tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post8264280523498169689..comments2024-03-26T01:02:03.579-07:00Comments on All Dead Generations: Classic Vs. Treasure, Part 1Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-26162283317489496132022-04-24T04:08:13.675-07:002022-04-24T04:08:13.675-07:00@Gus L
Thank you! I'll take what you've s...@Gus L<br /><br />Thank you! I'll take what you've said into account. I would love to read that article!Excalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17799840351611260555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-90884322670126066352022-04-23T10:52:07.280-07:002022-04-23T10:52:07.280-07:00Excal,
It absolutely sounds like your system work...Excal,<br /><br />It absolutely sounds like your system works for you, I'm not much of a math person, so it's not something I'd use, but the idea of having the more complex bookkeeping managed through a app or online sheet sounds like the sort of thing that would appeal to a lot of people. I'm interested to hear how your project goes and your interest is getting me to think about this again. I may write the follow up to this post about treasure design, placement, use and alternatives.<br /><br />Some vaguely related thoughts:<br /><br />With dungeon design (especially trying to create a more classic feel in 5E -- where combat takes a lot longer, especially at higher levels) I tend not to exactly follow the OSE/OD&D space percentages and design dense, smaller dungeons. I don't use proc-gen (either depthcrawl style of AD&D solo dungeon design style) for dungeon design and instead focus on naturalism and coherence.<br /><br />This is both a matter of taste and (at least the smaller denser dungeons) an attempt to retain the 1 expedition a session standard that makes open table games work better. It creates its own problems with supply rates and distance that I've tried to solve with more punishing encumbrance and abstracted movement, but the old ways also work well if you have the time (and lack of zoom fatigue) to sit down and play longer sessions.<br /><br />Generally for older style Dungeon Crawls I've found that a key to player enjoyment is the ability to understand the dungeon, and this means largely infer information from its layout, inhabitants, description and clues. There's nothing like the moment when the players realize that some carving or mural indicates a secret door because they've decoded some idea of the dungeon builders. Likewise the monsters and treasure - the more they make sense as part of an underlying history or structure that players can find hints of or imply the better things seem to go.<br /><br />This of course presents occasional issues with players more used to the trad/5E style of trying to guess where the designer's narrative is headed and the expectation that everything they see within the dungeon is Chekhov's Gun (which it can't be - sometimes a fresco is just a fresco or graffiti is just an obscene scrawl - otherwise there's no thought involved in unraveling secrets).<br /><br />Anyway, good luck and I'd love to hear how your players react to the 5E dungeon crawl! Gus Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14872819206286105195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-71992250735802950272022-04-23T07:28:13.090-07:002022-04-23T07:28:13.090-07:00Sorry one thing I think I didn't say right, th...Sorry one thing I think I didn't say right, the point of the ratio math is to do what you're doing with the 100 heavy 5gp trade goods. The weight ratio lets me decide in advance how much of the dungeons treasure will be in Bulky/Portable weight. If I wanted to make t easier, I woukd balance the ratio towards precious (jewelry) and portable (gems and gold) and the math would reflect this.Excalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17799840351611260555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-52113350439421084512022-04-22T09:51:45.993-07:002022-04-22T09:51:45.993-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Excalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17799840351611260555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-6030867329423095152022-04-22T09:44:06.376-07:002022-04-22T09:44:06.376-07:00Excal posting from work
@Gus L
