Thread by @AzurePimpernel

I made the mistake of looking at the #dnd next subreddit, and apparently it's every player and GM's fault that they don't know what to do with gold.

Here's why that's not actually accurate. Welcome to the MicroEconomicon: a #ttrpg thread about all your damn gold.

Designing currency and wealth mechanics in any game is a challenge depending on the route you go with. Games that use abstracted currency tend to suffer less of it because they have, through abstraction, emphasized that wealth will not be granular, nor will it be a major focus.

Games like D&D or #Pathfinder2e where you track each copper, silver, gold, and platinum piece (or Nocticula forbid electrum) are telling you every piece of currency matters. In Princes of the Apocalypse, you crack open a tomb and voila, 600 gold is yours (or at least 150 of it).

5e tells us that 150 gold three vials of the least powerful potions you can use to heal yourself. But the more expensive ones we have this weird sliding scale found in the DMG; a book written with DMs, in mind. If you want more healing than that you need to bug your DM.

This is where Pathfinder 2e actually excels, the information for many of these common magical items are in the Core Rulebook with the intention of the prices being easily accessible knowledge. Paizo's devs understood the assignment: Gold must be a resource and it needs to work.

What the 5e DMG doesn't stress enough is that this sliding scale of pricing comes after several sections on building your own world and your own game. What they do not really emphasize is that currency in your game will have a different importance depending on your setting.

5e is designed to be setting agnostic, Pathfinder 2e can be setting agnostic, but is written with the intention of operating within Golarion and its Adventure Paths. In order to use PF2e in other settings they must generally assume the same style of fantasy as Golarion.

Where 5e went wrong in their pricing is that they COULD have rather than a scale given a table that is labeled for low fantasy (i.e. high item prices) or high fantasy (lower item prices). Because 5e is designed in such a way magic items are all optional.

By not understanding these fundamental facets, it is wild to me that there is a whole camp of people who think that if your table has nothing to do with their gold that's on them. "Spend it on the characters' backstories" was in the main rant which baffles me as gold is acquired

in play. What I think this shoddy design apologist means is: "Your character went home and bought a new couch that cost 200 gold." I normally try to be really nice, and while that is a thing you could do, that would be a horribly idiotic implementation of a major mechanic.

Within the first 5 chapters of the PHB we're given several tables of things to use in adventures. The book primes the players with the idea that gold funds your adventurers and your characters' abilities to complete them, whether it is arcane foci, weapons. travel, lodging, etc.

The idea that this will suddenly cease to be true demonstrates a grave lack of understanding of the fiction of the game. You start your adventures fighting wolves, zombies, and the occasional bandit. In what world would you not buy the right gear to fight a FUCKING DRAGON.

Back to PF2e, if a level 20 non-fighter martial character wants to fight the most powerful ancient red dragon, without a magic weapon in hand, they have to roll a 16 to hit it and will only do 10-22 damage of the dragon's 445 HP. That means the dragon takes 28 hits on average.

Even if each character in a four person party hits it once a turn, that's 7 rounds of combat. In that time, the dragon has to roll at most a 5 to hit any of our non-magic item bearing party members, and as low as a 2, dealing over 50 damage a hit on average.

The dragon's breath weapon, on average deals 111 damage. The sturdiest Barbarian will have roughly 350 HP, which is impressive, but because of their rage, the dragon can crit them on a roll of 11 or higher on its first attack in a turn, dealing on avg over 100 damage per hit.

Subsequent attacks? Hits on 5, and again on a 9. Crits on a 15, and again on a 19. That poor barbarian is liable to take at least 200 damage in a single turn with the dragon going ham on them, meaning the barbarian doesn't survive a whole two turns alone.

This is where those magic items make a huge difference. The bonuses and effects afforded by them need to be accessible otherwise Pathfinder quickly becomes PCGrinder at higher levels. You might think, "Well that's on the GM to make sure they have," etc. Kind of. It's more nuanced

The game should be designed in such a way that the players know these things can be located and obtained with the resources they get during their adventures, and the GM should have an easy means of awarding treasure AND empowering players to prepare themselves.

I think it's great that dragons are formidable and deadly, they should be. But 5e relying on people who might be new to GMing and the core principles of running a scaffolded progression while trying to evoke a similar game experience is just shoddy game design. Not every GM is

a degree holding economist. Even though they made 5e "nostalgic" of 3.5, they threw out valuable work. While it might have taken a little extra work, Monte Cook & Co. invented the framework for 5e's economy back in 3.5. Gold didn't have to radically change.

That may be the most egregious sin of edition changes, throwing out what worked in favor of reinventing the wheel while keeping broken pieces of antiquity. If you want individual gold pieces, you damn well could have transposed the same amount, and no, it shouldn't be on a DM

to go buy all the 3.5 books to have a functioning economy either. Wizards OWNS that and has it at their disposal. 5e's design choices baffle me. There are so many abstractions its developers yearn to make but they are overly attached to pieces they want to be rid of.

So, no, 5e DMs, it's not on you/your players to make gold interesting or "work". It's been dumped on you by a ruleset that expects you to make your own fun because they can't guarantee you'll want enjoy their way. They don't want to put you off, but they'll put you on the spot.

*equals three vials

*Can't guarantee that you'll want to play/or enjoy it their way.

Coffee is next to you, Azure. Please drink it.