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yougi
2012-07-14, 03:56 PM
Yesterday, I played a game of Dragons' Gold, a boardgame about splitting the loot after you kill a dragon, which made me think of the Haley method of splitting loot (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0129.html). And I wondered, has anyone ever had a good loot division story?

Here's mine:

We are running A2, a first edition module where we storm a fort in order to liberate some slaves and end the slave trade in there. The group consists of two dwarven fighters (twin brothers if you must know), a half-elf monk, an elven druid and me, a human magic-user (wizard). A thing I must say is that the previous quest ended in a near-TPK, with me as the only survivor. Now my character met the others', and we got together on this particular quest. When we get to the fort, we try to get in from the front, posing as slave buyers, and are shot at by archers. The monk decides to charge in, and because of some incredible rolls, is killed on the spot. I then go invisible, and in 1E, invisibility lasts until you attack, and so I decide to go loot the monk before I meet up with the others, and the DM gives me, on a secret piece of paper, a list of what I get. I then distribute his useful items (Druid got a nice humanbane quarterstaff, a dwarf a crossbow of speed and his twin a couple of potions, and I keep a ring of protection). I, however, keep the non-useful things in my Bag of Holding, without anybody else knowing.

After the quest, when we split the loot, there is some stuff we decide not to keep, and I go to my special contact, the town's wizard, to trade. I also offer him stuff from the monk, and manage to upgrade my own gear by doing so. I also get some stuff for the others. Now the funny thing is, I manage to convince them that I traded my old stuff for this equipment for them, and so I should get a larger part of the treasure for this. In the end, I got 75% of the treasure, with the other 3 sharing the remaining 25%.

Next quest, we raid the Slavers's mages' tower: we get almost exclusively stuff for me. At that point, I managed to convince my partners that instead of counting our fair shares, we should simply take what's best for the team and not worry about the rest.

I'm a jerk. :)

SowZ
2012-07-14, 05:13 PM
Star Wars Game, I'm a roguish dude. We kill three guys in Black Sun and then we take their keys to their apartment. They send me in to get the stuff and I find 3 data crystals worth 5k credits a piece, 10k credits, and about 5k in spice. I come out and say, "Guys, I know we thought they were loaded, but all they had was 6k and one data crystal worth about 3k. I'll take the crystal since I can sell it for the most and you two can each have 3k."

IC, they can't do anything about it. OOC, they are kinda pissed.

Totally Guy
2012-07-14, 05:33 PM
Back in February I ran a game for Castaras, Hamishspence, Qwaz and Grlump the Elder which started with the group finding the ultimate prize of the dungeon - the Sword!

Castaras played Ssisz, a rat man cultist who had guided the team through the maze and was questing to give the sword to the character's cult leader.
Hamish played Fidhean, an exiled elf. His father had made the sword and it may be the key to forgiveness for his crimes.
Grlump played Brechtanz the dwarf, he was driven by the honour of returning the blade to the dwarven halls where it once was used so proudly.
Robard was played by Qwaz, a human thief with hefty gambling debts. His investigations had revealed where the sword was in the first place.

I think the session lasted about an hour and a half. The situation played itself out and eventually Castaras emerged from the dungeon to present the visionary with the sword. The others, the were stuck, lost and scared in the dungeon for a very long time.

Slipperychicken
2012-07-16, 01:12 AM
My DM claimed this game was PvP political intrigue, multiple teams all working against each other. Me and a few other players are on one team, we know IC that everyone else is serving our master's enemies.

A fight happens, in which all the teams briefly happen to be fighting the same guy. My group does almost all the work and kills the bad guy NPC, while the rest just kind of cower in a corner with some nobles. So my initiative would is next after the bad guy falls.

DM: He turns to ash, in which you can see [pile of shiny loot]

Me: I scoop it into my bag. That should just be a full-round at worst. How much does it weigh?

DM: No you don't.

Me: Dude, this is PvP. You originally intended us to be killing eachother this session, and these people are my character's enemies anyway. I'm only splitting loot with my team. Not to mention we did all the work killing this guy while everyone else literally cowered in a corner; they weren't even feared, just goofing off and being *******.

DM: No. You split it evenly with everyone.

Me: What? That's retarded. I take it for my team.

DM: Since you're being greedy, you don't get a share.

Me: [Incoherent Rage]

The Bandicoot
2012-07-16, 01:35 AM
And that was entirely out of character? Man I wouldnt have lasted long enough to rage. I would've asked the DM half way through if my character had come under a mind-affecting spell. If he said no it would've been "then stop telling me what MY character is doing like he is"

NikitaDarkstar
2012-07-16, 02:07 AM
My DM claimed this game was PvP political intrigue, multiple teams all working against each other. Me and a few other players are on one team, we know IC that everyone else is serving our master's enemies.

A fight happens, in which all the teams briefly happen to be fighting the same guy. My group does almost all the work and kills the bad guy NPC, while the rest just kind of cower in a corner with some nobles. So my initiative would is next after the bad guy falls.

DM: He turns to ash, in which you can see [pile of shiny loot]

Me: I scoop it into my bag. That should just be a full-round at worst. How much does it weigh?

DM: No you don't.

Me: Dude, this is PvP. You originally intended us to be killing eachother this session, and these people are my character's enemies anyway. I'm only splitting loot with my team. Not to mention we did all the work killing this guy while everyone else literally cowered in a corner; they weren't even feared, just goofing off and being *******.

DM: No. You split it evenly with everyone.

Me: What? That's retarded. I take it for my team.

DM: Since you're being greedy, you don't get a share.

Me: [Incoherent Rage]

I would have walked. Not sure if I had done it before or after mauling the DM with a fistful of dice, but I would have walked.

yougi
2012-07-16, 11:40 AM
I would have walked. Not sure if I had done it before or after mauling the DM with a fistful of dice, but I would have walked.

Seconded. And I'll third myself. This is illogical, and even in a non-PVP campaign, would still be terrible.

Jay R
2012-07-16, 03:53 PM
Me: I scoop it into my bag. That should just be a full-round at worst. How much does it weigh?

DM: No you don't.

Me: Dude, this is PvP. You originally intended us to be killing each other this session, and these people are my character's enemies anyway. I'm only splitting loot with my team. Not to mention we did all the work killing this guy while everyone else literally cowered in a corner; they weren't even feared, just goofing off and being *******.

DM: No. You split it evenly with everyone.

Me: Oh. Here's your NPC's character sheet. (Hands sheet to DM.) I'll be building a player-character. When can I introduce him?

Talakeal
2012-07-16, 06:25 PM
While the DM may be a bit heavy handed, I have to resort to this sort of stuff all the time and can see where he is coming from.

Like one time I was playing a White Wolf game where a player came in with a 5 dot artifact and then died during the first session. You would not believe the bitching when I told the other PCs that they could not just take the artifact for themselves off his dead body.

Many people consider the WBL table an ironclad rule. If you freely let players steal from each other, loot fallen comrades, rob friends NPCS, and decide to go rogue and keep the McGuffin rather than returning it to the quest giver, how do you ever keep them close to their recommended WBL?

Now, I usually resolve these issues out of character rather than just dictating player actions, but if someone forced the issue I am not sure what I would do. Probably take away some of their wealth in character by having an NPC rob them or just not giving out treasure in the future, which would, I assume, lead to even more pissed off PCs.

Calinar
2012-07-16, 08:06 PM
The very first session of the campaign I was DMing, the party ambushed a small group of soldiers that were on their way to reinforce an army. After a long hard battle, the party is victorious and comes away with a cart carrying a months worth of supplies. While looting the under-captain's body our rogue finds a key, and while taking inventory of the cart she finds the chest that the key unlocks. Turns out that it was the payment chest and had all the soldiers' month worth of pay.

Needless to say she took every single copper piece for herself. When asked about the empty and unlocked chest she bluffs everyone and tells them "Oh, it was empty when I found it. And here's the key I found on the captains body, you'll need it to lock up the chest."
I found it quite funny that they let the "Chaotic Greedy", as shes been described, rogue be the first sort through the loot and managed sneak off with such a large sum of gold (they never will figure out just how much she stole). I do hope that they have learned to never let her near any large pile of loot before a record has been taken of what's in it.

Slipperychicken
2012-07-16, 08:24 PM
Like one time I was playing a White Wolf game where a player came in with a 5 dot artifact and then died during the first session. You would not believe the bitching when I told the other PCs that they could not just take the artifact for themselves off his dead body.


