Don't pay the party in gold [article link]

[Autumnal]

Have you seen Metal Weave Games’ Baby Bestiaries? They’re invaluable for fun pets and companions. Just wonderful game aids.

 

[zakael19]

Art objects and gems make a lot more sense in a game where dungeon crawling to get loot to get XP is the primary focus; and thus things worth a lot of gold but that weigh less then sacks of coin are super attractive. A small pouch of gems worth 2k gold is a lot easier to port back to the home village! Conversely, a complicated art object worth a ton makes for a fun challenge to drop in front of them.

I've seen a few games move towards silver pieces or a similar coinage as teh default currency when they want to have a less "mythical underworld / larger then life treasure seekers" vibe, and that works really well.

One bit I did really like a bout the article is the emphasis on the local lord/merchants being the sorts who'd actually have significant coinage around to pay rewards.

 

[J.Quondam]

Mayor: "We are eternally grateful to you for eliminating our giant cellar rats! As reward, please accept all we can offer: the finest pig in the village!"
Party: " . . . "
Bard: "I seduce th--"
Party: "Shut up, bard!"

 

[Piperken]

A salient point I felt that someone mentioned in regards to this post, was that regardless of culture, rewards in the past were by and large symbolic, or intended to create or reinforce social bonds/connections in society.

This doesn't always mesh finely with a theme of we are adventurers who are in it solely for the monies (because our level advancement in said game is tied to it)

Depending on time and culture, the concept of connections in high places as a gift/reward, is divorced entirely from currency, and held to be more valuable. In those places, a bribe gets you only so far.

I also think looking at gifts and gifting practices both in the past and today (e.g. game shows) are worth considering in light of this as well. Watch and compare game shows from around the world and see what kinds of prizes are made available to contestants should they win.

The spectrum of what gives contestants delight is amazing!

 

[Oryzarius]

The question of how "easy" to make things, of course, leads straight back to the discussion of player types and campaign goals.

If you're running a campaign that tends more towards the beer-and-pretzels style then, yes, you're probably not tracking encumbrance very tightly either, so hand-waving the task of transporting the treasure out of the dungeon is probably best for everybody's fun. Some folks will gripe that it starts to look more like taking Shadowrun-style certified credsticks off the monsters, with arbitrary pay-outs requiring minimal effort, but they're obviously not that type.

Gygax was infamous for having dungeons with hard-to-get treasure: metal-sheathed doors, beautiful but fragile statuettes, etc. If most of the dragon's hoard is in copper pieces, do you leave that in favor of the higher-value coins, or do you post guards so you can come back and scoop up the rest? Problem-solvers will enjoy this sort of thing; others will view it as tiresome logistics more fit for the working-day than the gaming-table.

 

[GrimCo]

Bingo. This is why gold is so popular as players tend to view giving them gems and objects of art as unnecessary extra steps they take to convert it into fungible gold. I think any rewards given to the PCs should definitely work as a reward to the PCs without being a burden. And quite frankly, like you said, we're not playing Accounts & Ledgers we're playing D&D. Though some players really do like playing A&L in addition to D&D.

And for those that enjoy playing A&L, great. Personally, met very few people that do like it, but to each it's own i guess.

So what are some advantages objects of art or jewelry might have over gold? A pound of gold is worth 50 gold pieces. In real life, a London Good Delivery Bar, a bar of gold notable for its large size and purity, is on average a little over 27 pounds, so in D&D terms it's worth 1,200 gold pieces. That kind of weight really starts to add up when you're expected to transport it. i.e. Haul it from a dungeon to back to your base of operations. And it's not really a practical amount to carry around as spending money. A moonstone jewel is worth 50 gold, and while the DMG doesn't say how much it weight, I'm going to assume it's about the size of a gemstone. i.e. It's weight is negligible. For day-to-day interactions you probably need gold, but maybe you can use gems for larger purchases? Instead of carrying 30 pounds of gold maybe a few ounces of gems will do the trick?

