It’s been a hell of a month. Let me start there. But you probably knew that already based on the updates I’ve posted and the fact that this article — one I promised a month ago — is only the second of my four monthly articles and I’m posting in the last full week of January.

But I don’t want to waste the Long, Rambling Introduction™ pissing and moaning about my life. It’s just that I kind of have to. Because I only just realized — as I’m getting ready to give the final read-through — that I totally forgot to write any sort of Long, Rambling Introduction™. As if that’s not bad enough, I also just realized — in the middle of the last sentence — that I know exactly what I should have done with this Long, Rambling Introduction™. This article — one particular chunk of it — presents an absolutely perfect opportunity to pull off a brilliantly funny Long, Rambling Introduction™.

But here’s the thing: this is already an absolute beast of an article. 6,000 words, five tables, nearly a dozen photos. And, given that it’s Sunday at 5:00 PM and this article is three weeks overdue, it is well past anything I could remotely call the eleventh hour. Like, it’s the last fraction of the three thousand five hundred and ninety ninth second of the eleventh hour. So I am sure as hell not taking the two hours necessary to repurpose, rewrite, and re-edit five hundred words from the middle of this article just for a Long, Rambling Introduction™ that forty percent of you will skip.

Besides, I just don’t f$&%ing want to. I’m done with this s$&%. So just pretend there’s three or four hundred extraneous words of bulls$&% here above the header. And I just realized that there now actually are three to four hundred extraneous words of bulls$&% here above the header. And that barely took ten minutes. Good on me.

Anyway, enjoy the article. It’s about treasure.

Treasure Described and Distributed

Now for something you’ve been waiting for forever. The final, final part in my two-part-cum-three-part-plus-interquel series about doing D&D treasure better. In the last part — a f$&%ing month ago — I showed you how to classify treasure better. And how to value it. Remember that s$&%? I hope so. If not, you’d better review your notes. Because you’ll need that s$&% today.

Since you know now how to handle treasure once it’s in your game, it’s time to find out how to actually get it there. To get treasure into your game. By which I mean, how to decide how much of what kind of treasure to drop in your adventures. But by which I also mean, how to present that treasure to your collection of player-monkeys.

I ain’t going to do it in that order though.

Be Ye Warned…

Caveat time.

Caveat the first: this article’s the second half of a bunch of new treasure rules I invented just for you. The rules below don’t work without the rules in the first half. If you ain’t defining treasure how I told you to a month ago, you can’t describe and distribute treasure the way I’m going to tell you to today. And that’s sad. Because there’s some fun-a$&, dicey tables ahead.

That said, the first half of these rules offered you three different ways to handle treasure valuation. The crappy Simple way, the better Variable way, and the most legal fun you can have while still wearing underwear way that is the Dicey way. In this article, I’m giving you two ways to build Treasure Troves. The careful Deliberate way and the most… funnest… something…

And the Fistfuls of Dice way. Whose name obviously precludes any need for any superlatives about how fun it is. Because Fistfuls of Dice.

Thing is, you can combine any of the three valuation methods with either of the two distribution methods. It doesn’t matter. They’re totally independent. You can use Dicey valuation so you get to roll lots of dice at the table and then build careful, Deliberate Treasure Troves when you’re alone at your GMing desk. Or keep it fast and fun at the table with Variable valuation, but break out your brick of d-sixers in the privacy of your game design dungeon. It’s up to you.

Caveat the second: the s$&% below references my very own, awesome tier-based approach to character advancement. It’s just a way of clumping levels together. If you ain’t familiar with it, don’t sweat it. I include callouts to let you know what levels are covered by what tiers. Just wanted you to know that s$&% was coming.

Caveat the third: I did my absolute best to stick to the treasure tables in the DMG. Well, not the tables themselves. But the values. If you use my systems, the heroes will earn roughly as much treasure as they would if you used the s$&%y DMG system. It ain’t exact though. Partly because of the whole randomness thing and partly because the DMG system isn’t that systematic to begin with. But it doesn’t really matter much. Treasure doesn’t impact the game that much.

