Quote from: VisionStorm on June 25, 2023, 08:58:43 PM
The OSR: Rulings not Rules! All those nu-school gamers and all their rules for everything. What a buncha tards! LULZ 

Also the OSR: Why aren't you letting the rules micromanage your in-game economy and adding a buncha hoops and middlemen to make excess treasure work? 

Me: Probably cuz I'm not a fucking retard trying to chase my own tail by adding shit I don't need into the game only to rely on a bunch of bullshit rules and superfluous accounting nonsense to fix what would never have been broken if I hadn't added needless shit to begin with.

Im betting you've never heard of the Federal Reserve, have you. You know, minting a trillion dollar coin to fix the economy? Nahh, stuff like that's just pure fantasy.

There has been so much bitching about the "gold standard" over the years, but it's almost literally the system the British empire used

1 Gold Sovereign = 20 silver shillings, and a shilling was worth 12 pence (which also originally silver, but latter mostly copper).   It's still a gold standard, even if shillings and pence were the most common thing used

Quote from: Brad on June 25, 2023, 09:20:11 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 25, 2023, 08:58:43 PM
The OSR: Rulings not Rules! All those nu-school gamers and all their rules for everything. What a buncha tards! LULZ 

Also the OSR: Why aren't you letting the rules micromanage your in-game economy and adding a buncha hoops and middlemen to make excess treasure work? 

Me: Probably cuz I'm not a fucking retard trying to chase my own tail by adding shit I don't need into the game only to rely on a bunch of bullshit rules and superfluous accounting nonsense to fix what would never have been broken if I hadn't added needless shit to begin with.

Im betting you've never heard of the Federal Reserve, have you. You know, minting a trillion dollar coin to fix the economy? Nahh, stuff like that's just pure fantasy.

>We should devote extra effort breaking our elfgame's economy then additional effort taking extra measures we wouldn't have otherwise needed to desperately try to fix it, cuz Federal Reserve broke the money supply IRL

Jeeses Christ! That's the take that keeps on taking, lol

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 25, 2023, 08:58:43 PM
The OSR: Rulings not Rules! All those nu-school gamers and all their rules for everything. What a buncha tards! LULZ 

Also the OSR: Why aren't you letting the rules micromanage your in-game economy and adding a buncha hoops and middlemen to make excess treasure work? 

Me: Probably cuz I'm not a fucking retard trying to chase my own tail by adding shit I don't need into the game only to rely on a bunch of bullshit rules and superfluous accounting nonsense to fix what would never have been broken if I hadn't added needless shit to begin with.

If you don't like old school games then don't play them. The rules work together as a whole. If you start changing shit then you need to change other stuff that your change impacts. For example if you reduced treasure by 75% then the xp table numbers need to modified to compensate but oh noes that means math and we hates it precious yes we hates it.

Quote from: JeremyR on June 26, 2023, 04:07:31 AM
There has been so much bitching about the "gold standard" over the years, but it's almost literally the system the British empire used

1 Gold Sovereign = 20 silver shillings, and a shilling was worth 12 pence (which also originally silver, but latter mostly copper).   It's still a gold standard, even if shillings and pence were the most common thing used

The standard or common coins in use are not the same thing as the "standard" upon which the currency is derived.  Most people here are talking the former, not the latter.  Moreover, many of us are emulating an earlier period, where silver was the "standard" in both senses of the word.  That is part of the contention, that having lots of gold, in reality or even as a "standard", seems out of place emulating an earlier period. 

Fortunately, it's an easy, almost cosmetic change--one that doesn't change how the system works otherwise.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 26, 2023, 07:44:22 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 25, 2023, 08:58:43 PM
The OSR: Rulings not Rules! All those nu-school gamers and all their rules for everything. What a buncha tards! LULZ 

Also the OSR: Why aren't you letting the rules micromanage your in-game economy and adding a buncha hoops and middlemen to make excess treasure work? 

Me: Probably cuz I'm not a fucking retard trying to chase my own tail by adding shit I don't need into the game only to rely on a bunch of bullshit rules and superfluous accounting nonsense to fix what would never have been broken if I hadn't added needless shit to begin with.

