigned numbers, e.g. a cow is worth 5 points. Now adding a cow is easy, your wealth points are now 325 and better or worse cows can be worth more or less. However the next step in wealth 6W is actually 384 points so adding one cow doesn't affect you much while if your wealth was say only 12 which would be a rating of 48 adding a cow has more of an effect.
The chart could look like this and all you would need is this and a wealth point chart for items.
Wealth Wealth Points Increase to next point (i.e. up to wealth 6, 7, 8, etc.)
5 20 4 10 40 8 15 80 16 W 160 32 5W 320 64 10W 640
This means you can still fairly easily determine the value of things and change wealth BUT people with higher wealth ratings have a harder time getting it higher. You still keep your nice neat wealth value number but it's much easier to add things to it since you still do calculations using the base numbers rather than the wealth point number.
What do people think?
Oliver
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