To pull off that amazing feat of game hackery, though, I had to make some assumptions. And because I wanted this s$%& to fit in with all the other s$&% I’ve written — in case I ever decide to come out with my own Pathfinder-like streamlined and smoothed republication of D&D 5E instead of writing my own game — I used a lot of the same assumptions I’ve used previously when I told you how to handle things like campaign and adventure structure and advancement rates and s$&% like that. Which also hew close enough to D&D to not break anything. But now that I’m piling assumptions on assumptions and adding a bunch of randomness…

Who the f$&% knows?

Seriously though, this should all work fine whatever you’re doing. As long as what you’re doing is close to either what D&D tells you to do or what I’ve told you to do in the past. But for full transparency, here’s the important assumptions. Feel free to adjust these systems based on whatever the hell you’re doing differently in your own game.

Assumption the first: you’re running a traditionally-structured game wherein the players undertake periodic quests or go on periodic adventures or otherwise periodically complete major objectives. If you’re running a d$&%-around game or one long, run-on sentence of a campaign with no chapters or major victories or anything, this s$&% won’t work.

Assumption the second: the heroes complete one quest or adventure or objective every one to two sessions.

Assumption the third: the heroes complete approximately six quests or adventures in each three-level tier of play. The first tier, of course, is different. In my system, Apprentice Tier comprises the first two experience levels of play and the players usually leave it behind after three adventures tops.

In short: if your players are completing adventures or quests every one or two sessions and gaining levels after every second or third adventure, you’re probably fine. If not, adjust accordingly.

And if none of those works for you, just give the heroes one Treasure Trove — which I define below — every one or two sessions. That should be fine. I don’t f$&%ing know.

There’s Such a Thing as Too Random

Before I get into the whole “describing and distributing” thing, there’s one more thing I want to discuss. Briefly. And that’s randomness. I’m as big a fan of randomness as anyone. I like rolling for s$&%. I don’t play any RPG that takes away the GM’s dice on principle. And I invented the Fistfuls of Dice Treasure Trove Generation System mainly for my own sense of fun. Randomness is great.

But totally random treasure sucks. That’s one of the problems with the DMG approach. One of the many problems. As I explained way back when I told you how I do the whole treasure thing, you don’t want treasure hunting to boil down to point accumulation. A good treasure system increases the players’ sense of the world. It enhances the game’s story. And it invites the players to act like there’s more than game mechanics going on at the table.

To pull that off, you’ve got to place your treasure deliberately. Treasure’s got to make sense. In the world. In the adventure. Narratively. Versimilitudily. When the heroes slay a bunch of goblin raiders and gather up the loot, they should mostly find s$&% stolen from traveling merchants and nearby homesteads. Sacks of turnips and casks of mead. Not ruby-studded platinum crowns. And the goblins should be carrying pocket change. Meanwhile, the heroes absolutely should find ruby-studded platinum crowns in the Cursed Pyramid of X’k’lth’lt’xth’tl’pppbbbttthhhh. And no f$&%ing turnips.

Even the Fistfuls of Dice approach I present below requires you to make a few deliberate decisions about the kinds of treasure that suit the adventure you’re stocking. And whatever the rules or the dice say, override that s$&% and do what makes sense for your game instead. Whatever the f$&% that happens to be.

Presenting… TREASURE!

This article’s about two things. It’s about filling your adventures and dungeons and s$&% with treasure. Let’s call that Stocking the Adventure. That’s the thing you do first. So, naturally, I’ll cover it second. First, let’s talk about what happens once you’ve actually got some treasure to put in your game. What do you write in your notes? And how do you present it to your players?

Each individual valuable treasure — each item or collection of items — comes in two parts. First, there’s the narrative, descriptive bulls$&% part. And second, there’s the fiddly, mechanical minutiae part. I already told you what that second part looks like. It defines the item’s class, rarity, and quality. Remember? The narrative, descriptive bulls$&% describes the actual item. Like, what it actually is. In the world.

