It’s the Barter Economy, Stupid
My contribution of Blog Friday, a bunch of posts across the blogosphere related to buying, selling, and economic junk:
In the post-post-apocalyptic pseudo-fantasy system of Prismatic Wasteland, there is no currency established enough that prices for goods would be pegged to this coin or that doubloon. Even the Caesar Permanente, overlord of the metropolis of Stateon, imposes no coinage standards on the settlements he’s conquered. Particularly because the setting is quasi-medieval, most exchange occurs through localized methods of debt and credit rather than gold or silver. I have a lot to get to and don’t want to belabor this point (particularly because it was the introduction to my earlier attempt to scratch out an abstract wealth system). Instead, I direct you to Historical Hit Points 2: Simulating Medieval Economics in Tabletop RPGs over at Play the Past, d&d is anti-medieval by Blog of Holding, Alternative Economics (Part 1: Money) over at A Knight at the Opera, and Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber. So let’s take the barter economy as a given and get around to detailing how it all works in Prismatic Wasteland. Because there are a lot of interconnected, moving gears, there is a bit for us to get through.
If these rules pique your interest, the full Prismatic Wasteland rules will likely be released in beta form in 2025, so if you want to see those for free when they drop, you should sign up for my mailing list. If you want to see early drafts right now (along with lots of other stuff, including early drafts of blogposts, including this one), you should sign up for my Patreon for as low as one dollar a month.
Also, if all this talk of bartering makes you want to spend coins (the barter economy doesn’t translate well to e-commerce), everything on my webstore is now discounted 10 to 50% until December 4.
Owe My Soul to the Company’s Storage
A core part of Prismatic Wasteland’s conceit is that the player characters are driving around in a van solving mysteries with their cowardly dog live in a large, shared vehicle. This vehicle (the “Rig”), together with all the player characters and their followers, mounts, and pets comprise the Company, a sort of collective character. The Rig as the game’s central focus is both for in-universe reasons (the game is about traveling the wasteland), inspirational reasons (I think traveling in a big rig is a core post-apocalyptic trapping due in part to the influence of Mad Max), but most importantly for game practicality reasons: to make scheduling easier it allows players to come in and out of the action; if they aren’t there that week, it’s assumed that they are just hanging out back at the Rig.
Previously, the Company had stats representing the party’s Wealth, Supply and Clout. I’ve scrapped that. Instead, the Rig has a limited amount of storage, which houses the Company’s wealth and supplies. The Rig starts with a cargo hold and a freezer, which can carry up to 12 Item Slots of the Company’s Treasure and 8 Item Slots of their Supply, respectively. These storage units can be modified over the course of play, but that is a topic for another time. The Company also has a system for tracking their reputation, but this is obviously not something that can be bundled up and stored on the Rig. We will discuss each of these no-longer-stats and how they work in turn.
Wealth Abstracted
As often happens with blogs, I wrote something that inspired another blogger to write something but what they wrote has now inspired me to write something new. Blogging is a virus but instead of getting sick, we all just get sick (positive) ideas! In this instance, my colleague, Marcia of the Traverse Fantasy blog, fixed up a wonky system I concocted for generating treasure values. As a part of her process, she also hit upon an application of using the treasure die to simulate bartering. This was such a cool idea that it made me reëvaluate my whole economy.
When the players find treasure in a dungeon, the referee determines two things: how cumbersome is it and how valuable is it. Its degree of cumber is represented by a number of Item Slots. As a rule of thumb, an item takes up one slot for every foot (0.3 m) in length or every stone (14 lbs, 6.35 kg) in weight, whichever is lesser. Coins always take up one slot, which assumes they are carried in a sack or similar container. This system does not track individual coins. That is for accountants (derogatory).