Reminds me of one 3.5 game, where the policy for absent players was for the DM to control them. I seriously wished everyone would show up to every game, because their characters would turn into massive, horrible DMPCs whenever they didn't. Also to note is that WBL is completely ignored, because of "realism" (we must have had ~30k gold between us at level 21, excepting some stupidly-valuable homebrew items like a Breastplate of Magic Immunity).

So one party member is killed, and he was carrying a whole crapload of shiny stuff, including a sword that was literally valuable enough to buy nations (which was also a Lich's Phylactery, and technically impossible by the rules, which led to its stupidly high price tag), and some healing-amulet which a dying healer had willed to him literally the day before (on his deathbed) because he "did not want its powers to go to waste" when he died.


So what does the the "Were-DMPC" (Turns into a DMPC whenever his player doesn't show up) suggest force us to do? Bury him, with all his stuff, and use the Epic Lich's phylactery as a grave-marker. In short, he was dumping hundreds of thousands of gold into the ****ing dirt, for no reason other than the DM not wanting us to have it. My character explained all this to him, and he wasn't having it; DMPC bodily forced my PC away (I didn't want to force a fight, for so many different reasons), claiming he "should show some respect for the dead" (resurrection is impossible, and most people in the world are Atheists anyway). I pointed out, tongue-in-cheek, that he hasn't "respected the dead" in months. So he stood guard over this hole for two continuous in-game days, and every attempt to retrieve it with magic failed horribly.


So the DM wasted a kingdom's worth of wealth, and the dead PC's player re-rolled a new character one level lower and completely broke, without a say in the matter.

SowZ
2012-07-16, 08:29 PM
While the DM may be a bit heavy handed, I have to resort to this sort of stuff all the time and can see where he is coming from.

Like one time I was playing a White Wolf game where a player came in with a 5 dot artifact and then died during the first session. You would not believe the bitching when I told the other PCs that they could not just take the artifact for themselves off his dead body.

Many people consider the WBL table an ironclad rule. If you freely let players steal from each other, loot fallen comrades, rob friends NPCS, and decide to go rogue and keep the McGuffin rather than returning it to the quest giver, how do you ever keep them close to their recommended WBL?

Now, I usually resolve these issues out of character rather than just dictating player actions, but if someone forced the issue I am not sure what I would do. Probably take away some of their wealth in character by having an NPC rob them or just not giving out treasure in the future, which would, I assume, lead to even more pissed off PCs.

Well, how did you explain it? Some sort of magic so they couldn't wield it or would you just say no? If the latter, I don't know how I could have been able to get into the story.

Talakeal
2012-07-16, 08:53 PM
Well, how did you explain it? Some sort of magic so they couldn't wield it or would you just say no? If the latter, I don't know how I could have been able to get into the story.

I said out of character "No. You are not going to rob him. You are going to do the decent thing, bury the body, and give his posessions to his next of kin."

I am not really what it has to do with getting into the "story" one way or another. Thinking you have free reign to steal someone's heirlooms just because they travelled with you for a few days is not realistic in any way. Petty criminals and con men might try it, but that wasn't the type of campaign we were running, and I didn't want to derail the campaign with a long plot about the deceased's family hiring bounty hunters to beat up the PCs and take it back because that would only be wasting a lot of time and effort with a plotline that could have no good consequences.

SowZ
2012-07-16, 09:04 PM
I said out of character "No. You are not going to rob him. You are going to do the decent thing, bury the body, and give his posessions to his next of kin."

I am not really what it has to do with getting into the "story" one way or another. Thinking you have free reign to steal someone's heirlooms just because they travelled with you for a few days is not realistic in any way. Petty criminals and con men might try it, but that wasn't the type of campaign we were running, and I didn't want to derail the campaign with a long plot about the deceased's family hiring bounty hunters to beat up the PCs and take it back because that would only be wasting a lot of time and effort with a plotline that could have no good consequences.

I mean, I get taken out of a story if my character can't do what they would actually do or the GM tells me how they act. I mean, if a character knows that the artifact is completely priceless, I can see a lot of people deciding to keep the artifact especially if they are involved in life threatening stuff they could use the artifact to aid in.

I am just saying I understand why your players were upset, I probably would have, too. Not from not getting the artifact. I mean, if it had blown up when the character was killed I wouldn't have minded. Just having control wrested from me.

Talakeal
2012-07-16, 09:12 PM
I mean, I get taken out of a story if my character can't do what they would actually do or the GM tells me how they act. I mean, if a character knows that the artifact is completely priceless, I can see a lot of people deciding to keep the artifact especially if they are involved in life threatening stuff they could use the artifact to aid in.

I am just saying I understand why your players were upset, I probably would have, too. Not from not getting the artifact. I mean, if it had blown up when the character was killed I wouldn't have minded. Just having control wrested from me.

If you can figure out a better alternative my hat is off to you. I can't let them keep it as it greatly throws off game balance, and any in character justification for taking it away is going to make them even more mad and waste time.

To use an example, say, a player wanted to play a serial rapist or child murderer. It is "his character" and he has the right to do it, but it makes the rest of the group very uncomfortable. In my mind the best response is to ask him not to OOC before he gets started.

SowZ
2012-07-16, 09:22 PM
If you can figure out a better alternative my hat is off to you. I can't let them keep it as it greatly throws off game balance, and any in character justification for taking it away is going to make them even more mad and waste time.

To use an example, say, a player wanted to play a serial rapist or child murderer. It is "his character" and he has the right to do it, but it makes the rest of the group very uncomfortable. In my mind the best response is to ask him not to OOC before he gets started.

Oh, sure, no I totally understand it especially from the position of a GM. Sometimes the best solution is to just ask the players to not do something. I am just saying I probably would have been frustrated as your players were, as well.

Deepbluediver
2012-07-16, 09:29 PM
For the longest campaign I ever played in, I was a lawful-good monk in a party with a TN Wizard, and one character from every level of the chaotic alignment spectrum. Ok, the rogue wasn't down and out horrible, but he was more lilke chaotic-how-do-you-define-evil, essentially trying to get away with as much as he could.

Since we where low level in a relatively low-op setting, I could pretty much get by with the clothes on my back and any kind of solid stick. I didn't know about VoP at the time, but since I didn't need much money, my character was constantly trying to give away large portions of any loot we acquired to various hospitals, temples, or orphanages, which drove the other players absolutely nuts. And on at least one occasion, I "forgot" to mention that there had been a reward promised for certain services rendered. It got so bad that at one point we where in a relatively major city, and the DM described the entire place as a nest of thieves and cut-throats, specifically so I wouldn't be able to find any worthy causes to give away our treasure.

Rather than try to force any view on the other players though, I would act like it genuinely hadn't occured to me that we should keep anything more than the basic minimum for ourselves, and I would adopt a "I'm very dispointed in you" tone.
Since we there supposed to be the heroes of the story, once I pointed out the "right" thing to do, most of them found it very hard to argue for any other action. I like to think that I was a pioneer in the field of finding new and novel ways to use the LG alignment to annoy the rest of the party. :smallbiggrin:


When we eventually moved on to the next game, and I announced I was playing a grizzled old fighter, who was constantly angry at the world for not giving him his due, and I was only in it for the gold, I actually got cheers.

NikitaDarkstar
2012-07-16, 11:34 PM
The very first session of the campaign I was DMing, the party ambushed a small group of soldiers that were on their way to reinforce an army. After a long hard battle, the party is victorious and comes away with a cart carrying a months worth of supplies. While looting the under-captain's body our rogue finds a key, and while taking inventory of the cart she finds the chest that the key unlocks. Turns out that it was the payment chest and had all the soldiers' month worth of pay.

Needless to say she took every single copper piece for herself. When asked about the empty and unlocked chest she bluffs everyone and tells them "Oh, it was empty when I found it. And here's the key I found on the captains body, you'll need it to lock up the chest."
I found it quite funny that they let the "Chaotic Greedy", as shes been described, rogue be the first sort through the loot and managed sneak off with such a large sum of gold (they never will figure out just how much she stole). I do hope that they have learned to never let her near any large pile of loot before a record has been taken of what's in it.

Unless that character had a bag of holding I would have loved to see the explanation on how she hid away an entire chest full of coins in an unseen and unheard manner. And yes I know it's details that's normally ignored, but it's also things I'd totally allow players to roll for when things like this happens.


