Advice on how other DM's handle greed

[Silentone98]

A while back I started my own campaign, having been unsatisfied with how my DM runs his campaigns. I still play his campaigns tho.
Thank you all again for your help on my character build on his latest one.

To start, i'll refer to the guy im having an issue with as Joe(not his real name)
Well, the campaign I started had actually reached a level of moderate success. It also doesn't appear to have any signs of dying out like our last campaign did under the other DM.
But I AM running into an issue of player greed. He knocked off his annoying habit of picking up anything that wasnt bolted down, after me and a few others expressed their vast annoyance. But now he is showing great disregard towards his teammates and playing the part of a vulture.
For example, I had another player greatly disatisfied with his character and everyone else was disliked his character also,.. it was a horrible build(Black flame zealot, with quick(-1HP/lvl) and low CON, and elf for anyone interested), and he tried to tank more often then sneak >.>
It was actually so bad, that Joe goes and locks the zealot into a room full of skeletons and keeps him locked up in there after the zealot had darted past him for the last time, we were all sick of his bad tactics and this should teach him a lesson.
Somehow the character survived but later he realizes how bad his build is and wants to start over.. so I npc his character to death while he comes in with a Archer.
Meanwhile, Joe goes far out of his way to scavenge the entire dungeon this happened in to find all the guys equipment to keep for himself. And questions me when I only let him find part of it (goblins took a good deal and scattered... good luck with that...)
Well,.. now the archer wants to retire and leave the group because the player has to move out of state. Joe wants to kill said archer, under reasons that mostly revolve around "oh, he endangered the group way too many times) which is true, but most of the circumstances weren't exactly the archers fault. The only solid reason he had was that the archer was currently poccessed by a demon that had caused much grief for the party. He no longer had that demon because during the last session we had, the demon was wished out by a cursed genie lamp that they all had a chance at and only the archer got it. He only got one wish and it was a tainted wish, so he wished the demon out of him. The demon was seperated and placed right in front of the party to deal with.

well,.. long story short... out of every reason Joe had to kill him, the only solid reason he had was no longer there. All other reasons was mostly griping about the last character from that player and player on player hate. I have overheard him talking with others and I know that his biggest issue is that the archer is walking off with loot. So basically what I am gathering from all this is he is simply a greedy bastard and running off any excuse at all to kill the guy to grab his loot for no better reason than, he can.
I told him straight up that he can do anything he pleases, but that he'd take a hefty alignment shift and that i'd consider it on par with chaotic evil tendencies. Yet he argues against the chaotic part.
But so long as he is using the excuse of "I am paranoid" or "I believe he is just gonna join the enemy" I cant see it as anything other than chaotic.
This is the only thing keeping him from attacking the archer on his way out of the party because Joe wants a prestige that cant be chaotic.

Now he is causing new players grief, and they feel uncomfortable joining in because first thing out of the Joe's mouth "If you have pointy ears, I am gonna kill you. The last player had two characters with pointy ears and as far as I am concerned, they all need to die"
Which im begining to suspect is an excuse for him to kill new players for their starting gear because he KNOWS one of them has pointy ears... >.> although not an elf.

Really... just because of how the player is behaving out of game, im tempted to knock him down to chaotic even if he hasnt done anything drastic yet and is just sprouting words. If these are his characters thoughts, then the character should never have started as Neutral Good to begin with.(currently true neutral,.. he lost that good alignment fast)

Well... I am convinced that the guy is simply looking to horde mass wealth at everyone elses expense. He only treats my NPC's in the group with any amount of respect.
How does everyone else handle players like this? I don't want to simply boot him, because he IS a wonderful roleplayer aside from this issue.

[Gavinfoxx]

DTMFA10chars

[The Glyphstone]

Wonderful roleplaying does not excuse a poisonous gaming environment, and intimidating new players is an unforgivable cardinal sin. Kick his ass out of the game so fast the door breaks the sonic barrier - and if you really want to keep gaming with him, set up a solo campaign in your mutual off-time...he gets the spotlight without having to share it with other icky human beings, and you get to enjoy his excellent RP ability.

