Monday, May 28, 2018

How To Divide The Treasure Among Your D&D Characters, or for any RPG


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.

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