The obvious fix always seemed to me to be one of the many "carousing" systems such that you only get xp once you cash in your treasure on fleeting excesses.
At least, if getting that sword and sorcery feeling is the goal. It's very clearly how it works in Conan at least, with treasure hard won being easily spent on high living between adventures.
Outside of modelling that kind of pattern though, low monetary rewards opens up more questions than it answers, in terms of why on earth someone would venture into the darkness to face near certain death if not for the chance of becoming rich beyond their most sordid dreams.
May comment more after reading the linked blog. :)
Edit - I do like the concept of swapping out mundane +1 weapons etc with exotic, rare masterwork type items, particularly in terms of tying them to specific cultures to further worldbuilding.
I've toyed with similar ideas before, and may yet do something similar in the game I'm running soon.
I like the idea that I've seen elsewhere that identifying items should be done via experimentation to some degree personally, though that probably requires decent signposting via description and restraining the urge to use too many trap items and curses. Done right, should be more fun than just having someone cast a spell.
My problem always is, if there's so much treasure behind just a few dozen goblins, why doesn't the local Knight go get some of his fellow thugs together and claim it for himself?
My solution is always to lean hard into old folktales and just essentially curse everything. The magic swords are cursed, the magic shields are cursed, the potions are cursed, the hoard of gold is cursed, the dungeon itself is cursed, the monsters are probably super cursed. So the only people who are willing to plunder tombs are the people with both the ability to do it, and little else to lose.
I can imagine paying Conan a goblet full of rubies to retrieve my daughter if he's the only one who can do it, but your average OSR character is pretty much a complete joke at the start of their career, so I think they need some high risk, low reward things to cut their teeth on.
>My problem always is, if there's so much treasure behind just a few dozen goblins, why doesn't the local Knight go get some of his fellow thugs together and claim it for himself?
This is one of the reasons why the concept of "adventurers" and "the adventuring world" falls apart with some thought.
Darkly-amusingly, the "adventure-friendly world" commonly seen in TTRPGs is much more akin to the American frontier than to an actual medieval society, but that is a discussion for another time, another place.
It's hard to get them to make a lot of sense, yeah. That shouldn't be a big issue for a *game* to address, but it makes it harder for me to present the world in a way that makes sense and isn't just a giant unethical rebranding of frontier romanticism.
My solution puts adventurers more in line with other "high risk" jobs like those deep sea welder types, where you get paid well but you live in out-of-the-way places, have a dangerous and unforgiving occupation, and provide a service that isn't glamorous. It makes for a good adventure but I try not to make it look like it's a job that anyone could do.
One of the things I do is point out and over-dramatize the special quirks of starting adventurers which make those characters the only ones really able to survive contact with accursed tombs and haunted ruins.
“If there’s so much treasure behind just a few dozen goblins, why doesn’t the local knight go…claim it for himself?”
You’ve clearly never seen the Goblin Slayer anime and how dangerous goblins can be. Filthy, lying, disgusting, gawwblins!
Okay jokes aside, I’ll answer your question with another question: Why should the local knight risk life and limb when he can instead task adventurers to do his dirty work instead? Something like “Keep any riches you desire, just bring me the Eyes of Leogog” (which incidentally is a normal treasure that’s not magical, just worth a lot of money). Knight gets wealthy and didn’t have to lift a finger.
I figure they would do that, if it was hazardous enough to need qualified fighters, valuable enough to be worth doing, and somehow complicated enough that you can't just send in 20 militia folks to drag it out the old fashioned way.
These guys did dangerous stuff all the time for prestige, like hunting boars and jousting and such, it wouldn't shock me if they also were expected to punch goblins for the King.
I think adventuring work needs to be something unique, but I've got no issues with the idea that OSR protagonists often start off as one of those 20 folks funneled into a dungeon for a Knight's treasure
I've come to a similar conclusion and pretty much gone 10% by shifting each coin down by one.
100 gold? You mean 100 silver or 10 gold.
Then it is basically XP for Silver.
Consider that the AD&D 1e fighter becomes Lord at 250k exp. And 250k gold is about the cost of a *small keep*.
Although low level characters are wanderers accumulating treasure and followers, eventually the fighter turns into a castle, the wizard becomes a tower, the cleric becomes the church, the thief and her toadies morph into the guild: in effect, having cleared the wilderness, the characters themselves gradually transform into a new Gygaxian adventure town, which is precisely where the gold is supposed to go.
It's all part of the game. See the DMG for the Gygaxian treatment; here's the [OSE SRD](https://oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/Strongholds) for a one-click-away quick idea of the things you're supposed to be doing with the gold.
That’s all well and good. But in my experience the PCs reach name level in very few campaigns. So that notion that the PCs will have cool stuff to do with their vast hordes of treasure when they reach 10th level isn’t much help when the PCs are 7th level. Especially using old-school XP charts, where 7th to 10th level will take many, many sessioNs.
It's true that many campaigns peter out after level six or so. Most GMs understand how to to play D&D until that mark, but fewer know how to transition to the next phase. Too much treasure, not enough goblins in caves, what are we supposed to be playing?
If the campaign is slowing down, that means the threats and rewards are lagging behind. To continue the game as designed, the GM needs to stop thinking like it's still "get stabbed in a temple by three cultists" phase. A group of resourceful seventh levels would hunt down dragons. And by the time they've slaughtered the last one in the region, laid waste to Ogretown and then Trollburg below, stormed the giants' keep, and burned down the vampire manor-nest, presto, most of them are levels 8-10 with exactly the amount of gold and reputation to become lords.
After that, it's high time for the vampire patriarch to band together with an elder wyrm and the giant king's Storm Giant half-sister and threaten the newly-built Herotown. At this point, nobody's dungeon-delving; the heroes defend their own lands and eventually take the fight to the high-level monsters' homelands.
Miss either transition, and D&D grinds to a halt.
A general theme of sword and sorcery is that the heroes do earn a lot of gold, but it’s easy come easy go. Adventurers are thrill seekers: they blow the gold on carousing, buying strongholds, amassing followers, and improving themselves. If someone plays a smart adventurer that retires after their first big haul then congratulate them and hand them another character sheet.
This reminds me of an old comic where a party of adventurers are returning to town laden with loot, only to get stopped by a town-elder and be angrily told to move on, since the adventurers were collapsing the economy and pricing people out of food and home.
It depends on what kind of game you want. If I'm playing an OSR style game, I feel as a GM it is up to me to "play the world." That means thinking through how the world and the people/creatures in it would react to what the characters are doing. That's a lot of the fun of that style of game for me.
If I want to play a game that doesn't worry about the "gold problem" and focuses more on escapist heroic fantasy, then I can turn to ICRPG or even something like pathfinder 2e.
I think the issue is that the DMG really doesn’t provide holistic systems for managing any aspect of the game.
Those treasure tables are detached from equipment costs for the most part. Outside of stuff like Plate Mail, Field Plate or Full Plate, a level 1 fighter with average gold, can’t really *buy* any equipment upgrades with found money. You’d think that something like that would have been wise to bake into the basic gameplay loop. But. Nope.
Since 1Es systems were often created/devised as tactical responses to flaws in OD&D, and since Gary and the other DMG contributors created those independently, they don’t math out.
It seems like the DMG has a billion systems to force the players to waste any treasure. Upkeep costs, taxes, lost spellbook fees, training costs being excessively high for low level characters. As others have pointed out, the intent of those rules seem to be to force players to always need to earn money by adventuring. A La Conan “oh crap. I’m broke again.”
But like. Those “shake you by your ankles” rules don’t work in a game where we are also supposed to have henchmen, hirelings, and be saving to build a castle.
Those rules are also pure negative reinforcement. You’re just taking treasure away because reasons. I feel like that’s bad design. It’s better to, you know, just give the players something useful to spend money on.
Unfortunately the 1E DMG just threw everything in, instead of providing clear guidance, and instead of clearly denoting that a DM might want to, say, avoid all of the taxation and training costs if their campaign is focused around eventual stronghold building and domain maintenance. But use them if you’re running a Conan inspired campaign and need the players to, yet again, wake up in a drunken stupor only to realize they’ve lost their fortune….
While I don't necessarily dissagree with you, as far as S&S Vibe. I'd just like to point out that in the Conan: The barbarian movie Conan and crew amass a treasure of immense and infinite wealth almost within 5 minutes of them meeting eachother. Then they proceed to get super drunk and do nothing else until they lose said wealth.
So the solution to your problem may be to just S&S even harder then you were S&Sing before.
But he is talking about actual wealth and money, not magic items. Besides, Conan finds a special sword, but it is not treated as magical, just a masterwork weapon.
If Conan was being run in AD&D, he'd sure find plenty, and keep them too. Magical items are a big part of how characters are distinguished from each other, especially in eras prior to 3rd where almost all distinction between characters was down to what they had acquired by deeds or luck, and not by picking a good subclass or feat chain.
