Legal Musings

Back when (the American version of) The Office was running, I made every effort to catch every episode (which was back before I had cable and access to DVR technology). I found a YouTube link to what is one of my absolute favorite scenes in the entire series:

Check it out.

For context, if I'm remembering correctly, Michael had left the Dunder-Mifflin company over being reigned in by on-site corporate stooge (Charles) and then formed his own paper company (with Pam and Ryan) in Jerry Macquire-esque manner. The D-M corporates confronting Michael in this scene have decided it is easier and more convenient to buy out Michael, ending his enterprise, rather than compete with his tiny company in an already-shrinking market.

The analogy of this scene doesn't map 100% to the RPG market, but there are lessons to be learned. 

Copyright law, in its current form, is pretty much an American invention...despite its origins in England/Europe...and was structured to serve an American objective: encourage industry. If anyone were allowed to copy, distribute, and profit from a creative individual's work (without paying the initial creative) than what incentive would there be for the creative in question to, well, create? Why would ANYONE be bothered to put in the effort and sweat of creation just to see someone else, with an eye for profit and a better marketing team, steal your work and reap the benefits?

The ability to copyright one’s work exists to incentivize creators to create.

But while holding a copyright provides some protections versus would-be thieves and liars (i.e. “plagiarist profiteers”), it is not an all-encompassing carte blanche. The term “fair use” in copyright law is (yet again) a concept originating in America designed to encourage and incentivize industry, rather than stifle such possibilities because of the fear of litigation. Fair use is the reason the Margaret Mitchell estate (Gone with the Wind) was unable to stop the publication of The Wind Done Gone; fair use is the reason Oracle was unable to stop Google from using Oracle's Java API code in Android phones.

Two things to always consider: 

1. copyright law protects the expression of an idea, not an idea itself
2. copyright law is designed to promote creative industry

Copyright law is different from trademark law. You can't write a game and call it Dungeons & Dragons; "Dungeons & Dragons" is a trademarked property. But trademarks mainly apply to brands and logos: "Dungeons & Dragons" (and "D&D") are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro. "Wizards of the Coast" and "Hasbro" are ALSO trademarks of Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro.

"Mind flayer," on the other hand, is not trademarked property.

If I write an adventure that includes an encounter with a mind flayer, am I infringing on WotC's copyright? So long as I don't include the creature's stat block (i.e. the expression of the idea of "mind flayer"), then probably not. Could WotC sue me over the use of their intellectual property ("mind flayer") without permission? They could, but they wouldn't have much of a case: the main argument they could make is that I am siphoning off their business, which is a bogus claim for a number of reasons, the main one of which is this:  WotC/Hasbro does not hold a monopoly on adventure writing.

Again, copyright law exists to encourage creative industry. Fair use exists to encourage creative industry. My use of a mind flayer in an adventure does not prevent WotC/Hasbro from selling books; on the contrary, if it is a popular/successful publication it probably encourages consumers to purchase more books in order to make use of it. And it does not prevent WotC/Hasbro from publishing their own adventures which might include mind flayers...it does not replace/supplant their ability to do business in this vein, for a number of reasons that should be rather obvious.

[okay, just in case it's NOT obvious: WotC/Hasbro would have to somehow prove that they have sole rights and privilege to publish D&D adventures, which would go against decades of examples to the contrary and would also be the same as proving they have the right to a monopoly...which courts in the USA tend to look down on]

But what if I wanted to write a supplement called "All About The Mind Flayer" describing the creatures' culture, society, and statistics; creating an entire variant background and description of how to use the monster in one's game? A definitive collection of gameable content; an "alternate history" of mind flayers, if you will...would THAT seek to subvert and replace a key intellectual property of WotC/Hasbro? Would it be perceived as undermining their business? Could the Hasbro corporation file a lawsuit against me?

Let's be clear: persons and corporate entities can ALWAYS sue you. 

Doesn't mean their lawsuit will be successful. And D&D has been explicit in every iteration that they fully expect owners of the property (Dungeon Masters) to feel free to create their own worlds, modify the game to suit their needs, change it as they see fit.

Yes, JB, sure...but monetize those changes? Isn't that infringing on the company's copyright?

Remember: fair use. A doctrine established to prevent the stifling of innovation and the discouragement of creation for purposes of industry (our delightful capitalist society). In this particular situation, it's instructive to check out the landmark case of Sega v. Accolade. Despite it being with regard to video games, many parallels could be drawn in a hypothetical legal battle with the publishers of Dungeons & Dragons. In brief:

• Accolade (video game maker) reverse-engineered Sega technology to create video game cartridges that were compatible with Sega's new Genesis console, circumventing Sega licensing.
• Sega sued receiving an injunction against Accolade, citing in part Accolade's unlicensed use of Sega's (copyrighted) computer code in their game design.
• Accolade appealed and won based on fair use doctrine; the injunction was lifted, Sega was forced to pay the cost of the appeal, and precedent was set for decades to come including that functional principals of computer software cannot be protected by copyright law.

The case is worth reading (and studying), not the least of which for its later ramification on trademark law. Are "functional principals" of computer software much different from the "functional principals" of a roleplaying game? That's something that would need to be decided in court, but given the plethora of RPGs that have made it to market using similar language and terms as D&D (and which haven't been sued to death), my guess is: not bloody likely.

[and Hasbro could hardly argue an independently published book "Compatible with the World's Most Popular RPG!" tarnishes their trademark brand. Even a low quality product is just more evidence of the ubiquitousness of their product. Apologies for the digression]

However, in the end, the real question is always one about MONEY. How much money gets made by independent publishers? How much money does the corporation lose because of third-party publishers? How much money would it cost them to litigate every perceived infringement (not just issue a "cease & desist" notice) given the doctrine of fair use and the potential impact to the company's bottom line?

Now...

It's difficult to imagine that Little Ol' Me might ever fall into the crosshairs of Hasbro's corporate attorneys given how little money I represent, especially when I've gone out of my way to NOT use their registered trademarks (or "mind flayers") in my published books. I mean...really? To paraphrase Michael Scott, I can just start a new game company tomorrow...I have LOTS of names for game companies.

But that's ME...a hobbyist game publisher. I don't need to sell books to live...to eat or to pay rent. I do it because it's enjoyable and it's a creative outlet and because it's put a little extra money in my pocket, somewhat validating my participation in the hobby. Other people...people more financially invested or leveraged in the hobby...might be a LOT more "risk averse" than I am.

Thing is: I AM risk averse. I've been sued before (an old medical bill that wasn't covered by my insurance went too long overpaid when I was living in Paraguay for three years...eventually got straightened out); not a pleasant experience. I spent 15 years working in a field that involved interpreting, establishing, modifying, and enforcing superior court and administrative orders. My advice to folks has always been to stay on the right side of the law and work within a system, rather than trying to circumvent it...keep your nose clean, in other words.

And, in my estimation, that's exactly what I'm doing. 

I don't use the OGL in my books. I've entered no licensing agreement with WotC/Hasbro, free or otherwise. My books use my own text, copyright me. Many concepts and ideas are inspired by and/or borrowed from other games and RPGs (as well as works of fiction). I don't plagiarize. I try to give credit for inspiration and ideas when and if it is due, but it's impossible to cite ALL the creative influences on one's work. When my work is compatible with an existing work or game, my hope is that it will encourage people to play that particular game...raising all tides, so to speak. 

That's the biz, as I see it. And while 'good intentions' really don't matter (certainly not compared to money, sadly) I am still participating in creative industry...exactly the kind of creative industry that copyright law is designed to encourage and incentivize. 

Okay...that's enough for the moment.

"We're Rich! We're Rich!"

"We're rich! We're rich! We're really really rich!"

This was the song being chanted (loudly) for about ten minutes yestereve as my players danced around the table, celebrating a particularly large haul of treasure.

Welcome to my campaign.

I have an hour(ish) before I need to start "working," so allow me to tell you a bit about it. The players (a party of four: elven assassin, half-elven fighter, human cleric, human ranger) are currently exploring my re-vamped (no pun intended) version of Ravenloft. No railroad here: the group may have been shipwrecked on the sandbar just off the coast of Port Angeles (that was fun!) but nothing compelled them to stay in town, nor explore/invade the castle of the local Countess (yes, I've a gender-bended "Strahd"). If they'd wanted to, they could have simply purchased fresh horses and been on their way...perhaps to Sequim and from there onto Kingston (a week's journey by leisurely ride). Heck, they might even make a side trek to "the Dreaming City" (Port Townsend); the elven citadel is only some 30 miles round trip off the main road.

But they decided to stay. The town was sad and grimy, somewhat less than effusive in its welcome (though their ship's crew seemed able to get on fine at the aptly named Wreck Tavern), and rather filthy with orcish persons...a small group of whom were drinking at the tavern when the party entered (the orcs paid their bill and left shortly thereafter, not wanting any trouble with armed elvish types). The drinking started in the early afternoon and went long into the evening...though most of the locals muttered their goodbyes and left before sundown. 

