7 Ways to Make Treasure More Rewarding in Your RPG Campaign

Greetings, gamers from all systems, places and timelines!

One of the advantages of playing and DMing TTRPGs at the same time is it allows you to see the challenges from both sides of the table. One of the eternal struggles a DM must constantly manage is to what extent they reward their players. For all of the obvious reasons, if the players are given too few rewards, they will quickly tire of risking their lives for peanuts. Likewise, if you give them too much, before you know it nearly every magical item found will get tossed into a pack and forgotten about. 

This is why we put together seven tips to help you navigate giving out rewards within your games. Make these a part of your game, and your players should feel both rewarded and motivated without dripping in treasure by the end of every session. 

1. Make Some Items Unique to Your Gameworld 

Now, I am not suggesting that every magical object or spell found across your game world needs to be customized. But some of the more important ones should be. This prevents the players, especially veteran ones, from saying “Oh neat, it’s a flaming sword.” Because isn’t the game supposed to have an element of mystery to it? Maybe that flaming sword also gives its attack bonus to initiative. Or maybe that +1 shield has a special power of protection or even curse when a 20 is rolled against its user. So get your spice out and keep your players guessing. 

2. Rewards Have Many Forms, So Use as Many as Possible 

This cannot be emphasized enough: A good reward shouldn’t just be something that improves the stats on a character sheet. What it should be is anything that in some form helps further the character’s goals. Because the only thing someone with a +1 suit of plate armor wants is a +2 one. The trick is to make sure the information, gold, lands, or ally they just acquired feels both useful and doesn’t count too much as a group reward if it was intended for one player. 

3. Be Careful When Giving Out Treasure to the Entire Group at Once 

I’m not saying to never do this, mind you, just that you should be extremely careful when doing so because your players will be watching. The player who just got a ring of poison resistance may feel jipped when another gets a +2 axe of sharpness. And while it’s convenient to give everyone a treasure reward all in one shot, it also doesn’t leave much room for the following games. So, unless there is a fantastic reason for doing so, space out those loot drops while making them relatively comparable to each other.

4. Long-Term Rewards Should Be Worth It 

If one of your characters saves up all of their treasure from several completed missions to buy something, it needs to be worth it. Likewise, if a player has been getting their teeth kicked in by a villain over the last six sessions, when defeated, that villain should drop more than slightly above average gear. As it’s been said before, when running a game you are teaching your players how your version of the world works. If hard work doesn’t pay off, then don’t be surprised when all of your players aren’t jumping at every plot hook.

5. When It’s Time For a Major Reward, Touch Base With Your Players 

Before it’s time to hand out treasure in a pivotal moment of the game, it might be a good idea to talk with your crew. Because communication between the DM and player should occur as needed, not just at the time of character creation. Otherwise, you run the risk of handing out something you think is fantastic that your player has absolutely no interest in. Now, mind you, no player is entitled to anything – that’s just not how it does or should work – but if the player wants something especially powerful, don’t fear compromise. Such as, if you have a player who’s questing for a suit of legendary armor, maybe the dragon they just took down could have part of it in their horde. 

6. Randomize Treasure Sparingly if at All 

Back in the day, many DM’s swore by those good old randomized treasure tables. And I get that people like rolling dice and that’s what we came here for. But more often than not, when players roll everything off treasure tables, they get the most mish-mashed nonsense that you could have the displeasure of coming across. And trust me when I say, one of your greatest wtf moments will be when you roll an elixir of madness off the table and someone else gets a +3 shield. These days, 5E has software tools that are quite creative and can be adjusted by number of players, environment, player level and even encounter difficulty. But even the best software will not have the feel for your party or what they want like you will. 

7. Key Magical Items Need Flavor 

Have you ever come across a powerful magical item in a game that had a generic description? It becomes somewhat of an empty moment when it should instead be an extremely memorable one. If a player went through the leg work of assembling the fragments of the sword of the legendary warrior Queen Airtha, the least they should get is a couple lines of descriptive text. Likewise, a named weapon or object should have a backstory to some extent. I’m not suggesting you should write a novel, but it deserves more of an explanation as to why it’s so powerful other than its a +2 frostbrand. 

Final Thoughts 

When it’s time for your players to receive some form of in-game reward, carefully consider its nature. Are your players looking to pad their stats or find something especially useful in the game itself? This is important because once they pop open the treasure chest, that’s what they’re stuck with. Especially because not all games support exchanging unwanted magical items even for gold. Ideally, you want to give players the feeling of being rewarded that still leaves them hungry for more.