NWN2: Trade bars vs Gems

Rumple C · Post by **Rumple C** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 9:50 am

keep the weight of all. Gold, arrows and so forth. Up with trade bars/bankers/gems and so forth.

How is it good to have a str 8 pc running around adventuring with 5000(0) gold and 300(0) arrows in their pocket?

it aint. Also adding regionality to tradebars sounds like a neat idea, Ie issued by king *insert name*. Only good within the bounds of *insert kingdom*. Want to travel out of the kingdom and go shopping? take gems.

Fionn · Post by **Fionn** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 6:38 pm

Rumple C wrote:keep the weight of all. Gold, arrows and so forth. Up with trade bars/bankers/gems and so forth.

How is it good to have a str 8 pc running around adventuring with 5000(0) gold and 300(0) arrows in their pocket?

it aint. Also adding regionality to tradebars sounds like a neat idea, Ie issued by king *insert name*. Only good within the bounds of *insert kingdom*. Want to travel out of the kingdom and go shopping? take gems.

shouldn't be too hard to have a prefix and regional postfix to the tag. That would allow them to be used elsewhere, but at a significant discount.

TheCrazyGoblin · Post by **TheCrazyGoblin** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 9:26 pm

I'm all for Gems being used as currency, but I'm not for them being accepted by all merchants.

Is your average swordsmith going to know the difference between all the different kind of gems and what thier worth is going to be? I doubt it.

Gem merchants should be the only merchants that give 95% price for gems.

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 11:07 pm

Rumple C wrote:keep the weight of all. Gold, arrows and so forth. Up with trade bars/bankers/gems and so forth.

How is it good to have a str 8 pc running around adventuring with 5000(0) gold and 300(0) arrows in their pocket?

I'm okay with ammo weight, thought it would be a lot better if you could retrieve ammo. But gold weight just points out the fact that we have an economy of pennies. It also mostly punishes those players who choose to play a PC with a str 8, instead of a min/maxed 18 str fighter type.

Rumple C · Post by **Rumple C** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 8:08 am

to be honest, if we could get weight and copper coins meshed up together i would be all for it. I like to see folks trade of how much risk for how much treasure they can jam into their pockets. As for that penalising str 8 pcs...well folks make trade offs when they roll up a pc, do they want a str 18 barbarian who can carry an ox stuffed with copper coins on his back but couldnt think his way out of a paper box? or do they want the str 8 bard who takes his rewards in gems/magic/tradebars thankyou very much?

i think the weight rules only increases the opportunities for rp. As long as the mechanism for transporting/converting wealth is done well.

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 3:50 pm

Rumple C wrote:As for that penalising str 8 pcs...well folks make trade offs when they roll up a pc, do they want a str 18 barbarian who can carry an ox stuffed with copper coins on his back but couldnt think his way out of a paper box? or do they want the str 8 bard who takes his rewards in gems/magic/tradebars thankyou very much?

I think what people want is an economy that doesn't require you to carry 10,000 coins, ever, or alternatively ignores their weight so you can pretend that they are gems/tradebars/larger currencies. The reason it's a penalty for the str 8 PC's is because it isn't IC for the game to be based on gold coins alone. Using a game economy made up of a single coin, and scaling costs so that a bottle of ale costs 3 of those coins, means you have too many coins to carry to buy anything of appreciable value, if they have weight.

Rumple C wrote:i think the weight rules only increases the opportunities for rp. As long as the mechanism for transporting/converting wealth is done well.

But it isn't done well. You have to find a specialized merchant to convert wealth, at a loss. Imagine going christmas shopping in this system.

"Boy, I'd sure like to buy dad a new DVD for christmas. This one is only 6900 cents. Hmmm, 43 pounds of pennies. Good thing I have my backpack on me. Now, if only this mall had a tradebar merchant. The nearest one is ten miles away... and I'm going to lose 10% of my tradebar. Maybe I'll just cook dinner for him instead."

That's our current system. Tell me it is in any way realistic, enhances rp, or does not penalize low strength characters in an OOC manner. The purpose of the rule is ostensibly to punish powergaming, but all it really does is punish low strength characters and make trade of any significant kind a time consuming pain.

I really don't want to have to roleplay engaging in commodities exchange at a loss and lug around so many coins that I am heavily encumbered, perhaps for twenty or more map tiles, just so I can buy a magic weapon. It's a stupid system, and we shouldn't carry it over to NWN2.

But if coin weight has become an ALFA icon that won't go away, then use gems because they are weightless and stackable, and make gem merchants a common sight around any other trader, with back woods traders still willing to take gems with a higher cost differential than professional gem merchants. In other words, all merchants are gem merchants, but some are better than others. You should also allow a character with high appraise skills or high persuade skills to get *more* for a gem than it's base value, or at least minimize the loss.

