Well I don't mind looting, in my fantasy piece games the magic economy is severely curtailed, but it does provide useful items (like healing, base magic items). The really good stuff is in the dungeons and I encourage monster pieces to be looted so as to make items later. The monsters are the resources for cooler stuff.
This is one of the things that made me wince when I realized PF had done away with the XP cost for making magical items. - Wait, let me finish. I didn't like the fact that magic item crafters wound up lagging behind their buddies level-wise, but it meant there was an element other than loot that was necessary to create items. Now $=power=$=power - and one unintended result of that rules change is that now the PCs will render down their foes in a big cauldron and try to sell off the bones and tallow*.
* See? Your PCs haven't gotten as bad as they can. Yet.
The min/maxer in me kinda misses those days. I would craft a bunch of items, lag a level behind the rest of the party (using the items I crafted for myself and the rest to make up for the slack) then I would rubberband ahead of the entire party because lower level characters got more XP.
System was broken. I was never less powerful than anyone else and nearly always more powerful.
Better now that it's gone.
It's up to the GM however to decide how much of your total swag you can find buyers for. The Village of Hommlet can only buy so much.Enforce the rules for selling stuff. Most towns can only buy so much stuff.Not quite true. Most towns have caps on how much they can pay FOR ANY ONE ITEM.
Short of house ruling, not really. The RAW is clear.
You mean if we took the min/maxer out of you, there'd be something left? :)
The min/maxer in me kinda misses those days.
Of course there would be! A raving lunatic.
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The dm running the economic realities of the region is not house ruling, it is a part of running a rpg.
If they are trying to sell more everburning torches than people can afford or want, the price is going to go down. A sale can still be made, but it rationally shouldn't be at 50%.
If the market is flooded with longswords, longswords will be sold cheaply.
If anything that comes from that dungeon outside of town is rumoured to be cursed (or from unlucky dead adventurers that didn't make it), good luck trying to make much gp off it. "I would really love to buy that staff, but I fear it may make me blind and impotent" said the frightened merchant.
It's up to the GM however to decide how much of your total swag you can find buyers for. The Village of Hommlet can only buy so much.Enforce the rules for selling stuff. Most towns can only buy so much stuff.Not quite true. Most towns have caps on how much they can pay FOR ANY ONE ITEM.
The nobles near the village of Hommlet may be interested in what the players found, but they may also be stocked up with ancestral mundane crap. "I have no need for another barely magical sword. I have eight of them."
The dm running the economic realities of the region is not house ruling, it is a part of running a rpg.
It's also part of ruining the game by over thinking things. The rules keep the economic aspects of things simple for a reason, so the game can focus on adventuring.
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Witness every RPG that's not D&D based. My CoC characters searched many an office and home for clues, but we never ripped out the plumbing and took it to a scrap metal yard.
And our CoC group kept everything we ever found even though I was already filthy rich! When the time came and we had this magic necklace that needed destroyed, who do you think had not one but THREE of the ritual knives needed to destroy it? Me, that's who...
My question to the OP is 'are the characters enjoying the looting?' If so, why rain on their fun? I've pried tiles off the floor since the blackmoor days in the 70's to the current pathfinder adventures. To this day I find listing for GP value for mundane 'knick-knacks, furnishings and scrap metal' and enjoy the challenge of removing it all. Once hired a team of dwarves to retrieve some huge adamantine doors from a dungeon. Good times.
This was most likely mentioned already, but I haven't read through all of the pages and thought I'd throw this out there (possibly again).
If such things that they're looting are in fact valuable, like said ever burning torches, it would make sense in any land, especially war ravaged and such, that there are a whole lot of other potentially dangerous people looking for that loot.
To me at least, it'd make sense along with the merchants limiting buying junk that there would be a fair amount of other scavengers, grave robbers and thieves looking to get some loot as well. Probably greedy enough to ambush and burgle those they think has any valuables that could benefit them.
I actually...um...borrowed...a magical ring while we were making our way through that manor and put it to good use.