A) I agree with t...Excal posting from work<br /><br />@Gus L<br /><br />A) I agree with this point and have/would adjust according and include extra total treasure in the dungeon.<br /><br />B) In your post, you mentioned how Gygax encouraged more abstract treasure that worked with the lore/flavor and you mention examples equivalent to each currency type (copper, silver, etc) and this line, <br /><br />"Yet it also loses a couple of important elements to a randomly generated coin hoard: the excitement and ease of random generation and <br /><br />an easy way to determine the encumbrance value of the items it contains."<br /><br />And that was my thought process. How to easily determine the encumbrance value of abstract treasure so you one doesn't just default to rng coin hoards. The comment above mentioned their three categories and I had a moment of inspiration for a formula.<br /><br />Mind you, I play online mainly, so lb calculation is handled by the online character sheet, otherwise I would use point/slot as well, but the formula work for slot/points as well, since those systems usually already take into account 1 bulk/point = 5 or 10 lbs or whatever usually.<br /><br />But it's not about making the average treasure 10 gp or 100 gp. It's using those categories to abstract the weight and coin value so one can focus on the description. <br /><br />Like right now I'm trying to create an old school dungeon for a 5e DnD group, and they're gonna be level 3, and that's where I got the 8100gp from, 2700gp for each of my 3 players. Boosted that up to 10,000gp. And I used OSE guidelines to get a ratio of room types (monster, trick/special, trap, empty) to fill up the dungeon (47 total rooms) after making predesigned rooms/lairs (6 rooms), and the split of treasure between them. <br /><br />So like one monster room with treasure will have 32 lbs assigned to it, and when players arrive there, I can say, like, it was a cabinet of figurines made from precious metals depicting this or that creature, weighing in total 25 lbs (Bulky, 10gp per 1 lb), and 7 lbs of coins and ornate, engraved daggers (Portable 100gp/1 lb), so players can note these down as such in their sheets, Bulky, Portable, Precious, etc. <br /><br />For Precious (1000gp/1 lb) I can say 0.05 Lbs of jewelry or such. I know those decimals are a red flag but, again, this is for online play which already has a program calculator, in person I would use slots and then with the formula it'd be, say, Bulky is 1 slot : 1-20 GP or Portable is 1 slot: 20-100 GP or such.<br /><br />You mention 10 lb fur rug worth 100 gp or 100 lb barrel of pork worth 20 gp. The 10 lb to 100 gp rug is 1 lb to 10 gp so rug fits the Bulky category, and 100 lb to 20 gp is 10 lb to 2 gp or 5 lb to 1 gp. So that would be like an extra bulky category, hm, so yes this abstract method doesn't work for all but it's to be an abstraction for a great amount of treasure. <br /><br /><br />For calculating how difficult it would be for the party to get all that treasure out, that is what the ratio is for. I made the calculator in google sheets/excel: <br />https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QwMWlGTrXi0PEWg1JsdBJ_tZbAEgPbtmkblPLgGij6s/edit?usp=drivesdk<br />And I just adapt the ratio as I want it to be between the 3 categories, and then adding up my partys weight available before heavy encumbrance hits, I can calculate how many trips it'd roughly take them to clear out the dungeon. <br /><br />Your slot method seems to work well too, I just wish I could alter my players roll20 sheets to let me do that method lol.<br />Excalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17799840351611260555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-51306155334161060092022-04-20T09:16:28.832-07:002022-04-20T09:16:28.832-07:00Excal,
That's way more math then I'...Excal, <br /> That's way more math then I'm ready to do to prep an adventure, but I think it's an interesting idea and if it works for you - great! Paying attention to treasure, how much is available, how much it weighs, how this all impacts leveling and how to keep it thrilling for players to find treasure is the main point of this post.<br /><br />For your system as I understand it, the two cautions or critiques I'd have is that:<br /><br />A) Players never find all the treasure. If you want to have one level worth of treasure in a location for 4 PCs (Say it's 1st level) that's roughly 8,000 GP for 6 it's 12,000 ... but players aren't going to discover it all as some is hidden, some belongs to creatures they will not defeat, some might just be overlooked, some will be too heavy to carry. So as a designer you need to put more then the minimum in if you want the same effect. Lack of treasure is a real problem in older adventures, and especially in OSR or Post OSR adventures because the designer hasn't thought through these issues. Exploring a even a good chunk of a mega-dungeon level should provide some advancement for example. <br /><br />I tend to put around 1.5 times the treasure in a location that's needed to get the characters to the level I want them to get from exploring it. Now this need not be a whole level, and it need not be evenly distributed. A small (under 10 room) dungeon might have 1/4 of a level worth of treasure in it, and it might almost all be located in the final room. Still for a 1st level dungeon that's roughly 3,000 GP for a small party (2,000 GP x 1.5).