Point is, when you record an item of treasure in your notes, it’ll something like this:

• Bloodstone [Uncommon Gemstone]
• Intricately Emrboided Cloth-of-Gold Demirobe [Superior Rare Art Object]
• Sack of Undersized Turnips [Inferior Common Trade Good]

Easy right? Yes, I know there’s a big, obvious part I’m skipping over that isn’t easy at all. I’ll get to that. I’m just saying it’s easy to record a treasure item in your notes.

I know it’s tempting to blow off the narrative, descriptive bulls$&% part as unimportant, fluffy… well… bulls$&%. I get it. But don’t. I only call it narrative, descriptive bulls$&% because I’ve got a writing style to maintain. The Angry Games brand team rides my a$& like you wouldn’t believe. Truth is, the descriptive part isn’t bulls$&%. And it’s not even narrative. It’s actually part of something I call Double Secret Game Mechanics. Game mechanics so secret even the game’s designers don’t know they exist. But you probably don’t want to hear about that.

The descriptive part’s important because it tells you — and the players — how the treasure item interacts with the game’s world in ways the mechanics can’t account for. It lets the players come up with cunning plans and crazy capers with the said item. And it lets you figure out how their cunning plans and crazy capers work out.

If an item’s just a [common trade good], fine. It’s worth umpteen many gold pieces at the market. Done and done. But if it’s a sack of turnips, then the heroes can give it to a bunch of villagers struggling through a famine. Or gouge the villagers and get way more money than they otherwise would. And if the heroes find a brass horn — the noise-making kind — that’s engraved with hunting scenes and they learn the local lord’s an avid hunter, you don’t need a die roll to know that the lord will be jazzed to receive the horn as a gift when the players try to curry his favor.

So don’t skimp on the narrative descriptions. Don’t blow them off. Describe your treasure.

The narrative description also tells you how to present the item to the players. That is, it tells you what the item looks like. So, you can describe it. Because remember, your job is to tell the players what their characters perceive. Not just spit game terms at them. Of course, that means you’ve got to know what a demirobe is. Or what cloth-of-gold is. Or what a bloodstone looks like. Or a turnip, for that matter.

But look, you’ve got the f$&%ing internet. You can know what a demirobe is or what a bloodstone looks like in literal seconds. It’s inexcusable that you don’t. As if you want to run a game, it’s up to you to do your f$&%ing homework.

It’s natural when you’re describing a treasure item to get detailed. Really detailed. Super detailed. Because every item’s part of the game’s story right? So obviously, every item’s got to have a novel to go with it. Don’t fall into that trap. It’s okay to be vague. It’s okay to say a horn’s engraved with hunting scenes without describing the specifics. Or to say a painting shows a battle between angels and primordials without knowing which battle it was and when it happened and the name of every f$&%ing angel and primordial. It’s okay to describe patterns and motifs and themes. And if the players ask for details, it’s okay to answer with more vagueries.

The urn’s decorated with paintings of fantastic beasts. What kind of beasts? All sorts. Flying ones. Griffons and manticores and s$&%.

You’re not familiar with the specific battle depicted. It’s just a host of winged angels in golden armor fighting an assortment of elemental titans for the fate of the world.

The runes don’t seem to have any specific meaning. It looks like they’re purely decorative. But there are a lot of symbols associated with good fortune or warding against bad luck.

Give each item only as much detail as it actually deserves. You and I both know the urn’s just there for the players to sell. So it doesn’t deserve more than a sentence of vague text. That’s all it needs to make it a thing in the world instead of an [uncommon art object].

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Now, let’s talk about the hard part. How do you go from [uncommon art object] to amphora painted with flying beasts or from [rare trade good] to bundle of darkwood staves?

The DMG helpfully provides a few random tables with a couple dozen specific treasure items. Which you’ll quickly burn through. And you can find more random tables of trade goods and art objects all over the f$&%ing internet. If you want piles of pre-described random objects, you can find them. But I personally don’t find that s$&% particularly useful. Me? I prefer to just have a sense of what kinds of things might be found in a medieval fantasy world. And then I mix-and-match those things as I need to create treasures.

