Mon's page

Mon wrote:

Why? Because the people who have these things that they desire are also fabulously wealthy and can cook up a boatload of gold with little or no effort - so they aren't as willing to part with something that they do perceive as rare/valuable (said dragonslayer) for something that they already have in great abundance and can easily get more of (gold).

But then why is anyone poor in a world where the Archbishop of Pelor can whomp up a king's ransom for every peasant? Or, alternatively, why does gold have any value in Fooland when the King of Barland can trivially ruin the gold economy by flooding it with money?

(Lame answers I've received in the past include: "The Church of Pelor really wants people to be poor and miserable, and kings don't really want to ruin the economies of their enemies." and "Wait, did I say limitless money? I meant a bunch of money.")

I already said your point was fair enough and then offered my view - not as disagreement but an alternative.

But, if you insist...

You're forgetting (or not familiar with) the base assumptions of the Wish Economy model itself and the concept of scarcity in general...

* Acording to the assumptions upon which the model is based, peasants have almost no use for gold because in the turnip economy it has no real value and could actually be dangerous.
* Also the number of characters who can actually do it is assumed to be very low and to transcend the "mortal" economy and standard power structures. Your examples are of people who aren't above it simply by virtue of their position (but, for the sake of argument, let's say that they are part of the wish economy anyway).
* Money is not the only scarce resource... not by a long shot. Time, knowledge, goodwill, and any number of other barriers will limit what can be achieved even with unlimited wealth.

Why are there poor people?
* The short answer...for the same reason that there are sick people, poisoned people, and deaf people in a world where a (great, great) many more clerics have the power to remove these maladies...
* It doesn't matter how much money he has... even if he's one of the few mortals who can transend the mortal economy and barter with angels, he is still bound by the scarcity of time, scarcity of knowledge (who/what/where?), scarcity of any number of other things besides money.
* Let him use his essentially unlimited income to go around setting up hospitals, soup kitchens, schools, and so forth as much as he likes. It makes no difference there will still be poor people because time is a limited resource just as money is, and the assertion of the idea is that the 'mighty' (those with essentially unlimited wealth).
* Meanwhile, the enemies of pelor are trashing the countryside.

Why wouldn't the King Flood the Economy of his enemy?
Another assumption, not only of the Wish Economy essay, but also of Feudal systems in general, is that Lords want to keep the wealth among the Lords. The King of Barland Won't flood the economy of Fooland with gold because the Kind of Fooland could do it back to the King of Barland just as trivially. And then neither of them would be kings because the thing that separates King from serf is essentially wealth.

As I said, your position is fair enough. For you. Mine is fair enough too. For me. They can exist together.

While I don't advocate MIB's punch-you-in-the-face style responses, I can feel his frustration at posters who say they are just disagreeing with him when they are, in fact, missing the point. There seems to be a fairly wide-spread and profound lack of understanding about what is actually meant by "Wish Economy". Many folks seem to believe that it is some kind of cheesy rules loophole, a means to stop measuring character power from items, or else an attempt to cheat for a short-cut to power.

It is none of these things. Not even a little bit.

It is, simply put, an in-game explanation using strict (3.0) RAW that can be used by a DM who like a certain style of play. I.e. he doesn't like to allow magic-mart style shopping in his game beyond a certain point, and wants to handwave minor expenses so as to get on with the game.

That's all.

As the OP says, something sort-of like it has actually been built into PFRPG with the item-availability-by-settlement-size rules. If it costs more than 16k you've gotta provide something a little less pedestrian than just gold to get it - luck (with the random items), crafting it yourself, finding it as treasure, or whatever.

Not exactly the same, sure, 'cause you still gotta track every last copper by strict RAW.

In conclusion, if you want to ban or restrict Efreet-binding-for-cash-wishes in your game because you feel it is cheesy and cheating then more power to you (PFRPG already put the kybosh in this for you, actually).

If you want to track every coin spent then please do. It is all good.

This sort of thing is, afterall, a matter of taste.

However, if you want to use the Wish-Economy explanation (or anything else) as a means stop tracking pennies at high levels and make characters work a little harder than just dumping gold for their >12th level items then that is all good too.

Neither approach actually changes the game very much.