Loot: Is it a chore?

[sporkpimp]

I'll be honest with you guys: as a 4E DM, I'm finding the treasure pile unbearable. It was sorta fun as a player (moreso in 3.5 than 4E), but even then I generally found it to be a source of trouble as my less meticulous partymates failed to remember their gear in every situation that it could possibly be useful.*

But I notice that some of my players totally jump for loot and others don't.

And I just don't know -- what do you guys think?

For me, personally, the constantly-escalating loot race makes my head swim as DM -- it's one thing to keep track of my own items (WHICH WOULD BE A GREAT THING FOR PLAYERS TO DO), but it's another entirely to track four players' worth of items that are constantly getting swapped and/or wandering into the Rogue's Bag of Holding. And choosing items is frequently tedious, and finding opportunities to drop them into the campaign, and making sure everyone gets a fair bit of loot... and then seeing my occasional poor choices be promptly shoved into a bag to be sold without comment... gah. This is why I played Iron Heroes, man.

-A.

*Yeah, I'm that guy. I was a competitive Magic: the Gathering player, and it sometimes shows.

[MadMac]

Loot is one of those things that has become almost intrinsic to RPG's. Even in video games, I often find myself groaning at the thought of sifting through all the junk I've accumulated, again.

D&D is often worse, what with complicated magic item identification/appraisal rules, which usually amounted to me writing down a big list of stuff we found "sword, magic" "axe, normal" "5 gems, red" and then after identifying everything bickering with the other players to get all the magic items passed out and the gold added up and divided fairly.

4th edition helps, but yeah, I definitely yearn for an item light approach. Oh, and this:

but even then I generally found it to be a source of trouble as my less meticulous partymates failed to remember their gear in every situation that it could possibly be useful

Every 2nd/3rd edition character I ever had would eventually accumulate at least 20 potions/scrolls/odd knick-knacks that would be carefully written down on my character sheet and then never, ever used, unless it was healing.

[Kiero]

As player or GM, I have pretty much no interest in loot.

[Gnomick]

As a player, I hate playing Accountants&Actuaries at the end of every encounter. My perfect game would have less coinage, less health potions, and less useless items that need to be sold for gold or converted to residuum. However, I love getting big new magic items. I guess I only want to deal with items that are plot-relevant, are better in every way than what my PC already has, or are just really ficken cool.

As a DM, looking through catalogues of magic items can be fun. But making sure everybody has level-appropriate gear can be a bit of a chore. I guess I just need to be more organized. I should probably have a singe sheet of paper with all the parcel slots and what I've filled them with and who took the item. Instead, that information is scattered throughout the same notebook which I also use for encounter design, dungeon design, tracking HP/conditions in combat, and jotting down notes about NPCs and events.

D&D is often worse, what with complicated magic item identification/appraisal rules, which usually amounted to me writing down a big list of stuff we found "sword, magic" "axe, normal" "5 gems, red" and then after identifying everything bickering with the other players to get all the magic items passed out and the gold added up and divided fairly.

I am so glad those days are gone. In 3.5 we could spend 30 minutes to an hour just looting, accounting, selling, and buying. One player even left our group over this and swore off D&D. Loot-chore-bore wasn't her only gripe, but it was roughly half her gripes. Last I heard, she still plays other RPGs and LARPs.

P.S.; I voted "As a player, the loot gets to be too much" and "I have a different opinion, which I will state in the thread like a good soldier." My different opinion is regarding loot as a DM. It's not "too much" but I don't "love handing out loot" either. It's surprising that you don't have more moderate options on your poll.

[sporkpimp]

I don't feel that a 15 option poll would be particularly useful.

You could always vote Other or click both the positive and negative options.

[GhostMonkey]

I have a different opinion, which I will state in the thread like a good soldier.

When I'm a player, we rarely get loot. This is one of the reasons I often play a monk. At the moment, I'm playing a paragon tier Shaman, and I'm still using my first set of magical items, a +1 totem (that I had to build for myself), and a +1 leather armor. All of the stuff we find or buy is better spent on our melee strikers or defenders.

What I do like, is accumulating the mundane items that only seem to be included in the descriptions to give the illusion the world is real, and then re-purposing or re-gifting them at a later appropriate time. Like when you find a hairbrush, or a regular old musical instrument deep in the pit of some past adventure, and give it to the elven bard that just joined your party. Or when you might want some firewood, and you happen to be carrying two old clubs around, because you didn't have anything better to do with your carrying capacity. That kind of thing.

