I'm working on a superhero setting. The default characters in the setting will be heroes who are out to help others without seeking any kind of reward. My question is, how do I handle money?

Giving out cash as a reward for heroic action in a supers game feels off. Most characters won't even need money since most of the powers are inherent not gear based, so I considered doing away with the money mechanic altogether. But, some people will want to play Iron Man or Batman... or even Spider-Man. Those guys all need money to make gear. I have three thoughts.

1.) Xp can be converted to cash for the purpose of buying equipment or crafting gear. Something like trade 5 xp for $500?

2.) I've considered a secret identity system that would work like downtime activities in other games. Maybe making money from work could be a downtime activity?

3.) Do away with money as a mechanic and have talents that grant and improve iconic gear. Then characters can narrate where the gear came from, whether they bought it or built it.

Do any those options sound good, or do you have other thoughts?

Lifting the Duty system from Age of Rebellion would go a long way toward achieving your option 3.

On a similar path, you could build a hero's "Secret Identity" in the manner of a Homestead or Business (also from the Star Wars line). It generates income, can be upgraded, but also leaves something hanging over the head of the PC which could be exploited by the GM for narrative effect.

I'm going to counter ague with "The Boys". The heroes are corporate denizens. Why can't Heroes make money from work?

11 hours ago, ElderKoala said:

I'm going to counter ague with "The Boys". The heroes are corporate denizens. Why can't Heroes make money from work?

I like your argument, although I feel like the point they were making about what Super Heroes represents the worst of Super Heroes (and America) which might not be what your players want to represent when playing heroes.

Maybe add a private benefactor NPC who funds the hero's endeavors and offers a stipend for personal expenses.

I honestly don't think it's something that you need to worry about.

15 hours ago, Captain Coffee said:

But, some people will want to play Iron Man or Batman

They are both insanely rich and don't actually work for a living. They just have the money they need for all the cool toys.

15 hours ago, Captain Coffee said:

or even Spider-Man

Sure, in the comic books Peter does the whole "taking pictures of Spider-Man" thing to make ends meet. But Spider-Man's stories don't revolve around if he has enough money to buy a sandwich at the corner deli. He always makes it work somehow, off-screen.

It might pop up and complicate the story sometimes, but that has nothing to do with the "I have a job" rules and everything to do with the GM grinning and spending a Story Point to introduce a fact. Super heroes always have their gear unless it's a story point for them to not.

In situations such as the "Super Hero" setting, I provide the players with some sort of salary. I did a few sessions of a Destiny (the video game) campaign where the players could gather glimmer in the wild off enemies, selling old world books, tech, ect. To various factions, and also a salary pay from the Vangaurd.

It worked well because while sometimes they needed more than they had, they generally werent stopping to loot every, single, thing.

Which was nice. Because looting throws off the groove to me as a DM. I like to do the Crystal Chronicles thing, where I have players keep track of various stats (most damage dealt/taken, most kills, ect.) Then rank them and each player takes turns claiming 1 peice loot in the pile (this peice is 100% theirs) and the rest is given to the group as a whole.

Maybe sometime similar? They just gather the stuff villians are using and selling it to the government for money?

1 hour ago, Spartancfos said:

I like your argument, although I feel like the point they were making about what Super Heroes represents the worst of Super Heroes (and America) which might not be what your players want to represent when playing heroes.

I agree. But then I point to Starlight who, before XYZ, she was a super hero with a personal radio scanner in her mom's kitchen. So you could play to the middle. There's heroes who do hero work... and then there's The Seven and people like them. Just a theory. Heck, they could be like a private investigation firm. Outside of Iron Man and Batman, super powers are kinda free. And if they want gadget hero, they either have a get rich scheme or rob the baddies!

2 hours ago, ElderKoala said:

I agree. But then I point to Starlight who, before XYZ, she was a super hero with a personal radio scanner in her mom's kitchen. So you could play to the middle. There's heroes who do hero work... and then there's The Seven and people like them.

Having watched the Boys tbh this Grey Area Superheroes and Superdicks is how I would want to run a Supers Campaign.

What good guy wouldn't want to sneak into Heil SauerKraut's secret lab and steal his Bratwurst & Surströmming fumigator to then re-purpose it as an anti-panic cold northern mountains smelling aerosol gadget?!

22 hours ago, Captain Coffee said:

3.) Do away with money as a mechanic and have talents that grant and improve iconic gear. Then characters can narrate where the gear came from, whether they bought it or built it.

4.) Borrow from Star Wars. Use the Sound Investments talent, which grants 100 monetary units per rank at the beginning of each session. So your character is the billionaire tech guy? Cool, now he has a talent to show that and he can use that money towards crafting or purchasing items. Maybe even throw in a couple of the talents that use money, (these talents are all in the entrepreneur spec in Edge of the Empire's Colonist sourcebook, Far Horizons) such as Bought Info, the one that lets you spend 50 units per difficulty to pass a knowledge check with 1 success instead of rolling, or Greased Palms, the talent that lets you spend 50 units per rank to upgrade a Social skill check once for every 50 units spent.

23 hours ago, Captain Coffee said:

I'm working on a superhero setting. The default characters in the setting will be heroes who are out to help others without seeking any kind of reward. My question is, how do I handle money?

Giving out cash as a reward for heroic action in a supers game feels off. Most characters won't even need money since most of the powers are inherent not gear based, so I considered doing away with the money mechanic altogether. But, some people will want to play Iron Man or Batman... or even Spider-Man.

...

3.) Do away with money as a mechanic and have talents that grant and improve iconic gear. Then characters can narrate where the gear came from, whether they bought it or built it.

I think something like this is probably a better bet.

The challenge you have here is that where Superman's strength is a physical part of him, Batman's wonderful toys are just as organic when talking about the Character of Batman. To an extent a new Bat-vehicle or an upgrade to Tony Stark's suit shouldn't be a Dollar purchase so much as an XP expenditure. It's a core feature of those characters in the same way that Laser-vision is to Superman, and from the perspective of the narrative Batman or Iron Man's gear needs to improve organically just as Superman's abilities. Add on the fact that Tony and Bruce rarely literally buy anything super-related within the narrative, and that just lends strength to the argument that super-gear is more an XP buy.

I think you may want to look at two other systems for ideas.

1) D20 Modern replaces cash with a Wealth rating that represents a players "buying power." So you can make a check see what a player character can scrap together in a pinch, and a "rich" character would have a much higher number than a "poor" one, and you can even buy above your rating at a risk of it getting downgraded. Buying a hamburger and soda isn't (within the story) going to negatively impact Peter Parker any more than Tony Stark. If the party suddenly needs a car though, then Parker is going to have to scrap together some money, borrow from friends and family, take out a loan, get Jameson to vouch for him on that loan, and afterward maybe he gets a clunker... Where Tony just writes a check and drives a brand new Ferrari off the lot.

2) Mutants and Masterminds is a D20 superhero system, and it makes super-gear work very similar to super powers. In that system something like laser vision, a battlesuit arm-laser, and a laser pistol all are bought in the exact same way. The difference being that the gear options get "removable" and "easily removable" as negative features, which reduce their cost to the Player in exchange for the ability for the GM to have an option to disable them.