One thing I got to thinking about today with development was whether or not to use distinct coins, and instead create an abstract Wealth Level. It would make the work on my part much easier, since I won't have to worry about accounting for trade, barter, wages and the like.

The only versions I've really had a chance to play with was D6 Fantasy, Pendragon and Rogue Trader. Do any of you use an abstract wealth system?  What did you like and what didn't you like about it? I'm curious to hear everyones' thoughts on what they prefer.

It depends, where resource management is an important part of the game, like post apocalyptic or games where building wealth is the point of the operation, then I'd use discrete wealth rules, count those dollars. Where wealth is not really important like supers games, I'd use abstract.

It won't vastly reduce your work as designer to go abstract, since you still need to price everything. You're better off putting a coinage price on everything anyway and then assigning a table for eg "x to y amount = low cost" for those cases where players might want to use the real amounts.

One common failing of abstract systems is when someone abuses it to acquire lots and lots of a particular low cost item without affecting their wealth, and then sells them on in bulk to increase their wealth, a little gotcha to watch out for ruleswise. It is potentially possible to shore up within the rules, but its something endemic to any system that avoids accounting wealth.

What Traveller said - it depends on the game.

What I will say is that I ran an abortive Diaspora campaign recently, and really disliked the abstract wealth system. Something about rolling dice to see whether or not you could afford something just made me irritated and seemed totally implausible on its face.

To describe briefly how it works: whenever you buy something you roll dice to see if you can afford it. If you fail the dice roll you take "damage" to your wealth track, although you always get the item. If your wealth track goes down to zero then you are financially dead, and out of the game (bankrupt or whatever). To stop this happening you can buy off the damage by taking on "consequences" like "I owe a moneylender a shit load of cash" or "I maxed out my credit card" or whatever.

I found this intensely annoying partly because I thought it deprived the game of what would have made it interesting - i.e. trading. Diaspora is supposed to be Traveller but with a more modern ruleset, but you can't have an interesting inter-stellar trading game, in my view, without actually tracking wealth in a relatively detailed fashion.

I also didn't like the idea of being "financially dead" - if your character goes bankrupt surely that adds more interest to the game? Why remove the character from play?

In this discussion we mustn't forget one of the major reasons why abstract wealth systems were designed: to stop modern financial manipulations from bogging down settings that feature fully functional economies. Trust me, you can't truly appreciate the virtues of abstraction until you've dealt with players trying for hours to abuse loans, supply and demand, tariffs, insurance, etc.

I don't know about you, but I don't feel like taking an econ course to run a game.

I prefer abstract models if it is done well.

For Fantasy, I vastly prefer keeping actual track of coins.  Abstract wealth systems are better for modern and maybe futuristic games; where systems of personal economy become more complex.

RPGPundit

Agree with Pundit. Abstract wealth doesn't make sense in settings where people are tromping around with nothing but a shirt and a mule to their name. Good for dealing with lines of credit in advanced societies however.

Fantasy doesn't necessarily mean shirt and mule peasants. Eberron has banks and mega corporations, for example. I can see an abstract economy working for it if you were playing a more abstract game system in a fantasy setting.

OTOH, AD&D (1-4th, really) and survival/horror games are built around resource management.

I do kinda wonder about abstract wealth kicking in at the stronghold level, however. Like, you spend 100k of gold, you develop a winery (sort of like in Civ games, here), you get +4 to your stronghold wealth meter.

(obviously I'm unfamiliar with ACKS or I'd use it as a basis of comparison)

Yeah, abstracted wealth basically functions on the idea that you have access to resources that aren't on your person. It works for Supers games because, hey, Clark Kent has a day job. He makes money as a reporter. Bruce Wayne has billions of dollars of his dead ancestors money.

So if your high-level characters have strongholds or businesses, then Abstracted wealth can even work in a system where commoners are subsistence farmers.

Quote from: Imp;566473I do kinda wonder about abstract wealth kicking in at the stronghold level, however. Like, you spend 100k of gold, you develop a winery (sort of like in Civ games, here), you get +4 to your stronghold wealth meter.

(obviously I'm unfamiliar with ACKS or I'd use it as a basis of comparison)

That's what I did with my Albion campaign.  At the level up to and including the high-end merchant class, people are still dealing in pounds and shillings.  But if you become a major landholder (that is, a titled noble of some kind), you have a whole set of new mechanics (attributes for your house) that include "wealth" points, where each single point of wealth is something that could translate into about 200 Pounds, though it doesn't actually mean that someone will necessarily have that floating around in cash, rather it represents the value of their properties, crops, taxation, etc.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;566961That's what I did with my Albion campaign.  At the level up to and including the high-end merchant class, people are still dealing in pounds and shillings.  But if you become a major landholder (that is, a titled noble of some kind), you have a whole set of new mechanics (attributes for your house) that include "wealth" points, where each single point of wealth is something that could translate into about 200 Pounds, though it doesn't actually mean that someone will necessarily have that floating around in cash, rather it represents the value of their properties, crops, taxation, etc.

RPGPundit

That's a really good model for post-renaissance Europe or similar too, there was a lot that could be done simply with a signature then, and plenty of minor nobles running around 'of no obvious means' who, while they might be able to pick up a new suit, might not have a note to tip the bellhop with.

Birthright does something similar where 1 Gold Bar = 2000 Gold Pieces. Still a distinct system where there's a direct conversion ratio, but abstracted in the sense that people are going to be using things along with actual coinage (i.e. letters of credit, in-kind contribution, corvée labor, etc.).

An actual abstract system where defined cost is nebulous and you have to roll to see its effect upon your Wealth HP? Dunno, I don't think I actually played such a system yet. Sounds rather unwieldy. I just thought adding larger currency denominations should do the trick.

And I thought the best way to avoid players gaming local economies is to create a living world where economic exhaustion comes into play. Players dumping a shitload of gold will eventually blow up local inflation, exhaust economic supply chains in the feeding frenzy, and most likely attract stern attention from the local domain powers (who'd gladly tax you into oblivion for disturbing the peace). Actions have consequences; if you want to act like a corporate raider, you better have backing in the court otherwise he with the bigger military will stomp you.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;567099That's a really good model for post-renaissance Europe or similar too, there was a lot that could be done simply with a signature then, and plenty of minor nobles running around 'of no obvious means' who, while they might be able to pick up a new suit, might not have a note to tip the bellhop with.

Precisely.

In my Albion campaigns, PCs roll randomly for class, with the determination scale heavily weighed toward what you could call the "villain" or "burgher" class; so not bonded to the land but not aristocracy, since those would be the most typical for actual adventuring, and being able to get around places.  However, I've had a couple of players luck out and get to be (sons of) knights or minor nobility; the highest so far was the son of a Baron.

The players of those minor nobles were pretty surprised by the fact that they had little money, and on top of that were "not expected" to engage in some of the things (like commerce) that would allow characters of lower social class to be richer than they were.  It took some explaining for them to get that in fact this was a pretty common phenomenon of the times.  After a while, they figured out that what untitled sons of the nobility did get to do was a shitload of mooching; getting stuff from dear old dad, hanging out for free at other noble's castles, and if they were lucky being able to gain offices, often unpaid, that would nevertheless give them priviliges and the opportunity to make money (especially if they're crooked).

RPGPundit

I like that, a favor and privilege system. I guess it helps to bundle that into wealth if you're running a more abstract system. I kinda like how RPGPundit make it sound distinct in setting, though. Sorta enforces the class issues where being sullied with the sphere of commerce is an unappreciated breach of etiquette being in the sphere of military. A common practice worldwide separating spheres of power with less overtly fluid barriers.