~GhostMonkey

[Tequila Sunrise]

And I just don't know -- what do you guys think?
As a player, finding loot is occasionally fun -- when my character can actually use it. Maybe my DMs have been inattentive/bad loot-givers, but that doesn't seem to happen very often: the last time I got loot, it was a wand for my orb wizard who had Implement Expertise: Orb. Great, a +1 bonus that I can't use with my orb power and one more lame spell that I can only use once per encounter, that's sooo not exciting. I don't like picking items as a starting PC of above 1st level; more often than not I end up forgetting to use item powers, yet I feel obligated to take something more than mundane magical junk.

As a DM, loot is yet another thing that the RAW obligates me to keep track of, lest my PCs fall behind the meticulous power curve that the game assumes. So I've eliminated enhancement bonuses from the game and give my PCs extra level-up bonuses instead.

[BASHMAN]

The GM I most often play with *never* tailors the loot for the players. So I get punished for playing a warlock, while the other PCs are constantly getting magic longswords, tomes, and orbs.

[jadarx]

The GM I most often play with *never* tailors the loot for the players. So I get punished for playing a warlock, while the other PCs are constantly getting magic longswords, tomes, and orbs.

I like the way our GM does it. When we find an item, it's a Lvl X Thing. Could be very general, like a Lvl 3 Item or a bit more specific, like a Lvl 7 Weapon. Now if you want the item right away, you have to take what the adventure said it was, like a Lvl 3 Spear of Stabbing. If you want to customize it for your class, you have to wait until the end of the session to pick.

[Springaldjack]

I think the Key to managing Loot in D&D 4 as a GM is really really to use those suggested request lists. By default give someone an item they want specifically. Then you only have to come up with something when you want to.

I like the way our GM does it. When we find an item, it's a Lvl X Thing. Could be very general, like a Lvl 3 Item or a bit more specific, like a Lvl 7 Weapon. Now if you want the item right away, you have to take what the adventure said it was, like a Lvl 3 Spear of Stabbing. If you want to customize it for your class, you have to wait until the end of the session to pick.

This is very interesting...I will have to think on it.

[Wields-Rulebook-Heavily]

I like the actual items, but I don't like tracking the gold/treasure/consumables that go with them. The items alone just about hit my sweet spot of detail, the rest I don't really like much.

[Eryops]

As player or GM, I have pretty much no interest in loot.
Seconded.

[Pete Whalley]

As a player, I couldn't care less about the loot. It's boring to me.

As GM, I don't mind including the nifty toys in my game. I'd much rather just include the really cool artifacts, high powered items of legend and vast hoards beyond avarice than a handful of level appropriate coins and +x items.

So that's what I tend to do.

[Alvin Frewer]

I love loot as a player. It's an extra bonus or power without needing to level up.

As a GM I hate trying to keep track of what everyone has.

I'm shifting over to just handing out the gold value to individuals and let the players buy their own loot.

[jimbojones1971]

I'm shifting over to just handing out the gold value to individuals and let the players buy their own loot.

Yeah, this is what I ended up doing in 3.5 - seemed to work rather well.

[jsb]

Seconded.And thirded.

Especially as a player, I find going through loot really tedious. 3.5 was worse than 4e, because of constantly having to deal with looting +1 longswords and so on at higher levels. Even in 4e, though, I'm not really motivated by loot unless it's somehow tied to the story. It's nice to get items that help my character, but I'd much rather just have a set of bonuses and powers that went up as I leveled.

[Eric E.]

Loot would be a lot easier with a consolidated list of all the magic items in one spot.

[mrlost]

Well, it often has been in every edition of D&D, that I have run, and even other games too. One of the changes that 4th brought to the table was the idea of a wish list. Unfortunately, I've had very little luck implementing this at the table as 4 out of 5 players seem to both dislike making wishlists (telling me to get them something cool) and dislike the items that I think are cool. The one player that actually updates his wishlist is pretty happy with the result.

As a player I always liked getting funky magical items, even ones that weren't widely useful...Apparatus of Kwalish for instance. I also liked accumulating dozens of magical trinkets and eventually finding some use for them all (even when it was background stuff like opening a curio shop of cursed items).

[Mengtzu]

Loot would be a lot easier with a consolidated list of all the magic items in one spot.

This is one of the reasons I'm extremely happy to pay money for D&D Insider.