And DM's in general: Please, if you can't tolerate the players having <shiny> for <reason> either find an IC explanation for why (it broke, it's magically keyed to only work for one person, it has to be given, thieves can't use it etc.), and if you can't do that don't put it in your game. It's the same basic concept of don't introduce the BBEG if you're not ready to have him killed yet.

Seatbelt
2012-07-17, 01:03 AM
In two different games with my home group I started off as "party treasurer" keeping track of how much gold we had earned and what loot we had received from killin dudes. When it came time to shop I'd divide it amongst the party.

Then at some point they would decide "Jim is bad at math" (admittedly I don't do mental math well, which is why I did all of it with a notepad and pencil...) and give it to Herbert. Who would then systematically rob the party. Then the other players would get mad at him and lament that there was nothing we could do about it IC.

Frustrating.

Jay R
2012-07-17, 09:45 AM
My experience has been that grabbing more than my share is much easier than grabbing all of it. Once, my thief (Original D&D) had just opened the chest.

DM: You find 5,000 gold pieces and 50 pieces of jewelry.

Other player: What did he say?

Me: Hey, guys, we found 5,000 gold pieces and 40 pieces of jewelry.

DM: (says nothing. Rolls die. Makes notes.)

After the game, he told me the value of the 10 pieces of jewelry I had hidden away.

Friv
2012-07-17, 11:12 AM
If you can figure out a better alternative my hat is off to you. I can't let them keep it as it greatly throws off game balance, and any in character justification for taking it away is going to make them even more mad and waste time.

If it's a White Wolf game, I say, "Okay, you now have that artifact. Spend the experience on the background. If you don't want to, that's fine, but remember that artifacts you don't spend experience on are artifacts that aren't important to your character concept and thus do not have story protection'.

As a rule for Backgrounds in general, it's worked out staggeringly well for me.

If it's a game with WBL, I just make sure that the next adventure doesn't have much wealth in it so that things balance out again. It's a good chance to throw the characters against crazy magical weather or insane animals or other challenges that don't carry much stuff on them.

Calinar
2012-07-17, 12:36 PM
They did get rolls, both for the spot and bluff, they just failed (the highest spot in the party besides the rogue has a 2, sense motives aren't much better). I generally don't worry too much about how or where they store the money, they have other things to keep track of, like food and provisions.

Tyndmyr
2012-07-17, 01:06 PM
I said out of character "No. You are not going to rob him. You are going to do the decent thing, bury the body, and give his posessions to his next of kin."

I am not really what it has to do with getting into the "story" one way or another. Thinking you have free reign to steal someone's heirlooms just because they travelled with you for a few days is not realistic in any way. Petty criminals and con men might try it, but that wasn't the type of campaign we were running, and I didn't want to derail the campaign with a long plot about the deceased's family hiring bounty hunters to beat up the PCs and take it back because that would only be wasting a lot of time and effort with a plotline that could have no good consequences.

Dude, it's roleplaying. People gleefully loot people's heirlooms just because they can. Or because they just stabbed them to death. Leaving priceless artifacts in the wild just because they "don't belong to you" is ridiculous. Bringing them back to next of kin would be roughly as noble as you can hope for. Leaving them in the wild...not normally a thing.

Long story short, if something absolutely cannot ever be in the possession of players...don't put it into the game. "this would entirely throw off game balance"? Well, perhaps you should consider that before you make it part of the world PCs interact with. Balance is a two way street.

I'd have been upset at that outcome too.

BRC
2012-07-17, 01:20 PM
I said out of character "No. You are not going to rob him. You are going to do the decent thing, bury the body, and give his posessions to his next of kin."

I am not really what it has to do with getting into the "story" one way or another. Thinking you have free reign to steal someone's heirlooms just because they travelled with you for a few days is not realistic in any way. Petty criminals and con men might try it, but that wasn't the type of campaign we were running, and I didn't want to derail the campaign with a long plot about the deceased's family hiring bounty hunters to beat up the PCs and take it back because that would only be wasting a lot of time and effort with a plotline that could have no good consequences.
If you feel that strongly that looting in this way wasn't a good action, you can change their alignments (Alignment reflects Action, not the other way around) to reflect that, have them haunted by ghosts, have the characters gain a reputation for being dishonorable and greedy, or have them lose all that loot through some contrivance.

However, you should NEVER tell the players what their characters would do. You could say "Are you sure your character would do that?", but putting your foot down like that out-of-character is a different matter. It's not about if the PC's had any right to the heirlooms, remember, your average adventuring party makes it's living by killing things, often sentient beings, and taking whatever they can find on the corpses. It just so happens that many of these thing are "Evil".

Now, with the example you gave of the artifact. I'm not super-familiar with White Wolf, but it sounds like he bought that artifact as part of his character creation, and therefore it's effectiveness should have died with the character. Had you denied the party it's use until they spend the points for it, that would be one thing. However, by outright saying "You return it to the family", you've taken control of their characters, which is crossing a serious line. If it's an heirloom, say "Only a trueborn heir of this family can use it", or say it vanishes mysteriously, or that anybody else who picks it up starts signing showtunes at the top of their lungs. You can make it a terrible idea to do anything but give it back, but the players should be the ones who make the actual decision.


You can lead a party to a dragon, but you can't make them kill it.

Kaww
2012-07-17, 01:33 PM
Many people consider the WBL table an ironclad rule. If you freely let players steal from each other, loot fallen comrades, rob friends NPCS, and decide to go rogue and keep the McGuffin rather than returning it to the quest giver, how do you ever keep them close to their recommended WBL?


Dear Sir, WBL is ironclad if you are not flexible. In D&D equipment may be stolen, sundered, disintegrated, disenchanted...

I have played in games in which we had millions of platinum pieces and no way to spend them. Nobody needs money in a city wracked by famine, dungeon, zombie apocalypse, desert... You know, the kind of situations PCs usually are.

As for people robbing the body of a fallen comrade this is a fundamental thing in just about any FRP. Also in reality in wars, plain crashes and other situations when staying alive is difficult.

Robbing a friendly NPC=unfriendly NPC that's out for revenge. And if you are not prepared for the PCs to go rogue and steal the McGuffin or start working for their "invincible enemy" you have no place GMing a game.

@Slipperychicken: You should walk when something like that happens.

I apologize to the rest of the playground for the rant.

Talakeal
2012-07-17, 05:02 PM
Dude, it's roleplaying. People gleefully loot people's heirlooms just because they can. Or because they just stabbed them to death. Leaving priceless artifacts in the wild just because they "don't belong to you" is ridiculous. Bringing them back to next of kin would be roughly as noble as you can hope for. Leaving them in the wild...not normally a thing.

Long story short, if something absolutely cannot ever be in the possession of players...don't put it into the game. "this would entirely throw off game balance"? Well, perhaps you should consider that before you make it part of the world PCs interact with. Balance is a two way street.

I'd have been upset at that outcome too.

Again I did not put it in the game. Another player talked me into letting him have it because he paid for it with his character creation resources. Then when the character who paid a major price for it died the other players wanted to be able to loot it and have it absolutely free. They could have paid the points to take the artifact on their own, but they didn't want to because it wasn't tailored for their characters, they literally wanted it for FREE because of the OOC actions of another player.

The rules say that I have to find an IC excuse to give the PC an item if the player makes the OOC decision to spend the points. Why should I let players who did

So, let's say the other player hadn't died. Would you say it is reasonable for the players to murder him and take the gun? How about if instead of murdering him they sold him into slavery or raped him? What if they did this to every new player who joined the group? Don't you think that would cause kind of an OOC problem? I really don't think telling them to knock it off OOC would be unreasonable.

If your players are actually going to be CE murder hobos there are very few stories you can tell. If they attack everyone who has nice things they are going to die and die hard quickly, because people with powerful magic items are stronger than starting PCs, and even if the PCs manage to win then they will face powerful friends.

Imagine if you were trying to run a game based on LoTR and Frodo's player decided right off the bat to keep the ring and become the new dark lord of Middle Earth. Not only can you not use any of your existing ideas for the campaign, but he and his little hobbit friends are going to die horrible deaths as every force in the world, good and evil alike, come to smite their level 1 asses unless you put up some sort of contrived plot shield (and I am not sure how different putting in a contrived plot shield to protect stupid PCs is any different than coming up with contrived reasons to stop stupid PCs).