<br /><br />B) Not sure about those weight conversions. In lb based systems players can generally carry a lot of treasure. The 1lb for 10GP is roughly the equivalent of GP value in AD&D (10 coins per lb being the weird math of older D&D), and while this is frustratingly absurd, I don't know that making average treasure worth 100 GP per lb would encourage the sort of risk v. reward calculations given most PCs will have at minimum 20lbs of extra encumbrance without dropping anything. To justify the extra work of using detailed encumbrance (especially detailed lb by lb encumbrance) I'd want it to really matter in game, for hard decisions to take place about accepting encumbrance penalties, leaving behind armor to grab treasure, and similar complexity - at least at low levels. At higher levels everything can be a diamond crown worth 10K GP unless there's a specific encumbrance challenge in the adventure. So for low level play if I was using lbs I'd want treasure that was more encumbering, as most of the treasure will be things like a 10lb fur rug worth 100 GP or 100lb barrel of salted pork worth 20GP. <br /><br />Personally I use slots largely because they allow for detailed encumbrance, it's simple and I don't randomly generate treasure hoards or give away much coin as treasure. Slots (with PCs limited to about 11 on average) tend to mean that after supplies and equipment the party will only have 5-6 slots between them, and most treasure is a slot. This not only makes what supplies and how many matter a lot faster (good when your sessions are 3 hours and you want supply pressure) but it makes the treasure mini-game always present.<br /><br />Quickly collecting 10 GP Brass tankards, or encumbering 1GP sacks of beans tends to make for a lot of problems very fast and this also prevents PCs from stealing everything (and they will if they can). They will usually drop the beans when they find anything else, and pretty quickly start to look for "real" treasure not just anything of vague value. I like this. It allows me to design adventures that punish greed or make it something one has to work to succeed at. Want to steal 1,000 5Gp sacks of beans? How do you manage that - each is 3 encumbrance slots and automatically encumbering? How safe can you make the path from the bean cellar back to town? Gus Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14872819206286105195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-5608218923884508192022-04-19T02:42:31.025-07:002022-04-19T02:42:31.025-07:00Apologies if this might be a necro, but I saw this...Apologies if this might be a necro, but I saw this comment on this awesome article and I had this thought on the spot about a treasure weight budget formula, a way to abstract having to figure how much this or that art object weighs quickly.<br /><br />The rough method is:<br /><br />Hypothetical: I need 8100 gold/xp for my party to advance to the next level (total, everyone)<br /><br />I want this dungeon to have enough treasure for that. If I wanted to split it among 2+ dungeons, then divide as needed.<br /><br />I have your 3 treasure type categories with the following weight ratios:<br /><br />Bulky: 1 lb to 10 gold<br />Portable: 1 lb to 100 gold<br />Precious: 1 lb to 1000 gold<br /><br />Come up with a rough formula of distributing weight between these 3. This is our difficulty gauge.<br /><br />Lets say 8:4:2. <br /><br />Convert to percent: <br />57% (8/(8+4+2) or 8/14) // <br />29% (4/14) // <br />14% (2/14) <br /><br /><br />8100 gp*0.57= 4617 gp Bulky <br />8100 gp*0.29= 2349 gp Portable<br />8100 gp*0.14= 1134 gp Precious<br /><br />Convert gp to lbs using the treasure type weight ratios from before.<br /><br />4617gp÷10gp= 461.7 lbs of Bulky<br />2349gp÷100gp = 23.49 lbs of Portable<br />1134gp÷1000gp= 1.134 lbs Precious<br /><br />(Side note: Take out the decimals and add them up or just throw them away and slap an extra 2 gp in whichever category you'd prefer)<br /><br />Total treasure weight: 486.324<br /><br />So now I have my budget. Anytime I wanna plug treasure into a room I can look at my budget, take some like say 100 lbs of Bulky and 10 lbs of Portable, and focus my mental energy on creative descriptions of lore relevant treasure. <br /><br />Quick ex: Finely carved jade statues with ornamental weapons that weigh roughly 100 lbs (10gp x 100 lbs= 1000gp) and 10 lbs (100 gp x 10 lbs= 1000gp) of assorted currency with ancient minting of long forgotten kings.