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Old 08-17-2020, 03:41 PM   #21
WhiteLily
 
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Default Re: How Much Treasure?

In looking over "Magic Items 1" by Dungeon Fantasy, there are hardly any items presented which are not wildly over a $500 per character allotment.
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Old 08-17-2020, 05:32 PM   #22
Anthony
 
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Default Re: How Much Treasure?

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In looking over "Magic Items 1" by Dungeon Fantasy, there are hardly any items presented which are not wildly over a $500 per character allotment.
In general the nominal price for magic items should be ignored for purposes of treasure; if you need to give it a price at all, figure out what the PCs could sell it for.
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Old 08-17-2020, 09:32 PM   #23
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I hand out treasure in a manner similar to Peter del'Orto, I figure out how much the PCs should be getting (or what should be there) and multiply it by 3.

Because invariably the PCs will ignore a 1/3 and miss a 1/3.

Occasionally they get every single grubby piece of treasure and haul it all back for a big haul, and occasionally they'll lose it all over the cliff. And I'd rather soak them for excesses later due to incredulous hauls than have them starving over the scrapes of bad run.
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Old 09-04-2020, 06:48 AM   #24
LordMunchkin
 
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Default Re: How Much Treasure?

Why you should give big rewards in dungeons:

1. The danger is immense. Not only are the player characters risking life and limb, they also face the possibility of losing their immortal souls and succumbing to a fate worse than death. Why would they do that if there wasn't some sort of payoff?

2. The costs are high. Losing equipment is easy and some professions have very expensive equipment. If losing a suit of plate armor RUINS a knight, forcing them to retire, then you're being too stingy with your rewards.

3. The player characters are skilled and there are other jobs out there that are way more safe. If the player characters can't even recoup their costs, why would they continue? I mean, at the very least, they could sign up as bodyguards to some fat merchant...

4. You, as the GM, control the market. You set the prices and say what is available. Thus, how much treasure you give out is of secondary concern because they can't spend it without your permission.

5. Equipment isn't the only thing the player characters can purchase. Property, special privileges, vehicles, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination as a GM.

6. Finding lots of treasure is exciting. If the players go through three sessions of delving and only find a sack of potatoes, you'll be lynched as the GM. Just kidding, but you might find them lacking in motivation to continue playing that campaign. NB4 some person says "my players will play what I tell them to!" Okay buddy...

7. Realism shouldn't be a concern in this genre. Take that little voice in the back of your head that says "how does the economy of this world function if there are piles of gold buried every half mile" and gag it. If you want to focus on realistic delving, IMHO you should write a book. You'll find a larger audience than your tabletop gaming group.

So how much reward do I recommend? It depends on the difficulty of the dungeon and it's expected length. The Lost of Catacombs of the First Empire is going to have more treasure and likely be more difficult than goblin cave #892321. At minimum, I would give $20k per PC as a reward for any one dungeon.

Last edited by LordMunchkin; 09-04-2020 at 07:20 AM.
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Old 09-05-2020, 09:12 AM   #25
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Default Re: How Much Treasure?

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Originally Posted by WhiteLily View Post
People are more motivated towards random rewards.
This is certainly true. In a dungeon bashing game, occasional unpredictable big scores are more motivating than treasure based on CR.

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Let's say we want to give each adventurer $500 an adventure.
This seems kinda stingy though. Not that DF games where folks barely get by are hurting wrong fun, but the standard assumption of dungeon bashing games tends to lean more along the lines of getting rich.
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Old 09-30-2020, 01:17 PM   #26
WhiteLily
 
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Default Re: How Much Treasure?

After much thought and reflection on this topic, I put my conclusions together into a video on YouTube. In this video, I tackle the tough question that a lot of fantasy RPGs foster and don’t address; how does your party dispose of 24x +2 magic swords?

Magic items are the coveted treasure pieces of Dungeon and Dragons and games of similar ilk. Typically, the settings are clearly derivative of Lord of the Rings and feature small hamlets dotting a countryside where the year’s harvest seems to be the major concern of commerce. But what about the economy of magical items?

Like it or not, “Ye Old Magic Shoppe” have become a staple of dungeon fantasy gaming. The party assembles for a task, gores to a location and slays a bunch of bad guys, and comes back with their booty. The ultimate aim of this acquisition of fantasy wealth will be for the characters to gain more powerful gear to kill yet more powerful monsters.

