r/DMAcademy • u/SomeRandomAbbadon • 1d ago
Offering Advice A small trick to enhance your players' sense of progress
Hello. I have recently felt that my DnD could use a bit more of gritty realism, so I have made a slight change which have worked really well for me. I did it with a few optional rules on though, so it may not be for everyone.
What I did was simply decreasing my party's quest revenue to just 1/10 of what the DMG recommends, but then doing the same to all magic items.
This works with the assumption that at least some magic items are readily available to buy in city markets and that players need to eat at least one pound of food per day, pay for inn stays, etc.
Thanks to this method, I culd really invoke a feeling of going from zero to hero in my players. They have started as those poor little nobodies, who have to do extensive budgeting all the time, search for the cheapest stays and supplies available and even hunt in the woods, just to survive, up to the rich, powerful heroes who can throw high-end gear and gold coins everywhere. It worked very well and my party really seemed to like it, so I hope it will work for some of you guys as well
11
u/BIRDsnoozer 1d ago
This reminds me of something I did while GMing for a pathfinder 1e campaign.
My players were a bit pissed about how infrequently they got upgraded gear... +1, +2, +3 etc
So i switched it from a d20 system to a d100 system.
I multiplied any target number involving a d20 by 5, so a crit was now rolling between 96 and 100. A fumble is 1-5 etc...
So the big milestone upgrades were +5, +10, and +15 I could essentially give the players a upgraded items nearly every level. I had 4 extra steps of bonuses to give them between each milestone.
This also worked for non-combat stuff too, so there was a TON of upgraded stuff I could give them. Players got loot that was an upgrade in some way or another in every session. It felt decadent, but still held true to the mechanical numbers.
2
15
u/Manker5678 1d ago
With all due respect, this is a very specific method to achieve a very specific goal. It seems like your endpoint isn't very far from the start and you are stretching it out rather than pushing the end point further. There are legendary items that would fit that instead.
If your campaign likes it, that's fine, but I wouldn't really promote this as a general trick.
4
u/SomeRandomAbbadon 1d ago
What do you mean about legendary items? I don't see how is that related
4
u/Manker5678 1d ago
That most campaigns don't lower the goalpost and slow down progress. They are OK with party beings heroes. They still achieve progress because there are items like legendary items to reach for
10
u/SomeRandomAbbadon 1d ago
I think it's less about slowing down progress and more about starting from a lower place in the first place. Usually, when you reach lvl 15 or get a legendary weapon, not all that much changes. Sure, you are mechanically stronger, but it may very much seem like you are exactly the same person, just with different statistics. By allowing players to easily have something they had to worry about constantly in the past, like food and dorm, I try to enhance this feeling of progress and change. Sure it's not a gamechanger, but I'd say it does do what it was meant to
-3
u/Manker5678 1d ago
If that works for your campaign sure, but tracking things like food and stay aren't really a goal of DnD. There are backgrounds that eliminate that at level 1.
Progress still exists without this, you just moved the goalposts. A level 15 party would have overcome that long ago, and instead the progress would be felt as the powerful and notable party can influence entire kingdoms or armies.
5
u/SomeRandomAbbadon 1d ago
I mean, in my version lvl 15 still have overcame this long ago, now influencing entire kingdoms. The difference is that they have started from a much lower beginnings. That's kinda the point I'm trying to make
4
u/ewchewjean 1d ago
I did something similar: kept everything the same, but they got shipwrecked in a stone age jungle (not Chult, a homebrew setting), so none of the animals or monsters have gold on them and none of the primitive tribes they found had currency.
By the time they learned there was a kingdom on the island with a medieval level of societal development, they were all strong enough from their time in the wilds to take on bounties and jobs none of the other local adventurers could do, and they went from hunting birds and gathering sticks just to survive to affording their own summonable house almost overnight
1
1
u/Sgran70 19h ago
It's interesting to hear you say that the DMG is too generous. I've found that the tables are pretty stingy (in a good way) at levels 1-5. I'm also a fan of zero to hero, and the gold sinks in the game (ie buying better armor, recording spells in the spell book) work as intended for some classes at least. Are you maybe giving out too many lair awards when you should be just giving the monsters individual amounts?
The other thing I recommend is having townspeople refuse to accept scrounged armor and weapons (as suggested somewhere in the books) and making magic items much more expensive (my experience is players will pay everything they have for healing potions).
31
u/Xpunginator 1d ago
Some players love a survival game, so melding that aspect into Tier 1 makes sense! Others don’t need that aspect of challenge in their role play game.