I have been thinking about money, experience and T&T a long time. Long time reader of my blog knows that I really like the xp for gold rule in old D&D. I idea behind it is good, and I have been wanting to try it for T&T a while now. Ken St. Andre used that rule for T&T in earlier editions, but decided to skip it when it became clear that it caused problems with Monty Haul campaigns. With the provision that you have to spend the gold to exchange it for Adventure Points I think that problem can be avoided. Worth testing, I think.
When I refereed a weekly campaign of 7th ed T&T it became clear quite quickly that after a few delves to the megadungeon everyone had the best armour and weapon they could wield. If you take a look at the price list in the T&T, you find that most of the gear is affordable. The only thing that costs a lot is buying new spells. My players pooled their resources and bought a few key spells like Whammy, Omnipotent Eye and Poor Baby. I will talk about Dura-Spell Battery some other day. But, having bought those they had what they needed and once again had an a lot of loose cash.
Some might say it's a very GM centred problem to have to much gold in a campaign. While it's true to some extent I think I was fairly restrictive and when the characters did hit upon a hoard it was fun and not Monty Haul. They fought for it.
What can you spend your hard earned gold on then? Well, I guess you can buy magic items, but I like to think they feel more interesting if they are found in a dark dungeon than made to order in a craftman's shop. I did let my players buy some items, and I probably should have but more magic treasure in the game instead. But, I like to think that some of the items they did find felt interesting and wondrous enough.
But today I read something about ablative armour, again. For those who don't know, protective gear used to be worn down in earlier editions. I kind of dislike the idea of book keeping reduced hits on armour, but Dan in the post linked above gave me a new reason to reconsider it. He mentions having to spend money on repairing your gear once now and then when they take punishment from action. That is a very interesting way to part the characters from some money! I had never thought of it from that standpoint before. Worth considering, I guess.