Treasure Type in GURPS

Treasure Type in GURPS

There is one major thing left to do to enable BrOSR-style games in GURPS, and that is treasure assignment/generation. This post on the Axioms of the Addled Antillectual blog worked out the $-to-CP progression based on the ACKS II assumptions. While it does indeed allow us to simply use treasure tables from ACKS, I'm not completely satisfied with this approach, and I decided to write this post to organize my thought process and, hopefully, devise a solution.

First, I have to mention that what I mean here is not generic treasure placement, but treasure earned by defeating monsters, i.e. something they carry or store in their lairs. To get a better idea and understand everything better, I'll have to dive into the D&D books because GURPS... doesn't really have much aside from a small table in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 21: Megadungeons, and that just won't cut it.

Let's start where my TTRPG journey began - D&D 3.0. Each encounter has a level, and each monster has a Treasure line that says if you need to adjust the standard treasure for this encounter level. For example, some monsters call for double treasure, some say not to roll for coins, etc. Treasure comes in 30 levels and consists of coins, goods (art objects or gems), and items (mundane, minor, medium, or major). When rolling minor, medium, or major magic items, the power not only determines, well, the power of the item, but also the distribution. For example, if the item is minor, it is more likely to be a potion or scroll than a weapon, and cannot be a rod or staff at all. This requires a bunch of nested tables, but I'd be lying if I said that I dislike this approach - I like rolling on tables.

The book also specifies that monsters usually only have their treasure in their lair, but magic items are likely to be in their immediate possession, if the monster is sapient and can use said items. However, D&D 3.0 removed the "In lair %" line, so if you encounter monsters, it is entirely up to the GM whether you stumbled into a lair or just encountered a wandering monster.

D&D 3.5 kept the same approach until the release of Magic Item Compendium, where the procedure was reworked. MIC claimed that the DMG tables were too inconsistent and could produce very powerful items even at low levels, and decided to go with a more uniform and smooth approach with fewer rolls. Now, you roll on the table for your encounter's CR once and get a randomized amount of coins, 1-3 goods with a certain average monetary value, and 1-3 items. Now, items are not mundane, minor, medium, or major, but are orgainzed into levels from 1/2 to 25. While this procedure is indeed more streamlined and balanced, it feels a bit soulless.

AD&D 1e is actually quite similar to what D&D 3.0 does. Each monster has a Treasure Type - a letter from A to Z. For each letter, there is a chance to get one or more of the following: coins, gems, jewelry, maps or magic. Unlike in D&D 3.0, magic items do not have power levels, but are rolled by type - sword, armor, scroll, etc. Thus, you always have a chance to pull out a very powerful item even at low levels. It should be noted that there is no such thing as "encounter level" or "challenge rating", and that the treasure type is based on the average number of monsters encountered, and that can be quite a lot in AD&D.

ACKS II takes the AD&D 1e approach and improves it. Now, the number of letters for Treasure Types is lower, and the types themselves are separated into three categories - hoarding, raiding, and incidental. These categories determine the composition of treasure. ACKS II has two different procedures for random treasure generation - classic and heroic. The classic table has low-level treasure composed of common coin, and high-level treasure of precious coin, while the heroic table has much more common coin, while retaining the average treasure value. Weight, however, can be up to seven times higher! The second difference is that the classic table generates magic items by type, like AD&D 1e, while the heroic one has rarity categories, so somewhat like what D&D 3.0 does, but not exactly identical. It also should be mentioned that ACKS II treasure values may seem inflated if you're used to AD&D or any other D&D, but that's intentional.

There is some more refinement. For example, gems and jewelry also have categories now. For example, gems can be ornamentals, gems, or brilliants, while jewelry can be trinkets, jewelry, or regalia. They are rolled on the same tables, but higher quality categories use different dice and modifiers. There is another thing that isn't present in AD&D - special treasures. This is a way to replace a thousand of coins, a piece of jewelry, or a gem with something else, like bags of grain, pottery, cheese, and other kinds of mundane treasure. In a way, it is somewhat similar to the was Magic Item Compendium treated goods in D&D 3.5.

But what about GURPS? We have GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 8: Treasure Tables, and it's an excellent book, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't really fit this approach. We already know that the ACKS II treasure tables are calibrated for character advancement and other stuff, so I'd like to use the classic ACKS II tables and tie them somehow to the tables from DF8. One option would be to create a whole bunch of new special treasures based on items from DF8, but this is very work-intensive, and it probably will not possible to include everything - and I want a chance to find random useless crap! I also want the tables to be expandable, so I wouldn't write them with physical dice in mind, but just as a list to use with a digital diceroller.

Now that I think about it, a lot of the special treasures from ACKS II are found in quite large quantities, when it isn't feasible to track every single thing. For example, it is normally impossible to find mundane weapons in a treasure hoard. If using special treasures, you have a chance to roll a crate of armor and weapons, worth a certain amount of gold. But what weapons and how many? What armor? In GURPS, it is much more likely that such details would matter, so I do not want to abstract them this much.

