PC Scavengers

[Retreater]

Every time a character dies in one of my games, the other characters don't wait long before plundering the remains.

This causes a few problems. For starters, characters get more wealthy than the DMG guidelines suggest by plundering their fellow adventurers.

Next, some players seem to have the mentality of entitlement to their previous characters' possessions. For example, Billy is playing Ragnar the fighter. Ragnar charges into a room of troglodytes and is killed in a few rounds. Billy begins making up a new character and doesn't purchase gauntlets of ogre power because Ragnar had them and his new character will inherit them.

Worse of all is the personal offense some players take when the other characters are looting the still warm corpses of the deceased. Some players make arguments like "you've always been wanting my +1 mithril chain shirt, which is why you didn't heal me."

Are there some house rules about how to deal with this? Or should all of these issues be dealt with out of game?

Or should I just let them have at it?

Retreater

 

[Tinner]

It depends on the alignment of the characters. In my largely good group, the characters don't loot the dead, because they're busy packing the corpse for transport back to get raised/rez'd etc.
In a more selfish group, where the characters don't care about each other, or have no way to restore dead comrades, why not loot them?

 

[Clueless]

Well... you didn't answer a big question here: Are your players having problems with the behavior? Is it dragging your game down?

I'm a big proponent of 'Ain't broke, don't fix it.'

But if it *is* broke then it sounds like your players are more fixated on the mechanics, their stuff, and have 'the gimmies'. Players themselves can be selfish jerks. Period. Sometimes it happens no matter *how* nice they are outside of a game, because they think 'it's just a game' validates the behavior. This is unhealthy in any group activity, much less one that relies so heavily on trusting each other as RP does. That's something that it's impossible to break players of in game - you have to talk to them out of game about it.

Remind them about the role part of the roleplaying, and that just because your past character had X doesn't mean your current charcter is destined to have it (assuming it's causing inter-player problems from multiple players laying claim to the items). Penalize alignments if nessecary, but understand your players motivatiosn for this behavior - are they playing their alignment or playing out their *own* desires. I've seen a nearly all evil group where characters routinely got raised, because the players felt no need to sucumb to the 'gimmies'. The rational behind this 'non-evil' behavior: 'Evil people have friends too.'

Re: making sure the characters are all equilivant in terms of eq when the new character comes in - that can be a *big* GM problem if only because you need to be able to aim your encounters at the party without accidently killing an underequipped member. that's really your strongest argument right there about why it's a problem, and when a player realizes that if they don't help you out with it their character may be the one getting ganked.. they tend to view it reasonably. There's a few ways to handle that.

1) Talk to the players about the trouble you're having calibrating encounters (that's assuming your players are sane sensible people.)

2) Start destroying equipment - disjunction and acid breath saves (black dragons) are my favorites for that. PROBLEM: This may piss your players off. I do *not* recommend this.

3) Eyeball the current levels of character equipment, give the new character the equilivant even if it *is* above the recommended character level in the DMG table. You've made your bed, you have to lay in it. After all - they don't *get* this eq and gold unless you let them have it.

4) Let the disadvantaged player fend for himself. You'll need to let him know that his eq. may be weaker and that he'll need to wheel and deal with the players at the table in character to get more. PROBLEM: Greedy uncaring players make this hard for the poor schmuck. Often times preparing your players by talking to them (as in option #1) will help.

5) Recalibrate the entire game. This can be a lot of fun - have all the players get kidnapped and stripped down to their birthday suits and marched off to slavery... from which they have to escape, warn a kingdom, yadayada.. the point being that they have to start over. PROBLEM: See the problem for #2. Prepare your players for the major plot shift. You'll also need to watch their equipement much more closely to make sure you don't overwhelm them again or end up right back where you started.

 

[frankthedm]

1. If the party is too wealthy, decrease treasure in encounters for a while.

2. If the party has too much wealth, that makes fights easier, decrease XP awards as the DMG suggests for easier encounters.

3. If players "expect" to inherit previous equipment, deduct that value from the GP they use to choose the next character's gear.

4. If the party members betray thier close friends and associateslike that, I doubt they are Heroes any longer and fate may no longer smile on them quite as often. {refering to fair encounter levels]

5. Your gear is expected to survive attacks you survive. I recomend NOT extending that to attacks the character does not survive.

