Burial Rights for Adventurers

[Gez]

Just cut back on the treasure, if there are lots of death. Or let the new characters be gearless (like prisoners rescued from the goblins/bugbears/ogres/dark elves/cloud giants/illithids/etc.).

 

[Ycore Rixle]

Painfully accurate.

"Painfully" accurate? Tom Clancy is great - one of the most thrilling, clever, stirring writers on the scene today. And Lord of the Rings is a classic. To be compared to these two - accurately - is far from painful. It's the formula for a multimillion-selling, fantastic, fun, meaningful, classic genre-defining game.

Which is exactly what D&D is. Long may it reign!

 

[evileeyore]

Played in a Pirate game once, where we had a party memeber literelly take grape shot. Before his body (or more acurately the pieces) hit the deck, someone shouted:

"I gets 'is boots!"

TTFN--EvilE

 

[Sir Whiskers]

I played in one game with a guy whose character borrowed several magic items from my rogue. Later in the adventure, the rogue was killed. The guy's reaction was, "Great! Now I can keep his stuff." When I pointed out that the rogue was going to be raised, his response was that once he died, all the rogue's possessions were fair game - he refused to return anything.

Needless to say, that was the last time I gamed with that particular player.

 

[Numion]

I gave my group a choice:

either

a) they roleplay so that the dead PCs belongings are buried / given away / get rid off and new PCs come into play with equipment per DMG (appropriate gold for the characters level)

or

b) they can take the dead PCs stuff, and new PCs come into play with equipment per PHB (only 1st level starting gold)

They chose a)

I made this so that the partys net worth wouldn't increase as PCs die. Very handy in lethal games.

 

[Numion]

I played in one game with a guy whose character borrowed several magic items from my rogue. Later in the adventure, the rogue was killed. The guy's reaction was, "Great! Now I can keep his stuff." When I pointed out that the rogue was going to be raised, his response was that once he died, all the rogue's possessions were fair game - he refused to return anything.

Needless to say, that was the last time I gamed with that particular player.

You played a rogue, right? You could've also gone for plan b): coup de grace in his sleep. Take your stuff. Take his stuff.

 

[Neo]

I played in one game with a guy whose character borrowed several magic items from my rogue. Later in the adventure, the rogue was killed. The guy's reaction was, "Great! Now I can keep his stuff." When I pointed out that the rogue was going to be raised, his response was that once he died, all the rogue's possessions were fair game - he refused to return anything.

Needless to say, that was the last time I gamed with that particular player.

When you say "once he died, all his rogues possessions were fair game and he refused to return them" are you talking the player did or the character did? because to be honest if such reactions were appropriate to the kind of rogue he was playing, then he was just roleplaying, which wouldn't really be "understandable" for not playing with him again. If however the player was obvisouly running his own aggenda and such action was totally out of character then I agree not playing with him again was totally understandable. Though i'd have likely called for GM intervention.

Though to be honest if he was dead, what he thought should or should not happens to any items on his corpse is fairly moot, his character is dead after all. I personally strongly discourage dead PC's offering any opinions IC or OOC as they're dead, and typically dead folk dont hold conversations unless they're undead LOL.

I'd have just told the rest of the party I was getting my items which were loaned to him in the first place back from his character, made sure the GM knew and then left it at that. If the rogue got raised he'd be raised without the items in question.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I gave my group a choice:

either

a) they roleplay so that the dead PCs belongings are buried / given away / get rid off and new PCs come into play with equipment per DMG (appropriate gold for the characters level)

or

b) they can take the dead PCs stuff, and new PCs come into play with equipment per PHB (only 1st level starting gold)

They chose a)

I made this so that the partys net worth wouldn't increase as PCs die. Very handy in lethal games.

That's a really silly offer to make if you don't trust your players - there's not really much to stop them from taking B and deciding that the 'new guy' doesn't get diddly, making him decidedly ineffective.

 

[Snoweel]

That's a really silly offer to make if you don't trust your players - there's not really much to stop them...

Yes there is.

You say "Ok, if you're going to carry on like a bunch of 5 year olds, I really couldn't be bothered playing. Go ruin somebody else's game. Now get the f*** outta my house."

 

[Saeviomagy]

Yes there is.

You say "Ok, if you're going to carry on like a bunch of 5 year olds, I really couldn't be bothered playing. Go ruin somebody else's game. Now get the f*** outta my house."

Pot, meet kettle. I hope you two get along.

Treasure management should NOT be the domain of the players, and quite frankly burying someone with all their stuff (stuff that you personally know has a value in the thousands of dollars that right now has a very direct effect on your own future wellbeing) is the realm of total morons, and a very twisted type of metagaming.

So is welcoming "Tom the slackarse bard" to the group - you know, the guy who has never, ever done anything which has earnt him money - and then spontaeneously giving him all this neat loot you have.

I'm still trepidatious about lending my car to my nearest and dearest, and I know that they're going to take the utmost care of it. Lending it to someone I barely know who's going to take it into the equivalent of a destruction derby isn't something I'm going to do.

My personal suggestion would be to allow the players to split up the treasure however they want, and redress the balance from your own side of the table, by tweaking treasure up or down to match.

After all, if the party decides all the treasure you hand them is crap, and sells the lot, you've got to do that constantly anyway, or give up the ghost of regulated treasure levels.