Most, but not all. One young man, incredibly drunk, visibly agitated, and belligerently armed became more boisterous...and obnoxious...as the evening progressed. Seems he was unhappy with the local lord and bore a grudge against her for the murder of his family and the (recent) disappearance of his sister: an adventurer who had sought redress for various wrongs and never returned from the castle. Wild stories were spun by the man ("Istmark")...stories of devil-worship and blood-drinking and curses. The Countess was a demon, or a sorceress, or both, and took her due in both lives and souls and was a plague on the town.

To the adventurers, it sounded like normal orc-hate (the countess had apparently forced tolerance of the pagan tribe, who made ready and loyal servants) and bourgeois whinging. However, when Ismark offered to hire their elven blades for the "typical service" (elves having a reputation for assassination) and at twice the usual rate(!), the party quickly reached an accord.

The party set off for the castle in the morning, reaching it just after 8am.

[ugh...sorry, got distracted. Yesterday, my laptop crashed and...apparently...took a huge chunk of my Word documents with it...everything I've been working on the last 30 days or so. Yesterday, I spent a couple hours trying to find a document that failed to be "auto-recovered" (not sure why), but today I noticed even more missing files, including my open Word document on Ravenloft! What the F is going on?!!]

Skip ahead, skip ahead (only have five minutes or so)...the party has now been exploring the castle for nearly seven hours (it is 2:50pm in the afternoon).  For rather obvious reasons, an adventure like this requires meticulous calculation of encumbrance, movement, and game time (in ten minute turns)...sunset in Port Angeles is 9:17pm, and until that time, the castle is far less dangerous.

And it's been dangerous enough. Orcs wearing scale and armed with halberds are nothing to sneer at, but so far...whether by luck or cunning...the party has been able to avoid any encounter or trap that might have otherwise finished them. They've also managed to do a fair amount of murder...slaying both the castle exchequer (accountant) and a peasant girl named Gertrude found sleeping in the master's bedroom (they assumed she was the countess). 

Having killed many orcs (and not a few zombies), the bloodied robbers rather easily discovered a secret door within the fireplace of the study. Putting out the hearth blaze with water from a nearby bath, the adventurers used magic to reveal the obvious gas trap (avoided by holding their breath) and then their elvish guile to find the secret passage to cobwebbed belfry beyond.

Again, the ranger failed to prove much use outside a fight on open ground, as three man-sized spiders surprised the party, one bearing the human to the ground. Fortunately, he was able to survive multiple poison saves and the elvish butchers made short work of the huge arachnids. 

They then discovered the REAL treasure room of the castle (behind another secret door).

While I have restocked much of the module to bring it up to snuff for a standard AD&D adventure (in terms of both monsters and treasure), I haven't spent much time modifying the treasures that were already placed by the authors. Okay, I did get rid of TWO of the three +3 maces in the castle treasury (in favor of a crystal ball with clairaudience for the Countess to use in keeping tabs on her realm) but the general loot is all pretty much the same. Needless to say, 10s of thousands of gold and silver coins means a BIG payday for the PCs...and was the direct cause for their celebration.

The party spent the better part of an hour emptying their bag of holding and re-filling it with the most precious parts of the treasure. In addition to valuable, leather-bound books, silver cutlery, and elegant silken dresses already looted from prior chambers, the players managed to gather the bulk of the gold, silver, and platinum coinage...as well as all the expected magic items, a coffer of gemstones, and a suit of human-sized plate mail removed from a stairway alcove. Their bag and backpacks are stuffed full, as is the half-elf's large sack...a total haul they estimate to be worth somewhere north of 23K in gold. In "real world" terms, that's close to half a million dollars worth of swag...more than the party has ever gathered at one time.

Thus the cause for the dancing and singing.

Abandoning non-essential equipment, the players are now making ready to vacate the castle entirely. They've decided that, at this point, it's probably a better (and safer) option to quietly leave the town than overstay their welcome. They are still considering whether or not to even attempt collecting Istmark's promised fee...they have their doubts that the girl they slew was indeed the countess (she certainly didn't seem like some sort of demon sorceress...also, she bore no resemblance to the raven-haired portrait of the (presumed) noblewoman discovered earlier). Regardless, now that their band is suddenly wealthy, they are disinclined to explore further, simply for the chance to perform regicide.

They're pulling up stakes...while there's still daylight left. About six-and-a-half hours worth.

; )

Shipping

It's Friday afternoon, which means my time to post is limited...but I wanted to get something up on the blog before the weekend hits.

Tuesday's dinner with the padre went fine...nothing big to report. He's just a normal dude...a big kid in a lot of ways (he's in his early 30s)...as so many folks are. Age and geographic origin are far more a determining factor of personality than what a person does (or doesn't do) for a vocation...I've found it much the same even regardless of whether a person is a rock star or active military, politicians or drug dealers. Some folks alienate themselves from "normal humans," surrounding themselves by a bubble of subculture and/or sycophancy that fills their world view. But sit them down for a meal, crack a bottle, and act nonchalant and everyone becomes just another house guest. I don't know why I ever expect it to be different.

So...shipping.

It's only in the last few years that I've grown to understand and appreciate the importance of maritime trade...both to our present society and the length and breadth of human history/development. Which is pretty ridiculous given my life spent in Seattle, my father's time in the navy, my paternal grandfather's career as a merchant marine, my almost-career in stevedore shipping (thanks to the father of my college best friend), and the amount of time I've spent staring out to sea from coastlines all around the Pacific Northwest.

Ships and shipping. They are the lifeblood of human society, and have been for thousands of years.

Ha! Here's an anecdote: I don't remember the year that I first found (and purchased) a (used) copy of Original D&D...it was probably around the age of 14 or so...long after my friends and I had moved full-time into AD&D. I found it incredibly interesting: it's scale, it's scope, it's focus...as well as the primitiveness (is that a word? spellcheck says yes!) of the artifact. The first thing I did with it was sit in my room and create a character...something like a 7th level magic-user...and draw up blueprints of a ship, so that I could run the naval combat rules and see how they worked. You see, I'd always found the B/X rules to be a rather poor system, and the AD&D rules to be overly complex given the other crunch of the DMG.

Small sailing ship

Here, in OD&D, I found a vastly simple system married to a far more interesting set of naval rules. And I always had a hankering for pirate films and swashbuckling stories. My favorite bits of most of the fantasy literature I'd read was all the sea battle stuff.

But the sea isn't just an "interesting location" (or unique environment) to have an adventure or stage a battle. The fact is that the sea...and deep water in general...is a RESOURCE that humans have long exploited for good use. It is (and has been) the best way to transport large amounts of material from one place to another. Ready access to the sea is what allowed great civilizations to grow and flourish into world spanning empires. Without the ability to move freight (and specifically food) over water, the world's largest cities would never have reached the immense levels of population that they did...and those immense populations enabled all the technological and societal advances that have created the world in which we live.

For a game like Dungeons & Dragons...a game that ostensibly takes place in a world lacking commercial air travel, super highways, and railroads...maritime trade and shipping should be an incredibly important part of the world building which (I've been harping on a lot the last few months) is integral to solid campaign play.  Rules for naval battles become imperative when trade routes...and the shipment of goods by sea...become the "way things get done." It can't be taken for granted!

And, yet, it kinda' is. Reviewing the various rules for ships across the various old editions, my main concern is "how much can these ships carry?" What's their cargo capacity? How much lumber, how much grain, how much quarried stone and marble? How much treasure, for goodness sake?! And this, sadly, is the information I find explicitly lacking from MOST of the instructional texts.

Except for B/X, that is, which (instead) is woefully, woefully inaccurate. Check out these numbers:

Small Sailing Ship: 100,000cns cargo capacity

Large Sailing Ship: 300,000cns cargo capacity

Longship: 40,000cns cargo capacity

The "small sailing ship" is compared to a medieval cog, and given roughly the same rough specs (as far as length, beam, etc.). But 100K "coins" is only 5 tons of cargo space, whereas the actual range of such vessels was 30-200 tons burthen. "Great cogs" (the comp for a "large sailing ship") had cargo capacities of 300+ tons, not 15 and some as high as 1,000. Even the snekkja (the most common Viking longship) had a cargo capacity of some 10 tons, the D&D equivalent of 200,000cns weight...five times the listed amount in the Cook/Marsh Expert set.

Even though the DMG fails to list carrying capacity for ships, it's a simple matter to calculate the actual cargo capacity of a pre-steam ship using the vessel's length and width (i.e. its "beam"). The DMG states that "it is up to the DM or the players buying or constructing" a ship to determine its exact dimensions but, for example, gives a range of 50'-80' length and 15'-25' beam for a "large merchant" ship...well within the spec of a 12th century cog. Given an average of 65' length and 20' width we can thus determine such a ship's carrying capacity as roughly 113 tons burthen.