If you don't like old school games then don't play them. The rules work together as a whole. If you start changing shit then you need to change other stuff that your change impacts. For example if you reduced treasure by 75% then the xp table numbers need to modified to compensate but oh noes that means math and we hates it precious yes we hates it.

It's not about what I like or don't, but about what makes sense or doesn't. And giving out excess treasure only for you to then need punitive and superfluous money sinks that take extra bookkeeping in order to get rid of that excess treasure makes no sense. When you can avoid all of that by not giving out excessive amounts of treasure to begin with. Just a normal amount will do.

And XP for gold makes no sense either. Gold (or whatever) amount found has no direct correlation with personal growth (only financial), and stuff like paying obscene amounts for training is just an ad hoc rationalization to justify XP for exact gold amount. It's also quite easy to replace XP for gold with XP awards for other stuff, like completing objectives (mission or personal), finishing an adventure, good planning, or any number of other things, including uncovering lost treasure, if that was an objective. But that XP award doesn't have to match currency amount. It could be whatever the DM feels is appropriate based on these "Rulingz not Rulez!" powers I keep hearing they supposedly have.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 26, 2023, 08:19:17 AM

Quote from: JeremyR on June 26, 2023, 04:07:31 AM
There has been so much bitching about the "gold standard" over the years, but it's almost literally the system the British empire used

1 Gold Sovereign = 20 silver shillings, and a shilling was worth 12 pence (which also originally silver, but latter mostly copper).   It's still a gold standard, even if shillings and pence were the most common thing used

The standard or common coins in use are not the same thing as the "standard" upon which the currency is derived.  Most people here are talking the former, not the latter.  Moreover, many of us are emulating an earlier period, where silver was the "standard" in both senses of the word.  That is part of the contention, that having lots of gold, in reality or even as a "standard", seems out of place emulating an earlier period. 

Fortunately, it's an easy, almost cosmetic change--one that doesn't change how the system works otherwise.

Discussing earlier or later historical periods is not really what D&D (and similar OSR games) is actually trying to emulate. Large piles of gold treasure have nothing to do with any historical period it is based on pure fantasy as is the magic, and fantastical creatures that are also part of the game. It is not meant to represent a historical European world with wizards & dragons thrown in. In a fantasy world where there are large piles of gold treasure being recovered by brave adventurers the economies of areas where these adventurers spend money will certainly be affected. In the real world there are numerous examples of local economies charging outrageous prices for everything when there is an influx of wealth, such as the example of gold rush mining towns given in the AD&D DMG. Even in modern times there are examples of prices being artificially inflated. I remember an interview Mel Gibson did when Braveheart came out. He talked about the jacked up prices for everything that the production team had to pay because the crew from Rob Roy had just come through the same area and the locals wanted to grab more of that Hollywood cash.

"What! Fifteen gold for a backpack! I just paid two for one of those not quite a month ago." "Yes sir but times are tough now with the Baron's new taxes, and supply costs have gone up".....yadda yadda yadda. Large piles of cash hitting the economy will drive everything up.

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 26, 2023, 07:14:30 AM
>We should devote extra effort breaking our elfgame's economy then additional effort taking extra measures we wouldn't have otherwise needed to desperately try to fix it, cuz Federal Reserve broke the money supply IRL

Jeeses Christ! That's the take that keeps on taking, lol

Elfgame economy...you use that phrase like it has any analogy to a real-world economy. Like, seriously, if you want to do some sort of 1-to-1 simulationist crap DON"T PLAY D&D. It's pretty fucking simple. But as I already said, it's a game. This is like bitching that it makes no sense to be able to freely buy and sell house in Monopoly because it doesn't line up to real life.

Further, my real-world example just proves you have no idea WTF you're even talking about RE: economics. The implied D&D economy makes way more sense than whatever the fuck the Fed is doing right now.

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 26, 2023, 08:41:57 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 26, 2023, 07:44:22 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 25, 2023, 08:58:43 PM
The OSR: Rulings not Rules! All those nu-school gamers and all their rules for everything. What a buncha tards! LULZ 

Also the OSR: Why aren't you letting the rules micromanage your in-game economy and adding a buncha hoops and middlemen to make excess treasure work? 

Me: Probably cuz I'm not a fucking retard trying to chase my own tail by adding shit I don't need into the game only to rely on a bunch of bullshit rules and superfluous accounting nonsense to fix what would never have been broken if I hadn't added needless shit to begin with.

