Dungeon Fantasy Tips: Treasure

[b-dog]

Treasure is the objective of dungeon delvers. Here are some standard ways to handle treasure and then some variations are added to give some flavor.

Standard Fantasy: Characters see the treasure and begin to count it. On closer inspection it is noticed that all of the precious metals are merely cheap pieces of metal painted to look like they are real and all of the gems and jewelry is merely worthless glass.

Fantasy Variation: The treasure is magically diguised worthless metal and glass which will reveal its true nature once the treasure is taken out of the dungeon.

Standard Fantasy: There is a pile of treasure and once the delvers touch the treasure, it is magically teleported into an alternate dimension.

Fantasy Variation: Once the delvers touch the treasure, then the delvers are teleported to an alternate dimension, or the delvers are teleported to the entrance to the dungeon and the dungeon is restocked with its origional monsters, or once the delvers take the treasure out of the dungeon the treasure magically teleports to an alternate dimension.

Standard Fantasy: As delvers touch the treasure, they become cursed. This causes the party to use dispel magic or remove curse to make the treasure safe.

Fantasy Variation:Instead of having just one curse on the entire treasure, each and every coin, gem, jewel could have separate curses on them or even hundreds of curses upon each item.

Advanced Fantasy: 1.The gold pieces turn out not to be real gold pieces but are in fact mind warper eggs which hatch in three days and attack!

2.The gems and jewelry turn out to be demon lord amulets who attack once they are brought out of the dungeon.

3.During the time the delvers were in the dungeon, mages figured out ways to transform rock into precious metals, gems, and jewelry on an industrial scale. Now all the delvers' treasure is completely worthless.

[Xenophile]

Or you could just give the poor guys some treasure.

...Nah, that's just crazy.

[Harald387]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Every variation on that list.

Because nothing says 'fun game' like having the items that you worked for and the ostensible objective of the game taken away from you just as you get there. The occasional cursed, hard to use, or hard to access treasure is one thing, but if my GM pulled any of these tricks on me with any regularity, I'd stop playing in his game. If you are going to do this sort of thing, there should definitely be a reason behind it; some mystery to solve, some Macguffin they can use to make it better, or an evil wizard behind the whole thing (who just happens to have better loot, by the way) who can be defeated. And even then, overusing it would be bad.

Just doing these sorts of things randomly, or repeatedly, or worse as a standard makes for a game that isn't any fun at all.

[Blood Legend]

You are definitly stuck in a "DnD" DM-vs-Players mind set. Dungeon master makes a dungeon, builds traps and monsters, and somehow the players still make it to the end, but the Dungeon master still wants to win so "WOOSH" treasure is gone. Ha Ha jokes on you! So much for that hardwork!

That's not generally how we play Gurps. Its an experience of oppositions and rewards, besting the opposition, the other players, and sometimes ones' self. The players and GM should be a mutual and neutral party toward each other. That and after the first half dozen dungeons filled with cursed, worthless, or otherwise extremely troublesome treasure, the players aren't going to be so intrigued with playing.

If you want an antagonistic play style, run a survival or survival horror game. The players are then well aware that your job is to be an absolute bother to them and won't be so miffed.

Really, playing a game like that would just Suck.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Geez, guys, it's a Dungeon Fantasy thread. Antagonist GMing isn't totally forbidden there. Plus, he's suggesting options. Do we need to put a warning label or a followup post on every really nasty monster that says "Using this monster in an antagonistic fashion, or simply killing off PCs with it, is Not Fun and isn't what GURPS is about"?

3 followups so far and all of them stick b-dog for suggesting treasure nastiness. Heck, I've used some of them before. "The Treasure is cursed" was the plot of "Pirates of the Caribbean," too. I think b-dog is right in the spirit of it, especially in a decidedly beer-and-pretzels kill-and-take genre like DF.

One that I've used before is that the treasure isn't cursed, it's evil. Coins stamped with the faces of demon-gods and reliquaries of rare worksmanship containing the bigs of dead evil things, etc. The stuff is worth much more sold as-is to evil folks or those who collect such things. Do you secretly pound it out of recognition and/or melt it down and sell it for its metal content, or take the risk and deal with evil folks?
(Last time I used this, the PCs couldn't decide, then ended up getting discovered by the High Priest of the Good God carrying this stuff in an intolerant theocracy. Oops.)

