Town Loot

[Krystina F]

I've heard there are some folks that are not happy with the way town loot is being handled - as in people not participating in town fights getting paid, not putting in enough effort in the fights, etc.

Please use this thread to express concerns and ideas for how it should be handled in the future. Please keep it polite and respectful, because I know this is a touchy subject with a lot of folks.

Also of note, I do my best to notate who has participated each night on the battlefield for a share per night, and also there are paid positions which are noted on the town roster (ie The Silver Blades, Magistrate, Reeve) which get an extra share on top of what nights they participated in.

I am not perfect, so I may not be able to catch every person who was or wasn't there that particular night, but I do try to verify whether or not an individual was on the field.

I would also like to say, is that I want to keep Mods completely out of Town Loot, and have always been of that opinion. You go off on a mod, you keep that loot with the party that went. If you choose to donate it to Town Loot, that is your party's decision. I am of the opinion that Town Loot, if we continue with it, should be what is gained from the large night fights, and anything that is donated by players.

 

[Azath]

I've been meaning to ask is if loot from the random fights that happen around the tavern in the mornings and afternoon are being added to town loot.

As for who deserves shares.... People should be contributing to a fight in one way or another to merit a regular share. But I really don't think "effort" is a measure that can be either practically or justly used to refuse players a share.

And thank you Krystina for all the work you do with the town loot and the auctions!

 

[Krystina F]

I've been meaning to ask is if loot from the random fights that happen around the tavern in the mornings and afternoon are being added to town loot.

I have always functioned as Town Loot is the loot dropped during the Friday and Saturday Night battles. Anything you get during the day time from Mods (random fights) you go on, is yours (and your parties if you are with a group). If you choose to auction off/donate to the Town Loot any of those items from the Mods, so be it, but to me Mods are a "you kill it you keep it."

 

[Hava]

I am so sorry to see this. I assume that Hava is seen as unworthy of receiving a portion of the town loot as she cannot go out on the field and fight. She contributes to the town in other ways such as providing healing, protections and enhancements to fighters. She watches the fights and keeps a sharp lookout for enemies sneaking in from the sides. She does her best to give wise counsel to those who seek her out.

To me, town loot is not just about receiving coin. It is about building community. It is about acknowledging the fighters AND the supporters. When Fix was in charge of loot the Triage received a portion separately from Hava. For years Hava's personal portion was spent on potions or magic items for the Triage. She did this until she was personally broke. (By the way, Triage has not been up because she cannot lift the bag it is in. )

It hurts me, and the community as a whole, if fighting all that is valued in Sedovia.

 

[Krystina F]

(By the way, Triage has not been up because she cannot lift the bag it is in. )

Óle needs to be better at remembering to bring Triage to Hava before battles as she keeps Triage protected behind her Ward due to people stealing from Triage in the past. Plus Óle has money specifically set aside for Triage items if you see something you want, Hava.

So people can blame Óle for Triage not being up, that is totally on her, not Hava.

 

[Hava]

Óle needs to be better at remembering to bring Triage to Hava before battles as she keeps Triage protected behind her Ward due to people stealing from Triage in the past. Plus Óle has money specifically set aside for Triage items if you see something you want, Hava.

So people can blame Óle for Triage not being up, that is totally on her, not Hava.

Great! I worry that you have too much on your plate, Ole.

 

[TiffanyTaul]

I mat be brand new to Alliance but I have seen this similar issue in other LARPs....... Trust me if all you ever value in the "town" is its fighters then you will set yourself up for a whole line of resentment and off put down the road. You need to encourage the WHOLE of your community not just the fighters.... this is L.A.R.P...... you cant just reward the "L.A" part and forsake the "R.P" as stated above there are other valuable skills... Healers, Tinkers, crafters, Teachers I get this is a very heavy fighting based LARP and I am already in love with it... but there needs to be others of merit You need to encourage the whole.. like those who made the amazing things sold IC.... some one who you may notice taking time from their edventuring to help out a new townie .... things like that.... there are more ways to contribute than just beating up baddies.

 

[Azath]

I am so sorry to see this. I assume that Hava is seen as unworthy of receiving a portion of the town loot as she cannot go out on the field and fight. She contributes to the town in other ways such as providing healing, protections and enhancements to fighters. She watches the fights and keeps a sharp lookout for enemies sneaking in from the sides. She does her best to give wise counsel to those who seek her out.

