Fotget about the treasure and pricing system of 5E!

[UrielAwakened]

5E is a throwback towards earlier editions, before an attempt was made to turn it into a cohesive fantasy world simulation engine. Now, it's just a game.

Yeah you say that but there are dumb rules for owning a kingdom and paying soldiers and waging war so really there are still rules for dumb stuff to do in your downtime just not stuff that actually helps progress your character.

[Mikal]

4) what the heck is the rest of the party doing while you play shopkeep?
4a) you don't spend any table time on this. That would imply a steady 900GP return without any intervention. Yeah, that's broken. Veto (as either DM or another player).
4b) you spend table time on this. Boring for the rest of the party. Veto (as either DM or another player).

4a- Why Veto? 900 gp isn't too expensive at that level... and honestly, what does it break? What are they going to spend it on that's so disruptive?

4b- You can literally spend 5 minutes of table time either before or after the main session, so not that boring.

I mean I get it. You just want to have a murder-hobo game where it's "Go here. Kill this. Take that. Wash, rinse repeat." but that doesn't mean others don't want more.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yeah you say that but there are dumb rules for owning a kingdom and paying soldiers and waging war so really there are still rules for dumb stuff to do in your downtime just not stuff that actually helps progress your character.

You're defining "helps progress your character" in a way that differs from the 5e norm.

You seem to want explicit mechanical benefits for off-camera activities. That doesn't mesh well with this system (which wants those things to come from on-camera activities).

That, or you want the "owning a kingdom and paying soldiers and waging war" to be on-camera time, which is horribly boring for the rest of the party that might have other goals.

[PhoenixPhyre]

4a- Why Veto? 900 gp isn't too expensive at that level... and honestly, what does it break? What are they going to spend it on that's so disruptive?

4b- You can literally spend 5 minutes of table time either before or after the main session, so not that boring.

I mean I get it. You just want to have a murder-hobo game where it's "Go here. Kill this. Take that. Wash, rinse repeat." but that doesn't mean others don't want more.

4a. Because if one character is getting a large reward for no in-game effort, that's completely unbalanced if it can translate into on-camera advantage.

4b. that's no different that taking it during downtime, see 4a.

Your straw-mans of my style aside, I want the entire party to be engaged with active adventures during table time, whether those are exploration, social, or combat (the 3 pillars). Crafting and merchant activities are none of those, so they're relegated to downtime.

The DMG is explicit that downtime shouldn't substitute for adventure (3 pillars) time and should consume, not generate, money. That comes from the basic philosophy of 5e, which you disagree with. But that's not a system issue. That's you using it for something it doesn't claim to do (and in fact claims you shouldn't do with it).

[molten_dragon]

Ahm...has anybody that replied until here even read the article I linked? At least, read the paragraph "Value of Gold" and you will understand what I tralking about.

Lifestyle costs are so trivial compared to the wealth the PCs are expected to gain that they are utterly meaningless after some levels. Of course, you can always say "Hm...I like being rich. But if "there’s really nothing to do with treasure other than pile it up and sleep on it", you aren't rich. Instead, you could also collect stones and tell yourself you would be rich.

Read the article, because it's hardly possible to explain it in a better way than Angry GM does. Read it. It's worth it!

There is a fundamental flaw in the article. It make the point that game design should work regardless of what the DM does. i.e. one shouldn't have to be an experienced designer to run the system.

And then he starts ranting about treasure and forgets that. D&D gives you a perfectly clear upgrade path for equipment. You get gold, and you buy magic items with it. If you weren't supposed to buy them with gold, they wouldn't be given prices in the book. If DM's choose not to allow players to buy equipment with their gold, that's a DM problem, not a system problem.

And I'll point out that I've been playing and DM'ing D&D (and Pathfinder) since about 2000. I've played with dozens, if not hundreds of different people. And I've never once run into a DM that refused to allow magic items to be purchased with gold.

[UrielAwakened]

You're defining "helps progress your character" in a way that differs from the 5e norm.

You seem to want explicit mechanical benefits for off-camera activities. That doesn't mesh well with this system (which wants those things to come from on-camera activities).

That, or you want the "owning a kingdom and paying soldiers and waging war" to be on-camera time, which is horribly boring for the rest of the party that might have other goals.

I either want rules for both or rules for neither.