MorbidKate · Post by **MorbidKate** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 7:16 pm

TheCrazyGoblin wrote:I'm all for Gems being used as currency, but I'm not for them being accepted by all merchants.

Is your average swordsmith going to know the difference between all the different kind of gems and what thier worth is going to be? I doubt it.

Gem merchants should be the only merchants that give 95% price for gems.

You can limit merchants on what they will buy so you can easily create an IC reason for a Fishmonger not buying anything more valuable than coal if you wanted to. Allow them to buy trade bars and gems up to their merchant limit at 95% and you've solved man problems in one go. Low strength players now have an IC option to trade bars, Gems are now more than just spawn drops and you still attach weight in an IC fashion to the player.

For gems to be of any use to the player the value must be fixed just as it is with gold. If trade bars had their price vary like gems because one land values gold more than others then players wouldn't use them either. Fix the price and use the merchant limit on the back end to make what can be bought or sold IC.

Kate

MShady · Post by **MShady** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 8:30 pm

Creslyn wrote:Spawn drops for gems are already supposed to be balanced to the higher allowed limit of 75-80% for gem buyback. As such, an additional 15-20% return on gems isn't likely to see any major spikes in wealth (unless Bital sells her collection).

That is, however, the main reason that has came up for not going to a gem standard is because of fear of creating a wealth spike because of gems that players are holding on to would increase in value. The last proposed solution I heard discussed was to create something called a "trade gem" that was valued at 95% and each weighed .5 lbs (ick) rather then just use existing gems. Since I guess this was not workable either, converting to gems for currency became kind of a dead issue and we're stuck with these darn trade bars.

I guess my response to that always was... so what if it does increase wealth somewhat? The vast amount of player wealth is not kept in gems anyways, so it makes the wealth increase even more minimal. For the most part, they're immediately liquidated. Anyone with a gem collection is not holding on to it waiting for a bump in exchange rates, but for IC reasons. It wouldn't be particularly hard to switch to a gem standard, I'd really like to see us go with it now rather then later. It makes alot more sense.

Mike

MorbidKate · Post by **MorbidKate** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 9:25 pm

MShady wrote:
Creslyn wrote:Spawn drops for gems are already supposed to be balanced to the higher allowed limit of 75-80% for gem buyback. As such, an additional 15-20% return on gems isn't likely to see any major spikes in wealth (unless Bital sells her collection).
That is, however, the main reason that has came up for not going to a gem standard is because of fear of creating a wealth spike because of gems that players are holding on to would increase in value. The last proposed solution I heard discussed was to create something called a "trade gem" that was valued at 95% and each weighed .5 lbs (ick) rather then just use existing gems. Since I guess this was not workable either, converting to gems for currency became kind of a dead issue and we're stuck with these darn trade bars.

I guess my response to that always was... so what if it does increase wealth somewhat? The vast amount of player wealth is not kept in gems anyways, so it makes the wealth increase even more minimal. For the most part, they're immediately liquidated. Anyone with a gem collection is not holding on to it waiting for a bump in exchange rates, but for IC reasons. It wouldn't be particularly hard to switch to a gem standard, I'd really like to see us go with it now rather then later. It makes alot more sense.

Mike

Since we are rerolling and starting fresh in NWN2 any concerns over players hoarding gems or spawns needing to be reworked are moot points. If gold is equally valued across ALFA's Faerun as it is now then it's simple to do the same with gems. Just limit the merchants on how much they will pay for anything to create IC sensibility.

All merchants accept trade bars and gems at 95% value and have set buyback limits that match the wealth or knowledge available to the merchant. That way a Fishmonger couldn't buy a +2 Battleaxe or a Diamond but might be able to buy lesser items or gems from a player.

Kate

MShady · Post by **MShady** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 10:35 pm

Its not hard to do now, either. Granted this is the NWN2 forum, but Trade Bars were supposed to be temporary for us. They're already largely moot points that have delayed it.

Mike

MorbidKate · Post by **MorbidKate** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 7:53 pm

MShady wrote:Its not hard to do now, either. Granted this is the NWN2 forum, but Trade Bars were supposed to be temporary for us. They're already largely moot points that have delayed it.

Mike

From the standards theads you'll see that Trade Bars aren't temporary at all so expect to see them in NWN2. You can also expect to see gems over-regulated to be functionally useless to players as they are now. Since the buyback rate will still flux wildly we might as well implement the changes now if only to prove that no players will bother to buy gems to transport their money.

Kate

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 8:30 pm

Right, experiment here, not in NWN2.

