Take their word for it on this one.
I tend to agree with Alexander so often, I wonder if I have a brother...
Again. /agree
I'm half way through book 5 - don't mess with BP.
|
Take their word for it on this one.I tend to agree with Alexander so often, I wonder if I have a brother...
Again. /agree
:).
Andrel, one of the biggest reasons is that BP is simply not gold pieces. Its influence, economic growth, favours called in etc.- and more importantly its not really all the player's in the first place- hence why the withdraw funds always carries an unrest penalty.
|
Like Alexander above says: BP is not just fluid cash. It's available man-power, it's natural resources, it's favours and a lot of intangible things. By turning it into "the amount of gold we currently have sitting in the caste/town hall or what have you", then you lose the little bit of control you have to bolster/help or challenge the kingdom.
If you decide that there's a labour strike, costing the PCs some BP every turn (due to lost manpower and goods), it doesn't translate to GP.
Unless you're basically using the system as is, and just calling the BP (GP) instead. In which case, you're just tinkering with what doesn't need tinkering.
I understand the "story" explanations for why BP isn't GP, but I don't see where it would get messy mechanically.
The amount of bookkeeping shouldn't increase at all, it would just be a matter of multiplying the BPs by 4000 and calling them GPs instead.
Well, the biggest problem is that not all BPs are created equal. It costs 4000gp to deposit 1BP into your kingdom, but you only get 2000gp if you withdraw 1BP.
If you do a straight conversion, you would have to lose this cost entirely which causes lots of problems.
If you do 1BP=4000gp then suddenly the PCs have *double* the cash available to them in order to equip themselves. On the other hand, if you do 1BP=2000gp then treasure found by PCs can be invested into kingdom building at half-price which will allow them to expand much quicker than expected. Heck - in AP35 they even suggest that if you aren't using kingdom building rules, you should use the conversion 1BP=500gp for the fielding of armies. The reason, of course, is that most of the cost of armies doesn't come from gold - it comes from the shear manpower drain on the economy. It's assumed, in that case, that the rest of the cost is behind the scenes.
By doing a straight conversion, you'd also have to ignore the loyalty penalty for withdrawing from the kingdom. In my opinion, it's a great feature that makes it really feel like a functioning kingdom rather than just a pile of gold in a treasury.
My advice is to not do it. Your PC's will be rich beyond their wildest dreams and be super-equipped, which is not a good thing.
BP is not actual material wealth.
Those loyalty checks won't mean much. My group can only fail any check on a 1. The modifier to the checks is at least 30 over what they need to make the check.
BP is *not* a pile of money in the kingdom's vault.
BP represents all of the human and material resources and the economic activity of the kingdom.
So, when you have no unrest and you make a Stability check, someone doesn't roll up to your palace with a wagon load of 1 BP worth of gold ingots and drop it in the vault. It just means that the combined productivity of the people of your kingdom increases by 1 BP worth of productivity. More logs are sawn into boards. More chickens are raised and laying eggs. More wandering peddlers move from tiny unmarked hamlet to tiny unmarked hamlet selling penny whistles and moon pies. There is peace and order and happiness and prosperity...
... which adds up to the NET WORTH of your kingdom's human and material wealth increasing by 1 BP in equivalent value.
Magic item sales operate on the same principle EXCEPT for the fact that they are attached to specific object--"this wand of darkvision that my Luxury Store rolled up for one of its minor items." Its owners are undefined NPCs. They may have created the item. They may have bought it from someone else. They may have gotten it in trade. The point is that they are buying and selling items all throughout the month, and the BP realized from making your Economy roll to "sell a specific item" is the abstracted form of representing the commerce in magical trinkets and all of the micro-industries that support that trade that this business has been doing all month long.
Your magic item creating buildings are attracting clients coming through town who patronize other businesses, who engage in under-the-table deals for items that don't come up in the public "store window" and they keep other people in business. The caster's tower is employing other people to gather skunk cabbage leaves and eyelashes and gum arabic and sulfur and bat guano and amber rods and wolf fur and all manner of magical stuff, to create flasks and alembics and vials, to chop firewood, to make pots in various sizes and metals, to build new tables and workbenches to replace ones incinerated when experiments occasionally explode, and on and on down the list. Heck, they are hiring bodyguards and trapmakers to defend their valuable stashes and vaults!
The point is this: Selling a magic item for BP is not a one-time over-the-counter transaction. It *looks* like that because that's the way the rules are written - as an abstracted representation. You sell a +2 shield, you get the BP. But the abstraction *REPRESENTS* the whole work of buying and selling magic items and everything around that trade FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH. And...