[Mikal]

4a. Because if one character is getting a large reward for no in-game effort, that's completely unbalanced if it can translate into on-camera advantage.

4b. that's no different that taking it during downtime, see 4a.

What advantage? Gold is essentially worthless in 5e minus lifestyle expenses which people can easily afford from dungeon crawling.
If someone wants to have more worthless gold what advantage are they getting exactly?

Your straw-mans of my style aside, I want the entire party to be engaged with active adventures during table time, whether those are exploration, social, or combat (the 3 pillars). Crafting and merchant activities are none of those, so they're relegated to downtime.

Do you want your players to be able to do more than go adventure? Do you want for them to be able to actually build infrastructure?
If not, then it's murder-hobo style. Your PCs wander from place to place, kill things, take their stuff.

Your own quote earlier in the thread also points to wanting to be a murder-hobo, just couched in friendlier terms

But yes, the actual books make it fairly clear that it's about exploration and fighting monsters.

Emphasis on above is mine. In other words, going from place to place, killing things, taking their stuff. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. The classic murder-hobo lifestyle.

The DMG is explicit that downtime shouldn't substitute for adventure (3 pillars) time and should consume, not generate, money. That comes from the basic philosophy of 5e, which you disagree with. But that's not a system issue. That's you using it for something it doesn't claim to do (and in fact claims you shouldn't do with it).

Gold is worthless in 5e. If people want to have a sideline to make more of it, what of the "3 pillars" does having a business actually negate, when that profit is less than what said adventurer gets in a single dungeon crawl, and they can't spend it on anything anyway?

If you're playing a murder-hobo style of game, I guess it could lower things since you aren't constantly going from Raid to Raid with your guild MMO style, but if you actually have any sort of imagination as a DM you could use it to expand the pillars of play.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I either want rules for both or rules for neither.

You've got rules for neither already--the rules as they exist are purely optional. As a player, just ignore them. As a DM, don't worry about them.

Rules for both would be in contravention of the basic philosophy of 5e (namely it takes focus away from the active adventuring). Read the first few chapters of the DMG. It's explicit that the point of the world being built is to play the backdrop for adventures (social, combat, and/or exploration). Everything should support that.

5e is not a world simulator. It's not designed to be. Trying to make it one is like using a race car to pull a trailer. It can, in principle, be done, but it's inefficient, bad for the car, and probably more expensive than acquiring a proper vehicle for the purpose. There are many other games that do castles, mass combat, logistics, etc. better than D&D (in any edition) even has. That's not the focus of 5e. Even when it was a possible endgame (1e), reaching those levels usually entailed retiring the character from active play.

I have a character whose goal is to create a new high elven House (clan, major family, whatever). This will take significant resources, so he's focused on that. But that's a retirement plan, by construction. Being the leader of such an organization is a desk job, just like being a General or an Admiral. Once you hit a certain rank in the Air Force, you're no longer flying planes (adventuring). You're at a desk or in meetings (being an NPC).

The developers have been very clear that they don't intend to fully support your proposed play style. If you want a subsystem, you're going to have to make it yourself. It will be difficult, because it requires swimming against the philosophy that guides the rest of the system.

[Meta]

RAW is meaningless.

Interesting view. If RAW doesn't mean anything why are you playing 5e?

The new book has rules for downtime. It's in the table of contents. Downtime activities are a supported part of 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. This is a fact. Will the printed rules be different than what is in the UA? I dunno, maybe? But to say that downtime activity is not a part of 5th edition is factually incorrect. People can use those at their tables and are playing 5th edition as intended, regardless of your attempts to paint it otherwise.

In our group, RAW is the foundation upon which we build our house. We thought it was strange that selling a potion or other consumable is worth the same as selling a permanent item of the same rarity. So we changed that rule. It seems workable for now. I'm happy to read other people's thoughts. "RAW is meaningless" doesn't strike me as a particularly discussion-conducive sentiment, though.

EDIT: Whoever said downtime was only for spending gold and not making it is incorrect. Gambling, Pit Fighting, and Crime all focus on gaining gold.

[Willie the Duck]

5e expects you to track the precise number of coins you have in five different denominations, plus gems. That's acceptable in an economic simulator; it's incredibly irritating when the money is largely pointless pas the first few levels.

