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Alternative Ways for Awarding Treasure Besides Tomb Robbing?
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<blockquote data-quote="Ondath" data-source="post: 8672465" data-attributes="member: 7031770"><p>The topic I'm discussing only applies to a specific subset of TTRPGs: Namely, those with an item/wealth-based progression. D&D is the ur-example of course, what with dungeon delving and treasure seeking being the primary motivator in the early days of the game. I'm well aware that this isn't universal for TTRPGs, and that there are plenty of games where wealth and items are either abstracted, or are considered a fix part of your character that does not need to evolve even if the game has a different progression system (think the Resources background in WoD games. You can play a pretty rich character from the get-go or one that's scraping by, and the game doesn't assume you'll get more dots over time, though you're welcome if you want to). I'm interested solely in games where the assumption that your character will get richer/get cooler items over time is baked in.</p><p></p><p>When getting more money is an inherent part of the core gameplay loop, it leads to a lot of fun play opportunities. PCs have a nonmoral justification for going on adventures together. If the game offers things to spend your treasures on (which is something 5E <em>fails</em> to do), getting more treasure means having more character choices, and spending treasure becomes an alternate character progression system. And of course, players like for their PCs to have shiny things, so there's a deep psychological satisfaction in finding and taking that phat loot.</p><p></p><p>Having said that, in my experience with DMing, this wealth progression system leads to an interesting clash of play styles. The expectation that players will get progressively higher amounts of treasure seems to imply some game elements that don't entirely gel with contemporary play styles, namely, the fact that most treasure obtained in such games comes from robbing tombs or pillaging differently-coded folks. Don't get me wrong, I think a playstyle where the party goes after some inherently evil creatures and gets all the wealth & glory off of the adventure is perfectly valid. It leads to a Conan-esque story that is enjoyable in its own right. But if we look at the kind of stories that people try to replicate in modern TTRPGs (and most importantly D&D), Conan-esque sword & sorcery is on the way out. People play games where their characters are heroes who fight evil because it's the right thing to do, and in these cases pillaging your enemy's stronghold does not seem to gel with the tropes that you'd find in such a story. Aang doesn't pick the armour Fire Nation soldiers wear after combat, and the Avengers don't really get their wealth from their adventures.</p><p></p><p>Hence my question (3 paragraphs to get to the discussion prompt, I know...): <strong>If you run a heroic game in a TTRPG system with wealth progression, how do your players get treasure (and magic items etc.)? Do you just accept that in your universe the victor gets all the possessions of the defeated? Do your questgivers handle the majority of the rewards? Did you make item progression abstract in some other way? What are some ways you deviate from the typical tomb robbing/pillaging treasure collection TTRPGs usually assume?</strong></p><p></p><p>This doesn't mean that it is impossible to have a wealth progression system in a heroic game, of course. Lots of GMs do so succesfully. Hell, I do it in my games all the time. It's just that the overthinking part of my brain dislikes the inherent opposition in these two play styles, and I'm trying to see if alternatives exist to "These guys are selfless heroes who take on morally justified quests, but the majority of their wealth and magic items comes from robbing tombs and taking the possessions of their enemies". Not that the style I just described is inherently bad, I'm just trying to see how we could move past it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ondath, post: 8672465, member: 7031770"] The topic I'm discussing only applies to a specific subset of TTRPGs: Namely, those with an item/wealth-based progression. D&D is the ur-example of course, what with dungeon delving and treasure seeking being the primary motivator in the early days of the game. I'm well aware that this isn't universal for TTRPGs, and that there are plenty of games where wealth and items are either abstracted, or are considered a fix part of your character that does not need to evolve even if the game has a different progression system (think the Resources background in WoD games. You can play a pretty rich character from the get-go or one that's scraping by, and the game doesn't assume you'll get more dots over time, though you're welcome if you want to). I'm interested solely in games where the assumption that your character will get richer/get cooler items over time is baked in. When getting more money is an inherent part of the core gameplay loop, it leads to a lot of fun play opportunities. PCs have a nonmoral justification for going on adventures together. If the game offers things to spend your treasures on (which is something 5E [I]fails[/I] to do), getting more treasure means having more character choices, and spending treasure becomes an alternate character progression system. And of course, players like for their PCs to have shiny things, so there's a deep psychological satisfaction in finding and taking that phat loot. Having said that, in my experience with DMing, this wealth progression system leads to an interesting clash of play styles. The expectation that players will get progressively higher amounts of treasure seems to imply some game elements that don't entirely gel with contemporary play styles, namely, the fact that most treasure obtained in such games comes from robbing tombs or pillaging differently-coded folks. Don't get me wrong, I think a playstyle where the party goes after some inherently evil creatures and gets all the wealth & glory off of the adventure is perfectly valid. It leads to a Conan-esque story that is enjoyable in its own right. But if we look at the kind of stories that people try to replicate in modern TTRPGs (and most importantly D&D), Conan-esque sword & sorcery is on the way out. People play games where their characters are heroes who fight evil because it's the right thing to do, and in these cases pillaging your enemy's stronghold does not seem to gel with the tropes that you'd find in such a story. Aang doesn't pick the armour Fire Nation soldiers wear after combat, and the Avengers don't really get their wealth from their adventures. Hence my question (3 paragraphs to get to the discussion prompt, I know...): [B]If you run a heroic game in a TTRPG system with wealth progression, how do your players get treasure (and magic items etc.)? Do you just accept that in your universe the victor gets all the possessions of the defeated? Do your questgivers handle the majority of the rewards? Did you make item progression abstract in some other way? What are some ways you deviate from the typical tomb robbing/pillaging treasure collection TTRPGs usually assume?[/B] This doesn't mean that it is impossible to have a wealth progression system in a heroic game, of course. Lots of GMs do so succesfully. Hell, I do it in my games all the time. It's just that the overthinking part of my brain dislikes the inherent opposition in these two play styles, and I'm trying to see if alternatives exist to "These guys are selfless heroes who take on morally justified quests, but the majority of their wealth and magic items comes from robbing tombs and taking the possessions of their enemies". Not that the style I just described is inherently bad, I'm just trying to see how we could move past it. [/QUOTE]
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