Lyr_Levaine
05-15-2015, 09:47 PM
I think that one of the things that we discovered early on is that the loot tables provided by the official game sources were not really up to snuff when it comes to actually running a campaign. One size does not fit all in life, and even more so in the fantasy realms of our imaginations. Think about it: do we ever completely officiate as GMs with straight die rolls exclusively? There are always things that we do in order to take care of the most important aspect of the game, and that is propelling the story forward. The mere act of creating a story line and creating an adventure removes a certain aspect of the random from the equation, and to fall back upon the random is not always a good choice to resort to when telling a story.
In another thread on this topic, I read how a low level adventuring party was able to make off with a huge adamantine door, sell it, and throw their power level off balance by purchasing whatever they wanted as a result. Now, the rules as of second edition were sufficient, had the DM been properly versed in their craft, to prevent such an imbalance, even early on: There is a carrying capacity of towns and cities, the amount of trade in any singular item that a city can afford; the sale of a adamantine door of immense size should not have been possible, except in a super metropolis setting ... where ample extremely high level NPC thieves could step in to restore balance. The characters seeking their hearts desire is what makes the story; attaining it ends the story. A good Dm needs to maintain that tension!
One of the first things a good DM should learn is that the rules are not rules; they are more like guidelines. The DM decides what the rules are, period. This is because, in the PnP world of D&d, we are not dealing with some zero sum game of ones and zeros, we are dealing with real exercise of the human imagination, and that is a resource that cannot possibly be fettered, nor should it be. You need to seriously consider loot, and tailor it to your campaign. Do not rely on random dice rolls to determine what your players get.
One of the things that I put together early on was an alternate loot table. Just as it is unreasonable and impractical for a character to walk around with 10,000 copper pieces in their inventory, it is also impractical for a monster to do the same. Most portable loot of high value isn't coin, or even gems. It is something else. My alternate loot table focused heavily on items: gear, objects of art, and the like. For every degree on the scale of loot value that I found, I broke that up into categories: The gear that the monster had equipped and used, The things that they valued and kept close to them. The items that they used for trade ( which may or may not be coin) Then there is the personal wealth that they hide away and do not carry with them, which might be anything, really.
The guidelines in the DMG I took a step farther; if there was a piece of art, I would know everything there was to know about it, it's history, as well as it's base composition. When describing even the simplest of gemstones, the description would be nothing more than what the senses could reveal, never " you find a diamond worth 1000 gp". a great deal of treasure can be categorized as objects of art, truth be told. DO not be so quick to describe everything in it's monetary value: This cheapens your world, and makes it superficial. the previous owners attached sentiment to their possessions far more than their value according to the stones and metals which they are composed of.
I am going off subject for a moment here, please forgive me -There is a great deal of difference between the experience one needs to gain to get from level one to level two as compared to level five to level six. Level one to level two experience is much more valuable, though it seems to count for less - the relevance is this: a magical item can easily cost that much in experience points to produce. At some time someone had to pay that sacrifice. Do you suppose it meant nothing to the item's creator? No. In my game, there is not a +1 whatever that does not have history behind it, even if the players might not have the legend lore skill to realize what they have ... and the past has a funny way of creeping into the present, making for more interesting storylines. My players have learned to treat anything enchanted with the respect that such an item deserves: it is a portion of some powerful spell caster's life, frozen in time.
Some Dms like to put as much magic as they can into a game world, thinking that this makes the game world more exciting, or more exotic; It truly has the opposite effect. It make the magical mundane, and ordinary, and destroys one of the factors that make playing the game so attractive. Keep magic special, keep it something that should be respected. Now, when rolling for random loot (which I do for random encounters that I have planed for the party ahead of time, calling their "randomness" into question) I look for those things that have great value beyond the cost of their metals, woods, or stones.
Finding a mug that once belonged to the Stone hammer Clan of hill dwarves, even if the cup alone is only worth ten gold pieces, can open the doors to much greater adventure and rewards than ten gold pieces, if handled properly.
In another thread on this topic, I read how a low level adventuring party was able to make off with a huge adamantine door, sell it, and throw their power level off balance by purchasing whatever they wanted as a result. Now, the rules as of second edition were sufficient, had the DM been properly versed in their craft, to prevent such an imbalance, even early on: There is a carrying capacity of towns and cities, the amount of trade in any singular item that a city can afford; the sale of a adamantine door of immense size should not have been possible, except in a super metropolis setting ... where ample extremely high level NPC thieves could step in to restore balance. The characters seeking their hearts desire is what makes the story; attaining it ends the story. A good Dm needs to maintain that tension!
One of the first things a good DM should learn is that the rules are not rules; they are more like guidelines. The DM decides what the rules are, period. This is because, in the PnP world of D&d, we are not dealing with some zero sum game of ones and zeros, we are dealing with real exercise of the human imagination, and that is a resource that cannot possibly be fettered, nor should it be. You need to seriously consider loot, and tailor it to your campaign. Do not rely on random dice rolls to determine what your players get.
One of the things that I put together early on was an alternate loot table. Just as it is unreasonable and impractical for a character to walk around with 10,000 copper pieces in their inventory, it is also impractical for a monster to do the same. Most portable loot of high value isn't coin, or even gems. It is something else. My alternate loot table focused heavily on items: gear, objects of art, and the like. For every degree on the scale of loot value that I found, I broke that up into categories: The gear that the monster had equipped and used, The things that they valued and kept close to them. The items that they used for trade ( which may or may not be coin) Then there is the personal wealth that they hide away and do not carry with them, which might be anything, really.
The guidelines in the DMG I took a step farther; if there was a piece of art, I would know everything there was to know about it, it's history, as well as it's base composition. When describing even the simplest of gemstones, the description would be nothing more than what the senses could reveal, never " you find a diamond worth 1000 gp". a great deal of treasure can be categorized as objects of art, truth be told. DO not be so quick to describe everything in it's monetary value: This cheapens your world, and makes it superficial. the previous owners attached sentiment to their possessions far more than their value according to the stones and metals which they are composed of.
I am going off subject for a moment here, please forgive me -There is a great deal of difference between the experience one needs to gain to get from level one to level two as compared to level five to level six. Level one to level two experience is much more valuable, though it seems to count for less - the relevance is this: a magical item can easily cost that much in experience points to produce. At some time someone had to pay that sacrifice. Do you suppose it meant nothing to the item's creator? No. In my game, there is not a +1 whatever that does not have history behind it, even if the players might not have the legend lore skill to realize what they have ... and the past has a funny way of creeping into the present, making for more interesting storylines. My players have learned to treat anything enchanted with the respect that such an item deserves: it is a portion of some powerful spell caster's life, frozen in time.
Some Dms like to put as much magic as they can into a game world, thinking that this makes the game world more exciting, or more exotic; It truly has the opposite effect. It make the magical mundane, and ordinary, and destroys one of the factors that make playing the game so attractive. Keep magic special, keep it something that should be respected. Now, when rolling for random loot (which I do for random encounters that I have planed for the party ahead of time, calling their "randomness" into question) I look for those things that have great value beyond the cost of their metals, woods, or stones.
Finding a mug that once belonged to the Stone hammer Clan of hill dwarves, even if the cup alone is only worth ten gold pieces, can open the doors to much greater adventure and rewards than ten gold pieces, if handled properly.