I'll try and tie a load of answers together here...
Alex says
>But the thing is, "You see three cows." "I abscond with them at
>considerable velocity." is a lot more descriptively direct and
>evocative than "After your raid on the Venyr clan, and your wise
>investments on the Boldhome futures exchange, you get a net +2
>wealth".
Yep. This is the flaw in an otherwise cunning plan! Likewise, PC's may well be hired for less hard cash than amounts to a wealth increment...
Jeff says
>I'd just say, 'Got a HP?' Great! The 3 cows turn into +3 wealth!
>And you can go and spent other HP on your reputation and
>kiss-up-to-the-chief skills. That's pretty much how I handle
>situations like that.
Sounds good to me, although I think the issue at hand is more to do with "why +3" than the method for converting one to another...
Alex again
>I think the Wealth numbers in HW are, unfortunately, seriously
>broken. Or at the very best, they work only in terms of "buying
>resistances"
I'm not sure I'd agree with "seriously broken", although, yes I think they're intended to work in terms of "buying stuff"... Heroes are supposed to have more important/fun stuff to do than sit around counting their cows etc.
>A variant I'm been thinking of is what one might call "differential
>augments". The concept is that in some situations, you get a law
>of diminishing returns: for example, if all of your clanmates
>"augment" you on a HQ, you don't get 1000 separate +1's
Sounds good to me!
Oliver replies to me
>>"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"
>
>I still would like some idea of how many gems or coins that is, at
>least a rough idea.
Why, a chestful, of course!
>>The player decides to keep it and spends a HP to "cement" the item.
>>Why should he get a "free" wealth rise as well?
>
>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.
Because he is getting the benefit of use. He could have chosen to "Trade in" the items for wealth directly if he wanted wealth.
>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.
Hmm, why not call them "Lunars" and have done with it? You'll be wanting to roll on a "Cattle (and other livestock) Survival Table" for every animal you own each year too, since the value of a herd can go down as well as up...
-- +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Tim Ellis EMail tim_at_... | | What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations? | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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