Less Murder more Hobo, or Where's the Treasure? -Rant

[JAL_1138]

Seconding the suggestion to check out Tales from the Yawning Portal, which updates a bunch of old adventures. (Alas, it doesn't always do it well; TftYP Tomb of Horrors is one of the laziest updates I've seen.)

Also, if you're interested in Lankhmar, might I suggest switching up from D&D altogether? Savage Worlds has a pretty solid set of well-regarded, licensed Lankhmar supplements. Savage Worlds is not a perfect system by any means (the weapons and armor list has given our group enough headaches we're working on replacing it entirely), but it's a pretty darn solid system for the most part, and isn't particularly more complex than D&D (less so in a lot of ways). It also handles your preferred character types you mentioned in another thread pretty well--a nonmagical fightery thiefy Fafhrd-and-the-Grey-Mouser or Erroll Flynn type character can be really powerful in the system, and magic has enough risk and limitations (arguably possibly too many limitstions) that spellcasters don't run roughshod over everything else.

[GlenSmash!]

TftYP is a good collection of adventures for your tastes.

True.

Heck even LMoP works for this for me.

[Contrast]

I remember a thread not too long ago where someone complained how games these days were all filled with no nonsense mercenaries and how they yearned for the old days when people would just play righteous heroes.


Speaking personally I'm playing a character in adventurers league who just got to level 3. I realised that there's basically nothing I now want to buy with this character other than a bajillion healing potions. Does somewhat take the enjoyment out of looting.

This is AL of course which tends to be more focused on 'get your head down and complete the adventure in the alloteed time'. In a regular game there's always stuff to spend your gold on assuming you have a halfway decent DM.

[mephnick]

I remember a thread not too long ago where someone complained how games these days were all filled with no nonsense mercenaries and how they yearned for the old days when people would just play righteous heroes.

Why not both? I miss the old days where good-natured people saved townsfolk from the evil in the forest..and got rich at the same time. I guess it all depends on how old an individual's "old days" are.

Speaking personally I'm playing a character in adventurers league who just got to level 3. I realised that there's basically nothing I now want to buy with this character other than a bajillion healing potions. Does somewhat take the enjoyment out of looting.

Back in the day the idea was to survive to the point where you could stop adventuring and retire to a keep with an army (whatever your character's version of castle/retirement was) and then you'd make a new character and try again. Gygax and Co. never wanted to extend the advancement to 20 and thought people fighting gods to save the world was stupid. They only did it because of how many dumb letters they got from players wondering how to treat advancement past 10. Their answer for years was "why would you want to go past level 10? Retire and make a new character, idiots."

It's quite different now a days and the ultra-powered nature, more narrative style and advancement to 20 of modern D&D has really killed the "see what happens, see if you survive, get rich and live happy." type of game. I think that's what the "no buying magic items, here's some castles to look at" stuff in the PHB is trying to get back to.

[noob]

Step 1: employ the workers who build castles
Step 2: now you sell the castles and since they are the only high level gold dump in the campaigns where the gms are allergic to magic items then you gain tons of gold
Step 3: use that gold to build castles on each square kilometer of the world for yourself
Step 4: fill each of those castles with soldiers with bows and arrows.
Congratulations you are the master of the world.
Is it an already existing campaign concept?

[2D8HP]

Thanks guys, lovin' the tales

Step 1: employ the workers who build castles
Step 2: now you sell the castles and since they are the only high level gold dump in the campaigns where the gms are allergic to magic items then you gain tons of gold
Step 3: use that gold to build castles on each square kilometer of the world for yourself
Step 4: fill each of those castles with soldiers with bows and arrows.
Congratulations you are the master of the world.
Is it an already existing campaign concept?