Take trade goods. I just remember that those might include, say, sacks of fruits. And fruits might include melons, peaches, pears, plums, apples, figs, dates, pomegranates, and olives. Or the sack might be full of vegetables like leeks or radishes or peas or cabbages or carrots or parsnips or sprouts or turnips or cucumbers or onions or fennel or beets or lettuce or artichokes. Or maybe trade goods will include grains, either bundled sheaves of grain or sacks of milled grain. Grains like wheat, rye, oat, flax, or barely. Maybe there’s some meat. Haunches or braces of meat or barrels of salted meat. Pork or lamb. Venison, beef, maybe rabbit. Game bird. Fish. Maybe there’s loaves of bread or wheels of cheese or bags of nuts or jars of honey. Or spices. Pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, saffron, cardamom, coriander, cumin, turmeric, mace, anise, caraway, or mustard. And don’t forget casks of mead or beer or ale and bottles of wine and brandy.

That’s just foodstuffs though. What about textiles? Bolts of cloth or skeins of thread. Wool, maybe, or linen or silk or hemp or cotton or hair. What about rawhides? Leather? Fur? Speaking of, what about other animal products? Bone? Ivory? Gut or sinew? And don’t forget feathers.

What about other goods? Parchment or vellum or papyrus? Inks and dyes and paints? Sealing wax? Colored sands? Powdered minerals for decoration? Or sacks or barrels of useful minerals. Barrels of stone or blocks of limestone or marble? Clay? Slate? Daub? Ores like copper or iron or tin? And metals can come in bar form too. Bars of copper or iron or tin. Or alloys like bronze. What about charcoal? And other s$&% that burns. Like wax and tallow and pitch and oil. Or dung. Which makes good fertilizer too.

And don’t forget bundles of firewood and cords or planks of useful hardwood.

What about art objects? Well, you’ve got the obvious actual objects duh art like paintings, tapestries, rugs, triptychs, woodcuts, panels, busts, sculptures, statuettes, carvings, figurines, ornaments, and embellishments. And then you’ve got jewelry, which is art you wear. Bracelets, rings, lockets, chains, necklaces, combs, amulets, chokers, broaches, pins, badges, earrings, studs, circlets, diadems. Snoods? Well, that’s more a clothing item. But well-made clothing items count as art too, right? Robes, gowns, cloaks, coats, blouses, skirts, shirts, breeches, boots, shoes, hoods, capes, sashes, belts, hats, ruffs, and jerkins? Those can all count as art objects.

Honestly, art objects include useful household crap too. Utensils, for instance, like plates, cups, goblets, urns, bowls, pitchers, horns — the drinking kind —, knives, spoons, forks, platters, trenchers, trays, kettles, decanters, and amphora. Honestly, there’s lots of household items you can turn into art. Abaci, candlestick, scales, inkstands, paperweights, pipes, mirrors, game pieces or sets, birdcages — any cages, really —, coffers, boxes, scroll cases, chests, and trunks. Ornate or well-made artisan’s tools count too. As do musical instruments like harps, lutes, lyres, mandolins, drums, castanets, horns — the musical kind —, bells, chimes, flutes, fipples, double-fipples, shalms, and serpent horns.

Ceremonial and symbolic stuff counts too. Symbols of office like scepters, orbs, crowns, coronets, rods, and seals. Ritual items like icons, symbols, mandalas, prayer beads, prayer wheels, gongs, censers, braziers, sprinklers, and incense. Hymnals can be art objects too. Any manuscript or tome or text. Especially if they’re illuminated.

And don’t leave out ceremonial arms and armor. And saddles and bridles and barding too.

Workmanship can turn any normal object into an art object. As can age or historical significance. And so can the material what it’s made from. Items are more valuable if they’re made of bronze, copper, stone, crystal, wood, bone, clay, shell, iron, wool, linen, brass, silver, marble, electrum, glass, porcelain, cotton, fur, gold — solid or leaf or gilt —, darkwood, silk, platinum, elven spidersilk, mithril, adamantium, orichalcum, dragonbone, astral diamond.