For the price of 15,000 g.p. (the standard cost for a "large merchant ship" per the PHB) perspective merchants gain themselves an excellent means of earning a living. 100 tons of "bulky treasure" (bags of grain, for example) has a rough value of 10,000 g.p. but the markup might be significant given the the supply at the point of embarkation, the demand at the given destination, and the length of the journey in between. For cargo of a "precious" variety (say spices or gold ingots) such a treasure ship has the capacity to make fortunes for all its investors with but a single voyage. 

Assuming it's not attacked by pirates, sunk by a storm, or destroyed by a sea monster.

Going over the potential opportunities for D&D adventures that such lines of thought produce, I am somewhat saddened by my choice of setting for my world...after all, my fantasy Washington State has only one coastline to ply with ships. Yes, yes...it does have miles of rivers to explore, but river travel isn't the same as the open sea...it doesn't hold the same romance in my imagination, all apologies to Sam Clemens.  Still, small watercraft trading with the various communities around the Olympic Peninsula seems like a pretty awesome campaign idea for players in the low-to-mid level range (as my 3rd level PCs are)...and a "small merchant" ship (5,000 g.p. cost; average 20.7 tons burthen) would be a great way to start.

Now I just have to get them out of friggin' Idaho.

Fantasy Economics (p. 2)

Apologies for the lack of writing the last few days...was a busy week, PLUS had a sick kid at home (sick wife, too, which didn't make things any easier). Thankfully everyone is on the mend and life is settling down.

Back to fantasy economics.

In my last post on this subject, I made note of the fact that Washington State (the basis for my campaign world) contains an estimated 519 metric tons of gold. So, just how many coins are we talking about? Well, one metric ton weighs a smidge less than 2,205# which (more importantly) converts to 32,150.7 troy ounces. As there are 400 troy ounces to the gold ingot (bar), that means about 80 ingots per metric ton...a bit more than 41,715 bars in total if ALL the gold in Washington was mined and smelted.

Now how many coins per bar requires one to figure out how many coins can be struck from a single ingot. However, we've already established that in DragonLance (well, in DL2) each ingot of gold found in Pax Tharkas is worth 1,000 gold pieces, giving us 36 coins per pound of metal (about twice the thickness of the old Spanish gold doubloon, a coin with a diameter of about 1.5"). So, if using DL has a base (which is fine...for now) one can say there's enough gold in "fantasy Washington" to cast 41.7 million gold pieces.

Except, of course, it doesn't. Gold mining and smelting isn't solely concerned with the minting of coins. Gold is used for everything from decoration (gold leaf, gold plating) to...well, decoration (gold jewelry). But it's still mainly used for currency (for a medium of exchange) while wearing gold is a sign/show of wealth and ostentation. It's saying, I can afford to decorate my home with money.

The original D&D game only had three types of coin as "standard:" the gold piece, the silver piece, and the copper piece. Pretty solid reasoning considering all of these were used as currency at various points in history (the "gold standard" only really ended in the 20th century). Washington State has plenty of silver and copper in its mountains: roughly 4,040 metric tons of silver and 13,200 metric tons of copper. That's plenty of precious metal for coinage of lesser value. Proportionately these aren't quite the 1/20th and 1/200th you might assume would be laying around (given the relative value of gold to silver to copper in the AD&D game)...however, "value" can be based on a LOT of factors, besides just weight of metal. Ease of acquisition for example (how hard is it to mine silver or copper compared to gold), or the amount of coinage already in circulation. Just because there's only 7-8 times the amount of silver as gold, doesn't mean you can pick up a gold piece with 8 silver coins. Silver does tarnish after all.

Anyway: if we assign the same number of troy ounces to a silver/gold coin as for a piece of gold (which we needn't do, especially given the density of gold in comparison, and the necessity of smaller, more portable coinage for lesser "everyday" transactions)...*ahem* IF we were to assign the same figures (400 troy ounces to a bar of metal, each ingot being worth 1,000 coins of its type), then we could come up with finite figures for the amount of monetary treasure that can be pulled from the campaign world:

• 41.7 million gold pieces
• 324.7 million silver pieces (16.2 million g.p.)
• 1.061 billion copper pieces (5.3 million g.p.)

For a total value far, far north of 63 million gold pieces. That's a lot of experience points to be acquired...a campaign that features 20 characters could each end up taking home 3M (or more). Even cut down to one-tenth (call it "available adventuring treasure") we've got something in the 6.3M range...for coinage alone...which is enough to get eight well-played (surviving) PCs nearly 800K in x.p. apiece, leveling even paladins and rangers up to 10th level.

Pretty respectable gains for a finite money supply? Thing is, it's really only the tip of the iceberg. While valuable metals stripped from the Earth may have an absolute limit, money in circulation circulates. Here...let me paint folks a picture:

PCs spend their starting wealth to acquire supplies from the local merchant. Merchant puts together a caravan of goods for a trip "over yonder" (including a supply of coins for expenses/purchases). Caravan is waylaid by bandits (orcs, humans, whoever). PCs raid bandit hideout and acquire treasure (including coins from merchant). Back in town, PCs spend coinage to acquire henchmen, armor upgrades, fresh supplies, etc. Coins make their way from various vendors into collection box at local church. Apostate devil-worshipper steals temple treasury to help finance secret cult. PCs break into cultists' lair, kill cultists, take treasure. More wealth is spent or paid in taxes to the local ruler. Ruler distributes largesse, pays hefty salaries to staff, including his chief vizier. Vizier's daughter goes missing in the town's sewers/catacombs whatever...vizier hires PCs to bring her back alive using the same treasure they've already recovered twice already. PCs spend money for local spell-caster to remove curse of lycanthropy inflicted on party member by the wererats in the sewer, Spell-caster pays off debt to local merchant owed for supplies and spell components. Merchant puts together a heavily armed caravan to make it to next town (no chances this time) and hires PC adventurers as escorts using the same money as salary (though much of it has also been used to pay for horses, tack, feed, new wagons, etc.). 

The same hundreds or thousands of coins can easily end up being the same "loot" over and over again, allowing players to level far beyond what one might assume possible given the supply of coin currency in the region. No, money may not grow on trees...but there are things that do (I'm sure farmers in eastern Washington looks at the fruit in their orchards and see dollar signs), things that money acquires. And, as I've written before, adventurers have costs, and the proper running of a campaign requires enough world building to ensure enough costs to eat into all that treasure the PCs find along the way. It's the steady diet of want and need that drives a campaign onwards.

Okay, more later. 

Fantasy Economics (p.1)

Let's get right to it:

36. Tharkadan Treasure Vault

Having detected the secret door, locating the concealed latch is a simple matter. It releases with a soft click, and a section of the stone wall swings silently inward. The room beyond is fairly large, and nearly filled with yellow, brick-like objects that glitter through a layer of dust.

Stacked 25 high, 25,000 gold ingots line the walls around the room. Each contains the equivalent of 1,000 gp of the metal. Gold was valued highly by the dwarves of Pax Tharkas in the Age of Dreams, but it is of little use to the current adventurers.

[from DL2: Dragons of Flame by Douglas Niles]

25,000 gold ingots, each containing 1,000 gold pieces worth of gold. A total value of 25 million gold pieces, and absolutely worthless (by DL campaign rules) in the Seeker Lands.

NOT, however, in the case of lands conquered by the dragon armies. From Appendix I ("Rates of Exchange") in DL1: Dragons of Despair:

In the lands conquered by the Dragonlords, no coinage is used; the gpw [gold piece weight] of the metal is used for exchanges. Steel is the basic metal, but gold does have some value...  

1 gpw of steel equals 10 gp. 

[emphasis added]

So...25 million gold coins are worth 2.5 million steel pieces (and thus 2.5 million experience points) in the lands occupied by the dragon highlords. Places like, for example, Tarsis on the southern continent (encountered in DL5 I believe)...or even Haven and Solace after the events of DL2.

Of course, that's not how the hoard in the secret treasure vault is supposed to be handled. Presumably, the players are supposed to discover a pile of gold bars, stand in awe and wistful sadness for a few moments, and then leave to get on with the "glorious adventure story," rescuing an elven princess from durance vile.

Such trash.

In my estimation, elven princesses are much more conducive to rescue by wealthy, well-dressed heroes who can afford a bevy of servants to wait on her every need and provide fine meals prepared by expensive chefs. You know...the kind of hero that lives in a palace? Does the princess really want to be returned to her soon-to-be-ashes forest home, just to become a hunted refugee with the rest of her people?

[yes, yes, I've read DragonLance...I realize Laurana is made of sterner stuff than that, going on to be the Golden General and all. I'm just saying: this is what the adventure is telling you to do. The novels are a different deal]

Anyway, since my campaign world is a bit more...mm..."pragmatic," these gold bars mean a bit more to me. Time to do some math.

