(whimsical music) - Loot in D&D should be fun
but a lot of the time, it just ends up
being annoying instead.
It's like, Dungeons & Dragons?
More like Debts & Disbursements.
It's a game where we all play accountants
and it's really boring.
(bells twinkling)
(upbeat music) D&D YouTube
has talked loot to death.
We've talked about why the gold system is screwy,
how higher level players build up masses of gold
with nothing to spend it on,
why D&D's economy is broken and doesn't make sense,
how 3.5 did it better.
That's right, I said it before you could say it
in the comments, got 'em.
We've talked about how tons of loot
doesn't actually make sense,
like monsters having gold on them.
We've talked about how magic items quickly get boring
or overpowered when there are too many,
and if you wanna hear more about that stuff,
just search D&D loot and you'll see a lot of people
with really good thoughts on this.
But you know me,
I'm not really running a mechanics channel.
So what I wanna talk about is how to make loot
more than just a mechanic.
How do we weave loot and player rewards into the story
we're telling and make it exciting
and part of the narrative,
instead of just an accounting obligation?
Sounds like you need some advice.
Who, me?
Oh, I don't have any advice.
I've never had any advice in my life.
(coin jingling) Oh, that advice.
Earning gold is only fun
when there's something worth spending it on.
If you use the treasure tables in the DM's guide,
your players are likely going to end up with a lot of gold.
So in order for that gold to be interesting
and useful for players, you have to make sure
they have opportunities to spend it meaningfully.
Just like in real life, you can reach a level of wealth
where you don't really have to work for anything,
which makes for a super boring game.
As your players amass riches,
they should have the opportunity to spend those riches
on bigger ticket expenses that feel worthwhile.
They should feel like their wealth is opening doors
that were closed to them before.
This might mean that your players can purchase property,
build a homestead or a library or a business.
They might gain access to an enchanter
who can customize or create specific items for them,
which is a big investment.
And just like in our world,
experiences and travel can eat up a ton of money.
Say, hiring an airship or a boat,
buying their way into a prestigious event,
or paying for access to resources,
like teleportation circles or private collections.
If your party is the type to feel charitable,
introduce opportunities for them
to use their money to help others.
Perhaps your party's cleric wants to build a temple
to venerate their god and serve their local community.
Maybe bandits stole from a town
and then burned it to the ground.
Even returning the money the bandits took
isn't gonna be enough for these people to rebuild.
Maybe your players would like to contribute.
Your players might not necessarily think to initiate
these things themselves, but NPCs can help let them know
that these kind of options are on the table
to encourage them to use their gold productively,
instead of just hoarding it in the basement
and occasionally going for a swim like Scrooge McDuck.
I am usually the first one to say
that pursuing realism in D&D is a fool's errand.
So if it's easier for you for items to be
basically interchangeable with their listed gold value,
that's up to you.
But, incorporating a little more realism
into your in-game economy can help put guardrails
around players' spending and make loot more interactive
by creating problems to solve.
In a realistic economy, items don't generally have
a set unchanging value.
We live in a world where a brand new car
famously loses value the moment you drive it off the lot.
If you buy a ring at a jewelry store
and then walk across the street to a pawn shop,
you are not going to get all of your money back.
This means that your players will most likely not be able
to resell items at full value.
How much they can get for an item,
or even whether or not they can sell it at all,
should depend on where they are,
the condition of the item, who they're selling it to,
and their bargaining skills, among other factors.
Not to mention, the more expensive the item,
the harder it is to resell,
which is why there are entire professions
that just consist of valuing and reselling antiques,
art, and other expensive or rare items.
Maybe your party obtains a Phoenix egg and wants to sell it.
They might have to go on an entire quest
to form connections, earn trust,
and then deliver the egg to a buyer before it hatches
because I guarantee the shopkeep at the general store
is not gonna buy it off of 'em.
Maybe they need to build a relationship
with the city's black market
before they can sell items there
or maybe selling a certain item ends up
getting them in trouble with the law
or with sellers of similar items in the area
who don't want competition.
If reselling items becomes a puzzle to solve,
then each item they loot has more meaning
than just a token that they exchange for money.
The rewards they're gaining after encounters
aren't just padding their pockets,
they're also part of the story.
- Hello, Professor Tree?
- Please, that's my father's name.
Call me Professor.