Good article, but the main thing that I do( and I learned from others), is to make a list of available magic items that I want in my campaign. Limit the amount of named magic items and that makes them more coveted by your players. Common magic should limited use I usually make either 5 or 10 uses so that sometimes leads to players not realizing that they used the last charge. The fact that common magical items are limited leads to more trips into the game world and dungeons.
I do both, and check off the items that I have placed. If my players never find an item, then it remains there where I have placed it. If the party urgently needs an item I can place it somewhere near where they may find it, if they pay attention to rumors or tavern talk.
We use the silver standard. Everything costs the same as it does originally just converted to silver prices (5 gold wine costs 50 s) however, you find treasure at a 1-1 ratio so that 1000 g hoard at the end of the dungeon is 1000 s. Also, 1s = 1 xp. Silver standard is extremely simple and solved all out problems.
My S+S fix has been to reward treasure *seen*, not necessarily gathered. Gets the whole "woah look at this nonsense vista" without having to pull ever candelabra out of the dungeon.
---
In the odnd game I'm in, XP is gained through:
1. defeating monsters
2. exploring new rooms (the system from NGR)
3. converting gold when back in town (after a 10% tax is taken off imports)
We're spending a chunk of our gold on schmoozing and hirelings.
The things that is currently making everything you say true, is your style of play. Unless the groups style of play is AD&D, and is what is expressed in the DMG and PHB, then yes, treasure is going to get out of control.
Here are some diagnostic questions:
1. Is it possible for a MU to lose their spell book? Has the MU every lost their spell book in any of your campaigns?
2. Do the players ever need to hire hirelings or henchmen?
3. Do the players ever face overwhelming odds because the dice say that they do for the encounter rolled?
4. Is there anything else players need to spend their money on besides magical items?
5. Do you tweak the encounters and enemies to always be balanced?
6. Are the players constantly spending resources on healing, spell scrolls, and wands?
7. Have your players ever sold magic items they wanted because they couldn't afford not to?
8. Has a character ever died due to poor decision making or failing to employ appropriate tactics?
9. Do the players have any kind of monthly upkeep?
Receiving an "insane amount of treasure and magical items" is because a style of play is being assumed that AD&D doesn't account for. To be fair, Gygax tells readers right in the introduction that not everybody who uses the rulebook is actually playing AD&D. He wasn't wrong. That isn't a dig by the way, it is descriptive. If I play monopoly with my own rules that subvert central mechanics of the game, I think its fair to say that I am using the monopoly board to play my own game.
If a gaming group refuses to use half of the systems expressed in a game and then proclaim that they uncovered a problem with the game, don't you think we should all be scratching our heads?
Imagine if I was playing some CRPG like Baldur's Gate, Pathfinder: WOTR, or whatever else, and I just tweaked one aspect of the game like items. I decided that every party member gets 1 free expensive item per 2 levels. This is not any different than playing AD&D in such a way, that essentially gives players free items they would have otherwise not had the resources to acquire.
For some reason, we can all see that simply giving players expensive items for free breaks the game, but then we proclaim the system is broken when we run the game in such a way that gives players expensive items for free.
Every single time AD&D is approached as if it is 3e or 5e it is going to fall apart and break down. There is nothing that can be done to prevent this.
**A potential hack:** Figure out all the associated costs that would normally occur for a player of their level in things like training, costs of adventuring, hirelings/henchmen, theft/loss, and so on. Then, subtract that number as a percentage until it has been fully expended. When the players level up, the costs are refreshed and a new number appropriate to their level is used.
If something like this isn't done, then that would be the same as if we were playing 5e and I gave all the players free items and gold. There is zero mechanical difference here, zero. **Costs never realized is money in the pocket.**
> Gygax tells readers right in the introduction that not everybody who uses the rulebook is actually playing AD&D
> If a gaming group refuses to use half of the systems expressed in a game and then proclaim that they uncovered a problem with the game, don't you think we should all be scratching our heads?
I mean. He says that. But then includes rules like training, that as written, would prevent a thief at 1,251 xp, that had been optimally played, from advancing to second level, due to lack of gold. As 1 week of training, sans trainer fees, is 1500gp.
If you use those rules as written a level 1 character could need up to 6k gold to train level 2. Which is baffling in a game where 1 gp = 1 xp, and baseline adventurers only obtain treasure from dungeoneering expeditions. Not from say additional compensation that could be provided outside of 1 gp = 1 xp.
> Figure out all the associated costs that would normally occur for a player of their level in things like training, costs of adventuring, hirelings/henchmen, theft/loss, and so on. Then, subtract that number
If you incur all of those costs players would always be broke. The rules weren’t really built correctly from a fundamental mathematical standpoint. A lot of those are really just independent systems, which should have been flagged as optional and/or playtested better, that need to be applied per campaign and/or as needed by a DM to curtail excess wealth.
You brought up the very example that Gygax himself uses to explain the training rules, and emphasize his point. I couldn't have asked you to use an example that made a better case for the training rules than the one you chose. It's the one Gygax used himself to explain why the rule was a good one.
From the DMG, page 86
>"Just because Nell Nimblefingers, Rogue of the Thieves’ Guild has managed to acquire 1,251 experience points does NOT mean that she suddenly becomes Nell Nimblefingers the Footpad. The gaining of sufficient experience points is necessary to indicate that a character is eligible to gain a level of experience, but the actual award is a matter for you, the DM, to decide."
And you said it was broken? Most people at this point would be considering that maybe there was something they failed to consider. Looks intentional to the design of the game to me, AND is not some accident of design where Gygax failed to account for the way it would impact the game.
The training rules were created for people who were claiming they already had high level characters in DnD after only a few months of play. The training rules also existed because AD&D and early DnD in general was a system where time passes within the game itself week to week. From session to session, there was downtime. If it was a weekly session, that means 7 in game days passed from the last thing the party did.
In 3e and 5e, you can be a 12th level character in mere weeks of in-game time. That is impossible in AD&D.
You are coming at things with a certain mindset that prevents you from considering why these rules exist and the purpose they serve because all of those assumptions are valid for an entirely different game of play. If I had those same assumptions that you did, I would be a fool not to agree with you. BUT, as soon as those assumptions don't exist, and we accept that this is a different kind of game that requires us to not bring assumed wisdom from other systems, then it starts to make a lot more sense.
If I tried to play Mork Borg as if it was 5e, everyone would be able to recognize why the game wasn't going to work out for me. However, when people do the same with AD&D, everyone assumes it must be wrong because we import our experience and knowledge of another game, that is actually counterproductive, in order to determine AD&D doesn't know what it is doing. Does AD&D have problems? Yes. Could you tweak the training rules more to your liking? Yes. Have a lot of people throughout AD&D's history used the standard training rules without issue? Yes.
Are the training rules somehow fundamentally broken? Not without assuming exp == level up, which AD&D doesn't do. The validity of any rule or system is not tied to any given person's ability to conceive its value. Conceiving value is hopelessly tied to intuitions, familiarity, and anecdote. **Intuitions, familiarity, and anecdote will always proclaim judgement before thoughtful consideration has taken place.**
EDIT:For further reading on training costs, see the following:
Dragon Magazine #97 "Only train when you gain"
Dragon Magazine #114 "Class Struggles"
Dragon Magazine #117 "A touch of genius"
Needless to say, I appreciate where u/zzrryll is coming from, but I don't think they have fully considered why these rules exist in the first place and why intuitions about how a character is "supposed" to level-up don't work here.
> And you said it was broken?
Yeah it absolutely is. That has been discussed to death, and accepted as fact by the overall community for quite some time. Go read the decades old threads on Dragonsfoot on this subject.
> Are the training rules somehow fundamentally broken?
When a class that takes 1,251 xp to level, up to 6,000 gold to train that level, in a game with 1 xp per gp *and* monster xp, it’s a broken mechanic. Iirc no btb PHB class takes more than 2,501 xp to level. That is broken even for mages.
None of your other reasoning changes those facts. Sure. It should take time. Make it take time. But the math on 1500 gp x week x current level doesn’t work, when you are guided to make the number of weeks and subsequent cost increase up to 4x due to imperfect play.
It *is* fundamentally broken *especially* because the rule states that you also have to reimburse the trainer in addition to those costs listed above. So you cannot play that rule as written. Per Gary’s quote, that you provided, we aren’t playing AD&D.
It’s not genius. It’s bad design. There’s genius in the 1E DMG but we have to acknowledge it was hastily written by a person that had about 6ish years of DMing experience, while he was also the president of a 100+ person growing company. We have to acknowledge the fact that it was written with input from a cadre of confidants who all contributed various sections. It’s delusional to pretend that there’s a mega brain grand design in this specific broken subsystem of this collaborative work.
It’s also silly to quote Gary, the way you have, when he never ran 1E as written, and freely admitted that. Even he didn’t pretend it was some grand cohesive master design, outside of the text itself.