Each asset is given a “Treasure Die” to represent how much it is worth when bartering. The below framework is a handy guideline, but for any treasures that don’t fit neatly, grade the treasure on a scale between one and 10 and then give the nearest Treasure Die (e.g., if it’s a 7/10, give it 1d8). If it is just a 1 or 2 out of 10, consider if it is valuable enough to merchants to even warrant carrying it out of the dungeon. Junk and other assorted trinkets don’t have any associated Treasure Die. If you try to barter using those, some merchants will assume that you must be joking while others will openly scoff. Magic items also don’t have a Treasure Die, but only because merchants don’t trade in them—their potential for danger or attracting unwanted attention is too great and the customer base for magic items is too scarce.
| Treasure Die | Artwork | Coins | Furnishings and Clothing | Gems and Jewelry | Trade Goods |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1d4 | Flop | Copper | Shabby | Baubles | Animal Products |
| 1d6 | Amateurish | Silver | Pedestrian | Ornaments | Construction Materials |
| 1d8 | Excellent | Gold | Trendy | Gems | Luxury Goods |
| 1d10 | Masterpiece | Platinum | Statement | Jewels | Arcane Resources |
Large Treasure: If any single piece of Treasure is so large that it takes up 5 or more slots, it has an extra Treasure Die per 5 slots. For instance, if the marble statue is amateurish but is 17 feet tall, it is worth 3d6 Treasure Dice instead of just 1d6. Nonetheless, good luck carrying that out of the dungeon. Enterprising adventurers may choose instead to hack out its rubied eyes (1 slot, 1d8 Treasure Die) instead.
Special Rule for Coins: When non-copper coins are used to barter, carouse, replenish, or for any other reason, after rolling the Treasure Die, the Company retains an item slot worth of coins, but the coins are downgraded to the next-lowest type of coins. For instance, after using a slot of gold coins, the player characters get back a slot of silver coins as their “change.”
SIDEBAR: “Why does it only go up to 1d10?”
Two reasons: the first is universal, and the second is system-specific. The universal reason is because grading things on a scale from 1 to 10 is more ingrained in arabic-numeral-using cultures than, for instance, a scale from 1 to 12 or 1 to 20. This more familiar heuristic makes it easier for the referee to reason, for instance, “Hmm, this marble statue was sculpted by a famous renaissance goblin and depicts an event of minor historical significance. It’s at least an 7/10 treasure, so 1d8 feels appropriate.” They could of course do the same on a 20-point scale, but it is a bit more alien to most people. Eyeballing it is much better than doing math, but if you absolutely must do math conversions, you could convert gold piece prices to Value by taking the Valueth root of 3 (so ranges from 3 gold pieces for Value 1 to about 60,000 gold for Value 10) and convert 2024 United States Dollar prices to Value by taking the Valueth root of 4 (from about $4 for Value 1 [a fast cheeseburger] to $1 million dollars for Value 10). That’s right, I bet you don’t want to do that math in your head, do you?
The system-specific reason is because Treasure can be spent carousing in Prismatic Wasteland, which causes the Treasure spent to be added to the XP Bowl. XP Dice in the XP Bowl are capped at 1d10 because characters in Prismatic Wasteland can only level up to 10 (characters progress to the next level when an XP Die rolls above or equal to their current level, so the 1d10 cap functions as a level cap).
Petty Cash
Not every tiddlywink transaction needs to be tracked. Didn’t I already say we aren’t accountants here? When player characters need to rent a room off the Rig, pay for a meal, or afford any other minor convenience of life, it is assumed that they have enough petty cash lying around to do so without tracking anything trading hands. The quality of what they can afford, however, depends on how many slots in the Rig are filled with Treasure, as shown in the following table. They can obtain higher quality accommodations but will have to do some bartering.
