Giving yourself treasure... Is there anything wrong with this?

[UltimaGabe]

Hey, everyone. In the group I'm currently playing in, myself and two of the other players switch up DMing every few sessions, so that each of us has a character and we are all somewhat even. It's come to my turn to DM, and I've already run one mini-adventure, and I'm about to finish a module I started a set-up for a month or so ago.

You see, in our group, when it comes to divying up XP and treasure after an adventure, the DM gets the same amount of XP as everyone else (so that his character stays somewhat even to everyone else's in terms of level) but he generally doesn't get a share of treasure, as he wasn't there to get a portion. This usually isn't an issue.

However, this next adventure I'm going to run is going to result in the rest of the group getting a LOT of money. I mean a TON. They're around 13th level (a group of 4 players and a cohort), and the total treasure is probably going to be around 30-40,000 gp each (not counting the cohort) from the main encounter alone. I have no problem with giving them so much money, but I began thinking about giving myself a bit of something too.

You see, my character makes magic items. I mean he makes a LOT of magic items. He's made so many magic items that he's almost an entire level behind everyone else, even though they all started at exactly the same amount- and we're even playing with a system that you need twice as much experience to level up after 10th level (so, in other words, he's around 25,000 xp behind everyone else).

So, considering I was about to give the party such a massive haul, I began to consider possibly giving my character something as well- not something in the ways of money, but I considered giving him a custom magic item of sorts, that would possibly help him in making magic items (possibly cutting down the cost of magic items by 5% or something). You see, as a little lead-in to the next adventure, I sent one of the characters (a new player) on a little mini-adventure relating to his character backstory. (His character, a Rogue, was Dominated by an evil Wizard and used as a personal assassin for some time, before he somehow managed to escape. He has no memory of how he got away.) He was contacted by some guy to go to this old Wizard's lab- and he asked if he could take someone along, so I told him sure. So, being as my character's a Cleric, and he was pretty sure he'd need some healing, he asked my character to go. Since he said he'd make a donation to my character's church, I offered to send my character.

So they went to this old Wizard's lab and fought some monsters that had come out of an old portal that the Wizard had forgotten about. Once the monsters were taken care of, they searched the area- and I said that there were several bookcases of arcane lore, and several magical devices that appear to be used in the creation of magic items, as well as several other things pertaining to this character's backstory. So they took the books and the devices, and went back home.

Anyway, I hadn't really put any thought into what the devices were or what they would do, but afterwards I got thinking. I AM gonna be giving a huge haul to the PCs- which, again, I don't mind- but I was thinking of possibly giving my character some sort of minor benefit for having those devices- one idea would be to let him make magic items at 5% less gp/xp cost, or something like that.

The main issue here is that I'm not sure how people view a DM giving his character something specifically for his character- and I want to know how people feel about it before I go and do anything like this. I'm emailing the concept to the other DMs, of course, and seeing what they think about it.

So how does everyone feel about something like this? If you were co-DMing in a campaign with other people, would you allow one of them to do this?

If it turns out to be a huge mistake, I won't do it, of course- so I just want some feedback.

 

[DragonLancer]

So how does everyone feel about something like this? If you were co-DMing in a campaign with other people, would you allow one of them to do this?

Honestly... no, I wouldn't allow the other person to do this. If I'm reading your post right, if you want to have items for yourself that you get outside of the adventure, then make them yourself. Just don't drop them into the adventure on the chance that they will be saved for your character.

But then, I could never hack sharing DM spotlight with weeks or and off.

 

[Morpheus]

Talk to everyone else after the adventure and see what they think. Maybe the DM of the next adventure will help you out by placing an item or treasure specifically for you. Otherwise, I wouldn't do it to avoid some hard feelings later on.

 

[UltimaGabe]

Honestly... no, I wouldn't allow the other person to do this. If I'm reading your post right, if you want to have items for yourself that you get outside of the adventure, then make them yourself. Just don't drop them into the adventure on the chance that they will be saved for your character.

Well, I didn't drop it in specifically for my character- I put it into the adventure because it fit logically. It was a Wizard's lab, and the Wizard would have had magic item creation devices. It simply came as logic. Then, once the adventure was over, and the Rogue had suggested bringing along the devices (as he knew that I made magical items quite often), I began wondering if it would be horribly unbalancing if the devices gave some sort of in-game bonus, and I wondered if anyone would mind if my character took advantage of said bonus. I had no intention of giving my character an advantage until the other PC suggested bringing it back for him- it just happened naturally.

 

[Tuzenbach]

I've done the same thing several times. On every occasion I made sure that if there was an item I wanted that I'd have to include items I didn't want but were, somehow, of equal or greater value. In my mind, it was OK if I put items in the Dungeon for myself so long as the other players were just as happy with the items they eventually got.