[Five Eyes]

I ticked both of the DM options. As a player, I adore loot, but that's because I like to micromanage and I only have to worry about one person's worth of options.

Here's my thing: I want every bit of loot to be unique. I spend far more time on treasure parcels and the like than is strictly necessary, considering what format the wealth will be in and what sort of items make sense while also being desirable to the party.

Now, this has been an asset in some cases. I run games in a particular homebrew setting, and most of the players were quite comfortable with it - this meant that having "detailed" loot let them make in-character decisions.

One of the players (a former pirate) would take the gemstone loot for preference. It meshed well with one of his superstitions. In-setting, using gems as currency is usually restricted to certain countries or to criminal organizations - so anyone that looked at his coinpurse, or from whom he purchased goods, would think "This guy is either a foreign tradesman or some sort of criminal." Another (an agent of his prejudiced government) wouldn't accept the coinage of the "lesser" races. A third, as a member of one of those "lesser" races, would try and exchange the currency of his country for money that didn't belong to "the enemy."

But all of this added time and effort, and given the semi-vital nature of loot and magic items to character performance in recent editions, I occasionally felt like I couldn't opt out even if I wanted to.

[Matthew]

As a DM, I find that actually following the DMG's rules for handing out loot, whereby each player gets 4 items every 5 levels, and each item has to be of specific levels, a colossal pain in the ass.

But that's ok, because the players don't seem to give a shit about that anyway. I could give everyone two items a level or none and they don't seem to care.

As a player, I find magic items to be more hassle than they're worth. They're more stuff to keep track of, have their own unique rules regarding when they can be used, and aren't as useful as the OTHER stuff I have to keep track of.

When playing, and the GM awards magic, usually one or two players actively give a shit, and the rest often wait until two or three sessions after the magic's been awarded before they even look through the list.

I think I'd like to see 4.5 shift away from items that give you powers and toward items that just give static bonuses so the Character Creator factors them in, and you can forget about them. Then have a handful of items that actually do something really fucking cool, like...more cool than your everyday powers.

[Quasar]

I like loot both as a player as GM. The only painful issue is the different expectations between people at the table about reasonable amounts of loot. I like magic items to be rare and special, and so in the past this has upset some folks.

[OneEyedMan]

I've found that in any edition, loot can be a major problem if players don't ever spend it. By the time they hit the teens in levels, they can be loaded down with more money than the local kingdom, and it just kind of sits about, becoming a meaningless tally on someone's sheet somewhere.

However, if players are the type to spend the money, the problem rapidly dissolves. And not on magic items, but on things the character might do in the course of living in the world. Build a secret lair. Stock a magical library. Buy ancient statues and art. Amass a colection of Dwarvish Royal Seals. Raise an army. Bribe an army. Start a revolution. Build a wall to protect their home from invasion. Start a school.

A lot of the problem depends on the players. If they're hoarders, loot eventually becomes pointless. If they're spenders, they'll always find something new to blow their cash on, even if it's just booze and wenches.

Player expectations and style also affect the magical item issue of loot as well. Some players would be tickled to have a magical bathtub that can be shrunk to fit in their pocket and always has clean, hot water when enlarged. Others would find that stupid and silly, and only want things that are combat related. Others don't want to bother and would rather have straight bonuses instead.

As for me? I like loot, but I'm also a spender and I love enchanted knicknacks. I've had high level players who wound up flat broke for one reason or another, which is a great motivation for finding another ruin to pilfer. And I usually run games with players who are the same.

-J

[Peter LaCara]

I'm of two minds on the issue. On the one hand, I like having the loot out there because it forces me to think of creative ways of handing it out, which I find can often make for a good story. Like the time I had the entire level's worth of loot be tied up with a meeting with the Faceless Men, my version of doppelgangers who live in the Shadowfell.

On the other hand, keeping track of everyone's loot is, as Mathew said, a colossal pain in the ass. I'm trying to figure out a system that spurs on creativity like the current loot system, but isn't such a pain in the ass. Also, something that actually rewards player effort, instead of things like, "If the players take on a hireling, they'll demand payment, so make sure to give 20% more gold."

[Mock]

I strenuously dislike making sure the loot trains run on time.

This may be because this is the first game ever where I've GM'd long enough for character advancement to happen (my life is an endless trail of one- or two-shot games), so I'm unaccustomed to it.

Alternatively, it may be because I really don't like the bookkeeping.

