quest rewards issue and questions

[death390]

ok so my group recently restarted our campaign and decided to go with a lower powered startup (lvl 2). after not having all our members we ran our backup characters through a quick ruins scavenging quest for the local museum on a small town, and its abbey(?) of Boccob.

we got a bunch of misc loot for the museum and found 3 magic items. Hat that turns you into a Snirfinblin (deep gnome) permanently, a choker that PAO's you into a Psudo-dragon, and a blessed book.

we returned to the guild, had the items identified then went to haggle with the museum for our pieces. got some cash for the mundane items. but for the 3 magic items DM wanted to give us a bit more cash and 2 beads of force. now these are nice items for a mostly mundane party (i'm only caster and spont. at that) but with 4 PC's during the quest and a 8 man total party. we were unimpressed.

there was no good way to split the loot as someone would have not gotten an item (if kept the 3), or 2 would not have gotten a item if we swapped for beads.


has the playground ever noticed that when finding a item in a campaign the players are fine with whatever it is, while quest rewards seem to cause issues?

[Nifft]

Sounds like the DM is using a random or pre-written reward system.

One way to deal with this from the player's side of the screen is to accept that not everybody gets a good item every quest, and instead keep a running total of every PC's current wealth. Make this running total public so everyone can see, especially the DM.

In a fair game, on average each character will be roughly even across many levels. You can then discuss who gets what future gear with enough information to let everyone feel they're getting a fair shake.

You won't be even at every level, and you won't start out even.

Having the PC wealth record over time also gives you more ammo when you tell the DM to drop more gear for one specific character who has been behind the curve for a span of time.


Another way to deal with it on the player's side of the screen is to specifically look for quests that will take you to gear that you want:
- "Let's rob this museum!"
- "Let's investigate the Ruined Tower of Metamagic Rods!"
etc.