So I was wondering how you guys and gals handle money in your games. Or maybe I should say wealth. Is that something that is just "important" in the beginning of games, because later the players become in some way or another financially independent?
Or is it something you try to keep relevant all throughout a game?
Also do you have a "fixed" price for things or are prices somethings that vary through out your game?
And how do you price your books? Do you keep a higher price for "mundane" books compared to "magical" books, or are books same same and the scarcity of the book sets the price?
Lastly, what would be a fair price for vis?
I tried searching the forums but could not find what I was looking for, so I hope I am not asking to many FAQ's questions.
Years ago I pointed out inconsistencies in AM economic systems and was told it didn't matter because players weren't interested in those sort of details.
So I doubt you will find much.
"Money" is largely abstracted. You'll notice the 5th edition corebook doesn't have a price list for common goods, and leaves that to the City & Guild supplement.
The mightier your magi get, the easier it is to devise a scheme to utterly break the local economy, make yourself rich and leave the mundane world wondering what happened. Against the Dark has a section on this, dealing with how the Tremere mined a vast fortune in gold, and it's mostly in the form of statues and ornaments now as they realised they could never spend that much. If you want to make "wealth" relevant, it's probably easier to remind people that money only goes so far - if the merchant supplying them with all their fancy glassware and vellum suddenly gets robbed, having the players investigate the robbery and find out if they're being deliberately targeted or if it's just common greed will bring the point home.
How do you price books? High enough to make your players ration their purchases and carefully consider what to study next, low enough to not stop people advancing their arts. You price them in the same way you hand out experience and confidence, and how often you'd pass out magic swords in a game of D&D - you want to make people feel they are earning their increased power and avoid runaway power creep, but you don't want to discourage people too badly. In the last long saga I played, it came down to speaking to people at Tribunal and you'd get offered a handful of books to purchase.
A fair price for vis - True Lineages suggests between ten and twenty pounds for a pawn of vis, so that's the canon suggestion but your saga will vary.
I've never in a saga seen vis or magical books bought for mere silver. Plenty of mundane books though.
I think economy is mostly important for new covenants - and still only loosely managed - so the magi know what they can expect to construct, spend in Upkeep for labs, or hire of mundane specialists. Economy should MHO be story driven, so anything involving money or resources should be because of a story. Otherwise loose numbers fits me nicely, just for quick overview of how rich or poor the covenant is, to check if the magi should do something to boost income or save on resources, how fancy a lab they can expect to have, which fancy specialists, which extravagant materials they can use for devices, and whether they can undertake long journeys.
For me it's about choices the magi must make in order to evolve or simply keep the status quo, what they spend their time on. And also stories, to tie the covenant into the environment. A poor covenant can use magic to generate income. A covnenant with a runaway rich economy may need to cut back, or sue magic to remedy the fallout. Etc.
The Covenants book goes kind of deeply into the economy of running a covenant, but doesn't actually go into any individual items. It's effectively spreadsheet that tells you how much money you're spending, how much you're getting, how much you're saving, and then a net loss/gain at the end. If your players like spreadsheets, I suggest it. That said, keeping track of it can be a bit of a chore, and sometimes it can be completely silly how the numbers get arranged and balanced, because its a simulation. When I built my current home-game covenant, I used it for guidelines, and whenever the players ask what they can do to help the covenant prosper more, I use it for ideas on what they need. (FETCH ME A SHRUBBERY! GO GET A BLACKSMITH! WE NEED MORE PYLO--er... VINTERS!)
I agree, I haven't seen too many situations where magical goods are acquired though mundane wealth, vis or magical books. The fact magi can actually just MAKE money is a big factor for it - or to just make the final goods they need. The only time I'd expect to see it is if some mundane authority who doesn't understand mysticism at all acquired a magical book or vis they can't use.