Hello TOR Experts,

I'm still working my way towards our first game with my group...who SUCKS at reading material. That means, I'm going to have to do a lot of hand holding. I have previously asked about a more Player Oriented Worksheet and raising endurance. Now, I'm back for your treasure!

Treasure, Standing and how it all operates is spreadout and very confusing the way it is written, then how it is augmented in the Lake-Town Sourcebook. Can I ask a favor of someone to try and explain this to me, maybe in a paraphrasing manner? Sometime when you hear it a different way it makes more sense? Anyone get that?

anyway, the point of my asking is that well, Treasure and Status climbing a re big deals in our past games. We like to collect treasure and we like to slowly become nobles or in charge of people or places. TOR is still young and I predict they will flesh this out more down the line, but as of now...I'm pretty lost on how this works in it's abstract form.

My answer will not include the Laketown rules.

Standing measures the respect you command by the ordinary people in your home culture. It has no effect on adventurers or anyone from outside your culture; for those people, use Valour or Wisdom instead.

Standing is increased by investing treasure points into your home culture. When you are at home during a fellowship phase, deduct the amount of treasure necessary to raise your standing. There is a yearly maintenance fee to keep your standing up.

Your standing will be used by the Loremaster to decide how likely you are to be included in special councils and missions by the leaders of your home culture, and how likely you are to meet important personages there (as you're hobnobbing with people of your station).

You can't gain standing in any culture not your own. People in other cultures will respect you or not based on your Valour or Wisdom scores, but you remain an outsider nonetheless.

Treasure can also be spent "in the field" by spending 1 point to make your standard of living Prosperous (if it isn't already), or 2 points to make it Rich. This lasts for one month, during which time you may buy things as if you had the higher standard of living. The Loremaster may also specify other expenses that cost treasure points (typically very large purchases).

Ok, this is helping. But here's something then, what does one mean by "BUY" Things? There doesn't appear to be anything to "buy" in the base game, but the Lake-Town book does introduce some costs (which I kind of like). PC's don't buy weapons, they don't buy upgrades, they don't buy gear (or do they?) and they don't buy lands.

Aside from the "buy a round of drinks" or "a ride in a canoe" examples in the base game, are there other examples I'm missing of PC's being able to buy or pay for something? Unfortunately, I am one of those GM's who enjoy's some sort of functioning economy in my game system.

The best suggestion I can give is that you kitbash a more functioning economy from another fantasy game as Treasure and level of prosperity are kind of a bit vague. I feel that in TOR, treasure is largely a way of keeping score. Who has the bigger Treasure horde, yes you can improve your level of prosperity or prevent your standing from lowering or even increase your standing but, apart from the rules added in Laketown, the base system tends to treat money the same as Tolkien did for Bilbo in the Hobbit.
Alternatively you could look at the Money in Middle Earth thread http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?tr...&showtopic=2928 posted in february.
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I don't think there is much in the rules related to buying things (I have not read the lake town supplement) As far as I know it's left up to the game master how much treasure it costs to finance building an inn, or a tower or a castle.... even the idea of if it costs a treasure to replace lost or damaged armor or not to, and if so how much, is up to the GM as far as I know.

Since you sound like you are talking about doing something similar to what we did in my earlier game I'll tell you something my group developed:

A friend of mine ran a game that involved taking over a small struggling settlement (liberating it from outlaws) and developing it. Therefore the idea of developing land and holding land or building became relevant. We wrote up a big framework with all sorts of things you might want in a settlement and how much treasure it costs to build it and how much it costs to upgrade it to various bigger and more impressive states. We decided that it costs 12 treasure to open a small tavern, but it costs 24 more to upgrade it into a sizable inn.... the hobbit of the fellowship did just that, and founded "The smoking Hobbit", while two other characters pitched in and arranged a stable with horses, one crafty character set up a blacksmith, some people invested in developing surrounding farmlands, at one point we even set up a barracks for our budding militia, we got a small farmer's market going, we even got some herds, and at the end there was talk of creating a defensive palisade! It was kinda fun. I'm not sure that we did it in a balanced fashion compared to the cost to increase standing... but it was a lot of fun!

That's some good insight there about taking over a settlement. I like how you guys put a lot of thought into it. I think Lake-Town also help a little bit, but I wish they would have developed that little side-bar a lot more.

So here's where I get a little lost still, and maybe you guys can give some examples of how you handled it; How do you buy something from someone, such as the example of buying a round of drinks in a Tavern from the Base Game, a Frugal PC cannot, but a Prosperous PC can? What???

I know this is all trifling stuff, but it is important to me in bringing my game to life.

I might not be correct on this, crimso, but I believe the intent is simply for there not to be an accounting of every coin.

In other words, if a particular PC has the resources to do so, he can say "A round of drinks for everyone!" and it simply happens. On the flip-side, a PC who doesn't have those resources, simply cannot.

With regard to the rules for the minor stuff, like buying a round of drinks or hiring/buying a pony, TOR's base system works by stating that people whose standard of living meets the minimum stated can be assumed to be able to afford these things out of available funds. It does not have to be accounted for and does not reduce any amount of cash, it is simply a fact that they can afford it. Therefore Foli the Dwarf, a Rich standard of living character, can easily afford to wander into an Inn and buy a round for everyone, buy a Pony or hire a boat for an adventure and no paperwork needs to take place. Ethanel the Elf however is Martial level of prosperity and so cannot afford to do the same. Should she gain enough Treasure she can spend two to become Rich for the month and so be able to match Foli, but in her case there is paperwork as the player has to mark off the Treasure points to be Rich for the month.

Although there are only a few suggested things you can use Treasure on, and only a few suggested uses for level of prosperity you can assume your own list of things to add to that list. Also, the document available on the thread I posted a link to has a lot of suggestions for the usage of Treasure and for how much a given level of prosperity provides over a year. It also lists suggested costs for construction of everything from a poor shack to a large castle.

Hope this helps.

E

And don't look too closely at the economics of things, or it falls apart. For instance, a Prosperous character can afford a pony for himself. If he loses his pony on one journey, he can buy one pony for the next journey. So why couldn't he have bought two ponies originally? This is the realism you must sacrifice to accept the very abstracted system of wealth in The One Ring.

Can I consider that a hero with 1 tresaure point can buy a new longsword to replace the old old one that was lost in adventure?

I would say definitely with Treasure, or if their standard of living is higher than Martial. I'd probably allow it even if they were Martial actually