A classic adventure ends, and the players are due their reward for completing a quest. They discover a collection of treasure: items, coins, and other helpful gear. But this formula can grow old, especially if you're running a roleplaying-centric campaign--getting new items can have diminishing returns at a certain point. But you need to reward your players for their actions, so what do you do?
My solution is simple: give them other things. There are a great many rewards that players can be given that actually advance the story and give players new opportunities to express themselves. All it takes is trying to figure out what will serve you game best. Read on for the full guide to alternate loot and how to implement it.
The first suggestion I will make for alternate loot is very simple, but it can have big effects for the players. I find that having the players complete a quest for a moderately powerful NPC can be very enjoyable for the players when it ends with the bestowing of some sort of title. Perhaps the party completes a quest for an important NPC with political power; when the party completes the quest, the questgiver says something like, "Your deeds have served the realm well. To thank you, I am bestowing on you the title of 'Defender of the Realm.' People across the region will know you for your heroics."
The title itself is one thing--a nice honorific that can constantly remind players of their past actions--but the changes it will make to the campaign can be huge. If the players encounter an important NPC from the same region, that NPC (who would have been very difficult to work with, and may have been in the past) will now be more willing to respect and work with the party. So the title not only honors the players and their actions, but also acts as a story advancement. With proper planning, you might even make completing this quest and getting the title a necessary step towards completing a larger overall story.
But even beyond practical realities like advancing quests, this can really develop roleplaying moments. The same NPC is likely to speak to an adventurer and a titled hero differently, so almost any story you are trying to telling is going to end up quite different. There may even be small displays of the power of the players' new reputations--a shopkeeper grants a discounted rate for a local hero, a stranger buys a round of drinks for the party for their deeds, or a child NPC acts out being the heroic player characters.
So as you can see, the benefits of a granted title can be quite broad. A small spoken action on the part of one NPC can drastically alter the campaign and allow players new options. Once they figure out that their titles can open doors, it's only a matter of time before they begin to try to leverage that reputation, creating new problems for them to solve: will my title impress this specific person? can I lay low with my new reputation? will there be negative consequences from being more recognizable? All of these new problems can be developed into meaningful and interesting story moments. And all of this was possible by rewarding the players with less loot and instead giving them a more intangible reward.
Another alternative to loot which I highly suggest is the granting of property. This strategy works with players of all kinds--roleplaying, combat-focused, antics-focused, and more. The thing that makes it so potent is that it requires the GM to give up very little, and it gives the players so much to work with. Implementing it is simple: players complete a quest, and the questgiver (someone with a fair amount of property themselves) bestows the players with a parcel of land somewhere.
The details of the land are up to you, and you should decide what to give the players based on what you think they would enjoy the most. I suggest using a range of possibilities, from a fairly well-preserved mansion on a nice estate which can be redesigned according to the players' wishes to an empty piece of land that they players can completely design and build up themselves. This is a difficult matter to gauge by trying to read the players' thoughts and intentions, so I recommend simply asking out-of-game what the party would be most interested in: a developed place, a blank canvas, or somewhere in between. Their answer will allow you to give them exactly what they want.
There are almost no limits to what a group of players can do with a piece of property. Not only does it give the party an established home and base of operations, it creates instant narrative stakes. Threats to the property are something that the players will be incredibly sensitive to, so that opens some narrative possibilities. The development of and changes to the property will become projects that you can complicate with narrative moments (for instance, the party wants archery targets for their property, so they go to raid a bandit camp outfitted with dozens of archery targets). You may focus as much or as little as you want on the property, but rest assured: the players will deeply care about their home, so you will be able to use that to your advantage.
A final note about rewarding players with property: having an established "home" for your players' characters is a bigger emotional draw than many GMs realize. As a beginning player, I spent sessions planning for and executing a massive attack on a castle held by bandits and monsters; I never got to see any of the long-term rewards of owning a castle that controlled a trade route and which had a gem mine (the campaign ended because I headed off for college), but I have to say that the pull for really having a place of my own in the game was truly its own reward. The feeling I had playing that character remains one of the most empowered moments I've experienced as a player, and you can pass it on to your players with relatively little effort--certainly something to consider.
A similar but importantly distinct idea for alternate loot is in granting the party a business. I have written before about the finer points of developing a business for a player character to run; here, I will focus on the why of it rather than the how. The basics, however, would be similar to the property-granting--an important NPC who might have access to repossessed businesses or even just storefronts could give it to the party as a reward. You might have this NPC say something along the lines of, "You have done this city a great service. Our funds are spread thin now, but we recently seized a business which was being illegally operated--smuggled goods, mostly--and I can reward you with control of this business for your deeds."
