>most adventures actually end up costing the PCs more than they make
>potion/scroll costs, gear repair, travel costs, cleric/hospital fees, assorted bribes and other necessary fees make every adventure a monetary gamble
>to stay out of the red, they have to take assorted odd jobs in between adventures
Could this be fun?
Maybe? You'd have to make the odd jobs engaging to your players somehow. Would probably work well with a roleyplay heavy group if you give them opportunities to develop their characters.
The bigger question would be: why would they bother going adventuring in the first place if it doesn't pay?
>potions and scrolls for sale in towns like it was a fucking magic grocery
>no cleric of their own in a party
That said, they can't find adventures all the fucking time, so obviously they'd need to find other work.
No, never.
Even in Shadowrun games where the GM wants a more Cowboy Bebop style "perpetually broke" feel, you still always break even, and/or have a little squirreled away for your next mod/focus.
Depends.
You would need to run it by your players first, and it would certainly add to the paperwork. (Which tends to be why food, encumbrance, and the like get left by the wayside.)
If you were, it would probably require a lower magic setting, where wounds have to either heal on their own, or maybe be helped along with alchemical/medicinal knowledge. Rather than having a player class or three that can just poof wounds away, or making his wound-poofing have expensive material components.
Similarly, with the weapons and armor, having the armor take a bit of damage whenever they're hit or it is the difference between a hit and a "miss." This depends on how expensive you want to make repairs... and again, magic in the system will either poof the problem away or require adding an expensive material component to ensure it has a cost regardless...
That's an easy question to answer. Either adventures provide other benefits (experience, access to rare items that can't be purchased, the chance to kill monsters they hate), or simply that they have no choice in the matter (world will end but no one believes the PCs, revenge against someone that wronged them, addiction to danger).
rather than meanignless odd jobs it would make more sense for adventurers to take riskier (or otherwise questionable) jobs to make ends meet
Making magic cost money seems an easy way to really tax the players (and make them think twice about using magic frivolously), but overall the bookkeeping doesn't necessarily need to be that complex. Big fat flat fees could keep players in the red easily, even something as simple as a big nasty "upkeep" cost that just tallies all the little details together and might be influenced by a charisma/intelligence roll.
I never understood why the bebops kept with the bounty hunter business. They're not particularly good at it. In fact, they're overall pretty bad at it, and it's really dangerous as well.
The point is that they're stuck in it because they don't know how to do anything else, and Jet is probably taking most of the money to make payments on the ship.
I ran a game where the players would freelance as reporters. They'd get odd assignments like interviewing a woman who can speak to crabs or a new alchemy festival. At the very least it let me showcase some weird NPCs and sometimes it lead to more adventures.
I even awarded extra in game rewards if the player typed up a short article. No one ever did this though. Guess it felt too much like homework?
>Party can heal themselves
>has a wizard who can mend, repair and even manufacture gear with spells
>Druid can make free food
>Ranger can scavenge and hunt to supplement, and can set up free shelter easily
>Or just have the wizard create said shelter.
No. You would have to be a massive dick to your players, constantly do bullshit to fuck them over, and never let them find any rewards for their troubles.
It will become super contrived really quickly (wait, why am I not allowed to take this long list of spells? Why can I not mend things? Why can't we heal our wounds? Hunt and scavenge? What?) And destroy any sense of fun in the game.
This pretty much can't work outside of super railroaded campaigns where the players barely need to attend the games.
Reporting seems like one of those jobs that really ties in with being an adventurer. Likely why both Superman and Spiderman are both journalists.
Have youbtried not playing a version of DnD in which this is a problem?
>problem
This was also a problem in 2e, 3e, and 4e, faglord.
You are also thinking of it as a problem, when it isnt. GMs doing "Hurt you must suffer all the time xd" is.
I feel like most of those aren't really what would make adventuring expensive. That's largely just basic room and board.
Imagine a world where the material plane is largely safe, but adventurers go on expeditions into pocket planes through portals that require expensive ingredients to activate. Each adventure starts with a big monetary setback, but adventurers keep setting out on these expeditions because there's a chance they'll find something that will make them stupidly rich. Add in a little sunk-cost fallacy, and you've got players riding the debt wave.
