Has anyone come up with/seen a good generalized “wealth” mechanic for any PbtA games? As opposed to counting barter/coin/etc. Bonus points if you include links.
I’m sure I’ve seen some, but I’m drawing blanks on anything other than Adventure World.
Thanks!
I haven’t really seen any.
I think just having a Wealth or Riches supply and making moves around Roll +Riches spent as appropriate to the settlement or the like would work. A swap meet could be all about other rolls to determine at the end what you need to swap in Riches vs. goods you’ve traded.
The biggest issue is that across the different PbtA games scarcity has a different roll and focuses on different things. In Monster Hearts being poor means something much different than being poor as an adult in Tremulus which is much different than having less barter than others in Apocalypse World.
Tim Groth absolutely any good system is going to be specific to and influenced by the setting & themes. I’m looking for examples & inspiration of how it’s been done or might be done.
Ah, got confused by generalized.
Mostly I saw a swap based market thing that really played up Hot and Cool (Acting Under (sales) Pressure) to do neat scenes where you try to barter your way to what you want with what you’ve got. Plus trying to convince people you’re good for a favor in the future.
Dragon World (http://yarukizerogames.com/2012/09/01/dragon-world-hack-v0-2/) has a wealth thing geared towards its silly fantasy genre. The group has a Wealth stat that they use for the Buy Stuff move, and which fluctuates depending on finding treasure and spending money. There’s also special kinds of treasure that have moves that influence how it works, so for example if you run into a vault with more treasure than you can carry, you roll+Mighty to see what effect it has on your Wealth stat.
It depends on what the game is about and what wealth is supposed to represent. Like, in AW it doesn’t need to be any more specific than Barter; because players aren’t out shopping. They occasionally need to go looking for something specific and there’s a good chance that it comes ‘strings attached,’ as the book says. In a dungeoncrawling game, players are there for the gold and they should earn it. They buy stuff; they buy horses and weapons and lanterns and crap. So let’s track their wealth.
So like, really, ask if your game even NEEDS a wealth mechanic. Is it important to the story? Is there a genuine risk every time they buy something? If not, don’t roll +money or something. Just let them buy it. If it’s about scarcity, figure out how you want to represent that and what system makes the best sense for that particular hack and what it’s trying to evoke. This is why I dislike Tremulus’ Wealth mechanic: it is completely divorced from what the game is about. Scarcity is not core to that game; thus no need for a Wealth roll.
You’re aware of Burning Wheel Resources, Jeremy Strandberg?
Ewen Cluney perfect, thanks! I’ll check it out.
Michael Prescott I’m actually not. Is it much different than Torchbearer?
Eon Fontes-May Yup, I’m well aware of the design considerations. Let’s assume I’ve decided I need one and I’m looking for ways to implement it. (I’d forgotten Tremulus had one, so I’ll check it out. I’ve barely looked at that book.)
Burning Wheel and Torchbearer are very different, but BW resources work much the same – wealth (including abstract things like the ability to tap nameless friends for credit) is a stat, and you try to hit tests of various obstacles to buy cheap or expensive things.
Here’s a good article on dealing with wealth in DW. Tremulus also has a wealth mechanic.
http://davidschirduan.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-power-of-abstraction.html
I don’t recommend tremulus’ mechanic- it’s just Barter with a new name. Assuming, then, that you don’t just want to track currency, it’s not a bad move to roll + Wealth Spent and on a 7-9 there are strings and favors attached. A miss is a straight hard move. Don’t use it for everyday items, just for important and rare stuff, y’know?
The Hood has debts. It doesn’t track wealth per se, it tracks what the players owe each other and owe NPCs. It works really well.
I think Black Star Rises has that.
Here’s a move I wrote for my hack which makes you ultra wealthy:
“Your coffers are bottomless and you live your life in impossible opulence. You have limitless stocks of anything money can buy. If no one of roughly equivalent power is devoting themselves to keeping something out of your hands, you can get it without trouble.”
There’s some wealth moves in the Magnate character class, you could check those out.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/129989/Johnstones-Dungeon-World-Character-Classes