Okay, hear me out...An adventure set after the fall of the city, where the PCs are part of the invading army that is roaming around and pillaging literally everything.My only question is: How do I balance things so there isn't infinite free loot lying everywhere? I presume that when you start tearing up shit to get your hands on treasure, you can quickly accumulate vast amounts of cash.
>>96727734>part of an invading armythey get a tiny fraction of it cause all their much more numerous buddies are doing the exact same shit
>>96727734There are a lot of guys doing the same, time is non infinite here. Prioritize choices: do you prefer looting the temple, going around the nobles' houses or whatever? How much hours are you going to use (rolling high means less time) and so on
>>96727734One of the modules in Way of the Wicked is exactly that, it's actually pretty good.
>>96727734They're still gonna be limited by weight and volume of what they can carry, and pressed for time (either competing with other looters or before the army orders them to move on).
>>96727734First, listen to >>96727748 and >>96727790Second, remember that the officers probably also want shit, so even when they get something it might be forcibly reappropriated by an officer. Third, loot takes up space, and the army isn't waiting for your dumbass to lug around 20 potato sacks of gold. Fourth, the invasion may have caused damages rendering much of the possible loot relatively worthless. Fifth, there's stuff that might not just be easily picked up and moved away. Sixth, economics will reduce the value of any possible plunder if they take too long selling it, possibly before they even get a proper chance to sell it. Seventh, assuming the losing force partially or entirely fled the city, quite a few things might've been taken with them.
>>96727844Okay yeah, but then what should be the 'loot rich' locations the PCs can actually carry off?
>>96727734Most people aren't rich so just where are the PCs finding all this wealth.The people who are rich have probably hidden their loot or run away with it. If they have hidden it they might have hidden it well including not in the city anticipating invasion. (Reading on I see another anon has said this too.)And as others have said, there's competition from the other invaders, limited by time and weightCounter-inflation will make it worth less because if everybody has a bag full of diamond necklaces then diamond necklaces are worth less with the market flooded. (yep, beaten there too.)Plus the invading general has a policy of>Loot is mine to distribute>Upon pain of death>Try me
>>96727844To be fair I would assume the looting goes on for a day in which the army says "ok guys you have this day to loot".On the other hand yeah, if you can take the treasure around the guys you conquered probably could've done it as well.
>>96727734Why am u looting when I could be raping? Time spent looting is women not being raped. That house being plundered is a wench not being forcibly cream pie, that temple a a nun forgoing a bunch in the oven.I swear you people think small sometimes.
>>96727992Well, depends on your world. Assuming your run of the mill dnd-like, I would say temples, nobles' houses, some guildhouses (maybe the wizards' one more than bakers' one, say), centers of governments, cemeteries depending on the way people care for their dead (but that might be too much of a hassle to go through). Banks if there are any, perhaps some artisans' quarters if they're leading into magical items territory.Hell, why the fuck not, dungeons with your usual suspects (ratmen, cultists, whatever). A lot of these might not be immediatly easy to transport, but it could be interesting to organize the retrival of bulky works of arts or something.
>>96727992Depends on the party and what they're looking for. What I was getting at was that such a raid isn't likely to be that massive of a windfall for each individual soldier. If you have a party that is more focused on the violent aspects, the armories might be worth plundering for any remaining weapons of value that remained after the fight, siege, and escaping locals (Weapons might obviously be useful, but carrying a weapon doesn't bode well if caught be an enemy army; similarly, if you are actively avoiding a fight, a weapon might be dead weight.)If you are particularly clever, you could grab food and drink, then trade it on the way back to the better-off looters for some of what they have. You could also grab things of more subtle value, rarer trade goods that other soldiers might overlook or not understand the value of. On the more immediately practical end, certain tools could be worthwhile personally to the party, and have been too heavy to be worth fleeing with.
>>96728049Also if there's a non trivial level of edginess involved, good slaves.
>>96728046Unfortunately the game mechanics reward looting over raping.>Raping: Gain XP>Looting: Gain treasure AND XP.You'll find that rape just isn't rewarding, unless you rape the women THEN sell them into slavery for treasure AND XP.
>>96727734Assume the players have a lot of wealth. So what?
>>96727734How are they carrying away the loot?
>>96727734In real life, it was how much you can carry. And assuming your comrades didn't steal it from you. Or how much of it got confiscated by your avaricious superiors.
>>96728109You are assuming there is no profit from rape. Rape is always profitable, especially when you want to fundamentally change the demographics of a place.Plus, the rewards from looting are linear, your xp and gp are fixed. The rewards from rape are multiplicative, each rape after the first delivers bonus xp based on the number if rapes committed. And you can gain any valuables hidden on her person.
>>96727734The player's have to be able to physically carry their loot otherwise someone else will just take it from themIn real life, the most successful pre-modern armies gathered all the loot into a loot pile and then distributed the loot in shares to each of the soldiers based on their rank and achievements during the battle so you can add an elelement of challenge by making it so that the players have to figure out how to smuggle the loot they want without getting caught by their fellow invaders (or worse, an officer) because historically the punishment for unsanctioned looting was usually a severe flogging if not death.
>>96727734You're setting yourself up for a rousing session of bookkeeping and logistics, retard. The only way this works is as a detached, tedious puzzle of searching a place for all its valuables, and then determining if it can be properly carried, carted, or dragged out of town.
>>96727734Why did set your adventure after the interesting part? Are you stupid?
>>967277341. Competition from other looters, who potentially have been there first2. Your commanding officer may declare that all plunder is to be massed and divided into shares, and those found hoarding are to be disciplined - this is from Palnatoki's Jomsviking code - your party could decide whether they want to play by the rules, or try to embezzle themselves a nest-egg, with potential reprecussions if discovered.Also, if the city was besieged for any amount of time, a lot of imported goods would already have run out, and many valuables will have been stashed away, or even smuggled out in the wake of the invasion.If you hear there's an army coming, then a lot of people are going to take everything they can carry, and get the next flight out.