If it's the ring I'm thinking of, you shouldn't have looked like anything. And we ended up getting to keep that, but the GM had to twist himself in knots to come up with a rationale. It was a pretty unsatisfying narrative* but we let it go. Because, magic ring. And it was almost all we got, except for a cash reward from the Count.
*
This was most likely mentioned already, but I haven't read through all of the pages and thought I'd throw this out there (possibly again).
If such things that they're looting are in fact valuable, like said ever burning torches, it would make sense in any land, especially war ravaged and such, that there are a whole lot of other potentially dangerous people looking for that loot.
To me at least, it'd make sense along with the merchants limiting buying junk that there would be a fair amount of other scavengers, grave robbers and thieves looking to get some loot as well. Probably greedy enough to ambush and burgle those they think has any valuables that could benefit them.
Of course when the ambushers are killed, then the players have even more loot.
Unless some seize and bail with it, but the players are not likely to let them get away.
It's also part of ruining the game by over thinking things. The rules keep the economic aspects of things simple for a reason, so the game can focus on adventuring.
True, but when the players have already diverted from the focus on adventuring and focused on squeezing every last bit of value out of the dungeon dressings, then the GM needs to deal with it - and that may mean managing the economy a bit more directly.
I've been considering a houserule whereby the ability to grant a resistance bonus to saves is an inherent quality of ANY shoulder-slot item Every shoulder-slot item's name would end with "(+X resistance)", with X ranging from 0 to 5. Any non-zero resistance bonus increases the item's price by an amount equal to the price of that tier of cloak of resistance (or heck, maybe even less, so you can afford the cool half of the item). In effect, you get to have both the "fun" item and the CoR in the same slot, as a single physical item, regardless of what the "fun" item is.Same idea would apply to belt-slot items enhancing physical stats, headband-slot items enhancing mental stats, rings granting deflection to AC, amulets granting enhancement to natural armor, and maybe even do the same with weapon/armor enchantments.
Just an idea.
I did that for my Council of Thieves campaign, basically. Every shoulder item, ring, or neck item needed to have a +1 bonus in resistance, deflection, or natural armor in order to have any other enchantment on it kind of like getting a bonus-equivalent enchantment to a magic weapon or suit of armor.
It won't fix the issue in the OP, but it does encourage players to not ditch the interesting items in those slots just for the bonus.
True, but when the players have already diverted from the focus on adventuring and focused on squeezing every last bit of value out of the dungeon dressings, then the GM needs to deal with it - and that may mean managing the economy a bit more directly.
It's also part of ruining the game by over thinking things. The rules keep the economic aspects of things simple for a reason, so the game can focus on adventuring.
If the players are willing to waste time looting doors, then they'll also be willing to waste even more time looking for buyers.
If the problem is that you don't want the players wasting time, then trying to create a dynamic economic model for the second-hand door market is only going to make the problem worse.
If (as in the OPs case) the problem is the PCs getting too much money, there are easier ways to fix it (along the lines of 'this magical item self-destructs when removed', or just reducing the number of gold coins they find).
I had one player that tried to purchase gear in the following order (had to be a pretty serious need to make him swerve from this path).
Potion of cure light or moderate wounds (to keep him alive)
Handy Haversack (to collect any semi-valuable loot)
+1 weapon or +2 stat headband for a caster
largest Bag of Holding (to collect anything not nailed down)
+1 Cloak of Resistance (saves are beginning to become important)
Portable Hole and Adamantine Crowbar (to collect everything nailed down as well as the nails)
He had actually done estimates on the volume and mass vs. value of hundreds of different things to optimize how much he could pack into those extra dimensional spaces.
Once a module had the underground study of a rich reclusive wizard described as paneled with thick planks of beautiful stained cherry wood. Before the encounter had hardly even begun (they didn't even know if the wizard was an enemy yet), he was asking how thick the paneling was so he could figure up how many square feet of boards he could rip off the walls and stack in his Portable Hole. The cleric in the party paralyzed him, had a nice conversation with the wizard, then carried him out of the lair.
