Advanced RPG Rewards & Recognition System

___
Every game master knows it, and their players do, too: rewards in D&D and other RPGs are often pretty lame. Characters in Dungeons & Dragons get gold, more gold, even more gold, and magic items! From levels 1 to 20...same stuff, just more of it. But what can a dungeon master do when the core books offer few other ways to reward their RPG players? In this video, we discuss 16 advanced ways to reward D&D characters and introduce our new Rewards & Recognition system.

~~2023 Convention Schedule~~
Please come up and say hi if you see me!

DISCLAIMER: We at the DM Lair no longer support Wizards of the Coast due to the unconscionable and, frankly, malicious actions by their senior leadership with respect to the Open Gaming License (OGL). However, we still love D&D and RPGs, and we remain dedicated to helping the community, particularly game masters. So, while you will see videos that talk about D&D and 5e resources, the reason we create them stems from our desire to continue providing support for GMs who continue to run D&D for their groups. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with D&D; there is something wrong at WOTC. And it is the latter that we take a strong stance against. The DM Lair team still loves D&D; we still love the community.

#dungeonsanddragons #dungeonmaster #gamemaster

[octopiinouterspace]

12:00 "Congratulations, you conquered the monster and saved the land. Your reward is responsibility."

[goliathcleric]

I personally like the idea of making characters into a medieval equivalent of a warrant officer. For those who don't have a military background, (at a very basic level) a warrant officer is someone who is commissioned by virtue of expertise. They typically do not have a command under them, but are extremely well respected; when a warrant officer (especially a CW-5) speaks, even generals shut up and listen. And if a warrant officer is ever laughing and then follows that up with "watch this, " be very, very afraid.

[quentindaniel]

I find it hilarious how Luke felt about Players managing a business because one of the wackiest campaigns I had was basically that. The players invented a an ale they called Shiver Me Timbers which was laced with a drug called Shiver (pathfinder drug) that made the drink very addicting. Basically kinda how Coca Cola used cocaine at one point. Anyways with this craft they were allowed to build up connections with various taverns as well as a crime syndicate that had a great interest in partnership. They became the hand of the syndicate proving their loyalty while factories were built to mass produce Shiver Me Timbers. One of the players ended up dating the boss's daughter and the campaign literally became business decisions to take out other crime groups as well as expand their reach and grow their empire.

[naroe]

My players after rescuing the Queen of a kingdom, after she was Usurped were made Queens knights. Now they are resposible for keeping a large area of the realm (wilds) protected, ensure the taxes reach the kingdom once a year. I see many adventures springing from this.

[alexiavya]

ngl I use armies in my games. My setting is a low magic setting where the players are super important because they have access to magic or are skilled enough to be on par with magic users! So combats become the players vs the enemy leaders while the army takes on their army. It’s fun background and adds to flavoring the combat with more than just the immediate chopping of heads and slashing or torsos. I find it fun and exciting :)

[Lucifernu]

Actually my players become overly attached to little stuff with meaning that i give them as treasures, a simple hand axe +1 flavored as family heirloom, made of ancient animals bones, that the lumberjack's son gave you after killing the beast that took his father's life, can be carried by a player up to lvl 20 just for the sentimental value that it has

[Frederic_S]

I was at an Larp event once. It was primarily for elves. I participated with a human character. I felt like an union in a fruit salad. The elves took themselves very seriously. Then the first GM of the event annonced in character that there is a festival ongoing were all dishes are served with bacon. Seriously. All the dishes. Oh you should have seen the faces of all the elves :, D
.. I had my dessert with bacon that nigth ..

[danielramirez]

You’ve honestly made me become a better DM and I rewatch your videos and it seems like I’m always learning something new

[soldyne]

I've done most of these things and the players seem to enjoy them. I have given out real estate, knighthoods, ships, business contracts, information, rare spell components, fast travel (teleportation circle network access), divine boons etc. I have stopped giving out magic items almost all together. if the group gets a magic item it usually has some significance to a story line, otherwise I encourage the group to make their own magic items in their downtime assuming they acquire the proper ingredients. I still give out money though, because I want them to invest it in real estate like building castles, forts, temples, (brothels?), etc.