Decorations and embellishments make items valuable too. Things can be painted, engraved, embossed, embroidered, inlaid, or jeweled.

Of course, the kind of jewel matters. There’s common jewels like agate, azurite, crystal, lapis, malachite, obsidian, tiger eye, and turquoise. And then there’s less common jewels like bloodstone, citrine, jasper, moonstone, onyx, rose quartz, smokey quartz, and zircon. Rare jewels include amber and amethyst and coral and garnet and jade and jet and spinel and tourmaline. And pearls. Unless they’re black pearls. Those are very rare. Like alexandrite and aquamarine and topaz and peridot and opal. Then there’s the really rare, really valuable gems. Gems like diamonds and emeralds and rubies and sapphires.

Gems vary in quality, of course. Gem quality is dependent on the size, the cut, the luster, flaws, and damage. So inferior gems might be small or uncut or flawed or just dull. Or of simple cut. Superior gems might be large. They might be intricately cut. They might be particularly lustrous. Or flawless. They might even be star gems. Those are things, you know? They’re really pretty.

Then too, an item’s quality can vary from the norm. Any object might be undersized or oversized, overripe, spoiling, shabby, substandard, worn, broken, bent, tarnished, or weathered. Or they might be plump, pristine, exotic, antique, intricate, or exceptional.

Point is, I know it’s hard to come up with treasure items. And random tables aren’t that useful. The best solution’s just to build a rich vocabulary. Or find someone else willing to share their rich vocabulary. To just toss off four or five hundred treasure-related words to mix and match to your heart’s content. Hell, if I had the time, I’d probably do that for you myself. But can you imagine how long this article would be if I included such a list? Besides, I’d just be showing off.

So, I really can’t help you. Sorry. You’re on your own.

Burying Treasure

I’m sorry I can’t help you describe the treasures in your game. But I definitely can help you decide what treasures to put in your game. Mechanically. That is, I can help you stock your adventures with treasure.

The adventure-stocking process is a simple, two-step thing. And you do it on an adventure-by-adventure basis. That is when the players accept a quest or choose a goal or set out to complete a major objective and you design all the scenes and encounters that’ll happen to them, you also determine how much treasure — and what kinds of treasures — they’ll recover along the way. Or, at least, have the chance to recover.

To simplify this s$&% further, when you create an adventure, you build a Treasure Trove. That’s my name for the pile of non-magical, non-useful valuables the heroes might find. Not counting incidental, individual pocket change s$&% which I’ll explain at the very end of all of this.

A Treasure Trove is just a list of treasures for you to scatter around your adventure. It includes a big ole pile of cash — which you’ll break up and spread throughout your dungeon or whatever — and a list of treasure items — trade goods, gemstones, and art objects — that you’ll also hide throughout your adventure. The total value of all the cashy money and the average, expected values of the treasure items? That’s the Trove’s value. And the Trove’s value is based on the tier of play or experience level for which you’re creating the adventure.

For example, let’s say I’m making an adventure for my 6th level party. That puts them in the Adventurer Tier and Treasure Troves at the Adventurer Tier are worth about 2,500 GP. I might break up that 2,500 GP thusly:

• 20 platinum coins (200 GP)
• 400 gold coins (400 GP)
• 900 silver coins (90 GP)
• 1,000 copper coins (10 GP)
• 1 [very rare gem] (1,000 GP)
• 1 [superior very rare trade good] (500 GP)
• 1 [inferior rare gem] (250 GP)
• 1 [common art object] (100 GP)
• 1 [uncommon gem] (100 GP)

That’s a Treasure Trove.

Generally, a good Treasure Trove’s about one-third coins and two-thirds items. By value. Not quantity. Which usually means there’s a half-dozen individual items. Which is totally manageable in gameplay. It takes about 15 minutes to do all the valuation bulls$&% necessary to turn six to twelve valuable items into cash back in town. And about one in six items should be of modified quality. For better or worse.