| Slots of Treasure | Can Afford without Tracking |
|---|---|
| 0-2 | Wretched. You’re lucky to even be let into the saloon |
| 3-4 | Squalid. Moldy bread and itchy bed, and you may have to share both |
| 5-6 | Modest.* A simple meal, a drink, and a clean bed in a common room |
| 7-8 | Comfortable. A home cooked meal, a few drinks, and a room to your own |
| 9-10 | Luxurious. Appetizers and dessert with your meal, fancy cocktails, and a furnished suite |
| 11+ | Decadent. A fourteen course meal, top shelf drinks, and a penthouse suite with live-in staff |
Great Value
Goods don’t have prices. This is Prismatic Wasteland, not Prismatic Walmart. Instead, they have values. Values range from 1 to 10. The following list of prices is a pretty good guideline for the referee to use when establishing how valuable an unlisted good or service is:
| Value | Example Goods/Services |
|---|---|
| 1 | A dagger, a synthchicken sandwich, toothpicks |
| 2 | A blowgun, an animaltronic goat, lockpicks |
| 3 | A glaive, a day of unskilled labor, a animaltronic bloodhound |
| 4 | A composite bow, a kevlar poncho, a day of skilled labor |
| 5 | A laser scalpel, a chainsaw, an animaltronic horse |
| 6 | A plasma grenade, a day of streetrat mercenaries, a fancy sectional sofa |
| 7 | A power gauntlet, installing a cybernetic limb, an animaltronic psychic war elephant |
| 8 | A gravity bow, spectral chain main, a replacement Rig |
| 9 | A rocket lance, a dilapidated warehouse, a dedicated research fellowship |
| 10 | A disintegrator, a war machine suit, an unfurnished palace*, cure for a deadly curse |
*Particularly large items, like a palace, are broken into smaller components. A palace with four wings would have a value of 10 for each wing. Furniture and staff sold separately. That can add up fast.
However, not everything can be found everywhere. Each settlement has a Value cap and can only offer goods and services that are below that cap. The referee determines the Value cap for a settlement by rolling as shown below depending on the size of the settlement. The same limits apply to itinerant merchants but with greater variability. Some merchants only sell junk while others have offerings that rival even some cities. Each time a settlement changes in size, the referee should increase or decrease its Value cap by 1 depending on whether it grew or shrank, respectively.
| Settlement Type | Value Cap |
|---|---|
| Hamlet | 1d4+1 |
| Village | 1d4+2 |
| Town | 1d4+3 |
| City | 1d4+4 |
| Metropolis | 1d6+4 |
| Itinerant Merchant | 1d8 |
Bartertown
When the Company wants to buy equipment, they follow the procedure below:
The Company totals up the Value for all the goods and services they want to buy.
If in a settlement, the Company makes a Reputation Roll (described below). If the result is positive, decrease the Value of the goods and services by the result. If the result is negative, increase the Value of the goods and services by the result.
The Company decides which Treasures they want to exchange for the goods and services and rolls the Treasure Dice for all such Treasure.
If the amount rolled on the Treasure Dice is equal to or exceeds the total Value, the Company removes the Treasure and obtains the goods and services. If it is just off by 1, one player character can choose to spend 1d6 Charisma to modify the result of the Treasure Dice by 1. Otherwise, the Company will have to abandon the purchase or offer more Treasure, rolling its Treasure Die and adding it to the result until it exceeds the total Value of the goods and services being acquired.
Merchants aren’t typically in the business of buying goods from adventurers. It’s always used, often broken, and frankly has a high chance of being either stolen or pulled off a corpse. When adventurers want to get rid of their old sword to make room for their new one, they simply toss it. Maybe that’s why the wasteland is so littered with weapons.
Carousing
Partying is how adventurers convert tangible treasure into intangible experience. When the Company arrives in a settlement, they can spend a downtime turn carousing. To do this, they remove the Treasure from the Company’s inventory, add an XP Die equal to its Treasure Die to the XP Bowl, and roll the Treasure Die on the carousing table. Each settlement has its own carousing results table, in order to more accurately detail the complications that may arise from the hard partying, but the following shows generic results.