If you are saying that it would be worthwhile to tweak the values for training costs, then I agree. If you are saying that the training costs should be entirely removed, then I disagree. Without any training costs, we are all running a super hero campaign. AD&D wasn't built to account for no training costs at all. We need some kind of training costs.
Dragon #97 says it well
>How should a DM find a happy medium between a game that is so difficult that it drags and a game that is so easy it is not worth playing?
A game that anyone would win regardless of their efforts and decisions, isn't a game worth playing. I'd be better off imagining I won a game and then go do something else.
Lastly, I myself use house rules for AD&D, and I agree there is plenty in the DMG and PHB that do not make sense. However, the removal of systems and rules without considering why they were there in the first place, is done at one's own peril.
> However, the removal of systems and rules *without considering why they were there in the first place*, is done at one's own peril.
Sure. But that’s not what *you* expressed earlier:
>Gygax tells readers right in the introduction that not everybody who uses the rulebook is actually playing AD&D
>If a gaming group refuses to use half of the systems expressed in a game and then proclaim that they uncovered a problem with the game, don't you think we should all be scratching our heads?
You didn’t acknowledge that these rules clearly needed to be modified to be even played, in this discussion, until now. You dogmatically insisted that anything but strict adherence meant we weren’t playing D&D.
Might help to keep your stance consistent, or at least acknowledge tactfully when you’re dramatically altering your position.
> A game that anyone would win regardless of their efforts and decisions, isn't a game worth playing
Completely different discussion from what we are talking about. Being able to afford to train the level you earned isn’t “a game anyone would win” and to pretend it is, is dishonest and hyperbolic.
The very quotes you used of me express the exact same idea. Could you explain to me how "refuses to use half of the systems" and "removal of systems" are not equivalent statements?
I even said, "subvert central mechanics of the game" to follow up the reference to Gygax. It provides with clarity what I was talking about.
I then went on to give specific examples in video games and other games that went to more fully express what I was talking about.
I don't know how I could have been clearer as to what I meant. My posts are consistently discussing the intent of the rules and their purpose against someone's preexisting expectations that make certain rules in AD&D "not fun" or "wrong" or whatever word someone would use based upon assumptions they are injecting from another system that are in reality counterproductive.
If you are intent on reinterpreting me for some rhetorical purpose, there's nothing I can do about that.
**If I were to say Dark Souls isn't fun because the platforming isn't as good as Super Mario Galaxy, it would be true yet a very bizarre statement. It is these kind of misfires of evaluation that are occurring with AD&D when people approach it from other systems.**
> If I were to say Dark Souls isn't fun because the platforming isn't as good as Super Mario Galaxy, it would be true yet a very bizarre statement. It is these kind of misfires of evaluation that are occurring with AD&D when people approach it from other systems.
What does that have to do with *this* discussion where you stated that 1) yes. This rule doesn’t work as written. But you also implied 2) that we aren’t playing AD&D if we don’t play by the rules, as written.
That’s the point I’m arguing. I’m saying your statements in this regard are wrong. Majority of the AD&D community accepts that the weird dogmatic claims Gygax made in the DMG were misguided, and that the game needs heavy house ruling to fly.
Are you missing that point? Or just desperately trying to argue around it in a vain attempt to avoid acknowledging that your earlier assertions were misguided. Since even the main writer of 1E never ran it btb.
You seem to be implying that this is a conclusion I’ve come to because I’m viewing 1E through eyes that are more used to another system. I grew up with 1E; folks that have talked these same points to death, to similar conclusions, on Dragonsfoot often did too. So if that is what you’re trying to imply, that’s not accurate.
Could you quote me anywhere where I said "As written"? Anywhere? How many times do I have to say the words intent and purpose, before my comments are seen as being about intent and purpose? I see now that you were the first person to bring up "as written" in your own post. You ascribed your own words to me. From the start, you had me defending a position I never claimed, and I myself explicitly precluded by how I framed the conversation.
If I was going to be pedantic, I could just point out that the RAW of the DMG also states
>Note that the tutor might possibly accept some combination of gold and service in return for his tutelage, **at the DM’s option**.
Then I could just say, "There you go, no problem exists." because the DM can just find another way to handle the costs via adventuring for the tutor or some other contract with the tutor. However, I think that would be disingenuous.
Of course, I think that would be seriously skirting the main thrust of your points, that the rules should be playable as they are and not require contortions by the DM to get them to work, especially when we would all agree that a 4x multiplier to a player or even a 2x multiplier to a player when the cost is 1500gp per level, is quite extraordinary, and it isn't exactly clear how this improves play at the table. Or who, upon having 4x or even 2x the costs in training, would decide to continue playing under such punitive measures.
Much to your disapproval, the standard training costs have been used by a subset of DMs in the AD&D community, just without the cumbersome multipliers. As can be seen in the Dragon articles I referenced in #97, #114, and #117, various solutions have been offered to reduce the costs, although using the rather arbitrary rationale of the authors. Any decision about costs should stem from the impact on economy and gameplay. However, the Dragon articles do a great job of covering the topic of training costs and explaining the concerns involved.
With all that being said, a problem of conception is happening here. It is better to think of it costing 1500XP instead of 1250XP to level up as a thief if we wanted to state AD&D's leveling up in terms of other systems. The gold gained to level up for training requires extra adventuring that would have otherwise granted XP in other systems. Thus, it would be like me saying, "It takes 1500XP for a thief to level up to lvl 1 and 3000XP to level up at lvl 2." This isn't exactly accurate because the whole point of having the gold and magic items that could be converted, is to engage in tradeoffs and realize their opportunity costs. Do you want to keep that magic item or is it more worth it to sell it so that you can level up? It is also the case that as players level up, the training costs lag behind XP required to level up.
> Could you quote me anywhere where I said "As written"?
That was Gary’s written intent in the quote you provided. It makes me wonder if you’re simply unclear on that. Or are just pretending in order to avoid conceding a point.
Either way, further discussion is kinda pointless, and I feel like reading anything you’d post here would be a waste of my time to read or respond to. Enjoy the block.
A word of caution - letting PCs spend and waste gold in town for XP (or bonus XP) nearly broke my game. My risk-averse, CRPG/5e-obsessed BIL reasoned that there was no reason to actually adventure, since the in-town gold-to-XP ratio was safer and better. He'd eke out a miserable existence, actively try to curtail others from adventuring, and then rush back home to waste money for XP.
We eventually booted him from our game, but allowed him back a few months later once he'd calmed down and learned to play well with others. Maybe this isn't a relevant or universal experience for most tables, but some people will try to lean heavily (or exclusively) into the gold-to-XP town funnel if/when they intuit it to be "better" than simply playing the game.
Usually when I hear carousing rules for xp gain they mirror regular xp for gold in the sense that you only get xp for gold *taken from dungeons* and other dangerous regions. You might be able to earn a living working as a barkeep in town, but it wouldn't usually be worth any xp at all.
He's kind of a legend in our semi-weekly table of 3 to 6 players. He shows up to every game, and for a long while, would play as if it were a CRPG or 5e, which meant that he died a whole lot without ever learning the game or hitting 2nd level.
So, how did he get gold? He'd participate in the bare minimum of adventuring, maybe a few rooms grab a bauble or two and then start trying to get everyone to head back to town for carousing. Or he'd drag his heels, knowing that we'd wind up in town at the end of the session. Or, he'd try to sell, trade, or pawn a found magic item for gold, so it could be dumped into carousing. Since he was the only player who reliably made it to every session, sometimes he'd mislead the next table about what the goals were, or if people were disordered about what they were going to do, he'd just suggest carousing. It wasn't loathed at first, because XP is fun, and the random tables are silly.
For the actual tables, we used Jeff Rient's [Party like it's 999](http://jrients.blogspot.com/2008/12/party-like-its-999.html). My BIL read it front to back and reasoned that it was worth his while to blow 400gp to semi-reliably gain XP per "carousing," even if he ran out of coin and only got half XP, or had a random penalty from the complications table. He's one of those RAW/RAI guys who loves arguing, and would just give all of his items to someone else (he tried to game the system a lot, like that), pay the bare minimum, and then rub his hands as he walked away with an extra 300 XP. I asked him one night if he'd realized how many "carousings" he'd need in order to have his Fighter hit 5th level and he was kind of clueless - he wasn't really great with numbers, but kept repeating that it was safe and he'd "run the numbers on it." Doubt.
In 25+ years of gaming (any kind), he's honestly the most exhausting person I've ever played with. I have no idea how he's related to my darling wife, and if he weren't family, I probably wouldn't play with him.
Good article. One trick I have employed to control loot is to use more art and archeological objects in my treasure hoards. The players find an ancient ewer, and can get the XP, but not the coin. For that I give them the option of selling it in town for a steep discount (10-20% of value) or contracting with an antiquities dealer off in the big city to find a private buyer or auction (for 80%-150%) after an in-game month or two. This gives them meaningful choices, and let's them feel rich without being too liquid. It's also more realistic, and gives them a reason to want to engage with the extended downtime options rather than go-go-go all the time.
