Rewarding the player, economics and balance [4e]

[Jose]

So the players completed the quest: The Orcs, Nazis, or Aliens are all dead or dying. The adventure is complete and the heroes return to their employer or whoever it is thats in charge. Eagerly they ask for their reward and they get... Well they get... Err... What actually?

In any game balancing reward vs challenge and risk is hard. I in this case find myself completely without any clue as to what makes a fair pay for work put in by the PCs. We might have just spent 3 sessions stealing something for someone, the PCs were fought their way out of a secret lab and all kinds of fun but risky things happened. My problem is now how do I measure out a reward for the PCs?

It might not be a GURPS specific question so pardon me if its in the wrong forum. I however find this to be one of the biggest conundrums as a GM that I'm currently tasked with.

[RyanW]

Depends almost entirely on the campaign's style and structure. Some heroes are chronically on the edge of poverty, always desperate to find the next job to stave off starvation for another week. Others quickly build up enough wealth to buy a title and become landed nobility. Still others take their "payment" in the form of continuing to have a world to live in, and pay the bills some other way altogether.

[baakyocalder]

GURPS has a cost of living for each level of Status and various books have job tables. The job tables are a good indicator of how much people make. Pages 514-517 cover economics and the job tables and pages 265-266 have the cost of living for each Status and what that buys.

Rewards will vary by campaign, but knowing how much the PCs need to make to keep up their lifestyles gives you a good idea of how much reward they need. This is true in games other than GURPS, for a fun game always gives rewards that players believed were worth the risk. Monty Haul games get boring because there's always something better out there than the magic sword and a boatload of treasure. Games where loot is minimal and you get five green towels and a rusty sword for clearing a tough series of encounters are not fun for most players.

Keep in mind not all rewards are financial. Reputation is a significant reward in some games. Allies, Contacts and Status can also be valuable. Think of a commoner medieval soldier trying to become a knight and you can see that while they will need money, becoming a knight is a social task that will require a lot of social resources to obtain. Access to esoteric knowledge that gives special powers is also a reward.

Surviving is also a reward, though unless the game is heavily-oriented towards survival like a post-apocalypse game, this may not be the most important reward.

What do your players seek as rewards for their PCs?

As for the other part of rewards, intelligent reward allocation, think of what the foes have accumulated for their needs. An orc bandit probably has most of his wealth in gear and stuff he can take from his robbery victims. If it's a medieval fantasy milieu with peasants and knights, the orc may have a bunch of foodstuffs, a few basic tools like a shovel, a quality sword and saddle taken from the knight and a few coins. Unless the orc has a need to carry coins, he's probably squirreled them away in his lair. After all, this is a society where few people have coins and most transactions in coins will be small transactions. The orc with 100 coins as he's just walking about in the wilderness seems pretty unusual--maybe he's going to buy something. Now some foes don't gather so intelligently--rats and birds like shiny things and things to make their nests so they'll have more random loot.

Finally, when distributing loot, be sure that you don't give away anything you don't want the players to use. While there are plenty of loot-destroying monsters in some games, most players view them as GM grudge monsters to counteract GM mistakes.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Jose

So the players completed the quest: The Orcs, Nazis, or Aliens are all dead or dying. The adventure is complete and the heroes return to their employer or whoever it is thats in charge. Eagerly they ask for their reward and they get... Well they get... Err... What actually?

In any game balancing reward vs challenge and risk is hard. I in this case find myself completely without any clue as to what makes a fair pay for work put in by the PCs. We might have just spent 3 sessions stealing something for someone, the PCs were fought their way out of a secret lab and all kinds of fun but risky things happened. My problem is now how do I measure out a reward for the PCs?

It might not be a GURPS specific question so pardon me if its in the wrong forum. I however find this to be one of the biggest conundrums as a GM that I'm currently tasked with.

The players' reward is the fun they had playing and any character points awarded.

What the characters get is something different and doesn't need to be balanced relative to the risks run. (This is less an excuse for overpaying the characters and more of a , "You want how much? Don't make me laugh. I could hire top two dozen in your field for that much and you barely made the Top 100. As a matter of fact that was only your leader who broke that barrier, so...") As mentioned by other posters, the Jobs Table is a good place to start. Risking life and limb in pursuit of their employer's goals is what police and soldiers do. So assume that, if that's also what the player characters do, they can command a similar wage. Essentially, a job in the struggling to comfortable range for monthly pay. They may be able to charge a little more or a little less but they shouldn't get much outside that band. All this assumes that they are regularly employed by whoever is in charge. If that isn't the case then things change, but not by much.