How much does a "gold ingot" weigh? Well, it doesn't say, so one might simplistically figure that having "1,000 gp of [gold]" means it weighs 100 pounds, since in AD&D 10 "coins" of weight is the equivalent of 1 pound. 

However, while I know gold is heavy and all, 100# gold bricks do seem rather excessive. Per Ye Old Internets, a standard gold bar (as used by central banks and traded by bullion dealers) contains 400 troy ounces of gold. A "troy ounce" is a bit heavier than a standard ounce, there being only 14.58 to the imperial pound. Thus, a standard gold bar weighs about 27.5 pounds...heavy, but each freed slave from Pax Tharkas could probably shlep one or two on their way out the door to freedom. 

"But wait...if the bar only weighs 27.5 pounds, than how can each have a value of 1,000 gold pieces?" Simple enough: because a gold "piece" (aka "coin") need not be composed of 0.1# of pure metal. Let me give a few examples:

• The gold sovereign (worth 1 British Pound) has 7.32 grams of fine gold...less than one-quarter of a troy ounce. A standard gold brick thus has enough gold to make almost 1,700 gold sovereigns.
• The Spanish gold doubloon ("double shield", worth 4 Spanish dollars or 32 reales at the time) contained .218 troy ounces (about 6.8g) of fine gold. One gold brick could thus make more than 1,800 such coins.
• The American gold eagle (largest size) has 31.1g of pure gold...1 troy ounce. Only 400 such coins could be minted from a standard bar, although the half ounce size could (obviously) increase that number to 800 coins; that's pretty close to 1,000, no?

"But, JB! We are talking about D&D here! The rules are explicit that 10 gold coins weigh one pound! Clearly one gold coin (value: 1 g.p.) must weigh 1/10th of a pound (1.46 troy ounces) with a pretty close amount of fine gold being the base of its substance. These bars MUST weigh 100# each."

Okay, first off let's all remember that the AD&D encumbrance system is an abstract game system, measuring not only weight but bulk. Why does a folded robe have an encumbrance value of 50 while a worn robe has a value of 25? Did the thing lose 2.5# of lint when you shook it out from being at the bottom of your armoire? No.

Presumably, this is why a long sword...a weapon whose average weight is 2.5 to 4 pounds...is given an encumbrance value of 60 to 100 (the latter being the given value of a bastard sword which - surprise! - is usually just another name for a long sword). This doesn't mean the weapon weighs 2.5 times the weight of a real world equivalent, but the thing has bulk...and a cumbersome scabbard sloshing around as well!

This same abstraction can apply to the gold coins in one's treasure vault. Coins may be in lined boxes, neatly tied bags, sturdy wooden coffers...whatever!...and take organization and attention in one's backpack to make sure they're not getting loose and lost in various nooks and crannies. 1,000 g.p. may require 1000 coins of encumbrance...the equivalent of 100# of weight...but the actual weight of such a sum might be considerably less. 

SO...let's just call these ingots standard, shall we? 400 troy ounces a piece, which (by the way) we can then use to work out the math of just how much gold is in the Krynn-ish gold piece...about 12.4g of fine gold...making the DL gold piece about twice the size of a doubloon, giving you something like 36 coins to the (actual) pound.

Good to know. Now back to that vault: 25,000 ingots is a LOT of gold. At 27.5 pounds per, that works out to 687,500 pounds of gold...nearly 312 metric tons. 

Now here's something you might not know...there are a lot of gold mines in Washington State. A lot. Per U.S. Geological surveys, there's about 519 metric tons of gold in the Evergreen state. That's quite a bit...and many of those mines are in Kittitas County, which happens to be the location for the ancient ruined elven fortress that is Pax Tharkas. 

Thing is...many of them aren't. Not 60%. That 519 figure is for the entire state...and Washington has an area of 71,300 square miles. Kittitas is only 2,333 square miles in area...barely more than 3%.  Now, as said, Kittitas has quite a bit of gold...historically, there are records of nearly 50,000 ounces being pulled out of the Swauk district alone. 

50,000 ounces would make 125 gold bars.

So, methinks that this veritable Fort Knox fantasy vault is probably a wee tad bit overstocked, especially for my campaign world. Probably by a factor of 2,000. Especially considering it's only really guarded by a single wraith, a giant slug, and a few dozen zombies. Sheesh.

Of course, we don't know how long the gold mines at and around Pax Tharkas were in operation. My Pax Tharkas is a ruined, elven fortress (elves are still an "elder race" in my world, having a cultural history stretching back 10,000 years despite only human length lifespans). The ancient Egyptians are thought to have mined 6.7 million ounces (just shy of 209 metric tons) of gold from the Eastern Desert over their many-century history, with 120 ancient mining sites known. Although the desert dwarfs Washington State with its 86 thousand square mile expanse, Kittitas County still has more than double that number of mining sites.

[that's not to say they're on the same scale, or have the same ratio of gold to ore, or same quality of deposit or...well, you get the point]

Unfortunately, I could not find a county-by-county breakdown of mining information to find the proportion of gold that might be natural to the area...the closest I could get was this map showing density of placer mines in the state. Using the average numbers for yellow (30) and blue (5.5) squares, I can see that there's some 440 mines in the whole of the state...and 136.5 of them right in the region where I wanted to place Pax Tharkas (in the mountains just north of Lake Cle Elum). Proportioned out based on averages, I might thus say that the area could account for 161 metric tons of the Washington's 519 Mg gold total, which would amount to nearly 12,910 ingots worth of gold...which assumes every scrap of gold in the region had been dug up, smelted down into bars, and then stored in the dusty vaults beneath the crumbling fortress. Not likely.

How about 2%? That would be 258 bars. Still an incredible amount of wealth...more than seven thousand pounds (3.5 tons) of pure gold, a quarter million gold piece value to the adventurers that find it. Of course, getting out more than a handful of bars will necessitate doing away with the stronghold's patriarch and his pet dragon(s). And there's always the possibility some ancient curse has been laid on the gold by long-dead sorcerer elves...

Now, I'm sure there are Dungeon Masters reading this who quail at the thought of releasing so much wealth into their fantasy economy in one shot. Why? What's 258,000 g.p. split six or seven ways? 40K apiece? That spends pretty fast, assuming you're in a city large enough to exchange gold bars for cash. My world has three such major cities (pop. 15K+): Seattle (natch), Spokane (seat of the Red Empire), and Tacoma. The smallest (the city-state of Tacoma) has a population of 18,000 and a median per capita income of 1,447 g.p. annually. Median income is not, of course, the same as average income...but regardless an extra 14 g.p. per person added to the economy doesn't suddenly drive up the stock price of normal goods and services. It's not even a month's income!

[for the sake of the curious: I've got Seattle's population pencilled in at 24,000 at the moment, and Spokane at 21,000. Annual median per capita income for these rival city-states is 1,955 g.p. and 1,246 g.p. respectively]

All right, that's enough fantasy economics for now. Later, gators!

How Money Spends

As I type this, I am waiting for a dude to show up to my house to fix my artificial fireplace. The bill for this repair will probably be in excess of $500, but having suffered through the entire month of January with cold tile floors, I'm ready to spend...after all, what good is a fireplace that doesn't work? Decoration?

Some time in the next ten days I will need to make a deposit of about $600 for tuition for the kids' school next year. Next month, my family is planning a ten-ish day vacation that will include hotel fees of hundreds per night (we won't discuss airfare). In March will come due the bill for the premier (year round) soccer team my son is on...don't know when my daughter's comes due (different team) though hers is substantially less. Then, of course there are her piano lessons ($30 a week), softball fees, flag-football for the boy next month (he wants to give it a try and has a cannon arm so...okay)...that last one is going to be $135, perhaps because it has Russell Wilson's name on it.

I need a haircut. I need a dentist appointment. Just had the car in the shop for two days but (fortunately) everything was under warranty, so no cost there...although the car won't be paid off for another year or so of monthly payments. And gas is more than $50 a tank right now, which sucks unimaginably. Phone, internet, streaming services, cable bill, insurance, mortgage, utilities, etc...it all adds up. Buying the stuff I needed for doing laundry cost me $25, but should last a couple weeks.

Gross sales for books in January (print and pdf)) was a bit more than $300. Good thing the fam doesn't rely on me for income. I just do the grocery shopping.

Over a hastily swallowed breakfast this morning, I explained to the kids how credit cards work. That's a good conversation to have (had to disabuse the 7 year old of some strange notions) and one I expect to have multiple times over the next couple years. Conversations about borrowing and debt and interest and predatory lending practices are not really the kind of thing my parents talked about with me as a child...which is too bad, as I ended up finding out about some of it the hard way. But educating 'em, hopefully, will insulate them from at least some bad decisions in their future. After all, in real life you don't get to roll up a new character just because you screwed up with choices you made.