That said, it’s up to you to decide whether that works for your game. And whether it makes sense for your adventure. If your players like finding items instead of cash and you can handle the paperwork, maybe twelve to eighteen’s a goodly number of items. Maybe even six is too many and three’s enough for any given adventure. It’s also up to you to decide the right balance of trade goods to gemstones to art objects. I can’t tell you what makes sense for your world or your adventure.

But, assuming you can make those simple f$&%ing decisions — that you can actually handle running a f$&%ing game — I can help you build a Treasure Trove at any level of play based on those assumptions. Hell, I’ve come up with two different methods. You can build a Deliberate Trove or you can roll Fistfuls of Dice.

Deliberate Trove Building

Building a Deliberate Trove’s easy. You start with the total value of the Treasure Trove. And you use that value to buy coins and items.

Here’s how it works.

First, decide whether you want a normal treasure distribution or whether you want a Trove with lots of coins or fewer coins. Then, consult this table to find your Trove’s value and the breakdown between coins and items.

Deliberate Treasure Trove: Value by Tier

			More Coins		Normal Trove		Fewer Coins
Tier of Play	XP Level Range	Value of Trove (GP)	Value of Coins (GP)	Value of Items (GP)	Value of Coins (GP)	Value of Items (GP)	Value of Coins (GP)	Value of Items (GP)
Apprentice	1 - 2	350	175	175	100	250	50	300
Journeyman	3 - 5	1,500	750	750	500	1,000	300	1,200
Adventurer	6 - 8	2,500	1,250	1,250	700	1,800	500	2,000
Veteran	9 - 11	5,000	2,500	2,500	1,500	3,500	1,000	4,000
Champion	12 - 14	25,000	12,500	12,500	7,000	18,000	5,000	20,000
Heroic	15 - 17	50,000	25,000	25,000	15,000	35,000	10,000	40,000
Legendary	18+	100,000	50,000	50,000	35,000	65,000	15,000	85,000

Break the coin value down into appropriate denominations for your adventure. Then, use the item value to buy items for your Trove at the following prices, remembering that inferior items are worth half as much and superior items are worth twice as much.

Deliberate Treasure Trove: Item Value by Class and Rarity

Rarity of Item	Trade Good Value (GP)	Gemstone Value (GP)	Art Object Value (GP)
Common	10	50	100
Uncommon	25	100	500
Rare	50	500	1,000
Very Rare	250	1,000	5,000
Legendary	500	5,000	10,000

You can buy items however you want. But if you can’t handle the whole blank page thing and want a more systematic approach that’ll give you four to six items, try this:

Divide the total item value you’ve got to work with in half and buy a single, appropriate item for that amount. Or as close as possible without going over. Subtract the item’s worth from the total value and then use up to half the remaining budget to buy another item. Subtract it’s worth, use half the remainder to buy another item, and so on. Once your budget gets low enough, just use the remainder to buy a few small items to fill out the Trove.

Say I’m building a normal, Adventurer Tier Treasure Trove worth 2,500 GP. I break the 700 GP worth of coins down into 20 p.p., 400 g.p., 900 s.p., and 1,000 c.p. Then I start buying 1,800 GP worth of items. Half of that budget is 900 GP. I buy a [rare gemstone] for 500 GP and I’ve got 1,300 GP worth of items left to buy. Half of that is 600 GP. I buy another [rare gemstone]. Now I’ve got 800 GP left. Half of that is 400 GP, which nets me an [inferior uncommon art object] worth 250 GP. With 500 GP remaining, I buy a [superior common art object] for 200 GP, an [uncommon gemstone] for 100 GP, a [common art object] for 100 GP and decide that’s good enough.

Of course, if I ignored the spend no more than half the remaining budget system, I could also build the example trove in the above section. That’s also a 2,500 GP Treasure Trove with 1,800 GP worth of items.

Regardless of how you fill out your Trove, make sure it makes sense for the adventure you’re building and the world that adventure takes place in. Don’t put trade goods in tombs. Don’t give orc savages a bunch of platinum coins. Use your brain.