Pound for pound, gems are better. That bar of gold is roughly 105 carats of diamonds. 12.5 kg of gold vs 21 grams of diamonds (1 carat is 0.2 grams). So yeah, small bag of diamonds is better for large purchases. Problem with art is that it's not that liquid and for best value you must find right collector. Sometimes, that can be fun side quest on it's own. Just not very often. Big thing with gold is that it's highly liquid and gold being soft metal, you can brake gold jewelry or coins to smaller bits for lesser purchases. Something you can't do with diamonds. So few gold coins for daily purchases and gems for larger ones.

I pretty much agree with @Oryzarius' list of reasons why rewards are given in games. It's probably not an exhaustive list, but it's a great start. Ultimately, I think the key here is that you want to make sure the rewards are meaningful to the players. My beef with 5th edition is that after a certain point gold became meaningless, but it takes a bit more effort to make other rewards have a tangible meaning in the game.

Totally agree with you. In 5e, once your heavy armor users get to that full plate, there is little use for more money. In older editions, we hoarded money like crazy for buying magic items. With magic item sales gone, there isn't much you can buy past mundane stuff to make your character better at their job.

One of my players wants a pet dinosaur. I mean his character does. Maybe the player does too, but I can't do anything about that. I'm actually in a good position to have a pet dinosaur be part of the treasure during the next session. They're finding a group of gourmands and I had planned on them finding a storage area with a bunch of exotic animals in captivity. Adding a young dinosaur is trivially easy and I can focus part of the campaign on the PC training the darn thing.

That's cool. Sometimes that stuff works. In the end, rewards are for players. If they get something they want for their characters, it gives them sense of accomplishment. No, pat on the back and "Good work old chap." isn't reward

 

[MGibster]

It's hard work coming up with treasure that's not just gold or something players can readily turn into gold. I put together my first "hoard" of treasure for my 1st level party. The first rule of rewards is they should be useful for the characters. Even if just turning into gold ends up being the plan. My campaign is set in Greyhawk, and I'd like some of the treasure to give the players a sense there's a wider world beyond their city.

• 6 bottles of Furyondian wine worth 10 gold each.
• 2 Potions of Healing (Produced in the Shield Lands where they make it extra bitter to discourage anyone from drinking it unless they really need it.
• Rapier (bejeweled) worth 50 gold. Markers mark is Fendroot, a craftsman from the Slum Quarter in Greyhawk.
• Dust of Disappearance
• Potion of Animal Friendship
• Orb of Time (and what a lame item this is)
• 300 silver coins and 50 gold coins

If the players choose, they can get to know Fendroot who is a master weaponsmith, or perhaps even track down the original owner of the rapier for more adventure options. The best part is it's the players choice to look into it or not.

 

[GrimCo]

In our current game, we just hit lv 8. We have all the best mundane gear. We have enough money. We are currently in the middle of the dungeon and we looted very few things. I think we found chest with like 7000 silver and 1000 gold coins and just went - meh, leave it. Unless it's something cool or magical, no interest in hauling it. Our gm threw some mundane magitech items we did take just for the cool factor. One was short sword, but it's just hilt with 2 nozzles and inside hilt is some kind of silvery non newtonian fluid. Rotating the pommel starts liquid circulation that forms a blade ( we call it quicksilver waterjet "chainsword" ).

 

[Distracted DM]

This thread just makes me want to necro one of the "should you be able to buy magic items?" threads
Rewards are such a deep hole to think your way into and never get out of.

 

[Oryzarius]

In our current game, we just hit lv 8. We have all the best mundane gear. We have enough money. We are currently in the middle of the dungeon and we looted very few things. I think we found chest with like 7000 silver and 1000 gold coins and just went - meh, leave it. Unless it's something cool or magical, no interest in hauling it.

What about cash for consumables? Sure, ammunition and provisions are relatively cheap at that level of rewards, but then you get stuff like Potions of Healing, temple donations for removing conditions and curses, higher expenses for luxury living in town between adventures, saving up for a stronghold, etc.

This is probably also one of the reasons why older editions of D&D charged money for "training expenses" in order to level up, or made strongholds something to be built rather than automatically improved with leveling. If characters are self-contained entities with few needs and only super-normal wants then, yes, mundane treasure pales in interest very quickly.