I originally felt the three end-of-session questions were a little weak – a ritual we went through that didn’t achieve much.
“• Did we learn something new and important about the world?
• Did we overcome a notable monster or enemy?
• Did we loot a memorable treasure?”
Then I realised two things:
1) Every “yes” is 1 XP per player; with 3 players, that’s worth three alignment hits or three 6- rolls
2) The XP are secondary, anyway – the main benefit is the implicit meta-question: “Did exciting fantasy adventure go down this session?”
Yeah, those three questions basically say “this is what DW is about.” They serve as a good reminder to everyone involved: make these things happen.
Example: Last session, as we started wrapping up I thought about the questions, I realized that we’d gone a couple sessions without looting memorable treasure. So I quick thought of something to include (the heartwood of a treant they’d just killed).
Now I’ve got a new story element to work with and the players get a new toy. Win-win.
Wait a second, what does the number of players has to do with the amount of XP gained per player? The manual says:
“Then answer these three questions as a group“. It’s the whole group that answers them so every player can potentially gain up to 3 XP. At least that’s how I see it …
Vel Ziliuse that’s what I meant – the overall XP count from those questions is higher because each player gets 1 XP on each yes (unlike alignment or failure XP, where only the player in question gets the XP).
Jeremy Strandberg yeah, treasure is the one that often came up “No” for us. Although it’s more the mundane treasure (coin) that I’m struggling with – I’m not use to games that track wealth in this detail, so I’m not used to seeding it.
You can use the loot table a lot of the times. Also players are responsible for looking for treasure and going places where it is.
Yeah show there is a random glint of treasure in any of your dungeons/places of adventure and the adventures will go for it!
When I’ve remembered to use it, I’ve found the loot table to be remarkably liberating and inspiring.
Liberating because it gives me permission to dole out a new spell or a magic item or a big treasure reward without worrying about it “breaking the game.”
Inspiring the way any good random table inspires (“Huh, why would there be everything they need for a new spell in the lair of a giant squid maggot? Well, I guess it could be…”).
Mike Shea’s random ‘mundane’ magical loot table is gold.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/slyflourish_content/random_mundane_magic_items.pdf