BRC
2012-07-17, 06:24 PM
Again I did not put it in the game. Another player talked me into letting him have it because he paid for it with his character creation resources. Then when the character who paid a major price for it died the other players wanted to be able to loot it and have it absolutely free. They could have paid the points to take the artifact on their own, but they didn't want to because it wasn't tailored for their characters, they literally wanted it for FREE because of the OOC actions of another player.

The rules say that I have to find an IC excuse to give the PC an item if the player makes the OOC decision to spend the points. Why should I let players who did

So, let's say the other player hadn't died. Would you say it is reasonable for the players to murder him and take the gun? How about if instead of murdering him they sold him into slavery or raped him? What if they did this to every new player who joined the group? Don't you think that would cause kind of an OOC problem? I really don't think telling them to knock it off OOC would be unreasonable.

If your players are actually going to be CE murder hobos there are very few stories you can tell. If they attack everyone who has nice things they are going to die and die hard quickly, because people with powerful magic items are stronger than starting PCs, and even if the PCs manage to win then they will face powerful friends.

Imagine if you were trying to run a game based on LoTR and Frodo's player decided right off the bat to keep the ring and become the new dark lord of Middle Earth. Not only can you not use any of your existing ideas for the campaign, but he and his little hobbit friends are going to die horrible deaths as every force in the world, good and evil alike, come to smite their level 1 asses unless you put up some sort of contrived plot shield (and I am not sure how different putting in a contrived plot shield to protect stupid PCs is any different than coming up with contrived reasons to stop stupid PCs).
The issue isn't that you deprived them the use of the item. I would argue that you could be seen as required to do just that.

The issue is HOW you deprived them of the item, specifically by taking control of their characters.

Talakeal
2012-07-17, 06:56 PM
The issue isn't that you deprived them the use of the item. I would argue that you could be seen as required to do just that.

The issue is HOW you deprived them of the item, specifically by taking control of their characters.

Well, obviously it depends on the specific situation. I personally find it much easier for everyone involved if you just talk about what is acceptable behavior with the players up front rather than wasting everyone's time and energy coming up with increasingly contrived methods to control the players in character, which they will fight every step of the way but can't actually win.

For example, if you have an adventure about slaying a red dragon I think it is easier to just tell the players "Tonight’s game is about slaying a dragon" than to put them in a situation where there is a dragon to the north, impassable mountains to the south, impassible forest to the west, and an ocean to the east, and then spending three hours coming up with reasons to shoot down the players plans to cross ocean, forest, or mountains.

To share a story, one time I was playing the party Rogue. The party fighter would constantly verbally abuse me for being a coward every time I hid or went for a backstab rather than a straight attack. This had been going on for several weeks and was pissing me off both in and out of character. My character also had a phobia of water as part of my background.

One night we came to a river and the fighter wanted to swim. I refused and wanted to look for a boat. The fighter simply picked me up with his 18/00 strength and threw me in the river, where I was attacked by water monsters and almost killed. That night after we made camp I volunteered for watch and then, using my rogue powers, killed the fighter in his sleep.

The DM responded by having a level 20 wizard / cleric teleport in, teleport me to jail, and true res the fighter. End result, my actions didn't matter and everyone was pissed off at everyone both in and out of character.

This was a situation that was handled totally IC by every party, and yet it ended with the party breaking up and everyone mad at everyone else both in and out of character. Don't you think this situation would have worked out better for everyone involved if someone had just broken the fourth wall and had an OOC conversation about acceptable player behavior?

I also had another game where the party rogue regularly stole from his part members. If someone doesn't act OOC, barring very careful, subtle, and unrealistic intervention on the DM's part, you are going to have a party where the rogue is grossly over WBL, the rest of the part grossly under WBL, and when the party eventually finds out they are going to kill (or at the very least kick out) the rogue from the party and make everyone mad.

Shadow Viper
2012-07-17, 11:47 PM
Reminds me of one 3.5 game, where the policy for absent players was for the DM to control them. I seriously wished everyone would show up to every game, because their characters would turn into massive, horrible DMPCs whenever they didn't. Also to note is that WBL is completely ignored, because of "realism" (we must have had ~30k gold between us at level 21, excepting some stupidly-valuable homebrew items like a Breastplate of Magic Immunity).

So one party member is killed, and he was carrying a whole crapload of shiny stuff, including a sword that was literally valuable enough to buy nations (which was also a Lich's Phylactery, and technically impossible by the rules, which led to its stupidly high price tag), and some healing-amulet which a dying healer had willed to him literally the day before (on his deathbed) because he "did not want its powers to go to waste" when he died.


So what does the the "Were-DMPC" (Turns into a DMPC whenever his player doesn't show up) suggest force us to do? Bury him, with all his stuff, and use the Epic Lich's phylactery as a grave-marker. In short, he was dumping hundreds of thousands of gold into the ****ing dirt, for no reason other than the DM not wanting us to have it. My character explained all this to him, and he wasn't having it; DMPC bodily forced my PC away (I didn't want to force a fight, for so many different reasons), claiming he "should show some respect for the dead" (resurrection is impossible, and most people in the world are Atheists anyway). I pointed out, tongue-in-cheek, that he hasn't "respected the dead" in months. So he stood guard over this hole for two continuous in-game days, and every attempt to retrieve it with magic failed horribly.


So the DM wasted a kingdom's worth of wealth, and the dead PC's player re-rolled a new character one level lower and completely broke, without a say in the matter.

After both examples, Really hope you're no longer playing with that DM or allowing that person to DM

Kaww
2012-07-18, 01:29 AM
The DM responded by having a level 20 wizard / cleric teleport in, teleport me to jail, and true res the fighter. End result, my actions didn't matter and everyone was pissed off at everyone both in and out of character.

This was a situation that was handled totally IC by every party, and yet it ended with the party breaking up and everyone mad at everyone else both in and out of character. Don't you think this situation would have worked out better for everyone involved if someone had just broken the fourth wall and had an OOC conversation about acceptable player behavior?

I also had another game where the party rogue regularly stole from his part members. If someone doesn't act OOC, barring very careful, subtle, and unrealistic intervention on the DM's part, you are going to have a party where the rogue is grossly over WBL, the rest of the part grossly under WBL, and when the party eventually finds out they are going to kill (or at the very least kick out) the rogue from the party and make everyone mad.

Red: Well at that point: No. At the beginning of the game: Yes. You did the right thing and the GM is acting like a ten year old who doesn't want Bambi to die. Actions have consequences. If the fighter's player knew OOC about your phobia - he had it coming. If it's a non PvP game GM has to stop any form of abuse. Otherwise it's justice the way PCs see it and GM doesn't get involved. GM is a referee and that is all there is to it. If you are basketball referee and you beat up a player because he made a foul you have problems and no job after the incident. Same should apply here.

Green: If no PvP why the hell is he stealing!? If PvP is allowed then once they find out it's a routine procedure - kill, loot, divide loot.

Driderman
2012-07-18, 04:18 AM
I said out of character "No. You are not going to rob him. You are going to do the decent thing, bury the body, and give his posessions to his next of kin."

I am not really what it has to do with getting into the "story" one way or another. Thinking you have free reign to steal someone's heirlooms just because they travelled with you for a few days is not realistic in any way. Petty criminals and con men might try it, but that wasn't the type of campaign we were running, and I didn't want to derail the campaign with a long plot about the deceased's family hiring bounty hunters to beat up the PCs and take it back because that would only be wasting a lot of time and effort with a plotline that could have no good consequences.

"If I say my character takes the damn thing, my character takes the damn thing. Don't tell me what my character's actions or feelings are unless he's under external influences. Also, if you didn't want the stupid artifact in-game, don't bring it into play in the first place."

Sorry Talakeal, but thats really poor form. I can understand why your players would be upset about that kind of behaviour. At the very least, find a good IC-story to get rid of any items you've put into play but don't want characters to have after all.

Talakeal
2012-07-18, 04:56 AM
"If I say my character takes the damn thing, my character takes the damn thing. Don't tell me what my character's actions or feelings are unless he's under external influences. Also, if you didn't want the stupid artifact in-game, don't bring it into play in the first place."


If a player responded with the above we have gotten to the point where we are no longer discussing things as civil adults. As such I would respond "Actually no. Your character does not take the item because you are no longer a player in my game, therefore your character is now, by definition, a non-player character, and thus under the DM's control. Now get the heck out of my house and don't come back until you have learned to play with others."

As I have said at least twice already I didn't put the item in the game, a player purchased the item with his character's building points, and I am not telling the CHARACTER what to do, I am telling the PLAYER not to be a **** and exploit the game rules because it is "what your character would do".