If you don't like old school games then don't play them. The rules work together as a whole. If you start changing shit then you need to change other stuff that your change impacts. For example if you reduced treasure by 75% then the xp table numbers need to modified to compensate but oh noes that means math and we hates it precious yes we hates it.

It's not about what I like or don't, but about what makes sense or doesn't. And giving out excess treasure only for you to then need punitive and superfluous money sinks that take extra bookkeeping in order to get rid of that excess treasure makes no sense. When you can avoid all of that by not giving out excessive amounts of treasure to begin with. Just a normal amount will do.

And XP for gold makes no sense either. Gold (or whatever) amount found has no direct correlation with personal growth (only financial), and stuff like paying obscene amounts for training is just an ad hoc rationalization to justify XP for exact gold amount. It's also quite easy to replace XP for gold with XP awards for other stuff, like completing objectives (mission or personal), finishing an adventure, good planning, or any number of other things, including uncovering lost treasure, if that was an objective. But that XP award doesn't have to match currency amount. It could be whatever the DM feels is appropriate based on these "Rulingz not Rulez!" powers I keep hearing they supposedly have.

You can give out XP for whatever you want but if you are not using treasure for XP then it isn't really D&D anymore. There are great games that don't use treasure for XP. I love GURPS and have played quite a few great campaigns with it, some of them fantasy but it wasn't D&D. XP for gold was just a way to keep score in the game. Old school campaigns were not about leading players by the nose in adventure paths. Multiple groups of players would play in the same campaign and those that won the most treasure could claim the high score. The setting and treasures to be won were the same for all players which is why good timekeeping was essential. If group A planned and executed a raid on an owlbear lair on date X and successfully looted it, and group B had planned a raid on that same lair but was sidetracked and did something else, and didn't get to the lair until date Y then they would find it already looted. Open ended exploration in an ever changing environment with player set goals was the essence of the game. Multiple groups participating in the campaign helped the players to realize that the game world didn't revolve around them in particular and that it wasn't static and things happened with or without them. Campaign play wasn't like an MMORPG where the player can just delay doing a quest until it is convenient to do it and it will still be there waiting for them until they accept it. My feeling is that you just don't LIKE D&D and that is fine. There are plenty of other games out there.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 26, 2023, 09:36:26 AM
You can give out XP for whatever you want but if you are not using treasure for XP then it isn't really D&D anymore.

It's almost like he never actually read the books...this is explained in great detail in the DMG as to why it is done this way.

Quote from: Brad on June 26, 2023, 09:35:15 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 26, 2023, 07:14:30 AM
>We should devote extra effort breaking our elfgame's economy then additional effort taking extra measures we wouldn't have otherwise needed to desperately try to fix it, cuz Federal Reserve broke the money supply IRL

Jeeses Christ! That's the take that keeps on taking, lol

Elfgame economy...you use that phrase like it has any analogy to a real-world economy. Like, seriously, if you want to do some sort of 1-to-1 simulationist crap DON"T PLAY D&D. It's pretty fucking simple. But as I already said, it's a game. This is like bitching that it makes no sense to be able to freely buy and sell house in Monopoly because it doesn't line up to real life.

Further, my real-world example just proves you have no idea WTF you're even talking about RE: economics. The implied D&D economy makes way more sense than whatever the fuck the Fed is doing right now.

You keep bringing up "simulation" like I ever advocated mimicking real-world economy at any point. It's not either/or. I don't have to simulate real world economy 1:1 OR jump through hoops to justify excess in-game treasure. And again, "the Fed doesn't make sense (be design) IRL" does not mean that therefore I have to use additional hoops that don't make sense in the game as well.

Quote from: Brad on June 26, 2023, 09:39:37 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 26, 2023, 09:36:26 AM
You can give out XP for whatever you want but if you are not using treasure for XP then it isn't really D&D anymore.

It's almost like he never actually read the books...this is explained in great detail in the DMG as to why it is done this way.

XP for Gold hasn't been a default thing in D&D since 2e (or even used after that), and there is way more to D&D's implied setting and the fantasy genre than farming treasure exclusively. And I don't give a shit what the RAW say. If a rule doesn't make sense or adds additional hurdles that can be easily avoided I ignore it.