If you look at the items from DF8, you will see that (if not enchanted) almost all categories are worthless compared to the typical treasure value, when taken individually. The outliers are jewelry, gems, and certain weapons with enough quality and other modifiers. What if we integrate an additional row to the treasure table that would generate mundane items from DF8, but multiply their number/amount by X? This way, we'd be able to generate not two ounces of salt, but a sack of salt. Not a dagger, but a crate with 45 daggers. This would be more valuable, significant, but wouldn't really increase bookkeeping much - it would actually decrease it compared to individual treasure generation. This also works well with treasure categories - hoarding monsters are less likely to possess all this random stuff, but others would be more likely to have them.

But on the other hand, is it really required? What are these items found in bulk used for? As a rule, you rarely use them, but instead you sell them as merchandise. For most applications, you only need to know the type of items, their weight, and their cost. However, individual mundane items may be relevant when adventurers are only starting out. Thus, I think it'd be reasonable to include some individual mundane items on low-level treasures, but keep the special treasures as is.

In addition, I'd like to integrate jewelry and gem generation from DF8 into the tables, and rework item types a little bit. Let's see if it works.

Gems in GURPS are extremely cheap compared to ACKS gems. A GURPS gem has an average value of around $350, while in ACKS, ornamental stones have an average value of $1,200, gems have an average values of $8,000, and brilliants have an average value of $160,000. I really like the way DF8 does gems, so I'd like to stick to that procedure, but I obviously have to modify it a bit. DF8 has gem costs based on carats and value modifiers. By default, you roll 2d/4 for the gem's weight in carats, but if you roll 2d, you get in the ballpark of the average value of an ornamental stone from ACKS. The progression is not linear, however. Rolling 4d for regular gems seems to work too. For brilliants, roll 4d, and multiply the final cost by 10. That'll be a bit on the cheaper side, but within the ballpark.

Jewelry in DF8 is even more interesting - it is based on material and type, but its weight and hence cost can be affected by the "Bigger" result. Gems also can add to the price. In ACKS, jewelry is separated into trinkets (average value $9,000), jewelry (average value $160,000), and regalia (average value $480,000).

For trinkets, I suggest the following:

1. Use the regular DF8 procedure

2. Ignore gold and platinum

3. If you roll a "Gem", roll 2d/4 for carats, not the increased number outlined above.

For jewelry, I suggest the following:

1. Use the regular DF8 procedure

2. Ignore bronze and billon

3. Double cost and weight (equivalent to one level of "Bigger")

4. If you roll a "Gem", roll 2d for carats

For regalia, I suggest the following:

1. Use the regular DF8 procedure

2. Ignore bronze, billon, and silver

3. Quadruple cost and weight (equivalent to two levels of "Bigger")

4. If you roll a "Gem", roll 4d for carats

This doesn't exactly fit the ACKS values and provides a wider range of results, but the difference between this and the suggested values shouldn't be too drastic. I believe this should be fine.

Mundane Items is not a replacement of special treasures from ACKS, but rather an addition. Certain low-level treasures may have random individual mundane items. Use DF8, but limit yourself to the following categories: spices, fibers and fabrics, other materials, household items, garments, containers, accoutrements, books, maps, weapons, armor, shields. As for the special treasures themselves - for now use what ACKS JJ gives you on pages 128-129, but later on, I will have to make new ones.

Enchanted Items remain the same, but the procedure for rolling them (and the items themselves) will have to wait a bit.

Enjoy the table as a screenshot, because blogpost isn't very table-friendly. As you can see, I shifted some things around and added a couple of new treasure types on the lower end.

Assigning Treasure Type

Oh boy, here's another difficult question. You have a monster, but how do you assign a treasure type to it aside from using your no doubt limitless experience to eyeball it? To find out, let's check out the monster creation guidelines in ACKS MM. The hoarder/raider/incidental type is defined by the creature's type, but the actual treasure type depends on the average treasure value. (It should also be noted that spoils are treated as treasure worth half their value.)

        Average Treasure Value = 4 × Monster XP Value × Average Number Encountered

However, how do you find Monster XP Value? This is described a few pages earlier, on page 395. Monster XP Value depends on HD and additional abilities. For the purpose of BR calculation, I use a combination of ST and attack skill to determine HD. However, what if it is possible to tie XP value to BR directly? No, it isn't. I did my best, but BR isn't tied to HD in a linear fashion, so you'd have to calculate monster HD using the following approach:

ST 1-4 HD 0.25

ST 5-8 HD 0.5

ST 9-12 HD 0.75
ST +1      HD +0.25

Skill 10-11 No change

Skill 12-13 +0.25

Skill 14-16 +0.5

Skill 17+         +0.75

As for special abilities that modify XP value - use your judgment.

When using MM400 to assign Treasure Type, keep in mind that there are two new treasure types (A and B), so shift other letters two steps closer to the end of the alphabet (A->C, D->F, etc). Use type A for average treasure value of 0-50 gp (0-$2,000) and type B for 51-100 gp ($2,001-$4,000). I think this should work.