[Norin]

Is there no other players in the group that could yank his greed down a few notches?

I mean, why does the other chars stand by idly while watching Joe looting every item they come across? Slap him and take the loot, then roll dice or whatever to find out who gets what?

Also, have the pointy eared chars that joins the campaign make a seriously OP char that would whoop Joe's char in combat? :smallbiggrin:

Sounds like a silly player all in all though. I would remove him from my group i think, if he did not stop this crap.

[leegi0n]

This has happened many a time for me and I've found there are two reliable ways to deal with it.

1. Ignore his character. Virtually the entire session. Minimal involvement. Until he changes, if he will.

2. Overchallenge and/or kill him. I find if you put them under a lot of stress in game, they can see how the other characters will react (helping him or not) will often change the methods and habits. If the other characters truly don't like the poisonous character, well.....let nature take its course.

If this doesn't work, I will sit the gamer down and talk to them one on one about how it's affecting the rest of the group and that concessions need to be made to stop it. If that fails. Yeah, Joe needs to go.

[Cranthis]

Have someone else in the party kill him. Then he will complain but you can make your point. And then he may or may not leave, which may or may not be beneficial.

[LTwerewolf]

He may be greedy, but who's to say there's not an npc somewhere that is just as greedy or more? Have them stalk him and start stealing his stuff.

[Sandwich8080]

I suppose the first obvious action I would take is to figure out why Joe is acting this way. Is he bored? Is the party loot-starved? Maybe he's RPing how he thinks his character should act (maybe his alignment wasn't spot on, but I've seen some CE's that would give money to beggars and some NG's that would torture a goblin child under the premise of "it's okay because they're goblins")

I one time had a similar situation. I was pretty new at DMing for more than one or two people (I think we had 6 in this group) and I was being pretty stingy with loot (there was a giant treasure at the end of the module and it was already going to put them WAY over their net worth). Frank was a fighter who was feeling the worst effects of the loot-drought. It got to the point that he one time waited until the LN cleric fell asleep to sneak into the town guardhouse just to see if the captain of the guard had "anything with a +2".

As I was getting frustrated with this, an idea hit me. I'd teach him not to be so greedy! I quickly reworked the next treasure allotment so it had a Backbiter Spear in it. I expected him to find out about the curse and be more cautious in the future. After it hit him, he said: "I'll keep it. It only hits me on critical hits, so I'll just use my unlucky dice until we find something better."

Moral of the story: When the players want loot, they'll take it even if it's going to kill them.

On a serious note, I'd ask the players how they feel about the amount of treasure they have. If everyone but Joe is fine with it, then I'd sit down with Joe and talk it out.

And on an unrelated note, what level are these guys? I see Black Flame Zealot, which tells me at least level 6, and then I see goblins, which tell me maybe lower than that, and then I see wish grantings and demons, which tells me like level 12. :smalltongue:

[Silentone98]

Currently lvl 6, going on lvl 7 shortly.... the zealot hadnt actually reached his prestige yet and was very close before he switched characters, and had already gotten into the guild, tested and accepted.

and I wasnt completely honest,... the cursed genie lamp, while I did put it there with a chance for everyone to get it, I gave the archer a heads up before hand about it,.. and when he walked into the room, he was told "You will violently attack anyone who enters the room, and you feel compelled to immediately make a wish for what you want most" The violently attacking someone, only made verbal for everyone so that no one WOULD enter, even tho they had the chance.

It was a setup basically to get the demon out and give Joe less grounds to kill the character. and the demon was a lesser homebrewed version. More akin to a Half-fiend with extra benefits. Normally I would not have put that opportunity there.

The party is only slightly loot starved.... its an odd setup where its a low magic world, but theres still loot to be found,.. the only reason the other players are low in gear is because they started later than Joe or switched to a new character. Joe would actually be over the wealth for his level I believe,... and so would one of my NPC's who took a rod of wonder away from the archer as punishment for zapping him with a lightning bolt, thank god he didnt activate petrification! Idiot was poking me with what he at least knew was a magical item, if nothing else... and I say "WHAT?! ****,.. i gotta roll to see if you accidentally activate it" So my NPC got a nice rod for that mishap.