That was the end goal at first:

1974 - Dungeons & Dragons Book 1: Men & Magic,
(Page 6)
"Fighting-Men:...
...Top-level fighters (Lords and above) who build castles are considered "Barons", and as such they invest in their holdings in order to increase their income (see the INVESTMENTS section of Book III). Base income for a Baron is a tax rate of 10 Gold Pieces/inhabitant of the barony/game year"

"Magic-Users: Top level magic-users are perhaps the most powerful characters in the game, but it is a long hard road to the top, and to begin with they are very weak, so survival is often the question, unless fighters protect the low-level magical types until they have worked up."...

(Page 7)
"Clerics:...
....When reach the top level (Patriarch) they may opt to build their own stronghold, and when doing so receive help from "above." Thus, if they spend 100,000 Gold Pieces in castle construction, they may build a fortress of double that cost. Finally, "faithful" men will come to such a castle, being fanatically loyal, and they will serve at no cost. There will be from 10-60 heavy cavalry....

....Clerics with castles of their own will have control of a territory similar to the "Barony" of fighters, and they will receive "tithes" equal to 20 Gold Pieces/Inhabitant/year."


1974 - Dungeons & Dragons Book III: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures,
(Page 20)
CONSTRUCTION OF CASTLES AND STRONGHOLDS:
At any time a player/character wishes he may select a portion of land (or a city lot) upon which to build his castle, tower or whatever...
.....Surprises, intakings, sieges, and so on can take place

(Page 24)
BARONIES:
Another advantage accruing to those who build their strongholds...
...This populace will bring in annual tax revenue equal to..."

You get the gist, it hints that it becomes Chainmail combined with Monopoly.

Pendragon tried to do it again with the Nobles Book.

But I didn't know anyone who actually played the game that way, but my game circle mostly did a conga-line of first-level human Fighters into meat grinders, so for me high level really wasn't a "thing" back then!

I think that your DM's style doesn't fit yours, simple as that...

Perhaps....

...If you want a "let's grab loot" adventure, Forge of Fury is basically this

And for that matter, Against the Giants has a nonstop supply of oversized pockets to pick.

TftYP is a good collection of adventures for your tastes.

Seconding the suggestion to check out Tales from the Yawning Portal, which updates a bunch of old adventures. (Alas, it doesn't always do it well; TftYP Tomb of Horrors is one of the laziest updates I've seen.)

Also, if you're interested in Lankhmar, might I suggest switching up from D&D altogether? Savage Worlds has a pretty solid set of well-regarded, licensed Lankhmar supplements. .

...even LMoP works for this for me.

Thanks for the great suggestions, I own them all!

And I also have:

Into the Borderlands



Which converts to 5e rules the first "module" I ever used; In Search of the Unknown, as well as the much beloved Keep on the Borderlands.


And truly the solution is "Stop all your bellyaching 2D8HP, get off your duff, dust off the DM's hat (a too small plastic horned 'Viking' helmet, with 'DUNGEON MASTER' written by magic marker on it) perch it on your head and show 'em how it's done!"

Unfortunately my 5e rules adjudication skills are abysmally...

"Your whinning again 2D8HP!"

Right.

Anyway, thanks to you all.

[noob]

So you are going to be the dm of a game like that in dnd 5e?
I have seen a bunch of 5e rules and it seems not completely brain breaking to adapt if you played dnd 3e.(but you might have not tried 3e)

[Chaosmancer]

Back in the day the idea was to survive to the point where you could stop adventuring and retire to a keep with an army (whatever your character's version of castle/retirement was) and then you'd make a new character and try again. Gygax and Co. never wanted to extend the advancement to 20 and thought people fighting gods to save the world was stupid. They only did it because of how many dumb letters they got from players wondering how to treat advancement past 10. Their answer for years was "why would you want to go past level 10? Retire and make a new character, idiots."

It's quite different now a days and the ultra-powered nature, more narrative style and advancement to 20 of modern D&D has really killed the "see what happens, see if you survive, get rich and live happy." type of game. I think that's what the "no buying magic items, here's some castles to look at" stuff in the PHB is trying to get back to.