Also, you act like "what my character would do" is immutable fact. If I had responded with "Ok, you can take the item but you have to pay the XP cost to make up for the free background," I can guarantee the very same players would have been coming out of the wood work with excuses why their character WOULDN'T take the artifact.

If I let the players have free five dot artifacts due to OOC behavior that establishes precedent. What if, for example, one of the players decided their next character was "Mr. Moneybags and spent 100% of their freebie and background points on 5 dot artifacts and cash which they carry around on them at all times until they commit suicide to be replaced by their next PC, Mr. Moneybags the second, who does the same until he is replaced by Mr. Moneybags the third, etc. Once this has been repeated a dozen times and the whole party is 100x above their recommended wealth and dripping with over powered items then he finally brings in his real character.

Of course the above is an extreme example, but I have been in a D&D group where we did exactly that. Someone would suicide their character every session, the others would loot him, and then he would show up with a new PC the next week equipped with full starting WBL. As a result we were all several times over our recommended WBL, steam rolled all encounters, and the DM never did figure out why.

Now let's put the shoe on the other foot for a second. Imagine instead of a new player coming in and leaving a free 5 dot artifact, what if he robbed the other players? What if he was playing a min maxxed mind control character and insisted on dominating the other PCs and ordered them to spend the next several (and several hours of in character RP) groveling at his feet before finally killing them and taking their stuff, then waiting for a new group of PCs to join him, charming them to all be his best friends in the world, and adventuring as normal.

Would you really rather spend the evening roleplaying a brain washed slave rather than telling the new guy to knock it off?

You know, I am really quite flabbergasted by this thread. I have never in my life thought that handling a situation out of character by asking a player to not take an action that will ruin the fun for everyone else to be the wrong or immature choice. This is really reading like some player vs. DM parody out of Knights of the Dinner table.

The Random NPC
2012-07-18, 05:22 AM
If I had responded with "Ok, you can take the item but you have to pay the XP cost to make up for the free background," I can guarantee the very same players would have been coming out of the wood work with excuses why their character WOULDN'T take the artifact.

1) This is an acceptable way of enforcing WBL
2) Doesn't this solve the problem of them arguing about taking it in the first place? I mean if they then make excuses not to take it you've sidestepped an argument about why they would.

Talakeal
2012-07-18, 05:27 AM
1) This is an acceptable way of enforcing WBL
2) Doesn't this solve the problem of them arguing about taking it in the first place? I mean if they then make excuses not to take it you've sidestepped an argument about why they would.

Yes, but I am not sure if I thought about it at the time. Honestly it wasn't anywhere near as big a deal in the game as people are making it out to be on the forums, and after a few minutes of grumbling the players dropped it and it became a running joke.*

*The joke was based on how I described the scene in character, I don't think I could retell it here in a way that would do it justice.

Vknight
2012-07-18, 06:41 AM
I as a Dm will tell my players what they find.
At which point they can do as they please. Sometimes they make a money bank, other times they split it, sometimes they take it all and we continue the game as normal.
This has lead to interesting things.
From the group having OOC assuming they'll split the cash well others take it and only a session or so later realizing whats been happening.

The party will also often juggle weapons that they can't decide who should get them.

But here is a story from me being a player.
My Wizard Bob(Yes that is his actual name) Page, found a Comb and appraised it at 1000gp.
A trinket but one with a hefty price tag. So Bob being the clever sort he is decided to keep it for an emergency. And IC told the group it was a decent priced trinket at 100gp.
OOC this lead to another player flipping out because we could use that money now. It was pretty comedic as he tried for the next 30minutes IC to make Bob spill the truth or convince the Dm it wasn't fair.
This got ridiculous as he wanted to sell it so he could enchant his sword further when we needed 8000+ to do that.
And we were about to get 10,000each(Made a deal with a Crime Boss he didn't honor it though) but no he wanted us to all spend our money to upgrade his sword.
It had clearly been established his character would not talk to mine about the quest we were on etc. so Bob said no.
This lead to him trying at every opportunity to stash loot, so Bob started just taking the Gemstones saying they wouldn't add up to a full portion(often times they did not)
So yeah, it went like that he trying to cheat me because he was upset he didn't get his whatever sword when he wanted it and had to wait 1session

I eventually left the game as the Crime Boss decided to not honor our deal which grind-ed the game to a halt as I pointed out what the deal was but the Dm would not accept that was the deal we had made. That was really annoying because it was a huge amount of loot.
Now if he simply didn't want us to have that much loot I would have been fine, but he gave no reasons and tried to have a NPC use Diplomacy on me so my character would accept the new deal.
Eventual fight and the Crime boss pulls out 'Boots of Teleportation', this would be fine and dandy if not for the fact I'd used Detect Magic on him when I saw him and he had nothing magical.
And gone
The Paladin attacked me for assaulting a person(The Crime Boss) followed by the session ending(I left to keep the campaign going because mr, sword wasn't enjoying me, another player was tired/annoyed of the fight I got into with the Paladin, and the Dm was having troubles dealing with being wrong and not accepting it.
The Paladin's Player? He was fine with it he thought it was great)

DigoDragon
2012-07-18, 07:29 AM
One time I was rolling for a treasure pile and one of the items I randomly generated was a somewhat cursed dagger-- It glowed pink when drawn and would make a cricket chirping noise if you tried sneaking around with it.
Fairly harmless (and somewhat useless), but I had four players argue over an hour about their desires to have it. None of them for any good intentions. :smallconfused:

DontEatRawHagis
2012-07-18, 08:21 AM
My group robbed a bank, but everyone lost the loot. Except the one guy who snuck off and deposited into the bank right after we stole the money. I don't mean, oh he returned a day later. No it was within five minutes in game time.

Funny thing is he got away with it.

Douglas
2012-07-18, 08:53 AM
You know, I am really quite flabbergasted by this thread. I have never in my life thought that handling a situation out of character by asking a player to not take an action that will ruin the fun for everyone else to be the wrong or immature choice. This is really reading like some player vs. DM parody out of Knights of the Dinner table.
The reason for all the negative comments on this is that you, as DM, dictated a Player Character's actions against the expressed desires of that character's Player and used nothing but DM fiat to do it. That's viewed almost as a sort of Cardinal Sin by many people here, and for some strong reasons - the PCs are the one and only thing in the game that the players control, and if you as DM take that away from them there's little remaining to keep them in the game.

It would be different if there were a major dispute between the players, with some arguing to take it and others to do "the right thing" - in that case you would be acting as arbitrator and mediator to get the argument resolved so the game can continue. As you described it, however, the players were unanimous in their desire to take the artifact and you overruled all of them together. Handling a situation out of character by asking a player to not take an action that would ruin everyone else's fun is ok, but none of the players thought their fun would be ruined by this action.

If you want a player to not take an action, you should give him incentives, not simply state that he doesn't do it. You can give him reasons why he shouldn't, but the final decision of whether he does should be in his hands. Ruling that he'd have to spend the same OOC resources to keep the artifact as the original owner did to get it is entirely fair and reasonable - that would be using the DM's adjudication of rules to give the player incentives to make the decision a certain way, but it leaves the actual decision to the player and I doubt anyone here would disagree with it. Ruling straight up that no he doesn't take it is an infringement of the player's right to control his character, which is almost always a bad idea. Enforcing ground rules for behavior that were agreed on in advance is fine, and I think actually pretty common, but that's almost the only exception I'd agree on and it doesn't apply here.

The Bandicoot
2012-07-18, 09:10 AM
Y'know, this thread really was fun to read. Until people started makin big multi-paragraph posts to yell at Talakeal. Weather he's wrong in what he did or not IT'S DONE and nothing is going to change that fact or his opinion. So why doesn't everyone just drop it before it devolves further into a flame war and warnings start getting handed out like hotdogs at a baseball game?

valadil
2012-07-18, 09:44 AM
Most groups I play with distribute the items that make sense, then sell the rest and split that evenly. This usually works well enough most of the time.

One of my groups has a player who is a little more particular about money. He's the kind of person you can't go out to eat with (unless the bills are separate) because he'll make sure everyone pays exactly their share, right down to the penny.

He's also got a dominant personality so his say goes when it comes to loot. It's been a while, but I think this was how it worked.

1) Sum up the amount of gold we'd get for selling all the loot. Everyone gets an even share of that as credit.

2) PCs purchase loot. You can use the credit from step 1 or supplement with your own money as needed. Loot prices are whatever we'd be selling the loot for.

