Tracking Treasure

Last session the question was asked:

"How do we know what treasure has been sold? Who has which items? What are their plans for these items? What about treasure picked up a few sessions ago by players who aren't here today?"

These are good questions. Now that we have more players and this campaign is not just a handful of one-shots like it was when we started out (back in Halloween '19), they are more difficult to answer.

First of all.

- Your DM has limited time & energy. I would rather spend it developing exciting adventures and not add even more bookkeeping than I already do.

- Encumbrance (who is carrying what) is a vital factor, but it's different from dividing up the loot (who is owed what). It's easy to get these confused.

- I'm Not Bloody Psychic. Most of you keep your own character sheet on your computer that I don't even look at. I can't very well help you with shit I can't see.

With the above caveats in mind, 

*** What I Do For The Players ***

- Track the value of all treasure, monsters, cash, etc. Both for money and XP purposes.

- Track who was present when the treasure was recovered, ie. how much money & experience points your character is "owed" if that item is brought back to civilization and exchanged for hard cash. I can thus deal out treasure & experience for you based on who was where, when.

- Do the math when the group returns to town and sells off treasure. Then write up everyone's payouts in the play report. 

If someone wants to keep a particular piece of valuable treasure as their own share, I will work the numbers for you. However: if this results in an unequal distribution I will need everyone involved to communicate their agreement. 

*** What You Must Do For Yourselves ***

 - Keep track of your inventory. This is one of the few things I expect the players to handle on their own. If keeping track of encumbrance is too hard, try managing an entire game world. 

Then, try the Automatic Character Spreadsheet I wrote just for you. Your character sheet is the only thing you're responsible for. Please make sure it's accurate.

 - Decide to sell off your treasure. I only post up the values and distribute coinage for treasures you choose to sell! I reminded you guys of a few outstanding items last session, but I will not be doing so again. If you aren't interested enough in the cash or XP to mention a piece of loot, it can sit in your backpack forever for all I care. I can't play the game for you, and if I could it'd be rather pointless.

 - Keep track of coinage. Both carried (encumbrance) and stored (where and how). 

Let's say you pick up a sack of 100 coins during an adventure. Weeks later, how am I going to remember what you did with it? This is impossible for me to supervise even if I wanted to. Obviously I distribute XP for those 100 coins (because I know who was there when it was found) but I don't know who is carrying it or what happened to it.

You have to communicate with each other (does anyone remember how to do that?) so that each player gets their fair share. Make notes, write out IOUs, do whatever the fuck you must. If the players aren't careful, it is easy for some characters to be carrying huge sums of cash that are not actually theirs, but belong to everyone. How you resolve this problem as a group is up to you.

I am sometimes able to remind you of things like "you guys found that 250 gold in the Orc caves" but I delete my treasure records after all experience has been awarded, so don't wait too long!

***

I hope that clarifies a few things. As always if you need help or have questions, just drop me a line and I will answer any rules questions you may have, walk you through how encumbrance works, or teach you how to use the character spreadsheet. Have a blessed day.