However, that was an extreme case. Most groups I've found are a bit more greedy when first starting out with what they consider crap gear. They try to flog every suit of bloody scale armor. When they have gotten to some arbitrary point where they have what they feel is their 'essential' gear and they can consider themselves fairly well equipped, they tend to calm down and just grab the obviously valuable stuff. Usually tends to be around level 3 to 4.
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one solution we used was everytime you leveled up you automatically reset to wealth by level.
party had a 10 percent party fund. any equipment you wanted came from your wealth by level. anything found after leveling up was available until you leveled again, when you had to do your next... buyback.
One campaign I ran, the PCs were police, solving crimes. In that one, there was no problem with looting, because yes, the PCs would be expected to submit loot found as evidence, but then could turn around and requisition equipment without payment as required.
Did away with a lot of bookkeeping and the players learned to be very careful when asking for things.
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I would make sure to have a mix of stuff they can sell land not sell in a dungeon. Players need some sort of financial reward to go adventuring imo.
A couple of things to remember:
Finding treasure and selling it is a staple of fantasy rpgs. Take that out of the game and to me at least it's less fun.
Adventuring parties are not non-profit organizations. We as players adventure to have fun, roleplay and to find treasure. Take on of the three away and chances are one is going to lose players.
While i understand that players trying to take and sell anything not nailed down. There will always be a player(s) who think like that. My advice is to balance a decent amount of treasure with encumberance rules. Make it too heavy to carry too much stuff. Make it that shopkeepers in town stop buying everything and anything. In one of the games I ran players stopped trying to sell anything that was nailed down as they had a harder time of selling certain items.
Fun fact in a older module of D&D players came across a yellow brick road similar to the one in the Wizard of OZ. Made out of gold.
Treasure is usually incidental, not a main motivator. For motivation, we've got threats and rivals and enemies.
True. Excessive interest in maximizing loot could be a sign for a GM that they haven't had much success creating a story to engage the players.
Excessive interest in maximizing loot could be a sign for a GM that they haven't had much success creating a story to engage the players.
"Creating a story" is a johnny-come-lately. In 1e, every gp worth of loot granted you another xp towards leveling; the whole game was driven by loot, and the bulk of the story was "here's another treasure hunt -- who's in?" In other words, excessive interest in maximizing loot could just be an indication of an old-skool game, not necessarily just a "bad DM."
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Incidentally, the XP gained from loot was able to outstrip the XP gained from success in battle, back in 1e. As a result, the game rewarded clever ways to get the treasure without having to fight and risk your life.
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I don't actually mind looter PCs, but I draw the line at extreme looting. Here's an example of what I mean:
First encounter/first adventure of a new campaign, there are 5 players at the table. The encounter consisted of a tough fight with 3 goblin warrior 1 and 4 dire rats. The PCs finish, look around the cave and find a hidden cache of treasure.
Now 4 of the PCs also check out the goblins' gear and extra provisions. They piecemeal together a few weapons, some armor and some shields that aren't rusted, broken, or otherwise inferior. I'm still ok spending a lot of the session on this.
Now we come to player 5 who wants all the broken, ruined gear. He also wants the goblins' boots. He follows this up with questions about how big the rats are, how much they weigh, and how thick the goblins' hides are. Using the Survival skill he skins every enemy in the cave. The party, deciding to go with crazy-skinner-guy's plans shrug and set up camp. I threw a plant monster wandering encounter at them, but they defeated it.
In the end player 5 made all the rolls, took the skins, and butchered the rats. He then had the cleric cast purify food and drink - the rats became rations. He had the same cast on the skins/hides and he had the beginnings of leather or hide armor. The goblin clothes, broken gear and nick-nacks were mended and cleaned using still more cantrips. Finally player 5 took rat bones and a couple pieces of wood from the wilds outside the cave, made a rudimentary litter and he and another PC hauled EVERY last bit of that back to town.
Player 5 was not invited back to the game by mutual agreement of my other players and me.