Funny thing about mentioning the backbiter spear... I did a similar thing.... see the zealot was chaotic evil, and actively acted like one, I even had a bounty for the zealot that was the grounds for another of the players joining in. The bounty idea never got anywhere, and that player never made it into the game... but the zealot WAS left a gift by his guild upon joining,.. see the guild was true nuetral, secret hired hands of the government. The character was a liability as a person who killed without reason and was overly aggressive and made a spectacle of themselves. The guild left the zealot an homebrewed artifact that was cursed along the lines of, it's a sentient weapon and its goal to be freed of its cursed form is to turn an evil person into a good person. It will actively prevent evil actions, and it cannot be gotten rid of.(its an illusion based kukri,... you throw it and you suddenly realize you threw a banana)
I cant remember if I got the idea from someone else or not... Joe, when he scoured the dungeon for the dead companions loot, actually got this for his troubles :) It has not bothered to get in his way and show itself yet.

[TopCheese]

Have someone else in the party kill him. Then he will complain but you can make your point. And then he may or may not leave, which may or may not be beneficial.

This actually works.

Even more so when the party won't rez him.

[Averis Vol]

I have one of these guys in my group and it is an absolute bull**** time gaming with this guy. An example is his first character (atleast that i played with) was a C/N (chaotic stupid actually, cut a bartenders head off and ran away from the guards for three months; the party found him hiding in the dudes house in the closet :smallamused: ) Eldritch knight who dual wielded bastard swords. So throughout the whole game he would take almost evey one handed weapon that dropped because "he was the only reasonable person that could use them and group loot pools are stupid" (Pair this with the fact that he hardly ever actually found the loot because he was too chicken **** to go into the room first) then use them for a session before packing them in his bag until we got to town and selling them and keeping the gold.

Now I tolerated this, it wasnt until he tried to claim the hammer of thunderbolts my fighter/rogue found that I put my foot down.

Now this was my first character ever, so I was sheepish about party conflict and I probably caused alot of this by letting him have his way, and an important note to know is that our DM had a rule that stated "if you didnt say out of character before you say something, its in character". So I put my foot down and told him to back off and he drew his sword and said "I deserve that hammer, I killed the dragon" (now this was a bold faced lie, he hid in the corner while me and the fighter tanked it and only came to attack four rounds from its death (Only hitting once because of his terrible to-hit) and got the last hit on it.)

So I strode up to him and said "do it then Kadmus." and there was very palpable tension in the room and he eventually backed off and I heard, "fine, ill just have my cohort steal it when your asleep." Now, he forgot to say OOC, so I turn to him and say "do it and I will kill both of you where you stand."

(Que thirty minute discussion about whether that was OOC or not. It wasnt.)

so long story short, he tries, I find out and drop him to -4 then manacle him up before I let the cleric near him. He rages and come backs next week with a new character that is a samurai in service of a shogun. Now his old character who was n the level of the worlds greatest scientists appearently jumped the shogun and attempted to kill him, and without even rolling he says "Kadmus died, my new character killed him and takes all his loot"

Now pair this with the fact that we are level 16, and he took 90% of the loot so he had nearly 300k on his old character and me and the other four people cant help but cry bull****.

(Que another thirty minutes of rage and threatening to leave)

and eventually due to not wanting to listen to him, on the verge of tears, bitch anymore we let him have it. so his new character and more combined wealth then all of our characters combined. Eventually he left his lawful ways and for no reason completely oblivious to his character went barbarian and again threatened to kill me, And I again cemented my dominance as the best char builder in our group by nocking him out, taking his gear and distributing the gold among the party, before heave kicking him off my ship to drown in the ocean.

now, this was a very harsh approach but It was the only way to deal with him. In time he mellowed out a bit, but he still has the greed in him that makes me still need to assert myself again from time to time, but for the most part he's a normal human being now.