The exact nature of the business matters--not just any business will do for any given set of players. The business should ideally sell something that would matter to the players. In a combat-heavy party, a blacksmith is a strong option, as the smithy would be able to provide weapons and armor to the party. A business which sells healing potions could be helpful to most parties. Other strong business options for rewards include magic item shops, general stores, and taverns. Obviously, taverns are appealing to players for different reasons than the other more practical shops, but taverns are also broadly appealing, as essentially every adventure ends up in a tavern at some point or another. As I advised with what kind of property a party would enjoy, I recommend here asking what the players would be interested in owning. It may be hard to get a consensus, but the only way to find out where your players stand is to talk to them about it.
Owning a business in-game is similar to owning a property with the exception that businesses are less static, meaning that there are more possible issues that can arise from businesses than from bases of operation. Here is a brief list of things that can come up for players with businesses: supply issues, changing public opinion of a shop, needing to improve the quality of goods/services, unruly customers, or new governmental orders that affect shops can all be things that business owners need to attend to. It's worth noting here that these complications can be matters of narrative importance (a main quest involves a government raising money for a new war effort, leading to increased taxes) or simply complications that arise from owning a business (supply lines have been cut off due to bandit attacks). The inherent pride of owning a business can allow for a great many complications, all of which will emotionally engage your players.
One last thing to consider about bestowing a business is the increased money that will accumulate from the business. You'll need to account for your players having more money, for one, but you can counteract that by having complications from the business cost money (increased taxes, investments to improve the business, needing to pay people for services to support the business). It really just comes down to how much you want the business to change things for the party. If you want them to make marginal gains, counteract the new income with complications, but if you want them to experience significant gains, you can allow the business to really progress the party financially.
One final alternative to loot is actually just a step in between the players and proper loot. What I mean is, allow players not direct loot, but tokens for loot. Imagine that the party completes a quest for an important NPC; the NPC themselves lacks a store of significant loot, but they do have a network of allies and acquaintances who can help the party. So they give the player characters official tokens, something that bears the official emblem of the questgiver, which can be exchanged for powerful loot. But two things separate this reward from being classic loot: 1, the player gets choice in the matter of what the loot ends up being, and 2, there is an important step between the reward and actually getting the reward. Both of these are valuable things.
The first benefit (getting a choice of loot) has some obvious boons. Let me share a brief moment from a campaign I ran years ago: my players entered a shop looking for improved gear. I decided to handle in-game shopping by having the shopkeeper introduce a number of items that I thought would be interesting and valuable to the players. From their ho-hum reactions, I quickly figured out that they weren't really interested in what the shop had to offer. So I whisked them off to a shop where the shopkeeper offered customized gear, and the result was much different; they had clear ideas of what they wanted and were not afraid to ask. This was just a shopping trip, so the stakes were not exactly high, but we're talking about quest rewards, and those need to match the effort put forth. That's why I think a loot token allows the players to get more for their effort.
The second benefit is less obvious, but at least as important. With a step in between the reward and actually getting the reward, you as GM have increased your control of the situation. Maybe the players walked through the quest for the reward quite easily, and you want to accommodate for that disparity in difficulty. So now that the player has the loot token, they still need to make it to someone who they can redeem the token with. This means you can place any complication in the way of the party to make up for the difficulty issue. Or perhaps the story of the quest for the reward was not completely wrapped up by the quest itself, and now you have an opportunity to dramatically finish that story. The strength of the loot token is that it allows the GM to continue to finesse the story and keep making the world more connected and complete.
Some final considerations for loot tokens mostly involve how you choose to implement it. The loot token can be used as a clean transaction: the token is exchanged for an item. It can also be like currency: the token can be traded for a more valuable item than it is worth if the player character adds some currency to the deal. The tokens themselves can be objects of interest; the designs on the tokens may characterize the questgiver or their city, or they may be made of precious metals, or they may be kept as evidence of the players' allegiance to the questgiver. The most important thing to keep in mind with look tokens is that you are not just lengthening a story, but giving yourself and your players room to continue developing it, all the while giving more control to both yourself and your players.
These alternate rewards have all the benefits described above, but I think that they also make the game feel more realistic. Which seems more likely: the mayor of a city has a massive collection of magic items just sitting around to bestow on traveling adventurers, or they know people they can call upon to produce magic items for adventurers who help the city? Personally, I find the latter option far more realistic, interesting, and enjoyable. So give these alternatives to loot a try, and I think that you'll find that your campaign is more open to your players to create the experiences that they want.
There you have it. Four alternatives to traditional loot, all of which allow you the opportunity to enrich your game for yourself and your party. I think that giving yourself room to experiment with these may be intimidating--messing with any of the calibrated balances between GM and players can be complicated. But I think that most parties will really benefit from having more options when it comes to rewards, especially when these alternatives are more mentally and emotionally appealing than simple treasure.
That's all for now. Coming soon: why you should play with different groups to see what you like, how to handle in-game romances, and what to do when your players think of something you missed. Until next time, happy gaming!
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