greed vs need

[Aqwena]

Is there a general rule of thumb when in a party that describes the distrobution of loot? Some players are more materialistic than others, that's a basic fact of human nature. However I personally in a game like this believe in need before greed on loot items. For example, yesterday on Dreagar a large group of us adventured together and we had a lot of fun. At the end of the adventure a few loot items were available. One of which were the blue suade shoes. Now these shoes were not useful to everyone as it only gave +1 dex +1 cha, yet most everyone rolled on them for greed. My character Aqwena "Auuumi" was desperatly in need of these shoes. They were an immediate upgrade as charisma is a Sorcerers primary attribute. Yet nobody even considered if anyone needed the shoes, everyone just rolled for greed with the winner wanting to sell them to me for 20k gold.

I would think that if a character can and will immediatly use an item as an upgrade then that character should have priority, with multiple "needs" rolling for the item.


Auuumi

[Nibor21]

I understand what you are saying, but there is a simple cost implication. Blue suede shoes are valuable and everybody needs money. If you don't need that item, you can use it to buy another item they would need. If people don't roll they are missing out on the oportunity to come into money.

[Frelinder]

The market price for these shoes are inded somwere around 20 k. And the most fair thing is to make a roll for the item. Also these shoes are excellent for crafting like gemcrafting. Voon do wan't those shoes because it will increase his chanses in making fine jewelery and Boon did the roll so he ccould give them to his bro if he would win them. And who is deciding who are in need of the item most?

In my opinion its not greed to roll for boots that are worth 20 k. since for those 20 k you get from them when you sell them you can buy what you are in more need of, example an Adamantium sword or whatever.. So maybe the winner that wanted to sell them for you for 20 k was in fact rolling for an addy sword that he now kan buy for the profit from the boots.

The general rule is that the ones intrested make a roll and the winner gets it. Of course in partys were all the character knows eachother well, people step down an let the one that needs it the most have it.

I have a grand example here.

Kilkenny. Gotak, Xiao and a few others were adventuring on Xantril. on the trip an Emerald ring with bulls strenght were found. market price for that would be about 150.000 gold at minimum. we rolled for it and Xiao wonn it. but a day after he gaved it to Gotak since he would have more use for it. that was a fine gesture me thinks

[Chuckles_McChuck]

I know how you feel Aqwena and at the end of his quests Leanthar gives out a few nice items that you can roll for, and he wont allow people to roll for it if they just plan to sell it, it is just common curtousy, especially since the items he gives at the end of his plot quests are a tad rare.  Also though there are other factors like the two above just posted and I personally think it all goes down to your characters alignment and personality(still a degree of courtesy should be shown).

My character only met yours once, so I dont know how yours would react to it, but for example my character most of the time will go on a "I'll treat you the same way you treat me basis".  So if someone wins an item she really wants only to want to sell it to her.  Next time when it comes to looting and she finds a few nice things she would pocket them and not say a single thing (she'd probably want to do something to give the person a bit of a scare as well).  Once again though I think this would depend on your alignment and how you play your character.

[osxmallard]

Auuumi,

I totally agree with your opinion on this and really don't like to be with parties that do that kind of thing.  I am lucky and don't know if this is a common occurence or not in normal play.  My opinion is that if you find a rare item and it was a loot drop, only the people that need it should roll for it.  Period.  If noone needs it, great, everyone roll for it, the winner auctions it off and has fun with their new found coin.  It would also be acceptable for someone to win the item, then someone else in party says to you "hey I saw you looking at those shoes, well I have a pair for sale".

An exception I see to this is if a party does something like gather diamonds (CNR).  I find it acceptable for people that won the diamond on the roll (or ideally everyone got one in the distribution) to sell the diamond to another party member.  Then again, diamonds are CNR anyway and not rare items like blue shoes or purple hard hats or whatever else is out there.

I assume that you made your needs known to the party regarding the shoes you found and your characters need for the shoes to help the party in the future.  People that didn't need them should have dropped out of the rolls.  I suppose we could say "it's IC for my half orc gnome fighter to want anything a party finds so I should get to roll" and think that is sufficient.  Well, it's not.  Think about the OOC part of this too and how if there was a nice item you wanted and someone said "it's IC for my brownie barbarian sorceress to destroy all special loot drops because I think they are evil so I got rid of it on a corpse".

If I ever find another pair, I'll just give them to you.  I promise.  

