Photo by “Dry2” courtesy Pixabay.com

There are certain topics that are classics, because you never seem to run out of questions being asked about them, or out of different answers with which to respond.

For the most part, Campaign Mastery steers clear of those, simply because so many others have provided good advice on the subject.

But every now and then, I like to take a run at one of these classic topics, just to see if I have some thoughts to offer that aren’t to be found elsewhere; after all, other sites are perpetually coming and going.

Possibly the oldest “classic question” of them all is how to separate PCs from excessive wealth.

Well, my mantra whenever this arises is TCCT and N. That reminds me of my standard solutions to the problem:

• Thieves
• Con-men
• Craftsmen
• Tax-men
• …and the Needy

But there’s always a complication or two…

Thieves

A PC reaches for his money pouch only to find that it contains nothing but pebbles. Another keeps his wealth in a backpack – but he hasn’t noticed that there’s a small slit in the back of it, and his bulging coin-purse with it’s hard-won contents is gone. The mage uses a portable hole to contain his wealth, reference library, and a few other bulky odds and ends (ladders and whatnot). Everything is still inside – except the gold, gemstones, and jewelery. The party, it seems, are the victims of some very professional thieves…

Expect your players to go spare. Potty. Nuts. Incendiary. Meltdown.

And then, they will want to know two things: how, and more importantly, who.

Those are the complications that need to be faced in this manner of draining wealth.

The Manual Thefts

For the first two cases, it’s not all that difficult; in a skill vs skill contest, there will always be a winner and a loser. It just means that the pickpocket was more skilled (rolled a higher total) than the spot skill total of the PC. Normally, you have the player make those rolls, but an exception can be justified when you can’t let the player know that there is something to spot. The GM can even “cheat” by only deciding what skill the thief had based on what total he needed in order to succeed and have the confidence to expect to succeed – which can be a whole other question.

The higher the character level of the PCs, the higher their spot skill – it’s usually a solid survival trait for a PC to prioritize having it as high as they can manage – so the harder it is to justify that such a high-level thief “just happened” to target the PC. On the other hand, the higher the level of the PC, the greater his reputation and likely wealth, so the more reasonable it is that such a thief would deliberately target the PC. It’s not even really “cheating” if, once established, the thief’s skills remain at the level determined – it simply means that you are matching the opposition in the plotline to the PCs abilities. You could have even worked out what skill would be needed in advance – but there are better things to invest your prep time in, when there is such a simple solution at hand.

Those better things are personality traits for the thief, an appropriate legend and backstory (which may be more-or-less the same thing, if the thief tells the truth about his background – but I wouldn’t bet on that), and an adventure in which the PCs set about hunting down the thief.

That’s the most important thing about this solution to the money problem – that it not be accidental or arbitrary (which the players find really upsetting and hard to believe). No, they should be flattered – in fact, you should make a point of trying to puff up the PCs egos; “look at how famous you have become” – because players will ignore the flattery but take it as ‘justification’ for what has happened.

The logical end-point of such an adventure is for there to be a confrontation – one in which the players will expect to get their treasure back, with interest. Avoiding this problem is the third complication to be considered.

The Exotic Theft

The third case is a little more problematic. Paranoid characters (and paranoid players) will take extraordinary precautions to protect their wealth, and after their first loss to a pickpocket, even more balanced characters are likely to jump on the ‘personal security’ bandwagon.

I’m a firm believer that all forms of protection are an arms race with one side occasionally in front of the other. Yet, for as long as I can remember, portable holes, bags of holding, and ever-full haversacks have been viewed as the ultimate form of protection simply because the rulebooks don’t offer any way of penetrating same.

Rulebooks, bah! What do they know? About your world, in particular?

The bottom line: it’s happened. There are three possible solutions to the problem of how:

1. You come up with a plausible vulnerability in these forms of ‘ultimate security’ – one that’s not common, and is brand new, and that no-one else in the world is publicizing. If everyone of importance is using this technique to hide their wealth (and why wouldn’t you, if you thought this to be the perfect solution) and their important documents, you might well find (eventually) that the authorities have known about it for a while, and been trying to keep a lid on it until they can catch the perpetrator. Or perhaps its a genuinely new breakthrough, and the PCs are about to cause the mother of all economic panics and security scares – if they are even believed.
2. You can “cheat” and simply insist that it’s happened – and let the players speculate on the ‘how’ until you hear an answer you like. Then adopt it, and proceed as per solution 1.
3. Or you can “cheat” and have someone figure out a way to make the wealth in such storage invisible or intangible or hide it with an illusion – the wealth is really still there, it just can’t be accessed or spent for some reason. But this suffers from even more problems than the first solution, so unless you have a brilliant “how” up your sleeve, you are better off avoiding this answer.