Honestly I didn't mind the craziness of it (the PC was a crazy survivalist guy) or the potential extra wealth they could get from it. It was the fact that I'd had a few more encounters planned for that game session; instead I spent hours listening to looting, skinning, cantrip-casting, litter building and finally haggling with in-town merchants over the value of it and using skills like Appraise and Diplomacy to make the goblin weapons more appealing.
TL/DR. @ the OP: talk with your players. Don't worry about what MIGHT come from the conversation, just talk to them. Also, give them WBL. They're the heroes. Even if the region is war-torn and poor, these guys are the stars of the show - let 'em have their gear and hopefully this will tamp down their need to loot.
Incidentally, the XP gained from loot was able to outstrip the XP gained from success in battle, back in 1e. As a result, the game rewarded clever ways to get the treasure without having to fight and risk your life.
I can't remember for sure, but I thought only the rogues got experience for treasure gained. {shrug} Memory is the first to ... What?
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Incidentally, the XP gained from loot was able to outstrip the XP gained from success in battle, back in 1e. As a result, the game rewarded clever ways to get the treasure without having to fight and risk your life.I can't remember for sure, but I thought only the rogues got experience for treasure gained. {shrug} Memory is the first to ... What?
Everyone got it in 1e. They started phasing it out in 2e, but the rogue classes (thieves and bards) still kept the bonus as a class-specific reward while it was only optional for everyone.
Also, retrieving magic items in 1e gave you an XP reward, but the reward was less than what you could get for selling the item and taking the gold. The idea was that the utility of the magic item would compensate for the reduced XP-GP value. Buying magic items (when possible) did not give you any XP. Thus, gold was more free to be spent on nonmagical things, like establishing your empire.
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I'm firmly with Klaxon and Kyrt and others. I tell them to use WBL and make up their own gear. The players decide what stuff their characters will loot, and they assign its properties within those limits. One guy might decide the iron candlestick on the wall of a tomb (which I'd envisioned was totally mundane) is actually his ancestor's long-lost mace of disruption. More power to him, so long as his total gear ends up < WBL.
That's... radical. Exciting thought.
My merchant character would be aghast that you couldn't profit from every square inch of a dungeon. In fact I have rented the real estate to a couple former dungeons and make a decent profit to further fund the groups meteoric rise above the pathetic WBL table. ;)
But it takes a certain sort of game master to provide the sort of environment for this play style. When my little merchant went chasing after a powerful artifact to further enhance her wealth she was impaled by a greater demon on a rather nasty blade and told that if I continued my foolish search for power I wasn't skilled enough to defend or properly use he would track me down after my resurrection and drag my soul to a place I couldn't come back to life from. I definitely took the hint and shelved those plans till I was much much higher level. So kinda cool in a simulationist style setting but horrible in a gamist or narrativist one.
Or more simply, great fun if everyone is cool with it. A complete drag if one player wants to focus on stripping every bit of value from the first dungeon and the others want to move on to the next adventure.My merchant character would be aghast that you couldn't profit from every square inch of a dungeon. In fact I have rented the real estate to a couple former dungeons and make a decent profit to further fund the groups meteoric rise above the pathetic WBL table. ;)
But it takes a certain sort of game master to provide the sort of environment for this play style. When my little merchant went chasing after a powerful artifact to further enhance her wealth she was impaled by a greater demon on a rather nasty blade and told that if I continued my foolish search for power I wasn't skilled enough to defend or properly use he would track me down after my resurrection and drag my soul to a place I couldn't come back to life from. I definitely took the hint and shelved those plans till I was much much higher level. So kinda cool in a simulationist style setting but horrible in a gamist or narrativist one.
Note that's not what the OP is saying thejeff. All the players are enjoying looting everything in sight. The OP is trying to figure out a way to stop their "great fun".
And if you think only people in d&d are greedy, you haven't been playing those other games with the right people. :)
Or I have been playing with the right people. Most of the other games I play don't reward the loot. Sure you can get it if you want, but it doesn't go directly into your personal power. It's not a basic assumption of the mechanics.
