D&D General Time to divide loot, treasure, items….

[Lanefan]

In 3E, I played in a group that was insanely strict on perfectly equal division. Since magic items had a cash value, if you wanted an item, you had to reduce your share equal to the amount. This led to some insane situations that I strenuously objected to, but was outvoted. We sold a suit of Plate Mail +1 of Acid Resistance... so that our fighter had enough money to buy a suit of Plate Mail +1. We sold off a powerful staff that could only be used by our wizard, because it was worth more than the wizard could cover (it was almost twice as valuable as the entire horde), then later suffered because we didn't have that staff.

This is exactly the sort of choice I'd like to see them have to make. Something like that wizard's staff could have been bought by a group of characters*, or taken out of treasury and carried forward, or - as happened - sold off. Just giving it to the wizard introduces a serious wealth imbalance within the party.

* - I've seen this done many a time with items too useful to let go e.g. a Ring of Regeneration or a Flying Carpet: four or five characters will lob in equal shares to buy the item, then one character will eventually buy the others out later as funds permit.

I understand the desire to be as equal as possible, but this level of selfishness was taken too far.

Call it selfishness if you will, but if the wizard gets the 40,000 g.p. staff (and can then turn around and sell it later!) and the fighter gets the 2,000 g.p. longsword then someone's getting the short end of the stick here.

 

[Clint_L]

Depends on the group, I suppose, but to me this is and always has been part of the game; so as DM I let it go. That said, if the characters want to fight about it in-character, I let that go too.

The only hard rule is that what happens in character stays in character. No hard feelings at the table.

I'm talking about beginner groups of teenagers, some who have never played an RPG, many of whom are not already friends, and some of whom have weak social skills. So it inevitably spills over into hard feelings. We talk about it in advance at Session 0 when we agree on the ground rules, but quite often someone gets overly excited or just decides they really want that thing or whatever, and then I intervene right away and remind them of the "no stealing from the party rule" and why we have it.

There could, of course, be situations where this rule would be violated because of story reasons, but in those situations I just make sure that it is obvious why the rule is being violated and no one gets upset.

TLDR: working with brand new teenaged players, some of whom have autism and other neural differences, means that sometimes you have to make things a bit more explicit.

 

[cbwjm]

Typically coin/gems, etc, is divided evenly by the groups I play in or run.

Magical items will be traded around the party, typically going to whomever can make best use of the items, sometimes going to someone as a back up item.

 

[ad_hoc]

To those who can best use them.

 

[Bill Zebub]

In D&D we do what most people here seem to do: the players talk, and whoever needs it the most gets it. Nothing much to say, really.

Now, raid loot in World of Warcraft, on the other hand, gets interesting, both from game theory and sociological perspectives.

 

[Shiroiken]

Call it selfishness if you will, but if the wizard gets the 40,000 g.p. staff (and can then turn around and sell it later!) and the fighter gets the 2,000 g.p. longsword then someone's getting the short end of the stick here.

I actually called it stupidity at the time, but I argued for the Wizard to owe the group the difference. He wouldn't get any treasure until he paid the party back the difference, but 2 other players argued against. IMO it's always better to keep items whenever they're useful, since you sell for half the value, but have to buy at full cost. In the case of the fighter getting the longsword, he's going to get his share of coin, even if it takes a little longer to do so.

 

[humble minion]

Items acquired through party loot or group gifts (rather than as gifts etc to a specific party member) go to whoever wants them and can most effectively use them. (As an aside, the attunement rules make for much less drama in this department, because one PC CAN'T usefully hoard all the magic items)

After that, stuff gets pooled and sold and the loot divided equally. Oh, and we often have NPCs travelling with us, they adhere to the same process and get the same shares even if they're only hired tundra guides or whatever.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Call it selfishness if you will, but if the wizard gets the 40,000 g.p. staff (and can then turn around and sell it later!) and the fighter gets the 2,000 g.p. longsword then someone's getting the short end of the stick here.

If I'm the fighter, I'm happy the wizard has that staff. You know, given that we're a party of adventurers presumably cooperating to accomplish shared goals. The wizard's luck in obtaining that staff just made my job (and survivability) that much easier. They really want to sell it later? Then perhaps they have a good reason or perhaps the rest of the party can convince them otherwise or...

TL;DR: Sometimes the concept of "balance" gets in the way, IMO.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Call it selfishness if you will, but if the wizard gets the 40,000 g.p. staff (and can then turn around and sell it later!) and the fighter gets the 2,000 g.p. longsword then someone's getting the short end of the stick here.

If I ever found myself thinking/worrying about such things I would stop playing D&D.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Gold value is divided equally, magic items are talked over, with any conflicts being resolved by a simple roll-off.

One thing I've learned is that if the DM puts a magic item out there for a specific character, deliver it directly to them, rather than just putting it in the pile and hoping that the right character gets it. Too many times I've seen someone get grabby hands and the cloak of elvenkind that the rogue would've benefitted most from ends up being worn by the fighter in platemail.