 

[JustKim]

I'm not surprised it's led to hurt feelings and imbalance. It's never been an official house rule, but it's always been understood that 1) you don't loot fallen PCs, and 2) you don't give the party your loot when you retire a character.

Making it a house rule seems kind of like making "don't attack other party members" or "don't go on a murderous rampage when we enter town" house rules. It's common sense, otherwise you can have players bringing in endless new characters and unlimited sources of wealth.

 

[thedungeondelver]

On the old player character sheets there was a "Last Will and Testament" line; you could ask your players to come up with something like that for their characters, and then inforce it with a minor curse (will automatically miss the next saving throw, -1 to hit from here on out, that kind of thing) if someone says "Screw their last will and testament - I'm taking that bag of electrum and keeping it!" - the Gods not being amused with people spurning the last wishes of the dying.

 

[The Grackle]

Or should all of these issues be dealt with out of game?

yes.

Or should I just let them have at it?

no.

Worse of all is the personal offense some players take when the other characters are looting the still warm corpses of the deceased. Some players make arguments like "you've always been wanting my +1 mithril chain shirt, which is why you didn't heal me."

If it's causing inter-player conflict, you gotta nix it.

 

[Aaron L]

Instituting some kind of metagame "rule" that you have to abandon dead characters equipment is really jarring to suspension of disbelief (and it's something I would never think of doing.) As frank said, if they end up with more stuff than they should have for their level, reduce the amount of stuff they find for a while.

 

[Kristivas]

1. If the party is too wealthy, decrease treasure in encounters for a while.

2. If the party has too much wealth, that makes fights easier, decrease XP awards as the DMG suggests for easier encounters.

That's exactly what I've always done when these things happen. I find it to be a lot better than "you wake up naked, having be captured in the night, your posessions missing..."

3. If players "expect" to inherit previous equipment, deduct that value from the GP they use to choose the next character's gear.

Luckily, no one in my former groups ever expected such. Though, a few times we had a guy that would get killed and always roll up the "brother" of the fallen character and try to get some freebies like that.....

4. If the party members betray thier close friends and associateslike that, I doubt they are Heroes any longer and fate may no longer smile on them quite as often. {refering to fair encounter levels]

Even when characters in our past games didn't get along, we never pulled underhandedness like that. Myself, along with the other guys that DMed, always had an "eye-for-an-eye" philosophy to party-betrayers (unless it was one of our rare evil games). People just didn't do it, because bad things happened. I would recommend taking that kind of stance for future reference. Your guys will calm it down after a few grisly examples are made

5. Your gear is expected to survive attacks you survive. I recomend NOT extending that to attacks the character does not survive.

That's a good idea. I had only seen it done once, when the paladin died.. he died in such a way that his Holy Avenger was flung some 6 feet and fell into a chasm. I could certainly see the logic that the final attack on a character (a spear to the chest, for example) could puncture and effectively render that +1 chain mail destroyed.

I don't think it's a good idea to outright metagame that you can't loot a fallen character's gear. If people are being dicks about it, as the DM you have the ability to tip the scales at a later date. Just smile, nod, and make a little "karma sheet".

If Michael the Figther saved the Mayor and was known for his adamantite longsword with his family runes enscribed on it, and said Mayor sees Bill the thief with his shiny new weapon, well... you know

 

[Umbran]

The wealth guidelines are supposed to mark the general trend, not exactly what the group has at a given moment. So, as others have noted, if they wander above the line, you hold off treasure for a while. If they wind up losing some major items, you increase rewards for a while, and things get corrected.

I have not had a player expect to get an old character's gear in... decades. My current players are too story-oriented to expect that a previous PC, who has no logical connection to the old one, should get said gear.

Greed and envy are normal human traits, and it is not suprising you see them in your players. Talk to them (perhaps in so many words, perhaps not, depending on your people) about how their greed and envy is making things less fun.

Alternatively, if they refuse to listen, you can simply stop giving them wealth altogether. Sure, they'll gripe, and balancing encounters will become a bit tougher. But the items will cease to be an issue if they are simply nonpresent