The burden of living in a world of money concerns is a great reason/excuse/justification for escaping into the fantasy world of Dungeons & Dragons (or ANY role-playing game), where players are directed to magic holes in the ground over-flowing with treasure, ripe for the taking (and armed with the skills and equipment needed to take that treasure). Given the needs of LIVING (even fantasy living) is there really an obligation to include an alignment axis in the game? Characters have to EAT, after all...given that little factoid, does it matter whether my character is good or evil and that a monstrous being holds to any particular faction?

I know, I know...I said I wanted to start a series of posts about "world building" and here I am talking about money/treasure (again!). But the thing is this concept of money is of critical importance to D&D...I daresay that along with 100% commitment/investment, it's a foundational concept that has to be nailed down in your head/heart for any world building to be successful. 

Otherwise, you end up with faulty thinking along the line of this recent post from Noisms. 

And lest anyone think I'm throwing Noisms under a bus here, I wrote a very similar post waaaay back in 2010; it did not offer his "solutions," but the "problem" raised was (more-or-less) the same: too much treasure enters the game as a necessity of character advancement. And, after reading through the comments, I can see I was still thinking along these lines as late as 2017 and had not for sure changed my opinion till 2020 or thereabouts. That's a long time to be laboring under a misconception.

The issue is not one of too much money in a campaign. The issue is one of not enough things to SPEND that money on. And that, my friends, is a world building issue.

As I mentioned (briefly) in this old post, the AD&D reward system is tied tightly to the game's fantasy economy, especially with training costs and living expenses, two things not present in the the various editions of "basic" D&D. OD&D has living expenses (p. 24 of Book 3) equivalent to 1% of a character's XP for players who've yet to establish a stronghold/barony, but no training costs...I suspect that "training" was implemented by Gygax as a direct method of curbing PC wealth because the costs involved are exorbitant; so much so that the training section may be the most house-ruled part of any AD&D campaign I've seen, being discarded or heavily modified in every group I've witnessed.

Regardless, in a well-run campaign, excessive treasure accumulation shouldn't be an issue because PCs should be spending cash almost as quickly as they earn it. Almost...a constant state of being flat-broke is generally disheartening to a group of players, discouraging them from playing at all. The balancing act that all DMs must walk is allowing them to accumulate while still keeping the players hungry.  And THAT is not a matter of being stingy with treasure...it's about giving them things to spend that treasure on.

You want examples? Okay.

First: consider the kinds of things YOU spend money on...things like food, shelter, travel, vehicles, etc. Now consider what you might purchase if you HAD more money: better food, better shelter, better vehicles, nicer tools, etc. Now consider the fantasy world you live in and what the fantasy equivalents of these things are: do you want to sleep in a ditch, a hovel, a roadside inn, a manor house, a castle? Do you want to eat gruel or something a little fancier? Do you want to have bargain bin adventuring equipment or stuff that's going to function better and more reliably and is sturdier / less prone to breakage? 

Do you want to be a lone traveler on roads rife with orcs and bandits, or an armed caravan that discourages interlopers on your way from town to town. Do you have enough animals that you can ensure your mounts stay fresh? Do you have a wagon for carrying goods, including provisions for the entire outfit (animals included! working horses need grain, not just grazing!)? You definitely don't want to be slowing down for forage. How about spare parts for those wagons/carts...how good are the roads? Are there roads where you're going? If not, you'll probably need a mule train (with drivers) to pack all your gear. 

Do the characters dress like peasants? Do they hang out in tiny farm villages, trading jewels for food and homespun? Or do they make for the larger towns and cities looking to bedeck themselves in silks and furs and filigreed armor? Ermine capes and jeweled pedants and giant, fancy hats that display their ostentation should be the goal of successful adventurers.

Let's talk about "fencing goods" for a moment...the practice of turning loot in easily spent coin. Coins, as I pointed out in this recent post (and others) are simply a medium of exchange, for goods and services. You change the ancient crown of Rodrick the Fifth for 50,000 g.p. because you don't want to wear it and it's easier to split the take among party members. But once you receive your share...say, 10,000 gold pieces...what do you plan on doing with your half-ton of coins? Put it in sacks and pull it in a cart? No: you exchange it for portable valuables, like jewelry your character WILL wear: bracelets, broaches, necklaces, rings (finger and other), etc. Or you buy expensive gifts for local nobles, trusted retainers, guild masters, and such. Not only does one's possessions (and generosity) signify the character's growing status/prestige, but it should be worth bonuses to reaction rolls, morale and loyalty of retainers, etc. as detailed in the rule books!

Are your characters high enough level to cast raise the dead? Cure disease? Remove curse? Turn stone back to flesh? Everyone bitches and moans about level drain...did you know there's a restoration spell in AD&D? The sample price (on page 104 of the DMG) suggests a cost of 10,000 g.p. "plus a like amount per level of the recipient." That's pretty steep, but since the party probably doesn't have a 16th level cleric, it may be the price they have to pay after an extremely brutal encounter with wights or wraiths. The local patriarch is probably okay casting the spell on credit (which the party will need to pay back after several ventures)...and so long as they have similar alignment, the church may be willing to forgo interest on the the balance.

And speaking of those cash-gaining adventures...just how exactly do your players discover the next lucrative dungeon to plumb? Are they hearing rumors of long forgotten shrines and lost cities? Okay...so how are they finding them? Are they paying sages (2,000 g.p. per month in B/X and OD&D) to research locations and maps? Are they paying "finders fees" to unsavory and untrustworthy types for "authentic" maps to these places? Assuming they are out-of-the-way adventure sites (that haven't already been looted) do they need to hire ships to take them (and their retainers and their provisions and their gear) to far off islands, inaccessible coastlines, etc. Ships cost money, too...so does their crew, captain, navigator, provisions, etc. But with the heady prospect of making MORE money...well, it's an investment in hopes of a return.

When it comes to the coinage of D&D, I take a page from the book of Anthony Huso (whose blog I find quite enlightening) and try to keep in mind that one silver piece can be considered to have the spending power of $1 (US). Viewed in this way, a gold piece is nothing more than a twenty dollar bill. 30-180 gold pieces to outfit a 1st level character in B/X means the neophyte adventurer has a maximum of $3600 to his or her name, and a average of $2000.

That's not a lot of money! How fast can YOU burn through $2000? The federal poverty line in the United States for a family of four is $26,500 per year...the fantasy equivalent of 1,325 gold pieces (about 110 per month). When the Rules Cyclopedia talks about "dominion income" of 10 g.p. per month per family, this is ruler income in services rendered by the peasants, not the actual amount of income (or "service equivalent") being generated/earned. Or, to put it another way: peasants don't work solely for the benefit of the ruler. That's what slaves do. MOST of the peasant family's work is going back into its own household (feeding, clothing, and sheltering itself) with part of the surplus being paid out as a form of "tribute" to the lord (and taxes are separate altogether). And when I say "most" I mean probably 90% or more.

SO... 100 gold per family per month...1,200 gold per year...still gives us "impoverished peasant" (or rural agrarian society) but with PLENTY of coin...or, rather, coin equivalent (keep saying to yourself medium of exchange). Just remember: it's not that the peasants (and bakers and butchers and candlemakers) have coffers overflowing with golden coins. They earn (or create) "stuff" and then they exchange that "stuff" for other "stuff" in a constant flow of distribution and redistribution, setting aside a portion to pay taxes and church tithes and/or (perhaps) aid their fellow humans.

And just as in real life, the dudes at the top skim a portion off the top of everything to stack in their vaults.

An adventurer coming to town with a boatload of cash doesn't suddenly change the economy. Economy's don't change over night.  And communities able to subsume large amounts of wealth (townships and cities) are even LESS amenable to change...all that treasure is just getting dispersed and distributed.

Look: how much experience does a magic-user need to earn to reach 7th level? 60,001 in AD&D (my edition of choice). Assuming 85% of that experience comes from treasure (not an unreasonable assumption) and perhaps 80% of that treasure is monetary (rather than magical), you're looking at a character that's accumulated somewhere around 40,000 gold pieces over the course of her career, the fantasy equivalent of some $800,000. Quite a chunk of change, right?

But this the equivalent of gross income...income not counting expenses (what the PC spends on outfitting ventures, fees, taxes, costs, retainers, etc.). You know what the average gross revenue for a bar in the United States is? $330,000. That's average. There are a lot of folks who'd call a 7th level adventurer pretty successful (among my current players, we've yet to see someone achieve 6th level). Just how much game time does it take for said magic-user to reach 7th level? I'd think that might be a more accurate measure of "success."