 

[Chimera]

Slippery slope. You do it, then the door is open. So the next guy does it. Then you're giving yourself all sorts of things, or you're negotiating for all the goodies you want, to the detriment of the game.

Back in the late 70's, when I was playing with three highschool buds, we would rotate GMing. We each had five characters. The three players would each chose two characters to fill out a six character adventuring group. Was quite the cool way of doing things.

But we started down this slope.

Then, one day, the biggest Monte Haul GM of the bunch started to feel remorse for having given out so many toys. So he had the group attacked by a swarm of men with Rods of Cancellation.

Well, one guy lost his favorite sword, and became vindictive. The next time it was his turn to GM, he enticed us into sending our best characters, equipped with their best stuff.

We walk into a room and this chest automatically opens as the doors slam shut. A green fog fills the room, destroying every magic item we had, no saving throw. A really nasty thing to do and we never forgave him for it. That was probably the beginning of the end for our little group of friends.

 

[Humanophile]

Let me back Chimera and Morpheus here. You cannot gift yourself with treasure, and be careful destroying other people's treasure*, but there's no reason another DM can't. Or more to the point, if the group agrees, your character could have retroactively found this item in the stash.

This is a two-tier issue, though. Before running the game, tell everyone that this game might be a little treasure-heavy, so would it be okay if your character got some compensation to keep up. Be sure to be subtle about it, asking people to think about it before the game starts, and try to make sure nobody violently opposes it so far. Do keep in mind to keep everything smooth that all you're asking them to do is think about it, though.

After the adventure's all wrapped up, if the party found all the loot, ask them if a little catch-up cookie for your character would be kosher. You might very well not, in which case suck it up in the name of party cohesion. And even if it does happen, you get what the party/the other DM's agree on, which is probably in-line with what you want but nowhere near as good. Again, suck it up in the name of keeping everyone happy, and realize that doing otherwise opens the doors to a lot of back-rubbing and underhanded tactics. If the GM's character gets a little goodie to play catch-up nobody's going to be too upset, but if there's a chance of the consolation prize being better than the real loot, things'll go downhill fast.

*I once had a rotating DM game where one GM loved playing high-magic, high-powered, but loved throwing the rest of the party against things that forced all our items to save or go bye-bye. Thus making his character the wealthiest, most powerful party member, with the attitude to boot.

 

[Bloodsparrow]

Where was your character and what was he doing while you were the DM?

If the DM's character gets the same exp as the members of the party that were there... Then perhaps they should also get money that is somewhere around what their share would have been had they been with the party. If you were earning exp while away from the rest of your party, then it only goes that you would have also earned some money or items as well. And, just as the exp is seperate from the exp that your group earns, these assets should not interfeare with the loot that you give your group through the course of their adventure under your reign.

Perhaps, while your comrades were away, your character was helping annother artificer with research on a particular item or spell, and this person paid you for your services.

I don't think it's unreasonable, but if you take turns as "reigning screen monkey" then you should discuss this with the other members of your group.

 

[S'mon]

The main issue here is that I'm not sure how people view a DM giving his character something specifically for his character- and I want to know how people feel about it before I go and do anything like this. I'm emailing the concept to the other DMs, of course, and seeing what they think about it.

I would definitely avoid doing this myself, it sets a bad precedent. I'd hand out generic stuff & hope the others might let my PC have something when he returned - in fact I'd think you group might benefit from an informal rule that treasure was set aside for absent PCs whose player was present at the game. 3e is actually very good for controlling wealth allocation as you can always use the wealth-by-level table to see if you have too much or little.
OTOH your group seems very mature in attitude, maybe it's not a problem. But make 100% sure _everyone_ in the group is ok w this before you do it.

 

[synecdoche]

When I first started playing D&D, my group had two DMs-- myself and one other person. Thus we ran into the same situation: when one person was DMing, how much experience did his character get? How many, if any, magic items?

The way we decided to do it was a sort of reward system. We'd look at the amount of experience that the group got, and figured out an average, and started with that. Ditto for magic items and such. Then the group discussed it and award the DM based on how much the enjoyed the adventure. A couple of times one of us ran a great adventure, and so we were rewarded for it with experience that was higher than the average. Other times, the adventure wasn't so great. The group would make its case and then the DM would get less experience, with the minimum being whatever the character who participated and got the least experience received.

It should be noted that you should only take this road if you have a mature group (and it sounds like you do) and your ego is capable of taking some criticism. But, I think it worked pretty well. If nothing else it let us DMs get some solid feedback on what worked and what didn't work in an adventure, and what the players enjoyed the most. I should also point out that this never resulted in a DM getting more experience than the player who received the most in the actual adventure. Also, it was crucial that the group understood exactly how much work went into creating an original adventure.