Probably something in between. However, my players are not loot motivated, and the idea of planning loot drops is unpleasant to me, so I wing it like an electrified winging machine on Wingday. Sometimes I can work it in, but sometimes it's like, "Yesterday, you somehow found 7 magical items!"

[Acatalepsy]

I find it most fun when loot is made personal in some way. No just "oh, hey, a +2 longsword of X would be the perfect thing for this guy" but something that has significance to the character. One major example from a campaign I was in was a flamesword that required the wielder to be a nobleman. The dwarven paladin took it from an enemy knight (who did try to use it on him) and subsequently used it as a rallying point in battle. Another character had a blessed quarterstaff that belonged to his father, that lit enemies of his faith on fire when it touched them (yes, we were a happy bunch of pyromaniacs).

The point is, the players should (1) be able to clearly make the loot the recieve distinct in some way, and in some way significant to them, such as by having it mark the overcoming of a major enemy or challenge in a unique way (2) provide that character with some level of significant flair or flavor in battle (3) create or symbolize some sort of connection to the game world.

Also, loot can be a motivator for a story in more specific sense - quests to find magical McGuffins are a staple of the genre, but it could be a better idea to have the McGuffins mean something, and be usable, powerful weapons or devices in their own right. Sure, you might need to up the difficulty a little, but it adds another level of connection from the player (who likes loot and cool magical stuff) to the game world (where said cool magical stuff is necessary to defeat the BBG).

[Matthew]

I think WotC has made a serious mistake in dropping the ball on loot. It's a proven design model across many decades and many different categories of game. A big part of the Level Up mechanic is the quest for Loot. Lots of players motivate off that.

I think, I have a little intuition, that because they had SUCH a strong vision for how classes and powers would work, they put off working on the Magic Item rules because they blithely figured "oh, we'll just make them work like powers," and so felt it would be easy to design the items.

But then it becomes the 11th hour and it turns out maybe magic items should get a little more attention, but it's too late, so they punted. A la extended skill tests.

[Scarik]

If they're spenders, they'll always find something new to blow their cash on, even if it's just booze and wenches.
-J

I would love to see some good rules to encourage this.

[KoboldLord]

What I don't understand is how my players in a campaign a while back can, at the same time:

* Complain that they're not getting enough loot, and that they're too weak to handle the (level 5) challenges they're facing without more stuff.

* Not bother to write down the magic items they loot from their enemies or from treasure caches.

* Have an accumulated tally of tens of thousands of gold pieces in a large city in 3E and not used to to acquire desired items, in spite of ample downtime and NPCs falling over each other in their willingness to craft magic items for the PCs.

I never did find a way to solve this problem. I couldn't get them to actually use any of their treasure, even non-consumables, and they wouldn't show even the most trivial amount of initiative in getting whatever they DID want, but it certainly didn't stop them from kvetching about my stinginess.

[Gloombunny]

I think WotC has made a serious mistake in dropping the ball on loot. It's a proven design model across many decades and many different categories of game. A big part of the Level Up mechanic is the quest for Loot. Lots of players motivate off that.

I think, I have a little intuition, that because they had SUCH a strong vision for how classes and powers would work, they put off working on the Magic Item rules because they blithely figured "oh, we'll just make them work like powers," and so felt it would be easy to design the items.

But then it becomes the 11th hour and it turns out maybe magic items should get a little more attention, but it's too late, so they punted. A la extended skill tests.
I hated loot just as much in 3.5 as I do in 4th. And just as much in any other games that have it.

[Eric E.]

This is one of the reasons I'm extremely happy to pay money for D&D Insider.

Yeah, I just subscribed last weekend. The compendium is handy, but I have to run it in IE as the compendium seems to not like Firefox so much.

[Gnomick]

I never did find a way to solve this problem. I couldn't get them to actually use any of their treasure, even non-consumables, and they wouldn't show even the most trivial amount of initiative in getting whatever they DID want, but it certainly didn't stop them from kvetching about my stinginess.

Crazy. Are you sure they knew that buying magic items was an option? Did you tell them it was?

[Mengtzu]

Yeah, I just subscribed last weekend. The compendium is handy, but I have to run it in IE as the compendium seems to not like Firefox so much.

I use it in Firefox and Chrome, might be time for an update?

[Garris]

I want to be handing out less, and more impressive loot. At no point do I ever want to be giving someone a (fill in the blank) +2 item, because it's time to replace their (fill in the blank) +1 item. I don't mind handing out money (in its many forms) and potions, but so help me, that +2 item will never appear.