My current game the gm never gives us loot and everything we've found has been us saying "but that magic item the npc used is still there, right???" And him being forced to agree. He regularly has us lose our stuff. It feels awful.
When a character died and player was making new one he asked how much gold he got. Said here's starting gold but we're level 6 now so should I get more? GM said well, wouldn't it be less since she'd have spent some on food and inns etc?
Literally couldn't comprehend that she'd have earned money in her life.
Sorry um, I forgot to mention it fucking sucks an I hate the feeling that we can't like, collect... Like... Things? Not trying to be materialistic it's just like, the collection of relationships, memories, and objects is what life is all about. Each item is a memento, and proof that we did a thing. Just let us have it gm pls they aren't even good items just sentimental
>He regularly has us lose our stuff
That's the absolute worst.
Yea...
We were railroad arrested, lost everything. Dmpcs didn't lose their stuff. We did get back like... Our arcane devices we needed for spellcasting but literally nothing else. Lost my magic orb, magic necklace.. Things that didn't really have a use, but they were magical curios and my character was collecting them because that's what his wizard sensei does? I thought it'd be a cute thing to show up back home and be like sorry I left but here's some neat stuff!
Then I finally accumulate some cool stuff. Rare books, magic candle, and 100g which was really really hard to finally get. That's what my wizard sensei paid for my character in my backstory. Was gonna give him all this shit. So we visit but he sends us to do something and I'm like ok I leave some things in my room, planning on giving it before we leave for the last time? I'll admit I didn't really share this whole plan with anyone..
But long story short wizard tower got destroyed. Wizard almost died but we miraculously saved him from what was probably meant to be a railroady death scene. But ya, lost all my stuff....again...and my home... We really needed to use the library to translate something, the alchemy lab for some alchemist stuff, think there were other things.. Smh
I hate to be that guy, but I think maybe you're looking for something like how Persona does daily life. The party has to go adventuring because they're the only ones who even know that they have to save the world, and once they're back they get incentives to do those odd jobs in the form of improvements for their next adventure.
>odd jobs
You mean overwhelmingly-platonic dates with about as much sexual tension as bingo night.
Why are you playing with this miser?
Just mix the two. Their day job isn't paying so they adventure, but adventuring costs money and leads to an unsustainable lifestyle of first class tickets, hookers and blow. Now they have a business that makes some money and is trying to expand, but exponentially rising costs to maintain it and a 300 gold a week habit snorting analeptic alzabo off the ass of oracles in the Pleasure Gardens of Kaleth-Oooooough
Gonna do this with the campaign I'm starting up in a few weeks.
My party has just finished a saving the world from destruction, full time mercenary murder hobo, high fantasy campaign, so we're mixing it up.
The idea is to be low-ish fantasy and look towards resourcefulness and scrappiness over the typical "We're now going to now debase the local economy by flooding it with gold so we can buy up a specific magical item." I'm expecting them to largely break even with a bit of a kickback in terms of equipment and other sundry goods (largely it would be funny to find out what they'd do if their reward turned out to be a trough of pigs). They won't be able to do as much in combat, but the encounters will be centered around actual dungeon delving instead.
The odd jobs they work would largely be used to generate more plot hooks and intrigue. And a gig they get might get them access to places they don't usually have access to, like the governor's palace during a high class party. They'd also take place mostly between sessions unless there's something to roleplay.
And at least Faye and Spike have problems that keep them from more conventional work. Jet being the most "normal" of the bunch probably could get a "real" job but like you said knows nothing but hunting criminals.
it's almost literally what was used in Darkest Dungeon
In game, it was hella irritating, but on tabletop it can work, since you can do odd jobs and stuff. Try it.
So are you going to discard the 2 whole product lines that were up before 2e?
Not the user you are responding too, but the "other two product lines" had your XP basically being whatever you could bring out of a dungeon, converted to Gold. So, breaking this economy would also break game progression and character development.
Not that I am particularly against the idea set by OP, but it only works in a campaign with a CowBe spirit and the players must embrace the idea and tone.
Excuse me sir but bingo night can get pretty wild
The game is actually pretty fun, just occasional cringe.