D&D 5E Is Treasure and Magic Items Important To You?

[Krachek]

For me, if the game experience is satisfying the urge for leveling or magic treasure reduce accordingly,

 

[hopeless]

Depends on the game you're running.
I like porting over older scenarios or get inspiration from say computer games, but boy I still have a lot to learn!
I had the party run into were rats thinking they wouldn't be much of a threat!
Serves me right for not double checking the stats first!
In retrospect I should have just downgraded their immunity to resistance instead!

 

[Necrozius]

Deck of Many Things is the best and I will not hear otherwise.

It's definitely the best source of comedic anecdotes on how players destroyed themselves / the campaign / the setting with LOL RANDOM effects.

 

[TwoSix]

It's definitely the best source of comedic anecdotes on how players destroyed themselves / the campaign / the setting with LOL RANDOM effects.

i.e. the best thing ever.

 

[Maxperson]

Another thread made me wonder about this.

5e doesn’t make either actually necessary. The only things that rely on money don’t need amounts anywhere near the kind of loot the DMG tells you to hand out, and the game is built so that magic items are purely a bonus.

So how about y’all? Have you run campaigns with little or no treasure incentive? What about campaigns without magic items?

For me, I almost never roll on a treasure table, and I’ve been reducing my usage of magic items in every new campaign. I’m starting to think that waaaay less is more, in terms of magic items. Or at least anything bigger than common magic.

So first, yes. Treasure and magic items are important to me. They're a way of measuring advancement other than just levels.

Second, while I have not run a campaign with little or no treasure incentive, I have played in a few. Certain campaign concepts involve parties of adventurers to whom those sorts of things aren't important. I'm in one now. We have some magic items, but my character would give his up for a good cause in a heartbeat. We typically give back any treasure offered for services needed, occasionally keeping a bit for expenses.

 

[J.Quondam]

The exceptions are the Bag of Holding and Deck of Many Things. Those I will never willingly give out in an adventure. shakes fist at them

A couple potential solutions:

• every bag of holding is really a finicky bag of devouring.
• replace the fabled Deck of Many Things with the slightly less-fabled Deck of Mini Things.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Treasure isn't very important to me but magic is. As the game has changed over the years, character abilities have grown in power, and that has resulted in gear being less significant. Since treasure primarily buys mundane gear -- and mundane gear is essentially unimportant in 5E -- I have little interest in treasure. However, I am very much interested in magic items. Magic items make the game...magical! In my next 5E campaign, I may even hand out fewer ASIs so +2 swords and gauntlets of ogre strength once again feel like game changers.

 

[SkidAce]

Thats a great point, and I agree, though I don't like tracking specific gold coins to accomplish that, anymore.,

Yeah it's a matter of taste and preference in world building, as well. I don't like presenting worlds wherein the past was better than the present, or where all the "cool stuff" are things no one knows how to make anymore, and prefer worlds where the magic sword that burns with the fire that forged it, glowing red hot and dealing additional fire damage, is something that the guy in the neighboring kingdom invented ten years ago. There is one of them, because your dad was the first person to ever commission one, and the method for making it hasn't been repeated yet. The occassional ancient relic is great, but I never make such things better than more modern inventions.

I like (and have both) in my main campaign world.

There are ruins from before my world's equivalent of the Dark Ages with various things and lost magics.
There are also several organizations making groundbreaking strides in new magic, as can individuals.

 

[Maxperson]

Deck of Many Things is the best and I will not hear otherwise.

I was playing in a game where we entered a room and there were about a dozen these giant plaques that were 6 feet by 3 feet and about 6 inches thick. I wanted to know what was under them so I flipped one over........................................and that was my draw from the deck.

 

[TwoSix]

I was playing in a game where we entered a room and there were about a dozen these giant plaques that were 6 feet by 3 feet and about 6 inches thick. I wanted to know what was under them so I flipped one over........................................and that was my draw from the deck.

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