As a player, I prefer that I be awesome, rather than that my stuff be awesome.

[sporkpimp]

I use it in Firefox and Chrome, might be time for an update?
You know, my roommate uses it in Firefox, Chrome, and Opera without a hitch.

Whereas for me, it instantly kills any browser other than IE. Most recent versions, and on two seperate operating systems. (XP and 7RC)

I can only conclude that you and she were born under the same auspicious star, and will stand shoulder-to-shoulder defending us from rules disputes when Rulesnarok comes.

-A.

[Epoch]

Every once in a while -- like, I mean, once every couple of years -- I enjoy playing in a game in which detail-oriented meticulous lists of stuff are necessary and good, and I like keeping detail-oriented meticulous lists of stuff and having all of my detail-orientation be rewarded in play.

It's like I've got an inner accountant, usually caged, who sometimes gets free and runs wild.

Then that's done, and I'm back to not wanting to fuck around with that kind of stuff.

But I kind of suspect that 4e magic items are too well-designed for that, anyhow. The point of detail-oriented meticulous lists of stuff is that I can go through that list and say, "Ah, here is the solution to our current problem, in list B, line item 17!" Not that I want to throw away my sword and replace it with a similar sword in five levels.

[Outsider]

Mechanically I'm okay with loot. Thematically, not so much. I don't like the powerlevel of a character being affected so drastically by stuff that's external to the character. I'd prefer loot to be replaced with something that is mechanically similar but thematically more of an integral part of the character. Also, it would preferably be player chosen rather than DM chosen.

[Brazeku]

I loathe loot, I hate dealing with it in any form and from any side of the table. In any games I run I houserule it into named legacy-type items that are unique to each character, UNLESS a quest is specifically designed to get a particular item.

[Mytholder]

I loathe 4e's loot. Two of my players are very into the nuts-and-bolts of the system and know _exactly_ what they want, while the other two don't give a damn. So, I have half a wishlist. I then have to go off and look up the fiddly little powers of each item so I'm not flatfooted in the middle of the game, try to find comparative items for the other two players, and then scatter these treasure parcels in interesting places in the game. If I'm too clever, of course, the players miss parcels and then complain that they're falling behind the curve.

Fewer, better items are the way to go.

[Melan]

I love loot when it is hard-won and special. There is just that warm glowing feeling when you get that +3 chainmail after going through a shambling mound and 40 orcs. I mean, that's damn cool, because by the Gods, you fought for it and it is yours, yours, yours. :D Consequently, I don't like to be laden down by too much magical stuff - I'd enjoy a no-magic campaign (provided we didn't face more than the occasional weapon-resistant opponent), but too much magic quickly kills that special feeling. I think modern built-in assumptions about PC wealth can quickly induce a state of overindulgence - you have too much, and it will soon become obsolote in an ever-spinning treadmill of upgrading anyway.

I once read an idea where the DM treated every magic item on the DMG charts as unique - so if you got a +3 chainmail, you would own the +3 chainmail, and it would get crossed off the list. You could still find the +1 plate mail and the +2 leather armour, but you would be the only person in existence in that particular world with your +3 chainmail. Quirky, probably contrary to many game philosophies, but cool as hell.

[Imban]

It's about killing things and taking their stuff. Not taking their stuff makes me sad, and 4e makes me sad by not giving people enough stuff for me to take.

Seriously, one of my favorite things about the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games is that murdering a room full of dudes yields up an enormous amount of loot that I can sort through, and one of my least favorite things about Neverwinter Nights is fighting dudes who dual-wield flaming and lightning swords and yet drop 23 gp and no items.

[Juriel]

I find the arms race tiresome. As a player, I cannot get excited over finding new stuff because I know it'll get replaced by newer stuff in 3 levels. As a DM, it's an unnecessary hurdle, so I just houseruled items pretty much out of my game.

[Killfalcon]

I find the arms race tiresome. As a player, I cannot get excited over finding new stuff because I know it'll get replaced by newer stuff in 3 levels. As a DM, it's an unnecessary hurdle, so I just houseruled items pretty much out of my game.

I can see that.

In one game I'm in, 3 levels is ~25 encounters. In another it's only 9. People seem less enthused by loot in the short & brutal game.

In both games, gold seems to be an annoyance: totalling it up is tedious, and working out what to spend it on is annoying.