... the BP that are gained from selling magic items are not gold bars to stick in your vault. It is increased economic and building activity all across your kingdom for the whole month.
It is NOT: "I, King Bob, took this Medium Item from MY caster's tower and sold it to [nameless NPC] for 8 BP. I took 8 BP out of my wallet and went down to the Building Store and bought myself a new Library in Bobville, and look I have 2 BP left over to stick back in my wallet."
It IS: "The citizens of Bobovia work within the magic trade all month long. Many items are bought and sold, including the public sale of Medium Item. The citizens are happy and productive, and at the suggestion of King Bob and his ruling council, over the course of the month have been working on building a library and collecting books for it over in Bobville, surrounded by a new neighborhood* and maybe even private tutors who can educate the citizens of Bobville. It has required much hard work but the citizens are happy and proud of it and are already planning their next project (i.e., have 2 BP yet to spend, even though the final purpose to which it will be put)."
* Remember that every "building" is presumed to include a number of homes scattered around the city "square" where the building is built - a Library is not a 750' x 750' building; it means that this city square has a library per se, but that the neighborhood around it is also generally dedicated to the purpose of education.
BP are almost never in the form of Cash Money in the pockets of YOU, the king and council. BP are everthing that every citizen across your city is doing and building and buying and selling and trading and eating and drinking and growing and sowing and reaping and grinding and collecting and prospecting. You *CONTROL* what happens with everything in the kingdom (which is represented by the BP), because you are the players, but your characters don't *own* everything in the kingdom.
Why are the Message Boards full of these conversations:
Post - "Hey - I'm thinking of doing XYZ - anyone have any experience or thoughts on the matter"?
Response - "Yes - it's a bad idea - for reasons A, B, C, D, and E."
Post - "Ok - I'm gonna do it anyway".
|
|
Why are the Message Boards full of these conversations:
Post - "Hey - I'm thinking of doing XYZ - anyone have any experience or thoughts on the matter"?
Response - "Yes - it's a bad idea - for reasons A, B, C, D, and E."
Post - "Ok - I'm gonna do it anyway".
I had similar thoughts brother; I just didn't have the willpower to bother continuing posting after that chain of events.
Ok - I just have one more thing to add about why this is a bad idea.
James has also mentioned the following distinction in another thread: BP are resources spent by *players* in the game whereas GP is money spent by *characters* in the game.
There are many instances where things get built or done in the kingdom that are not the choices of the rulers of the kingdom. A good example would be the construction of a black market. It's specifically designed to work against the law. There's a big difference between the rulers knowing that one exists and having them "build" one using their own money.
That's an extremely unfair portrayal of the discussion at hand. I am taking the arguments in consideration, I responded to them, and I never said "I'm gonna do it anyway" or something of the sort without providing a counterargument.Why are the Message Boards full of these conversations:
Post - "Hey - I'm thinking of doing XYZ - anyone have any experience or thoughts on the matter"?
Response - "Yes - it's a bad idea - for reasons A, B, C, D, and E."
Post - "Ok - I'm gonna do it anyway".
Andrelvis, I'm not trying to give you a hard time about this - BUT, the people who created this system have posted on the boards, ad nauseam, about what Build Points are and why they are not, nor should be, gold.
I have said to any who will listen: "It's your game, and as long as you and your players are having fun - you're doing it right".
|
Andrelvis, I'm not trying to give you a hard time about this - BUT, the people who created this system have posted on the boards, ad nauseam, about what Build Points are and why they are not, nor should be, gold.
Yeah. If you’re interested, there are some rather lengthy posts in the Kingdom Building thread as to what exactly Build Points represent, and they truly ARE NOT merely the spending of cash. Even the replies here are not really doing justice to the true scope of what the BP “economy” is in the abstract.
In fact, I’ll go ahead and make that distinction as a boiled down point: BP is “abstract,” while GP is “concrete.” That is why they shouldn’t be mixed. Again, the furtherance of this explanation is made very well in very many and long detailed and eloquent posts in the Kingdom Building thread if you’re interested.
But like Firstbourne and others have said, if ultimately it’s all blah blah to you and you’re all having fun, then more power to you. :D
Why are the Message Boards full of these conversations:
Post - "Hey - I'm thinking of doing XYZ - anyone have any experience or thoughts on the matter"?
Response - "Yes - it's a bad idea - for reasons A, B, C, D, and E."
Post - "Ok - I'm gonna do it anyway".
I posted a thread on this a while back. It had really started to irritate me. The best reason given to me was that people want others to agree with them, and they really already have their minds made up even if they don't know it yet.
This has happened to my many times when defending psionics and ToB(BoNS).
The debate usually ends with, "well I don't like it so I still won't allow it".