D&D General What do you do with mundane treasure details?

[Plaguescarred]

I always describe treature jewels, gemstone, artwork etc as i find it gives flavor above and beyond mere gp value.

As a player, i also like when such treasure is detailed too.

 

[J.Quondam]

I find that, I general, there are a lot of things I'd ideally like to do in a campaign that I either never get around to or they fall by the wayside over time because the bookkeeping doesn't seem worth the final result (it doesn't help that I also have a hard time organizing the extra details).

Yeah, that's been my experience over all, as well.

That said, I have had some decent luck by handing out index cards (for mundane and magical treasure other than undifferentiated coin) with brief description and a code number which references a spreadsheet on the DM's side. The physicality of the cards* seems to keep it in the players' minds, and the spreadsheet is easy enough to build/maintain as I develop the adventure.

It's worked fairly well, and on occasion even caused a player or two to do a double-take, "Wait, what is this that I've been carting around all this time?"


* Of course, that face-to-face gaming. Not sure what I'd do for online play.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Honestly, sometimes I feel like I need to arrange an office space for organizing my DMing materials.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I don't automatically provide the detailed descriptions of mundane treasure, but I do when I can. Sometimes I read the Table and I'll pass on describing those details if it seems like we would not be interested.

I do like to determine the types of gems because those can be important when it comes to spell components.

I will change descriptions of mundane treasure of it serves my purpose, but that's true with any aspect of a published adventure.

Quite often the little details of mundane treasure descriptions come up clues in both published adventures and my own creations. In the past I have described daggers and such as having stylized imagery that reflects the owners religious life.

In my current Wild Beyond the Witchlight campaign each Player's character has a ticket to the carnival, and each ticket has a number, and each ticket number contains 8s and 3s, because that's just the way the Witchlight rolls.

 

[Tonguez]

I dont give out gold coins, just ‘wealth’ but I do describe valuable items they might find like

1. the necklace depicting an owl with sapphire eyes which is probably an emblem of House Mavhinne OR
2. the wyvern skull has red crystals growing from its eye sockets and down over its snout, Or
3. the portrait is of a young boy dressed in a finely brocaded yellow suit - its the missing part of the ‘Three Princes’ Triptyche commisioned by the Old Earl of Arwych as a gift to the Queen .

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

GM *crafts a careful list of treasure with evocative description of the dragon's hoard
Players: yawning "OK, OK we got it, how many GP is that?"
GM: sighing "That's 5,183 gp 7 sp and 3 cp".

[weeks later]

DM: "To complete the ritual, you'll need to put on the alter a chryselephantine reliquary of Lathander, adorned with at least three sapphire."
Players: "we had one of this sh... in the loot, didn't we? Let's buy it back!"
DM: "unfortunately, it has been bought by a cleric and adorns now his chimney. Commissionning an artwork of this magnitude in express time will set you back... 10,000 gp at least!"

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I'm reminded of the campaign in 3.0 I played a dwarf sorceror. His familiar was a rat, and he believed he was a Rat Shaman - he was a little addled to say the least.
The DM was rolling random loot, and a 300gp tapestry came up. My character decided/was confused and took it for a dashing cape to wear. That started a character trait of just taking weird loot simply for effect. He ended up with a weird feathered cap to go with the tapestry. We were level 1 so that 300gp wouldve been spent better other ways but... nope. It was his cape.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I made a loot generator in Excel. That way I can hand them a sheet with coins, goods, and gems / jewelry.

I do keep track of encumbrance, so they usually just throw away the copper aces. The goods they might take, depending. The goods are relatively generic so they get an idea of what they want to deal with. Once they found a crate of fresh parchment that the magician absolutely adored.

Since I (mostly) automate it, I do have specific gems and jewelry, although the form (ring, pendant) I determine on the fly. They have an understanding that 500-1000 mark gems will find ready buyers with magicians and clerics. When bargaining with a fae queen one of the players got excited when they looked at their sheet and said "ah HA! Platinum and sapphire earrings FTW!"

 

[bedir than]

- Do you actively use descriptive mundane treasure text elsewhere in the game? Or is it just needless filler to you?

• As a GM, do you automatically provide published descriptions on to players, or just say "200 gp in jewels, enough to fill a small sack"?
• Do you ever change descriptions? Why?
• Have you ever used mundane treasure descriptions to drop clues? impact PC/NPC relations? exploit or gauge player reactions? Anything else?

Yes. That filler provides a lot of flavor for the world. Without the descriptors its just another generic D&D world.

I love the idea of using treasure to provide clues, and have done so in my world. My dragons are slightly different from the norm, one treasure item is a book that helps describe those differences so that the smart character doesn't have to keep rolling and just knows those differences.

 

[Li Shenron]

My kids love them! One of them even gets a bit upset if a combat encounter loot is just coins, and proceed to take whatever "souvenir" from fallen foes pockets and backpacks, no matter how worthless...