<br /><br />Can even let players write it down as such, Bulky treasure (1lb/10gp), Portable treasure (1lb/100gp), Precious treasure (1lb/1000gp), if they don't wanna be finnicky and spend time jotting down each unique item separately. <br /><br />You get the initial thrill of discovery and flavorful description without the tedious book organising after. No more 50000 copper pieces, 20000 silver, now you can have more art objects without the headache.<br /><br />If you don't like the decimal/precious lbs math, switch stones or bulk or whatever your point system is.<br /><br />As for difficulty, count up your players available inventory before they hit heavy encumbrance penalty (light encumbrance is kinda expected with at least a fighter) and total it up. <br /><br />My party has 168 lbs available right now.<br /><br />486.324÷168 or 486÷168 if you wanna round= 2.89 or roughly 3 trips are needed to fully transport all the treasure out, assuming they cleared out the dungeon or hit all the hoards or however you wanna spread it.<br /><br />Very rough formula/method of course, but I just came up with it right now.<br /><br /><br />Excalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17799840351611260555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-37854389140488520762021-12-26T10:15:56.522-08:002021-12-26T10:15:56.522-08:00So, I think it's discussed a bit in the essay ...So, I think it's discussed a bit in the essay on Supply, but basically any slot based encumbrance system that limits the amount the PCs can carry (and we see above that coin based/# based encumbrance is quite limiting for coin hoards) works. <br /><br />Generally I just use **STR = Significant items carried**, but that's partially because I use OD&D. Another good one for B/X or OSE is **12 significant items +/- STR bonus/penalty**. Really it's not a hard and fast rule that makes a difference but a clear limitation with consequences that players can plan around and decide both what to bring and what to take from the dungeon. Gus Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14872819206286105195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-70757112116422568582021-12-25T09:26:15.071-08:002021-12-25T09:26:15.071-08:00I'm curious, do you have a specific slot-based...I'm curious, do you have a specific slot-based inventory system that you like? You mention at the end of the article that it's a preferred method of yours for tracking this stuff.Jenxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00804285765685473862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-27261277542586838902021-11-04T07:55:15.028-07:002021-11-04T07:55:15.028-07:00I likely should touch on treasure usage in havens ...I likely should touch on treasure usage in havens in the next post. <br /><br />I don't know how much any of this is part of the original early play style - modification and improvement of procedural dungeon crawling are something I'm more interested in then nostalgia or rediscovery. I touch on it a little bit in this post, but the way treasure is handled in early systems is somewhat unsatisfying forcing complex logistical scenarios more often then I'd like (and given the prevalence of bags of holding, perhaps more often then the players and designers in early games liked either), I think this also gets to your question about the sale of treasure.<br /><br />From a certain logical position it should be hard to sell treasure in the sorts of broken hamlets and tumbled down thorps that most D&D adventures use as starting towns (well most of mine at least)- gems and art objects require both capital and interest in luxury to sell that's going to be lacking in the beet farming center of Cessditch. <br /><br />Yet the aim of play that I support is dungeon adventure, making contact with gem markets and art collectors, managing letters of credit and deflation or the taxation rights of the various powers that want part of any "trove" you discover (the law of treasure troves goes back to classical times and it's pretty complex, varied and punitive). Like the logistics of removing 5 tons of copper coinage (1,000 GP worth of Gygax's CP)from a pit, I don't really want to spend much time on treasure sales in game. Most of the time treasure is going to be portable and I will allow players to easily convert it into what they want to do in the game world. After all, players that actually have ideas for spending their treasure once they get the best equipment they can find are a wonderful addition to a campaign.