TL;DR

Sometimes you have to be harsh to get people to chill out.

[Medic!]

If he's replaceable as a player, I'd just replace him. If he's willing to let OOC greed jump through hoops to justify IC behavior like that, you better bet your bloomers he's willing to let a grudge over his PC being killed (especially by another PC) bleed over into his next PC. I've played with players before who can't seperate their PCs...Player A kills Player B, Player B:


Builds his dead PC's twin brother, optimized to spank Player A, and seeks revenge
Builds a completely unrelated new PC and decides "I don't like Player A" arbitratily and makes up an excuse to attack him
Does something to just completely derail and destroy the entire campaign
Etc


While the greed in and of itself is manageable (and can lead to some hillarity, as long as it doesn't lead to stealing from his fellow PCs), the OOC behavior and the over-simplistic mindset of "My PC hates pointy-ears" followed by "I loot the PC I just killed for dubious reasons" is, to steal the perfect description, poisonous.

If you can't boot the player (close friend, family, no other available players) I would suggest making a house-rule that looting PCs can't happen aside from recovering plot-necessary items. That could curb some of his CE tendancies. Never over-estimate the power of taking the guy out for a smoke break or what-have-you and just telling him, "Hey...you've gotta tone it down. Nobody wants to show up to a table and have their first impression be 'I'm gonna kill your PC for no reason and take his stuff."


EDIT: For what ever reason, some words I think you'll hear in the near future are "It's what my character would do." (I think I just threw up in my mouth a little just typing that.) If it's the PC controlling the Player's actions, feel free to start describing his PC's actions for him, followed by "That's what your PC would do!" Obviously if you do do that, prepare for friendship fall-out. :smallfrown:

[Silentone98]

Averis, I salute you,.. well played.

TopCheese.... I am trying to avoid killing people off as a solution at the moment.

Medic!, yea,.. he isnt really replacable... I did speak with him and the other players.... I think he is mostly blowing air, pissed that the archer is walking away... its really hard to say.

He says he is gonna calm down, but that too much had been happening and his character is at a breaking point... so part of this is gonna involved me running a few boring sessions just to calm him down >.>
the last session only involved two monsters! i dont understand how thats too much... my NPC used hide from undead and overrun thru a skeletal horde with the rest the group following behind then the sorceress collasped the tunnels with a fireball.. they completely avoided the big battle.

[Deophaun]

I think the solution is that the other party members need to be better roleplayers here. Now, I'm not talking Shakespearean performances or the ability to come up with elaborate plots. I mean something very simple, like asking yourself if you would continue adventuring with someone who a) threatens to kill you b) has killed party members before and c) steals your share of the treasure. The answer here, to a group of roleplayers whose characters weren't of the vengeful type, would probably be "no." So, one day, when they're supposedly splitting up to shop for magic items in the town, the rest of the group actually rendezvous at one of the town gates and leaves.

If the party takes this route, and the greedy player insists on tracking them down and rejoining, instead of creating a new character (fun idea: require him to take and maintain VoP), let him deal with the exact same level of hazards that you prepared for the full party. Let him deal with them by himself. There's a reason adventurers band together. Let him discover it.

[hymer]

Plenty of ways to deal with his greed problem, but the real problem is his behaviour to other players. That has to stop instantly, or he has to leave the group. Talk to him before the next session and tell him in no uncertain terms this behaviour has to end. If he refuses in word or deed, don't invite him to your games any more.

[killem2]

First thing is: Players don't get to dictate treasure even crap mundane treasure. There is a protocol for that.

If a sword worth 5k is dropped, and there are 5 people, and there is also 25k gold dropped, if a player wants that sword, he gives up his 5k of the share of gold which is then split among the rest of the party. Pretty straight forward.

I wouldn't care if someone wants to gather up all the items, and as a DM i don't even care if he ends up with it, but he MUST give the other players a choice to take what they might want first.