If they are hired for just the one mission, they get whatever the contracted pay was, which may include specified bonuses for unexpected dangers, extra items recovered, etc. The party leader may be able to wrangle bones for some members for some actions, outside the scope of the contract, but that's not a guaranteed thing. If they are responding to an offered reward, (e.g., $50 for anyone finding and returning my cat, Fluffy) they get the specified reward. If they are operating on speculation, (e.g., they retrieve Fluffy when no reward was offered) they get whatever they can hold the owner up for. Which means you will have to determine both what Fluffy is worth to his owner and whether he can actually pay that much. ("Fluffy is worth $10,000,000 to me," isn't going to get anywhere near that payment from a kid with four bits in the bank.)

As also mentioned, there is the possibility that instead of, or in addition to, any financial reward, there may be an opportunity to pick up a Favor, Contact, Ally or Patron.

[Donny Brook]

End-of-adventure goodies that I tend to go to include:

-Reputation (who did they work with, who did they help, who did they beat?)

-Perks! Often: Teamwork, Sure-footed, SOP.

-Loot! Custom gear, bars of silver etc. (Done this a few times in non-murder-hobo games. Players love it and usually bury it rather than spend it!), valuable information.

-Supporters: Contacts, Allies, Favors, Claims to Hospitality.

[dcarson]

It can even vary by PC. In a steampunk campaign the party rescued the survivors of a expedition looking for medicinal plants. The Status 0 PCs got cash, the Status 1 PCs got stock in the company (Independent Income) and the Navy officer got a presentation sword (Reputation +1).

[Gollum]

Another way to see the problem is to ask the question: what is the main reward for the characters in GURPS? In D&D, it is Experience Points (XP), which allow to improve your level, and Gold Pieces (GP), which allow to buy new and better equipment ... But in GURPS, what is it?

In GURPS, it is Character Points (CP), which allow to improve your character.

Are GURPS CP like D&D XP? Absolutely not. They can sound like D&D XP because, most often, they are spent to improve abilities or to buy new ones, which is roughly what a D&D level improvement gives. But they are very different, because in GURPS, almost everything has a CP value. Your Strength score, your ability to use a sword, but also your wealth and even your relations (Patrons, Allies, Contacts ...).

Of course, the GM can also give a different award that mere CP. And the rules (Basic Set, page 198) do precise that it is "in addition to any points for the session during which the plot was resolved!" But they do also explicitly say "perhaps equal to that for a successful play session".

So, in my humble opinion, this is a very good hint. Give the player all what you want after the adventure - that is, all what sounds logical for that specific adventure, as explained above by everyone. But don't give them more in CP value than the number of bonus point they earned.

That will actually depend on the length of the adventure. The rate is about 0 to 5 CP per game session. So, if the adventure is a short one, it will just be 0 to 5 points. But if it is a long one, it can be much more than that. Enough to let the character get one or two level of wealth (the famous D&D gold pieces), one level of status (becoming a knight), and so on.

And if it sounds to be too much, don't forget that the player characters can also acquire some logical disadvantages. An enemy for instance, like the brother (son or whoever else) of the main bad guy they just killed ... Disadvantages do balance advantages. So disadvantages gained during play can balance advantages gained during play.

[hal]

Story time...

Player: "I have wealth that grants me 2x normal pay for the job. I paid character points for the advantage."

GM: "Ok, what is your best skill at?"

Player: "Um, 12, professional level."

GM: "OK, not well trained, not expert, not beyond expert - just barely professional eh? The pay is as listed for garrison troops at struggling pay rate. If you don't have a reputation, nor the skills to pass the paymaster's strict requirements to get double pay, you don't get double pay."

The problem for some GM's is that they don't see their NPC's as real people (in the same sense of real as the player characters are real). As a GM, you need to change your perspective and ask "What if *I* really were the NPC leader who had to offer a pay inducement for the job?" If it were coming out of YOUR Pocket, how much can you AFFORD to pay right?

Now, what if you wanted to run a dungeon style adventure? If the rewards are VERY high, the question is - why hasn't anyone ELSE gotten the treasure out already? What if the legends include stories about "four expeditions went out in search of the lost tomb, none came back to speak of what happened. The last expedition was 200 strong."

I could tell you how to build a dungeon that kills over 50 people in a single event, and leaves the rest a quivering mess of terrified people saying "We're going to die!", but that would leave you with the notion that I'm a killer GM who goes through player characters like a candy addict eating M&M's.

