The 100 gp/month Screw Job

[AxeMental]

Part of the 100 GP deal is that we don't abstract living time. All time is delt with in game and is fairly detailed for the most part.

[Marriat the Ranger]

For low level characters 100gp is IMO a bit hard to envision ... They're not generally living too high on the hog.

[James Maliszewski]

I didn't use the training cost rules until fairly late in my AD&D-playing days, but I did eventually use them. I felt it was a good way to keep the characters poor and always on the lookout for new opportunities for enrichment (aka adventures). Nowadays, I don't play AD&D and, even if I did, I wouldn't use those rules. Instead, I'd likely adopt a rule like the one I currently use: characters only gain XP per gold piece they spend. So, a character who blows his money in town on goods and services -- frivolous or otherwise -- gets XP immediately, while a character who hoards his cash for a rainy day is deferring XP until later, if ever.

It's had an interesting effect on the campaign, since, after a few levels, the characters have very little to spend their wealth on. That means they either have to squander it on pointless things or funnel it toward bigger projects, like building a stronghold or magical research. All in all, it's worked very well, keeping the characters poor but also focusing them on to things that provide plenty of grist for the adventuring mill.

[Flambeaux]

characters only gain XP per gold piece they spend.

I really like this. I really, really like this.

[Gray Mouser]

Regarding the monthly gp/level output for monks the cost can be viewed as helping pay for the upkeep and running of his order's monastery (an institution which in all likelihood is not composed entirely - or even primarily - of people who would qualify as "Monks" in the PC class sense). He might not be out with Fafhrd and ... well, you know who, living it up and going from tavern to tavern but then chances are neither is the party's Paladin who also has to pay this expense.

Like combat, hit points, etc. this monthly expenditure is an abstraction instead of a nitty-gritty record of every little thing on which a PC spends his money and resources. Your M-U is probably spending a fair bit of his loot on acquiring old tomes, vials and beekers for his lab, replenishing the more mundane spell components he went through during his last adventure, etc. A thief is paying his guild dues, taking care of his informants, bribing people for information about a possible city-based adventure hook, etc. Your fighter will be getting his mail repaired, his weapons sharpened, his bow restrung, etc.