To me, town loot is not just about receiving coin. It is about building community. It is about acknowledging the fighters AND the supporters. When Fix was in charge of loot the Triage received a portion separately from Hava. For years Hava's personal portion was spent on potions or magic items for the Triage. She did this until she was personally broke. (By the way, Triage has not been up because she cannot lift the bag it is in. )

It hurts me, and the community as a whole, if fighting all that is valued in Sedovia.

Hava absolutely contributes and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

 

[Accleates]

I agree with the sentiments and declarations of those who have already posted. The Militia being designed to utilize the skills and talents of the newer adventurers means that often even a little bit of production can make a huge impact on the groups effectiveness. Yes most of the militia are out there in formation fighting but there are many PC's who do not fight but contribute by creating poisons for our blades, giving us protections, healing our hurts, and providing input into better ways to survive in these dangerous lands. I don't think it would be fair to try and parse the loot further as it would require us to give higher values and lower values to different activities which would lead to both hurt feelings and a loss of cohesion within the community of Foxbridge.

 

[Kevar]

Bear magistrate will back you up in that fight for sure!

 

[Kevar]

Town Loot like we do is always going to have grumbling and issues. However, if we all continue to be invested in it the way it works is great. There are certainly some tweeks we can make here and there as we go, but overall the system we have is pretty good. I fully believe it is worth the headache it can be.

I have more to say later as the discussion progresses, but I am on mobile so will leave it at that.

 

[Sita]

To add a quick two cents - Healers currently don't charge for services because there is a town loot split.

That can, and will, change if it goes away.


Also, we should help educate new players in game to make sure they are aware of what does and doesn't need to go into the loot split, and why we do it.

 

[Accleates]

To add a quick two cents - Healers currently don't charge for services because there is a town loot split.

That can, and will, change if it goes away.


Also, we should help educate new players in game to make sure they are aware of what does and doesn't need to go into the loot split, and why we do it.

Killian can help with that.

 

[Kevar]

And those charges per the guild are 1s per spell level per spell.

The more you know!

 

[JessWhite]

My guess is it is a very small minority who have a problem with the current loot split method. "Effort" and "Effectiveness" and such are super subjective items. You could say higher level people are more effective in the fights, but I've found them to also be the ones who cause more problems then fix, lol. I see no problem with the way it is currently, and it really goes a long way in supporting game economy. It also solves a lot of problems with people who are too busy to stop and loot, and others who always manage to be first to search.

 

[A.mungo]

As a playe rep I just want to mention that I think a key issue to recognize is the difference between OOG issues and IG issues. While it is always good for us to have constructive conversations about how we can play well together, individuals may have characters whom IG have other opinions in terms of effort or participation and reward. I just want to take a second to make sure that everyone understands that this is an OOG conversation about what you as a player feels about "Town Loot" on an OOG level. Please keep the idea of IG conversations or threats of IG conversations...IG! Everything posted so far has been super reasonable, and I just want to make sure that people understand that if there are dissenting opinions presented that all thoughts should be treated with civility and respect.

That being said, I also want to take a second to thank the players who go through the trouble of splitting and accounting for all that mess during game so that we don't have 40 PCs all sitting around sniffing bottles for hours!

-Tony

 

[Krystina F]

As a relatively new player myself, and the New Player Rep for our chapter the Town Loot issue has huge implications on an IG and OOG level. The IG player opinion of another player "not carrying their weight" is well, shitty, because a lot of people aren't going to be able to separate that as just an IG thing and that's why it's so touchy. We have a lot of low level players that IG work very hard to fight at the same capacity as our high level players, but literally are held back by their lack of build and magic items. Being told IG that they aren't good enough will sour their experience IG and OOG - which then in turn means that player will probably NOT come back, and even if they do, probably won't be inviting their friends to join them if they are feeling they are fighting an uphill battle and being shat upon while doing it.
We have a few groups of IG high level players that have banded together and have a large quantity of coin, MIs and the like. These groups, and some individual players, are consistently the ones that are buying the items at the auctions and driving up the costs beyond what any low or mid level player can afford. As the one recording all the auctions, I can almost perfectly predict what player will end up with what item. And it's a very small group I predict from.