TheCrazyGoblin · Post by **TheCrazyGoblin** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 8:53 pm

I think the question we need to ask is do we want to stay with canon currency or do we want to make a better system.

Canon:
Silver and gold are accepted most everywhere.
Paper currency is mostly unknown.
Copper and platinum are used in specific nations and cities.
Platinum has mostly fallen out of favour.
Trade bars are canon. (but we do not implement them in a canon way)
A 1lb gold trade bar is worth 50 gold. Trade bars come in 1, 2, 5 and 10 lb wieghts
Gold trade bars are very rare.
The only mention of Gems as a currency is for undersea races using Pearls.

So it would appear that we aren't using canon at the moment, as we use 1/2lb trade bars worth 500 gold.

So what other non canon options are there?
Gems as previously discussed.
Paper money/Bank Notes.
Use of platinum coins.
Revalue so that everything now costs silver coins but also have gold and platinum coins.

So, shall we have some constructive comments on the use of:
Paper money/Bank notes.
Revaluing the currency and using silver, gold and platinum.
Or any other system you can think of.

MShady · Post by **MShady** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 3:38 am

MorbidKate wrote:
MShady wrote:Its not hard to do now, either. Granted this is the NWN2 forum, but Trade Bars were supposed to be temporary for us. They're already largely moot points that have delayed it.

Mike
From the standards theads you'll see that Trade Bars aren't temporary at all so expect to see them in NWN2. You can also expect to see gems over-regulated to be functionally useless to players as they are now. Since the buyback rate will still flux wildly we might as well implement the changes now if only to prove that no players will bother to buy gems to transport their money.

Kate

I kind of expected that as soon as it was emphasized they were only 'temporary'. To deal with 'wildly fluxuating buyback rates', I would standarize that a little more. Given the choice, I think most players would be fairly happy to buy gems to transport wealth and that is quite canon. They even did that in pre-Biblical times. I've personally met people who did that to hide there money from the Nazis. About all the introduction of gold bags and trade bars has done is, as you said, penalize lower strength players while accessable permanent storage yet remains an after thought, and then you're losing the permanent storage in server swaps. Nevermind the fact its pretty difficult in most places to even FIND a trade bar merchant. Still. Why is that? Given the choice, I think you'll find carrying wealth in the form of gems would be much more popular for players and much more practical for DMs.

Mike

MorbidKate · Post by **MorbidKate** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 6:13 am

TheCrazyGoblin wrote:I think the question we need to ask is do we want to stay with canon currency or do we want to make a better system.

Canon:
Silver and gold are accepted most everywhere.
Paper currency is mostly unknown.
Copper and platinum are used in specific nations and cities.
Platinum has mostly fallen out of favour.
Trade bars are canon. (but we do not implement them in a canon way)
A 1lb gold trade bar is worth 50 gold. Trade bars come in 1, 2, 5 and 10 lb wieghts
Gold trade bars are very rare.
The only mention of Gems as a currency is for undersea races using Pearls.

So it would appear that we aren't using canon at the moment, as we use 1/2lb trade bars worth 500 gold.

So what other non canon options are there?
Gems as previously discussed.
Paper money/Bank Notes.
Use of platinum coins.
Revalue so that everything now costs silver coins but also have gold and platinum coins.

So, shall we have some constructive comments on the use of:
Paper money/Bank notes.
Revaluing the currency and using silver, gold and platinum.
Or any other system you can think of.

How the DMG and PnP handles gold has always been pretty ooc so all we should be looking for is light weight means to carry wealth that is IC and logical for most adventuring types. Dealing with weight is all we should be concerned about and Gems simply are the best IC option out there to deal with ooc weight.

We certainly don't want to be adding even more currency layers such as silver, platinum, paper notes. Choices should be coins, trade bars or gems with the later two being valued equally with a 5% conversion rate to encourage useage that best suits the character being played. Wild fluxes in price in either gold bars or gems would immediately cause players to avoid them and that would just be a waste of everyone's time. All we should be concerned about is any ooc weight that doesn't make sense. There is absolutely no need to waste our time worrying about gem appraisals as we could force the same conditions on trade bars to reflect how various nations value gold. If we did, players wouldn't use them either.

This is the last time I'll bother to say it. Make gem and trade bar conversions equal or near equal at 5% (perhaps up to 7% for gems) and simply limit merchants on what they will pay for. That is your simple IC fix to keep poor merchants from being able to pay for diamonds AND +2 Battleaxes all at the same time.

All you need to do is create merchant levels from street vendor to king's kit maker and attach a suiteable cash limit to each that makes IC sense.

It's not rocket science and it addresses mutliple concerns all at once.

Kate