That has been the case in all iterations of D&D. I'm not sure which if any of those would be considered an economic simulator. As to irritating, one part of D&D that some people really really like (and others find irritating) is the challenge/reward subgame of how much equipment do you cart down into the dungeon, knowing you will either have to abandon it (and consider it a sunk cost), or have less encumbrance left to cart up treasure (and is the last of the copper pieces worth lowering your speed for, etc.). This is especially a concern in the early game, where you won't have bags of holding or employees at the ready (and is when the gold is most valuable to you). This precise record keeping and hard decisions are a perfect example of what I am talking about with D&D having multiple audiences with directly contradicting preferences.

The company system of REIGN should be interpreted less as a company in the sense of a corporation and more in the sense of a company as a large group (although it can be a mercantile organization of some sort).
REIGN also doesn't use GP or anything similar - because money isn't a major focus it wasn't given particularly detailed mechanics, and instead you work with abstract Wealth and Treasure ratings.

Good to know. But doesn't that make it a pretty distant comparison point for either 3e/PF style gold mechanics or 5e?

I wouldn't trust the market that much as an indicator of design quality - marketing, network effects, brand recognition, and other factors are much larger factors in terms of product success.

This may be a difference in perspective rather than a an actual dispute. However, I strongly do not believe in any grand 'theory of game design' or anything similar. These games, like art, have quality determined only by cultural consensus. There is no metric of quality other than whether or not people want to play it.

As for decoupling gold from advancement, that's not my beef with 5e. It's turning money into a low importance peripheral mechanic while keeping it complicated enough to require a lot of tedious accounting (again, five coin types tracked separately). From a design perspective, mechanical weight is essentially a resource. It should be spent more heavily on the major focuses of the game.

Okay, that I can see. OTOH, gold is only low importance if those plot coupons or money sinks aren't a part of your game. If gold and wealth do not have a lot of importance in a given campaign or gaming group, they can be ignored. It becomes optional (theoretically true for 3e/PF, but it has serious downstream effects, not least of which because some classes are more magic item-dependent than others).

1e AD&D had an elaborate mechanism for tracking slight behavioral influences on one's alignment, including a tic-off sheet where you could slowly slide from, say, neutral good to chaotic good. If alignment was not a big part of the campaign, that section could be safely ignored. A game having an optional subsystem of which I have no use, I rarely consider it a mark against the game.

ACKS meanwhile can get away with it, because ACKS is a convoluted economic engine with a dungeon crawling game wrapped around it.

ACKS can get away with it because everyone bellying up to the table to play ACKS has the goal of playing a game with those features as a major focus. D&D has many many masters, each of which have different demands.

[Mikal]

That has been the case in all iterations of D&D.

OD&D used gold and treasure as experience, and in fact was one of the main ways to gain it. You also had strongholds in this edition to spend it.
AD&D had plenty of options in the rules for spending your gold, including NWP training, class training, stronghold building, and so on.
3.x had plenty of options for spending gold as well, including stronghold building, item creation and purchase, and so on.
4e... I have no idea on. Pass.
5e has the least (unless 4e has even less) support on what to spend your hard earned cash on or having it be a reward in and of itself.

So out of 5 (numbered) editions we have gold that...

1) Is your main way of gaining levels at high level
2) Has lots of sinks baked into the main rules
3) Is needed to make sure you are properly geared for your level and also had lots of sinks added in supplements

Gold and treasure... has had importance in all previous editions (not counting 4th again as I don't know it) of D&D to varying degrees.

[Meta]

That has been the case in all iterations of D&D. I'm not sure which if any of those would be considered an economic simulator. As to irritating, one part of D&D that some people really really like (and others find irritating) is the challenge/reward subgame of how much equipment do you cart down into the dungeon, knowing you will either have to abandon it (and consider it a sunk cost), or have less encumbrance left to cart up treasure (and is the last of the copper pieces worth lowering your speed for, etc.). This is especially a concern in the early game, where you won't have bags of holding or employees at the ready (and is when the gold is most valuable to you). This precise record keeping and hard decisions are a perfect example of what I am talking about with D&D having multiple audiences with directly contradicting preferences.

Chris Perkins (he writes the books) DMs for a group that does exactly this on stage at PAX. Playing the modules he has written. For WotC. They had at least 15 minutes of a session where they debated how to best get as much giant sized treasure out to their airship in a timely fashion. What could be worth transporting, what wasn't. But I mean hey, what do they know about DnD.