[dwightdeisenhower]

My party was once granted an IOU for “anything within reason” from a Dwarven king and it was one of my favorite rewards I ever received, but we argued so much over what to use it on that I don’t think we ever used it.

[billygnosis]

I'm experimenting with rewarding my players with objects that are high enough quality to be used in the construction of a magic item. For instance, they recently killed a troll that was using a massive ankheg mandible. They collected it as a trophy but were interested in seeing its value. A local artisan offered each player a small amount of money and a well-made trinket. The trinket could be sold for extra gold or can be used as part of the recipe for a magic item (kind of a call back to masterwork quality items in 3.5). It helps reduce the amount of disposable income at hand (unless they straight up sell it) and gives the player something to work toward. Also slightly reduces the time investment in the magic item creation.

[Spiceodog]

One thing that I love about the nights of evening star campaign on YouTube is that the dm made it easy to make players excited about stuff that won’t help them in combat. Sure they didn’t get a magic item, but they got something so much better: a new forge, stone walls for there town, and even an elixir that makes tressym big enough to ride!!! Who needs a +1 plate armor when you can make tressym big?

[zing_zippers]

I love this, helps me a lot. I rewarded my players with the "haunted" mansion that they visited on our first session and they loved it. It was their reward for saving a contact and for being the heroes of the region.
Ps. It wasn't haunted, just had a lunatic magician held up there.

[Doughy_in_the_Middle]

4:30 I remember back in like 7th or 8th grade (late 80s, I'm old), without knowing ANY of the history of D&D, I had this BRILLIANT concept of taking all the playable classes and making so rather than just running one character at a time, you could use PC abilities in actual wargames. Like wizards could dig trenches, druids could animate trees, rogues could make assassination attempts on enemy commanders, etc. It was of course something NO ONE had ever done before right? Right? /facepalm

[justinsinke]

I think part of the trick is that material rewards have a more immediately identifiable value to them, which helps them more feel like a reward in a game. It can be hard to shake off the game element of a system like D&D. Rewards that may not have immediate uses may be a harder sell to the players who may not consider the implications, fear its usefulness may never come up again and therefore not have any usable value (like membership in a local organization that circumstances keep them from actually returning to), or just personally fear that they'll never cash in on the perks because by the time an opportunity arises they'll have forgotten they have them because they've gone 10-20 sessions without it ever being mentioned because it wasn't pertinent to the actions of the adventure they were on. They make perfect sense in terms of narrative and RP, being long-term benefits to the players, new avenues of solutions to problems that can't be solved by DPS, and open doors for new plot hooks and types of adventures, but if your mindset leans a touch more towards the game side of things with the RP adding flavor, it can be really hard to appreciate the actual value of most non-material rewards, especially if they weren't things the party was already working towards directly. Unlike gold and magic items which are numbers on a sheet to be referenced, a lot of other rewards are things both the player and the DM needs to remember or have taken notes on (and I've been in more than one group where we had to ask each other "does anyone remember X detail" and look around sheepishly because no one took notes and only vaguely remember something important from several sessions prior).

[MarcusManner]

Stop giving your players gold and magical items but give them discounts at shops so they can spend that Gold that they didn't receive got it.

[johnlavender]

Thanks for this! My players get pretty salty about me not giving them gold and magic items, since I focus more on story development and quest completion, so this gives me ways to reward them or even additional side quests, that don't involve gold and magic items.

[NinjaDeviant]

So I think the words you were looking for when talking about titles is "granting a peerage" which in
something like a monarchy means the sovereign recognizes a feat granting a title. Sometimes they're hereditary peerage's which are hereditary titles passed on to your children, or they're non-hereditary (like life peerage's) which do not pass down to your children. Some are peerage that might be passed on to your children but if the family fails to do anything of note or of achievement within a few generations they get stripped of their rank or even of their peerage all together. Also, these are some great ideas! They really help the creative juices flow for rewards

[Kakkarot]

I feel like two current dms I play with did a good job of giving out some gold, but more importantly unlocking features as we branch out and expand the town more and explore

[Salt_Stone]

I really enjoy adding to the rumors around the adventuring party/ party members. It can be a boon or a detriment to all the different factions in the world and adds to the moral dilemma that observers brings