But, "OMG! WHAT ABOUT THE RULEZ?" or "But, it's a GAEM!" doesn't mean therefore people are wrong to observe that this aspect of the game makes no sense (what "people who complained about the "monty haul" nature of AD&D" are normally doing), as implied by the post I originally replied to.

Quote from: thedungeondelver on June 24, 2023, 01:05:30 AM
Kyle's got the right of it.  People who complained about the "monty haul" nature of AD&D or that characters were festooned in excess magic items and so on weren't using the rules correctly.  Treasure is meant to be spent and there's mechanics in the game for this.

Sometimes people can read the rules correctly and arrive at the conclusion that these are added hoops that  make no sense and can easily be avoided.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 26, 2023, 09:01:39 AM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 26, 2023, 08:19:17 AM

Quote from: JeremyR on June 26, 2023, 04:07:31 AM
There has been so much bitching about the "gold standard" over the years, but it's almost literally the system the British empire used

1 Gold Sovereign = 20 silver shillings, and a shilling was worth 12 pence (which also originally silver, but latter mostly copper).   It's still a gold standard, even if shillings and pence were the most common thing used

The standard or common coins in use are not the same thing as the "standard" upon which the currency is derived.  Most people here are talking the former, not the latter.  Moreover, many of us are emulating an earlier period, where silver was the "standard" in both senses of the word.  That is part of the contention, that having lots of gold, in reality or even as a "standard", seems out of place emulating an earlier period. 

Fortunately, it's an easy, almost cosmetic change--one that doesn't change how the system works otherwise.

Discussing earlier or later historical periods is not really what D&D (and similar OSR games) is actually trying to emulate. Large piles of gold treasure have nothing to do with any historical period it is based on pure fantasy as is the magic, and fantastical creatures that are also part of the game. It is not meant to represent a historical European world with wizards & dragons thrown in. In a fantasy world where there are large piles of gold treasure being recovered by brave adventurers the economies of areas where these adventurers spend money will certainly be affected. In the real world there are numerous examples of local economies charging outrageous prices for everything when there is an influx of wealth, such as the example of gold rush mining towns given in the AD&D DMG. Even in modern times there are examples of prices being artificially inflated. I remember an interview Mel Gibson did when Braveheart came out. He talked about the jacked up prices for everything that the production team had to pay because the crew from Rob Roy had just come through the same area and the locals wanted to grab more of that Hollywood cash.

"What! Fifteen gold for a backpack! I just paid two for one of those not quite a month ago." "Yes sir but times are tough now with the Baron's new taxes, and supply costs have gone up".....yadda yadda yadda. Large piles of cash hitting the economy will drive everything up.

I'm well aware of that.  I'm not sure what I said would prompt that response.  Unless you have me mixed up with some of the other posters.  To be clear, I'm not complaining about the way how early D&D does things.  I have enjoyed that approach a lot. 

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 26, 2023, 09:36:26 AM
You can give out XP for whatever you want but if you are not using treasure for XP then it isn't really D&D anymore.

That seems much too onetruewayist to me. 2e AD&D is still D&D IMO even without xp for gp as a default rule. Anyway you can always divide awards by 10 and give 10 xp per gp.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 26, 2023, 09:36:26 AM
You can give out XP for whatever you want but if you are not using treasure for XP then it isn't really D&D anymore.

D&D doesn't break if the referee ditches XP for Treasure.

Especially if the point of the campaign is to trash the setting rather than kicking the door, killing monsters, and gathering their loot.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 26, 2023, 09:36:26 AM
Old school campaigns were not about leading players by the nose in adventure paths. Multiple groups of players would play in the same campaign and those that won the most treasure could claim the high score.

As someone who played a lot back in the day as well as in the present. Campaigns varied a lot in what they focused on. Even in my small rural town in northwest PA. Even when we all used the AD&D rules.

My focus from the get go was on players trashing the setting. Mainly because I played AH/SPI wargames prior to my introduction to D&D in 1978. I viewed D&D as a far more interesting and expansive way of doing multi-player situations where everybody was a contender for positions of power and wealth. And as something practical I can do with the homebrew settings I liked working as a result of my passion for the Return of the King appendices. And easier as setting up a D&D campaign was far more straightforward than making a AH/SPI wargame. This was the viewpoint of my Junior High self. And I lucked out in that my friends liked being contenders for positions of power and most DMs at the time hated their settings being fucked with.

