Problem: character deaths are leading to enormous party wealth

[jasper]

I not going to read all the posts
Around 1982 I had a 3 hour game where the players butcher each other and we spend the whole time rolling new characters, and backstabbing. two players had 5 +1 swords, etc.
Rule regardless of edition new character rolls starting money. Buys almost anything except magic. You can have full field plate and 5 horses, and a pack of pitbulls. Not a mansion. No magic except for some 1 to 5 healing potions. Then the newbie is insert either in the dungeon or the inn.

I notice some of the backstabbing when down quickly.

If you group will not go for then adjust.

gee magicmegacorp lex luthor owner you have 20 +3 swords of flaming burst farts. You slice throught that dragon in 3 seconds. Here is 300 x.p.
What they will scream shout and punch you out.
The dragon was not a challenge at all, Because why your characters maybe 15 th level you carrying epic magic.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Fundamentally, the problem is that you're penalizing the party more for raising fallen characters than for bringing in new ones. And they are responding based on that reward structure. It's that simple. Period. End of story.

Therefore, to solve the problem, you have to start by bringing in new characters at lower level and with less stuff. Otherwise you are not addressing that one simple problem. Others have pointed this out, but it is not clear to me that the message is getting through.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Here's another suggestion:

Currently the players are divying up items based on the idea that it is "communal." That's all well and good. However, any NEW items a new PC brings in should not be considered part of that communal pool - realisitically, if I take a new job where everyone else has a company car, I'm not remotely going to let MY car become a company car. That will help take those items out of circulation.

You also need to talk to your players about this. Try and figure out a system that makes sense in-game. Personally, I'd go with the inheritance/goods belong to the PC's family, but your players don't seem to care much for that. I guess I'd ask them: Why do you adventure? Nothing you ever gain belongs to you, or your family. You can't provide for your relatives, etc. due to the rules of the group. It may make sense for the players, but for PC's acting as real people in a real world, it doesn't make much sense at all.

 

[Eccles]

I thought about this before I started my campaign 12 months ago, and handed out a "House Rules" sheet in advance.

Firstly, I penalised people coming back as fresh characters to the same degree as people who were being Raised, as it's otherwise very unfair to people who get attached to a single character.

Secondly, as to treasure, a new character has a choice on how he or she'll be introduced. Either they can join the party freely, in which case they get half treasure, or else they can be a captive.

Captives have been taken by the enemy, and their treasure has been divvied up amongst incoming foes. This has been really successful, as it means I've got an easy way to introduce replacement PCs, and it suddenly gives the NPCs the exact same power boost that is being complained about here.

Thankfully, I've not had a PC die as a result of the equipment gained by the villains in this manner. Yet.

Editted to correct the enormous error which totally changed the meaning of the post!!

 

[Conaill]

a new character has a choice on how he or she'll be introduced. Either they can join the party freely, in which case they get full treasure, or else they can be a captive.

Captives have been taken by the enemy, and their treasure has been divvied up amongst incoming foes. This has been really successful [...]

Ehrm, I think we're missing something here. If a new character has a choice between joining with full treasure or as a prisoner with zero treasure, why would anyone choose the latter? How does this solve the problem?

 

[Eccles]

They choose it because they get to buy a full selection of treasure, and once they're freed they can reclaim it.

And the party has an agreement that recovery of your own equipment is fine and doesn't go into Party Treasure.

Ultimately, it gives them a *much* bigger budget, but they do have to gamble a little bit on getting all of it back. Fun for the GM as well!

 

[Conaill]

I still think we're missing some crucial detail from your explanation. You originally said they could "join freely, with full treasure". Do they get to buy even more treasure as a captive, at a chance that they may not be able to retrieve it?

 

[Eccles]

Ah, bother. You're right, and I'll go back and edit it.

For the record, however, if they just join the party normally, then they join with half treasure, not full.

Sorry for the confusion, and I hope it makes sense now!

 

[drnuncheon]

Knowing he adventures? Sure. Knowing he has something to show for it? Maybe - after all, he's a good for nothing adventurer. Since when did they ever make anything of themselves? Knowing precisely what it is that he owns and being able to get a legitimate writ issued for every item? Doubtful at best.

It doesn't have to be every item, though, does it? It just needs to be enough to take the edge off of the excess treasure. You think that the guy doesn't hear stories about his brother's powerful magic sword? Or that he wouldn't want the plate armor he's got, whether it's magical or not? He could feed his family for years on that alone...

Except that in the example they were part of a company, and the contract with that company was legitimate.

I think most courts would question the legitimacy of such a contract, because it would take an utter idiot to sign it.

If a rich relative of yours died, and some of their scruffy no-good friends claimed that they had all entered into a "contract", and here's your $2.35, everything else they own actually belongs to the company - wouldn't you think there was something fishy going on? Wouldn't you want that investigated by the authorities? Wouldn't you be thinking "they must have been crazy to sign a contract like that?"

That said, even if the contract is legitimate, that doesn't mean that the wealth can't be tied up until it's proven.

By your logic, a party who don't donate all their wealth to the needy are evil, and a party who don't follow every law they encounter (even those which are unjust or clearly corrupt or self-serving) are chaotic.

Not at all. I'm saying that unless you live in a very unusual land, it is often customary to leave the bulk of one's possessions to one's surviving family members. If one isn't doing that, then there ought to be a strong in-character reason.

As I said before, either:

A) the deceased PC was deliberately trying to screw over his family - which is fine, and a legitimate choice, but it wouldn't necessarily stop them from trying to get a piece of the pie anyway (wow! a plot! adventure seeds!),

B) the player is metagaming because he doesn't want the neat toys to "go away", which is unacceptable, or

C) the player is unintentionally engaging in poor roleplaying, probably because they didn't give it much thought, or

D) the surviving party members are trying to cheat the rightful heirs.

All of this assumes the existence of a family, of course - if the PC is a siblingless orphan then yes, it would be cheesy to do this.

J

 

[Arnwyn]

A million, eh? I know one of them - the treasure influx problem. Otherwise, the method seems to work pretty well. Contrary to what a lot of DM's might think, letting characters pick their new equipment for their character isn't that big of a deal. I was leary at first, but found that usually the players tended to pick interesting items I would have never thought of that aren't unbalancing.

I hope you realized that I had a smiley to show that I was just kidding around.

Regardless, I see that you have 2 major problems: dead PCs are returning at too high a level, and that they're coming in with too much magic. Both are game group policy problems.

How do you explain every new Xth level character showing up to join the party's vacant slot only having 1st level character wealth? Hard to believe that every replacement character is going to be so poor.

*shrug* Easy - I just do. I keep my campaigns at a fairly reasonable (slightly lower than usual) magic level, so it's no surprise that not many people are running around with thousands of gp's worth of magic items. Magic items are gained while adventuring with an adventuring group (and for PCs, within the framework of the game. *Period*). This works for us (and, you will note, I'm not the one with the magic item proliferation problem).

And in any case, they should *not* come in with their full gear gp value. Even a quarter of it is too much. You get that stuff through adventuring, and since this new guy is looking for a group, he/she's likely been out of the adventuring loop for a while - thus with few magic items.

Now, if your campaign has lots of magic, then that's your decision and one that you'll have to live with. If you don't like what's happening, *and* you demand a long term solution, change your policy - regardless of whether your players "are used to it" or not. Otherwise - well, I'm glad I'm not you.