Wonderful roleplayer he may be, he is bordering on Neutral Evil. He doesn't seem to acknowledge good or even lawful behavior. Because his greed to me is leading him to make rash choices that are benefiting him over others and he is actively take steps in that direction, I think he is dangerously getting towards N/E.

[Silentone98]

First thing is: Players don't get to dictate treasure even crap mundane treasure. There is a protocol for that.

If a sword worth 5k is dropped, and there are 5 people, and there is also 25k gold dropped, if a player wants that sword, he gives up his 5k of the share of gold which is then split among the rest of the party. Pretty straight forward.

I wouldn't care if someone wants to gather up all the items, and as a DM i don't even care if he ends up with it, but he MUST give the other players a choice to take what they might want first.

Wonderful roleplayer he may be, he is bordering on Neutral Evil. He doesn't seem to acknowledge good or evil anymore, he is clearly acting greedy.

Ah,.. I cant keep him in check with the good and evil axis tho... he would play chaotic-I dont give a **** if he didnt want a prestige that requires non-chaotic.

The biggest issue is the greed tho,.. sorry if that wasnt clear everyone. His other stuff is just venting Im sure. It IS rather frustrating to see a player you hate walk out of the game unpunished, regardless of the circumstances, I will give him that.
The, "I must kill him for his loot" is the issue

He knows if he goes out of line with the mistreatment of players, his entire party is gonna turn on him.
I also put in a subtle reminder that Elan resilence only works on a single attack each round,... and he wouldnt even get thru his whole power supply before the party took him down.

[killem2]

I understand. It really is too bad groups end up with people like this. My current group is made up of:

Three old co workers. One of those coworkers has two sons that play, one step, one not. (one 14 one 18). My 8 year old son plays with us as well.

It may even be changing in the next few months where My other coworkers Nephews (10 and 12) will be playing and possibly the sons of the final coworker (19 and 22).

Sure, it's a huge group, a pain to manage, but we don't have fights, because I lay out the rules pretty clear at the beginning. Which are:

What I say goes.
That doesn't mean I am unfair, we're here to have fun. That means with each other and between you the player and I the DM.

We agree, and go about smashing faces. :smallbiggrin: You have to be willing to put players in their place if they start getting out of hand and effecting the group.

[Silentone98]

I understand. ect....

yea... trying to consider my options....
from my experience in D&D thus far, handling situations by "putting someone in their place" has always ended in escelation of the issue to unbearable levels. I have a household of willful people :( lol
Talking with people and building an understanding has always worked for me more effectively. I just don't see it working with his greed.
Well, it's like,.. "why the heck CANT I just kill him and take all his stuff?" and getting him to understand how disrespectful that is to a departing player, is an uphill battle. Thats one of those things that you either understand or you dont. And I shouldnt have to be waving his alignment over his head to keep him from it.

EDIT: As far as distribution of loot to other players that are behind because of him having an early start and vulturing the other player. I WAS able to successfully place items as part of puzzles that Joe willfully ignored. Or implement a puzzle where there was none for another person to solve to make it look like Joe passed right by it. Tried both, both work.
This is backhanded tho and I don't want to keep resorting to these tactics. Sooner or later he'll notice and I'll have a nasty arguement.

I am re-assured tho that I am not the only one that see's comments like "What were his arrows worth? 4k? Yea, I gotta go kill him, he might join the enemy" as just plain wrong.

[killem2]

yea... trying to consider my options....
from my experience in D&D thus far, handling situations by "putting someone in their place" has always ended in escelation of the issue to unbearable levels. I have a household of willful people :( lol
Talking with people and building an understanding has always worked for me more effectively. I just don't see it working with his greed.
Well, it's like,.. "why the heck CANT I just kill him and take all his stuff?" and getting him to understand how disrespectful that is to a departing player, is an uphill battle. Thats one of those things that you either understand or you dont. And I shouldnt have to be waving his alignment over his head to keep him from it.

Let me put myself in your shoes.


If one of my players asked if they could kill off and loot a player strictly on the meta-gaming knowledge that this person for all intents and purposes is gone and won't be using his stuff, I would tell them they can't for a number of reasons.

