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Not so long ago, my players decided to stop killing things for five seconds and count up their loot. Much to my horror, they discovered that they’d accumulated nearly half a million GP in assets. But rather than buying out the magic item chapter of the book, my li'l murderhobos did me proud.
Guilty about all the times they’d lead monsters from the dungeon and back into town, they commissioned four watch towers and a garrison. Then they made a combination guildhall and inn. Next was an adventuring university, a monument, renovations for two local temples, a performance hall staffed by a troop of gnomish actors, and even free training for the local militia. I wound up changing that small town into a small city, and the party have become its most beloved philanthropists.
So I ask the esteemed boards a simple question: When is the last time your PCs have given to charity?
(Comic for illustrative purposes.)
I've got a few games running. One is very low level, so I haven't seen anything from them. The second meets once a month and the PCs have only hit level 5, but already the idea of being "heroes" has begun setting in. The unchained monk, paladin and wizard (to the grumbling of the unchained rogue) have taught an ignorant NPC how to recognize masterwork weapons better and gave him several for free so that he could jump-start a weapons peddling business between the main city and several small towns. They've also given "tips" to NPCs when buying items, rounding off GP and giving these extra coins to NPCs for nothing.
My final game has hit 9th level. They are the highest agents in an adventurer's guild and have their own Cohorts and such. They bought a group of low-level sailor adventurers a new boat and they've donated a few magic items to the guild for communal use. The party originally contained a wizard and before his passing he spent Downtime and his own resources fixing up the town's dilapidated library, donating copies of his own private studies to the shelves.
I'll tell you though, these are really the exceptions. Most of the time my players will go to great lengths to get money. I've gotten a rep for being a stingy GM since many of my encounters at low levels involve monsters with no treasure listed in their stat block. As such I use rules around harvesting poison, Trophies or arcane components from such creatures for cash. I also highly detail my settings so there's usually furniture or décor that if the PCs can transport and repair is worth a good deal of money.
The first party magic item all my players buy nowadays is some kind of Haversack or Bag of Holding. They'll strip every enemy of weapons, armor, and other sources of capital. They circle back if possible to significant monsters to skin them for pelts, take Trophies, loot poison or other substances, etc. Every trip through the wilderness that isn't time sensitive includes hunts for valuable game, searching for rare plants, identification of lucrative resources to come back and exploit, etc.
Bottom line: the little bit of charity my PCs do is offset by the massive, massive looting :)
Believe it or not, it happens regularly in my campaigns.
In the mythic game, a rogue actually started an orphanage.
In my northern kingdom game, the paladin...well, he did a lot. The gnomish cleric started several businesses and even a bank. Hardly charity, but it did a lot for the kingdom.
In my latest game, they're only 3rd level, and mostly neutral, so it's pretty minor so far. They have helped to free some slaves, though...
Starting domains, instituting public offices and works, building churches and supporting charities; all to be expected from Good heroes. And making a cool stronghold with lots of decorations and ostentatious wealth works well as a money-sink for those who aren't so inclined to sharing.
Yeah, we run old school in this regard so these things are a matter of course, which is why I had no cumpunction about running Sabre River with unaltered loot (though the youngest player needed a warning that he couldn't blow it all on gear). That resulted in 1.1 million per player. Most of it disappeared into domain and home stuff.
EldonGuyre wrote: Believe it or not, it happens regularly in my campaigns.
Do you ever reward this kind of selflessness? I mean... Do the orphans and banks and such ever do favors for the PCs in turn? Or is it more a "goodness is its own reward" situation?
Goodness is its own reward to a large extent. However, you do enough good works and your reputation as a good person grows and may give some bonuses in certain circumstances.
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DRD1812 wrote: EldonGuyre wrote: Believe it or not, it happens regularly in my campaigns.
Do you ever reward this kind of selflessness? I mean... Do the orphans and banks and such ever do favors for the PCs in turn? Or is it more a "goodness is its own reward" situation? I do believe in goodness as it's own reward, but I also believe in human nature and roleplaying that into the game. For example the PCs in my Barakus campaign have worked with a fairly profit-hungry horse merchant, gaining a deal on some war-trained mounts in exchange for money AND the party talking up the merchant's business. The paladin went one better and actually helped broker a deal between the horse merchant and a group of ratfolk traders they helped out in a nearby dungeon.
The paladin helped make the deal because he's good. The deal didn't benefit the party at all since his oath of "talking up" the horse merchant's business had already been fulfilled. The unscrupulous horse merchant said "Thanks!" and took all the money for himself since that's who HE is.
On the other hand
In the same game the PCs found and rescued a peddler on the road. The man offered the PCs a bunch of old weapons he'd found in a nearby ruin. The peddler only had levels in Commoner (a random pre-gen I grabbed from a website) so when I randomly rolled the loot he was offering, the weapons peddler didn't realize he had 2 masterwork weapons worth over 600 GP on him.
The paladin, having Craft: Weapons, made a roll with that instead of Appraise and recognized the masterworks easily. The wizard, monk and magus all immediately offered to help the peddler and not to take either of the masterworks. The Wizard used Mending and Prestidigitation on some of the minor repairs needed; the paladin taught the peddler about weapons and made a major fix on a sundered halberd when they got back to the city; the monk used his own social skills and contacts in the city to help the peddler find buyers for the masterworks so that the NPC got the best cost. They did this all out of their own pockets.
As a result Mons Longlegs, weapons dealer has become a fixture in the game since level 1. He is routinely around and now that the PCs have advanced to level 5 I've advanced Mons to Expert 2/Warrior 1. He's still traveling the dangerous roads around the campaign area but he knows how to wear armor, wield weapons and take care of himself. More importantly, Longlegs Trading has grown by 3 employees and they buy and sell lots of weapons from adventurers in the area.
Mons has helped the PCs achieve a good reputation in the city. He also watches out for weapons the PCs use and gives them special deals on them. The paladin purchased a Lucerne hammer +1 from him at 2000 GP (he wouldn't take a penny more) and earlier in the campaign Mons got another NPC cleric to cast Masterwork Transformation on the monk's chained kamas for free.
The horse merchant is kind of a jerk and very money hungry (I don't even remember his full name, only Lord Whitemeadow). When the PCs gave him extra business for free he took it and ran. Mons Longlegs however was a scared peddler out of his depth and the PCs saved him AND his business. He'll likely be repaying them for the entire campaign.
While many of my characters have done so for a specific goal. I can think of two recent characters who did it often and another two who would never agree to give to charity.
I often donate to make sure NPC bonds are forged with people I enjoyed meeting.
DRD1812 wrote: When is the last time your PCs have given to charity? I've ran three adventure paths and my group has donated things in each of them.
Kingmaker: It's rather built into the AP and the PCs get things out of it.
Hell's Rebels: They were fighting for the city, the government was stealing from the city, the PCs committed a heist and stole from the government and gave it back to the people. It helped them win more of the city over. One PC paid to have an antagonist resurrected because he wasn't an evil guy and he was killed by a bad guy to frame the PCs (and nothing came out of this, she just did it because it was the right thing to do). They did other things as well, and they typically received something for it because people appreciate it when heroes help them but the PCs didn't do any of them expecting rewards.
Mummy's Mask: Donated to their respective churches, refused some reward money and asked that it be donated to help orphans, one PC paid to have Permanency cast on a few Symbols of Healing he created... In game, it made the citizens love the group even more (they already did) and, character-wise, I rewarded him by allowing him to take a feat I normally wouldn't've allowed (he also healed hundreds of hit points of damage to the citizens of the town they were in that same day, all without expecting anything in return).
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