Because I was using D&D, there was still dungeon crawls, and wilderness exploration because that how PCs gain the resources and training (by leveling) to get their start. But I quickly found that Gold for XP got in the away because it made the acquisition of gold the focus rather than a means to an end. So ditched it and magic item XP,  in favor of a roleplaying award based on how well they roleplayed i.e. how well their immediate plans worked out.  It was a form of what folks called a milestone award. Except it wasn't an award for completing a checkpoint on an adventure path, but rather an award for the PCs succeeding on whatever plan they happened to come up with. Again whatever plan THEY came up with, not me.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 26, 2023, 09:36:26 AM
Open ended exploration in an ever changing environment with player set goals was the essence of the game.

Wait earlier you said the point was to see who had the most treasure at the end of the day. While I agree your statement is an accurate reflection of what some of us did back in the day. And that it is good reason to have good timekeeping. It is a poor defense of Gold for XP.

With only the traditional XP system, there is no reason to explore for the sake of exploration. The only time one needs to explore if it will pay off in terms of gaining gold, or killing monster. Otherwise why bother? Which is another reason I changed to a roleplaying award (milestone).

The reason we heard so much about exploration is because the lack of any type of scenario restrictions (like a wargame has) was intoxicating. So sure at first everybody poked around to see what they could find. But the logic of XP gain RAW meant that was a passing phase in favor of more loot, more monsters slain.

I was lucky in that I spotted this as an issue for my campaign so by 1984 I switched over to a roleplaying award although I still kept Monster XP.

If you don't believe me I still have a typewritten copy of the rule I used.
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2011/04/from-attic-experience-points-rules.html

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 26, 2023, 09:36:26 AM
Multiple groups participating in the campaign helped the players to realize that the game world didn't revolve around them in particular and that it wasn't static and things happened with or without them.

As it turned out multiple groups in a single campaign is a rare occurrence. The best I was able to do was two at once (hometown and college, then later a game store campaign, and a campaign at my house, then still later a VTT campaign and a face to face campaign).

One way I got around this is that I stuck with the same setting, the Majestic Wilderlands, whenever ran a fantasy campaign. What the players did in the previous campaign became part of the background for the next campaign I ran.  Today, some regions of my setting are what they are as the result of what the PCs did in the past. Not just one group but multiple groups of different players doing their thing.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 26, 2023, 09:36:26 AM
My feeling is that you just don't LIKE D&D and that is fine. There are plenty of other games out there.

My feeling is that too many folks put too much stock in the system when they should be focused on the setting. Moreso not everything in a RPG rulebook is part of the system. Some are aides to help make running a campaign easier.

The XP charts in various editions of D&D are part of the system. It describes what it takes for a character to progress in levels. What you award XP for is an aide. A suggestion based on the author (Gygax, etc.) experience. But it is just that a suggestion. If the suggestion doesn't suit the type of setting you want to run or the type of campaign (like trashing the setting) then change it. The system won't break. Your players may be unhappy if your award system is overly generous, or overly stingy.

Or forces them to do things they are not interested in. After reading the thread seems to be what the objections boil down too.

Quote from: S'mon on June 26, 2023, 10:48:38 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on June 26, 2023, 09:36:26 AM
You can give out XP for whatever you want but if you are not using treasure for XP then it isn't really D&D anymore.

That seems much too onetruewayist to me. 2e AD&D is still D&D IMO even without xp for gp as a default rule. Anyway you can always divide awards by 10 and give 10 xp per gp.

Changing the ratio is different from changing the whole paradigm. As far as one true wayism is concerned, anyone can change anything they wish to suit their own tastes but that means that they have decided to play a different game. Nothing wrong with different games but when it comes to D&D as designed there comes a point where you are no longer playing it. A company may own the rights to D&D intellectual property but that doesn't mean the games produced with it will be D&D in spirit. Not liking what D&D is all about isn't some kind of crime. Play the games that suit your interests. There are certain elements that make D&D what it is. Without defining elements there is no longer a unique identity.