3) Sell remaining loot. Divide profits plus whatever money the PCs used when purchasing loot from the pot. Pay out credit from step 1.

It wasn't the most complicated thing ever, it just wasn't friendly. I actually liked that it let players who wanted the same item effectively bid for it, whereas the system I'm used to didn't have a method for dealing with this. But it felt like we were a competing set of business adventures instead of a team.

Anyway I didn't like the method so I decided to mess with the players a bit when I GMed for them. I threw out a set of loot with one overpowered item that was worth more than 50% of the loot and that everybody wanted. What character doesn't benefit from a +2 Tome of Constitution?

Well, an NPC benefited from it. The players couldn't figure out a way to make this work for them so they hawked it.

BRC
2012-07-18, 09:54 AM
If you want a player to not take an action, you should give him incentives, not simply state that he doesn't do it. You can give him reasons why he shouldn't, but the final decision of whether he does should be in his hands. Ruling that he'd have to spend the same OOC resources to keep the artifact as the original owner did to get it is entirely fair and reasonable - that would be using the DM's adjudication of rules to give the player incentives to make the decision a certain way, but it leaves the actual decision to the player and I doubt anyone here would disagree with it. Ruling straight up that no he doesn't take it is an infringement of the player's right to control his character, which is almost always a bad idea. Enforcing ground rules for behavior that were agreed on in advance is fine, and I think actually pretty common, but that's almost the only exception I'd agree on and it doesn't apply here.


I think he DID do that. The impression I got was that he said "You can take the artifact if you want to spend the points", the Players said "It's right there on the ground. We just pick it up and use it" and he responded "No, you return it to the family".

So technically they DID make a choice. Out-of-character he handled the situation perfectly, the Players wanted something that they hadn't earned and that would unbalance the game (I don't know how big a five-point artifact is, but it sounds pretty major), he said they would need to spend the points to use it. The issue is how he handled the situation in-character.

Tyndmyr
2012-07-18, 10:24 AM
Again I did not put it in the game. Another player talked me into letting him have it because he paid for it with his character creation resources.

That is putting in the game, sir. If you let a player start with something, it's now in the game.


Then when the character who paid a major price for it died the other players wanted to be able to loot it and have it absolutely free. They could have paid the points to take the artifact on their own, but they didn't want to because it wasn't tailored for their characters, they literally wanted it for FREE because of the OOC actions of another player.

Well, of course players want things for as low a cost as possible. Free is obviously best. You don't have to just throw everything at them for free, and say yes to everything. However, flat no's are also unfun.

Look at a middle path. Sure, they can claim it, but there's a price. Perhaps not even a price that's obvious now.

As a side effect, players squabbling over WHICH of them gets it can be quite entertaining.


So, let's say the other player hadn't died. Would you say it is reasonable for the players to murder him and take the gun? How about if instead of murdering him they sold him into slavery or raped him? What if they did this to every new player who joined the group? Don't you think that would cause kind of an OOC problem? I really don't think telling them to knock it off OOC would be unreasonable.

If the only reason why these things are not happening is because OOC, you are telling them they can't, then you have a setting failure.

If you don't want a murder-hobo world, don't make one. Make one in which there are disincentives for massacring people for their stuff willy nilly. Or use someone else's. Most worlds already have significant reasons why "rape and kill everything" is not a successful playstyle.

Khedrac
2012-07-18, 10:54 AM
It's sad how many stories there are of the players (and it's usually the players not the characters whatever they may say) being very selfish/greedy when it comes to loot. If you don't trust the guys you are with well enough to split the treasure sensibly, why exactly are you trusting them with your life?

Probbaly the best loot stories come from a friend of mine who made a kleptomaniac rogue (well since we starts OD&D thief) with a low Intelligence (which really hurt when we switched to 3rd ed). Now the character was a klepomaniac but not greedy - stealing "shinies" was his thing - we made him the party quartermaster and if we needed something (in character) we knew where to look - his cabin (was a bunch of pirates). So much easier than keepign valuables in our own cabins...

His greatest moment was when a beggar wanted 2,000gp for a treasure map - we were prepared to pay 200gp as he was probably about level 3-5 but he wanted 2k. Eventually we paid him and the DM said "he put the money on the table" and produced the map. The rogue promptly stole the 2000gp back, and after paying the Thieves Guild their 10% cut (he had to cough up on anything stolen in the city) we were down exactly the 200gp we had offered. :D

As for bad loot distribution I'm afraid I will have to go to the MMORPG Everquest many years ago. One guild (not mine thankfully) finally got their first kill on Quarm - the end boss of the Plane of Power expansion. The guild leader promptly assigned all the items (either 2 or 3) it dropped to himself - at which point the arguments started. Apparantly they were still arguing two hours later when the corpse despawned taking the loot with it! (The loot could not be transferred between players - the looter woudl be the only one who could use an item.) Boy did I laugh when I heard that one.
Playign Everquest taught me that there are lots of ways of assigning loot, and most of them are fair from a given viewpoint.

Kaveman26
2012-07-18, 10:59 AM
Knights of the Dinner Table: Head of Vecna.

Hands down the best loot story ever.

From Steve Jackson Games website....

Many years ago (back when we all were still playing D & D), I ran a game where I pitted two groups against each other.

Several members of Group One came up with the idea of luring Group Two into a trap. You remember the Hand of Vecna and the Eye of Vecna that were artifacts in the old D&D world where if you cut off your hand (or your eye) and replaced it with the Hand of Vecna (or the Eye) you'd get new awesome powers? Well, Group One thought up The Head of Vecna.

Group One spread rumors all over the countryside (even paying Bards to spread the word about this artifact rumored to exist nearby). They even went so far as to get a real head and place it under some weak traps to help with the illusion. Unfortunately, they forgot to let ALL the members of their group in on the secret plan (I suspect it was because they didn't want the Druid to get caught and tell the enemy about this trap of theirs, or maybe because they didn't want him messing with things).

The Druid in group One heard about this new artifact and went off in search of it himself (I believe to help prove himself to the party members...) Well, after much trial and tribulation, he found it; deactivated (or set off) all the traps; and took his "prize" off into the woods for examination. He discovered that it did not radiate magic (a well known trait of artifacts) and smiled gleefully.

I wasn't really worried since he was alone and I knew that there was no way he could CUT HIS OWN HEAD OFF. Alas I was mistaken as the Druid promptly summoned some carnivorous apes and instructed them to use his own scimitar and cut his head off (and of course quickly replacing it with the Head of Vecna...)

Some time later, Group one decided to find the Druid and to check on the trap. They found the headless body (and the two heads) and realized that they had erred in their plan (besides laughing at the character who had played the Druid)...The Head of Vecna still had BOTH eyes! They corrected this mistake and reset their traps and the Head for it's real intended victims...

Group Two, by this time, had heard of the powerful artifact and decided that it bore investigating since, if true, they could use it to destroy Group One. After much trial and tribulation, they found the resting place of The Head of Vecna! The were particularly impressed with the cunning traps surrounding the site (one almost missed his save against the weakest poison known to man). They recovered the Head and made off to a safe area.

Group Two actually CAME TO BLOWS (several rounds of fighting) against each other argueing over WHO WOULD GET THEIR HEAD CUT OFF! Several greedy players had to be hurt and restrained before it was decided who would be the recipient of the great powers bestowed by the Head... The magician was selected and one of them promptly cut his head off. As the player was lifting The Head of Vecna to emplace it on it's new body, another argument broke out and they spent several minutes shouting and yelling. Then, finally, they put the Head onto the character.

Well, of course, the Head simply fell off the lifeless body. All members of Group Two began yelling and screaming at each other (and at me) and then, on their own, decided that they had let too much time pass between cutting off the head of a hopeful recipient and put the Head of Vecna onto the body.

SO THEY DID IT AGAIN!... [killing another PC]

In closing, it should be said that I never even cracked a smile as all this was going on. After the second PC was slaughtered, I had to give in (my side was hurting)...

And Group Two blamed ME for all of that...

Shadow Viper
2012-07-18, 04:01 PM
It would be different if there were a major dispute between the players, with some arguing to take it and others to do "the right thing" - in that case you would be acting as arbitrator and mediator to get the argument resolved so the game can continue. As you described it, however, the players were unanimous in their desire to take the artifact and you overruled all of them together. Handling a situation out of character by asking a player to not take an action that would ruin everyone else's fun is ok, but none of the players thought their fun would be ruined by this action.