[DMOE]

To me if it is a DM quest then only people who have will actually use it and not sell it should role for items.
  As for general adventuring loot it depends on the party...
  Some parties enquire as to who is able to use it first and role amoung those only rolling amoung the entire party if none of the people it is suitable for want it.  You tend to find these parties are full of people who know each other and they always run the loot like this.
  Other parties just roll for each item and highest gets it.
  Neither is wrong in my book.  Everyone has (hopefully) pulled their weight and made it possible for those items to picked up as loot.  So what if the Fighter wins those boots? (For example)  He can sell them and buy his next set of plate and didn't he work as hard to earn them?
  Maybe the latter way is considered greedy but then the argument could go the other way....Why should your character get it just because they can use it better than another when the entire party made it possible to pick it up?
  I'd like to point out that I'm playing Devils Advocate with my last comment as I'm lucky enough to usually travel in the first kind of party.

[666hellspawn]

i was there in that party and i myself agree that need goes above greed, but its no written rule and if someone wants to roll for them out of greed, it doesn't matter to me...i would not do it if i don't need it. In the case of the boots i rolled since it has charisma on it and my char can always use that for undead encounters and charisma multipliers in the divine spells...so auuumi wasn't the only one who needed the boots....this shows that sometimes you don't even know if people really need them or if they role out of greed....you said it yourself, you thought you was the only one that needed the boots....well serissa could use them as well, and one day i will have those boots, maybe next time i get lucky....

[Leanthar]

This is how I see it and it works in my quests. If you do not need (ie you are not going to equip the item when you get it) then do not roll for it, simple as that. Let the players that NEED the item get the item first, I don't care what the 'resale' value of an item is or not. Respect and courtesouy for the community members come first. So if you have no intention of equipping the item when you get it and keeping it for a few levels then do not roll for it. Now, if nobody has a need for it then everybody is open to roll for the item and then do what hey want for it.   That is the right thing to do folks as it works well within a community, it allows players to have fun and not get frustrated by the players in a community, and it keeps the players around longer.   I always go through all of the items and let everybody roll for them one at a time. Then we go through one last time for any item that was not 'needed' and roll for that item and the winner gets it and does whatever she/he wants with it.   There is no hard set rule for this as I do not want to get to that level of 'managaing' the community, this should be up to players but the right thing to do for the community as a whole is Need before Greed. But the players define need and greed, not the team or myself. One good rule of thumb though would be if you plan on wearing the item for at least 1-2 full levels and you plan on equipping it when you get the item.
  One thing I want to throw in here...this is a game, clearly....but what if it was real? What if you were in a jungle (as an example) with 3-6 people, climbing the mountains, cutting through the trees, fighting those creatures, healing and protecting each other day after day.... I guarantee in that case you would definetly put need before greed and I would bet you a good amount of money that even the 'greedy' ones would do it as it would allow them a better chance to survive in the long run. The party dynamics would be quite different than a 'game' because you would have to put need before greed and I feel that is what you should do in the game.
  My 2 cents.

[Dorganath]

There's no "rule" as such. Personally, I generally don't party with people I don't already know well, and when I do, I often avoid the whole loot issue completely. It's not that my character couldn't use the coin (he really could) or nifty items but I just prefer to avoid the hassle due to the greed issue. In-game, I guess that comes out as being altruistic, but really it's just me not wanting to mess with it. There have also been occasions where I started to participate in the loot process and just stepped out because it was getting too silly.
  When I do party up for some adventuring and it's with a group I know well, typically what happens is that the group understands the concept of party loot, and when we're done, each person mentions what got picked up, what it does and we talk about who can use it. It all comes down to an issue of general respect and a process that's not dominated by greed or the "gimmes".
  The same was quite true in my old PnP days, when the party would divide up treasure at the end, and never would a fighter, for example, ask for a mage staff for example so that he could sell it for the coin.
  My personal opinion is that people should not compete for items for which they have no use or RP reason to have. Though therein lies the loophole of "well, it's my character's RP to be greedy..." *shrugs*
  So like I said...there's no rule, and not all parties/people deal with the loot situation in the same way. But people should deal with loot, be it gold or items, in a fair and equitable way.

[Leanthar]

I have updated LORE with a post, again it is NOT a rule...just a request.

http://nwn.layonara.com/Handling%20of%20Loot

[Guardian 452]

Heck im tickled when I even get to see what is looted... seems often I end up with the looter who pockets it all and never says word 1.


No one to blame there but myself I suppose.


Whenever I am asked about items after a trip I say if I have first hand use of it or if I would only want it to sell it over.... and if no one speaks up and says they will use it personally then I roll with the others.


IMO thats how it should be.


Another idea is.... you win something your done.... so don't roll till you see the item you really want... or really need.