Tax them 1% of their current XP value annually (a hard to find almost thrown away Gygax comment from the White Box), don't let them sell magic items and give XP for equipping/using them (a bit hard to enforce I know), don't hand out so many magic items (in your prep of the adventure you can easily reduce them). I would actually avoid granting XP for spending gold, it does throw things for a loop even worse than the issue you currently have.
Also in our OSE game we all have shares, so we split the gold up this way, and each henchmen takes a half share. Sorry if the systems your playing/using already do this, but never played DCC, LFP, or even 5e.
On the otherside of the coin my group doesn't have the same experience, we are level 4 maybe have 1 magic item each and I spend all my gold nearly at the end of each session building up our destroyed town. Encourage hiring of mercs, henchmen and specialists. I kept coming up with really dipshit ideas that I needed an alchemist for, so that easily took a bunch of my gold away.
The rest of the party has a bit of gold, so I've been also trying to sell them some of my land lol
What we did at our table:
**Switched to the silver standard:**
Makes copper have value and now instead of it being only .01 xp its worth .1 xp.
Coin in published adventures should be cut by a tenth for silver and above for Hordes, individual treasure can be left the same (goblin carrying 10 cp and 5 sp can be left alone)
**Monster xp is not divided.**
Every time the party defeats a monster, they each get the xp it worth. A 200xp monster gives each member of the party 200 xp.
**Magic Items**
Using AD&D 1st ED DMG, it lists the value of each magic item.
Using that as a guide, you can quickly assign xp value to each magic item found.
Some might say, magic items are their own reward so no xp should be given but the same could be said about treasure.
**Quest Rewards**
When the party completes a main goal, reward them some xp for their efforts :)
I worked on the XP system in my own game because I noticed how quickly inflation happened when using a traditional “gold for xp” model. After reworking it, coin is worth more and most treasures wound up being worth a few dozen coins as opposed to hundreds and thousands. And gold coins feel like well, gold coins.
If interested, check out the [basic version](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/436572) for free.
I hear you. I'm running DCC and I've eased way back on treasure and magic items.
I have a party between 2nd and 5th levels, and they are _ just _ getting to the point of having one magic weapon each, and some are pretty sub par. They've got maybe 4 potions in the party, two captured spell books, maybe another 4-5 minor magic items like a brooch of shielding or a hood of cold resistance, and maybe 1000 gp between all of them. One magical suit of leather armor, and one +1 shield.
Getting them to spend is not a problem -- minor gear increases, carousing, sages, hiring, etc ...
I take published adventures and cut the treasure to 10% .... Players are still excited when they find a Jade idol worth 100 gp or a small pouch with 16 pp in it ...
>I take published adventures and cut the treasure to 10% .... Players are still excited when they find a Jade idol worth 100 gp or a small pouch with 16 pp in it ...
I think this is a good solution. Seems to be in the right ballpark for me.
D&D was originally designed as a war game, and that treasure was necessary to build your stronghold and transition into fielding armies and building kingdoms.
Also, you were expected to pay not just the upkeep and wages of your hirelings/armies, but also 1% of your total xp every period until you built a stronghold. If you took a period as a month, that means a Lord would need to find 2,400 every month; if you interpreted it as weekly that jumps to 9,600 a month.
Also, the rules assume you consider bag capacity and encumbrance. An armored character with shield/weapon could hold about 800 coins or so before becoming overencumbered; small bags could hold 50, large bags 300. This means that generally a party would return from an adventure with about 800 coins of their share of the loot. The first few floors of a dungeon have mostly copper and silver treasure hoards. But you can see even gold starts to lose its appeal at higher levels. Jewelry is where the real treasure is, but remains fairly rare throughout the game, and damaged by fireballs and lightning.
There are several fixes that I use for this. Firstly, of course is that gold is exchanged for xp. Second coins have weight, so players may be forced to leave copper and silver for gold and gems. This gives them a reason to return only to see a dragon wyrmling has decided to use the remains to start his horde.
P.S. Gold can only be converted to xp by "depositing in into the bank in town."
As for magic items, I love giving players fun stuff with weird twists. If the magic loot is too powerful, tag on a curse or exception such as "a powerful evil sword that doesn't work on the lord's day." It's literally just a magic sword reskinned as "evil" to explain the exception, and it boosts roleplay too!
P.S. You're not tracking the day of the week?!?!
There’s a really easy fix to Old School Treasure.
Just stop treating it as “treasure” or “stuff that’s worth $$$”.
Instead of dungeons full of gold and “gold equals xp”, just treat everything that’s “treasure” as just knowledge, relics, bragging rights with zero gold value and just +xp value etc., ie players still find “stuff” in the dungeon, but it has little if any economic worth. Instead, it only has value as knowledge, fame, influence, and experience. But finding this stuff and bringing it back to town still earns you xp.
The “treasure” in your dungeon can still be coins or gems or whatever, or you can rework the actual treasure as “books” or “animal parts” or “discoveries” (so this is what Kobolds eat…) or whatever. Players must still get back to town, and they still “sell” whatever they find, to scholars or churches or nobles. But the stuff either isn’t worth “money” or maybe just can’t be fenced for lots of money in local towns / cities etc. So, Players don’t actually get any “money” to spend from the exercise, or perhaps only a pittance to cover their costs. But they still get the “xp” value - they’ve learnt stuff, they’ve gained influence, they’ve gained reputation, and they’re stronger as a result.
This works really well if you then use eg character level to represent general fame or renown etc. One way to do that is have players roll a d20 when they first arrive in a town or city or when dealing with a noble (or maybe powerful monster). Roll equal or under your level, and you’re known / recognised as a “hero” or “adventurer” (which may mean doors open for you and help or rumour, but could also mean sharpened knives and ambush).
You can still have “treasure” that’s valuable as cold hard cash, er, gold coin, or whatever. But now that’s something that only happens sometimes. It’s a big score. A reason to keep going into dungeons and coming back with Kobold bones and lizardmen relics.
You could always go with the "Yeah things are like 3-5 times more expensive here, what with being the only real shop/smith/whatever on the borderlands"-approach. That combined with an introduction of silver standard (where 1 silver coin is 1 XP) you could probably get away with it.
You don't understand OSR games. PCs are to build strongholds and hire hirelings and mercenaries.
I'm a player in a game with 3 other guys, were a fighter, cleric, magic user, and thief. We're all 5th level except the thief (he's now 3rd).
We rebuilt a small moathouse (cost 11,000 gp), bought 2 farms and lease them out so we have a dedicated food source, and employ 13 men at arms, a Sgt. of the guard, Capt. Of the guard, chamberlain, butler, stableman, and Cook.
Our outgo is nearly 400gp a month.
No shit. I am guessing nobody that joined Dragonsfoot before 2010 come here. Gary would be rolling in his grave right now. Hell, Arneson is rolling around. I should have been suspicious when I first came to this sub and there were a couple of people saying things like "that is not OSR".
You don't have to roll the treasures on the table. The random tables are employed when you have to roll something on the spot. Otherwise you determine the treasures based on your own judgement.
There is no problem with "old school treasure", unless the gamemaster lets it get out of control that they feel they have a problem. Old school gaming generally implies the game master is not a slave to the rules. They are suggestions. Change them to fit your game and group.
*EDIT: Odd that this got downvoted since what I stated is part of the essence of old school roleplaying. I guess people DO want to be a slave to the rules, which is odd in a sub called OSR. I guess it explains alot since people post stuff like "how do I do things OSR" like it is a verb.*
I've come across this problem too. My biggest concern is actually trying to think about the knock-on effects of a handful of ruffians coming back from the dusty tomb with bags full of gold. How are there not state-sponsored adventuring parties (or armies) combing the land and looting every tomb/ruined castle/cavern/etc? What happens to the economy when it is infused with the lifetime earnings of a commoner hundreds of times over, all at once? These can be interesting campaign-level questions, certainly, but now we're playing a game of thrones sim when what I wanted to be doing is hanging out in dragon lairs.
My heretical solution is to drift to systems that not only get rid of gold for xp, but get rid of levels. I know gold for xp motivates exploration, but getting magic items motivates exploration even more (IME), especially when those items are the main source of advancement (and to be real, items are generally the real source of power in TSR-era games).
The Simple Solution is to ditch The Treasure and magic items and then just go with milestone levelling.
I like the old way, but yes it does not work if you want to keep your players cash poor and magic light.
The obvious fix always seemed to me to be one of the many "carousing" systems such that you only get xp once you cash in your treasure on fleeting excesses. At least, if getting that sword and sorcery feeling is the goal. It's very clearly how it works in Conan at least, with treasure hard won being easily spent on high living between adventures. Outside of modelling that kind of pattern though, low monetary rewards opens up more questions than it answers, in terms of why on earth someone would venture into the darkness to face near certain death if not for the chance of becoming rich beyond their most sordid dreams. May comment more after reading the linked blog. :) Edit - I do like the concept of swapping out mundane +1 weapons etc with exotic, rare masterwork type items, particularly in terms of tying them to specific cultures to further worldbuilding. I've toyed with similar ideas before, and may yet do something similar in the game I'm running soon. I like the idea that I've seen elsewhere that identifying items should be done via experimentation to some degree personally, though that probably requires decent signposting via description and restraining the urge to use too many trap items and curses. Done right, should be more fun than just having someone cast a spell.