| Treasure Die | Generic Carousing Results |
|---|---|
| 1 | You seriously fucked up and something big got destroyed or someone died. Add this as a negative result to the Reputation Table for this settlement and a nearby settlement where they’ve now heard of your misdeeds. |
| 2 | A drinking companion offered a once-in-a-life business opportunity! The next morning they are nowhere to be found, and no one has a clue of their whereabouts. Remove the Company’s most valuable Treasure. |
| 3 | You insulted someone important. Add this as a negative result to the Reputation Table. That person’s disposition is now unfriendly toward the Company. |
| 4 | The Company wakes up, hungover, in a random adjacent hex with no memory of what happened last night. One of the party members has a new tattoo. |
| 5 | A random player character has contracted a disease, infection or parasite. |
| 6 | A random player character is now betrothed to a previously unknown NPC. The player character has one Bond with the NPC, but breaking off the wedding will incur the scorned NPC’s fury and add a negative result to the Reputation Table for this settlement. |
| 7 | Someone lets slip an interesting rumor, either a quest hook or amusing or compromising information about a known NPC. |
| 8 | A random player character did something amazing and is the talk of the town. Their player describes what they did to impress everyone. Add this as a positive result to the Reputation Table. |
| 9 | The Company gets a windfall in the form of a slot of gold coins (1d8 Treasure Die). Maybe you won it in a bet? You’re not sure but you probably didn’t steal it. |
| 10 | Congratulations, you’ve revitalized the local economy! Add this as a positive result to the Reputation Table for this settlement and a nearby settlement where news of your generosity has spread. The settlement has decided to name a building after one of a random player character. |
High on My Own Supply
Supply is an abstracted representation of the Company’s provisions for exploration, including not just food but also fuel, crafting materials and any other comforts necessary for itinerant adventurers. Each Supply is represented by a Supply Die that is 1d6 and takes up one slot in the Company’s inventory.
Schrödinger's Gear
Any player character can spend a Supply to add any piece of mundane adventuring gear or a cooking ingredient to their inventory as if it had always been there. Of course, they will need to carry the slot-worth of Supply into the dungeon and not just leave it back on their Rig to spend Supply in this way. To do so, they roll the Supply Die and must roll equal to or above the Value of the requested item. Most adventuring gear has a Value of 2, so that means just don’t roll a 1 or that Supply Die is wasted. UPDATE: Jo in the comments made a great point about this mechanic and changed my mind. In my reply, I propose a solution to their issues that boils down to instead of the Supply Die being wasted, giving players the opportunity to either roll another Supply Die to get what they are looking for or settle for some likely-useless mundane item. You reach into your backpack looking for lockpicks but realize you had packed a spatula instead. Great.
Supply is also used when cooking, crafting, or repairing. These have their own rules, but all of that deserves their own post(s). This post is already overstuffed as it is.
Starvation
At the end of every downtime turn (or any other time a week has passed), the Company must spend Supply to ensure all the members of the Company are being properly provided for. This represents not just feeding the characters but fueling the Rig, stocking bandages and medicines, ensuring the Rig doesn’t run out of toilet paper, and otherwise providing for the needs of the Company. The total amount rolled by the Supply Dice must equal or exceed the number of characters (including their pets and mounts). The Company may roll the Supply Dice one at a time until they reach the threshold.
If the Company is unable to match the Company’s number with their Supply, everyone in the Company begins to starve. They each take the difference between the number of characters in the Company and the result of the Supply Dice as damage to all of their Attributes, bypassing any Grit. This may well kill party members, so it’s best to never be caught undersupplied. For a smart or even competent party, this rule will never come into play, but as my colleague, Jay of Possum Creek Games, points out: mechanics can shape the way a game is played even when they are never actually used. My other colleague, Ram of Save vs Total Party Kill, makes a similar observation that OSR rules are often about engaging with the negative space created in between the rules that are focused on modeling failstates.
Replenish
When the Company restocks at a settlement or a trading caravan, they choose a Treasure to spend and rolls its Treasure Die. If the Company wants to exchange multiple Treasures for Supply, they roll separately for each Treasure. The results are as follows:
| Treasure Die | Result |
|---|---|
| 1-3 | +1 Supply Die |
| 4-5 | +2 Supply Dice |
| 6-7 | +3 Supply Dice |
| 8-9 | +4 Supply Dice |
| 10 | +5 Supply Dice |
Give a Damn 'bout Your Reputation
Luke Gearing must be stopped, frankly. He keeps having good ideas and needs to leave at least a few for the rest of us! Lesser creatures must content themselves with remixing his ideas, which is exactly what I am doing with his reputation tables concept.