So, how might such a theft take place? Perhaps Shadows can penetrate into the extra-dimensional space, and the thieves have learned how to turn their shadows into animated servants. Perhaps you can ensorcel a coin to serve as a cross-dimensional tracer, permitting you (or someone smaller, if that’s necessary) to gate into the space. Perhaps there’s a way of making one such bag ‘dimensionally resonant’ with another, essentially creating one ‘larger’ container – for a short period of time.

Where there are three answers, there will be 300; you just have to think of them, or prompt the players into doing so for you. Once you have settled on a solution, your next problem will be: What else can you do with this technique? How will various authorities and groups react once this knowledge becomes known? Might it not be better to ensure that the PCs don’t blab about the problem – permanently?

Perhaps the solution to this “perfect storage” problem has been found several times in the past, and part of the officially (and very secretly) proscribed response is to not only suppress the solution but suppress any knowledge that a solution exists.

Suddenly, the PCs find themselves dodging death squads sent by supposedly-friendly governments…

The ramifications and consequences are the most critical aspect of any particular solution to this problem. Pick one that fits with your future campaign plans (if any), or the one that both sounds most interesting and plausible, if not.

Turning The Tables

So the PCs have tracked down the thieves, and forced open their strongroom after a visiting a violent retribution on them for their daring. Aren’t you back to square one?

If the thieves are foolish enough to store their loot in ready cash, yes. Any form of negotiable valuable is just as vulnerable – and no-one knows better than they do that any security can be breached. If that was the case and it was your money, what would you do?

Well, if it was me, I would convert the currency into something valuable that didn’t LOOK valuable, or that a thief would have a great deal of trouble converting back into cash. In particular, I would invest in things – and then borrow against them for my day-to-day expenses.

And that’s how the Paladin ends up with a 12% shareholding in a seedy brothel somewhere. Because it’s a minority share, his choices are limited – he can’t sell (under the terms of ownership) until the debts are repaid (even though it wasn’t him that incurred them); he can’t openly acknowledge ownership; he doesn’t have the authority to shut it down; all he can do is give the authorities the info they need to shut it down on his behalf, making the 12% share worthless.

Or perhaps the thieves have used the money to buy something it’s illegal to own – an automatic on-the-spot death sentence. Or they have used the money to buy “hot” local merchandise, which they have dispatched to another city with some of their number to exchange for other stolen property/sell – people who will now pocket the proceeds.

On paper, the thieves come with a certain level of wealth; the trick is making sure that this wealth is either in a form the PCs cannot access without great personal risk, or that the PCs cannot access at all. “The label says ‘Chaotic Evil,’ not ‘Chaotic Stupid.'”

The bottom line: the money is gone, from the PCs perspective.

Con-men

Even better is finding a way to get the PCs to hand over the money of their own accord.

There’s a great deal of variety in the sophistication of con games. Some are blatant, and easily spotted using the proverbial “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is”. Some are even more obvious to an even moderately-perspicacious individual, capable of entrapping only the greedy and truly gullible.

But there are some that are quite sophisticated. Plausible-sounding investments – and I’m not talking about anything as obvious as selling a city-owned Brooklyn Bridge, or a tract of swampland. Making it look like the perpetrator is another victim of some non-existent third party, for example, costing them everything – so much that they have to leave town and start over somewhere else.

The more care and sophistication you put into the planning of the Con, the more likely you are to successfully separate the PCs from their cash. But sometimes it can be as simple as a stock market or real-estate bubble that wipes masses of currency out of existence for whole segments of the populace. Misery loves company – so make sure the PCs have no excuse to be lonely when they are commiserating.