With the Town Loot split, this gives all participants of the Night Battles an equal share of the loot, whether you're healing our broken bodies or stabbing the crap out of the bad guys. This then in turn gives our lower level players more money to try to gain a MI to enhance their battle readiness while they are working their way up the build train. This also creates excitement and positivism, which then in turn makes that player enjoy the game more and want to bring their friends. This grows our chapter, and with more players our chapter earns more money with which we can make better games, new venues etc.

I feel this goes beyond the, "well I'm used to the I killed it so I should loot it" mentality. If you want more coin, go on more Mods - that's why plot has those too. I have never counted those in the Town Loot. And please remember, the IG mentality of "you're not good enough" is hugely devastating to our player base that physically/mentally can't fight for whatever reason. That hits a player OOG way harder than I think some people are realizing.

WE ARE ALL HERE TO HAVE A GOOD TIME PLAYING A GAME. Being told you're not good enough to play, IG or OOG sucks. And I can speak to that on both sides of the game coin.

 

[MaxIrons]

So, I want to be clear on two things before I say anything else. The first is, what follows is not the opinion of plot, I don't speak for plot here, in fact, plot doesn't decide how loot gets split. That is purely a player driven thing. Secondly, as a treasure based game, loot is never purely an IG or OOG issue. It can be tilted one way or another but it will always be a blend.

I have been playing for five years now. In that time I have gotten exactly three restricted (loot) magic items. One my first event as found loot. Two targeted at me by plot. Everything else has been LCO. It absolutely impacts your game. The lack of cloaks is what caused my first character's death where I pulled the black.

The thing is, character level matters in the calculation of how much treasure goes out on an event. Anyone who has been around long enough find this out (which is why I don't feel bad saying it). So it is an easy logical step to go to that of: your team creates, say 20% of a weekend's treasure that you would think they should end up with 20% of the treasure at the end of the day. It can and, from what I understand, does in other chapters. That is how those chapters have arranged things. Those chapters, also from what I've heard, have very strict production selling guidelines, pay for healing and a bunch of other things Oregon does not, and straight up refused to do, when they were introduced as concepts by previous plot teams. I don't begrudge anyone for that line of reasoning however, it has merit.

The counter argument has been put forward by Krystina very eloquently, and it doesn't need repeating.

Due to my position, I'm not going to come down on one side or another. That is for the player base to decide. I did want to at least give a fair accounting of what I see the argument against town loot being, at the core.

 

[Ryan W]

I love how Oregons community is far more willing to stick with town loot. Seattle is collapsing right now and it's going to be turning into a free-for-all soon. Meaning it's a competition for loot and you can't enjoy the fight or the plot anymore. This is because people are stealing loot by not turning it in. The best way to get screwed out of high items is to let the highbes keep it for themselves.

I always prefer it when there is one giant pile of loot at the end of the mod/adventure/fight that gets handed to us.

also there are paid positions which are noted on the town roster (ie The Silver Blades, Magistrate, Reeve) which get an extra share on top of what nights they participated in.

I have a large issue with this. There's no reason title holders should be getting extra shares from town loot. Those are IG volunteer positions characters chose to take upon themselves, which give them special plot and influence from the plot team. I'm against the PCs paying them extra.

 

[Krystina F]

I love how Oregons community is far more willing to stick with town loot. Seattle is collapsing right now and it's going to be turning into a free-for-all soon. Meaning it's a competition for loot and you can't enjoy the fight or the plot anymore.

After my initial post, I was messaged privately by two other chapters that do a community loot split and shared how they do it, in case we needed some tips. Turns out, they are doing it basically the same way aside from super minor differences. From what these individuals were saying it has kept the majority of their player base extremely happy. I'm sorry to hear that things are going the way they are in Seattle for you, Ryan. That actually really upsets me to hear.

I have a large issue with this. There's no reason title holders should be getting extra shares from town loot. Those are IG volunteer positions characters chose to take upon themselves, which give them special plot and influence from the plot team. I'm against the PCs paying them extra.

This is something I'm totally happy to change, and discuss as a group. This was something Fix instituted and I've just kept it going. So if we all can come to a consensus on title holders, I'm happy to change how the current system is.
Though I will still keep a list of these positions on my town roster, whether they continue to be paid or not, for general knowledge purposes. Currently I keep the "paid town position," "citizen," and "militia" as marked columns, with the last two being for general knowledge at the current point.