Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
Today we’re taking a break from the Magic the Gathering landscapes, and looking at every player’s favorite subject. LOOT.
So why does loot matter?
Well, on the face of it – loot does not matter. We’ve all sat around the table, imagining the piles of gold in front of our characters, the magic items that have been stashed in their backpacks for months on end, and it’s all “not there.” But loot does matter. And that’s because for the players it gives them a sense of accomplishment (a bit like experience points) and as a way of keeping score. After all, if the hoard you just grabbed is enormous, you’re doing something right. At the same time, loot begets more loot – gold gets turned into magic items – items get used to stay alive and so on. It all matters to player progression – but mostly to their sense of satisfaction that they did something right. As such, at the end of every adventure (though not every encounter), there should be a reward, loot, or treasure for the players to grab.
What loot?
The question of the type of loot is always a good one, and it’s one of my own pet peeves for gaming. Gold pieces and coins are the standard for every game, and they have their place, but they are also rather boring. Once you’ve seen 1,000 gold pieces, you’ve pretty much seen 10,000 gold pieces. So that is where you, as the GM, have to start swapping things up. Perhaps they find an art piece that’s worth thousands of gold pieces. They might not even want to sell it, since it’s a unique thing – imagine finding an unknown piece by Picasso – the thrill you would have from owning it would probably not outstrip the pure monetary worth, for a normal person – but how about to a millionaire? It suddenly becomes a matter of perspective, but most player characters are far wealthier than the commoners that they interact with daily. So art pieces, magic items (which do not always have to be useful to the party mind you), gemstones, and unique types of treasure (how about a gold chariot instead of 100,000 gold piece for example) should be a frequent part of the loot, especially in bigger hoards.
But not all loot needs value.
While this seems contradictory to what I’ve stated above – that’s because it can tell a story. (I actually wrote a small book based on that called Pocket Lint, Light Loot & Tiny Treasures) In most games, when you loot a corpse, you find coins, maybe a magic item, or an art piece, but that’s it. In reality, though, our own bags and pockets are full of things that don’t have that value. How about you find a flower with 4 petals on it? It’s easy for the PCs to go “she loves me, she loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not…” and suddenly, their nameless opponent was unlucky in love as well. Or perhaps you find a TERRIBLE drawing in their pocket, with a little heart on it that says “Mommy.” Now you’ve just caused an orphan (and if the GM is really mean, either a new PC or a new recurring villain).
In short, it’s time for you to get creative with your loot. 😊
Kim Frandsen
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