Looking for some help in fleshing out a custom move.
my players have shown interest in taking DWs approach to ammo and applying it to wealth management.
No one wants to have to catalogue every last coin in there posession or what each persons daily living expenses might be, so we are trying to come up with a abstract means of hashing it out.
Something along the lines of . . .
When you enjoy an extended stay in a steading, and live life high on the hog thanks to your spoils, at the end of one week (?), roll+? (Maybe charisma?)
On a 10+, you live like a king and still manage to maintain your personal stash.
On a 7-9, you live like a king but you have to dip into to your personal stash. Reduce your spoils by 1.
In the above example “spoils” are like units of accumulated wealth. As long as you have at least one, you e got enough to go on living.
At any rate, what I have so far seems clunky and needs some work. Any suggestions would be welcome.
Maybe roll+spoils spent, and 10+ is the high life, 7-9 is some other cost?
How do they buy gear with this system?
The simplest way to manage daily living costs is to ignore them. What do they add to your game? If the answer is “nothing”, don’t even bother.
When it comes to “living the high life” that sounds reasonable. Maybe it costs 2 Spoils on a miss? Or you overspend and wind up in debt to a shady NPC.
What you may also need are other moves tailored to relative wealth levels. If wealth is low, the risk of going broke should be real. What about purchasing supplies? Part of the danger of an adventure comes from not having the right supplies, and handling wealth this way could make resupply and storage a trivial thing.
Of course, this also means you’ll need a way of awarding wealth besides just giving them 1 Spoils after an appropriate event. I can’t help but see it as replacing one system with a possibly more complex system.
Just my $0.02.
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I think adding moves makes sense if it has the potential to drive the fiction in interesting ways. Rolling on wealth could be fun. Misses would be a great opportunity to spark a town-adventure, or complicate an ongoing adventure. Maybe they had “too much” fun and in their inebriation lost an important McGuffin for their quest to the local thieves guild. Or maybe no matter how much money they throw at the city it just soaks it up implying some kind of corruption to investigate.
I like the idea of rolling when you spend money and rolling + loot spent is a great idea. It’s actually just like barter from AW. You could probably just lift all those move right out of AW and apply them to your game =)
BARTING WITH LOOT MOVES
By default, characters have access to the loot moves, but the GM might decide to limit them.
When you give 1-loot to someone, but with strings attached, it counts as manipulating them and hitting the roll with a 10+, no roll required.
When you go into a steading’s bustling market, looking for some particular thing to buy, and it’s not obvious whether you should be able to just go buy one like that, roll+CHA. On a 10+, yes, you can just go buy it like that. On a 7–9, the MC chooses one of the following:
• it costs 1-barter more than you’d expect
• it’s available, but only if you meet with a guy who knows a guy
• damn, I had one, I just sold it to this guy named Rolfball, maybe you can go get it off him?
• sorry, I don’t have that, but maybe this will do instead?
When you make known that you want a thing and drop jingle to speed it on its way, roll+loot spent (max roll+3). It has to be a thing you could legitimately get this way. On a 10+ it comes to you, no strings attached. On a 7–9 it comes to you, or something pretty close. On a miss, it comes to you, but with strings very much attached.
Then you just set what 1 loot is worth in the world, just like AW:
(obviously these need to be made DW appropriate)
THINGS WORTH 1-BARTER
• a month’s living expenses, if your tastes aren’t too grand.
• any one weapon, gear or fashion not valuable or hi-tech.
• a year’s tribute to a warlord.
• a month’s maintenance and repairs for a hi-performance vehicle
well-used.
• bribes, fees and gifts sufficient to get you into almost anyone’s
presence.
• successful resuscitation by an angel (plus material costs).
• a week’s full around-the-clock care from an angel (plus material
costs).
• a month’s employment of an angel on call.
• 2-stock for an angel kit.
• an act of murder, extortion, threat or violence executed by a
battlebabe, chopper or gunlugger.
• a week’s employment of a battlebabe or gunlugger as bodyguard,
gang leader, or thug-on-hand.
• a successful deep brain scan by a brainer.
• a brainer’s in-brain puppet command, upon its execution.
• a week’s employment of a kept brainer.
• a raiding expedition carried out by a chopper.
• a convoy led through hostile territory by a chopper or driver.
• a week’s employment of a gang as thugs and enforcers.
• a message or valuable delivered by a driver.
• a month’s employment of a personal driver.
• a circumstance foretold and revealed by a hocus, if it comes true.
• a month’s employment of a hocus as auger, advisor, or ceremonist.
• a piece of hi-tech gear repaired by a savvyhead.
• a week’s maintenance by a savvyhead of finicky and delicate tech.
• a month’s employment of a savvyhead as technician on call.
Do you know how barter works in Apocalypse World?
It seems like you run the risk of replacing managing money and coins with managing some other abstract concept.
Do you roll to determine how many SPOILS they can hold when they loot a dragon horde?
Hold 3 SPOILS after looting creature X, hold 2 after creature Y.
Seems to me you are replacing one thing with another.
Another way is simply to let the fiction take care of it and use that as a means to motivate PCs….”Seems like you are down to your last coin after raiding that last tomb. Wine, women and song and also new armor add up you know.That job offer from Lord So-and-so is looking better every day.”
