Division of Treasure

[Anthelios]

How does your party/players handle dispensing found magical treasure. The group I DM for seems to be very socialist in their approach. They give the item to the PC that needs it the most, and ignore its value when it comes time to split up shares of treasure. Personally I think its unrealistic.

I've hear some other variants. Like rolling for first picks, or half-value buying the items out of your share of treasure. I'd like to hear how other EN worlders deal with their treasure shares.

 

[Aus_Snow]

How does your party/players handle dispensing found magical treasure. The group I DM for seems to be very socialist in their approach. They give the item to the PC that needs it the most, and ignore its value when it comes time to split up shares of treasure. Personally I think its unrealistic.

That's what most groups I've been in, GMed for, or encountered IRL, have done.

I favour it, as it so happens. But then, I tend to play in, and GM, worlds where things like the "GP value" of magical items is likely to be an unknown. Different kinda base assumptions from maybe some of the actual D&D base assumptions - not sure. Either way, that's the way it goes round here.

Also, the "deadly" factor might be higher than the average (?) so using wits, for one thing, and assigning items by function and appropriateness for another, seems to make even more sense all of a sudden.

 

[DragonLancer]

How does your party/players handle dispensing found magical treasure. The group I DM for seems to be very socialist in their approach. They give the item to the PC that needs it the most, and ignore its value when it comes time to split up shares of treasure. Personally I think its unrealistic.

Thats exactly how my group does it. The value of an item is irrelevant. It should go to the person who needs it most. Any excess or unwanted items gets sold and the cash goes into a party fund.

 

[CsonTep]

In my games they also usually divide treasure by who can best use it without regard to value. But, in my most recent game, one player's character was supposed to be greedy and he made sure that none of the other character's shares were greater than his.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

In most games up to the past year, it's been "division by best use," i.e., whomever could make the best use of an item got it. There'd be some consideration of past awards, to make sure things didn't get unbalanced, but magic items didn't count against the gold a PC would also get.

Lately, however, two of the three games has changed such that a PC must "buy" the item for half of its value. One of the two games even occasionally has the PCs bidding for the item, startng at half its value. There is some common sense involved ... for example, we'd make sure to use a minor cloak of displacement, even though it's unlikely anyone could afford the full half-value.

I honestly don't know exactly when or why things changed. Either method is okay with me, as long as both are leavened with some sense of equity.

 

[shilsen]

How does your party/players handle dispensing found magical treasure. The group I DM for seems to be very socialist in their approach. They give the item to the PC that needs it the most, and ignore its value when it comes time to split up shares of treasure. Personally I think its unrealistic.

That's precisely how we do it, in every group I DM or play in, and that's 3 tabletop games and 8 PbP ones (counting only D&D here). I personally think any of the other versions is much more unrealistic.

 

[Geoff Watson]

The group I play in divides the treasure evenly by sale value, though often a PC will use a newly acquired item before it is "divvied".

Geoff.

 

[irdeggman]

When I DM I leave it up to the players to decide. Most do the give it to the character than can use it best (but use that to balance out things as much as possible). So they wouldn't get the next item usable by anyone or so.


When I DM I do try to "adjust" the treasure to ensure that every PC is covered to the best I can so that no one feels "left out".

When I play I prefer to do the same. I don't like to see one character get everything, though nor do I like to see players start to make up spreadsheets to ensure that every cp is accounted for. Sort of ruins the "fun" for me that way. I don't mind not getting the "best sword" but eventually my PC should get something appropriate to use.

 

[el-remmen]

How is that unrealistic?

That is how I handle things in real life among friends, family, close companions. . .

I have been in a group that "rolled off" in the past, and I just found it led to bad feelings and items being wasted that could have been put to better use by someone else.

It is cooperative game.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

My group generally does it on a needs basis combined with who best could use the item. Any gold, gems, art objects, etc., is split evenly within the party, even if not everyone got a magic item. I haven't audited their character sheets but I don't think that any one player has a whole lot more than the others. They tend to split things pretty evenly.

Olaf the Stout