[and, hey, while some folks might say "just surviving is success," remember that this is a game where dead adventurers can be raised fairly easily]

In that previously cited post, one commenter stated it had taken two years for a character in his campaign to achieve 7th level. $400K per year? That's hardly more than one would earn running a pub...an average pub. Not even a high end one which might earn HUGE revenues in the right environment with the right clientele. Yet, even then, it doesn't mean the owner of the bar is FILTHY RICH, as most of those revenues go into the cost of running the bar...not just inventory, but staff salaries, cleaning costs, upkeep, lease, taxes, licenses, new equipment, repairs, insurance, etc. Of course, the owners have to pay themselves, too, right?

JB, JB...what the hell is all this? I don't care about this accounting BS! I just want to hunt trolls and fight owl bears, and explore the the halls of giants and the (treasure) vaults of the Drow! Why are you just going on and on and on! If I wanted to start a small business, I wouldn't be playing D&D!!

All right, man, I get it. You're looking at the game a certain way: as a chance to escape the "drudgery" of the real world and play the hero or the dastardly villain just like some movie you saw or book you read. Right? All this thinking of "adventuring" as an enterprise...as a venture business...is detracting from the fun of the thing. Too fiddly.

Here's the thing: as I talked about in my last post, the ONLY thing that will satisfy me (with regard to D&D gaming) is to have full investment...which, to me, is a combo of engagement and commitment...from the folks at the table (myself included). And what once led to that investment has CHANGED for me over the years. Because I have changed.

I am not a kid anymore. I'm not as ignorant as I once was (that is a post all to itself). And while I don't (yet) mind the people in my world playing from an ignorant point of view, I'm not going to coddle them any more and...chances are...if they play ignorant, they will probably suffer. 

And if they suffer enough...well, they probably won't want to play in my world any more. And that's, you know, okay. I am going to try to make it as "fun" and "interesting" as possible. The work, the brow sweat being put into this is almost entirely my own, anyway. They (the players) just have to show up and play well. You know...like real people. Real adventurers.

Because I want a game that is immersive. I want a game that drags them in. I want a game that consumes them...as it once consumed me, long ago.

When I was a kid, I was less demanding. Now I am more demanding. I have to be. Because I have too much shit on my plate to run a D&D game as a "lark." Dude, I'd rather play Camel Up. Or Axis & Allies. Lot less brain power, and still quite a bit of excitement/laughs. 

All right, I'm digressing from the original point. Time to cut out. Hopefully world building will be next.

Why Treasure

This post has been long in the making...only because I've been so concerned about getting it right. But that's probably an impossibility; let's just plow ahead, shall we?

I've written a lot about the importance of treasure in D&D over the last few years, but (weirdly) most of my best thoughts (I think) are scattered around the internet, either in the comments on other folks' blogs or...when actually posted here...fairly ancillary to whatever topic I'm discussing. There just doesn't seem to be a definitive post here that reflects my current thoughts on "treasure" in Dungeons & Dragons.

[yes, there are a lot of posts with the label "treasure" on Ye Old Blog, but most of these are magic items I've written for one system or another. Should probably go through and re-label those...]

The fact is, my thoughts on treasure have changed over the years, evolving even as I've reverted (game-wise) to an older...I mean really old...mindset. Sometimes...as I'm sure most geezers will tell you...things that ain't broke don't need to be fixed.

Though they can still be improved upon.

That in a second. A couple months back, Adam from Barking Alien shot me an email asking me to consolidate my thoughts on why treasure is awesome, in order to dispute my thoughts in good-spirited debate. My succinct explanation (as much as I am ever “succinct”) included the following reasons: 

• As an object, “treasure” (gold coins, jewels, etc.) is easily understood and recognized by players. 
• As a goal, treasure acquisition is an objective, measurable means of success. You’re not worried about what may constitute (for a particular DM) “good roleplaying,” humor awards, etc. 
• For a GROUP of individual players, it provides a UNIFYING objective; if they all want treasure, they can work (together, cooperatively) to acquire it. 
• As a target objective, it invites a multitude of ways to accomplish the objective (stealth, trickery, negotiation, combat, etc.). When experience is only awarded for combat (as in 3E and 4E D&D, for example) there is only a single means of advancement (fighting), limiting the overall game experience. 
• As a “tangible” objective of play (the imaginary characters must pursue it), it encourages proactivity on the part of the players to gain the reward. Passive reward systems (XP for participation, for example) do not encourage proactivity; they provide no game-related impetus/motivation for action. 
• With regards to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (first edition) specifically, treasure is tied directly to the game economy (it’s needed for hirelings, training, equipment replacement, magical research, tithes and fees, construction, etc.) providing REINFORCEMENT of the reward system (we need money – we need to adventure – we acquire money – we spend money – we need money) leading to perpetual long-term play and character/campaign development. 

All this appears to baffle BA (or “perplex,” to use his own word), but he seems to not understand this only pertains to the Dungeons & Dragons game, not to other fantasy adventure games like Star Trek or DC Heroes (he cites Captain Kirk and Superman specifically as individuals unmotivated by money). D&D has a specific premise, rather neatly laid out in the first paragraph of Moldvay’s Basic book: 

In the D&D rules, individuals play the role of characters on dangerous quests in search of fame and fortune. Characters gain experience by overcoming perils and recovering treasures. As characters gain experience, they grow in power and ability. 

If that ain’t your bag then there’s not much reason to play D&D. If you don’t play a group of characters “in search of fame and fortune”…well, that’s kind of what D&D is all about. 

But, of course, it’s about more than just that. There’s the “fame” part, too…but pride and envy, the driving forces behind fame-seekers, are just as base as the greed and avarice that drive individuals in search of riches. 

Except they doesn’t. Not always. Sometimes it’s necessity. 

[I’m reminded of the Sarojini Naidu quote: “it costs a lot of money to allow Gandhi to live simply”]

MONEY, one of the many things D&D’s treasure represents, is something that many folks have issues with. Some people want more of it; some people hate needing it; some people do terrible things in the name of acquiring it; some people use it against others. All sorts of negative emotions are attached to this thing we call “money.” 

In actuality, money is just a convenient means of exchange. It has been described as a tool, a weapon, a type of energy, and “the root of all evil,” but it’s just a means of exchange. Other things have been turned to evil purposes…including love and desire…just as easily and as often. Well, maybe not AS “easily and often” as money…but easily and often enough.

The point is: it's easy to have a negative attitude towards something that, at its base, is simply a means of exchanging goods and services for other goods and services...money is a convenient and oft-used punching bag given as an excuse for the exploitation and manipulation perpetrated by humans against humans. But D&D really isn't about capitalism or colonialism (despite having a few of those trappings). It's about adventurers seeking fame and fortune. The "dungeons" and "dragons" of the title indicate where those adventurers seek those things: fame (for heroic deeds) and fortune (in the form of treasure) is acquired through the delving of dangerous adventure sites and facing fantasy monsters. 

[and with an ADVANCED attitude, these things can be expanded to the point that the entire campaign world becomes a "dangerous adventure site" suitable for adventure and achievement of fame and fortune]

In another recent post of mine I explained two of four possible priorities of RPG play are being challenged and genre exploration. Dungeons & Dragons, as originally conceived, is not about genre exploration. Oh, I can see how one might mistake it for an exploration of the classic "hero's journey" monomyth...and, in fact, one can see the times where D&D designers tried to pawn this off on gamers over the years (beginning with 2nd edition AD&D). But it was only able to do this once fantasy began to eat its own; i.e. once the fantasy literature being published began to ape D&D and inform gamers' assumptions about the game (which is to say, after TSR found they could make more money as a publishing house than as a game designer and started flooding the fantasy fiction market with self-referencing trash). But that's not how it was built. It's not designed to "tell stories," all post-1987 rhetoric to the contrary.

Let's come back to Adam's points for a second: not because I'm trying to beat him up but because I think his points represent the opinions of many other RPG players, especially players of D&D that began with a latter edition that de-emphasized the value of treasure (both literally and as a game mechanism). Adam wants to play games that tell heroic stories with characters motivated by something other than money...he cites Captain Kirk and Superman as two prime examples. But look at those two universes: in neither one does money have any value! Economy is not an issue in a fantasy world where your ship provides all the food and energy you need or where the Man of Steel can simply squish lumps of coal into diamonds (or where Batman and Robin are so wealthy as to render money no consideration at all). 

Economy and money...as a means to survival...is a prime consideration in MANY genres one might want to explore. Money is definitely a motivation for the crew of Firefly, and for the Ghost Busters, and for most stories of the western genre. I haven't read Moorcock's Corum or Hawkmoon, but money is a consideration for Elric once he sets off to explore the Young Kingdoms (as Moonglum constantly reminds him). 

The only genre that routinely disregards money are one that provides "mission based" objectives: for example the Mission Impossible/James Bond spy thriller or the superhero "villain of the week" that must be dealt with or the city/world/universe will be wrecked. But such mission-based RPGs aren't conducive to the sort of long-term play that I consider the strength of the medium; they are short-term play at best, better served for one-shots and con play (where the immediacy of the mission is a plus) as, in my experience, they tend to peter out very quickly. 

