Gathering Gaffes

[Laldiien]

Picture this: You are battling large group of enemies. You and your party are getting hammered, but you persevere. One of your Party falls! The cleric was too late! The fighters are getting hammered, you look for someone to support you, you look to the other trusted members to back you up.....and you see them picking over the corpses of what you just killed, looting the shiny stuff.  
What is that all about? In the middle of a battle, looting the gold, items, gems, Sword of Pwnage, has no place whatsoever. It's rude at bestand shockingly bad RP. I am all for looting. I like gold. I like shiny things. The concept of looting *WHILE YOUR PARTY IS STILL FIGHTING* is reprehensible.  
You know who you are, and if you are reading this, shame on you.  
 Edited for spelling.

[laurabunny]

On the other hand... if your party just keeps going deeper into whatever dungeon you happen to be in, and you follow them to help fight when you're supposed to be looting, and by the time they stop long enough for you to check the corpses the corpses have all disintegrated, you're told you need to be faster.

I consider that the entire contents, or all members, of a spawn should be killed prior to looting.  But if people are deliberately triggering the next spawn because they don't want to wait for the looter, I think it's acceptable to finish cleaning up from that first spawn before rejoining the battle.

[Talan Va'lash]

laurabunny - 10/29/2006  1:28 PM

On the other hand... if your party just keeps going deeper into whatever dungeon you happen to be in, and you follow them to help fight when you're supposed to be looting, and by the time they stop long enough for you to check the corpses the corpses have all disintegrated, you're told you need to be faster.

I consider that the entire contents, or all members, of a spawn should be killed prior to looting.  But if people are deliberately triggering the next spawn because they don't want to wait for the looter, I think it's acceptable to finish cleaning up from that first spawn before rejoining the battle.

I think its acceptable to shout after said party who is rushing ahead, "You don't get a share of the loot if you don't wait while I gather it!"

That usually works really really well *grins mischeviously*

[lonnarin]

Indeed.  I've been tossing around a short story idea in my head for fantasy "High Risk Bankers" who run around looting in the middle of combat while there's a war going on around them.  Such pinnacle moments as when they plead for the party to stop charging and simply let them loot between battles being met with fierce opposition. "NO!  WE MUST KEEEEEEP CHARGING!  THERE WILL BE NO BREAKS!!!!" and simply shrugging when their bankers get devoured by ambushing monsters and only half-dead corpses.

So yeah, until frontliners adopt the discipline to sit bloody still and let the looter do his job between battles instead and shrieking like a loon and perpetually sprinting off into the night with blood on their minds, people will loot during the combat.  Common courtesy is reciprocal, and in an ideal world, frontliners would realize that even though THEY have 200+ hp, their party could stand to use some time with healing kits and potions before they stir up the next swarm.  Just a thought.

If anybody's actually willing to take breaks between combats and not get the looter murdered by sprinting 7 miles away from them as they quickly go through 50 corpses each round, then I am MORE than happy to join in the combat for the whole time and not loot during the combat itself.  But the truth is, frontliners can and will be idiots, and they REALLY have a serious problem with stopping to think that maybe the guy with all the gold stands a chance of being mugged when your 3 caverns away from them.

So aye, common courtesy works both ways.  Bjornigar, my huge uggernaught of a frontlining dwarf has abolutely no problem taking breaks between battle, and usually stands right there, next to the looter and yelling at the idiots running off into the sunset for their xp-crunching adrenaline high.

[Talan Va'lash]

lonnarin - 10/29/2006  1:58 PM
 Bjornigar, my huge uggernaught of a frontlining dwarf has abolutely no problem taking breaks between battle, and usually stands right there, next to the looter and yelling at the idiots running off into the sunset for their xp-crunching adrenaline high.

Bjornigar usually stands there... digesting...

[Pen N Popper]

As a looter myself at times, I take the attitude that if they want to run ahead I cease looting.  The reason is that the looter can get left behind and miss out on XP as well.

As for looting mid-battle, sometimes it work and sometimes it doesn't.  Depends on the RP surrounding it.

[Laldiien]

All three are very valid points. All the same point really, but the part I was leaving out was this was a GM run quest. There were no evils around the corner and we were not setting a breakneck pace by any stretch. No, this was just people deciding they would rather loot than engage in combat.
  I maintain it's despicable.
  Again, if this were an exp group, kill-loot-kill-loot is a marvelous idea. No one said "Wait up" These were PC's running *THROUGH* the melee to get to corpses. Being a cleric, I try and watch who is going where and what they are doing. Let me say that again so there is no miscommunication: They went *THROUGH* the fight to get the the corpse on the other side. We were still actively casting heals & spells, while they were bent over picking up loot.

[Weeblie]

A DM run quest...

Hm... I seldom see people looting on those, actually.

