STG 156 - Treasure Without Theft

Saving the Game

This week's topic is a sort of follow-up to our latest episode in our Ten Commandments series, except it's also entirely City On A Hill Gaming's fault, we promise! We're talking about how to make treasure and wealth in your games exciting and unique without surrendering the player characters' moral high ground as they acquire it. We also talk briefly about Krissi's Innocents game (and the excellent job she's doing as she takes the GM seat for the first time.)

Our Patreon question this week comes from Paige Lowe, who asks: "What media has been your biggest gaming inspiration?" We actually struggled with this question a bit, so—good question!

After our Scripture reading, we dive headlong into this massive topic. After a couple quick rules, we talk about actually having people pay the player characters a good wage for their work (and how to make that work into good adventures); finders fees and Peter's moment of moral panic upon finding a treasure; natural or naturally-created sources of wealth; locations and lost items; "finders-keepers"; fines and the privileges of power (and some morally-grey issues that naturally arise); mythic gifts and artifacts; customizing your treasure and changing its appearance; favors; and collaborating with your players. Oh, and Jenny's secret elliptonic library that's a perfect example of everything we talk about in this episode.

Mentioned in this episode: Fungi that draw gold from their surroundings; Bad King John's lost treasure; a cache of wallets from the 1940s; and the very silly 5/5/2000: Ice - The Ultimate Disaster.

Scripture: 2 Kings 13:20-21, Proverbs 22:16, Matthew 6:19-21, Matthew 20:1-16