Heres one example: A famous and very well-respected Captain is putting together a trading fleet to ferry grain, ore, and other valuable commodities from one Kingdom to another where they are worth considerably more. He needs investors to help fill the holds with the initial shipments; he already owns the ships, and can even conduct tours of them, ensuring that they completely sound. The ownership papers are impeccable and readily confirmed through the Palace (the former owners). The man’s reputation and honor are equally-impeccable. He expects a cash return of 30% on the investment, though he would rather roll that over into a share in still greater and more valuable future cargoes. The whole thing looks legitimate because it is legitimate.

The night before he is to set sail, the Captain is accosted and replaced by a Doppleganger (or simply someone in convincing disguise). That person (lacking the skills of the Captain) loses one of the vessels en route to the destination (running it aground on a reef) but shepherds the rest safely to their destination (not necessarily the destination he was supposed to reach, mind you) – then sells the lot, pockets the money, and vanishes without a trace. Six months later, the Captain’s lifeless body is discovered…

Or perhaps the Captain is simply tired of being the squeaky-clean poor man, and does the deed himself. His honor may be forever tarnished, but his bank accounts glitter – and he is safe in a country that’s barely on speaking terms with the one from which he departed.

The only thing better than risking your own money is risking someone else’s instead – for a percentage of their profits, if any. Hiding the extent of your personal exposure is such a small deception… and of course, these ventures are called “risky” for a reason.

An added bit of credibility can often be obtained by asking for just a little more than the PCs can afford – but close`enough that if they scramble to raise just a little more, they can get involved in the scheme. Somehow, that always seems more believable than asking for a little LESS than you can afford.

Magic Items: Problem? Or Solution?

There are some things that happen with modern tech that SHOULD have analogues in the magic-equipment of a game environment. One of them is the cheap knock-off that looks good but only works for about three days, or has some other flaw. Now, if you know what you’re getting into, that can be the perfect solution to a sticky problem: a temporary armor upgrade, for example, and who cares if it becomes rusted iron 48 hours after you use it? But when the knockoffs are sold as the real thing, at something close to real-thing prices (a little less because the seller needs the money in a hurry), this is yet another con-job – and yet another way of separating PCs from excessive wealth.

The possibilities are limited only by your imagination: A portable hole with a hole in the bottom of it? That often-forgotten magic item, the Millipede Feather Token? The treasure map who’s X migrates on the page from time to time thanks to flawed divination magic? The crystal ball that can inexplicably only show you what happened in a location 24 hours ago? The 1′ x 1′ area of effect of the Wand of Cut-down Blade Barrier?

Many of these items can eventually prove useful in their own right (just not in the way the purchaser expected), or enhance the flavor of a setting. But they can all extricate gold from otherwise frugal player-characters, too!

Once again, we have an arms-race situation – frauds improve, and then the ability to detect them catches up with the modern techniques, and then someone clever thinks up a new dodge…

Craftsmen

Nothing soaks up cash faster than trying to keep current with fashion. Or a craftsman who spots a customer with unlimited wealth. Gaudy up anything the PCs have made for them with everything you can think of – special buttons, exotic materials, special silk for the sewing, a special needle, a more comfortable fabric, etc, etc. Let the PCs pay through the nose for clothes that will last decades instead of years – and then have them become LAST year’s style, worth -4 charisma modifier to anyone who knows fashion.

The trick is to add things to whatever the DMG lists as the basic price – and make sure that the PCs do in fact get something for their extra expenditure. “I used magically-enhanced copper eyelets in your leather armor to make it more resistant to lightning bolts! That leather was polished by hand for three weeks straight using Gershwin Wool and Seal Fat for that extra little bit of pliability, and that deep color – you don’t get that with just any tanning agent, that comes from compressed Moonbus Caterpillars soaked in Beholder Saliva for 23 years, that does!”

And, if the PCs try to demand the basic item listed in the rulebook for the basic price, not only should they be considered socially gauche, but the GM should emphasize that it doesn’t fit quite right, it’s itchy, the seams leak whenever it gets wet, and so on – play on the lack of quality and style. K-Mart vs Versache – in the medieval fantasy arena.

In reality, you will get more mileage from spreading these out. One set are itchy, the next don’t fit quite right, the replacements leak water whenever it rains, then there’s a button hole missing, then they fray really quickly – and persist for as long as it takes to get the message across that if you buy the cheap stuff, you get the cheap stuff, and the prices quoted in the PHB are minimum prices for minimum standards.