This dungeon was different than any that I had ever built as a GM. A player had his character destroy an entire island of people using a volcano (keeping this story short ok?). The one lone survivor, a Mage, vowed to hunt him down, and make him pay. And, a few game sessions later, the player found his character meeting that NPC and allowed his guard down with his unknown mortal enemy. So this enemy, put his character to sleep, and built a 10 level dungeon. At level 10, was the prisoner. The goal? When the gods were ready to call all souls (both dead and living) together before the destruction of reality, anyone who didn't show up at the muster, would be lost forever when the new reality was built by the gods. The best revenge was to insure that he'd not ever be able to show up at the final muster (hence the prison).

The player whose character it was, wanted his OLD character back soooo badly, that he agreed to take a new character on a rescue mission. I even allowed him to have sufficient wealth to hire over 200 mercenaries and camp followers to aid him in his effort. Even had a Troll in the dungeon wearing a circlet that his old character used as a magic item, but instead of the magic his original character had, the magic was an illusionary disguise so that it looked like the character that was to be rescued.

Long story short? One encounter/trap, resulted in the death of over 100 people (involved a 300 step descent down a narrow and perfectly straight tunnel with steps at 1.5 feet in height. Party triggered the trap, and a huge block of granite slide down the stairs - crushing them (so the party couldn't climb back up) as well as crushing anything ON them. The resulting panic as the party ran down the stairs in a panic was - um, well, you can imagine.

If you put a LOT of wealth in a dungeon, make them work for it. If they were warned ahead of time, that they might see casualties of up to 50% or perhaps more, then the players really SHOULD consider NOT going. And yes, I have prepared adventures that the players have decided not to take, and I applaud them their choices!

So, advice as might be worth your while...

Keep the rewards at a level close to the income they'd earn if they were working if you really want to keep them hungry for more treasure.

Throw in an occasional hoard that keeps them in good spirits worth a year's income for how ever many characters in the party. But, have fun with this... make the treasure such that it isn't easily portable. Give them something that they think is worth FIVE years income, but make it goods that they have to sell. No merchant is going to pay full price for the goods, and will even go lower if they figure they can get away with it. Bolts of cloth, big pottery amphoras of alcohol (that's always a GOOD treasure item, hope they don't drink it!) and so on. Throw in some cursed items to keep them wary of their treasure.

Want to have some real fun? Have a set of doors that are 10 feet high, and are 8 feet wide per door (for a 16' wide portal). Have these HUGE bronze door knobs. The Door knobs are enchanted with HEX that will NOT work on anyone wearing a specific ring made with onyx, has the emblem of an eagle on it, and is made of silver. Either that, or said emblem worn as a pendant made of the same materials. Now, the moment they grip those door knobs, they can't let go (thanks to the HEX properties of the spell HEX in GURPS MAGIC). Most people will think they need two hands to grab and use full strength, which means two hands that can't come off the "human fly paper" door knobs.

In short? If they get a LOT of money, make it that they have to work for it. Build up the suspense, make them worry, scare them that they might lose their characters - if not outright put them in positions that if they choose to accept the danger, WILL potentially KILL their characters. Never make it a sure thing (what's the fun of that?). But never make it a cake walk either.

[weby]

It obviously depends on the campaign, but I tend to use one months pay as baseline reward for "normal" missions.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Jose

So the players completed the quest: The Orcs, Nazis, or Aliens are all dead or dying. The adventure is complete and the heroes return to their employer or whoever it is thats in charge. Eagerly they ask for their reward and they get... Well they get... Err... What actually?

Whatever they agreed to when they took the job?

If nobody hired you to go kill the Alien Orc Nazis, why should anybody pay you anything for it? If somebody did hire you, the pay rate should have been established when they did, and if it wasn't enough, you wouldn't have taken the job.

Generally a reasonable fee for an adventuring job is in the range of a few weeks to a few months pay. You have to pay for the time to find and travel to a new job too, and to recover afterward, not just the time spent doing it. It would be rare for anybody to be able to pull off more than one such job a month. Offer less than that you probably can't hire anyone competent. Much more though, and somebody much better (or a group much larger) than the players would be willing to bid on the contract.

If the job will take longer, or prevent you from getting another one for a while, you need to offer enough to cover that too - yes you only need the mercenaries for the campaign season, but they are not going to sign on for less than a year's wages, since the pay needs to carry them until somebody will hire them *next* campaign season.