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Comment by t0mbstone | Hacker News Reader

When you think about it, though, the idea that Witchers would be poor is kind of a dumb concept. With the powers they have, and the services they provide to people, there is zero believable reason for them to be poor.

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True, this bothers me in most games to be honest... I mean in Mass Effect I was basically on a mission to same the universe, and was employed as a freaking spectre, an elite unit of super soldiers who are above the law. Now the game's universe has many species and many hundreds of billions of intelligent lifeforms, yet there are only 10 known spectres.

In other words, these are comparatively fewer of these guys than the US president, millions of times fewer than elite navy seal units or army generals or joint fight strikers, fewer than aircraft carriers that cost billions of dollars each and can house a hundred aircraft each worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and all military more significant, each and every one of them, after all you as one of the spectres is about to same the freaking universe.

Yet the player has to buy freaking omni-gel with scarce credits. Meanwhile you're flying across the universe in one of the most technologically advanced, trillion dollar spaceships, saving that very universe. In fact you employ said spaceship to go on missions to

That's like a carrier with joint strike fighters and nuclear bombs and the general of the navy, has to freaking sail across the oceans in search for somalian pirates that they can arrest, so they can make some money on their bounty, so they can buy some freaking bandages and rations, while simultaneously being on a mission to save the planet from impending doom lol.

There's not a lot of games that get this right. Tons of games get it right because the character isn't as important. Like in Pokemon, you're just a kid from a little village with ambition. But if you're the most important character in the universe, please don't have him pay for his bandages and ammo. And even in a convoluted 'everyone thinks I'm the bad guy, so nobody funds me, but I'm actually trying to save the universe', if you have universe-saving skills, just rob a freaking bank or something, it can't be that hard in comparison.

It made sense in books - the monsters were becoming rare as civilization spreaded, the people that had monster problems were usually poor, and the alternative for them was "move on to big city or less wild region".

Witchers were relicts of different times and had to compete on price or pivot to assasin/bodyguard industry :)

In games for gameplay reason they made monsters very common again (explaining it away by wars and plague decivilizing big regions again) - so it make sense for witchers to be more wealthy again.

I think you're spot-on here (personally I'm currently reading the books and playing through the Witcher 3 slowly).

The world of the Witcher 3 is a lot more monster-riddled than what's presented in the books, with a board full of witcher contracts at every little settlement. It wouldn't make sense for witchers to be poor in the context of the game, especially in a world where witchers are a dying breed and monsters are on the rise again.

Not sure about that. Usually even for difficult monsters witchers aren't paid a lot simply because people are too poor, and in the country riddled by war it's even more so.

It's not clear from the game story and contents, but monsters are now oftentimes taken care of by royal huntsmen and contracted mercenaries. As a result, witchers are considered old school practitioners of a dying field and the majority of the population is so poor that witchers are paid infrequently or sometimes not at all (they get scammed too!).

Remember that entire villages pooled their money together to pay for a witcher's fees. Also, monsters are not as frequent as they were a long time ago, so contracts are rarer and lower in payout, especially during a horrific war.

You'd guess so, but the books picture a different story. As Geralt himself explains, Witchers are relics of the past and they basically undermine their own livelihood (i.e. by hunting monsters they leave less work for them to find). In the portrayed world, monsters are becoming extinct, same as witchers themselves.

And despite what service they do to people, they are viewed as freaks (since they are mutants) and are marginalized by the society. So earning a living is not an easy thing for a witcher.

Graphical illustration of that concept: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/merely-tolerated

The power they wield is not that big, although the games arguably aren't great at conveying that. A witcher is a glorified rat catcher and is treated accordingly by the society.

IF you read the books you would understand. Sure, they provide services no one else can. But the towns they serve are exceedingly poor - people often suggest paying the witcher with room and board, rather than money, because they rarely have any. People with actual money, like kings and prices in that universe employ their own magi so they don't need help from witchers - so they are limited to helping poor people.

Vow of poverty?

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