[Tanarii]

That, or you want the "owning a kingdom and paying soldiers and waging war" to be on-camera time, which is horribly boring for the rest of the party that might have other goals.

Nonsense. For a long time, it was core to higher level D&D for many players. And for many players it still is.

Just because many newer players want to murderhero or murderhobo for their entire career doesn't mean we should assume that's the default. People with your attitude is precisely why we ended up with the Magic Mart and Gear Upgrade Treadmill in the first place. Luckily 5e has done away with that, and gold can once again be used for its primary purpose: investing in conquest. Well, at least it's a reasonable option now, for groups that don't just want to murderhobo an entire campaign up to 20, then retire them and start a new campaign for the next murderhobos.

[Willie the Duck]

OD&D used gold and treasure as experience, and in fact was one of the main ways to gain it. You also had strongholds in this edition to spend it.
AD&D had plenty of options in the rules for spending your gold, including NWP training, class training, stronghold building, and so on.
3.x had plenty of options for spending gold as well, including stronghold building, item creation and purchase, and so on.
4e... I have no idea on. Pass.
5e has the least (unless 4e has even less) support on what to spend your hard earned cash on or having it be a reward in and of itself.

So out of 5 (numbered) editions we have gold that...

1) Is your main way of gaining levels at high level
2) Has lots of sinks baked into the main rules
3) Is needed to make sure you are properly geared for your level and also had lots of sinks added in supplements

Gold and treasure... has had importance in all previous editions (not counting 4th again as I don't know it) of D&D to varying degrees.

When I said, "That has been the case in all iterations of D&D," I was responding to the statement that 5e expects you to track the precise number of coins and the 5 denominations, plus gems. I don't see how what you've stated is related to that point, so I do not know why you are quoting me here.

I made clear what gp was used for in other edition on the first page of this thread.

Can you rephrase what point you think you are making that you think I am unaware of or contradicting?

[Mikal]

When I said, "That has been the case in all iterations of D&D," I was responding to the statement that 5e expects you to track the precise number of coins and the 5 denominations, plus gems. I don't see how what you've stated is related to that point, so I do not know why you are quoting me here.

Ah. I'm sorry. The quote you had responded to had ended with (paraphrased) "gold is all but useless after the first few levels" so I thought you were saying that was always the case. My apologies. Deleted the post.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Interesting view. If RAW doesn't mean anything why are you playing 5e?

The new book has rules for downtime. It's in the table of contents. Downtime activities are a supported part of 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. This is a fact. Will the printed rules be different than what is in the UA? I dunno, maybe? But to say that downtime activity is not a part of 5th edition is factually incorrect. People can use those at their tables and are playing 5th edition as intended, regardless of your attempts to paint it otherwise.

In our group, RAW is the foundation upon which we build our house. We thought it was strange that selling a potion or other consumable is worth the same as selling a permanent item of the same rarity. So we changed that rule. It seems workable for now. I'm happy to read other people's thoughts. "RAW is meaningless" doesn't strike me as a particularly discussion-conducive sentiment, though.

EDIT: Whoever said downtime was only for spending gold and not making it is incorrect. Gambling, Pit Fighting, and Crime all focus on gaining gold.

And those rules will be marked optional, just like the ones in the DMG. Because all DM rules are optional. They're not player rules. They're DM options. They only exist in-world if the DM decides they do.

Downtime is just that. Downtime. Not intended to take table time or be a significant power boost.

To quote the DMG:

Your players might be interested in pursuing downtime activities that aren't covered in this chapter or in the Player's Handbook. If you invent new downtime activities, remember the following:

• An activity should never negate the need or desire for characters to go on adventures.
• Activities that have a monetary cost associated with them provide opportunities for player characters to spend their hard-won treasure.
• Activities that reveal new adventure hooks and previously unknown facts about your campaign can help you foreshadow future events and conflicts.
• SNIPPED mplementation details

Point 1 is key--downtime is downtime. It shouldn't be the focus of the game. Point 2 is about one of the reasons for downtime--to give a way to spend that gold they gained during adventures. If that gives mechanical advantages (increased gold/items they couldn't get while on-camera/mechanically-relevant followers/etc), then that is in contravention to point 1 (by diminishing the need to have on-camera adventures). Point 3 gives another use for downtime--to generate story hooks.