One problem with the goal of "live long enough to be rich" is that merchants take almost zero risk.

Calculate how much gold a particular merchant gets paid by your party. Buying 4 healing kits and 6 potions? Account for costs being 50%, that merchant just made 160 gold.

And so, a player looking at "my only motivation is to make money and live" is going to turn to trade, where the rules of DnD allow for immense profits with no risk of life or limb.

Now, a DM faced with this will likely tie the shop into some adventures, but "there are safer options" is a big response to adventuring for the gold

[mephnick]

Now, a DM faced with this will likely tie the shop into some adventures, but "there are safer options" is a big response to adventuring for the gold

Sure, if you want to set up a trade network, supplier, learn math and toil away every single day. Or I could bash some monsters and make 2000g in one day and feast like a king for a year!

[War_lord]

Could you maybe try not insulting anyone who doesn't play the way you want them to. Preferring an old school style of play of fine, you do you. But I do have a problem with this attack, and it is an attack, that D&D play is either what you want or "monologuing in drawing rooms". That's an absurd dichotomy.

[2D8HP]

Could you maybe try not insulting anyone who doesn't play the way you want them to. Preferring an old school style of play of fine, you do you. But I do have a problem with this attack, and it is an attack, that D&D play is either what you want or "monologuing in drawing rooms". That's an absurd dichotomy.

Sorry War_lord

I'm feeling sad and lost, and I was thinking of a fairly recent checked out DM, and missing my old best friend who was my second DM ever, and is now gone.

Since it read like too much of an attack to you, it's edited out.

[Tanarii]

I've run keep in the borderlands in 5e fairly recently.

The players level too fast. They're fireballing caves by the time they get to the bugbears and gnolls.

Other than that, an old fashioned orc-hunt was a fun break for a group of youngish twenty-something players who were putzing a little aimlessly around a DM's make **** up on the fly "sandbox" in one game, and were trying to muddle through Castlevania Ravenloft in another. Ultimately they werent enough in to it for me to hunt down adaptions of X-series modules on the DMs guild website.

Although to be honest, ToA looks like it could stand in for Isle of Dread just fine.

[BW022]

2d8HP,

Play anyway you (and your players) like. However, keep in mind that the 5e rules simply don't make treasure much of a reward.

Beyond about 5th in most campaigns, players don't need coin for any personal reason. They would have enough to purchase any mundane equipment (armor, weapons, potions, spells, etc.) which they need. Unless you are going to open up the magic shops... there is little which they will need. Even with magic shops open... its hard to have any significant benefits to players having most magical items due to bounded nature. Once you have a +1 weapon, you aren't going to struggle like crazy for a +2 weapon, considering you are hitting most monsters at will by 6th. Magical treasure is similarly limited and against by limits of the number of certain items.

Unless you add in-game reasons they need the treasure (they want to build castles, buy ships, massive bribes, etc.) then they won't need it for simple adventuring. And if you give them reasons for needing the money (run a business, fund a rebellion, buy an elvish artifact to return to the elves, etc.) then you are effectively running a "save the world" campaign and hoping they become so invested in the plot that they need the money to advance it.

Feel free to make treasure a bigger part of the game, but ultimately 5e rules make it somewhat moot. You can try for a low-treasure campaign, keep the levels low, etc. but that penalized martial classes.

Finally, I'm not sure why you feel you need to kill creatures for XP. 5e is based around encounters. You get the same XP if you talk, sneak, bluff, etc. your way around an encounter.

[Tanarii]

Unless you add in-game reasons they need the treasure (they want to build castles, buy ships, massive bribes, etc.) then they won't need it for simple adventuring. And if you give them reasons for needing the money (run a business, fund a rebellion, buy an elvish artifact to return to the elves, etc.) then you are effectively running a "save the world" campaign and hoping they become so invested in the plot that they need the money to advance it

Weird. In my experience, players want money for castles and troops because they want to conquer the world. Or at least carve out their own kingdoms. Not save it.