1. You are meta-gaming. You are taking clear out of character knowledge to gain an advantage while in character. Story wise I could tell you that this character is feeling an inner conflict and must go away to find himself/herself. Does that mean you get to kill them? For what reason?

2. You haven't shown any hostile actions towards this character that would make me as the DM believe that you would do something so disrespectful. (Disrespectful in game) Do you have his will? Do you know what is to happen to his items after he passes?

3. If you do kill this person, you will be considered Evil, I will inform the rest of the group that greed has taken over your persona due to nothing more than a mental fracture of your psyche. No one knows why you decided to kill their friend and fellow adventurer but never the less you did it, and they must treat this as though it were a random foe trying to kill all of them in a dungeon, you are now seen as a threat.

4. Because I told you, you cannot do that, I am the DM of this game.

If they still wanted to kill this person (because nothing stops them), I would say there are witnesses and you see them running to the law about it. Your party at this time will probably not vouch for you if you are caught. You have gotten some new items at the cost of a good friend and most importantly an innocent being who provoked nothing from you. However, you are an outlaw.


I had a character just over this last weekend who put on a crown that was on a dire boar prior to them killing it. They didn't identify it at all. It was cursed. The person who snatched it to wear it is a ranged character with a bow, and this crown is NOT nice to ranged.

Crown of Blind Rage
Slot - Head
Bonus: +5 Strength Enhancement, Your Weapons are treated as though they were a +5 Magical weapon, over come all damage reduction. Your damage is also increased by 5 for all sources

Curse: Upon spotting what would be considered to the party as an enemy, you charge recklessly at the closest possible enemy you can see. This crown will grant you the exact number of moves to get a clear charge at the target before doing so. It will give you supernatural abilities to reach that target and it is considered a charge. You will continue to attack this target and only that target until it is dead. (-10)

All attacks vs you are confirmed as hits. (You effectively have no armor class)

All attacks vs you ignore any damage reduction you may have.

All attacks vs you that are confirmed critical are increased by x2

Well, he just happened to put it on right before the final battle (of three parts to this place), and he charged in, and if it wasn't for one lucky barbarian who had a syringe that lets you load and take potions as free actions, he was able to be brought to life with in the full round. (the story keeps them in this dungeon, so they could not have taken him out to get him rezzed and come back)

He closed his book though before there was a solution, and he had kind of a pouty attitude at first, and i just said, What did you expect? You found a crown, on a boar, that hit really hard, it defied the laws of d&d physics for charging and you saw two people hit this boar with a natural 1, which by the core rules is ALWAYS a miss, and they didn't miss. You didn't even identify the crown first.

Now he must deal with going through the rest of the dungeon with this cursed crown because he isn't allowed to leave due to a hostage situation making them have to complete it, the cleric can't go pray for remove curse either because of all this.

He agreed, and all was good.

[Silentone98]

well, thanks for the thoughts everyone.
I spoke with him on the matter some more,... as far as how he made new players uncomfortable and I brought up the poisonous environment arguement, he agreed and was a bit remorseful even. "We play to have fun and its not gonna be any fun for me OR you if im the only one left playing"
So he at least understands there and the other people are talking to him about it and coming to an understanding.

The greed issue still stands and I didnt feel comfortable bringing it up, but there are ways around that and some nice suggestions on here as well. Thanks all, I'll be better prepared for these things in the future.

[Averis Vol]

The greed is the problem of the other players, not yours as the DM. You need to tell them to assert some dominance or deal with it, it sounds harsh but thats the truth of it as a bully will only be a bully against weaklings.

[bobthe6th]

Or just give people WBL at each level up, and then give out nominal wealth/titles/lands/renown as rewards... Bam, life just got easy, and now he won't have to be a murderous vulture to maintain his power level! Everyone wins! Now murder will be pointless, as magic items will be a meta game construct as they already are. Hell, the low magic setting will work better as you don't have to throw in magical loot to keep the party effective.

