The Problem

A lot of people look at games like
D&D and cringe at having to use a monetary system requiring one to keep
track of each and every coin and gem of several types in order to measure a
character’s wealth; Exalted, on the other hand, has an extremely simple and
abstract system for the same purposes: The resources background.

Now, this background has several issues
and problems in and of itself. Most common are things like infinite purchases,
the order in which you acquire possessions possibly leading to bankruptcy and
one that always sort of bothered me, the fact that there’s no way to actually
define how some Bureaucracy actions or charms involving haggling or selling
things above their price works or what benefits it entails to a market-oriented
character.

To further illustrate my point, I’ll
give a brief example of each of these situations that I consider problematic.

1)<span style="font:7.0pt “Times New Roman”;">   Infinite
purchases:       Mr. Joe Solar has a Resources score
of 3. He specializes in Thrown and thus wants to buy Javelins. He wants lots of
them, in order to comfortably flurry. Under the standard rules, he could plausibly
buy infinite of them as long as the Storyteller said it was ok.

2)<span style="font:7.0pt “Times New Roman”;">   Order
of factors affects product:  Let’s take Mr. Joe Solar
again. Like I said, with the standard system, he could plausibly acquire
infinite Javelins, or at least a few if the storyteller was sane. Now, let’s
say he decides he wants an Exceptional Javelin, with a cost of 3. In this case,
his resources would temporarily go to 2, and if he bought another standard
Javelin, his resources would temporarily go to 1, and now he can’t buy any more
Javelins and is in fact a lot poorer than he was when he began spending his
money, because of poor budget-planning.

3)<span style="font:7.0pt “Times New Roman”;">   Haggling
is overly abstract:   Mr. Joe Solar, still with
his resources 3, also has a few Bureaucracy charms and Excellencies. Now, he’s
still intent on getting his exceptional Javelin, but he decides he wants to
negotiate a better price. Under the standard system, a ST has either of two
options: Either the price remains unchanged, explaining that the seller
actually gave him a discount but because the dots are so ample, it’s not enough
to lower the actual value in dots. The other option, implies lowering the
purchase one dot, which in most cases, under an exponential system like Exalted
would be an exaggeration, given that a dot could make the difference between a
sword and a house.

4)<span style="font:7.0pt “Times New Roman”;">   Selling
wares or services is overly abstract: Mr.
Joe Solar has now come across an expensive painting which he would like to
sell, it’s worth Resources 4. Under the standard system, either it crashes and
he cannot sell it, he gets no real benefit of it, the ST makes some kind of
weird patch allowing him to get a Resources 4 item or for the sole fact of
selling that item, he now has Resources 4, effective immediately.

The Proposal

This is what I came up with, one afternoon
during a particularly boring anatomy class:

If we take into account the exponential (or vaguely
exponential) nature of most traits in Exalted and White-Wolf games in general,
it’s not hard to imagine this progression for dot values under the Resources
background:

What this would entail is actually quite simple,
Resources 5 could be expressed as 10 ten times Resources 4, a hundred times
Resources 3, a thousand times Resources 2, ten thousand times Resources 1 and a
hundred thousand times Resources 0.

If we combine this equivalency with expendable
points of Resources, we have a system that is about halfway between counting
every penny and the usual abstract system White-Wolf uses. This system solves,
at least in my eyes, a handful of the problems presented above.

How It Works

Mr. Joe Solar has once again volunteered to be
our example here. Following the above examples, he’s an Exalt specializing in
thrown, who happens to have Resources 3 and a nice array of Bureaucracy charms.

Under this system, Joe Solar would have the
right to make one Resources 3 purchase, ten Resources 2 purchases, a hundred
Resources 1 purchases or a thousand Resources 0 purchases.

These “purchases” or expendable dots can of
course be interconverted between each other and would refresh every once in a time
period that would be defined by the ST as deemed appropriate for the nature of
the income perceived by Mr. Joe Solar.

Additionally, a character would be able to
obtain additional purchases or effectively raise his Resources score by selling
items or services appropriate to their values. (For example if Mr. Joe Solar
charged got hold of three Exceptional Javelins and sold them, he’d gain access
to a single Resources 4 purchase)

How Does This Fix The
Above Problems?

This is, of course, the most important point for
the whole thing. We’ll go over the same cases as presented in the first section
of this article, this time making use of the Altered Resources system.

1)<span style="font:7.0pt “Times New Roman”;">   Infinite
purchases:        Mr. Joe Solar has a Resources score of
3. He specializes in Thrown and thus wants to buy Javelins. He wants lots of
them, in order to comfortably flurry. Under the altered rules, he would be
able to buy ten of them without an additional effort.

2)<span style="font:7.0pt “Times New Roman”;">   Order
of factors affects product:     Let’s take Mr. Joe Solar
again. With the altered rules, the scenario here is completely different, he
could either buy one Exceptional Javelin OR ten regular ones, but not both at
the same time. (both would result in him reducing his Resources score to 2 until
he does something to remediate it or gets new income)

3)<span style="font:7.0pt “Times New Roman”;">   Haggling
is overly abstract:       Mr. Joe Solar, still
with his resources 3, also has a few Bureaucracy charms and Excellencies. Now,
he’s still intent on getting his exceptional Javelin, but he decides he wants
to negotiate a better price. Under the altered rules, the ST could rule that
due to his exceptional skills, the weaponsmith decides to give Mr. Joe Solar a
30% discount on the purchase of his Exceptional Javelin, because it would
regularly be worth Resources 3, which is equivalent to 10 times Resources 2,
Mr. Joe Solar would now only pay 7 purchases worth of Resources 2 for his
Javelin, resulting in a net gain for him.

4)<span style="font:7.0pt “Times New Roman”;">   Selling
wares or services is overly abstract: Mr.
Joe Solar has now come across an expensive painting which he would like to
sell, it’s worth Resources 4. Under the altered system, Mr. Joe Solar would
now have Resources 4 that would last until he used them up by buying ten times
more Resources 3 or below items, or one Resources 4 item.

Of course, it’s important to note that dots
acquired via selling or negotiation should be kept until spent and would not
disappear over the regular periods of “refreshing.”

Additionally, this tangentially deals with
characters actually having to nurture their fortune somewhat, and STs should
work together with their players to define their sources of income and if there’s
such a thing as a refreshing period (In the case of salaries, dividends,
stipends, etc)