[lxion]

This reminds me of my first sessions. A party of three people who were used to playing video games. Every kill was looted and every time we asked how much XP we gathered. One of the players killed our hostage goblin while we were scouting, just to get the more XP. Although we had very much fun, it can make sessions more annoying. I try to minimize the looting as a DM, but when there's something worth stealing, I'll let my party know. If the party would ask me if they can go on a loot raid, I'd make something of it though.

[noob]

Normally with dnd 3e rules for experience capturing the goblin already did solve the encounter and so make you gain the xp(so killing it does not gives any extra)
(maybe dnd 5e is all about murdering innocent monsters to absorb their souls or something like that)

[JAL_1138]

Normally with dnd 3e rules for experience capturing the goblin already did solve the encounter and so make you gain the xp(so killing it does not gives any extra)
(maybe dnd 5e is all about murdering innocent monsters to absorb their souls or something like that)

Can't recall what the textual 5e rules are off the top of my head, but in more recent League modules they've generally tried to emphasize that "overcoming the encounter" can be done in ways that don't involve killing the opponent (or KO'ing them instead). Persuading them not to fight, capturing the opponent, or otherwise not fighting can count in most circumstances. They're not always consistent about it, though.

[Unoriginal]

Can't recall what the textual 5e rules are off the top of my head, but in more recent League modules they've generally tried to emphasize that "overcoming the encounter" can be done in ways that don't involve killing the opponent (or KO'ing them instead). Persuading them not to fight, capturing the opponent, or otherwise not fighting can count in most circumstances. They're not always consistent about it, though.

Can't see where they're not consistent, IMO, but maybe I've missed something.

5e doesn't require you to kill the monsters to get XP, it is, as you said, a reward for overcoming the encounter, not for having the biggest killcount.

Note that "avoiding the encounter" isn't the same thing as overcoming it. Sometime dodging the encounter entirely can give XPs, sometime not, depending on how you achieve it.

[noob]

Can't see where they're not consistent, IMO, but maybe I've missed something.

5e doesn't require you to kill the monsters to get XP, it is, as you said, a reward for overcoming the encounter, not for having the biggest killcount.

Note that "avoiding the encounter" isn't the same thing as overcoming it. Sometime dodging the encounter entirely can give XPs, sometime not, depending on how you achieve it.

I believe there was a whole "being aware of the problem you circumvent"
So if you go through walls with your adamentine axe because it is faster than going through doors without saying "and so I avoid all the thousand billion of wail of the banshee traps on each door" then you do not get the xp for those traps while if you go though the wall with your adamentine axe for avoiding the thousand billion of wail of the banshee traps on each door then you get the xp for circumventing.(yes it is silly that awareness of a trap makes you gain more xp for the same behavior)
So due to silliness with gms not wanting their traps to be avoided you must search for traps on the doors then dig the walls instead of saving time by digging walls directly.

[Knaight]

(Your welcome to tell me how wrong I am, but please someone truthfully tell me of recent adventures of loot grabbin' so I may feel less forlorn and lonely in my desires)

First things first - have you heard of a little game called Torchbearer? It's not D&D, but its very existence and recent publication is a pretty good indication that this style of game still exists.

As for recent adventures of loot grabbin', I do have a story (also not in D&D, but it totally could work there and I might port it at some point). A while back on this forum we had a thread about the idea of importing a metroidvania structure to a tabletop RPG. I decided to test it out, go against type a bit, and run a loot heavy dungeon crawl based around a set of item-gates. The players started out unarmed against club wielding goblins, then between looting significant items and weapon and armor off their enemies ended up in fantasy powered armor wielding magical artifacts while having drastically improved mobility*.

