D&D 5E No good deed goes unpunished

[Ancalagon]

1200 gp is a nice sum for a small band of brigands after all...

I feel a bit odd saying this, and I started thinking about it... why does 1200 gp feel like quite a nice sum for a band of brigands, and only "decent" for a small village? Is it just that there is more villagers than brigands? Or is it more than this?

I think so. A functioning village is, what would called in business, a "going concern". There is livestock to feed, breed and eat (and maybe other resources too - eggs, wool, milk). There is arable land ready for planting. There are fences, sheds and farms for the animals and tools - and the tools themselves. There are orchard planted. There is hay stored for the animals in the winter, there are seeds saved for next year's planting, beer brewing. Although it doesn't make a fortune, it keeps going, feeding its members, putting aside reserves for lean times, breeding animals, maintaining facilities...

The brigands however... they don't have so much. They have the weapons/armor they managed to scrounge, a few contacts, a few coins and rations from the last big score and... that's it. They are entirely reliant on the next score. There isn't a field to plant that will (probably) feed them. They have to go for it.

So yeah... unwanted attention because for some bad guys, 1200 gp is too good to pass up.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

It has been stated several times already, but do you want a party of greedy sociopathic murderhobos? Because stuff like this is how you train your players to be them. ☺

 

[Eltab]

OP:
The village elder decides to use the money to buy livestock to replace the losses. He will start with the most recent tribute payment and work backwards. One family who heroically donated a lot of livestock early on - impoverishing themselves in the process but thinking the rest of the villagers would recompense them - figure out they won't be getting anything at all. They try to ambush the elder and steal a bunch of the GP. Now we have two groups that both have a morally-valid claim but cannot both get what they want (because limited resources).

The PCs could make this right by donating enough extra GP to make everybody happy, or persuading the elder to change his mind, or going after the 'cheated' family.