- Your first name is Professor?
- A name change is way cheaper than college.
Have you come to bring Eldamon
into your D&D or Pathfinder game?
- Yes, Roll for Combat just launched their new
Battlezoo Eldamon Kickstarter, but I have some questions.
Like, what are Eldamon?
- They're ancient elemental creatures
that we've learned to befriend and even trained to fight.
They're slightly out of sync with reality,
giving them the ability to phase in and out
and even meld into items or people.
Watch.
(air whooshing)
- Whoa, what's that?
- This is Squirrelash, an excellent starter Eldamon
because they're very friendly.
- Aww, ow! (fire hissing)
- Also made of fire, though.
Here, look, this one is in its pet form,
which it can return to anytime.
But someone with the Eldamon Trainer class
can invoke its battle form, Squirrelember.
- But any class can befriend Eldamon, right?
- Yes, the whole party can collect them together
and even duel each other for fun.
There's also a class where you can merge with an Eldamon
and manifest powers based on their element.
It's called Elemental Avatar.
- This sounds awesome, how do I get started?
- Visit eldamon.com to learn more
and pledge on Kickstarter.
You can also get the Battlezoo Bestiary
which has more than 150 award-winning monsters,
the Year of Monsters, where you get monthly new playable
monster ancestries and races,
and the Eldamon Battles card game,
a fast paced standalone dueling game.
- Sounds good, can you take this back?
I am on fire.
- There is little more exciting than adding a new skill
to your character's arsenal.
Introducing new abilities as rewards can keep players
on their toes and shake up the regimented scheduled nature
of gaining abilities at regular intervals from leveling.
And there is precedent for this, by the way.
The Dungeon Master's guide has some fun resources
for non-treasure rewards that people tend to sleep on,
maybe 'cause they haven't read it.
No shade, it's a textbook and they have hidden it
behind nearly a hundred pages of magic items.
But starting on page 227, they suggest rewarding players
with blessings and charms
when they achieve meaningful milestones.
These supernatural gifts include stat increases,
weapon improvements, temporary or permanent
access to spells, and more.
There are also Epic Boons,
which are supposed to be just for level 20 characters,
which whew, that's the dream, huh?
But if you wanna mine these for ideas for lower levels,
most of them are pretty easy to scale back.
For example, Boon of Peerless Aim gives a character plus 20
to one ranged attack per short rest.
But you could easily lower it to plus five
once per long rest or something like that.
You can always build on these sections by granting a feat,
pulling abilities or spells from other classes,
or bringing in third party resources to give players
a truly unexpected spell or ability
that feels really special.
And of course, you can always make stuff up.
There are infinite possibilities for how to tie
new abilities to players' successes and experiences.
Maybe they defeat a magic user
and their spell book contains a new spell
for the wizard to learn.
Maybe when the monk goes head to head
against another type of martial fighter,
that combat teaches them something,
unlocking access to a new skill.
Maybe the party rescues a powerful fae
who grants them all Mask of the Wild.
While this kind of reward can get overpowered
if you use it too often or incautiously,
it will feel very special and very exciting
if you use it in moderation.
Also in the other rewards section of the DMG,
is a subhead called marks of prestige.
These include things like titles, land,
medals, letters of recommendation, and special favors.
I think we could reasonably add things like NPC allies
and even hirelings to this list.
This means granting your players things like noble titles,
trusted positions of power,
and symbols that give them access
to important people and places.
It might mean that the party earns the respect and gratitude
of powerful allies who can make connections,
offer resources, and potentially even fund
or fight alongside the characters.
I really like rewards like these
because they both naturally arise from
and contribute to roleplay.
If you save the town and the mayor says,
"I owe you a favor", that's both a powerful reward
and a reward that can really only be fulfilled
in a narrative way.
These kinds of rewards don't necessarily have cash value,
which can make them very special.
A lot of the things on this list
can't realistically be bought.
I also like prestige related rewards
because they can be really useful steps on a quest
or even quest starters.
Owning property or having a noble title
might come with responsibilities.
Being trusted by a powerful leader might mean
that they ask for your aid
and gaining access to protected spaces or information
could be a key piece of the party's larger journey.
You're already feeding your players information
in various ways.
Maybe NPCs tell them important things,
maybe they do their own research,
or maybe they learn crucial details
from sleuthing or bribery or scrying.
