I was listening to Mainframe 59, and the mailbag question was regarding how to handle loot as a DM without making it a chore. There are a million philosophies about this, but I would like to share what has worked at my table.
My #1 rule is: Make Magic Items Important
I found that handing out loot via random tables resulted in lots of items floating around that everyone inevitably forgets about most of the time. So I made a choice to separate loot into two piles:
- Mundane or low-powered magic items
- Important magic items
For mundane and low-powered items, roll on loot tables all day long. I like to sometimes roll on the tables myself when prepping, to make it seem like I specifically tailored the loot drops. Sneaky, and the players never know…
For Important Magic Items, this simply will not do. These need a little extra love, a little gravitas. How to do that without spending hours making items from scratch, complete with backstories of who made them and what they do. The answer is easy:
- Pick an Item. Roll on a loot table when prepping, lift one from the DMG or other source books, or make one yourself, whatever works.
- Give the Item to a bad guy
- USE IT AGAINST THE PLAYERS
#3 is key. Using the item against the players triggers something in their brain. It will give them a goal. It will drive story. It will make it memorable. Trust me, they will want that item, no matter what it is. The lengths players will go to in order to obtain an Important Magic Item from a bad guy results in stories that write themselves. And the players get a real sense of accomplishment as they finally get the reward they set for themselves. As a DM, you don’t have to plan any of this, just sit back and let it unfold.
Examples:
Party is fighting an undead necromancer/druid guy named Rill. He is mean and nasty, corrupting the forest, you know the drill. When they face him, this happens:
“Rill’s hand pulls forth a jet black wand. Extending it towards you, as he whispers arcane words, a stream of amber light shoots forth. WIS save or be frightened”
This is a plain wand of fear lifted straight out of the DMG. But DO NOT CALL IT THAT. It is NOT a wand of fear. It is Rill’s wand.
The result? The players face off against this wand. They see it in action several times. They are victims of it. They know when they see that amber light coming out of Rill’s wand, they are in for a bad time running in the opposite direction.
After the big fight, Rill gets blown up with a spectacular fireball (that also kills a player as collateral damage). The first thing the party’s wizard says: “I WANT THAT FUCKING WAND!”
They root around the ashes and find it. The mage still has it (this was many months and levels ago), and still uses it all the time. Whenever he does, he doesn’t say “I use my wand of fear.” No, he says, “I pull out Rill’s wand and…” Every time he does that, the entire table instantly knows what it is, and how it works. They remember where it came from. They remember fighting Rill all those months ago.
Is this a super powerful game-changing magic item? Not at all, but the party feels it is special. They earned it.
Example part deux:
The same party is fighting a bunch of henchmen. The leader has some nice armor, and a big, reflective tower shield. It makes the leader nearly immune to magic, and often he reflects spells right back in the players’ faces.
This isn’t a major bad guy. He only showed up the once, but everyone remembers the Mirror Shield. After they killed him, the first thing they did was loot that shield. Even though NOBODY in the party uses shields, and will likely never use it, they covet it. It is a trophy. They know they have it, and they talk about it. When they see people with big shields, it gives them pause, remembering what this guy did to them with the Mirror Shield.
Example the third:
The party is fighting Calius the Druid. He is regenerating like no tomorrow. They figure out that it is his boots. As long as he is touching the earth, he regenerates a lot. This lead to one party member bear hugging him from behind, lifting him up for another player to untie and rip the boots off. Then they curb-stomped the old man, and without his regenerating boots, he didn’t get back up.
The first thing they do? LOOT THE BOOTS! Now the party’s Druid is rocking the Boots of Calius the Druid. They all know exactly what it does, and what its limitations are, as they had to fight against someone wearing them.
The whole point is, I think this is really fun. It requires almost no additional effort from the DM prep-wise, and the payoff is pretty big. It also spices up battles considerably, in my experience, especially if you use the items to their limits, showcasing what it can do.
Most importantly, it gives the players stories to tell. They didn’t just pick up a wand of fear from a random chest. They almost died (one of them did) fighting Rill and his minions for it. They didn’t just pick up the Rat Tail Whip from the ground, they instead posed as labor union representatives, organized a goblin workers revolution, and stole the Rat Tail Whip from the now ex-leader of the goblins, freeing the enslaved manticores in the process.
My 2 cents. Give it a try and see what you think.
). The big bad was Dyre from Ghost Mountain, a sort of smoke demon. The PCs managed to capture him (and his smoky LOOT) inside an Urn of Souls. To be continued!