Draw Steel Wealth Rules Additions

Draw Steel is a heroic game at its core, one in which the characters are heroes who generally do the right thing because it's right. Therefore, the game has a simplistic wealth system—getting filthy rich isn't the point. In itself, that's not a bad thing—but if you've been reading this blog, you know that the characters in the world of Skies of Mor-ladron (SoM) are not entirely heroic. Often, they're primarily out to better their own lives and maybe improve the lives of others in the process.

So, wealth and money are more important in SoM's setting than in core Draw Steel. I mean, what's the point of being a pirate if the Director gets to decide how wealthy you are? I decided to make some adjustments to how wealth works. Below are Draw Steel's wealth rules, followed by my additions.

Wealth

The Draw Steel Hero Wealth table shows the items, gear, services, property, and other things player characters can purchase in the game. The table shows the purchases heroes can acquire individually and that a party can afford when the characters pool their resources.

Hero Wealth

Gaining Wealth

Each hero starts with a Wealth score of 1, which can be improved by their career choice during character creation. The hero’s Wealth score increases whenever they find and keep a massive amount of monetary treasure, such as a hoard of coins and gems from a dragon’s lair or several unique and valuable paintings from a monarch as a reward for a job well done.

Generally, a hero’s Wealth score increases about once every other level of play. The Director can increase this rate if they wish.

Losing Wealth

As an optional rule, the Director can allow a hero to make a purchase that is one level above their current Wealth score. If this occurs, the hero’s Wealth is reduced by 1 after the purchase.

Homebrew Additions

Officially, wealth increases when the Director decides the characters have found or received enough treasure to increase it. I don't mind the abstraction of the wealth system, but I also want to give players more information about when they can level up their Wealth score.

I decided the easiest way to do that was to add another column to this table. In effect, I created XP for wealth. In keeping with the pirate vibe, we can call this new factor chests.

Here's how it works. Whenever the party plunders a ship, loots a ruin, or amasses wealth in some way, they get treasure chests for their trouble. Once they hit a certain number of chests, they advance to the next wealth level. The number of chests in the table above is my first shot at it; I'm sure it needs some adjusting, which could happen in play or after talking with my players about how quickly they want to amass riches.

I also plan to have a subcategory called bags. The number of players in the group determines how many bags equal one chest (so, four players = four bags/chest). This makes it easy to divide the spoils up evenly if, say, they help a small village that rewards them with an uneven number of chests. Bags of coin and chests also work as normal rewards that an NPC can give out for completing a quest. I assume that in most cases beyond level one, we will primarily see chests, so there won't be too much tracking of bags.

The benefit of this system is that it still uses the core rules for buying items, so players don't have to track coin when characters stay at an inn or resupply. The chest addition would track leveling up or down (if players want to overspend, as mentioned in the optional rule above).

When it comes to finding wealth in sessions, player actions will matter. For example, if the players conduct research before a heist or raid, they can get an idea of the number of chests they'll get from the job, allowing them plan accordingly and decide if the risk is worth the reward.

I'm also willing to add what I call the Black Market Rule. Basically, when the characters raid a ship or find treasure in ruins (i.e., a situation where they find treasure that might not necessarily just be coin), they gain plunder or loot points. They must visit a black market to exchange the points for chests. Plunder or loot points have a one-to-one exchange rate for chests. This rule is more of a realism insert than anything else, so it's optional. It could add some interesting obstacles if the characters need money but are having issues getting to one of the black markets.

What do you think? Does this addition feel like it gives more control to the players? How wealthy would you want your characters to become? Does wealth change how you play a game (any TTRPG, not just Draw Steel)?

I'd love to hear how you've used wealth systems in your games! Let me know your thoughts in the comments.