I’m having trouble finding out how to handle money/currency in Dungeon World. I’ve noted the Supply move, but I don’t understand it exactly;
“When you go to buy something with gold on hand, if it’s something readily available in the settlement you’re in, you can buy it at market price.” – pg. 79
Am I meant to interprept this literally or vaguely? Do I/my players have to take account of each gold piece they find during adventures and make a table of prices for the market or is treasure and gold just an arbitrary thing in the characters Load? How would they pay for room at a tavern; with a roll or with a money from their gear? I understand the next part about rolling Charisma for something off-hand, but what about the stuff that they will have to buy regularly?
Personally, I don’t make them track each coin. I just tell them to mark off living expenses once a month or so; and to mark off an amount that makes sense for where they’ve been and how they’ve been living; if we’re out in the wilderness, then they have no expenses; if they’re on the High Road staying at Inns, then it depends on the quality of Inns they’ve been staying at. I would say 10-15 coin per month for poor quality, 20-25 for moderate, and 30+ for fine quality Inns. If they buy something specific, they mark the price off. Sometimes we just look in the book and choose a price similar to something already there, other times I invent a price that sounds reasonable.
It all works out in the end…
Currency is always an issue I don’t like messing with either, so I cheat! Instead of giving my players bags of coins as treasure, I give them a magic weapon I think they could want. Crashing at the inn for a night almost never happens because someone likes the heroes enough to give them a place to sleep and feed them. Don’t let the rules slow you down too much, if the players want a specific item and ask about if the town would have it, put the question on them. Half the time you’ll find a good answer there.
There are prices for many common items on pages 324-329 (the equipment chapter) and guidelines on awarding treasure on page 224 (the start of the monsters chapter). Creative Commons links to those at the end of this message.
I don’t think it’s unfair to just roll every monster’s treasure even if it shouldn’t reasonably have some, and then find a way to stick that into the adventure later on.
Your players may get pretty flush with cash eventually, and that’s fine. First, they have to cart it around. Second, pretty much whatever they buy with it is fair game for you as a resource to use up. You should probably damage heavier armor first before breaking it outright.
About the only things you have to worry about are bandages (they only work once, you’ll have to get hurt again and open new wounds to put more bandages on) healing potions (always make them roll to buy those but make 3-5 available from one roll) and what happens when they go looking for other potions or magic items to buy (price magic potions at 100-200 coin and magic items at 300-700, and always make them roll).
An interesting question to ask a hero who buys or finds a magic item is “what can this item do that’s worth losing it forever?”
http://book.dwgazetteer.com/equipment.html
http://book.dwgazetteer.com/monsters.html