As for the OP, the GM counts as part of "everyone".
LOL Few games have NO use for loot. Who said it was for personal power anyway. Some people buy houses, fancy clothes and fun nights on the town. If the OP is worried about WBL, just ask them to spend the extra on that kind of stuff. Much easier than trying to stop the fun. (plus it's a great place to add in adventure hooks)
As for 'the GM counts as part of "everyone"', that's true. ONE person isn't having fun. So all the other people should stop having fun so the one person can? That sounds a bit off doesn't it?
Lincoln Hills: Note, the OP didn't say that or even infer it. In fact, he's talked about making them take multiple trips eating up MORE time. He seems against the idea. If it's the work or the WBL, it's easy to handwave values and as I said the OP can ask them to spend the extra of non-power stuff.
I'm suggesting talk and compromise as is seems the party enjoys it. It doesn't have to be an inconvenience to any of them. It'd be different if this was at the start of a campaign but it sounds like it's mid-stream.
For the OP all games need a social contract." Hey guys this is a heroic game so I am going to expect a certain level of behavior." "This is a swashbuckling pirate romp paladins aren't welcome." "This is an urban intrigue game set in a volitile aristacracy so a goblin cannibal might not fly." The same goes with dungeon salvage. "Guys i work really hard to balance things trying to use uber salvage skills as money to power will screw with the game and change the game for you and make it one I don't want to run."
Force them to deal with logistics and escavation. "If that is really what you want to do you will have to build an acess road hire and build a wagon. Being able to lift something off the ground does not mean you can carry it for 8 hours a day for 3 eays back to town through the wilderness."
Lastly remind them that they have other pressing things and looting scrap metal is a downtime activity.
Finally make it clear that at some point if they really want thier exalted warrior to start a salvage business and not continue to be an adventurer that tyey can roll up.an adventurer and their warrior of awesome can retire.
Also I use npc peer pressure a lot.
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All loot and gear magically dissolves when you level up, turning into a sparkly cloud of possibility. The player re-assigns it into their exact WBL worth of gear and excess coin (from the list of sources approved by the GM). Anything extra is lost. Anything less arbitrarily increases to WBL. Loot what you want. Take everything. Ignore everything. Steal from your party members. Shower coins on the beggar children. Doesn't matter. Everyone ends up at WBL at the end of the day, no matter how miserly or extravagant their lifestyle.
It's a game. Just as 'realistic' training times of months to 'level up' or learn new languages would be super-boring, spending even *minutes* of valuable game time on 'shopping' or 'equipment maintenance' is equally un-fun and un-heroic. Save that for the MMOs, where you can block out an hour here and an hour there all throughout the week, and don't have to juggle schedules and babysitting and sick days to get a chance to sit down and actually game.
If a player wants to haggle, then let them haggle, but for the RP fun of haggling, not to eke out an extra 5% bonus to some action because they ended up with an extra magical gewgaw. If they want to play a miser who takes the fillings out of fallen foes teeth, go for it, because that's the character they want to play, not because they want to be 17 silver pieces ahead of Bob at the end of the adventure.
Where does the stuff come from? Who cares. It comes from the same place that those 2 extra spells per level come from when a Wizard gains a new level. It comes from the same place a PCs ability to speak Sylvan comes from when they spend a skill point on Linguistics, despite having never heard or seen anything Sylvan in the last levels worth of adventuring. Same place that new Feat came from, despite your Fighter having never seen that particular Feat in use, or met someone who could teach it to them.
If the element of 'loot everything' is the problem, remove the benefits that come from looting everything. Don't punish the looters with curses or thieves stealing everything, that's just an arms-race that prompts the players to find better ways to protect their loot, or to go on the offensive and steal their stuff back from the thieves (throwing the entire adventure off the rails and turning your game into an 'us against him' confrontation).
Address the problem, don't flutter about trying to stamp out symptoms.
