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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9473200" data-attributes="member: 6877472">Story time!I had started playing 4e at my FLGS for public play (first Encounters, later LFR).  I was sat at a table with a DM I didn't know.  The adventure was loosely based on "Beyond the Crystal Cave", though it really didn't do the module justice- but I digress.We found ourselves in a villa, and the DM waxed poetically about how opulent the furnishings were, the crystal plates, the gold tableware, the massive oak table.When we finished the encounter, I asked about treasure.  DM: "Oh no, there's no treasure here.""Uh huh.  Ok guys, let's start grabbing all this stuff.  We got tapestries, that carpet, the decorative plates..."DM (horrified): "What are you doing?!""Collecting the treasure?"The man was truly aghast at the idea that I was willing to take some dead Firbolg's furniture.  He tried to say it was all just flavor text!"Listen, if you're saying it's all an illusion and it's worthless, that's cool.  But you went on and on about how valuable everything looked, so why can't we take it?"He'd apparently never encountered starving D&D characters before!For me, this was SOP, but for him, this was a nightmare made manifest, lol.It's simply the case that several DM's I've played with over the years have this idea that the instant PC's get wealth, they should retire on a private island somewhere- the point of adventuring is to get rich, so doing so is obviously endgame, so they want you to slaughter 1000 orcs only to end up squabbling over one dented copper coin!If you do get treasure, you should immediately blow it on ale and whores, Conan-style, so you'll be ready to accept the next adventure, no matter what it might be!(Some DM's even seem terrified of players gaining any sort of power whatsoever, be it personal or temporal.  I obviously don't play with those sorts anymore, but there was a time where it was that or not play, and I wasn't mature enough to realize that no D&D is actually better than bad D&D, lol.)And boy oh boy, you don't have to tell me about D&D being made to divest you of treasure.  I remember I was playing this trilogy of Dragonlance adventures that take place after the first three books.  We slowly gained levels and magic items, and then right at the halfway point of the adventure, we ran into a Mordenkainen's Disjunction trap, robbing us of most of our gear- only to earn it all back again by endgame, where I had to kill Tiamat* three times over (with the DM frustrated each time I did it)!It really didn't make much sense to me, but that's just how the game was back sometimes.*Technically, it was a daughter of Tiamat who for the purposes of the final battle had the same stat block.  We weren't supposed to fight her, she was this impending threat while we were meant to solve a puzzle.  I was playing a Fighter (Cavalier Kit) with a high Con and tons of hit points, wielding a +3 footman's Dragonlance, which deals damage equal to my hit points to dragons.  And I had two attacks per round.  So while everyone was wracking their brains to solve a silly puzzle, I kept hitting and killing the Demigoddess every time she got up (at full hit points)- she couldn't hit me due to my low AC, and I had an item that reduced the damage I took from dragonbreath- it was all very silly.</blockquote>

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