While all the players' fun might not have been ruined by the action, what about the DM's fun? Isn't the DM's fun just as important as the players' fun?

Sidmen
2012-07-18, 04:52 PM
I will take a second to let you know how I would've quickly and simply resolved the Art 5 problem: Its Exalted, and things like weight vary greatly depending on how an item feels. All I would've done is say "the object refuses to leave an area within 5 feet of the body of its owner - and grows to the weight of a neutron star when you try to." Bam, done.

With that aside, I do have a fairly fun story about loot divisions in a Dragon Age game I ran. I had 5 players (I DM'd) and had a policy of giving out one random magical trinket every session, but very little gold. The intent of which, was to get the players into the game's limited magical retail business (you can't just sell such things in any random town).

But that never happened, no. Every magical item (with the exception of the Flail of Ages-alike) ended up being taken by one mage - even when it had obvious powers that would've benefited another character. And the best part of it all - it wasn't done sneakily, he straight-up told all the characters what the item did, and convinced them all that he was the best person to make use of the item - all in-character... For over fifteen game sessions. That's right, out of the fifteen magical items that existed in the game, he owned fourteen.

Everything - from a magical sword that drained lifeforce to boots that left no tracks (intended for the ranger) to a medallion that let you draw a trident of congealed water from any water source to a cloak of warmth to a helmet that helped in commanding armies to a pin that let you reroll once a game session... It was all quite weird.

Talakeal
2012-07-18, 04:56 PM
Let me say one last time that I agree that the DM has no right to dictate the actions of a player character. What I am saying is that, as the host of the game, the DM has the right to tell the players what is or isn't acceptable behavior.

The rules of the game are that if you spend background points on artifact you get to start the game with a magic item well beyond your level, if you do not pay the background points you do not start with magic items and will find magic items that are appropriate to your level.

I simply told my players that it was not acceptable behavior to have one person pay the cost, then stop showing up to the game, and the other players think that means they should get an item free of cost. If they are not going to pay the points for it, then they cannot have it, and one way or another they will lose it. I explained, calmly and in an adult manner, that if it would be easier for everyone if they just gave it to his next of kin instead of derailing the evening with contrived storyline about them being deprived of it. After a few moments of grumbling, the players agreed, and we went on with our lives.

Has anyone read the RPGA's living Greyhawk rules? They have pages upon pages of limitations on character behavior, so much so that it is laughable. Everything from attacking a fellow party member to a centaur allowing a fellow PC to ride them is absolutely forbidden. I can't believe a major group like the RPGA got away with that if the reaction here is so strongly against it.

Now then, back on topic, stories about loot distribution.

Well, one time back in AD&D we defeated a nest of cockatrice and tracked them back to their lair, finding the remains of a whole bunch of previously petrified adventurers and among them several magic items, among them a cloak of protection +3 and boots of striding and springing (+ speed and +1 AC iirc). It was my turn for first pick of the items, and I chose the cloak as my druid had the worst AC in the party.

Upon donning it I discovered it was actually a cursed Robe of Powerlessness (reduce all stats to 3 until a heal spell is cast). Upon discovering my character is now collapsed under the weight of her own armor and helpless the fighter says "Well, she made a fine choice. I have next dibs and I claim the boots!" The mage says "While the druid is helpless I loot all her money!" (To which the DM shifted his alignment towards evil), and the party ROGUE actually showed concern for me and tried to get me to a cleric to remove the curse. Of course, even after I was cured the fighter insisted the boots were his by right and the mage never gave me my money back.

So yeah, Rogues often do have a bad rap.


Another time we were rotating DMs. Once a new DM took over he decided the previous DM's had been too generous with loot. So the first night we were camped in a forest and a group of goblin rogues ambushed us. During the fight our mage hasted our party and slowed the goblins. On the second round of combat the goblins, who were all rogues, simultaneously pick pocketed us (not sure if that is even possible in combat, let alone how easy it is) and then ran away with all our parties money. We tried to give chase, and keep in mind goblins are already slower than humans / elves even before the haste / slow spells, but the DM said that the forest was so dense that they still easily outran us and escaped.

To this day as a joke our party will sometimes grab a goblin mini, slide it across the board like an air hockey puck, and as it passes by our minis shout that "IT PICK POCKETS YOU!" before it slides off the far side of the board.

The DM continued for a few sessions before we all got tired of him. During that time every treasure we found was heavily trapped and consisted on nothing but copper, silver, and cursed magic items.

Emperordaniel
2012-07-19, 05:13 AM
The best treasure story I have so far took place when, after a couple members of the party charged and killed what turned out to be an Adult Silver Dragon by pure luck (they thought it was a White Dragon or something), and they decided to loot its hoard; however, it turns out nine out of ten art objects in the dragon's treasure pile were haircombs*. Needless to say, the Elf Cleric was pretty annoyed that he had been killed during the encounter (don't worry, he got better) for "junk". :smallbiggrin:

*The Paladin theorizes that the dragon in question had a thing for humanoid mustaches and was waiting for the day when he too would grow one.

The party's chaotic good Hound Archon Paladin of Freedom felt pretty guilty about the dragon's death, and asked the Cleric if it would be possible to Raise or Resurrect him; he agreed to try, but they both then realized that there was one small problem with attempting to do so: the cave was located at least a week's travel away from an urban area where you could feasibly obtain diamonds, and there were no diamonds in the hoard either (closest thing to be found was a sapphire... with the outline of a comb engraved on it). :smalltongue:

Tyndmyr
2012-07-19, 10:31 AM
While all the players' fun might not have been ruined by the action, what about the DM's fun? Isn't the DM's fun just as important as the players' fun?

If your only justification for an action is "it's fun for me, even if it isn't fun for you", you're probably doing something terribly wrong. Find things that are fun for all.


Let me say one last time that I agree that the DM has no right to dictate the actions of a player character. What I am saying is that, as the host of the game, the DM has the right to tell the players what is or isn't acceptable behavior.

Well, firstly, the DM and the host are not always the same people. It is, of course, correct that the host can remove guests that have greatly exceeded social norms...I advise this for any instances of say, physical violence or threats. But this is just general social behavior. It's no different than for any other gathering.

DM power, on the other hand, is separate, and limited to the game itself. I strongly suggest dealing with in-game conflicts in game, and out of game conflicts out of game.


The rules of the game are that if you spend background points on artifact you get to start the game with a magic item well beyond your level, if you do not pay the background points you do not start with magic items and will find magic items that are appropriate to your level.

They didn't start with it, did they? They came across it.


one person pay the cost, then stop showing up to the game, and the other players think that means they should get an item free of cost. If they are not going to pay the points for it, then they cannot have it, and one way or another they will lose it.

You're focused on a "can't have it" resolution. That is not generally desirable. There are a number of possible solutions. Most obvious is "You can have it, but it's not free". The exact cost might be one they choose not to pay/risk, but this scenario gives the player the choice, instead of imposing YOUR decision upon the player. That's the key here.

BRC
2012-07-19, 10:34 AM
You're focused on a "can't have it" resolution. That is not generally desirable. There are a number of possible solutions. Most obvious is "You can have it, but it's not free". The exact cost might be one they choose not to pay/risk, but this scenario gives the player the choice, instead of imposing YOUR decision upon the player. That's the key here.

Which is what he did. If I'm reading the story correctly, he said they could have it if they were willing to spend the points for it (like the deceased character had done). They refused, and wanted it for free.

yougi
2012-07-19, 11:30 AM
Knights of the Dinner Table: Head of Vecna.

*snip*

This is just an awesome, AWESOME story. I would have felt so bad as the DM to have left the other PC group do that... but at the same time, I also want to put that into one of my games...



Let me say one last time that I agree that the DM has no right to dictate the actions of a player character. What I am saying is that, as the host of the game, the DM has the right to tell the players what is or isn't acceptable behavior.

The rules of the game are that if you spend background points on artifact you get to start the game with a magic item well beyond your level, if you do not pay the background points you do not start with magic items and will find magic items that are appropriate to your level.

I simply told my players that it was not acceptable behavior to have one person pay the cost, then stop showing up to the game, and the other players think that means they should get an item free of cost. If they are not going to pay the points for it, then they cannot have it, and one way or another they will lose it. I explained, calmly and in an adult manner, that if it would be easier for everyone if they just gave it to his next of kin instead of derailing the evening with contrived storyline about them being deprived of it. After a few moments of grumbling, the players agreed, and we went on with our lives.