[osxmallard]

Heck im tickled when I even get to see what is looted... seems often I end up with the looter who pockets it all and never says word 1.

That is just plain wrong and a serious limitation of the game engine.  Guess you really need to trust the looter to do the right thing in game.  I'd have the paladin loot but usually need him up front.  

[Honora]

As someone who loots a lot for my groups our general way is to announce any items as we go, then we decide at the end, and need is the primary factor in deciding.  That way everyone knows as we go what we've picked up.  If more than one person could use an item they roll off.  Otherwise it's given; no questions, no coin expected.  To pocket loot without telling is not only deceptive, it's despicable.

Although at the end of a very long night I sometimes have to be reminded to split when I'm dog tired and my nose is in the keyboard .

[Faldred]

Guardian 452 - 7/14/2006  9:22 AM
Another idea is.... you win something your done.... so don't roll till you see the item you really want... or really need.

Well, ideally the loot -- items and gold combined -- would be split up into relatively even "piles" or "shares", and then each character gets to choose one share.  The choosing order can be detemrined either through group consensus or by die rolls.  (For example, a party member who went "above and beyond" the call of duty may be granted first choice of shares by the other party members before any other order is determined -- in extreme cases, a group could even decide to give one member multiple shares.)

Particularly valuable items may each be an entire "share" itself.  The problem, of course, comes when an extemely rare or valuable item is included that is worth well more than other shares (possibly even combined).  If it's a regular group, it shouldn't be much of a problem -- whomever gets the rare item this time doesn't get one next time, or takes smaller shares for a while.  In an ad-hoc group, someone who wants the valuable item may need to put in gold/items into the "pot" the rest share to make up for it.

[Eorendil]

You know.. I have seen scripts that announce to the party items/coin that have been looted. I'm sure, though, that 1) it adds to lag and 2) it steps a little too far in the direction of some MMO's.. Just mentioning.
  I'm always NbG in any game I play. If I was playing a selfish character I might grumble about it but I still do it. I look at it this way - if it strengthens those that my character is partied with it means 1) better chance for all of us to survive and 2) we'll be able to do tougher encounters sooner.

[Shadowblade225]

There are some things that I can't help but not refrain from saying even though I know I shouldn't speak them.  This is more of getting it off my chest and ya I'll look bad for saying it - sounding more like a whiner.  

There have been many...many instances whereby my character has been in utterly desperate need of something while certain other players, who's PC's were far...far more well equipped, have rolled for the item and won it outright.  In these instances the item of interest would serve them somewhat, but there was really no need.  I've learned to accept that.  This has happened on plot quests and otherwise.  It's simply chance. But I would like to see that if a character has a notoriously low AC for instance, while other characters already have a more than adequate AC, if an item is a particular sheild, it should at least be discussed and pointed out that this character has more of a need than any of the other characters.

Ugh, well now I feel at least a bit better.

[Shadowblade225]

Keep in mind the last post was during OOC loot/item splitting, not IC.  IC it would obviously depend upon the nature of the character.

[Ozy_Llewellyn]

Of course, not being a friendly person here is my small contribution. Does your character even deserve the item? Need vs Deserving. Does your character just skulk and provide a few buffs like Ozy? If so then probably you only really deserve what no one else wants and a fair cut of the gold. Traditionally thou I've always seen handling items found on a need basis, whom will get the most out of it and in turn contribute the most thru it.

[Dorganath]

Meira - 7/14/2006  8:57 AM    You know.. I have seen scripts that announce to the party items/coin that have been looted.  I'm sure, though, that 1) it adds to lag and 2) it steps a little too far in the direction of some MMO's.. Just mentioning.
 

 We actually have something like this, but we need to get it tested to see how much it affects lag. I've been holding off putting it into the game since we're not sure how much lag it will produce.
  And yeah, something like that would solve the problem of dishonesty, but not solve the problem of greed.

[Talan Va'lash]

Dorganath - 7/14/2006  11:00 AM  

Meira - 7/14/2006  8:57 AM    You know.. I have seen scripts that announce to the party items/coin that have been looted.  I'm sure, though, that 1) it adds to lag and 2) it steps a little too far in the direction of some MMO's.. Just mentioning.
 

 We actually have something like this, but we need to get it tested to see how much it affects lag.  I've been holding off putting it into the game since we're not sure how much lag it will produce.
  And yeah, something like that would solve the problem of dishonesty, but not solve the problem of greed.
 

 
  If you'd like a system that is low overhead and proven on many PW's I will send it to you. Loot distribution is a problem that needs to be fixed.
 
  Edit: Edited so it reads as intended