But remember that information can also be
a part of your reward system.
If players are fighting a baddie relevant to the plot,
planting a letter with key strategic information
onto one of the bodies makes players feel like
this combat was important to the story.
Letters, journals, objects that act as clues,
clear tracks, last words,
all these things can function as rewards.
In Matt Mercer's "Rewarding Your Players" video
for Geek and Sundry, he also-- yes?
(bell jingling)
I've been blessed.
He also mentions access as a useful reward.
This is something I think a lot of us have seen
used in video games, but might not
have intentionally brought into D&D before.
In a tabletop setting, this could be a building,
a dungeon, a city, a country, an entire plane.
This might mean that by clearing dangerous monsters,
a certain travel route becomes accessible
or by defeating some sky pirates, you now own a airship.
In one of my games after finally clearing out a huge mansion
that was infested by undead, we learned
that a secret passage beneath the chapel led down
into a whole abandoned underground city.
This kind of thing is naturally a very exciting reward
to get because instead of just adding some numbers
to your gold pieces count, you're literally opening up
an entirely new place to explore.
I'm not in the punish your players DM camp,
so I personally think this kind of thing
should be used sparingly.
But, introducing a little risk
can really spice up your loot game.
Magic items are fun and exciting unless they're cursed.
Maybe you looted a magical amulet
off that corrupt noble you killed.
Turns out it's a family heirloom and that noble's son
has vowed to hunt you down and reclaim it.
Were you recently running around town,
spending platinum like it's burning a hole in your pocket?
Well, word travels fast,
and being visibly rich makes you a target for thieves,
bandits, and scammers of all kinds.
Now again, I think this should only be used occasionally
because the last thing you want is for something
that's supposed to be rewarding your players
to instead punish them.
But by introducing the occasional pitfall,
you can not only teach players to be more thoughtful
and wary about loot, you also remind them
that taking something off of a body
isn't just a transaction.
It's part of the story
and there might be consequences attached to it.
If you're worried about giving out magic items
because you're afraid of making your players overpowered,
you are not alone and you're not crazy.
It's way too easy to hand out magic items like candy
and then suddenly realize that your players
are punching way above their weight class.
That's why when it comes to magic items,
I say the weirder, the better.
Not only does it help mitigate this issue
of overpowered magic items,
but it also pushes players to be more creative
with their problem solving.
If you give a character a plus one weapon,
that weapon is gonna be more powerful in every combat.
You have permanently increased this player's damage output.
Same thing with say, a Ring of Protection.
That's a bonus to AC that will apply
to every single encounter from here on out.
You can see how offering up a ton of items like this
can quickly make your characters beefier
than they might otherwise be at at their level.
But when you give them a Chime of Opening,
they can use it to unlock 10 locks and then it's done.
It'll come in clutch when they use it,
but there will also be plenty of times
when it's not helpful and eventually it will be consumed.
The more specific the item, the less likely
that it will seriously skew your game balance
and the more likely that it'll actually be fun
and narratively interesting in your game,
rather than just adding a plus one to something.
A great example is Quaal's Feather Token.
It seems like everybody has a story of using the Tree Token
in an unexpected way that throws the entire encounter
into chaos and leaves the party feeling
like total badasses.
That means players thought outside the box,
activated a single use item in a creative way,
came away with a great story to tell
about an amazing session,
and now the game balance has returned to normal.
Single use, limited use, and consumable magic items
are an excellent way to prevent items
from making your party overpowered.
But even non-consumable magic items that are weird enough
are unlikely to completely screw up your game.
Consider items like the Immovable Rod
or Slippers of Spider Climb.
They will undoubtedly save the day in some circumstances,
but they're not a magic win button
and they demand that players be engaged and inventive
in order to benefit from them.
I'm all for fun, exciting new magic items and weapons.
Trust me, I love that shit.
But no amount of fancy stuff is going to make loot exciting
if it functions only as a currency counter
ticking up and down.
It is completely possible to make loot
part of the story you're telling.
But to do that, you gotta go beyond
rolling on the treasure tables
and start thinking about how you can reward your players
while also drawing them further into the narrative.
Speaking of making items more than just items,
if you want more like this, you have gotta check out
my video about ancestral magical weapons
that grow more powerful alongside characters
as they adventure.
It is super badass and also, I make a lot of puns.
You're welcome.