[Dorganath]

Heh...well then we can get into the appropriateness of looting during a GM-led quest....something that people seem to have definite opinions about. In such cases, looting, in my opinion, should not interfere with the quest itself...not saying that happened this time or not...just offering an opinion.

[lonnarin]

Talan Va'lash - 10/29/2006  1:09 PM

lonnarin - 10/29/2006  1:58 PM
 Bjornigar, my huge uggernaught of a frontlining dwarf has abolutely no problem taking breaks between battle, and usually stands right there, next to the looter and yelling at the idiots running off into the sunset for their xp-crunching adrenaline high.

Bjornigar usually stands there... digesting...

Or IN-digesting, as it were...  *rolls dwarven fart-ittude check*

[Nehetsrev]

Actually if you're talking about the Revenge of the Goblins quest this morning, I can recall several occassions when certain characters continued ahead to trigger more fighting instead of waiting for the other characters who needed to apply healing kits or loot do so for even just a moment.  I know certain characters did this because my character ws forced to chase after them to save their impatient hides more than once.  In fact I used all 20 cure moderate wounds potions that I normally carry only for emergencies well before the end of the days questing.  Half of those potions I had to use on myself because I was not given time to use healing kits instead, and the other half I used on characters that were either bleeding to death, or very close to doing so.

Personally, I try to give the looters time to loot and everyone else time to use healing kits between fights.  It simply makes more sense so that you do have the potions and healing spells that can be used in battle when you need them.  Sometimes it's hard to get a break between battles too though, especially if you're near enough the next group of enemies that they detect you and start rushing.  So, after you slay the last in a spawn, step back a few paces and wait til everyone's ready to go.  If the DM purposely sends a wave, do what you have to, but don't rush further ahead, let the wave come to you.

I died once in todays quest.  Why?  Because I foolishly charged down a hall full of ranged attackers and traps when I should have stepped back and let our own ranged attackers take out the enemy and then allowed our rogue to disarm the traps.  I knew my mistake going in, but took a risk because the enemy was using area of effect spells that were hurting the whole group.  The last trap I triggered stunned my character, and that's what got her killed because she couldn't move, or heal herself while stunned and the healers in our group could not reach her in time to do their job.

[lonnarin]

In many cases when I'm leading a party and they do things like that, I holler for everybody to stay put and we all just wait for the impatient person to die in the next room.  It's like stopping the car on the way to work to coax the puppy out of the road.  Sure it feels good, but if that same puppy just KEEPS prancing around in the middle of the road, maybe natural selection should just take its course.  Even if you manage to coddle it for its entire life, it'll just wind up being that stupid dog that keeps peeing on the sofa.

[Desicardo]

Also not mentioned was that there were around 20 people on this quest, trailing along through narrow halls and several of the group were too far back from the front lines to be effective in the battle.  It is hard for an archer or mage to target enemy through 20 some friendlies when the front lines are engaged in close combat.  If they can't effectively contribute to the battle with support, or can't get close enough to help with healing, let them loot rather than just stand there doing nothing.  Several of those looting had somewhat specialized skills that became in valuable as the plot unfolded so it was good they were along. Point being that you may see that items are being picked on the screen while you are on the front line, but when the person picking is so far back they can't be seen near the battle, let them do what they can to contribute.

Frankly, I am more disappointed that several of those that looted decided to abscond with the loot after the quest ended.  The only one to distribute gold I know of is Aiek.  When I asked the others to contribute their pickings so things could be evenly divided, no one else responded.  Sorry if anyone missed out, but those that remained got their share of what she gathered.. the looters that left, got more than theirs.

[Pen N Popper]

Just so there are no hard feelings about the loot on the quest, I think perceptions might be a bit off on the amount of looting. Here are the totals of the gold coins looted within range of my PC during my presence on the quest:

• Ten players looted a total of 2525 coins (1300, 711, and 8 below 200)
• Loot was retrieved 81 times.
• Divided by roughly 20 players on the quest comes out to 125 coins each. (I'm not sure how many were there but there were a lot.)
• Some minor junk and unidentified items were also retrieved.
 So yes, one PC scored over a thousand. In the long run this is insignificant, and when split up it is insignificant to all.
  The loot notification system doesn't always trigger when there is a lot of action going on, so the numbers here will be a little less than what really happened. All in all, though, this shouldn't be something we get too upset about OOCly. In my opinion, of course.
  That said, the players would have been better advised RPing the keeping of the coins in the presence of the GM. This would have insured fairness to others, fairness to their PC's alignment, and no hard feelings.