The problems we have: some items are Too Damn Good. A +3 weapon is not an upgrade on a +2 Bloodclaw or Jagged. There's not a daily item power written that's worth a static +2 damage all day long to a striker.
Gold isn't meant to be shared equally and spent separately. If you do that, people can't afford shit-all unless they save for several levels.

I'm seriously considering doing something different, like:

Halving the gold awards, and giving an equal-level item instead (so at level 1 you'd get items of levels 1-5 and 360 gold instead of levels 2-5 and 720 gold)

Replacing item treasures with Item Reagents that can be used to enchant a level X item, putting the choice in the players hands. Optionally they might specify what kind of item they can make (This adamant cube can be used to imbue heavy armour with power / these mystic herbs, mixed with a druid's own blood, can create a powerful totem / this collection of springs, gears and wigits are an artificer's wet dream / ETC).

[Bleach]

Um, this may sound stupid but isn't the DMG2 the solution for the problem?

Tells you how to enact the pluses across the levels AND gives you ideas/suggestions/rules for Boons.

[Dormammu]

I want an alternate wealth system similar to the one from the original Marvel Super Heroes, wherein PCs can make a check of some kind to buy something based on its cost vs their level. Then do away with tracking coinage entirely.

[Mammonite]

As a player, I'm not fond of loot. This is because I've never been in a campaign in which the DM gives the players worthwhile loot. I have seen magical cloth armor and the occasional +1 items (of a type no one uses) with no other properties, but not much else.

When the DM is frequently pitting us against higher level elite soldiers wearing magical armor (that the ranger only hits on a 19), loot is just another thing to be frustrated about.

As a DM, my players won't help with wishlists. Spending half of my prep time going through books trying to find something the players will actually like--but wont--is frustrating to say the least. Worse still is the players who put really stupid things on their wish list. I used to have a barbarian who spent far too much time looking at the cloth armor lists.

Edit:

I forgot to mention that I also don't think the game is as well balanced once you add all of the loot. Ranger damage isn't nearly as crazy compared to compared to everyone else until you add bracers of iron might and other untyped damage boosters. I just don't think multi-attacks were balanced for all the bonuses characters can easily get post adventurer's vault.

[Alvin Frewer]

Um, this may sound stupid but isn't the DMG2 the solution for the problem?

Tells you how to enact the pluses across the levels AND gives you ideas/suggestions/rules for Boons.

That sounds like a solution to using magic items at all. But not a solution to a way to avoid the headache of loot but not getting rid of magic items. I am just guessing based on your two sentences. I haven't seen the DMG2.

I want an alternate wealth system similar to the one from the original Marvel Super Heroes, wherein PCs can make a check of some kind to buy something based on its cost vs their level. Then do away with tracking coinage entirely.

I'm thinking of implementing that too. That's fairly easy. You can make it a skill or just institute it as a stand alone trait of some kind that doesn't gain the +1/2 level bonuses like other skills.

[OneEyedMan]

I would love to see some good rules to encourage this.

Maybe it'll be in a future DMG. The problem is, I don't know how you'd go about encouraging this, as spending money means, naturally, you have less of it afterwards. You can trumpet the roleplaying aspects of it all day long, but there still should be some possible in-game advantage to spending gold as opposed to sitting glumly on your mountain of coin.

Some games solve this by having players spend it on new and more poewrful magical items. Since I hate the idea of Ye Olde Magickk Shoppe with a passion, I've never wanted that to be the only reason for players to amass treasure.

-J

[Mock]

That sounds like a solution to using magic items at all. But not a solution to a way to avoid the headache of loot but not getting rid of magic items. I am just guessing based on your two sentences. I haven't seen the DMG2.


I just bought the DMG2 today, and the "alternate rewards" chapter is a little strange on first pass. They discuss "no magic items" campaigns (when to award bonuses to attack and damage, for instance), but in the same sidebar describe awarding magic items during one (Edit: I misread that - the sidebar does describe replacing all magic items; my bad). The alternate rewards thing strikes me as not really being about eliminating magic items, just replacing some of them with other more-or-less equivalent things. So, fewer magic items, but the same number of magic things, plugged into the parcel system. Of course, you can mix and match the various advice to tailor it down to what you want.

I also liked the fact that they acknowledge that the loot train is not necessarily well-represented in the literature.

[Quasar]

I want an alternate wealth system similar to the one from the original Marvel Super Heroes, wherein PCs can make a check of some kind to buy something based on its cost vs their level. Then do away with tracking coinage entirely.

Didn't d20 Modern have such a system?