[adventurers motivated by "revenge" fall into this category]

"Living" in a fantasy world long-term generally requires some sort of economy for the game to have any kind of meaning. Even in a setting like Star Wars; certainly waging a guerrilla war against a galactic empire requires a lot of resources: guns, ammunition, manpower, ships, fuel, provisions, etc. These things cost money, and it's hard to pay for things out of the space princess's bank account when her planet's been blown up. Ignoring the necessity of acquiring money renders the campaign a paltry thing...unless you're concerned with something other than the escapist fantasy experience RPGs can offer (for example, exploring group dynamics between characters of widely disparate backgrounds).

Keeping this in mind...that money is just a medium of exchange and a necessity of survival...one can see that many of the issues that perplex Adam don't really wash:

It is a simple, common, base desire/need that isn't heroic. 

Ensuring survival is certainly a common challenge, but acquiring money...sufficient money…may not be simple at all, and may require thrilling heroics, according to the situation.

It isn't noble, emotionally driven, and serves no greater purpose beyond personal gain. 

Depending on the use for which money is put, all this may be patently false. Money CAN be put to noble use, its acquisition may be coldly clinical (or driven by emotions other than greed), and can definitely be spent in ways that facilitate a "higher purpose."

Making it the primary goal promotes envy, greed, and distrust. It can divide the group. 

Even in Dungeons & Dragons, having treasure as an objective (in my experience) fails to have this effect. Treasure generally unites the party in a common objective in a way that multiple disparate motivations seldom do, thus instilling a spirit of cooperation. Monetary treasure is generally divided evenly at the end of an adventure/session with all surviving party members getting an equal share, and I've often observed surprising magnanimity in players after pulling a rich haul, as they bestow bonuses and choice items on trusted henchmen and cherished NPCs. The main thing I've seen "divide" a D&D group is a magic item of surpassing power that multiple PCs argue over...but that's not a "money" issue.

It is never enough, partly because no reward is as epic as described in stories or art. 

This is rather a feature of D&D play (as I stated above) as the continual need for money in a "living" economy sets up a feedback loop that spurs and motivates a proactive search for more adventure opportunities, thus allowing play to continue in perpetuity.

If genre appropriate, Treasure would end the story. Filthy rich PCs need not adventure.

It really depends. Leave aside (for example) the fact that The Hobbit is story, a modern fairy tale, written with a beginning, middle, and end already in mind (leave aside also the argument that the goal of the protagonist is to find his own courage and sense of excitement/adventure outside of a rather staid existence, and that the treasure isn't really the point). If it were, in fact, based on an actual RPG campaign, one can see there is far more complexity and adventure that can occur even after acquiring the hoard of Smaug. Towns must be repaired, gifts must be given to allies, the logistics of carrying wealth back to the Shire across miles of orc and troll infested wilderness (not to mention the costs that must be paid out in hiring a baggage caravan with beasts of burden, drovers, drivers, and guardsmen) will provide an enormous...and expensive!...venture in and of itself. There is a good reason Bilbo only takes two small chests of loot with him when he leaves Lonely Mountain...only as much as his pony can carry.

[and, again...the acquisition of wealth wasn't the point of his story anyway]

But fairy tales are fairy tales and (as I've written elsewhere) RPGs are designed to be played and experienced, not fed to us through our senses like a film or novel. It requires a collective and interactive imagination...and as smarter minds than mine have pointed out, the older we get the more mature our imaginings become. And I don't mean "mature" in the NC-17 meaning. We have more life experience upon which we can draw and we can concern ourselves with the "burden" of a meaningful campaign filled with the logistics and challenges of a humongous dragon hoard.

I will not argue against the complaint that the awarding of experience points (and, thus, increased character effectiveness) for wealth is a simplification. But as an expedient mechanic, it works magnificently in practice and symbolically represents exactly what the game purports to model: adventurers hunting for fortune and fame. The D&D universe is akin to the world of Sinbad the Sailor, a hero among heroes and as wealthy as a sultan (if not the Caliph) by the end of his seven voyages. If that's not to your liking, that's fine and dandy. But if you don't understand the type of heroic adventure (like the  Sinbad stories) that originate the "D&D genre" you are bound to be perplexed in perpetuity.

FWIW: I find the system of advancement in Chaosium's games (Stormbringer, ElfQuest, Cthulhu, etc.) to be the most realistic method of modeling increased effectiveness. But I prefer the streamlined, less-fiddly system of D&D to Chaosium, giving me more room to attend to and concentrate on the game I'm running. And, again, D&D's system of advancement (XP for levels) ties directly into the premise of the game.

All right. I think that's enough for now. However, I do have more to say about treasure...but it veers away from the particular topic at hand (the "WHY" of treasure) into tangential topics. Later, gators.

Welcome to Bartertown!

 Let's talk about Krynn's steel-based economy.

Yes, I wrote (briefly) about this before...I've had more time to ponder it and more information with which to synthesize its sheer ridiculousness. 

First, we can talk about steel itself. Oh, boy...lots there. Krynn seems to have  a technology level at least equal to the late middle ages of Earth (plate armored knights means 14th to 15th century, yeah?). Humans on our planet started working steel from a couple thousand years before that. Why? Because they were fairly ingenious and the materials they needed (iron and timber) were plentiful. 5% of the Earth's crust is made of iron...that's a LOT. And it doesn't take huge amounts of heat to extract it...just heat in the proper amounts with the proper technique. 

[rather than spend a bunch of time writing a thesis on That Which I Am Unqualified To Explain, I will simply direct you to Bret Devereaux's excellent essays on the subject]

Even if the world of Krynn is exceptionally "iron poor," as has been suggested some places, the creation of a currency based on steel makes little sense. After all, steel wasn't a unit of currency before the Cataclysm; if it was such a rare and precious commodity on Krynn, why wasn't iron used as legal tender previously? 

And let's talk about these "steel pieces;" who's minting them anyway? And to what purpose? Do folks trade them to the local blacksmith? Again, the purpose of money is for a portable unit of exchange (instead of trying to buy a helmet with a bag of grain)...steel is a commodity, to be forged and shaped. And my understanding is that blacksmiths prefer to work in billets; why would one want to go through the trouble of forging the coins into something useful?

But, again...who is striking these coins and where? Old, used, and even rusty metal can be reforged...presumably there's lots of metal scraps left over from the pre-Cataclysm days. Maybe the Cataclysm just turned everyone stupid? Maybe that's it...here's a passage from DL3: Dragons of Hope:

"Here, the flat plain shows scars of the Dwarfgate War. The blasted heath is punctuated by the rusting hulks of ancient, broken war machines. The wind howls across the plain. 

"Rusted, broken swords, shields, and armor litter the plain, obscured by sand and drifting snows. The great iron war machines stand draped in ice, a monument of destruction."

There is nothing of value here. 

Um, no...there's plenty of value there.  And the place should have already been picked clean by now: the Dwarfgate War occurred approximately 250 years before the events of the adventure module...plenty of metal (i.e. steel), broken or otherwise, worth looting. And considering the Dwarfgate War was a post-Cataclysm event (i.e. after the rise of steel as the currency of choice) an un-looted battlefield represents an obscene amount of wealth just to be left lying around (and keep in mind that the DL setting awards X.P. for the recovery of steel based on its "gpw," i.e. gold piece weight). We're all leveling up!

[and just for the record, failing to loot a battlefield is pretty strange...there were survivors (on both sides!) after all]

The idea that Krynn is some sort of metal poor world (like MZB's Darkover) simply doesn't make sense, and neither does the idea of minting "steel pieces." It's a poetic concept (and, again, I see the implied allegory here: Krynn moving from a "golden age" to an age of war), but it's nonsense.

That doesn't mean, however, that you can't have the bottom fall out of the gold market.

Krynn is a post-apocalyptic world. The Cataclysm messed it up but good.  And if you live in a large urban area like, say, Xak Tsaroth or Tarsis and suddenly have your food supply wiped out by enormously dramatic environmental catastrophe, then it doesn't matter how much gold you have. You can't buy bread when there's no bread to buy.

And here I can see the total (or near total) devaluation of the gold piece. Monetization of an economy exists to fill a need, that need being an easy exchange of goods between large groups of suppliers and demanders (yes, I'm over-simplifying). When civil society breaks down, though, and the population exists on the edge of survival, monetization is no longer necessary. You can't eat gold. And again, as an allegory, steel does become a form of currency: the pointy, sword-shaped type pointed at the farmer whose meager grain supply he hoped would feed him through the winter. Steel...war and murder...becomes the new method for "facilitating an exchange of goods" in a post-apocalyptic world.