The Gold is Poison is one, and it's suggestion in at least one GURPS worldbook. Gold that is radioactive for example, which comes up in Poul Anderson's "Three Hearts, Three Lions."

Another I've used a looooong time ago was tied to the dungeon, not the treasure. The closer you get to the surface with the treasure, the heavier it gets. So perhaps you can load up with millions deep down, but by the time you get to the surface each coin weighs several pounds each. Tie it in with a teleport-proof or teleport-difficult treasury and it'll really tax the PC's imagination about how to get it to the surface. If the PCs have ready access to gates and extra-dimensional storage and powerful enchantment-busters this isn't so challenging.

***

Remember folks, we're not talking here about deny all treasure at all times. But denying it sometimes, in a clever and nasty fashion, is a great way to keep a game interesting. Sometimes a huge hoard is just a huge hoard, but treasure that itself is a trap isn't any more Hurting Wrong Fun or bad GMing than treasure that is heavily trapped. It's just another way around the problem of "how do I make them work for this?"

[CrownedSun]

Originally Posted by Blood Legend

You are definitly stuck in a "DnD" DM-vs-Players mind set. Dungeon master makes a dungeon, builds traps and monsters, and somehow the players still make it to the end, but the Dungeon master still wants to win so "WOOSH" treasure is gone. Ha Ha jokes on you! So much for that hardwork!

That's not even how DnD is supposed to work, as evidenced by your use of quotes, honestly. It's just bad GMing, in this case far too adversarial. On that note, Cursed Treasures can be fun, but any kind of 'haha!' trick has to avoid being seen as trite or vindictive.

[ravenfish]

Once in a while, it can be fun. It just has to be used in moderation. I mean, if every time you find loot it vanishes, you won't keep adventuring for the money.

[Blood Legend]

Originally Posted by CrownedSun

That's not even how DnD is supposed to work, as evidenced by your use of quotes, honestly. It's just bad GMing, in this case far too adversarial. On that note, Cursed Treasures can be fun, but any kind of 'haha!' trick has to avoid being seen as trite or vindictive.

I didn't mean to say it was strictly DnD, you can very well do this in Gurps, as I've witnessed and have done myself.

I just meant that it was antagonistic with DnD flavor, (edit:) at least when done excessively.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Standard Fantasy: Characters see the treasure and begin to count it. On closer inspection it is noticed that all of the precious metals are merely cheap pieces of metal painted to look like they are real and all of the gems and jewelry is merely worthless glass.

Fantasy Variation: The treasure is magically diguised worthless metal and glass which will reveal its true nature once the treasure is taken out of the dungeon.

Or, recently in my game, a shiny treasure of gold and big gems has the players convinced it'll be nothing but plate and glass, but turns out to be quite valuable. The players were very relieved that they decided to take the stuff along 'just in case' (or in the case of one player, on the off chance that even if worthless they could con someone else into thinking it valuable).

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Or, recently in my game, a shiny treasure of gold and big gems has the players convinced it'll be nothing but plate and glass, but turns out to be quite valuable. The players were very relieved that they decided to take the stuff along 'just in case' (or in the case of one player, on the off chance that even if worthless they could con someone else into thinking it valuable).

That's actually a fun one - toss in some obviously valueless crud that turns out to be valuable. I've done a few of these:

- a scroll of paintings, obviously a good-but-valueless copy of an original. No value, except the artist who made the copy is/was (a now famous artist/the local lord in his youth/a famous rich person who'd like it back/etc.).
- low-value coins, which turn out to be coins from a far-off land and very valuable...if you happen to travel there.
- "rocks" that turn out to be rare monster eggs, in demand as domestic guardians once they hatch.

Treasure is a fun place to be both very nasty and very generous, sometimes at the same time. If treasure is only ever treasure, it's only ever valuable and safe, it's never really that interesting.