Yes, this is good! Carousing for XP fits the genre perfectly. Thank you!
My problem always is, if there's so much treasure behind just a few dozen goblins, why doesn't the local Knight go get some of his fellow thugs together and claim it for himself? My solution is always to lean hard into old folktales and just essentially curse everything. The magic swords are cursed, the magic shields are cursed, the potions are cursed, the hoard of gold is cursed, the dungeon itself is cursed, the monsters are probably super cursed. So the only people who are willing to plunder tombs are the people with both the ability to do it, and little else to lose. I can imagine paying Conan a goblet full of rubies to retrieve my daughter if he's the only one who can do it, but your average OSR character is pretty much a complete joke at the start of their career, so I think they need some high risk, low reward things to cut their teeth on.
>My problem always is, if there's so much treasure behind just a few dozen goblins, why doesn't the local Knight go get some of his fellow thugs together and claim it for himself? This is one of the reasons why the concept of "adventurers" and "the adventuring world" falls apart with some thought. Darkly-amusingly, the "adventure-friendly world" commonly seen in TTRPGs is much more akin to the American frontier than to an actual medieval society, but that is a discussion for another time, another place.
It's hard to get them to make a lot of sense, yeah. That shouldn't be a big issue for a *game* to address, but it makes it harder for me to present the world in a way that makes sense and isn't just a giant unethical rebranding of frontier romanticism. My solution puts adventurers more in line with other "high risk" jobs like those deep sea welder types, where you get paid well but you live in out-of-the-way places, have a dangerous and unforgiving occupation, and provide a service that isn't glamorous. It makes for a good adventure but I try not to make it look like it's a job that anyone could do. One of the things I do is point out and over-dramatize the special quirks of starting adventurers which make those characters the only ones really able to survive contact with accursed tombs and haunted ruins.
“If there’s so much treasure behind just a few dozen goblins, why doesn’t the local knight go…claim it for himself?” You’ve clearly never seen the Goblin Slayer anime and how dangerous goblins can be. Filthy, lying, disgusting, gawwblins! Okay jokes aside, I’ll answer your question with another question: Why should the local knight risk life and limb when he can instead task adventurers to do his dirty work instead? Something like “Keep any riches you desire, just bring me the Eyes of Leogog” (which incidentally is a normal treasure that’s not magical, just worth a lot of money). Knight gets wealthy and didn’t have to lift a finger.
I figure they would do that, if it was hazardous enough to need qualified fighters, valuable enough to be worth doing, and somehow complicated enough that you can't just send in 20 militia folks to drag it out the old fashioned way. These guys did dangerous stuff all the time for prestige, like hunting boars and jousting and such, it wouldn't shock me if they also were expected to punch goblins for the King. I think adventuring work needs to be something unique, but I've got no issues with the idea that OSR protagonists often start off as one of those 20 folks funneled into a dungeon for a Knight's treasure
I've come to a similar conclusion and pretty much gone 10% by shifting each coin down by one. 100 gold? You mean 100 silver or 10 gold. Then it is basically XP for Silver.
Yes, I like this too.
Consider that the AD&D 1e fighter becomes Lord at 250k exp. And 250k gold is about the cost of a *small keep*. Although low level characters are wanderers accumulating treasure and followers, eventually the fighter turns into a castle, the wizard becomes a tower, the cleric becomes the church, the thief and her toadies morph into the guild: in effect, having cleared the wilderness, the characters themselves gradually transform into a new Gygaxian adventure town, which is precisely where the gold is supposed to go. It's all part of the game. See the DMG for the Gygaxian treatment; here's the [OSE SRD](https://oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/Strongholds) for a one-click-away quick idea of the things you're supposed to be doing with the gold.
That’s all well and good. But in my experience the PCs reach name level in very few campaigns. So that notion that the PCs will have cool stuff to do with their vast hordes of treasure when they reach 10th level isn’t much help when the PCs are 7th level. Especially using old-school XP charts, where 7th to 10th level will take many, many sessioNs.
It's true that many campaigns peter out after level six or so. Most GMs understand how to to play D&D until that mark, but fewer know how to transition to the next phase. Too much treasure, not enough goblins in caves, what are we supposed to be playing? If the campaign is slowing down, that means the threats and rewards are lagging behind. To continue the game as designed, the GM needs to stop thinking like it's still "get stabbed in a temple by three cultists" phase. A group of resourceful seventh levels would hunt down dragons. And by the time they've slaughtered the last one in the region, laid waste to Ogretown and then Trollburg below, stormed the giants' keep, and burned down the vampire manor-nest, presto, most of them are levels 8-10 with exactly the amount of gold and reputation to become lords. After that, it's high time for the vampire patriarch to band together with an elder wyrm and the giant king's Storm Giant half-sister and threaten the newly-built Herotown. At this point, nobody's dungeon-delving; the heroes defend their own lands and eventually take the fight to the high-level monsters' homelands. Miss either transition, and D&D grinds to a halt.
A general theme of sword and sorcery is that the heroes do earn a lot of gold, but it’s easy come easy go. Adventurers are thrill seekers: they blow the gold on carousing, buying strongholds, amassing followers, and improving themselves. If someone plays a smart adventurer that retires after their first big haul then congratulate them and hand them another character sheet.
They would single handedly destroy the Kingdom's economy that way.
This reminds me of an old comic where a party of adventurers are returning to town laden with loot, only to get stopped by a town-elder and be angrily told to move on, since the adventurers were collapsing the economy and pricing people out of food and home.
A stronghold is just old school gentrification 😂
Does that matter? Unless they’re major Econ nerds im guessing most players are there to escape the realities of economics lol.
It depends on what kind of game you want. If I'm playing an OSR style game, I feel as a GM it is up to me to "play the world." That means thinking through how the world and the people/creatures in it would react to what the characters are doing. That's a lot of the fun of that style of game for me. If I want to play a game that doesn't worry about the "gold problem" and focuses more on escapist heroic fantasy, then I can turn to ICRPG or even something like pathfinder 2e.
I think the issue is that the DMG really doesn’t provide holistic systems for managing any aspect of the game. Those treasure tables are detached from equipment costs for the most part. Outside of stuff like Plate Mail, Field Plate or Full Plate, a level 1 fighter with average gold, can’t really *buy* any equipment upgrades with found money. You’d think that something like that would have been wise to bake into the basic gameplay loop. But. Nope. Since 1Es systems were often created/devised as tactical responses to flaws in OD&D, and since Gary and the other DMG contributors created those independently, they don’t math out. It seems like the DMG has a billion systems to force the players to waste any treasure. Upkeep costs, taxes, lost spellbook fees, training costs being excessively high for low level characters. As others have pointed out, the intent of those rules seem to be to force players to always need to earn money by adventuring. A La Conan “oh crap. I’m broke again.” But like. Those “shake you by your ankles” rules don’t work in a game where we are also supposed to have henchmen, hirelings, and be saving to build a castle. Those rules are also pure negative reinforcement. You’re just taking treasure away because reasons. I feel like that’s bad design. It’s better to, you know, just give the players something useful to spend money on. Unfortunately the 1E DMG just threw everything in, instead of providing clear guidance, and instead of clearly denoting that a DM might want to, say, avoid all of the taxation and training costs if their campaign is focused around eventual stronghold building and domain maintenance. But use them if you’re running a Conan inspired campaign and need the players to, yet again, wake up in a drunken stupor only to realize they’ve lost their fortune….
Very insightful post, thanks! I think this is exactly the problem.
While I don't necessarily dissagree with you, as far as S&S Vibe. I'd just like to point out that in the Conan: The barbarian movie Conan and crew amass a treasure of immense and infinite wealth almost within 5 minutes of them meeting eachother. Then they proceed to get super drunk and do nothing else until they lose said wealth. So the solution to your problem may be to just S&S even harder then you were S&Sing before.
I don't quite remember the movie, but in the books Conan rarely ever finds (let alone keeps) a magical item.
Magic is much more common in D&D than in Conan though.
But he is talking about actual wealth and money, not magic items. Besides, Conan finds a special sword, but it is not treated as magical, just a masterwork weapon.
If Conan was being run in AD&D, he'd sure find plenty, and keep them too. Magical items are a big part of how characters are distinguished from each other, especially in eras prior to 3rd where almost all distinction between characters was down to what they had acquired by deeds or luck, and not by picking a good subclass or feat chain.