Crafting is an example. The DMG-supported cycle goes:

* Adventure to find a formula (possibly as a quest reward, but with an adventure attached).
* Adventure to find the ingredients (possibly locations or creature parts or exotic items only available through adventure)
* Craft during downtime, off-camera.
* Use item during further adventures.
* Repeat.

If you're trying to run a business as a crafter or merchant, that takes your time. You don't have the time left to go adventuring. By definition, that makes you an NPC, not a PC in 5e.

[Willie the Duck]

For a long time, it was core to higher level D&D for many players. And for many players it still is.

Just because many newer players want to murderhero or murderhobo for their entire career doesn't mean we should assume that's the default. People with your attitude is precisely why we ended up with the Magic Mart and Gear Upgrade Treadmill in the first place. Luckily 5e has done away with that, and gold can once again be used for its primary purpose: investing in conquest. Well, at least it's a reasonable option now, for groups that don't just want to murderhobo an entire campaign up to 20, then retire them and start a new campaign for the next murderhobos.

This whole murderhobo and gear upgrade treadmill (that I too used) terms have no reason to be here. They are diminutive terms trying to call various types of gaming bad. 5e was produced to bring all types of gaming back into the same fold. However, you are right that the people who wanted to play lord and commander had a problem doing so in the 3e/PF era because of the incentivization structure that routine gear purchasing created. And disconnecting the reward used to fuel the lord and commander game from those that fuel the personal combat effectiveness game is the primary purpose I see (and suspect) in the decision on what gold can routinely be used for in 5e.

[Mikal]

This whole murderhobo and gear upgrade treadmill (that I too used) terms have no reason to be here. They are diminutive terms trying to call various types of gaming bad. 5e was produced to bring all types of gaming back into the same fold. However, you are right that the people who wanted to play lord and commander had a problem doing so in the 3e/PF era because of the incentivization structure that routine gear purchasing created. And disconnecting the reward used to fuel the lord and commander game from those that fuel the personal combat effectiveness game is the primary purpose I see (and suspect) in the decision on what gold can routinely be used for in 5e.

But are they trying to bring all types of gaming into the same fold? This entire thread's discussion has been because you can't play certain ways out of the box, RAW, and that there's a camp of people who feel that the proper way to use and play 5e is literally "Go to X. Kill Y. Take Z. Wash, Rinse Repeat." which is essentially murder-hoboism in prettier terms ("Adventure! Legendary Treasure!").

And for those who want a more nuanced game, we keep getting told that we're playing it wrong, the system isn't designed for that etc.

If 5e was truly trying to be inclusive of all game types, then the above wouldn't happen, would it?

[Meta]

And those rules will be marked optional, just like the ones in the DMG. Because all DM rules are optional. They're not player rules. They're DM options. They only exist in-world if the DM decides they do.

Downtime is just that. Downtime. Not intended to take table time or be a significant power boost.

To quote the DMG:


Point 1 is key--downtime is downtime. It shouldn't be the focus of the game. Point 2 is about one of the reasons for downtime--to give a way to spend that gold they gained during adventures. If that gives mechanical advantages (increased gold/items they couldn't get while on-camera/mechanically-relevant followers/etc), then that is in contravention to point 1 (by diminishing the need to have on-camera adventures). Point 3 gives another use for downtime--to generate story hooks.

Crafting is an example. The DMG-supported cycle goes:

* Adventure to find a formula (possibly as a quest reward, but with an adventure attached).
* Adventure to find the ingredients (possibly locations or creature parts or exotic items only available through adventure)
* Craft during downtime, off-camera.
* Use item during further adventures.
* Repeat.

If you're trying to run a business as a crafter or merchant, that takes your time. You don't have the time left to go adventuring. By definition, that makes you an NPC, not a PC in 5e.

None of that refutes my points. I cited numeric rules. You're citing guidelines twisted to your own goal.

You quote this:

"An activity should never negate the need or desire for characters to go on adventures.
Activities that have a monetary cost associated with them provide opportunities for player characters to spend their hard-won treasure.
Activities that reveal new adventure hooks and previously unknown facts about your campaign can help you foreshadow future events and conflicts."

Can you explain to me where that says a spellcaster can't use their spells to make more potions to sell?

[EvilAnagram]

snip

Didn't see that post earlier. With the cost-of-brewing adjustments in the UA, your plan makes a whole hell of a lot more sense.