But let me back up to the beginning. The party were professional adventurers who took a mercenary contract from a dwarven city to deal with a mining castle in the sky which was harvesting their ore. They were then sent through a magical portal armed to the teeth, only to find that the sky castle had defenses against that, and instead dropped them off unarmed, unequipped, with only their clothing in what was now a goblin stronghold ringed by separate floating structures. There they got in a scrap with some goblins, won by the skin of their teeth with thrown rocks found in dilapidated parts of the castle. From there they cowed the goblins, slew their king, and discovered that the crown was an ancient enchanted item known as a float ring, granting access to the periphery. From there the party, using the goblin stronghold as their own home base having deposed the king proceeded a long mission of exploration, running afoul of various foes, thoroughly looting other old items (a magic extending bridge, a shrine that gave immunity to ambient heat, another shrine that transformed all metal objects into a fancy ceramic that allowed passage through the metal eating swarm, then the equipment of an ancient armory) that let them further explore, until eventually they were able to shut down the mining swarm.

Highlights included an ambush by birdmen on a precarious set of floating rocks before the PCs got ahold of any bows, followed by a desperate retreat; the PCs baiting a trap for the birdmen to later finish them off which let them get their equipment and strike back; a massive fall broken by clever spellcasting, and my personal favorite, the shoving of an ancient war machine wielding an equally ancient and powerful magic sword off a precipice to the ground below, followed by about ten minutes of out of character joking about it being found by some random farmer below who considered it a gift from heaven, to be used as a later one shot.

All of this was maybe three months ago. I qualify that as recent, and I figure that three months for me is roughly equivalent to a week and a half for you.

*It was aimed for being a one shot and ended up a quick three session game, which throws out the standard treasure progression standards built for much longer campaigns pretty thoroughly.

[Ignimortis]

(Your welcome to tell me how wrong I am, but please someone truthfully tell me of recent adventures of loot grabbin' so I may feel less forlorn and lonely in my desires)

While your opinion is valid and is probably indeed about right for those versions of D&D you've started with, most players I know are much less inclined to do something only because they want to get rich. The RPGs in the last, well, 30 years or so, have tried to tell stories of increasing complexity and grandeur (not necessarily scale, by the way). There are Baldur's Gates, Planescape: Torment (only one, sadly), Neverwinter Nights, Fallouts, Dragon Ages, Final Fantasies, etc, which use RPG mechanics to give a book-like plot some interactivity and weight.

And a story about "how we looted that one temple of the Spider-Lion-Headed God and then spent all of that money on booze and wenches" gets rather dull after you've seen it once or twice. Meanwhile, other plots (which don't have to involve saving the world) can be both very long (I've played in campaigns that lasted more than two years with games each Sat/Sun and even in one which had games every day and lasted for 2.5 years) and involved.

In addition, the new standard of TTRPGs assumes that you rarely lose a character, because basically that's one of the main characters in a book, not a soldier in a war. All of the above is supposed to lend to fleshed-out personalities and drives beyond "wanna get rich, can kill/sneak past stuff to get rich". I'm not saying the olden days didn't have that, but today that's considered the norm.

I've seen only one player who desired to actually have a kingdom and conquer some parts of the world. I can imagine several other players actually doing that, but only as means to a greater end, not the actual goal. And the majority just adventures because things are going on in the world, and someone needs to do something about them - starting with a bandit camp ruining the local baron's grasp on his lands and ending up going against god-slaying abominations intent on harvesting the souls of the living for power. That's how it goes, another day, another gold piece.

[mephnick]

In addition, the new standard of TTRPGs assumes that you rarely lose a character, because basically that's one of the main characters in a book, not a soldier in a war..

Modern player: Player agency at all costs! Unless it's going to impact me negatively, then it's your job to save me.

[JAL_1138]

Can't see where they're not consistent, IMO, but maybe I've missed something.

I mean Adventurers' League isn't always consistent with it in the way they write their modules. If memory serves there are a few modules where it's written in that if you don't fight Monster A, you don't get XP, or if you run Monster A off instead of killing it, you don't get full XP. Whereas other times you'd still get full XP if you talked a monster or other opponent out of fighting (e.g., made a deal with it, or what have you). NOTE: my memory is like a steel trap...it's been left out in the rain until it's seized up with rust and is missing several teeth. So I might be misremembering.

