RE: Re: Increasing Wealth

From: bernuetz.oliver_at_...
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 15:49:00 -0400

Having reread Alex's post I see the similarities. In defence of my proposal I'll say it has the advantages of :

1. allowing for variable value items. i.e., not every cow is worth a cow. A really good cow might be worth 3 1/2 times a different cow and it's easier to figure out using fixed numerical values.
2. I don't like the abstractness of the proposed mechanism (If I understand it correctly, I apologize if I'm misinterpreting it). So I have a 5W wealth and my fellow party member has a 15 wealth. Now we found something worth 3 wealth and we both want to try and use it to increase our wealth. We both want to add 3 to our wealth. It's easier for him to do it because his value's lower, that's good. But I can roll luckier and get it while he doesn't. That's bad. I think the characters have already used their luck, etc. to get the wealth I don't see the necessity of having luck play a part in spreading the wealth around (once they get permission from their chief, etc.) That's too abstract for me. I see how it fits into the HW system but I don't like it.

Now I agree that my proposal adds a level of complexity to the situation but it doesn't add the need for more complex calculations than addition and subtraction to the equation and it removes a luck element I don't personally like. But saying that if people prefer it another way that's up to them.

The advantage of wealth points are that it makes cross cultural comparison easier than equating value to a commodity. My sword, worth 10 points is worth a cow or 5,000 lunars. Yes, it takes colour away if you describe it that way but if you're already working from a cow=10 wealth points or whatever it's easy enough to still refer to items being worth so many cows while keeping calculations relatively easy. And totally removing luck if you want to.

I fully understand a hatred of tables but (admitting a sad personal shortcoming) I personally hate doing mathematical calculations beyond addition and subtraction when I'm running a roleplaying campaign.

Oliver
-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Ferguson [mailto:abf_at_...]
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 2:03 PM To: hw-rules_at_yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: Re: Increasing Wealth

bernuetz.oliver_at_...:

> 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.

Well, this is pretty much what I had in mind, except that it unnecessarily introduces another, different abstraction. Rather than "wealth points", better to make the non-logside something _concrete_ in game world terms, even if that necessarily makes them a "commodity" (like cows) rather than something completely cut and dried.

I'll wait a couple of days to see if anyone has any specific suggestions, then I'll let fly with a sample table, for the sake of argument...

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