References for "loot" rules?

[System Ufera]

Hello again! Does anyone know of any games (preferably free and available online, so I can research them easier) which have a set of rules for "loot?" By that, I'm referring to the PC's getting items on their adventures which are of little value to the PC's themselves, but which could be sold to a merchant for a small bit of money. You know, items like animal pelts, alchemical ingredients, precious gems, and other raw materials.

You see, I'm running a low-level campaign in the game I'm making, and the plot of the campaign is that the PC's are professional adventurers, people who basically do odd jobs which most others would consider too dangerous to do. One of the ways they could make money on the side is by selling loot. The problem is, I'm not entirely sure what would be realistic prices for the loot in question. That's why I need to know how it's been done in other systems. I tried looking on the Pathfinder SRD, but I couldn't find what I wanted.

 

[Umbran]

I'd usually just reverse-engineer it. How much wealth do you, as the GM, want the PCs to have? Put a bit more than that into the game, and if the PCs find it, then they can sell if for the prices you already made up.

 

[System Ufera]

I'd usually just reverse-engineer it. How much wealth do you, as the GM, want the PCs to have? Put a bit more than that into the game, and if the PCs find it, then they can sell if for the prices you already made up.

The problem is, I'm not just GMing a campaign, I'm designing a system which this campaign is helping me to playtest, so having a consistent, universal rule set for the sale of loot is what I want, not something which would only apply to one campaign. Also, there's more to it than simply the variable of "amount of wealth;" the amount of wealth itself, in this case, is made up of the worth of individual pieces of loot multiplied by the quantity of loot, and for the PC's, it's further modified by the setting's economy. For example, I'm thinking of a side quest-like thing where a local lumberjack would have worked out a deal with the local furriers to pay double for any bear pelts (thus increasing the incentive for hunters to hunt bears and reduce the bear population, making the forests safer for both lumberjacks and trees alike) for a set period of time. The PC's would have the option to hunt bears, and then harvest the bear pelts to sell to the furriers. What I'd need, then, is a realistic expectation of how much money a bear pelt is worth. I'm assuming another system would have this worked out somewhere, and that's what I'm asking for.

 

[Umbran]

The problem is, I'm not just GMing a campaign, I'm designing a system which this campaign is helping me to playtest, so having a consistent, universal rule set for the sale of loot is what I want, not something which would only apply to one campaign.

Yes, and that's what I'm talking about.

As a system-design point, how much wealth do you want the PCs to have? Give them that much. Outline how much characters should get, show where your assumptions are, and you now have something you can put in a system that can be varied to meet the needs of a given campaign.

I suggest this because "value" is time and place dependent. For example: pelts will be cheap near the trapping grounds, while pottery will be cheap near the rivers where clay is available. Meanwhile, out in the desert, wood will be extremely expensive. Unless, of course, that desert is part of a technological society with cheap transport, and so on. Any loot rules you find will have a culture, time, and place implicit in them. This is great if your system is being used in the assumed situation, but not elsewhere. Loot rules are campaign-specific while "wealth" rules are abstract, and so more transportable between campaigns and more easily fiddled with when it cannot be transported.

Also, there's more to it than simply the variable of "amount of wealth;" the amount of wealth itself, in this case, is made up of the worth of individual pieces of loot multiplied by the quantity of loot, and for the PC's, it's further modified by the setting's economy.

That's why I say I'm reverse engineering it. Determine who much wealth they get, and then cast it in whatever form or forms make sense, rather than determine how many silver candlesticks and seal pelts they get, and try to figure out what those are "worth". Systems are well served by having wealth be, by in large, simple and abstract, and easily re-fluffed to meet needs. In the end, your system cares more about how much wealth the characters have, in the abstract, than in what specific physical form that wealth takes.

 

[System Ufera]

Yes, and that's what I'm talking about.

As a system-design point, how much wealth do you want the PCs to have? Give them that much. Outline how much characters should get, show where your assumptions are, and you now have something you can put in a system that can be varied to meet the needs of a given campaign.

I suggest this because "value" is time and place dependent. For example: pelts will be cheap near the trapping grounds, while pottery will be cheap near the rivers where clay is available. Meanwhile, out in the desert, wood will be extremely expensive. Unless, of course, that desert is part of a technological society with cheap transport, and so on. Any loot rules you find will have a culture, time, and place implicit in them. This is great if your system is being used in the assumed situation, but not elsewhere. Loot rules are campaign-specific while "wealth" rules are abstract, and so more transportable between campaigns and more easily fiddled with when it cannot be transported.