<br /><br />Yet, like logistics, the difficulties of finding a buyer for something might itself be a neat adventure hook. A special artifact might be worth 1,000 GP if sold to whoever it is that buys treasure, but 10,000 to the right collector and finding that collector could be reason to make a long journey if it's explicitly laid out as a way to gain extra XP. Plus variety and hooks are always good and "The cult of the golden emperor will pay 50,000 GP for Saint Scrill's hand returned to their shrine house in Distantburg" makes for a hell great a hook. <br /><br />So in moderation? With planning? Hells yeah. Day to Day it's not worth the extra effort. Gus Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14872819206286105195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-22235613269033895442021-11-03T11:58:41.469-07:002021-11-03T11:58:41.469-07:00I was thinking that besides the coin/weight ratio ...I was thinking that besides the coin/weight ratio logistics problem (e.g. focus on lighter, wondrous items instead of hordes of weighty copper coins), would you say that finding someone to buy all these wondrous/exclusive items off the players is also part of the Classic play? For instance, bringing back a small but luxurious figurine from the deepest depths of the dungeon to the small nearby town, only to find out that no one can afford it? (I.e. the player's are carrying delayed experience points in their inventory, so to say.)<br />(It's quite possible you addressed this is in the text, English isn't my first language so I may very well have missed it! Maybe that's for part 2?)<br /><br />In any case, I very much enjoyed reading this.Jensanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16216604356936975761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-23513547125660071362021-11-02T14:00:54.411-07:002021-11-02T14:00:54.411-07:00Right on. The print version is (I believe) sold ou...Right on. The print version is (I believe) sold out at the moment, but you can get PDFs of the volumes from DriveThru. Book 3 has the treasure charts, though actual encumbrance rules are, I believe found in Book 1 (at least, so far as it affects PC movement rates).JBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03263662621289630246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-26969414335486424672021-11-02T13:52:34.416-07:002021-11-02T13:52:34.416-07:00I have heard of your Arabian Knights game - heard ...I have heard of your Arabian Knights game - heard it was good, but never picked it up. I'll do so now for sure.<br /><br />I note that (assuming your PCs can lift more then 1 or 2#) your treasure categories also solve the inability to carry a meaningful amount of coinage/treasure unless it's jewelry. A good fix, well worth using instead of the old coin based weights.<br /><br />I remember long ago some blog had a whole series of posts on treasures of all kinds - carpets and vases, pottery and furniture that went pretty deep into detailing stuff. Counldn't find it for this post, but I think there's so much more to be done with setting defining treasure tables. <br /><br />Now I just have to write the next post about how to deal with players who constantly chisel art off the dungeon walls or steal copper pipes and the heads of monumental statuary like meth fiend squatters... I mean treasure placement. That's what I'll call it. Gus Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14872819206286105195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210373310486731809.post-72678456103445496332021-11-02T13:05:06.145-07:002021-11-02T13:05:06.145-07:00Ha! I was just settling down to write a blog post ...Ha! I was just settling down to write a blog post about treasure (well, "consumption" really) when I read this. Good stuff.<br /><br />Your re-skinning of coin hoards ("Return to Wonder") is good stuff, and a logical extrapolation of Gygax's advice in the DMG. Lots of precious objects are possible "treasure" in D&D, and yet the only things found on the treasure tables are coins, magic, and occasional "jackpot" items (gems & jewelry). I drew the conclusion some time ago that DMs should simply use these coin piles as GP Value-to-Weight ratios (GPV=XP) and treat them as such. Your lists are rather nice and succinct.<br /><br />Not sure if you are familiar with my Arabian Nights heartbreaker, Five Ancient Kingdoms...I rewrote the treasure tables as "hoard types" that simply produce a value in gold dinars (5AK's equivalent of the GP). Each hoard is then divided into three categories of treasure:<br /><br />- Bulky (1# weight to 10gd value)<br />- Portable (1# weight to 100gd value)<br />- Precious (1# weight to 1000gd value)<br /><br />"Bulky" consists of commodities, trade goods, etc. "Portable" includes coins and items made of precious metals. "Precious" include gems, jewelry, rare and exotic spices, etc. Weight generally includes the weight of any containers as well (chests, casks, boxes, etc.).JBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03263662621289630246noreply@blogger.com