But once everyone's armed up (and the weakest have gone about the business of dying) you can move back to barter. And here "steel" (as a matter of currency) might be a stand-in term for "goods" or "useful items." The closer the timeline is to the catastrophic event, the more reliant one is on straight trading of goods and services (as opposed to money of any sort)...because you really don't know when the iron mines and Pax Tharkas are going to get up and running again, and you could really use a helmet and a sword for the next time those bandits try raiding the village granary. Winter is coming!

I'm reminded of various bits of post-apocalyptic fiction here. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (of course) with Tina Turner's Bartertown, but also The Blood of Heroes (Rutger Hauer, Joan Chen) with its ritualized banditry in the form of jugging. Their money tended to be bits of scrap metal, too, but it was pretty obvious from the landscape that no one was going to be opening any iron mines in the near future. Krynn doesn't have to deal with that type of radioactive wasteland.

Additionally, Krynn is pretty far removed from its Cataclysm (by the time of the novels anyway). It's 350 years later. People are living in treetop villages, surrounded by fields of rich farmland (farmland later burned and destroyed by invading dragon armies...what's up with THAT? How is the army going to eat?!). Nation states are forming up, diplomatic relations forming between new cities like Solace, Gateway, Haven, and the plainsmen (plainsfolk?). Trade is taking place! Half-elves are wearing feathers! All that jazz.

And there are plenty of places where life is going on much as it did before the Cataclysm. The dwarves of Thorbardin are unchanged. Qualinesti is still a city of towering, crystalline (elven) spires that have stood since before the "fiery mounted" impacted with Istar. Palanthas is mostly unchanged, as is the insular culture of the Solamnic knights (though the same can't be said for their prestige and standing within the Krynnish community). The kender didn't sink into the ocean (much to the rest of Krynn's chagrin). The tinker gnomes remain on the same island they have for thousands of years. 

While Krynn has suffered an unnatural disaster of impressive scale, it is a world well on its way to recovery. The people have adapted to the new landscape, hard as that may have been. And other than the invasion of an evil goddess-backed army led by dragon riders and soldiers that explode or turn into acid when you kill them...well, life would seem pretty close to idyllic.

Which is why I keep thinking I need to change the setting to something closer to the apocalypse...something like 100 years after the Cataclysm. 

I was thinking that I'd call this little project, "B/X Dragonlance;" now, I'd just settle for "reasonable Dragonlance."

All right, that's enough for tonight. It's my birthday and the family is trying to fete me and whatnot. Makes it really tough to write blog posts (I started writing this morning). Ugh...all right, all right...I've got to go. 

Essential Repurposing (Part 1)

AKA "Fixing Stuff For Fun And Profit"

I'll cut to the chase: I picked up a copy of the D&D Essentials Kit. Yes, I put money in WotC's pocket ($12 and change), although I do have 90 days to return the thing to Target.

The reason for this? I wanted a copy of the included adventure, Dragon of Icespire Peak. I have a bit of a "thing" for white dragons. That may not have been obvious over the years (though the last time I created an adventure with a dragon...nine years ago!...it was a white), but they're probably my second faves, after black dragons. Their Superman-like, liquid nitrogen breath is not only a cool image, and it's a bit easier to justify than a monster that breathes fire...plus, they have the best natural camouflage (IMO) of all the dragons.

I'm rooting for the dragon.

Besides, I dig on snow and ice settings (duh...see Land of Ice for examples); heck, I almost picked up a copy of Frostburn, long after I'd chucked DND3 from my life. Probably would have purchased it, if it'd had a white dragon on the cover.

Anyway, I wanted to see the type of adventure being constructed over at Wizards of the Coast and see if it was anything I might use...or modify...for my own ends. Here's what my $13 bought me:

- An "Essentials Kit Rulebook" that I have zero interest in reading. Really. I've read the 5E books, I've played a session (or two?) of 5E, and I've listened to multiple hours of 5E "actual play" podcasts. I know that the game, as it's currently being produced, is extremely irritating to my psyche and outside the sphere of "things-I-want-to-engage-with." I'd go back to AD&D RAW long before I'd sit down to a 5E game session.

[well, not quite RAW. I will never again play AD&D with character limitations based on sex/gender. Yes, we did this in my youth...even our female players, who generally ran fighter characters...but I'm done with that particular brand of machismo stereotype]

- A nice set of (eleven) dice.

- A DMs' screen that has a lovely illustration on it. If I was crafty at all, I'd find some way to cut it up into some sort of decorative doo-dad. Unfortunately, I'm not.

- Some 5E tools (cards for initiative, conditions, magic items) that I probably won't be able to use. Actually, the "sidekick cards" might work fine as a stack of random NPCs.

- A map of the Sword Coast portion of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

- The 64 page adventure book that was my impetus for buying the box.

Let's see, anything else? Some blank (5E) character sheets. A box for holding cards. Some codes to unlock additional on-line content (not sure if I need to be enrolled in D&D Beyond to use that). Eh. All-in-all, I suppose it's not a bad value for a "starter set"...dice alone would probably cost $5-6. What price would you put on 14 easily re-purposed "dungeon" maps; a quarter a piece? Maybe $.50 to $1, given that they include some possible ideas/inspiration in the text?

Maybe. They aren't great. If you're interested in WHY they're "not great" (or, as some might say, "terrible") I'd direct you to this recent ggnore podcast (episode 175) for the informed opinion of a group of regular 5E users who bothered to play through most of the adventure (their actual play podcasts...about 12 hours worth...comprise four or five of their earlier episodes).

But I already knew that...I mean I did research the thing before I bought it.

Here's the thing, though: I (me) am not quite ready to say the ideas here are "terrible." Many of the quests presented here (the term used to describe the dozen plus micro adventures that make up the whole of this mini-campaign) aren't anything worse than what I'd come up with for a single session or two at the table. Maybe that says more about me (and my lack of creativity), but not every adventure need be a giant, six level dungeon filled with world-destroying threats nor does every event occurring in a campaign require some sort of clever inter-woven story/plot construction. Sometimes a simple kernel of an encounter can yield hours of entertainment.

The real problem, in my opinion, is more one of execution...that is to say, I'm not the fan of how these quests/adventures are supposed to unfold. And that is mainly a 5E issue rather than a lack of imagination on the part of the author. The Essentials Kit wants to provide an introductory adventure (rid this region of its dragon problem), that's a bit too steep in challenge for a a band of newbie adventurers. So it provides a bunch of "warm-up" adventures that the player characters will need to grind in order to achieve the requisite power level to face the ultimate encounter (the eponymous dragon).

Grind is the operative word here...there is little reward offered in any of the adventures, save for the promised leveling that comes with the completion of the "quests." Players need to seek out and check off every notice on the town's job board in order to achieve the necessary milestones (i.e. "auto-level ups") that will eventually (around 6th level) allow them to face down the dragon. Since treasure means little to the 5E character (most of their best upgrades come from levels not equipment...and gold doesn't earn XP) there's nothing to really motivate characters except what "meta" story you want to give your party.

Hell, even the dragon has bupkis in the way of treasure (whoops! SPOILER). One would imagine that the main incentive for fighting a dragon would be, you know, claiming its hoard or getting showered with gold by a grateful community. Not here! The dragon of Icespire Peak is broke as a joke...it lairs on the roof of a ruined castle, eating the occasional mountain orc that it manages to catch, and has exactly zero as far as a hoard. The grateful villagers? Well, the townmaster "might plan a feast in the heroes honor" (emphasis added by yours truly).

So there's very little reason I can think of for a group of adventurers to hang around an area being threatened by a dragon, let alone take the time to grind a bunch of step-and-fetch/kill adventures for little reward beside the leveling. It reminds me quite a bit of a video game script...but if I wanted to play a video game I'd be doing that. Video games do video games better than tabletop RPGs do.

And just in case anyone's wondering, this isn't a rant...it's just weary observation.

Back to the point: Dragon of Icespire Peak isn't a great adventure, but that's mainly due to 5E not being a great system. Oh, I know folks love 5E and all that (or are resigned to playing it or whatever) but for my money (and I did spend actual money on this thing) you really start to see the warts on the thing when you look at this kind of product. The ggnore boyz say it's the best WotC adventure since Phandelver...but based on some reviews I've read, that may be damning with faint praise.

Still, I do love white dragons. I love them as a feature monster, not just some knightly mount or frost giant pet. I think they do make a good antagonist for a party of low level adventurers: a sizable (though not insurmountable) risk to balance against a presumably rich reward. That IS what Dungeons & Dragons is supposed to be about after all, right? You defeat the dragon, you divvy up the spoils.

What I'd like to do...now...is rewrite the adventure. Make it a little more "old school friendly;" something with a B/X (or even AD&D) sensibility. File off the serial numbers, prune the edges, maybe slap an OGL on it and sell the PDF for a couple bucks. Try my best to make the thing a bit more useable as a campaign jumpstart.

Would anyone have any objections to me giving it a go?

My favorite white dragon pic.