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Blog of Holding Takes on Treasure Distribution and 1 XP/1 GP
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<blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 8032205" data-attributes="member: 72555"><p>Or, another way to look at it.</p><p></p><p>Imagine if in order to gain levels, your party has to find MacGuffins of the Gods. You find an MacGuffins, you do a ritual, and boom, you and 5 of your closest friends gain a level.</p><p></p><p>As a DM, you now build a world where the MacGuffins are placed in ways that encourage adventure. There are dangers near each one, there is travel time, there is research needed to find them, etc. Maybe MacGuffins have a "level" on them, so a low level MacGuffin won't work to give a high level PC another level.</p><p></p><p>Players can go off and fight pirates or overthrow kingdoms, but those don't give levels. They might give temporal power, they might recruit people to their cause, they might give gold or even magic treasure.</p><p></p><p>But if the players want to increase their level? They gotta go for MacGuffins.</p><p></p><p>What I've just done is permit the DM to set up a <strong>sandbox</strong> world where PCs are free to seek whatever goals they want, but I've set up a set of carrots.</p><p></p><p>There will be magic items they can find, there will be gold treasure hordes, there will be people they can form alliances with, and there will be MacGuffins that give them character levels.</p><p></p><p>Now I'll intertwine the MacGuffins with the overarching story I want to tell in the world; there will be some reason why they grant power, there will be a doomsday clock, there will be rivals going for them, etc. But this relatively simple carrot provides a self-contained reason why any power-hungry PC would want to go along with the adventure, and instead of rail-roading PCs I simply place beacons for them to self-navigate by.</p><p></p><p>In old school D&D, gold can provide exactly this same motivation. The gold is where the gold is, the DM places it. The players now self-navigate towards where they think gold is, instead of randomly wandering around killing things to gain power.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="NotAYakk, post: 8032205, member: 72555"] Or, another way to look at it. Imagine if in order to gain levels, your party has to find MacGuffins of the Gods. You find an MacGuffins, you do a ritual, and boom, you and 5 of your closest friends gain a level. As a DM, you now build a world where the MacGuffins are placed in ways that encourage adventure. There are dangers near each one, there is travel time, there is research needed to find them, etc. Maybe MacGuffins have a "level" on them, so a low level MacGuffin won't work to give a high level PC another level. Players can go off and fight pirates or overthrow kingdoms, but those don't give levels. They might give temporal power, they might recruit people to their cause, they might give gold or even magic treasure. But if the players want to increase their level? They gotta go for MacGuffins. What I've just done is permit the DM to set up a [b]sandbox[/b] world where PCs are free to seek whatever goals they want, but I've set up a set of carrots. There will be magic items they can find, there will be gold treasure hordes, there will be people they can form alliances with, and there will be MacGuffins that give them character levels. Now I'll intertwine the MacGuffins with the overarching story I want to tell in the world; there will be some reason why they grant power, there will be a doomsday clock, there will be rivals going for them, etc. But this relatively simple carrot provides a self-contained reason why any power-hungry PC would want to go along with the adventure, and instead of rail-roading PCs I simply place beacons for them to self-navigate by. In old school D&D, gold can provide exactly this same motivation. The gold is where the gold is, the DM places it. The players now self-navigate towards where they think gold is, instead of randomly wandering around killing things to gain power. [/QUOTE]
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