The Tao of D&D

Dead of winter and my orchids are blooming.  At least, when I bought the plant 16 months ago, that's what the tag said.  I don't really know plants.  The plant was flowering when I bought it, but the flowers were just half the size of these seen here.  After a couple of months, the flowers died, the stem died, and all that was left were the plant's fern-like green leaves.

Patiently, however, I maintained the plant, watched it grow several new stems and, some three months ago, it began to grow the stem that became these flowers ... great big white ones, 5cm, or 2 inches wide.  It's funny how small things can produce such pleasure.

Some have asked about the reference I made to the Portuguese treasure ship in a late post.  I don't wish to go into it at length, but okay.  The players contested with a giant octopus of double the book's size, several high level undead and four mind flayers.  The flayers were stripped of their "steal brain" ability, and much reduced in "psionics."   Instead, I gave them three basic abilities: (1) a singler interactive mind, so they could perfectly coordinate attacks; (2) perfect ESP, so they instantly knew the strengths and ability of all the players; and (3) the ability to jointly add to their control one player per round (with save vs. charm).  These powers were enhanced by the players having to fight underwater, and therefore having to do without most of their spells, including the 11th level druid's most cherished spell, conjure fire elemental.  There was far too much dependence in their lexicons on fire and other impractical spells under water, all around; and in any case, the flayers would have known instantly which spells they intended to cast, instantly.

This combination was devastating.  At least half the party's fighting power exists in my daughter's 9th level ranger, whose strength, +2 sword and attacks per round makes her hit like a hammer.  Once the ranger was mind controlled, the party was nearly TPK'd just dealing with her.  Thankfully, the druid has many, many hit points and simply sustained damage as the rest of the party was able to stun or kill all the mind flayers in a given round, so the mage could enfeeble the ranger with a wand and they escape with their lives.  It was very, very close.

The octopus was intelligent, as the players discovered, and did not care about the ship or the treasure; and here's a point worth discussing.  The 2nd level druid in the party, who had just joined the campaign two runnings before, used speak with animals to discuss affairs with the octopus.  She deactivated the octopus with game play, not the druid 9 levels her senior.  In your face, people who think you can't start a 1st level character with a party that's 7th to 11th level.

The party sorted themselves, went back and finished off the mind flayers (and it was close again).  This let them explore the situation.  The ship was entombed in a pile of sand and stone blocks, put in place by the mind flayers, with the stern up and the bow pointed down.  They had discovered the flayer's entrance to this and had explored a small set of rooms and discovered the ship's hull; they'd broken into that to find the bilge and the orlock below the main mast.  With the flayers dead, they perceived where the stern ought to be and used stone meld and brute force to dig down into the Captain's cabin.

That brought the last big fight between the party and a group of 2 spectres and 3 wights, all able to drain experience levels.  The party fought them, made a host of spectacular saving throws and held together their integrity ... but having reason to believe there was more of this kind of thing further into the ship (they'd encountered a wraith earlier that they'd backed away from), the party took the treasure they found in the cabin and vamoosed.

As I said, there was a lot of treasure.  This included piles and piles of boxes and trunks, including an earlier haul of silver and copper they'd found in the bottom hold.  The silver pieces amounted to 300,000 coins and the copper was 370,000 coins.

Since the party had a ship, once they were restored to their ordinary lungs, they parked the ship over the derelict and spent days lifting the treasure out.  One player had a water breathing spell and they'd made friends with the local tritons.  This meant keeping all the relatively worthless coins, since these weren't comparable in value to the jewelry, gems and gold they collected.  The silver is only worth 18,750 g.p. altogether (16 s.p. = 1 g.p.), and the copper only worth 1,927 (12 c.p. = 1 s.p.).

This has pestered me for a month now.  I like giving copper but it's a waste of time, since in gold piece value it's just not important.  Silver, too, as the players have risen, is just as wasteful.

I've made a decision about this, however, and discussed it with the party.  They agree.  The question is whether the coins shouldn't be given more value than their gold piece equivalent, just because they are coins.  In general, should the cold value of items be the only factor in determining their experience?  If I obtain a plate and cup used by an enemy, I have the memory from whence those objects came ... that should have relevance as to the experience I gain as a plunderer.

I propose giving 1 x.p. per 3 silver pieces ... and measuring objects that would normally be listed on the experience table as costing silver coins on these same lines.  If a sack of wheat worth 15 s.p. is seized, then it would be worth 5 experience ... even though it's technically worth less than a single gold.  But not because of what it's worth, but because of what it is.

In turn, 1 x.p. would be given per 5 copper pieces, along these same lines.

Naturally, were this the case, I'd have poured out less than 300 thousand silver.  Or, perhaps, I've have given less actual gold.  The silver would be worth 100,000 experience.

I see great benefits to this.  Small, "worthless" items wouldn't be, and in general I could award treasure without challenging the balance of wealth vs. player costs quite so much, which matters as the players move into higher levels.  I see a similar benefit with low level parties, who could count on meaningful experience returns on smaller amounts: a group of goblins, say, carrying a paltry total of 30 s.p. and 90 c.p.  Altogether, that's 28 x.p. for treasure.  It wouldn't even be 2 if we counted only it's gold value.

As I said, the party's agreed.  Why not?  Experience is experience.

 Check this out.

I'm the sort of fellow who likes to throw the ball over the wall and then figure out how the wall's climbed.  I don't have any pages for any of the above links, but of course the concepts all exist in the real world, so it's a matter of applying those concepts to the D&D world.  All of these things existed in the 17th century.  Nearly all of them were present in the 13th.  Most of them are totally ignored where D&D is concerned.  Gygax's understanding of medieval economics has served me well for many years, but it's time to throw out those crutches and examine the higher concepts of gaming.

One thing I like about D&D is that I'm not limited to the game maker's perception of how an object or a social practice functions.  Unlike a video game, where the local inn operates in very specific ways, enabling me to rest before returning to the game's rigid programming, I can take a D&D inn all apart and examine every facet of a truly functional inn from every angle.  There's no game rule that exists saying I can't buy an inn, run it, supply it with liquor, use it as a cover for illicit political activities (a la The Tale of Two Cities) and as much else as I conceive.  It's only blind, unwritten convention that constrains me from breaking free of the frigid game's non-evolution.

Who knows what games might sprout from ideas like accepting state contracts or investing my money in war bonds to support my country of choice?  Only my imagination.

I hear D&D is a game of imagination.