Dividing the spoils
of the adventure among the party characters is often easy, but it doesn't have
to me, and occasionally leads to disputes between players. Decades of gaming has taught me several
methods for sharing the loot, some that work better than other.
The first question
to answer is, "Do the characters in the game divide the loot, or do their
players do it?" I think the best
answer to this question is almost always to let the players decide. Would any player like to devote a little time
to having their characters role play the discussions? If the players are new to each other, or if
the party of characters are new, players are more likely to desire to role play
the outcome, but a group of players with characters that have adventured often
together are likely to have settled upon a solution that is acceptable to all
with little or no role playing.
Regardless, as a DM I recommend that you allow the players to use role
play to divide the treasures any time they decide to do so.
In your role as DM,
you should help facilitate friendly role play as always, and that is especially
important during the role play of the distribution of treasure. I once saw a party of 2 half-orcs try to
bully a halfling into splitting the treasure unevenly. The player of the halfling was not happy with
this play, even though it seemed in character with all involved. As DM I helped the players of the half-orcs
understand that this was not fair to the player of the halfling, and if they
went forward with the plan then it was unlikely these characters would be able
to get along in the future, and it was very possible that the halfling may get
very lucky if he attempted to steal some coin from those half-orcs and the
half-orcs would likely be very unlikely to notice. Ultimately, the DM is always in control and
anything the DM says go. Perhaps a
dragon could show up and beat the half-orcs unconscious, then the halfling
could take the coin and tell the half-orcs the dragon took it all. There are certainly endless options for the
DM to make things "right", but hopefully the players will understand
that in order to be good players, they need to play their characters in ways
that don't create anger and resentment between the players.
Even if the players
are not antagonistic, you will often find characters don't divide treasure
evenly. Perhaps one character was
unconscious for most of the adventure and the player of that character honestly
wants his character to forfeit his even share of the reward. As a DM you should certainly allow this, but
as a DM I do not recommend that you allow the players to decide not to share
reward evenly with a single character that was out of commission for part of
the adventure without that players consent.
Dividing rewards based on characters participation can become highly
subjective. Would a rogue that make no
attacks and failed to unlock any doors receive part of the treasure found in
the pockets of the enemies after they were killed in battle? If a character is charmed and fights for the
other side, is he rewarded? If a
character is paralyzed for 6 of the 8 rounds of the battle, does she only get a
6/8th's share of the treasure? It is
easiest, and probably best, just to draw the line and say that any character
that had any part in the adventure gets an equal share. However, as mentioned previously, if the
player of the character that appeared to do less wants her character to take a
smaller cut, then certainly allow her to do so.
Another factor that
prevents a simple and equal distribution of the treasure is when some players
decide one of their characters does not want some of the treasure. Perhaps your party of four found four
diamonds on the body of the vampire they slew, but the cleric in the party
adamantly refuses to own something that was once owned by a vampire. There are several ways to resolve this and
the best is usually to let the players have their characters decide. Perhaps the characters will sell the other
diamond and give the cleric gold in place of the diamond. Perhaps the cleric will desire the diamond
simply in order to crush it and destroy it.
My parties occasionally come upon magical items that are dangerous to
good characters, perhaps something like a dagger of human slaying. Some in the party may want to destroy the
item, while others may want to keep it and use it, but hopefully only against
evil humans. As a DM I recommend you
allow the players to role play the results.
As a DM, it is also your responsibility to prevent all the rewards from
going to just a few characters. If you
have a gnome character that refuses gold forged by dwarves, then you, as the
DM, should make sure that treasure other than dwarven-forged gold is an option
for the party.
Dividing coins and
gems is usually pretty easy. It is up to
you, as the DM, to help determine how an uneven amount of coins should be
divided. If a party of three scores
100gp of treasure, let the players decide how to divide that. If they want to divide it exactly equally,
perhaps the DM could say they found 2 more gp in the treasure, or perhaps they
can easily exchange 1 gp for 99 cp, giving 1 cp to the banker. If the party finds simply a 1,000gp gem,
don't make it too difficult for the players to turn that into coin. With low level characters and first time players,
you may find it rewarding to have the characters barter to turn the 1,000gm gem
into 950gp, or maybe 1,020gp if they are charming. But once players have years of gaming
experience they probably don't want to spend much game time haggling over a few
coins and you should just generally allow a one for one exchange into a form of
currency convenient for them. Although
this does not mean that low level characters should simply carry a few 100gp
diamonds around to reduce their carrying weight and expect to always be able to
exchange it for other lightweight gems and coins.
Now we come to the
challenge that probably brought you to this article. This is The Boss of loot allotment. How do you divide up the magical items? If you've been paying attention, then you
will probably guess correctly that the first and best option is to let the
players role-play it with their characters.
And, as in the case of coin, this may be done more frequently when
players are characters are new to each other, and less frequently once they
have established a pattern. The pattern
my groups typically use and it is the best pattern I am aware of is to have
each player roll a d20 for their character(s), using a separate roll for each
character if a player has more than one.
We always roll the d20 in person using a physical die, and we even use
the same die. (There was this one time,
that each player asked Alexa to roll the d20 for us). Whoever rolls the highest chooses first. If two people rolled the same number those
two roll again. They keep their place in
line with respect to all the other characters in the picking order, the
subsequent roll(s) are simply to break the tie(s) between these
characters. Once the picking order is
established, players pick items for their character one at a time from the pile
of loot. Most importantly, once the last
character has chosen, if more items remain to be chosen, the last character
then chooses again, and we proceed through the picking line in reverse order
until we reach the top. Another way to
phrase this is to consider that when each character has made a pick, round one
is complete, and then you move on to round two of the picks. So the character that chose last in round one
gets to choose first in round two. As we
reach the end of round two, if items still remain, the first character will
choose an item as the last pick in the second round, then choose again as the
first pick in the third round. This
continues until we run out of items.
Even though my
groups follow this pattern, I estimate that about 30% of the time some player
will have his character do a little role-playing before we divide the treasure
and offer to forgo getting multiple choices (when there is a lot of loot) for
the right to choose one specific item before the picking begins. If the other role-played characters agree to
this, then by all means the DM should allow it.
Let the players work it out for themselves. Our characters often recognize that the
stupid barbarian really needs a better sword, or the wizard needs those bracers
+4. No one else will take it because it
is in the best interest of the party to help every character overcome their
weaknesses. We also have characters that
take one or two items when there is a big pile, but then forgo all of their
remaining choices, while the rogues sometimes simply take the item that they
can sell for the highest price every time.
I am sure I have
said it often enough, but when the players can use role-play to distribute the
treasure and a friendly and fun fashion, it is more fun for them and sometimes
creates memorable experiences. But you are
the DM and you should try to make sure treasure is somewhat evenly distributed
and that the players leave satisfied.
This article is long enough, but as a final note I will point out that a
good DM does not leave the magic items found totally to chance. The DM should strive to supply some items
that may be fun and useful for the characters, and try to get something good
into the hands of a character that may be falling behind the others in the
party.