Adventuring becomes an ascending power curve that both Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons have embraced. Character stats change dynamically over time both with the benefits of level, and with the new abilities the characters have gained from their more powerful gear. Online discussions center around “build optimization” and having the right magic gear is part and parcel to that.

This fosters an economy of exchange by which player characters can liquidate their unwanted magic items and trade them in for the items that they do want. This kind of magic item commodity exchange was certainly not part of the Lord of the Rings. If it were to exist, it would require an entire industry to evaluate the items, transport them, catalog them, advertise them to interested buyers, arrange for financing, and serve as a financial intermediary between the interested parties.

In other words, the magic item industry is a product of modern thinking about value, markets, and the easy of transportation of both commodities and wealth. An actual medieval society would have none of that. Even if we allow the wizards guild to come in and serve this function, said organization would be hard pressed to deal with the concentration of wealth that your average party attempts to liquidate after an adventure.

The entire scenario drowns out the fantasy of a simply medieval life. I liked the idea presented in XCrawl, that dungeon adventurers were modern sports figures who went through prepared dungeons for the excitement of studio audiences because that now answers all the obvious questions about where the wealth that the adventures recover came from and where it is going.

Unfortunately, no one else likes or seems to have heard of XCrawl. People want their Lord of the Rings setting. Albeit, with a “Ye Old Magic Shoppe” located in The Shire.

In this video, I make my suggestion as to how to better address the problem. I divide magic loot into three categories:
Hearing magic meant to keep the player characters in action
Mysterious magic items that could be powerful boons or secretly cursed that the PCs will need to explore in their own time
And magic items that mainly serve as a store of value for the PCs that they intend to liquidate at their earliest opportunity.

The first two categories of items will be used primarily by the party itself, and need not call into existence a related support structure and the economy that that suggests. Of course, the third does, but herein I have a solution in mind: What if the GM simply rewards the players directly for the value of magic items donated to causes or destroyed (if evil) in the name of justice?

For instance, you recover the Witchfire. It’s an evil artifact that spontaneously animates the dead and traps their souls. In a traditional game, you would try to get some monetary value from it in order to translate that to a magic item you actually wanted. Instead, I say, have a ceremony where you destroy the item in the name of your cause, and the cause rewards you directly with prestige which is expressed through experience/character points.

The direct reward of XP satisfies the characters needs for a payoff. Furthermore, advancing a level is often less game breaking and more easily understood that acquiring the latest magic item out of the sourcebook entitled, “Overpowerd magic items for your character volume 3.” It also invite more role playing opportunities.
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Old 09-30-2020, 02:40 PM   #27
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I like the idea that the Wizard’s Guild runs the magic items shop. Maybe the Wizard’s Guild uses magic items for their spell rituals and that is why there are not tons of them around. The treasure may run by the king and maybe there are teleportation nodes to move the bulk treasure into the kings vault. Te Old Magic Shoppe May be run by an independent person who deals with the Wizard’s Guild and King as a middle man.
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Old 09-30-2020, 04:18 PM   #28
WhiteLily
 
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Default Re: How Much Treasure?

I think the logical conclusion of asking these kinds of economic questions suggests a fantasy/ steampunk analog to our modern world.

That's hip and groovy, but it's not the world we see in Lord of the Rings.
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Old 09-30-2020, 09:28 PM   #29
Imbicatus
 
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Lord of the Rings is a good story, but middle earth sucks as dungeon fantasy setting. There is not nearly enough magic in the setting. There are no PC wizards or clerics, and magic items are so rare that there is no economy for them. Even a generic +1 short sword is priceless.

That works in the books, because there is a literal god level dmpc wizard there with the PCs for most of the story to provide plot protection from the things that would wipe out the party. The point of gaming is to let the PCs be the heroes, and you need more magic in the setting to allow healing and let them survive fighting a Balrog instead of running away while the DM saves them.

Adventure game settings have different needs than Middle Earth, and Faerun/Golarion/Oerth/Nordlond/Caverntown are not Middle Earth, and shouldn’t be Middle Earth. We’re not in the Shire, and making the game be the shire ignores most of the assumptions of the genre, despite the fact that LOTR was an inspiration for the genre.
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