[Tanarii]

This whole murderhobo and gear upgrade treadmill (that I too used) terms have no reason to be here. They are diminutive terms trying to call various types of gaming bad.

Murderhero and murderhobo are technical terms I use to distinguish from hero and villain. I never use them as a diminutive. They're both of them esteemed careers, and a traditions at low levels in every game I've ever run. Like the vast majority of DMs, I always start D&D campaigns off with the PCs off as one of these two. Their goal is to raid some dungeon or adventuring site, kill things, and probably loot everything in sight.

But not everyone wants to keep doing that for their entire D&D campaign. About the only time I see people really wanting that is if they're running a single party campaign adventure path, or official play.

Otoh I used the term gear upgrade treadmill very intentionally as a diminutive. It sucks. I don't like it in RPG video games clearly based off D&D either. I understand why it's there for CRPGs, but it's a poison pill concept for TRPGs, outside of ones structured like a CRPG. Ie adventure paths (built like single player CRPGs) or official play (built like MMOs).

[Mikal]

None of that refutes my points. I cited numeric rules. You're citing guidelines twisted to your own goal.

You quote this:

"An activity should never negate the need or desire for characters to go on adventures.
Activities that have a monetary cost associated with them provide opportunities for player characters to spend their hard-won treasure.
Activities that reveal new adventure hooks and previously unknown facts about your campaign can help you foreshadow future events and conflicts."

Can you explain to me where that says a spellcaster can't use their spells to make more potions to sell?

The only gold a PC should be allowed to earn is what they gain by killing people obviously. Anything else should be a net loss. Because murder hobo... err "adventuring".

[UrielAwakened]

Rules for both would be in contravention of the basic philosophy of 5e (namely it takes focus away from the active adventuring).

Yeah you keep repeating that but I remain thoroughly unconvinced that that's true.

[Mikal]

Yeah you keep repeating that but I remain thoroughly unconvinced that that's true.

Also, what about other things that take away from active adventuring?

I mean... encumbrance takes away from it. Why not remove that?
Having to eat, drink, and sleep take away from active adventuring, should remove those as well.
And that whole short/long rest thing. If the focus is to always be active adventuring, then we should probably go back to a 4e style of round/encounter type of powers and remove the other limitations.

If the focus is supposed to be active adventuring to the detriment of everything else, remove all those distractions... and truly turn D&D into a table top video game.

Or this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeroQuest

[PhoenixPhyre]

None of that refutes my points. I cited numeric rules. You're citing guidelines twisted to your own goal.

You quote this:

"An activity should never negate the need or desire for characters to go on adventures.
Activities that have a monetary cost associated with them provide opportunities for player characters to spend their hard-won treasure.
Activities that reveal new adventure hooks and previously unknown facts about your campaign can help you foreshadow future events and conflicts."

Can you explain to me where that says a spellcaster can't use their spells to make more potions to sell?

These are instructions for DMs to use in deciding what downtime activities to allow (since the default is none--they're optional.) Nothing here is permission to players--it's advice to DMs. "But the rules don't say I can't" is obtuse and oppositional. The player's role is to show the DM why it's more fun for the table to allow an action, not to use the rules (more particularly one interpretation of those rules) as a bludgeon and make demands. No one has yet explained what the rest of the party's doing while you're playing shopkeeper. That's the missing thing here. Either

a) they're each doing their own thing between adventures, in which case it's downtime and it doesn't matter the exact mechanics. The amount of money made is relatively irrelevant as long as it makes sense in-world and doesn't cause mechanical imbalances. It may be even useful as long as it creates hooks for adventures--finding contacts, ingredients, etc.

OR

b) you insist on taking table (and DM) time for this. Here it feels like you're supplanting adventures (whatever those may be, which may or may not involve killing things!) with shopkeeping-simulator activities. This is what is warned against in the DMG.

My basic rule of thumb is that mechanical power advantages should only come from on-camera time, one way or another. Relaxing this either ends up giving incentives to munchkin the downtime using whatever creative readings you can sneak past the DM or ends up as a treadmill--a required activity like grinding in an MMO (which is annoying to me). On-camera time should be group time, with as many people participating as possible. Shop-keeping/crafting/stronghold management makes really crappy on-camera time in my experience due to the inability for more than one person to participate simultaneously.

