Ye Olde Inn

When i finally got to play-test the first quest of my homemade campaign yesterday, one feedback that came up was about the gold in the treasure card deck.

If you intend, like we did yesterday, to only play one quest (rather that multiple sessions or the whole campaign) there would be no benefit of finding gold in the dungeon. And since looking for treasures should be a win-loss risk balance for the heroes, the players felt that something was lacking in the game experience. But since I don't want to change the game system too much, I still want to keep the cards as they are. so one of my friends suggested this:

A simple chart for isolated quests where a gold treasure card (maybe, more generally, including gold found in chests) corresponds to a chance of finding a piece of equipment of a set price level. For instance, finding 50 gold is treated as a 1/2 chance of finding a staff or a shield. Or perhaps a 1/5 chance of finding a sword...

Could this be a viable system, or are we barking up the wrong tree? Any thoughts are extremely welcome!

Nice idea for introducing hero development for new people to the game. Especially for that 'one-off' maybe never again gaming group.
I have been toying with the idea of weapons in the treasure deck

If I understand you correctly, you have players who don't keep their characters between quests?

I would suggest either doing one of two things:

The absolutely easiest solution would be to just get rid of the cards altogether and make a dice roll chart with more useful stuff. some simple weapons and armor pieces, and more potions. Get rid of all gold. It is indeed useless if the players don't keep the heroes.

You could also make your own extra cards to shuffle into the deck. Include some equipment and stuff. Remove some gold cards.

You could allow weapons and armour to be taken from slain monsters?

How about an idea borrowed from the video game Diablo: Each Hero has a magical artifact that can open a portal to the nearest town at any time. So if they find some loot, they can nip through a dimensional doorway and spend the money on the spot, then jump back into the same Quest with some new equipment. It's a bit cheesy, but it might work.

I've thought of a variation for use in campaigns--a Spell Scroll of 'Mystic Portal' or similar, which can only be used between Quests. If you're playing a campaign in a location that doesn't allow you to go visit towns between Quests (like Ogre Horde), and you're lucky enough to have one of these scrolls on or about your person, you get an opportunity to ignore the restriction and go shopping.

Of course, now I'm thinking of monsters noticing the portal and pouring through into civilised regions, despoiling the town... angry townsfolk demanding the Heroes compensate them for the damage... ooh the possibilities

I have played a number of times when it was only going to be a single quest played. Even if there is no chance to spend their gold the players were totaling up thier gold finds and decided amongst themselves that the person who ended the game with the most gold was the winner.

Returning to this thread... I'm just so perplexed...

Why would anyone ever play just one quest?!

Goblin-King wrote:Returning to this thread... I'm just so perplexed...

Why would anyone ever play just one quest?!

Because most the time we (my group) are playing actual pen and paper role playing games, and HQ is how we change it up on occassion.

Goblin-King wrote:Returning to this thread... I'm just so perplexed...

Why would anyone ever play just one quest?!

I was wondering the same thing ^^
Dump D&D. play HQ! Be sensible man!

Sjeng wrote:

Goblin-King wrote:Returning to this thread... I'm just so perplexed...

Why would anyone ever play just one quest?!

I was wondering the same thing ^^
Dump D&D. play HQ! Be sensible man!

In my case, me and my student friends don't have much time on our hands these days. This means long periods of time between games, and no gurantee that the same people will be there the next time.

Anywhoooo...I see from the replies here that one can go in several directions with this. Today I started on a chart (amount of gold found and a roll of 2d6 decides what you get), but half way through I realized that it was flawed from the beginning! Doh!

When I started this thread I was in a hurry, so I forgot some details. 1) The quests in my "campaign" (will be 11 quests) icreases in difficulty, so a single chart would not work well for all of them, and 2) Because of this, and the fact that I want each quest playable by itself, I have included "starting resources" in the quest instructions, which gives each player a set amount of gold to buy equipment for before the mission starts. So if I only use one chart the items found would be incresingly undewhelming, as well as probably already owned by the player.

This is the conundrum, and it's making me confused. I have one idea at the moment which I'm half ok with:
One chart, based on the gold found and the quest being played (1-11), gives a percentage chance of finding a random item of a set price class. This means for example that 50 gold found is 50% chance of finding an item worth 100 gold in quest 1, 50% chance for a 200 gold item in quest 2, 50% chance for a 300 gold item in quest 3, and so on. Fortunally, I have a classic escape-based quest in the middle, which I can use to scale down the starting values somewhat...

But to get this right seems teedious at best, and a real pain in the butt at worst. If anyone has a better idea PLEASE let me know.