Here’s my Wealth move:
When you come into a windfall, gain +1 Wealth. Describe how you have become wealthy, or expand on what the GM tells you. (If necessary, describe how you convert your windfall into currency or otherwise liquidate it.) As long as you have greater than 0 Wealth, you can make purchases without worrying about your cash on hand.
At the beginning of the session or when you make a significant purchase, roll +Wealth.
(Beginning of session only) On a 12+, your investments have matured in some fashion. Gain 1 Wealth and describe what happened.
On a 10+, your investments, rents, royalties, hoard, etc., can withstand your expenditures for now.
On a 7-9, you have run through some portion of your money. Lose 1 Wealth.
On a 6-, you have spent more than you realized and are now in debt. Lose 1 Wealth and describe the debt.
I like yours, Noah.
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AJ Ferguson Thanks! Counting coins is useful sometimes but gets super annoying once you have some real money.
Another alternative: Quit dealing in small change. If counting coins is annoying when there’s lots of them, start using larger currency. If they need to buy 120 coin worth of supplies, give them a bulk-purchase discount and just charge them 1 Tenten Coin. Or whatever you want to call larger currency.
Just to clarify why I started messing around with such a move in the first place . . .
In my current game, game fiction has established that by and large, adventurers are more or less like freebooters – they aren’t exactly heroes. They plunder old tombs, loot ruins, poke around in places they have no business being in, raid monster lairs and lay claim to treasures that aren’t rightfully theirs.
Then they return to civilization, sell everything for profit and live like rock stars until the gold dries up, forcing them to go back out for more.
Up until this point, we have let the fiction guide us, but now that they are starting to get into some larger stashes and more valuable items, we started poking around with the notion of a move to handle stuff.
Noah Tucker’s move manages wealth as scarcity nicely, while avoiding nickle and diming. I’d suggest a couple of changes to open up the fiction:
1. Replace rolling +Wealth with +WIS or +INT. This will limit the roll to max +3, keeping the chance of failing high enough to be interesting and avoiding the runaway Wealth increases that are likely to happen if Wealth goes above +3.
2. Drop the 6- detail and leave that entirely up to the GM as that allows richer plot lines to develop (e.g. you get cleaned out by a conman = the party want revenge; your wealth is confiscated under some trumped up regulation = party vs those in power; your debauched lifestyle offends the high priest = party vs the church/cult; etc.).
If you really want to give some guidance on a 6-, perhaps something like: On a 6- you lose the lot; the GM will tell you what happens and the trouble you’re in because of it. (e.g. debt may be one of those troubles)
3. The 6- result has the potential to dominate your game when rolled every session. If that’s what you want, great. If not, I’d suggest rolling only when the characters do something with their Wealth. e.g. When you make a significant purchase or check on your investments, roll…
I wrote these up for a different PbtA hack, maybe they’ll be of use? They start with a presumption that you’re tracking Wealth like you track Barter in Apocalypse World, and that after a solid dungeon score you might have quite a bit of Wealth (5-15) on hand.
SQUANDER RICHES
When you spend time and money frivolously, tell us how you’re spending it and roll 2d6. Add +1 and mark 1 XP for every 5 Wealth wasted. On any hit, pick 1:
– You befriend some useful NPC(s); ask the GM who
– You learn something interesting; ask the GM what it is
– You happen upon an opportunity; ask the GM to describe it
On a 7-9, though, the GM also picks one:
– You’ve been swindled out of 1d6+1 Wealth. Tell us who you suspect.
– You’ve pissed someone off; the GM will tell you who but you get to tell us how.
– Someone needs your help; tell us why you feel obliged to give it.
PURSUE A GOAL
When you want to achieve something of lasting value tell the GM what it is. He’ll tell you 1-4 of the following:
– It’ll take days/weeks/months of work
– You’ll need help or permission from __
– First you’ll need to get/build/fix __
– You’ll need to learn how to ___ first
– It’ll require that you take a risk, for certain
– They best you can do is substandard
– You’ll have to deal with resistance from __
– You’ll expose yourself and your allies to danger
The GM might connect them all with “and” but they might throw in a merciful “or.” If you aren’t sure how to accomplish one of the requirements, ask the GM how to accomplish it and he’ll break it down into another 1-4 requirements.
When you spend time and money in pursuit of a goal, make it clear which requirement you’re working on and roll 2d6. Add +1 and mark 1 XP for every 5 Wealth you invest in the project. On a 10+, you complete that requirement. On a 7-9, the GM picks one:
– You make progress but; take +1 forward to pursue the same goal
– You complete this requirement, but a problem arises that you need to deal with
I like Squander Riches. It’s like carousing with a goal.
Have you read Torchbearer AJ? You could easily transpose that resource system into DW. That said, Noah’s move is good, and Jeremy’s embellishments are solid.
The only thing I’d add is that simple is often better. To many choices or tags can really hamper a player’s involvement in the
Emerging fiction.
The new AW playtest has an ingenious few sentence addition to its upkeep and barter rules that may be of use:
At the start of a session spend from 1-3 barter/wealth to maintain the lifestyle to which you are accustomed. If you can’t or won’t afford the cost, roll….
Then insert Noah’s move.
Michael D makes some good points. I’ll probably revise the move so that you only roll at the start of the session if you’re actually wealthy (> 0 Wealth). Similarly, you would only roll after a major purchase if you backed that purchase with your Wealth. Otherwise the fiction doesn’t make sense and the move would really bog things down.
Noah Tucker Jeremy Strandberg *steals*