None of this means that players can't have plans and goals beyond killing things and taking their stuff. For example, one character intends to found a noble house. To do this, he's going to need money and more importantly power and influence. Another has already founded a monastery; another is building a druid grove. The last is working on founding an arcane research organization. None of these are on-camera things--they're slowly-building things that happen in parallel to the on-camera activities that fuel (either in wealth, in power, or in prestige) these goals. They adventure since that's the best (ie most fun for the players) way of gaining the prerequisites for their goals. If they had wanted to make characters that were trying to become merchant princes by buying and selling commodities, I'd bow out of DMing, because that's boring to me. I also wouldn't expect them to use 5e D&D to do so.

Adventuring is a means to other ends. For some, the ends and the means are the same--the journey is the destination. For others, it's not. But adventuring is what 5e is all about at the mechanical level.

[Eric Diaz]

My 2c:

5e does not have a good "economy" mini-game.

It is all very hand-wavy, the crafting rules are bad, etc.

Same with miniatures. Miniatures are not as supported in 5e as they were on 4e or even 3e.

Is that a good or a bad thing? For me, it is good; I think the game is already complex enough and I don't use minis and deep accounting in my games.

But if you WANT this stuff, you have to find it elsewhere. My suggestion is ACKS or Dark Dungeons (which is awesome, free, BECMI stuff) for domain management.

If you want to buy and sell magic items, there is probably some homebrewed version out there. Not my cup of tea, but it might work in a FR setting etc.

(I think 5e's assumption is that magic items are "above" money in a sense, like Tywin Lannister trying to buy a valiyran sword, but some people would offer their daughters before their swords)

[Tanarii]

Shop-keeping/crafting/stronghold management makes really crappy on-camera time in my experience due to the inability for more than one person to participate simultaneously.

&

Adventuring is a means to other ends. For some, the ends and the means are the same--the journey is the destination. For others, it's not. But adventuring is what 5e is all about at the mechanical level.

Stronghold day to day management may be boring for other players, but the use of strongholds and armies as part of adventuring sure isn't.

Used wisely by the players, they can be core components of "on screen" adventuring time and be very un-boring for the entire group. That doesn't even require mass combat or seige rules, that part can all be hand waved. Although I suspect you'd consider that "off-screen" in that case, I sure don't.

Or they can be a back-drop that enables adventuring, without which the adventure wouldn't even be possible. Sending your army to do fight the BBEG hoards of Mongol-surrogate warriors, while you and your alpha strike team try to assassinate the khan. Or whatever.

[Meta]

Stuff

This is more of your opinions. Not rules. Fine opinions, I hope you have fun with them at your table.

Eric, the 5e design team published an article that goes deeper in to the world of magic item economy. I find it a little lacking and not entirely thought out, but there's clearly an attempt to codify such rules beyond the DMG. A DnD player does not need to "find it elsewhere" as there are rules for it in 5e.

[UrielAwakened]

Stronghold day to day management may be boring for other players, but the use of strongholds and armies as part of adventuring sure isn't.

Used wisely by the players, they can be core components of "on screen" adventuring time and be very un-boring for the entire group. That doesn't even require mass combat or seige rules, that part can all be hand waved. Although I suspect you'd consider that "off-screen" in that case, I sure don't.

Or they can be a back-drop that enables adventuring, without which the adventure wouldn't even be possible. Sending your army to do fight the BBEG hoards of Mongol-surrogate warriors, while you and your alpha strike team try to assassinate the khan. Or whatever.

Item buying can even be a great plot-hook.

The more perceptive characters get a bonus to finding items in the UA rules and the more charismatic ones get a bonus to purchasing.

Send out teams of characters to scour for items. Stumble upon all sorts of weird organizations, cults, and orders that have a vested interest in acquiring the same items. Now you have new contacts. Or new rivals.

Your Druid wants an item that mimics medium armor but isn't made of metal? Looks like you're going hunting for a Chuul!

[Eric Diaz]

Eric, the 5e design team published an article that goes deeper in to the world of magic item economy. I find it a little lacking and not entirely thought out, but there's clearly an attempt to codify such rules beyond the DMG. A DnD player does not need to "find it elsewhere" as there are rules for it in 5e.

I'd love to see that! Even though I'm not a fan of "magic shops" myself.

Do you have a link?

I mean, from what I've seem, I'd advise people to find "economy" rules elsewhere... Sure, there might be some guidelines for 5e out there, but nothing to the level of ACKS, for example.