[lolli_gagged]

Shame on me then I guess. I could have just stood back and done nothing. I was too far back and quite frankly too new and inexperienced to do a whole lot of good for the front line. I shot where I could, when I could. Mayhap quests are not for us rookies? I spent a few days on here reading before I even submitted a character request let alone before I played and I thought I read the rules on looting, guess I missed something. I thought because I was so useless at times during the quest that I should be helpful where I could be. Collecting the loot, with the intention of passing it out in the end, seemed better than doing nothing. I don't play this game to collect gold or any other loot. Not that its not fun to find but I wanted to rp, to fight, to complete a quest, to learn. My limited experience and lack of raw talent perhaps makes me not appropriate for quests.Wrong of me? If so I am sorry. I never ran up in the middle of fighting to loot, but I did loot the corpses left behind while others were ahead fighting. Quite frankly I would have loved to get closer. But then i would have died, probably rather quickly, and then someone would have had to take their time and resources to help me and I probably would have made folks unhappy with that to. I do know enough to know I didnt belong up front, I could not have kept up and would have been more of a drain on resouces. What can I say? I'm a rookie. Learning as I go. I am happy with how I did today. *shrugs*

[lonnarin]

When you notice people looting that remain mysteriously silent when the final tally is calculated, make it a point to ask them... "Hey, I saw you looting, why aren't you adding that to the payday?".  If they backpedal and deny the fact, NEVER group with them again.  When they ask to join up, refuse to party with them.  Once enough people do this, they either get the hint and clean up their act or they become paupers with no host bodies to leech off of.  Remaining slent about it is just positively reinforcing their disgusting behavior with their own ill-gotten gains and apathy towards their stealing from you.

Also.. server logs and screenshots.  They are a thief's bane.

[Laldiien]

My issue isn't with who collected what, who kept what or any of that. My sole complaint was "It was done in the middle of a fight". If you are fighting, contribute. Heal. Cast. Shoot. Stab. Yell "Go get 'em tiger!". Do something other than soak XP and coin. Participate. In a strictly role play sense, if I am fighting for my life and I see someone who is nominally on my side rooting through the pockets of someone that just killed one of my fire team, I'm gonna put a hole in the disrespectful schmuck. It's not right, it's not good RP, and no amount of justification will make it better.  
  They deliberately and with intent choose to not help the party. You cannot cast a heal, shoot a goblin, or poke pointy sticks at something when you are bent over rifling pockets. @Nehetsrev: was there running ahead, yes. Can't recall a quest where it didn't happen. Would be nice if theparty were more disciplined, but it's the way of things. Herd mentality and all that. @Pen: Did some get more than their fair share? Sure. Speaking *only* for myself with no implications, I go on quests not for gold or XP, but the experience of the game. The adventure. The teamwork. I am not a great role-player, but I try. I know enough to not slack off in the middle of combat. I think I have been on one quest where I looted a corpse and I felt like an ass. No one said anything to me, but in my mind, I felt people looking at me like I had just committed some egregious sin. @Desicardo: True it was a bit of a mob. But you are again missing the underlying point. They waded *THROUGH* combat to get to the gold. They walked *OVER* the corpses of the party to loot the goblins. That is not excusable by any standard I can think of.

[LynnJuniper]

*shrugs* Well getting back to the running ahead without waiting for the looter first.

When the looter is ambushed and dies, repetitively then the other party members will learn the hard way by loosing half their loot in their own impatient need for more blood

[orth]

To some people, looting the corpses before they vanish are more important then standing around and waiting for the cleric to raise the fallen... that's just the way it's always been...

We could set it so the corpses took longer to disappear, but then that would cause increased lag.

I think this is a bit of an out of character issue, whereby if the corpses didn't fade with loot on them, PCs would be more apt to wait until the combat is over.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Laldiien: I understand totally what you're saying. While the rest of the party was getting whalloped, these fellows were picking corpses clean of coin rather than helping keep characters kicking. (I saw V for Vendetta today, please excuse my alliteration.)

For some VERY few characters, this is perfectly IC. For most, however, it is not. Some would complain that their character cannot reasonably contribute to combat, being comparably too low a level. I disagree; having adventured with higher levels the entire time I've played on Layo, with ALL of my characters, I have discovered that contributions can be made by even a level one character in a party of level twenties. If nothing else, you can cast Bless, use Bardsong, throw darts, use the occasional potion... However, in that situation, your character is probably wisest to stay back from combat. Well back. And looting then is a perfectly good idea.

Depending on how the fight's going, looting during combat may be appropriate. Five hundred goblins against three or four fifteenth-level fighters, and you the only rogue? Go ahead, pick through corpses as quick as you can manage. Try to keep up with the body count - it'll be tough. Three pit fiends against a balanced party around level fifteen? Fight, fight, fight! Keep people alive! Make bad guys dead!

On the point of looting on quests. There are times when it is appropriate, and times when it is not. If it's a standard spawn, and there's realistically time to grab stuff off of dead things, loot your heart out (generally speaking). If it's anything special, don't loot a thing as a general rule of thumb.