[Illithid00]

I love loot, both as a player and DM. The more cool stuff I have, the better. As a DM, my players have all loved loot, so I try to make sure I've got at least one cool thing each member of the party can use in every adventure. No random loot rolling for me, most times.

[capnzapp]

I've found that in any edition, loot can be a major problem if players don't ever spend it. By the time they hit the teens in levels, they can be loaded down with more money than the local kingdom, and it just kind of sits about, becoming a meaningless tally on someone's sheet somewhere.
How is that a problem?

I mean, I can see having meaningless tallies on character sheets is a problem, but it would be a very minor one, especially if it's just the one number.

If your group doesn't spend their gold, they won't have as many low-level items (mainly consumables) to assist them. But it's not as if you absolutely need that stuff in 4E.

So what's the problem - other than the party losing out on the minor boons they could have purchased...?

[Quasar]

I've found that in any edition, loot can be a major problem if players don't ever spend it. By the time they hit the teens in levels, they can be loaded down with more money than the local kingdom, and it just kind of sits about, becoming a meaningless tally on someone's sheet somewhere.


Giving out less loot tends to solve that problem for me.

[Uqbarian]

I enjoy keeping track of what loot I've given and am going to give to the party. (I have a simple spreadsheet, but I don't find it particularly onerous to keep track.)

[Phantasm]

Didn't d20 Modern have such a system? yup. wealth bonus i think it was called. it went up when you get a level, or found an appropriate cache of stuff, and went down if you blew enough of it on something REALLY expensive. wasn't too fond of it at first but it kinda grew on me.

as for me, i dunno. sometimes im in it for the cool schwag, other times, not so much. though as a DM ive always told my players to give me wishlists of items they'd like to see their characters get in game, so seeing it in 4E is no big whoop. as a DM, loot is just another reward i can hand out to players. i try to keep it simple for them as much as i can (oh hey you found X amount of stuff in GP, its all in gems, art, gold, etc.), but it's up to them to track it. as a player, like i said, depending on what im playing, i could take it or leave it.

[Azulthar]

We rarely use "loot". Random monsters certainly don't drop useful items or gold by default. Important NPCs might.

[javelin98]

I played with a DM for a year (original AD&D) who had a great system. In his campaigns, magic was a rare and wonderful thing, and we might go through an entire module and only find a single magical weapon or wand, and even then the weapon would be a +1, at best a +2, and the wand would be for a spell only a couple levels out of our magic-user's current reach.

Then each and every item was scribed and drawn onto a 3x5" card, which the player kept with their character sheet. The cards became a tactile reminder of what you had in the way of special goodies. GP were handed out in small quantities and were never found in a random barrel or under a mushroom or anything you might expect from NWN or Super Mario Bros. I don't think any player had more than 200GP to his name at any one time.

And the campaign was a blast! It felt very liberating not to have 700 pounds of basic equipment, 39 magical weapons, adamantium power-armor, and a Hat of Winning to draw on. The players did more actual role-playing in that campaign.

[Crazy Jerome]

Every once in a while -- like, I mean, once every couple of years -- I enjoy playing in a game in which detail-oriented meticulous lists of stuff are necessary and good, and I like keeping detail-oriented meticulous lists of stuff and having all of my detail-orientation be rewarded in play.

It's like I've got an inner accountant, usually caged, who sometimes gets free and runs wild.

Then that's done, and I'm back to not wanting to fuck around with that kind of stuff.

But I kind of suspect that 4e magic items are too well-designed for that, anyhow. The point of detail-oriented meticulous lists of stuff is that I can go through that list and say, "Ah, here is the solution to our current problem, in list B, line item 17!" Not that I want to throw away my sword and replace it with a similar sword in five levels.

This is me to a T, with the addition that when I'm in a game where loot details matter, whether as a GM or player, I want it to matter through this side of "killer play".

That is, when I'm running a game and handing out loot like candy, you better believe that I'm watching for accumulation of loot. If it happens, I rachet up the difficulty of the game a bit, slowly, until the situation stabilzes. When I'm running in a more friendly mode, I'm correspondingly stingier on loot--spending my efforts on making the loot as interesting as possible rather than plentiful.

Fortunately, my group also appreciates both styles of play.

[Quasar]

I enjoy keeping track of what loot I've given and am going to give to the party. (I have a simple spreadsheet, but I don't find it particularly onerous to keep track.)

You keep track? I'd never even considered that.