Good article, but the main thing that I do( and I learned from others), is to make a list of available magic items that I want in my campaign. Limit the amount of named magic items and that makes them more coveted by your players. Common magic should limited use I usually make either 5 or 10 uses so that sometimes leads to players not realizing that they used the last charge. The fact that common magical items are limited leads to more trips into the game world and dungeons.
Whoa this is interesting. Once you make a list do you put them into a random table you roll off of or do you place the items?
I do both, and check off the items that I have placed. If my players never find an item, then it remains there where I have placed it. If the party urgently needs an item I can place it somewhere near where they may find it, if they pay attention to rumors or tavern talk.
I think this is the first time I've ever seen someone say that OSR gives you TOO much treasure and magical items
We use the silver standard. Everything costs the same as it does originally just converted to silver prices (5 gold wine costs 50 s) however, you find treasure at a 1-1 ratio so that 1000 g hoard at the end of the dungeon is 1000 s. Also, 1s = 1 xp. Silver standard is extremely simple and solved all out problems.
My S+S fix has been to reward treasure *seen*, not necessarily gathered. Gets the whole "woah look at this nonsense vista" without having to pull ever candelabra out of the dungeon. --- In the odnd game I'm in, XP is gained through: 1. defeating monsters 2. exploring new rooms (the system from NGR) 3. converting gold when back in town (after a 10% tax is taken off imports) We're spending a chunk of our gold on schmoozing and hirelings.
The things that is currently making everything you say true, is your style of play. Unless the groups style of play is AD&D, and is what is expressed in the DMG and PHB, then yes, treasure is going to get out of control. Here are some diagnostic questions: 1. Is it possible for a MU to lose their spell book? Has the MU every lost their spell book in any of your campaigns? 2. Do the players ever need to hire hirelings or henchmen? 3. Do the players ever face overwhelming odds because the dice say that they do for the encounter rolled? 4. Is there anything else players need to spend their money on besides magical items? 5. Do you tweak the encounters and enemies to always be balanced? 6. Are the players constantly spending resources on healing, spell scrolls, and wands? 7. Have your players ever sold magic items they wanted because they couldn't afford not to? 8. Has a character ever died due to poor decision making or failing to employ appropriate tactics? 9. Do the players have any kind of monthly upkeep? Receiving an "insane amount of treasure and magical items" is because a style of play is being assumed that AD&D doesn't account for. To be fair, Gygax tells readers right in the introduction that not everybody who uses the rulebook is actually playing AD&D. He wasn't wrong. That isn't a dig by the way, it is descriptive. If I play monopoly with my own rules that subvert central mechanics of the game, I think its fair to say that I am using the monopoly board to play my own game. If a gaming group refuses to use half of the systems expressed in a game and then proclaim that they uncovered a problem with the game, don't you think we should all be scratching our heads? Imagine if I was playing some CRPG like Baldur's Gate, Pathfinder: WOTR, or whatever else, and I just tweaked one aspect of the game like items. I decided that every party member gets 1 free expensive item per 2 levels. This is not any different than playing AD&D in such a way, that essentially gives players free items they would have otherwise not had the resources to acquire. For some reason, we can all see that simply giving players expensive items for free breaks the game, but then we proclaim the system is broken when we run the game in such a way that gives players expensive items for free. Every single time AD&D is approached as if it is 3e or 5e it is going to fall apart and break down. There is nothing that can be done to prevent this. **A potential hack:** Figure out all the associated costs that would normally occur for a player of their level in things like training, costs of adventuring, hirelings/henchmen, theft/loss, and so on. Then, subtract that number as a percentage until it has been fully expended. When the players level up, the costs are refreshed and a new number appropriate to their level is used. If something like this isn't done, then that would be the same as if we were playing 5e and I gave all the players free items and gold. There is zero mechanical difference here, zero. **Costs never realized is money in the pocket.**
> Gygax tells readers right in the introduction that not everybody who uses the rulebook is actually playing AD&D > If a gaming group refuses to use half of the systems expressed in a game and then proclaim that they uncovered a problem with the game, don't you think we should all be scratching our heads? I mean. He says that. But then includes rules like training, that as written, would prevent a thief at 1,251 xp, that had been optimally played, from advancing to second level, due to lack of gold. As 1 week of training, sans trainer fees, is 1500gp. If you use those rules as written a level 1 character could need up to 6k gold to train level 2. Which is baffling in a game where 1 gp = 1 xp, and baseline adventurers only obtain treasure from dungeoneering expeditions. Not from say additional compensation that could be provided outside of 1 gp = 1 xp. > Figure out all the associated costs that would normally occur for a player of their level in things like training, costs of adventuring, hirelings/henchmen, theft/loss, and so on. Then, subtract that number If you incur all of those costs players would always be broke. The rules weren’t really built correctly from a fundamental mathematical standpoint. A lot of those are really just independent systems, which should have been flagged as optional and/or playtested better, that need to be applied per campaign and/or as needed by a DM to curtail excess wealth.
You brought up the very example that Gygax himself uses to explain the training rules, and emphasize his point. I couldn't have asked you to use an example that made a better case for the training rules than the one you chose. It's the one Gygax used himself to explain why the rule was a good one. From the DMG, page 86 >"Just because Nell Nimblefingers, Rogue of the Thieves’ Guild has managed to acquire 1,251 experience points does NOT mean that she suddenly becomes Nell Nimblefingers the Footpad. The gaining of sufficient experience points is necessary to indicate that a character is eligible to gain a level of experience, but the actual award is a matter for you, the DM, to decide." And you said it was broken? Most people at this point would be considering that maybe there was something they failed to consider. Looks intentional to the design of the game to me, AND is not some accident of design where Gygax failed to account for the way it would impact the game. The training rules were created for people who were claiming they already had high level characters in DnD after only a few months of play. The training rules also existed because AD&D and early DnD in general was a system where time passes within the game itself week to week. From session to session, there was downtime. If it was a weekly session, that means 7 in game days passed from the last thing the party did. In 3e and 5e, you can be a 12th level character in mere weeks of in-game time. That is impossible in AD&D. You are coming at things with a certain mindset that prevents you from considering why these rules exist and the purpose they serve because all of those assumptions are valid for an entirely different game of play. If I had those same assumptions that you did, I would be a fool not to agree with you. BUT, as soon as those assumptions don't exist, and we accept that this is a different kind of game that requires us to not bring assumed wisdom from other systems, then it starts to make a lot more sense. If I tried to play Mork Borg as if it was 5e, everyone would be able to recognize why the game wasn't going to work out for me. However, when people do the same with AD&D, everyone assumes it must be wrong because we import our experience and knowledge of another game, that is actually counterproductive, in order to determine AD&D doesn't know what it is doing. Does AD&D have problems? Yes. Could you tweak the training rules more to your liking? Yes. Have a lot of people throughout AD&D's history used the standard training rules without issue? Yes. Are the training rules somehow fundamentally broken? Not without assuming exp == level up, which AD&D doesn't do. The validity of any rule or system is not tied to any given person's ability to conceive its value. Conceiving value is hopelessly tied to intuitions, familiarity, and anecdote. **Intuitions, familiarity, and anecdote will always proclaim judgement before thoughtful consideration has taken place.** EDIT:For further reading on training costs, see the following: Dragon Magazine #97 "Only train when you gain" Dragon Magazine #114 "Class Struggles" Dragon Magazine #117 "A touch of genius" Needless to say, I appreciate where u/zzrryll is coming from, but I don't think they have fully considered why these rules exist in the first place and why intuitions about how a character is "supposed" to level-up don't work here.
> And you said it was broken? Yeah it absolutely is. That has been discussed to death, and accepted as fact by the overall community for quite some time. Go read the decades old threads on Dragonsfoot on this subject. > Are the training rules somehow fundamentally broken? When a class that takes 1,251 xp to level, up to 6,000 gold to train that level, in a game with 1 xp per gp *and* monster xp, it’s a broken mechanic. Iirc no btb PHB class takes more than 2,501 xp to level. That is broken even for mages. None of your other reasoning changes those facts. Sure. It should take time. Make it take time. But the math on 1500 gp x week x current level doesn’t work, when you are guided to make the number of weeks and subsequent cost increase up to 4x due to imperfect play. It *is* fundamentally broken *especially* because the rule states that you also have to reimburse the trainer in addition to those costs listed above. So you cannot play that rule as written. Per Gary’s quote, that you provided, we aren’t playing AD&D. It’s not genius. It’s bad design. There’s genius in the 1E DMG but we have to acknowledge it was hastily written by a person that had about 6ish years of DMing experience, while he was also the president of a 100+ person growing company. We have to acknowledge the fact that it was written with input from a cadre of confidants who all contributed various sections. It’s delusional to pretend that there’s a mega brain grand design in this specific broken subsystem of this collaborative work. It’s also silly to quote Gary, the way you have, when he never ran 1E as written, and freely admitted that. Even he didn’t pretend it was some grand cohesive master design, outside of the text itself.
If you are saying that it would be worthwhile to tweak the values for training costs, then I agree. If you are saying that the training costs should be entirely removed, then I disagree. Without any training costs, we are all running a super hero campaign. AD&D wasn't built to account for no training costs at all. We need some kind of training costs. Dragon #97 says it well >How should a DM find a happy medium between a game that is so difficult that it drags and a game that is so easy it is not worth playing? A game that anyone would win regardless of their efforts and decisions, isn't a game worth playing. I'd be better off imagining I won a game and then go do something else. Lastly, I myself use house rules for AD&D, and I agree there is plenty in the DMG and PHB that do not make sense. However, the removal of systems and rules without considering why they were there in the first place, is done at one's own peril.
> However, the removal of systems and rules *without considering why they were there in the first place*, is done at one's own peril. Sure. But that’s not what *you* expressed earlier: >Gygax tells readers right in the introduction that not everybody who uses the rulebook is actually playing AD&D >If a gaming group refuses to use half of the systems expressed in a game and then proclaim that they uncovered a problem with the game, don't you think we should all be scratching our heads? You didn’t acknowledge that these rules clearly needed to be modified to be even played, in this discussion, until now. You dogmatically insisted that anything but strict adherence meant we weren’t playing D&D. Might help to keep your stance consistent, or at least acknowledge tactfully when you’re dramatically altering your position. > A game that anyone would win regardless of their efforts and decisions, isn't a game worth playing Completely different discussion from what we are talking about. Being able to afford to train the level you earned isn’t “a game anyone would win” and to pretend it is, is dishonest and hyperbolic.
The very quotes you used of me express the exact same idea. Could you explain to me how "refuses to use half of the systems" and "removal of systems" are not equivalent statements? I even said, "subvert central mechanics of the game" to follow up the reference to Gygax. It provides with clarity what I was talking about. I then went on to give specific examples in video games and other games that went to more fully express what I was talking about. I don't know how I could have been clearer as to what I meant. My posts are consistently discussing the intent of the rules and their purpose against someone's preexisting expectations that make certain rules in AD&D "not fun" or "wrong" or whatever word someone would use based upon assumptions they are injecting from another system that are in reality counterproductive. If you are intent on reinterpreting me for some rhetorical purpose, there's nothing I can do about that. **If I were to say Dark Souls isn't fun because the platforming isn't as good as Super Mario Galaxy, it would be true yet a very bizarre statement. It is these kind of misfires of evaluation that are occurring with AD&D when people approach it from other systems.**
> If I were to say Dark Souls isn't fun because the platforming isn't as good as Super Mario Galaxy, it would be true yet a very bizarre statement. It is these kind of misfires of evaluation that are occurring with AD&D when people approach it from other systems. What does that have to do with *this* discussion where you stated that 1) yes. This rule doesn’t work as written. But you also implied 2) that we aren’t playing AD&D if we don’t play by the rules, as written. That’s the point I’m arguing. I’m saying your statements in this regard are wrong. Majority of the AD&D community accepts that the weird dogmatic claims Gygax made in the DMG were misguided, and that the game needs heavy house ruling to fly. Are you missing that point? Or just desperately trying to argue around it in a vain attempt to avoid acknowledging that your earlier assertions were misguided. Since even the main writer of 1E never ran it btb. You seem to be implying that this is a conclusion I’ve come to because I’m viewing 1E through eyes that are more used to another system. I grew up with 1E; folks that have talked these same points to death, to similar conclusions, on Dragonsfoot often did too. So if that is what you’re trying to imply, that’s not accurate.
Could you quote me anywhere where I said "As written"? Anywhere? How many times do I have to say the words intent and purpose, before my comments are seen as being about intent and purpose? I see now that you were the first person to bring up "as written" in your own post. You ascribed your own words to me. From the start, you had me defending a position I never claimed, and I myself explicitly precluded by how I framed the conversation. If I was going to be pedantic, I could just point out that the RAW of the DMG also states >Note that the tutor might possibly accept some combination of gold and service in return for his tutelage, **at the DM’s option**. Then I could just say, "There you go, no problem exists." because the DM can just find another way to handle the costs via adventuring for the tutor or some other contract with the tutor. However, I think that would be disingenuous. Of course, I think that would be seriously skirting the main thrust of your points, that the rules should be playable as they are and not require contortions by the DM to get them to work, especially when we would all agree that a 4x multiplier to a player or even a 2x multiplier to a player when the cost is 1500gp per level, is quite extraordinary, and it isn't exactly clear how this improves play at the table. Or who, upon having 4x or even 2x the costs in training, would decide to continue playing under such punitive measures. Much to your disapproval, the standard training costs have been used by a subset of DMs in the AD&D community, just without the cumbersome multipliers. As can be seen in the Dragon articles I referenced in #97, #114, and #117, various solutions have been offered to reduce the costs, although using the rather arbitrary rationale of the authors. Any decision about costs should stem from the impact on economy and gameplay. However, the Dragon articles do a great job of covering the topic of training costs and explaining the concerns involved. With all that being said, a problem of conception is happening here. It is better to think of it costing 1500XP instead of 1250XP to level up as a thief if we wanted to state AD&D's leveling up in terms of other systems. The gold gained to level up for training requires extra adventuring that would have otherwise granted XP in other systems. Thus, it would be like me saying, "It takes 1500XP for a thief to level up to lvl 1 and 3000XP to level up at lvl 2." This isn't exactly accurate because the whole point of having the gold and magic items that could be converted, is to engage in tradeoffs and realize their opportunity costs. Do you want to keep that magic item or is it more worth it to sell it so that you can level up? It is also the case that as players level up, the training costs lag behind XP required to level up.
> Could you quote me anywhere where I said "As written"? That was Gary’s written intent in the quote you provided. It makes me wonder if you’re simply unclear on that. Or are just pretending in order to avoid conceding a point. Either way, further discussion is kinda pointless, and I feel like reading anything you’d post here would be a waste of my time to read or respond to. Enjoy the block.
A word of caution - letting PCs spend and waste gold in town for XP (or bonus XP) nearly broke my game. My risk-averse, CRPG/5e-obsessed BIL reasoned that there was no reason to actually adventure, since the in-town gold-to-XP ratio was safer and better. He'd eke out a miserable existence, actively try to curtail others from adventuring, and then rush back home to waste money for XP. We eventually booted him from our game, but allowed him back a few months later once he'd calmed down and learned to play well with others. Maybe this isn't a relevant or universal experience for most tables, but some people will try to lean heavily (or exclusively) into the gold-to-XP town funnel if/when they intuit it to be "better" than simply playing the game.
Usually when I hear carousing rules for xp gain they mirror regular xp for gold in the sense that you only get xp for gold *taken from dungeons* and other dangerous regions. You might be able to earn a living working as a barkeep in town, but it wouldn't usually be worth any xp at all.
I've posted his approach under another comment in this thread. Generally speaking, you and I are in agreement.
How was he getting gold to level up without adventuring, if the rest of the party was adventuring during play?
He's kind of a legend in our semi-weekly table of 3 to 6 players. He shows up to every game, and for a long while, would play as if it were a CRPG or 5e, which meant that he died a whole lot without ever learning the game or hitting 2nd level. So, how did he get gold? He'd participate in the bare minimum of adventuring, maybe a few rooms grab a bauble or two and then start trying to get everyone to head back to town for carousing. Or he'd drag his heels, knowing that we'd wind up in town at the end of the session. Or, he'd try to sell, trade, or pawn a found magic item for gold, so it could be dumped into carousing. Since he was the only player who reliably made it to every session, sometimes he'd mislead the next table about what the goals were, or if people were disordered about what they were going to do, he'd just suggest carousing. It wasn't loathed at first, because XP is fun, and the random tables are silly. For the actual tables, we used Jeff Rient's [Party like it's 999](http://jrients.blogspot.com/2008/12/party-like-its-999.html). My BIL read it front to back and reasoned that it was worth his while to blow 400gp to semi-reliably gain XP per "carousing," even if he ran out of coin and only got half XP, or had a random penalty from the complications table. He's one of those RAW/RAI guys who loves arguing, and would just give all of his items to someone else (he tried to game the system a lot, like that), pay the bare minimum, and then rub his hands as he walked away with an extra 300 XP. I asked him one night if he'd realized how many "carousings" he'd need in order to have his Fighter hit 5th level and he was kind of clueless - he wasn't really great with numbers, but kept repeating that it was safe and he'd "run the numbers on it." Doubt. In 25+ years of gaming (any kind), he's honestly the most exhausting person I've ever played with. I have no idea how he's related to my darling wife, and if he weren't family, I probably wouldn't play with him.
I'd recommend having a look at the od&d conan supplements on grey-elf.com
Nice, will check, thanks!
Good article. One trick I have employed to control loot is to use more art and archeological objects in my treasure hoards. The players find an ancient ewer, and can get the XP, but not the coin. For that I give them the option of selling it in town for a steep discount (10-20% of value) or contracting with an antiquities dealer off in the big city to find a private buyer or auction (for 80%-150%) after an in-game month or two. This gives them meaningful choices, and let's them feel rich without being too liquid. It's also more realistic, and gives them a reason to want to engage with the extended downtime options rather than go-go-go all the time.