[The Glyphstone]

If he's not replaceable, I'd suggest looking around (where he won't find out, preferably) for someone who can make him replaceable, just in case. If he goes back to his old ways and you don't put your foot down hard this time, all you'll have taught him is that you are easily manipulated and he can continue with his bad habits. If he genuinely changes, good for everyone involved, but if he can't, don't let him end your group.

[Pandiano]

As a long time DM a few tips hat worked for me, dependent on the type an character of the player:

- Have the loot be cursed if he takes it greedily
- Take away all the party's equip and loot and give it back as a big pile for other characters to see his wealth (creates reasons to realize the greed inplay without need of metagaming)

In one group we had a thief that stole from PC and (inspired by a friend that used the same in his group) we we solved that issue quite easily. Although we never had evidence, only suspicions, we gave him all our money and all the loot. Then we encircled him and told him "we know now where our stuff is, and we know how much it is. Do yourself a favor and don't lose it!"
Worked very well!

Always remember, a little cut on a bag of holding from a little street thief ruins all that was in it forever.

[mishka_shaw]

To be honest the players should fix this not you.
My first campaign we had someone that would rob anyone of us who was unconcious or dying. It all stopped when I whacked him with my sword.

In the campaign I am currently playing in we all began robbing each others corpses before ressing (only taking about 50gp or something minor) but once someone took about 1k we all smacked them down and enforced a neigbourhood watch style defence.

So everytime Joe does something greedy and the players are around just slyly turn to them and go "So are you going to allow this to happen?" or "any responses?"
If they let him get on with it than it will be their fault if it ends badly.
...than again you can also invoke the old rule of "there is always someone stronger" and just have him robbed/murdered by an elf.

[Threadnaught]

I use my players' greed as a plot device. How else will they willingly feed a suffocated Tarrasque, the oxygen it needs to regenerate and destroy the world? If it isn't being suffocated by diamonds.

Want them to leave a Wizard of questionable ethics (not quite evil, but bad circumstances) alive when they're ordered to kill him? Free Spells for the Wizard.

Want to see how much trouble they can cause in some old Wizard's house? It's an old Wizard's house, there's something creepy and valuable in there somewhere. Of course they're gonna take the valuable stuff and burn the rest, even if it gets them arrested. Which it did. :smallamused:


You the DM can make the players think more carefully about their actions in the world and how they reflect on themselves as characters. Be careful about what you could pick up, it could belong to someone else, or even be dangerous. I believe this kind of thing is known as Schmuck Bait, all it takes is three applications in a row and they'll no longer trust their instinctual greed, instead they'll begin to act more cautiously around shiny objects.
Obtaining the perfect blend of fools gold vs loot is difficult, as long as you give out real and substantial rewards for success, they shouldn't mind the traps so much.

[nedz]

To be honest the players should fix this not you.
My first campaign we had someone that would rob anyone of us who was unconcious or dying. It all stopped when I whacked him with my sword.

In the campaign I am currently playing in we all began robbing each others corpses before ressing (only taking about 50gp or something minor) but once someone took about 1k we all smacked them down and enforced a neigbourhood watch style defence.

So everytime Joe does something greedy and the players are around just slyly turn to them and go "So are you going to allow this to happen?" or "any responses?"
If they let him get on with it than it will be their fault if it ends badly.
...than again you can also invoke the old rule of "there is always someone stronger" and just have him robbed/murdered by an elf.
this really.
Also he is trying to bully the other players with the death threats.
They need to stand up to that.
The best thing you can do is coach/persuade the other players to take action, but maintain strict neutrality yourself.

[DrDeth]

I can’t say this too many times: You can’t solve a OOC problem IC. Thus you just have to sit down with him and discuss this like adults.

Killing his PC, etc, none of that will help.

[Phaederkiel]

I mean, what are you all talking about?

That guy has, as a player and towards a new player (NOT as a character towards a character) made threats.

This is a first-offense-the-boot-case if ever I have seen one.

Do not attempt to deal with it IC. Boot him now.

Normally I am pretty lenient (and I had a bad case, too) but harrassing players is a no-go. So, what glyphstone says all the way.