Craftsmen are skilled, but if you want quick and dirty, they will prepare goods to that standard, as quickly as possible, and then move on to something that pays a little more for their time.

Tax-men

Not only are greedy nobles always coming up with new taxes to inflict on those who can afford them (and who aren’t exempt, such as themselves), but a few “crafty” craftsmen might see fit to mention a few extras – to anyone who seems able to afford the price. One of the penalties of being forced out of the dirt cheap clothing is that suddenly, you look prosperous, a classic example of the nouveau rich – but without the protections of Nobility.

Tariffs, fees, levies, taxes, “subscriptions” – you name it, and the adventurers should be soaked for it. Whether it exists or not. “Tomorrow is the holy day of Brannoth; if I’m not to be at the temple all day praying, I have to buy an exemption.” And, of course, there is the price of “insurance” – which doesn’t mean that the maker is promising the goods are fit for service, it means that the local criminals have HIM paying “insurance” and he’s passing that cost on. With a money-handling fee.

I’m sure it was once the practice, somewhere, sometime, for vendors to charge 10% handling fee every time they had to give change. The merchant isn’t a money-lender, with stacks of coins to disburse – “those licenses are expensive!”

Throw in guild fees and tithes, and the effective tax rate for Adventurers should be around 70%.

Inflation and Devaluation

One price impact that you can’t normally use is Inflation. That’s because it requires a floating currency, which lets the government simply issue more of it any time it runs low.

Instead, the word of the day is Devaluation.

“Silver just isn’t worth as much since the Dwarves of Spring Mountain opened their second mine and started to flood the market.” And because of the taxes, it costs more silver to hire a craftsman for the same job, or the same length of time, as it did last year. And on top of that, you have all that loot being recovered by Adventurers.

The effect should be subtle – only worth mentioning every year or two, game time – but there should be a slow “creep” in the price of things, not because the currency is worth less through inflation and rising costs, but because the currency is worth less through devaluation of the standard.

…and the Needy

Finally, we have the needy. There have always been more worthy causes and greater need than there has been wealth to satisfy those needs. One of the first things a GM should create for their game worlds is a list of thirty or more recognized charitable causes. On top of that, there will be beggars and orphaned children and perhaps even the cultural equivalent of buskers – all of whom can be ignored, of course. In which case, maybe you need to ramp up the impact of the casual curse.

Try telling the 15th beggar today that you can’t spare a silver when you obviously can – and when they have the power to make your life miserable.

Servants

Past a certain point, you simply aren’t socially acceptable without servants. First one, then three, then five, ten, fifty… Servants are either slaves or you have to pay them. And in this socially-enlightened year of the turnip, slavery is unacceptable. But it’s not just the wages, which are very dependent on the ability of the servant at performing his role; the master is responsible for the upkeep, feeding, and lodging of his entire retinue. New clothes for everyone! Soon, the logistics will demand still more servants to provide for the ones you already have. And with each step up the social ladder, the need for those servants to be presentable will also increase.

And every time a PC baulks, his best “servant” should receive a better offer from the banker across the street to come and work for him….

Timing is everything

It would be more than a little suspicious if these things all started happening at once, just as the PCs came into money. No, they should start small, and be introduced incrementally. At low levels, characters rarely have “excessive wealth” to worry about, anyway. Be careful with your timing and subtle in your approach and these can become a badge of honor – “My Fighter is so renowned that for the first time, someone tried to con him today” should indicate to the players that these things are a symptom of their success.

I once saw a proposal that increased class levels brought with it sufficient class expectations that actually gaining the level should cost 100 times the square of the level in annual expenses, in gp. This notion lumps all of the above into a general expense, which may work for you too. 2nd level – 400 gp. third – 900. fifth – 2500. tenth: 10,000. And so on.

The problem with this proposal was always that there was no adequate teeth to it; there was no real penalty for a character refusing to pay. But if this problem can be solved, this may be the solution you are looking for. Personally, I think it lacks flavor and ignores the opportunities for roleplay and verisimilitude that are implicit in the more detailed answers.

The one certainty should be that excessive character wealth should be a problem that solves itself, which is to say, no problem at all.

But, if these techniques still aren’t enough to get your loot problem under control (just how much booty have you given away!?), perhaps you need to take the next step and make the loot part of the plot (see also Loot as a plot mechanic and The Value Of Magic).