>> 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.
>Sure, not all cows are worth a cow (as it were). Nevertheless a
>Heortling would understand what you're trying to convey if you said
>"I'll offer you five cows for that boat". (More so than "That thing
>isn't worth the clacks it'd take to sink it, arguably.)
I wasn't trying to say that Heortlings wouldn't refer to value using cows. Of course they would. I was trying to suggest a less abstract alternative to the wealth system presented in HW.
>> 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.
>Your description is fairly accurate. Note that I did say the player _or
>the narrator_ would choose the desired augmentation size: if I
>were narrating it, and the rich player seemed to be "chancing his arm"
>unduly, I'd ask him what funky venture capital scheme it was he was
>investing those cows in that might have such a dramatic increase in
>his total wealth... (Alternatively you could make the size of the
>increase attempt automatic, by on of ye famous "divide by five and
>subtract a kludge konstant mechanics...)
This is fine if you want to roll for everything (not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that) but what if you just want to add three cows to your herd? Or just want to say I've got a new gold torc, etc., etc. That's the minor I suppose advantage my suggestion has.
>> 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.
>Well, this is just as easily represented, and much better described,
>by observing that a cow is worth 200 guilders, and that there are
>1.13 guilders to the Imperial, yadda-yadda... "Wealth points" is
>just relating one abstract quantity to another (the logarithmic rating
>and the "points" they correspond to"), which really is a little
>unsupportable: let's have one, or the other, but not both...
I was never trying to imply that the narrator wouldn't describe items and wealth in local terms. I was just suggesting something that might work across cultures. Sure it's abstract. The only advantage that I see is that assigning points to wealth is that it allows you to easily add stuff to your wealth and makes it harder to boost your wealth level once you're really rich without having to resort to some augmentation table (sure this has more tables involved but less math). Obviously it's more concrete than the HW system but I really don't like the way wealth works the way it is. But I'll stop inflicting this on others now since I'm in a minority of one on this.
Have a good one,
Oliver
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