That's why I say I'm reverse engineering it. Determine who much wealth they get, and then cast it in whatever form or forms make sense, rather than determine how many silver candlesticks and seal pelts they get, and try to figure out what those are "worth". Systems are well served by having wealth be, by in large, simple and abstract, and easily re-fluffed to meet needs. In the end, your system cares more about how much wealth the characters have, in the abstract, than in what specific physical form that wealth takes.

All right, I think I get what you're saying now... Still, it seems a bit needlessly convoluted to determine the ideal amount of wealth, then determine the form in which the wealth takes place, when designing a system. I mean, as you said with your idea, the system can be varied to meet the needs of the campaign, but without the rules and content already in place, there's no system. Plus, given how this current campaign is more open-ended in that the players have a far greater say in where the plot goes, it would be up to the players to determine how much money they want to try for rather than being up to myself to determine a fixed amount that's available. With that in mind, it would help myself and the players drastically to have an available reference for how much money they can get per piece of loot, and that's why I want to know how other systems dealt with prices for loot-selling.

EDIT: Wait, did you think I already had prices set for specific loot? 'Cause I don't. That's kind of what I'm asking for, a reference to help determine what each piece of loot should be worth. As it is now, for example, I don't know if a bear pelt should be worth half a gold piece or 5 gold pieces (I'd assume it's closer to the latter). If I had a listing for the prices of each item (with modifiers for the setting), I could actually do what I think you're saying: determine ideal total wealth first, then determine the form of the wealth. As said above, though, the players are the ones who will determine what they want, and take quests accordingly.

 

[GX.Sigma]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm

Includes clothing, livestock, trade goods like spices and dyes, etc.

Also see the DM Guidelines doc from the D&D Next playtest packet for gems and art objects (which boil down to "it's worth as much as it should be, given its quality," but does have lots and lots of discrete examples). It might have been borrowed from one of the 4e DMGs.

 

[Argyle King]

"Realistic" prices are going to vary wildly depending upon system. What is realistic might not be exactly the same as what the game world views as realistic.


GURPS may have some books that would help though. In particular, either Low-Tech or one of the companions for it may be of use. http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/low-tech/companion3/ I suspect that book may have more information than what you really want though. As such, I would highly suggest the treasure tables book for Dungeon Fantasy. http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/dungeonfantasy/dungeonfantasy8/ I just checked my own copy of the book to refresh my memory about what exactly was in it, and it does list mundane items and how much they would be worth. Granted, a particular world or setting may change those prices, and even the same setting might have different prices in different areas, but it's a good starting point.

"Dungeon Fantasy 8: Treasure Tables contains everything you need to deck your halls – and dungeons, towers, and arcane temples – with goodies. Ample tables (almost 50 of them!) let you generate treasures randomly – or semi-randomly, if you have something more specific in mind..."

 

[jasper]

Player 1, I got the old widows silverware worth 5 gp.
Player 2, I stole her dentures for 3 gp.
player 3, I took her 100 pds of beany babies, worth 1 gp. Me sad.
Dm. Okay consuling the rarity chart vs region chart. Player 1 silverware is 50 gp. Player 2 dentures are 1.5 gp. Player 3, once tax, fines, and brokage fees are worth 5,000 gp.

 

[System Ufera]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm

Includes clothing, livestock, trade goods like spices and dyes, etc.

This isn't perfect in terms of content, but it's a very good example of what I was looking for. Something with a listing of prices for loot, which I can access for free.

 

[Nytmare]

Even more than the system, "realistic" prices are going to fluctuate in game much as they do in the real world, based on hundreds, if not thousands of nearly untrackable variables including supply and demand. Just look at gas prices between gas stations in your home town. Now compare those to prices across the country, and in other countries. In Billings Montana, it's between 3.00 and 3.29. In Los Angeles prices range from 4.09 to 5.15. In Amesterdam it's nearly 7.00 a gallon in US dollars.

In general, my in-game D&D economies for simple, mundane items is "How much would I expect to pay for it?" and then I chop the price in half and say "silver pieces" instead of "dollars." I know it doesn't mesh up with the books, but in my opinion, the less I have to crack open a book to check a chart, the better.