How Does Your Party Divide Treasure?

After a long hard day of plundering in the dungeon (or wherever), how does your party divide the spoils/loot, etc.?

I am interested as to how others do it as at my session (I DM) last night, there was a bit of an argument about it. One player wanted me to rule on how it HAS to be done according to the RAW (or my interpretation thereof). I declined to intervene. So, how do you do it?

Do you give useful items to the PC for which they are most useful and keep the rest in the party treasury? As above, except divide the remainder evenly? Do you sutract approximately value of items given to PC's from monetary treasure given? Do you add everything up and let PC's pick from the pile up to a certain GP value? Do PC's pay for useful items they receive? I heard all of those options last night.... or do you do it another way?

DM

Proud member, GMF

It's up to the party. If they decide to fight over it and the last man standing gets it all, so be it . Fortunately, they are more reasonable .

Everything that wasn't gotten by just one person gets handed to me. I figure out who wants what, distribute shares of the sales and gold evenly, and give people credit. For the most part, they'd all be happy letting me worry about the whole resource game as long as I make sure to toss some enchantements on their weapons. Which, of course, are factored into the equation.

The RAW says that you do not need to follow the RAW. In my experience, it should be left up to the concensus of the players and the alignments of the characters. The DM is there to provide suggestions, but shouldn't control player's actions (as would be necessary to enforce the divying up of equipment).

My groups usually play by first come-first serve basis. Whoever grabs it first, gets it. But if they don't have a use for it, they give it to someone else. Preexisting agreements between characters can alter this, though. For instace, one adventure, one of the characters was leading an expedition and paying the other characters to come with him. He stated ahead of time that all non-coin treasure was his to deal with. The coins could be split evenly between the rest of the group.

If the one player can not agree with the rest of the party, then try to point out that this is not a "rule" as in mechanics. It's just what the characters are doing in game. If he still won't come around or feels cheated, try to mediate a fair system between the players for how things will be done (though I still believe that if you have a Chaotic Evil Rogue/Wizard in the party, you should have no chance of fair distribution).

If the rest of the players feel adament about role-playing the treasure distribution, and the other feels that it should be mechanical, perhaps he is playing with the wrong group.

Some guidelines on alignment and treasure distribution.

Lawful Good
Would prefer a distribution system under which everyone got something equally useful and was most beneficial to the party as a whole. Similar to LN, but would argue for unfair distribution if fair distribution might put someone's life (other than their own) in danger.

Lawful Neutral
Would prefer a fair and even distribution of some kind, preferably including pooling all treasure, identifying all magic, disitrbuting coin, and using round-robin buy offs of any non-mundane treasure. Lacking a predetermined agreement, a LN would rather see unfair distribution than allow arguments to become heated and the possibility of a fight breaking out. A LN may be inclined to become more forceful if someone is obviously trying to abuse the system.

Lawful Evil
Would prefer an agreement made ahead of time with several exceptions of various kinds. For instance, treasure found while scouting or some such thing might be exempt from pooling. Would twist and manipulate the rules to their own advantage, but probably wouldn't blatantly disregard them.

Neutral Good
Would try to equalize the treasure and put it into the hands of those who would most benefit the party unless someone might be put in danger by not getting something.

Neutral
In cases of treasure distribution, the Neutral character would probably be the most likely to go with the flow. If the party has an agreement ahead of time, great. If not, then try for something fair. If that doesn't work then whoever has it, gets it. Might be willing to support the case of magic users who detect or identify items getting to take first stab at it, as they have made it possible to attain and value these items.

Neutral Evil
Will do everything in their power to come out on top. May be willing to threaten other characters if they can get away with it. Would sneak items away while no one was looking, and fight for any distribution method which gave them the most stuff.

Chaotic Good
Would probably want to give treasure to those who have seem shafted recently. Might be a bit selfish within reason.

Chaotic Neutral
The most likely person to actually be AGAINST a predetermined agreement. Would rather go all slipshod, giving to those less fortunate, those in danger, those who did something cool, those who might cause a ruckus if they don't get their way, those who found it, those who identified it, those who can use it, those who deserver it, those whose astrological sign indicates that they are entitled to a windfall, etc. This is generally the way our group rund things. We tend to have strong chaotics (some chaotic neutral, others chaotic good) who the lawful types don't really care to deal with as long as things seem to work out in the end.

Chaotic Evil
Steal, intimidate, murder, cheat, lie, hide, bury, whatever. As long as they get the treasure, they're fine.

we buy thiungs the group needs like healing stuff then divide the change

Just about every party I am in does it different...

I am a big fan of "If you can use it best...keep it." for magic items

and an even split for monies.

Whoever can put it to the best use gets to use it. If noone can, sell it and split the coin. They arn't greedy, and are pretty fair about it. They've argued a few times, but mostly there's enough to go around that noone feels cheated. Except for the talking dwarven beerstein of infinite alchohol. They'll lie, cheat, and steal for that thing.

If there's clearly one PC who can make best use of an item, we distribute it to that PC. If there's a question of that, we ship it to the PC with less loot. Monetary treasure we divide equally among all PCs involved in acquiring it.

It's actually a big change from the way we used to divide trasure when I played as a kid. Back then, it was every PC for himself, dicing for items and so forth, even when the PCs were supposed to be friends and partners. I suppose it reflects a change in my playing preference ... it's become a game of cooperation for me, with inter-PC conflict being the spice, rather than a cutthroat game with IC cooperation being nice-but-not-vital.

I leave this entirely up to the party. As GM, I never intervene in their decisions.

That being said, they tend to go towards even shares all around, with certain magical dingi being given to "whoever it suits most".

My system is quite radical, but since you asked...

Treasure is abstract. Every time a character gains a level, he loses whatever equipment he had previously and gains new equipment up to the standard gear value for a PC of his level. A PC can use the equipment he finds in the course of an adventure, but if he wants to retain a specific item of equipment after he gains a level, he has to "pay" for it by selecting it as one of the items of equipment he gains for his new level.

Example: In my campaigns, a 1st-level PC starts with 300 gp of gear. Let's say a 1st-level fighter selects a suit of banded mail (250 gp) and a greatsword (50 gp) as his starting equipment. In the course of the adventure, he finds a masterwork longsword (315 gp) which he can use for the rest of the adventure. However, once he gains 2nd level, he loses all the equipment he has and gains 900 gp to spend on new equipment. He could choose to regain his banded mail (250 gp) and the masterwork longsword (315 gp), which means he has 335 gp left to spend on other gear. Or, he could instead select banded mail (250 gp) and a masterwork greatsword (350 gp) instead, and spend his remaining 300 gp on other equipment.

To operationalize this, I tend to ensure that all characters level and refresh equipment at the same time, so that spare equipment doesn't get passed around.