Players were taught that there was an advantage to be had by looting everything and that the person with the most gold pieces was the 'winner.'
Unlearn them of that lesson.
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1. Ask your party if they like to loot everything but the kitchen sink: Weirdly enough there are players (I can be one of them) who actually do like to scrounge and and scavenge every single item they can find and that's not a bad thing. A lot of times though that scavenging mentality comes from some severe gaming sessions before where they either needed every single gp they can scrounge up or have been conditioned that that is the way of things and the only way to stay competitive with the challenges they are going to face. If you are set on providing them all the gp they are going to need without them having to strip the filigree off the walls and you let them know that ahead of time it can help curb the urge. Now if that is how your players like to play then you might just have to deal, if they find some great joy being that rogue who got do buy his new shortsword from hocking all those diamond doorhandles littering the place who are we to judge their fun, so long as they are not disrupting the fun of the rest of the party for any extensive amount of time.
2. Make sure you have NPC's who are paying out: If you want to make sure your party doesn't fall back on that habit make them feel safe that they are going to get paid. The best way to do that in most games is give them an employer like the pathfinders society, or a prince, a merchant lord, or someone else of importance and wealth but can't necessarily go out on adventures themselves. It's a lot easier for players to feel safe in their continued payment when they don't have to worry about having to foot their bills themselves. lol think about it like working for a corporation vs. being self made they don't have to worry about if failing to strip this place clean means they won't have cash in 4 months after all their buys, food, housing, and carousing have occurred and no more work has shown up. The other upside of a patron is you get to have someone in the group to sort of make your will known. Don't want them to rob an ancient temple blind? Make their patron a man of history, who would take affront at someone defacing such a rare and important piece of history. He tells them to clear the place and not to deface it, claiming it for his cause and they will get paid well. Now your party has an ingame reason not to and have some place to put in some backstory too.
This just goes to show the difference in values among members of this hobby. I would love to have players like that. Not in terms of extreme looting, but in terms of getting really into the scene and making the most of every resource available.
How many sessions of that would you love it? I mean, I'll grant that in something like Kingmaker it might make a lot of sense, but if that was going on in a Runelords game I'd reach a point after a session or two where I'd personally say "we can deal with that via e-mail outside of game night... now... what about this nice PLOT?"
As to the original question, the best way to combat environment-stripping is to make time valuable. Once a player really gets it that they can make 1,000gp an day by adventuring and only 10sp a day by looting random materials, they usually stop it. Also, having them adventure in settings they shouldn't loot helps them to think differently. Say... sacred tombs. Really? You're going to start desecrating the resting place of the forefathers because you're greedy?
Player 5 was not invited back to the game by mutual agreement of my other players and me.
Honestly I didn't mind the craziness of it (the PC was a crazy survivalist guy) or the potential extra wealth they could get from it. It was the fact that I'd had a few more encounters planned for that game session; instead I spent hours listening to looting, skinning, cantrip-casting, litter building and finally haggling with in-town merchants over the value of it and using...
But did he want to haggle with merchants or did you make him? You might be part of the issue there.
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But did he want to haggle with merchants or did you make him? You might be part of the issue there.
Player 5 was not invited back to the game by mutual agreement of my other players and me.
Honestly I didn't mind the craziness of it (the PC was a crazy survivalist guy) or the potential extra wealth they could get from it. It was the fact that I'd had a few more encounters planned for that game session; instead I spent hours listening to looting, skinning, cantrip-casting, litter building and finally haggling with in-town merchants over the value of it and using...
Also note that other players helped him by casting spells and hauling stuff. Seems like everyone had a part in it when "The party, deciding to go with crazy-skinner-guy's plans shrug and set up camp." Can't really blame him for slowing things down in that situation.
I share the opinion that you cannot address an out-of-game mentality problem with an in-game solution. Have a chat with your players and tell them that you're feeling a bit stifled in creating interesting and engaging locations for them to visit because of the "take everything that isn't nailed down and half the stuff that is" mentality increasing their wealth beyond reasonable level.