Tracking Group Resources

[Primitive Screwhead]

Depends on how much prep time..
My prefered method is to have 'treasure cards' detailing the loot. When someone opens a chest I hand them the card. They can divy up however they want.

If I didn't take the time to prep that, I usually send an email after the game detailing the loot not used/lost in the adventure and XP awards. Its up to the group to figure out who takes what.

 

[wingsandsword]

Definitely group treasure.

It's pretty much standard that one person keep a list of everything found, and if somebody really wants or needs something, they hand it to the person who could best use it and cross it off the group list. It's the "communistic" style mentioned above.

Since pretty much every group I've seen plays fast and loose with encumberance (except maybe at 1st level with starting equipment) and once the first Bag of Holding/Portable Hole/Heward's Handy Haversack comes into play everybody forgets about it altogether, it's quietly presumed that the general weight of the group treasure is spread among the party.

 

[3catcircus]

DMGenie...

 

[Woas]

To keep my group in-line and help them remember their characters have certain items (this is from a DM perspective now) I had out half-sized index cards with a little hand-drawn picture of the item and whatever info is relavent at the time they get it. So if its magic and not-identified, it would say: Longsword with slight bluish glow. Then after it was identified, I would erase that title and replace it with a neat-o title if it had one and the actual stats of the item.

I don't do this with everything though, like mundane items: rope, mirrors, chalk, etc. Just the important ones.

 

[nerfherder]

When a player is gone but the character is still present, it's nice to know how many potions of _____ the missing player has with them!

Do you go down to the level of the number of charges in wands, or do you just rely on the players to keep track of that themselves?

 

[Mean Eyed Cat]

I whipped up a group treasure sheet for my players to use. When they have some down time, they usually divy it up. As a GM, I also write down items on my own treasure sheet. This helps me cross reference and keep track of items - especially those that haven't been magically identified yet.

 

[jasin]

or does one person keep track of the "group treasure" until you decide to do something with it?

That one.

This game, it fell to me to be the party accountant. I just write stuff no-one uses (including money and gems) down on a sheet of scratch paper (is that the correct term? just ordinary white paper for disorganized notes ) and cross it off as we sell it or lose it or use it up. We don't really track encumberance unless there's really big or heavy stuff to carry, so it's assumed that the tanks and/or the people with extradimensional storage spaces actually carry most of it.

Items are split according to a "who can make the most of it" policy, tempered by a healthy dose "who's underequipped compared to the others". When there's an opportunity to buy or make stuff, the underequipped get served first, barring special circumstances.

It's a sort of egalitarian anarchy, and it works so well for us that we use it even when it's not really in character to do so.

Note that it would be exceedingly easy to cheat, and by significant amounts, since selling "standard" loot is mostly us adding up stuff we don't want to keep and informing the DM of the total, but we simply don't do it.

 

[Shallown]

I'm way to anal and uptight about treasure so I always kept it.

I would record everything during the game and type it up mid week before next session. We gave a share of the groups treasure to be split between a group fund and the leadership aquired NPC who contributed to the group.

The Gm just idetified things as I wrote down treasure to make it easy and save him from holding unto notes. As a group we never paid attention to what we got considering it unknown/unidetified until we got time. I just accounted for material components to identify stuff when I listed it. we totaled the treasure value appraising it with two characters. then you could buy something from what we found if you wanted using your share.

I administered the party treasure letting the other characters know what I spent it on and they could always make request.

I have done this in two campaigns one where I was an honest character and one where I wasn't in both cases it worked out well just more well for my dishonest character. He didn't out right steal but made sure he was the best prepared.

later

 

[Morrus]

No tracking needed - we use Fantasy Money and item Cards. If you have the card, you have the item (or currency). No need to count, write stuff down, or anything like that. Impossible to cheat or make mistakes. Plus the tangible element just makes getting stuff feel better!