The implementation is simple. For every settlement where the Company has accomplished a noteworthy deed, for woe or weal, the Company gains a Reputation Table for that settlement. The size of the Reputation Table depends on the size of the settlement. This is because it is easier to make a name for yourself in a small town than a larger one.
| Settlement Type | Reputation Table Size |
|---|---|
| Hamlet | 1d4 |
| Village | 1d6 |
| Town | 1d8 |
| City | 1d10 |
| Metropolis | 1d12 |
Each Reputation Table starts empty but begins to fill up. Starting with the lowest value, each time the Company does something of note that impresses or depresses the populace, write that action down for that numbered result. Each entry should be noted as either positive (i.e., doing something heroic) or negative (i.e., everyone hated that). Empty results are neutral.
One way to add entries is to make a promise to an authority figure of the settlement. This promise must concern something that is actually important to the settlement, like ridding them of the nearby monstrous threat. If the Company makes good on their promise, it is added as a positive result. If they fail to accomplish it, it is added as a negative result.
When a Reputation Roll is called for, roll on the Reputation Table for the applicable settlement. If it rolls a positive result, the outcome is favorable. If it rolls a negative result, the outcome is unfavorable. If it rolls an empty result, the result is neutral. The relative position of the results sometimes also matters, such as when bargaining.
I NEED Loot, Goku
It is the inevitable fate of the blogger to look back at something you wrote just 3 or 4 years ago and realize you now do it completely differently. Such is the case for the system for dungeon exploration I outlined in “Exploding the Encounter Die”, my first post to really make it big. While the goal is still the same (i.e., a push-your-luck system that causes the dungeon to become more hostile but with a greater chance for treasure as you blast your way through its rooms), the exact method for accomplishing that goal has changed, largely due to a eureka about random encounter tables I had earlier this year (almost 3 years to the day from the earlier post. March must be dungeon encounter month for me). Here is how it works now. I promise this relates back to treasure.
Every dungeon exploration turn, the referee rolls the Risk Dice. The Risk Dice start at 3d6, but if the dungeon denizens are alerted to the player characters, they are 4d6. If the dungeon denizens are not just alerted but alarmed, the Risk Dice are 5d6.
The dungeon denizens become alert (or if already alert, alarmed) when the player characters do any of the following:
Activate machines or pressing buttons
Solve problems with violence
Enter a new level of the dungeon
Raise the stakes in some other meaningful way
The Risk Dice will revert back to 3d6 if the player characters leave the dungeon. If they rest in the dungeon (a dangerous proposition), an alarmed dungeon will become just alert and an alert dungeon will revert back to its default state.
The result of the Risk Dice determines whether there is a random encounter, an omen (e.g., tracks, spoor, a trail of blood) of a random encounter, and if the random encounter includes Treasure. See, I told you this detour tied back to the start.
There is a random encounter if the three highest Risk Dice rolls a 13 or higher and any of the three highest Risk Dice match. If the three highest Risk Dice rolls a 13 or higher but there are no matches among the three highest Risk Dice, it means there is just an omen of a random encounter. The random encounter or omen is indicated on the random encounter table based on the total rolled on the 3 highest Risk Dice. Each dungeon level likely has its own random encounter table.
What is nifty about this method is that it’s all crammed into a single dice roll. No more rolling to see if there is a random encounter and then separately rolling on a random encounter table. If you would indulge me in listening to dice probabilities for a moment: by default (3d6) there is a ~25% chance of either a random encounter or omen, which increases to ~50% when the dungeon is alert (4d6-drop-lowest), and ~66% when the dungeon is alarmed (5d6-drop-highest). A very satisfying progression: a quarter, a half, and two-thirds. Because random encounters are arrayed with tougher, more hostile encounters on the higher results, it also means an increased likelihood of such encounters as the dungeon reacts to the intrusion.
