D&D 5E Best way to deal with greedy players and magic items in a fun game.

[SubrosaGames]

Are talking about 3.z? 5e removed magic item churn body slots & basically all of the subjective elements that allowed the gm to do that.

Never liked the watered down versions of rpgs in general. In my day, "tweaker" had a whole different meaning than it does today, and it had nothing to do with drugs, lol. I liked finding myriad ways to tweak the character, and when it's watered down, that just isn't possible.

 

[SubrosaGames]

I am playing in a long term campaign (currently on month 18) and one player really wants to hoard the magic items. A lot of really cool stuff came up but I never say I want it if someone else is interested. I always let it go (mostly to the guy who wants everything). I don't really fight it because I enjoy the campaign, as an example he had a portable hole already and we found a bag of holding back when we were like 3rd level and that character was like - "i want the bag of holding" even though he already had the PH. Another example, his character is never in melee and has fire resistance as racial feature. We found a ring that required attunement and gave +1AC and fire resistance, I am in melee periodically (Rogue) and could have used it better I think. The paladin in the group gets attacked all the time and gets targeted with like every AOE and could have really used it, but we gave it to this guy because he said he wanted it (actually said in game "I am taking the ring" after it was identified).

We only play once a month. Right now we are 10th level my character has 2 magic weapons (+1 dagger, vicious whip) and nothing with attunement. At this point the other guy has all his attunement slots filled and he personally has as many total magic items as the rest of the 5-person party combined. We found a really good attunement magic item that gives resistance to all elemental damage and magic resistance. This guy basically said: I want to give up the other item (+1 and fire resistance) and attune to this item.

This really bothered me and I feel like this is the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak. I don't want to cause a fight and end the campaign, my character is cool and fun even with no items and honestly I am probably not the best person for this new item anyway since I have evasion, but he isn't either.

I know I should not let it bother me but it really annoyed me.

I know one thing I did when I was DMing for children (literal children) - they got temporary use of magic items until a break (cleared the dungeon, rescued the princess, freed the town ...) at that point all the loot would go into a pile we would splut the magic items and everyone would roll. Highest die picks an item, 2nd highest picks an item .... If we had less players than items we made shares of gold equivalent to value of the least magic item or all the gold split if it was less than the least item. If we had more items than players when we got to the bottom it went in reverse - so the last guy picked his item, then he picked first in the next round, then the second to the last picked etc. This worked well for children .... although it seems childish and was certainly not optimal from a party perspective.

Mostly venting but advice would be welcome.

A good GM (DM) would see the disparity, and reward the non-greedy characters in ways superior to the items hoarded by that player. For example, if it was me (a seasoned 40+ year Storyteller), your character would eventually discover some anomaly that would give you a really cool innate power that is equivalent to all the hoarder's hoard. Perhaps your DM will rectify the situation in such a manner as this! ON one occasion, I had such a hoarder, and I handled it wrong -- I had higher level NPCs strip his character of everything (even the clothes) and tie him to a public whipping post. Needless to say, he quit the game, but fortunate for us, he loved my Storytelling and game so much he asked to come back after a week of anger.

 

[Lanefan]

I can't understand a group that cna't just make a choice and NOT try to screw the system or each other over...

One thing to note is that as a general tendency (and with significant party-to-party and player-to-player variance) we trend a bit more competitive* than some; and he who dies with the most toys wins, don't'cha know. .

* - not stupidly so, but it's there.

 

[Bohandas]

Maybe start sprinkling in cursed items with the treasure.

Or intelligent items that don't get along with the character.

Or artifacts from the 2e book or artifacts that are hella powerful but also hella cursed

 

[Audiomancer]

Only drop attunement items, so that the greedy player can’t Gollum them all.

 

[ECMO3]

It's the GMs job to tailor each reward/magic item "found"/"won" they put in the game to each player, where everyone feels rewarded and no one feels left out.

I don't agree with that. I prefer random magic items both as a player and a DM.

Giving tailor-made magic items encourages narrow builds and optimization that detracts from character development.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Throw a magical area attack at the party where each character takes 3D10 times the number of magical items they have??

 

[billd91]

Throw a magical area attack at the party where each character takes 3D10 times the number of magical items they have??

Entertaining.
Maybe even cathartic.
But probably not very helpful in the end.

 

[Lanefan]

Disenchanters* are your friend.

* - they are to magic as Rust Monsters are to metal - attracted to it and hella hard on it when they get there.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't agree with that. I prefer random magic items both as a player and a DM.

Then you end up with a Dump Truck of Holding full of magic items that never get used.

Giving tailor-made magic items encourages narrow builds and optimization that detracts from character development.

The DM doesn't give the players what they want, they give them what they need. So, if the DM wants to discourage narrow builds and optimisation, such characters will find the dungeons devoid of items they can use, whereas the character with the sub-optimal build finds an ideally suited powerful item.