In my #RaidersOfArismyth game, each session is self-contained. That means, that even while all the sessions take place in a continous story and coherent world, the party disbands after the session, and reforms from a regular cast of characters at the start of the next one. Generally, the whole setup is a West Marshes Style game.
Treasure is important here, as that is also the mechanic to gain advancements for the characters. In order to reduce bookkeeping, I have so far immediately told players what their treasure will be worth when they sell it. And when a scenario says "valuable gems", I rolled a few dice and thus came up with the specific number.
Which robs all of us of the wonderful / nasty side game of judging "is this worth carrying along?" Last session, this became even more apparent: The rumours they heard before entering the place told them that a particular thing might be very valuable, but in reality, it was utterly worthless. When I tell them that as soon as they pick it up, it kinda destroys that part.
In the actual game situation, I kinda glossed over it, and it wasn't a big issue, but it bugged me immensely: How do I reduce bookkeeping while keeping the game flow interesting and fast?
Enter these little treasure envelopes: I'll pregenerate a bunch of them in different treasure groups (small fry, medium, rich, phenomenal, or something like that) and then have these individual stacks ready to hand out. On the outside, I'll then write the item name or description, and the inside tells the players what they'll get for it at the market.
There'll also be a bunch of blank ones so I can write specific values in, and maybe I'll come up with some extra notes like "as you try to sell it, the buyer alerts the town guard, as that thing was reported stolen" or something like that :D #TTRPG #rpgdesign
JollyOrc
