The new DM's mistake

N'raac · Aug 13, 2015

I'm also interested in how it turns out - we all face similar issues from time to time, and it's unfortunate yours has reached this point. It's a lot more fun when the conflict and drama stays in the game.

Greenfield · Aug 13, 2015

I've heard from another player. He agrees that the vote is appropriate, though he doesn't say how he'll vote.

When I sent out the "be ready" email, I specifically asked that they not share their position. I think the DM should have a chance to hear the complaints, and respond to them. If we start swapping complaints or praise behind his back it effectively holds the vote before he has his say.

Li Shenron · Aug 14, 2015

Greenfield said:
Our group passes the DM duties around, as part of a continuous campaign. One of our group hasn't DM's in decades, and decided to give it a whirl.

He's a bit of a power gamer, and his character gets a treasure share equal to what he hands out to party members. This is leading him to a mistake common to many new or inexperienced DMs. He's burying us in treasure.

We're 9th level just turning 10th. We're averaging over 100k per encounter, to be split 7 ways.

Inexperienced DMs do this, whether consciously or not, because they're afraid that the players won't like the game. Their answer? Lots of loot. It amounts to bribery.

Now several of us suspect that this particular DM/Player is looking to award himself some high end, carefully selected goodies to complete his "perfect build".

Have you ever had such a problem? Too much treasure? Not one that people complain about too often, I'd wager.

I really don't think there is such a problem as 'too much treasure', because treasure does not necessarily equate to power. It all depends on what the PCs can do with it.

I am actually a fan of rare-magic settings where the PCs can gain so much wealth after enough levels, that they can buy any mundane stuff they want, but magic just isn't for sale. I like the idea because then the players can stop worrying about spending treasure 'efficiently' and they start thinking about spending treasure 'narratively'.

N'raac · Aug 14, 2015

While true in context, I think 3e effectively commoditized magic, and is designed largely around the expectation that the PC's wealth by level will largely be in the form of magic (and other) items which enhance their effectiveness.

That doesn't mean the assumption can't be overridden , of course, but it does mean the ripple effects of such an adjustment have to be considered and managed. The PC's are only at the right CR for their level if they have about the right magic item support.

Greenfield · Aug 14, 2015

In any game where the magic item crafting rules apply, money equals power.

Oryan77 · Aug 15, 2015

I purposefully handed out too much treasure for the very first time in our current campaign. They were 4th or 5th level at the time and I boosted a dragon hoard to have over 40,000 gp and around 60,000 gp worth of magic items/valuables.

I did it as an experiment to see "what happens". I don't have magic item shops in the game, so using it to buy magic stuff is still difficult. So that helped with my decision. So I wanted to see if they used it to do things that would give more flavor to their characters that they may normally not have done. Like, buy a house and a caretaker. Or invest it into a new business. Or whatever. They certainly liked finding that hoard.

Then, one of them died in the battle against that dragon. So they spent some on a True Resurrection. Then a session later, another one of them died at the hands of a Minotaur. So they spent it on another True Resurrection. I was not out to kill them or anything. I guess they figured, "Well, we have the money so we may as well go with a True Res." So there went my experiment. They laughed about the whole thing since they knew why I provided them with a better than normal treasure. They were not so cordial about the whole thing a month later when one of the players who's PC died and was resurrected quit the game due to legitimate real life stuff. That was kind of a waste.

Greenfield · Aug 16, 2015

How it turned out: The change of DM went far more smoothly than I expected.

I sent the DM an email (BCCd the rest of the group) to let him know that he was facing a confidence/no-confidence vote today. Ambushes are bad form.

Today he admitted that there was one spot he might have done better. He was still fine with the rest.

The vote came down to three choices:

1) Stay the course and see how it played out. This would allow the DM to hear the complaints and possibly improve his style a bit. His "I might have made one mistake" think didn't help that cause.

2) The characters essentially walk out of the adventure. In story, instead of going through a bureaucratically hostile city into an equally hostile land to track down our missing friend, we stay on the ship and ask the captain to drop us at a different port.

3) Unwind the whole thing, turning time back to just before this DM took over. It never happened, it was a dream, a dark prophesy, a bad bit of pork in the evening meal.

One player wanted to roll a dice to determine his vote. We called that an abstention.

One wanted to go with door #2, mainly because he didn't have a copy of his character from before the DM took over.

Three voted for either winding back time or walking out.

The DM voted for the walk-out.

I voted for the rewind.

One player was absent.

And that's all eight of us. A split vote hedging narrowly towards walking out and letting a new DM try.

And, as is so often the case, the big decision was made based on laziness, because one player didn't want to have to remake an old character sheet.

And life goes on. I think the DM saw the writing on the wall, and decided to bow out gracefully because he was going out no matter what,

He's altered his Cleric, dropping the odd deity that hated all others, and that had no historic counterpart in our pseudo-historic game world.