Loot/Treasure

[MNBlockHead]

What topics and categories are you using for treasure/loot?

What I'm doing now, is that I've created a "Loot Tables" container using the "General Equipment Article" under the "Equipment" section of the "Mechanics Reference". In that container, I have an article for random tables, e.g. "gems" with separate tables, each in its own snippet: 10gp Gemstone, 25 gp Gemstones, etc. Another article would Art Objects, against further divided into snippets by value. The snippets give a role table and a description of each gem/art/etc.

I've thought of creating individual articles for each gemstone, for example, but effort/reward ratio isn't good. Instead, I use lots of aliases so any mention of a gem or art object will link to the article.

While an individual description of a gem or art object in a character/scene description can include a description of the item and its value inline, for determining, for example, safe's contents the GM instructions may instruct 2 rolls on the gems 10gp table, 1 roll on the Gems 50gp table, and 1 roll on the 250gp Art table (gems and art will be autolinked). Still may require opening two articles in other tabs during the game, but a single article with all the tables seems unweildly.

Anyway, that's what I'm doing now. I'd be interested in learning how the rest of you handle loot and treasure tables and references.

 

[Viking2054]

I'd be tempted, mind you I haven't done this yet, to create a container for 25 gp value stuff and then inside that container list all the art and gems that are worth 25 gp. That way if I roll up a specific value, I can pull up that list and either pick or toss a dice to see which item they get. I know it's not the way many systems do loot, but maybe it should be.

 

[MNBlockHead]

That's what a started to do. Actually, I broke it up further, by 25GB gems, 25GB art, etc., so I could create a link that would also show the value in-line. E.g. 25gbGEMS, "In the safe is a pouch containing 2d10 25gbGEMS." But I found more often I just write that the room is well decorated with expensive art. Or I will want mixed value types in vault, chest, etc. In practice I found it easier to simply have a single topic for gems and another for art and use lots of aliases to link back to those topics. The topics are broken into snippets which organized the gems/art by value. This also makes it a lot easier to maintain/update the lists of gems, art, etc.

 

[Pollution]

I'm putting the loot in topics where they find it. Seperate snippets, revealed as they find them. Reveal history shows what they found for book keeping. I don't use random loot though.

 

[pyremius]

I do the same, with GM notes identifying the real value. I then update the snippet with the appraised value. That way they know what they think it's worth and I know what it's really worth.

 

[storeyl]

Like Pollution, rolling random loot in a game is not something I'd do.

I haven't got round to thinking about recording loot found etc, but I like what Pollution says. Or I may just make a topic, or some place to record all the loot found in one place so the players can see what they have at a glance (Treasury topic, party one and player ones?).

Then again I've noticed over all the years of DMing that players are almost never really interested in recording items like 10 gems at 10gp, 3 at 25gp, jeweled box at 150gp. They just want to know how much total, i.e. 325gp in 'stuff'. So I've recently just started giving out the loot as 'stuff', that the party has to then sell to convert into card hold cash (or otherwise barter), often at a loss.

 

[Viking2054]

I agree that predetermined loot is the way to go for campaigns, modules, adventures and various scenes. However for those that want to have game system rules inside Realm Works, if for no other reason then completeness, then random generation tables can make sense. Maybe it's more of a Game Master want then a player need, but I can see the value of having the information available.

My personal preference as far as running games is to have as much preparation as I need done in advance of running the game, including treasure. Even though I know my players will change things up on me and go a different direction or pick up on some read herring that diverts them from the real story. Forcing me to improvise a lot.

 

[MNBlockHead]

I understand why pre-defining loot for a scene makes for a better game in many instances, but for areas the may be visited multiple time or to just give a sense of dynamic economies, I like to put some randomness in. If I have a villiage with 50 villager huts and a few important buildings, I may more carefully define loot for the important scenes and buildings, but have random tables for most of the villager huts: how lives there, chance they will be home, events that may be occuring, amount of coin or other items of value they might have, etc.

Also, for gems, I fine it really helpful to have a master gems topic in the game mechanics section so that I can have gem descriptions in one place. I'm not a gemologist, so it is hard for me to describe gems on the fly. To save time from having to enter gem descriptions within a scene's snippet, I can use aliases to have a gem name link to my gem table.

Art is trickier, since even with a huge list, it is much more likely that you'll repeat yourself and much more obvious. Still there are tables that allow you to make mad-lib type descriptions that allow you to convincingly describe items of valuable art on the fly without having to pre-write descriptions for every painting on a wall, every item of sliverware, etc.

 

[Exmortis]

All loot is under "Valuables" since, well loot is valuable, magic, gems or coin. It has a reveal snippet and a GM snippet.

All my loot is pre-defined, however it is "random" in that I generate it, its just "pre" randomed before the game day. We are an older group[ and time is not the luxury it was when I was a teen, so everything I can do to save precious game time.

 

[MNBlockHead]

Understand about time not being the luxury it once was. I spend weeks or months preparing for one long marathon session, when I can get my group together. When it comes to important scenes in an adventure, yes, predetermined is the way to go, but in my open-world style of play, there are just too many potential locations to visit.

If the party goes into some random villager's house, it only takes me a few seconds to make a few rolls to determine the occupants and items in the hut. There is no way I could have every potential villager hut the player's may come across predefined. There just isn't enough hours in a day.

I guess, this thread is less about how to handle "loot" as it is how to organize random generation tables in general. For me, for most item tables, I have a category as one topic and have it further broken into snippets to limit the number of tabs and clicks.

For monsters and NPC encounters, I have a separate records for each monster/NPC category (since I need stat blocks, etc. for each) but I have separate topics with the random-generation tables for different terrains and locales.

So far this is working better for me. Using LW is SOOOO much better than shuffling through paper and books for these rolls and players hardly notice, nor is their much delay. The only thing that I can see making it even more efficient is if RW would handle the dice roll and open the result in a new tab; though I am not making this feature request as there a far more important things I would like to see...I can role my own dice.

 

[AEIOU]

Do a search on "random table" here in the forums for a few hits that might interest you. Some folks built out some really nice wandering monsters this way. And there was talk about NPC's and such.