Here is a sample random encounter table. We can use the dice combinations to further determine what a given random encounter is doing. I also used the sum of the two lowest dice to determine the number appearing, but if you want the number appearing to range from 3 to 6 instead of from 6 to 12, use the sum of the median die.
| Three Highest Risk Die | Encounter or Omen |
|---|---|
| 1-12 | Nothing happens |
| 13 [4/4/5] | 8 orc warriors are grumbling about their ogre of a boss |
| 13 [3/3/5] | 6 orc warriors are taking turns boasting over their martial accomplishments |
| 13 [1/6/6] | 7 orc warriors carry a wounded ally and the treasure they intend to bury them with |
| 13 [3/4/6] | OMEN: The sound of a orcish sports chant can be heard faintly |
| 13 [2/5/6] | OMEN: A trail of muddy footprints are accented by drops of blood |
| 14 [4/4/6] | An orc shaman looking for someone who can teach her a new spell |
| 14 [4/5/5] | An orc shaman looking for a worthy puppet to overthrow her former ogre-puppet who has become unruly |
| 14 [2/6/6] | An orc shaman who is carrying treasure to put into a stew |
| 14 [3/5/6] | OMEN: The smell of a boiling stew wafts through the air |
| 15 [5/5/5] | A pile of bones knitting together to form 10 animated skeletons of orc warriors |
| 15 [3/6/6] | 9 animated orc skeletons, guarding over the treasures they claimed in battle against dwarves |
| 15 [4/5/6] | OMEN: A skeletal hand crawling slowing in a single direction |
| 16 [5/5/6] | A giant worm-beast whose face peels open like a banana to reveal sharp pincers |
| 16 [5/6/6] | A giant worm-beast that has recently swallowed an adventurer and the treasure they carried |
| 17 [5/6/6] | A young black dragon carrying back treasure to its hoard |
| 18 [6/6/6] | A demon that wants to possess the body of an innocent looking outsider so it can escape into the surface world and wreak havoc in a populated haven. It is guarding treasure |
When the three highest Risk Dice result in two or more 6s, it means the random encounter possesses or is guarding Treasure. Thanks to dice math, every random encounter (13-18) has a chance of having Treasure (and 17 and 18 always have treasure).
Surely, you will have to roll again to determine what the Treasure is though, right? You can’t keep cramming so much meaning into a single die roll, you whine. You’d be wrong! For the treasure, we look to the total of the Risk Dice, not just the 3 highest Risk Dice. These are the same when the dungeon is in its default state, but move out of sync once the dungeon wakes up. Because the Treasure is more valuable as the result increases, it means the player characters are incentivized to raise the dungeon’s defenses. This incentive is, of course, tempered by the higher chance of tougher enemies. This is also in addition to any treasure that is already keyed in the dungeon, FYI. That wasn’t clear in my original dungeon exploration post and led to a small amount of confusion.
The Treasure Table may be tailored to the dungeon or even to a single level of the dungeon, but below is a generic version that can be used for any dungeon in the Prismatic Wasteland:
| Risk Die | Treasure |
|---|---|
| 1-12 | No treasure |
| 13 | Copper Coins (1d4 Treasure) |
| 14 | Laser Scalpel |
| 15 | Revolving Handwand |
| 16 | Wizard’s skull containing 1 random spell |
| 17 | Spectral Leather Armor |
| 18 | Silver Coins (1d6 Treasure) |
| 19 | Stun Morningstar |
| 20 | Gravity Bow |
| 21 | Map of the current level of the dungeon |
| 22 | Plasteel Exoskeleton Armor |
| 23 | Gold Coins (1d8 Treasure) |
| 24 | Rocket Lance |
| 25 | Antimatter Longwand |
| 26 | Wizard’s skull containing 1d6 random spells |
| 27 | War Machine Armor |
| 28 | Platinum Coins (1d10 Treasure) |
| 29 | Vorpal Sword |
| 30 | Disintegrator |
It’s the Barter Economy, Stupid
Taken together, these systems form the basic dungeonomics of Prismatic Wasteland. The player characters need Supply to live. The player characters spend Treasure to barter for Supply. The player characters go into the dungeon to get Treasure. With the Treasure they get, they can spend it on other things like bartering for new goods or services or carousing to level up. The player characters will always need Supply and will always want for Treasure, so into dungeons they must go.
Sign up with your email address to receive an email for new blog posts.