Now, while I believe the fact that dictating PC actions has been discussed already, very few have gone towards constructive feedback. What I would have said, and I don't know how this relates to your setting, but I would have just gone to the cleric and said "Looting a friend's body is not really acceptable in your faith." Unless you run an evil campaign, I doubt any deity would look favorably towards such things.

If not, I'd let them take it, play with it a bit, but when they get to a city, a relative of the deceased PC just happens to be there, is attracted to the artifact's power, and either the PCs give it to him, or the artifacts just gives itself to him.


Now then, back on topic, stories about loot distribution.

Well, one time back in AD&D we defeated a nest of cockatrice and tracked them back to their lair, finding the remains of a whole bunch of previously petrified adventurers and among them several magic items, among them a cloak of protection +3 and boots of striding and springing (+ speed and +1 AC iirc). It was my turn for first pick of the items, and I chose the cloak as my druid had the worst AC in the party.

Upon donning it I discovered it was actually a cursed Robe of Powerlessness (reduce all stats to 3 until a heal spell is cast). Upon discovering my character is now collapsed under the weight of her own armor and helpless the fighter says "Well, she made a fine choice. I have next dibs and I claim the boots!" The mage says "While the druid is helpless I loot all her money!" (To which the DM shifted his alignment towards evil), and the party ROGUE actually showed concern for me and tried to get me to a cleric to remove the curse. Of course, even after I was cured the fighter insisted the boots were his by right and the mage never gave me my money back.

So yeah, Rogues often do have a bad rap.

And how did you not murder the mage in his sleep? and in AD&D,


CHANGING ALIGNMENT

Immediately upon alignment change actually occurring, the character concerned will lose one level of experience, dropping experience points to take him or her to the very beginning of the next lower level, losing the hit die and/or hit points, and any abilities which accrued to him or her with the lost level. If the alignment change is involuntary (such as that caused by a powerful magic, a curse, etc.), then the character can regain all of the losses (level, hit die, etc.) upon returning to his or her former alignment as soon as is possible and after making atonement through a cleric of the same alignment - and sacrificing treasure which has a value of not less than 10,000 g.p. per level of experience of the character. The sacrificial amount is variable, so use your best judgment as to the total and what and where it should go- magic items to build up the NPC cleric, money out of the campaign, magic items out of the campaign, etc. Similarly, such atonement and sacrifice can be accomplished by a quest. Note that, in all likelihood, the character will desire to retain the new alignment, and it is incumbent upon you as DM to ensure that the player acts accordingly. Some equally powerful means (divine intervention, remove curse, etc.) must be used to restore the original alignment before atonement can begin.

Characters who knowingly or unknowingly change alignment through forethought or actions permanently lose the experience points and level due to disfavor.

How much money did you carry for it to be worth it?

Now another story of mine, in a game I DM. I did allow for Evil PCs, which I thought would be interesting, but one player decided that to him, evil meant being a jerk, stealing from everyone and murdering on command. I told him ahead of time that being a criminal is dangerous in a world where magic happens, he said he understood that, so I let him in. We even worked together to make a NE Paladin which we called the Paladin of Egoism, built from the Paladins of Tyranny and of Destruction.

In a quest when they were 2nd level, they asked for help from the village they were helping, who allowed them to leave with a group of 12 War1 with a Ftr1 for a leader, all members of the militia. In the fight, most of them died, including the leader, leaving only 2 standing. While looting the enemies, the PCs found 4 Masterwork scimitars. Now the PCs who could use them already had Masterwork weapons, and so the two survivors asked, if no one would use it, if they could maybe take them. I really did not hope for much, I was simply RPing a minor moral dilemma.

Now the Paladin, out of all people, did give them the swords. While they were waiting for a boat to come, he smote (?) the first one, cleaved to the second, and disposed of both of those injured, first level warriors in a single round, took the two swords. At this point, everyone at the table is in shock.

Paladin: Well, they wanted them, and I wanted to keep them for barter.
Rogue: Couldn't you just have said no?
Paladin: Ooooh... I guess I could have... Oh well, we'll know for next time.

Now when the PCs got to the village, they talked about how all of the guards where killed on duty, as heroes. They ended up meeting the duke of the place, who was a Paladin. When they did meet, it was obvious to both Paladins (the PC and the NPC), thanks to their Detect Good/Evil abilities, who each other was. The Paladin's bluff also ended up being a 1. Quickly, the other PCs told him off, and he was Mark of Justice'd instead of hung, as the services he rendered to the town where also weighed in the balance.

Last time I allow anyone go for Evil Stupid.

Driderman
2012-07-19, 12:03 PM
If a player responded with the above we have gotten to the point where we are no longer discussing things as civil adults. As such I would respond "Actually no. Your character does not take the item because you are no longer a player in my game, therefore your character is now, by definition, a non-player character, and thus under the DM's control. Now get the heck out of my house and don't come back until you have learned to play with others."

As I have said at least twice already I didn't put the item in the game, a player purchased the item with his character's building points, and I am not telling the CHARACTER what to do, I am telling the PLAYER not to be a **** and exploit the game rules because it is "what your character would do".

Also, you act like "what my character would do" is immutable fact. If I had responded with "Ok, you can take the item but you have to pay the XP cost to make up for the free background," I can guarantee the very same players would have been coming out of the wood work with excuses why their character WOULDN'T take the artifact.

If I let the players have free five dot artifacts due to OOC behavior that establishes precedent. What if, for example, one of the players decided their next character was "Mr. Moneybags and spent 100% of their freebie and background points on 5 dot artifacts and cash which they carry around on them at all times until they commit suicide to be replaced by their next PC, Mr. Moneybags the second, who does the same until he is replaced by Mr. Moneybags the third, etc. Once this has been repeated a dozen times and the whole party is 100x above their recommended wealth and dripping with over powered items then he finally brings in his real character.

Of course the above is an extreme example, but I have been in a D&D group where we did exactly that. Someone would suicide their character every session, the others would loot him, and then he would show up with a new PC the next week equipped with full starting WBL. As a result we were all several times over our recommended WBL, steam rolled all encounters, and the DM never did figure out why.

Now let's put the shoe on the other foot for a second. Imagine instead of a new player coming in and leaving a free 5 dot artifact, what if he robbed the other players? What if he was playing a min maxxed mind control character and insisted on dominating the other PCs and ordered them to spend the next several (and several hours of in character RP) groveling at his feet before finally killing them and taking their stuff, then waiting for a new group of PCs to join him, charming them to all be his best friends in the world, and adventuring as normal.

Would you really rather spend the evening roleplaying a brain washed slave rather than telling the new guy to knock it off?

You know, I am really quite flabbergasted by this thread. I have never in my life thought that handling a situation out of character by asking a player to not take an action that will ruin the fun for everyone else to be the wrong or immature choice. This is really reading like some player vs. DM parody out of Knights of the Dinner table.

The way you portrayed it initially you weren't asking, you were telling him what his character both did and felt: "you're not taking it, you're going to be decent and deliver it to his family".
Again, the problem here is really your insane psychotic players
because yes, saying "the artifact isn't attuned to you unless you spend the proper amount of XP on the background" is totally justified.
In normal gaming groups, players make characters that complement the story and can work together, or at the very least can be an interesting and story-related antagonist to the other players, they don't seek to exploit every loophole or inattentive moment from the DM or players. They don't create character with the express intention of screwing over the gaming and ruining the rest of the groups experience just so they can have some troll fun. Even my 10-man group of 10-13-year olds didn't do **** like that back when I "taught" roleplaying at an afterschool program.

One thing I REALLY don't understand, why is it you're somehow claiming that you don't have control over character creation in your game? If I'm running a game, people that want to bring a character into my game has to get it approved by me first. Is your "gaming group" (and I use that term very loosely, as psych ward therapy group session seems more fitting) somehow under the impression that character builds aren't pending GM approval?

Douglas
2012-07-19, 12:24 PM
Which is what he did. If I'm reading the story correctly, he said they could have it if they were willing to spend the points for it (like the deceased character had done). They refused, and wanted it for free.
No, that's an idea he came up with later. On the spot, he just said no.

Shadow Viper
2012-07-19, 11:32 PM
If your only justification for an action is "it's fun for me, even if it isn't fun for you", you're probably doing something terribly wrong. Find things that are fun for all.

And the point of that post was that the DM is part of said "all," not just the players. :smallwink: