Quote from: zircher on February 08, 2024, 04:45:07 PM
Way way back in the day when I ran AD&D, I would not deny a player a level if they had earned it.  But, I would put them in debt to the guild/temple and I would gin up some nasty side quests as one way of paying off those debts.

That seems like a neat side effect: if you don't have the gold (or don't wanna cough it up) you can exchange training for a quest. That's how I figured a lot of character types like paladins and druids would go about it since they don't tend to collect wealth like the other classes.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on February 07, 2024, 11:34:18 PM
The end of year exam is not studying a subject. Studying a subject is studying a subject. The exam is the exam.
The sports match is not practicing the sport. Practicing the sport is practicing the sport. The match is the match.
The marriage proposal is not dating. Dating is dating. The marriage proposal is the marriage proposal.

The training for the level is the studying, the practice, the dating. The adventuring is the exam, the match, the proposal.

Hm, then shouldn't the training come before the adventuring, and the leveling immediately following the adventuring, and preceding the next training?

Quote from: Zalman on February 09, 2024, 06:45:29 AM
Hm, then shouldn't the training come before the adventuring, and the leveling immediately following the adventuring, and preceding the next training?

Apart from 1st level, it does.

At the end of 1st level, you do the training that takes you to 2nd level which prepares you for the exam of the adventuring of being 2nd level.

At the end of 2nd level, you do the training that takes you to being able to try out for the exam of being a 3rd level adventurer. And so on.

What precedes 1st level is a mystery. How do 1st level characters get created? Are they 1st level as infants? If they are 0-level children, how do they become 1st level fighters or clerics? It's a mystery.

But once you're 1st level it's as I said: at the end of level X, you do the training that takes you to level X+1, which prepares you for the adventuring-exam of being level X+1 out in the wild. It's a practical exam, not written. Did you survive the dungeon and emerge with phat l3wt?

Quote from: Brad on February 05, 2024, 08:51:52 PM
Short answer: Yes

Long answer: Yes

So I read through all the answers in this thread...here's why I say use them.

AD&D assumes treasure = experience. You HAVE to give out a lot of treasure or the characters will never level up. I am perfectly fine with this because honestly getting the treasure is what's important, not killing monsters. Monsters can hurt you and make your life miserable, so if the PCs can figure out a way to take their stuff without a direct confrontation, why SHOULDN'T they be rewarded?

If you change to AD&D 2nd style story awards, then of course treasure must be adjusted, but I'm assuming you're playing BtB AD&D which means lots of treasure. How the characters get it is irrelevant, they MUST have lots of treasure to gain levels and buy strongholds, pay hirelings, etc.

The training costs aren't just literal training costs, they're all sorts of stuff. Clerics have to grease the wheels in the church to gain audience with higher ups to gain more divine favor, magic-users need to pay for spells, thieves have to buy off the town guard, and fighters need balms for the inevitable weird STDs they're going to get from all the whores they're banging. Training costs are literally in-genre. Pulp consists of Conan and Fafhrd and Kull (and even dudes like Zorro and Buck Rogers) making a shitload of money and blowing it in a single night of hedonistic extravagance. If a fighter needs to spend two weeks "training," that might actually be a couple lessons from a local swordsman and a fortnite of hanging around the very best brothel. Throw in countless rounds bought in the tavern, the finest haute cuisine for every beggar on the streets to show off, and and utter lack of giving a single fuck about blowing 5000 gold pieces for a new sword hilt and the PCs will quickly run out of money. Walking around in a fur coat and throwing gems (benjamins) at bartenders for a shot of $500 Scotch is what celebrities do, and then they go broke. Just like high level characters. 1st level characters are usually broke, and 10th level characters should also be broke. They are adventurers because they like money solely to buy stupid shit and show off, not because they want to become kings. And just like Conan, they MIGHT become the king, but then they go off adventuring anyway because they're the real badasses and want to show their hotass queen how cool they are by building a million gold piece addition to the castle. Go kill a dragon and steal it's stuff; taxing the people is what tyrants do, not heroes.

Exactly so, Brad.

Adventurers are basically trailer trash who won the lottery.

In the monthly costs section, the DMG uses the word 'largess' to explain why costs go up as characters level up. I thought it meant something like 'living it up', as Brad described, but it has a more important meaning.

Heroes are supposed to be generous. They hand out expensive gifts to everyone because they are heroes, because they possess qualities that make them worthy of being elevated to the aristocracy (which is why they are granted domains at later levels).

I'm going to make a strange suggestion, and please don't all try to murder me at once. The first thing is to change the nature of the economy in D&D. Make Gold Pieces ACTUALLY mean something instead of having them coming out of everyone's kazoo. Most of what the PCs should find is copper and silver coinage (aka the everyday coins of the realms). Even in a post-apocalyptic Swords & Sorcery setting like Greyhawk, gold coinage should be rarer than its ever been shown. A silver standard should be the norm.

Keep the training costs, but change the requirements. Make 1 copper penny = 1XP for training and 1600cp x level.

So, using a the cribbed coinage system from Decipher's Lord of the Rings RPG we get this (GP = Gold Piece, gp = Gold Penny, SP = Silver Piece, sp = Silver Penny, cp = Copper Penny):

1/4 GP = 1gp = 4SP = 16sp = 1600cp

Then just adjust the treasure load to be more copper and silver, reserving a few gold pieces for when you really get up there in levels. Low level grunt monsters (Orks, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Gnolls, etc) should never be carrying anything more than a few silver pennies and most copper pennies. The don't forget other money sinks to eat into that treasure haul.

Would it be less confusing to use abbreviations like..
GC = gold coin, GP = gold penny
SC = silver coin, SP = silver penny, etc?

Quote from: Banjo Destructo on February 29, 2024, 11:01:01 AM
Would it be less confusing to use abbreviations like..
GC = gold coin, GP = gold penny
SC = silver coin, SP = silver penny, etc?

Well, you could use historical coinage names like Crown, Half-Crown, Shilling, Farthing, etc instead...

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on February 29, 2024, 11:03:00 AM

Quote from: Banjo Destructo on February 29, 2024, 11:01:01 AM
Would it be less confusing to use abbreviations like..
GC = gold coin, GP = gold penny
SC = silver coin, SP = silver penny, etc?

Well, you could use historical coinage names like Crown, Half-Crown, Shilling, Farthing, etc instead...

Were those common for most of history in most of the world though? or just part of history in part of the world?  I mean I guess we're talking about a fantasy game so you can come up with any coinage system you want.   But I think the idea of using a penny is interesting as I've never seen that in a game before,  but having a piece and a penny is the same letter, leading to the same abreviation just a difference in capitalization,  going from coin to penny at least gives a different letter for abbreviating.