[Ignimortis]

Modern player: Player agency at all costs! Unless it's going to impact me negatively, then it's your job to save me.

I'm all for player agency - as long as it's logical and doesn't break the game. The game I currently run is rather sandboxy, but that also entails that if you're doing really dumb stuff, you might run into trouble that severely outlevels you. I hate encounters people HAVE to run from with a passion, as long as they're dropped on players without warning. If you passed three doors with "DANGER!" signs on them, and not the usual "well, dangerous to a normal person, not an adventurer", but literally descending into the local equivalent of Underdark alone as a level 3 spellcaster without a backup plan, then that character is probably too dumb to live, not heroic.

[Tanarii]

I believe there was a whole "being aware of the problem you circumvent"
So if you go through walls with your adamentine axe because it is faster than going through doors without saying "and so I avoid all the thousand billion of wail of the banshee traps on each door" then you do not get the xp for those traps while if you go though the wall with your adamentine axe for avoiding the thousand billion of wail of the banshee traps on each door then you get the xp for circumventing.(yes it is silly that awareness of a trap makes you gain more xp for the same behavior)
So due to silliness with gms not wanting their traps to be avoided you must search for traps on the doors then dig the walls instead of saving time by digging walls directly.

It's more that many encounters, if not circumvented, leave the problem to be dealt with later and don't change the situation in regards to any goals of the adventure. They encounter isn't really overcome, in many cases.

Personally that's why I'm not a huge fan of giving XP for 'overcoming' encounters with hostile creatures (specifically) in a non-final way, it can make it messy in determine what counts. Give XP for something else instead and incentivize it indirectly. Gold, "story" goals, completed missions/quests, whatever makes sense based on what you want to incentivize. Of course, if you want to directly incentivize bypassing encounters, as opposed to indirectly via other rewards, no reason not to.

Edit: having played gloomhaven a fair amount recently, it would be possible to play in a way where you tell the players the goal(s) in the beginning of each encounter that will reward XP.

[Mith]

I am musing over the idea of using Gold as main source ofXP with monsters contributing a fraction of XP. Perhaps a Guild style "spend gold on training for next level".

[2D8HP]

I am musing over the idea of using Gold as main source ofXP with monsters contributing a fraction of XP. Perhaps a Guild style "spend gold on training for next level".

Not in Oe or B/X, but in 1e AD&D there were rules that you needed to basically hire tutors to level up, which most everyone ignored, but they were there.

[Tanarii]

Not in Oe or B/X, but in 1e AD&D there were rules that you needed to basically hire tutors to level up, which most everyone ignored, but they were there.

Partly because for most classes it was impossible to have enough gold to level without wasting XP gained from the gold obtained to level.

Unless someone else paid the cost, of course. I remember reading somewhere those rules were primarily there to control PCs power-leveling other PCs or henchmen, by making it a more expensive proposition.

[Drascin]

Modern player: Player agency at all costs! Unless it's going to impact me negatively, then it's your job to save me.

Oh, no, most modern players are perfectly okay with negative consequences. It's just they seem to prefer negative consequences that can be played with, rather than ones that just involve "and your plot is done, now go make up a new one in order to be able to rejoin the game".

[Tanarii]

Oh, no, most modern players are perfectly okay with negative consequences. It's just they seem to prefer negative consequences that can be played with, rather than ones that just involve "and your plot is done, now go make up a new one in order to be able to rejoin the game".

Part of the problem is few players take the threat of anything other than loss of character, except possibly loss of magic items, as a serious threat. It's too easy to shrug it off as 'just a game' when it doesn't directly affect the character sheet.

This also holds true for positive consequences, of course. XP and magic items tend to be valued far more than saving the world.