Help Please, newish DM

[Bettie]

Ok, so I'm running a Dark Sun game and my characters did something that i didn't expect and wasn't at all prepared for.

They came into a village of 250 people and found most of the population dead and then they fought a bunch of undead (not the villagers, they were sucked dry of life force to power a ritual).

Anyway, afterward they got their treasure packet and I thought it was done.

They informed me that they are stripping the village of anything of value before they leave.

So, any idea what might be an easy way to determine what all might be in a village of this size? It isn't a wealthy community, but does have an inn.

Should I have planned for this? Should I start planning for them to strip any town or village that they come across?

Are they trying to tip the system and get extra treasure?

 

[Lord Xtheth]

How big and badass was the ritual? Maybe it's still active but just ran out of life force to sap... and now it found the PCs.
Do the PCs know what the ritual was in character? Because it could have been a ritual of SWALLOW THIS TOWN.
How much defiling went into the ritual? What if everything they touch evaporates into salt in the air because it has been defiled into nothingness.
Who did the ritual? Could they have already sacked the town before the PCs got there?
How many other people know the town has been slaughtered? Because everyone who knows will ALSO want whatever riches might be there.

There are a few things to think of at least. I hope it helps!

 

[Ryujin]

The treasure parcel included everything of value that they could have stripped from the village. The enemy got there first and organized it into a nice, neat pile for them.

 

[Cor_Malek]

Bah, don't sweat - have them work for this. I'm all for allowing stuff that a character would, and player does not know - but this is a bit different situation.

"OK, so you see a house. What do you do or look for?"

As a sidenote, do you know what was the most loathed thing within dungeon in olden days (well, aside from flumph)? Copper pieces. They weight too much and are worth too little, so it'd often take far too much space to take them.

And they're on a rigid desert for christ sake Carrying around a chest would be bad enough - trying to "loot a city" is like putting "greed" in "cause of death" field on the sheet.

Have them spend a lot of time, with skill checks and all that jazz, as well as water necessary for working in the sun - to take the city's most prized possesion: a whole wall of iron bars from city jail. Maybe throw in a fight with a small scout unit of elves who'd also like to redistribute some goods ;-)
Then have them try and move with it across the friggin desert to try and sell it, of course launching attacks of elves and other looters at them, and then, after all that - they need to find a smithy who can afford and use all this metal. Not like many weapon or armour makers focus on use of metal since it's so scarce.
Of course he'd need to complately resmelt the whole damn thing, as iron making bars would have incredible amount of coal.
But I figure they should make a really incredible amount of cash from this. Let's say... 100? Damn it, make it 150 gp.

If they want to spend time taking structures apart - let them be. Just throw in a friendly reminder that it's what the elves do - and it doesn't work out too hot for them ;-)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The treasure packet is all the portable wealth that is lying around. Aside from this There is a full set of dining room furniture, 5 King sized four poster beds. 4 large wardrobes about 10' tall, 6' wide and 3' deep (none lead to Narnia)
A chest of drawers about 8' long by 2 1/2 deep and 5' high.

About 500lbs of Brocade that are currently curtains in the inn, and so forth, you get hte idea. If they want to play merchants and organise caravanning that lot out and selling it let them.

 

[jbear]

You're talking about Athas, right?

Do people have four poster beds in towns in Athas?


But whoever sucked the village dry probably has to pay his henchmen, and what better way for him to have them entertain themselves and get some extra pay while he finished the ritual. Honestly, there shouldn't be all that much left in a place that probably didn't have much to begin with.

They might find some survival days for their efforts. Maybe some valuable but fairly useless item or some kind of clue that sets up your next hook. Or something valuable, and useful but dangerous that draws the fiends from the desert towards the party constantly. Or a valuable but easily recognised item of one of the dead villagers that if seen by one of their loved ones would be instantly recognised and would bring hell down on them. Fun, useful, dangerous story hooks ... or chump change. Your decision.

Besides, hasn't that ritual begun to attract rather dangerous life forms from the surrounding desert towards the town???? They might not want to spend all that much time there!!!!

 

[UngainlyTitan]

4 poster beds in Athas, I have no idea? I do not have the books nor have I ever played there but I see no reason why not.
That is somewhat beside the point though. The OP wanted to know what to do? More treasue is the road to Monty Haul but there is plenty of valuable stuff in a typical town but it will not necessarily be portable.

It will, however, be useful to wandering marauders who have the means to transport it or use it as raw materials for other stuff they need.

 

[Taed]

I agree with making them work for it in a house-by-house search, which they would soon tire of and just concentrate on the businesses. I would suspect that most of the money in your typical town would be in copper pieces, which quickly become not worth the bother due to their weight. I'm sure someone could suggest some distribution of coins in a typical town and the DMG should have their bulk weight.

You can also mess with them and draw attention to random objects by giving overly detailed descriptions, such as an intricately carved large mahogany [sic] dresser with inlaid demon heads and a mysterious writing on it. What party would pass of taking that encumbering item with them? In _Knights of the Dinner Table_, they have a number of items that they've carried around for years due to thinking they're important, such as 3 green towels and a "magical" cow.

 

[Tsukiyomi]

I get the impression that a lot of people seem to think that wanting to take items of value from the town is somehow "wrong," like these players are being powergamers or excessively greedy. I might actually agree if it weren't a Dark Sun game, but the world is so squalid that I think that looting the town is a good idea. I would reward them for not walking away and leaving all the valuable stuff behind.

That said, they still probably won't get a whole lot. Food, survival days, maybe 100-200 gp in a random mixture of copper, silver, and gold coins, or a fair bit of basic equipment (torches, rope, rations, etc). Common people aren't likely to have lots of coins, and they certainly aren't likely to have magic items or other things that most adventurers consider really valuable.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This is an age-old issue, the original 1e AD&D DMG even had things to say about it.

If you want to provide detail, you can take the value and aproximate portability of a treasure pracel and break it up into various items. Typically art object that you can sell for 100%, but you could make it more normal, but valuable, gear that is sold for 1/5th.

If you don't want to go to the trouble, you just say: "you did strip the town of everything of value, that's what you found."

You probably don't want to say "Oh, well, there was a statue worth a couple hundred gold, but it was too heavy to move." Because your players might just get it into their heads to try...