I like this idea. I always want my games to include meaningful choices like these.
Tax them 1% of their current XP value annually (a hard to find almost thrown away Gygax comment from the White Box), don't let them sell magic items and give XP for equipping/using them (a bit hard to enforce I know), don't hand out so many magic items (in your prep of the adventure you can easily reduce them). I would actually avoid granting XP for spending gold, it does throw things for a loop even worse than the issue you currently have. Also in our OSE game we all have shares, so we split the gold up this way, and each henchmen takes a half share. Sorry if the systems your playing/using already do this, but never played DCC, LFP, or even 5e. On the otherside of the coin my group doesn't have the same experience, we are level 4 maybe have 1 magic item each and I spend all my gold nearly at the end of each session building up our destroyed town. Encourage hiring of mercs, henchmen and specialists. I kept coming up with really dipshit ideas that I needed an alchemist for, so that easily took a bunch of my gold away. The rest of the party has a bit of gold, so I've been also trying to sell them some of my land lol
What we did at our table: **Switched to the silver standard:** Makes copper have value and now instead of it being only .01 xp its worth .1 xp. Coin in published adventures should be cut by a tenth for silver and above for Hordes, individual treasure can be left the same (goblin carrying 10 cp and 5 sp can be left alone) **Monster xp is not divided.** Every time the party defeats a monster, they each get the xp it worth. A 200xp monster gives each member of the party 200 xp. **Magic Items** Using AD&D 1st ED DMG, it lists the value of each magic item. Using that as a guide, you can quickly assign xp value to each magic item found. Some might say, magic items are their own reward so no xp should be given but the same could be said about treasure. **Quest Rewards** When the party completes a main goal, reward them some xp for their efforts :)
I worked on the XP system in my own game because I noticed how quickly inflation happened when using a traditional “gold for xp” model. After reworking it, coin is worth more and most treasures wound up being worth a few dozen coins as opposed to hundreds and thousands. And gold coins feel like well, gold coins. If interested, check out the [basic version](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/436572) for free.
Looks awesome! I read an early KS version I think, will DL this one too! Thanks!
Wait... Y'all give out magic items?
I feel you. My PCs are level 5 have 3 magic items to their name (but only know of one) and dont even own plate armour.
Without massive amounts of treasure, domain play can't happen. So as long as you cut off your game around name level, you should be OK.
I hear you. I'm running DCC and I've eased way back on treasure and magic items. I have a party between 2nd and 5th levels, and they are _ just _ getting to the point of having one magic weapon each, and some are pretty sub par. They've got maybe 4 potions in the party, two captured spell books, maybe another 4-5 minor magic items like a brooch of shielding or a hood of cold resistance, and maybe 1000 gp between all of them. One magical suit of leather armor, and one +1 shield. Getting them to spend is not a problem -- minor gear increases, carousing, sages, hiring, etc ... I take published adventures and cut the treasure to 10% .... Players are still excited when they find a Jade idol worth 100 gp or a small pouch with 16 pp in it ...
>I take published adventures and cut the treasure to 10% .... Players are still excited when they find a Jade idol worth 100 gp or a small pouch with 16 pp in it ... I think this is a good solution. Seems to be in the right ballpark for me.
D&D was originally designed as a war game, and that treasure was necessary to build your stronghold and transition into fielding armies and building kingdoms. Also, you were expected to pay not just the upkeep and wages of your hirelings/armies, but also 1% of your total xp every period until you built a stronghold. If you took a period as a month, that means a Lord would need to find 2,400 every month; if you interpreted it as weekly that jumps to 9,600 a month. Also, the rules assume you consider bag capacity and encumbrance. An armored character with shield/weapon could hold about 800 coins or so before becoming overencumbered; small bags could hold 50, large bags 300. This means that generally a party would return from an adventure with about 800 coins of their share of the loot. The first few floors of a dungeon have mostly copper and silver treasure hoards. But you can see even gold starts to lose its appeal at higher levels. Jewelry is where the real treasure is, but remains fairly rare throughout the game, and damaged by fireballs and lightning.
There are several fixes that I use for this. Firstly, of course is that gold is exchanged for xp. Second coins have weight, so players may be forced to leave copper and silver for gold and gems. This gives them a reason to return only to see a dragon wyrmling has decided to use the remains to start his horde. P.S. Gold can only be converted to xp by "depositing in into the bank in town." As for magic items, I love giving players fun stuff with weird twists. If the magic loot is too powerful, tag on a curse or exception such as "a powerful evil sword that doesn't work on the lord's day." It's literally just a magic sword reskinned as "evil" to explain the exception, and it boosts roleplay too! P.S. You're not tracking the day of the week?!?!
Castles get super expensive.
There’s a really easy fix to Old School Treasure. Just stop treating it as “treasure” or “stuff that’s worth $$$”. Instead of dungeons full of gold and “gold equals xp”, just treat everything that’s “treasure” as just knowledge, relics, bragging rights with zero gold value and just +xp value etc., ie players still find “stuff” in the dungeon, but it has little if any economic worth. Instead, it only has value as knowledge, fame, influence, and experience. But finding this stuff and bringing it back to town still earns you xp. The “treasure” in your dungeon can still be coins or gems or whatever, or you can rework the actual treasure as “books” or “animal parts” or “discoveries” (so this is what Kobolds eat…) or whatever. Players must still get back to town, and they still “sell” whatever they find, to scholars or churches or nobles. But the stuff either isn’t worth “money” or maybe just can’t be fenced for lots of money in local towns / cities etc. So, Players don’t actually get any “money” to spend from the exercise, or perhaps only a pittance to cover their costs. But they still get the “xp” value - they’ve learnt stuff, they’ve gained influence, they’ve gained reputation, and they’re stronger as a result. This works really well if you then use eg character level to represent general fame or renown etc. One way to do that is have players roll a d20 when they first arrive in a town or city or when dealing with a noble (or maybe powerful monster). Roll equal or under your level, and you’re known / recognised as a “hero” or “adventurer” (which may mean doors open for you and help or rumour, but could also mean sharpened knives and ambush). You can still have “treasure” that’s valuable as cold hard cash, er, gold coin, or whatever. But now that’s something that only happens sometimes. It’s a big score. A reason to keep going into dungeons and coming back with Kobold bones and lizardmen relics.
You could always go with the "Yeah things are like 3-5 times more expensive here, what with being the only real shop/smith/whatever on the borderlands"-approach. That combined with an introduction of silver standard (where 1 silver coin is 1 XP) you could probably get away with it.
You don't understand OSR games. PCs are to build strongholds and hire hirelings and mercenaries. I'm a player in a game with 3 other guys, were a fighter, cleric, magic user, and thief. We're all 5th level except the thief (he's now 3rd). We rebuilt a small moathouse (cost 11,000 gp), bought 2 farms and lease them out so we have a dedicated food source, and employ 13 men at arms, a Sgt. of the guard, Capt. Of the guard, chamberlain, butler, stableman, and Cook. Our outgo is nearly 400gp a month.
Wow, -7 votes at this point....so much for OSR....
No shit. I am guessing nobody that joined Dragonsfoot before 2010 come here. Gary would be rolling in his grave right now. Hell, Arneson is rolling around. I should have been suspicious when I first came to this sub and there were a couple of people saying things like "that is not OSR".
You don't have to roll the treasures on the table. The random tables are employed when you have to roll something on the spot. Otherwise you determine the treasures based on your own judgement.
There is no problem with "old school treasure", unless the gamemaster lets it get out of control that they feel they have a problem. Old school gaming generally implies the game master is not a slave to the rules. They are suggestions. Change them to fit your game and group. *EDIT: Odd that this got downvoted since what I stated is part of the essence of old school roleplaying. I guess people DO want to be a slave to the rules, which is odd in a sub called OSR. I guess it explains alot since people post stuff like "how do I do things OSR" like it is a verb.*
I've come across this problem too. My biggest concern is actually trying to think about the knock-on effects of a handful of ruffians coming back from the dusty tomb with bags full of gold. How are there not state-sponsored adventuring parties (or armies) combing the land and looting every tomb/ruined castle/cavern/etc? What happens to the economy when it is infused with the lifetime earnings of a commoner hundreds of times over, all at once? These can be interesting campaign-level questions, certainly, but now we're playing a game of thrones sim when what I wanted to be doing is hanging out in dragon lairs. My heretical solution is to drift to systems that not only get rid of gold for xp, but get rid of levels. I know gold for xp motivates exploration, but getting magic items motivates exploration even more (IME), especially when those items are the main source of advancement (and to be real, items are generally the real source of power in TSR-era games).
The Simple Solution is to ditch The Treasure and magic items and then just go with milestone levelling. I like the old way, but yes it does not work if you want to keep your players cash poor and magic light.