[wraithform]

I generally found it to be a source of trouble as my less meticulous partymates failed to remember their gear in every situation that it could possibly be useful.

I find that in 4th edition, it's the Daily powers associated with swag that I dislike. I forget that I have them!

I prefer items that give a flat bonus that, once equipped, the Character Builder automatically calculates in for me. Even items that require certain conditions (me to be bloodied, opponent to be bloodied, shit like that) I just don't remember, especially after all the at-will, encounter and daily character powers.

I'm hoping the Char Builder's power cards will help me remember, but basically I have to come up with a cheat sheet just to recall all the shit I can do.

THAT gets overwhelming.

[wraithform]

As a player, I find magic items to be more hassle than they're worth. They're more stuff to keep track of, have their own unique rules regarding when they can be used, and aren't as useful as the OTHER stuff I have to keep track of.

I think I'd like to see 4.5 shift away from items that give you powers and toward items that just give static bonuses so the Character Creator factors them in, and you can forget about them. Then have a handful of items that actually do something really fucking cool, like...more cool than your everyday powers.

I was trying to say what he ^ said. :D

[Alvin Frewer]

I enjoy keeping track of what loot I've given and am going to give to the party. (I have a simple spreadsheet, but I don't find it particularly onerous to keep track.)

I made a spread sheet to track Treasure and XP rewards too. It wasn't until level 5 (and a two month break) that I realized I should have been keeping track of not just what I handed out, but who ended up with it!

[domino]

As a player, I have a bit of a fetish for keeping records. I take a plentitude of notes, with NPC names and descriptions, and I record all our equipment and treasure finds and take a perverse pleasure in deducting the 700 gold we spent on maintenance for our warship out of the 56,466 gold we have stored in the group fund.

I also secretly love the power that I gain by being the only one who actually knows how much money we have. When I need to spend some cash on something for myself, no one knows.

As a DM, I dislike being required to track what my players have and fulfilling the needs of the system. I used to enjoy handing out neat little magic items and cash, toys and rewards for a job well done, but the 4E requirements make it an unpleasant chore. I have put houserules in place to return to the method of treasure placement I enjoy.

[MoogleEmpMog]

As a player, the loot gets to be too much. 3e D&D was especially onerous for this, 4e consolidates somewhat but nowhere near enough for my tastes.

As a GM, handing out loot is a huge pain in the ass, especially when trying to shoehorn it in to situations it doesn't immediately appear to belong.

In general, I prefer systems where there is no loot and you pay character points/feats/perks/whatever for permanent equipment.

4e's magic item powers are sufficiently interesting that, as a player, I don't mind participating in the loot treadmill, but even then I'd rather dump the loot and move to flat/inherent bonuses. That's more of a genre thing than a gameplay thing, though.

[Matthew]

What I don't understand is how my players in a campaign a while back can, at the same time:

* Complain that they're not getting enough loot, and that they're too weak to handle the (level 5) challenges they're facing without more stuff.

* Not bother to write down the magic items they loot from their enemies or from treasure caches.

* Have an accumulated tally of tens of thousands of gold pieces in a large city in 3E and not used to to acquire desired items, in spite of ample downtime and NPCs falling over each other in their willingness to craft magic items for the PCs.

I never did find a way to solve this problem. I couldn't get them to actually use any of their treasure, even non-consumables, and they wouldn't show even the most trivial amount of initiative in getting whatever they DID want, but it certainly didn't stop them from kvetching about my stinginess.

Yeah I think this is a problem with the system, not your players.

If you're giving them loot, but they don't use it, but still complain, then you're giving them loot they don't give a shit about. Which is no surprise given 4E's loot.

If you're giving them cash, but they're not spending it, yet still bitching about items, it's because there's nothing they want to buy,

[benben]

As a DM I find it to be a very onerous chore and in my current campaign I wiped out magic and made the players play an all Martial (and Barbarian) campaign. I'm slowly returning magic to the system, for access to more classes but magic items will still be rare, rare, rare.

As a player I like two classes of items:

1) Things that modify my stats on a permanent always on feature so I only have to recalculate once. This is the standard magical armor and weapons. I do NOT like weapons that have a special power that activates on criticals, and I do not like having hidden daily powers in these items.

2) Things that allow me to find MacGuyver like solutions to problems. This is where I get very happy when a Deck of Illusion comes into my position or a folding boat, or best of all sovereign glue. The 3rd ed addition to immovable rods was also a delight.