And don’t sweat it if you can’t hit the value exactly. If you’re under or over, that’s fine. The numbers matter a lot less than the fact that this s$&% makes sense. Trust me.

Rolling Fistfuls of Dice

Do you like rolling a whole bunch of dice? Do you have a bunch of d6s? Great! You can build a Dicey Trove the Angry Way. Which’ll look complicated at first, but actually goes very quickly. It takes about ten minutes to build a Trove. Especially if you’ve got ten or twenty six-siders sitting around. Especially especially if you’ve got a few distinct colors or styles to work with. You’ll need three or four d-sixers in two different colors or styles to distinguish them from the rest to do this the easy way. Otherwise, you’ll have to make some sequential rolls.

Start with this table:

Fistful of Dice Treasure Trove: Trove Dice and Coin Multiplier by Tier

Tier of Play	XP Level Range	Trove Dice	Coin Multiplier (GP)
Apprentice	1 - 2	2d6	25
Journeyman	3 - 5	3d6	50
Adventurer	6 - 8	3d6	100
Veteran	9 - 11	4d6	250
Champion	12 - 14	4d6	1,000
Heroic	15 - 17	5d6	2,500
Legendary	18+	5d6	5,000

Find the number of Trove Dice and Coin Multiplier for your tier of play. Then, decide how many Trove Dice to allocate to coins and how many to allocate to items.

Roll the Trove Dice you allocated to coins and multiply by the Coin Multiplier. That’s the total value of the coins in your Trove. In GP.

Next, roll the Trove Dice allocated to items. That’ll tell you how many individual treasure items there are in your Trove. Gather that many d6s. One for each item. Rolling those dice a couple of times will tell you the quality, class, and rarity of each item. With me so far?

Quality first. Grab all those Item Dice and roll ‘em. Any dice that show a one represent items of either inferior or superior quality. Roll those dice again — just the ones — to determine whether each is inferior or superior. Low rolls — one to three — are inferior quality items. High rolls — four to six — are superior.

If you’ve got a bunch of colors to play with, you can replace the inferior quality and superior quality Item Dice with differently colored d6s and roll everything at once. Otherwise set the inferior and superior Item Dice aside. Keeping track of which is which. You’ll have to roll them on their own later to see what they are.

Now you’ve got a bunch of Item Dice. Some are normal quality items. Some are inferior. Some are superior. But what kinds of items are they? This table will tell you:

Fistful of Dice Treasure Trove: Item Class by Trove Profile

d6 Roll	Balanced Trove	More Trade Goods	More Art Objects	No Trade Goods	No Art Objects
1	Trade Good	Trade Good	Trade Good	Gemstone	Trade Good
2	Trade Good	Trade Good	Gemstone	Gemstone	Trade Good
3	Gemstone	Trade Good	Gemstone	Gemstone	Trade Good
4	Gemstone	Gemstone	Art Object	Art Object	Gemstone
5	Art Object	Gemstone	Art Object	Art Object	Gemstone
6	Art Object	Art Object	Art Object	Art Object	Gemstone

Choose a treasure profile — those are the column headers — based on the adventure you’re writing. Then, pick up all the Item Dice and roll them. Based on the rolls, separate the dice into three different piles, one for the trade goods, one for gemstones, and one for art objects.

Now to determine each item’s rarity. Here’s the table:

Fistful of Dice Treasure Trove: Item Rarity by Tier (XP Level)

d6 Roll	Apprentice (1 - 2)	Journeyman (3 - 5)	Adventurer (6 - 8)	Veteran (9 -11)	Champion (12 - 14)	Heroic (15 - 17)	Legendary (18+)
1	Common	Common	Common	Common	Uncommon	Rare	Rare
2	Common	Common	Common	Uncommon	Rare	Rare	Very Rare
3	Common	Uncommon	Uncommon	Rare	Rare	Very Rare	Very Rare
4	Common	Uncommon	Uncommon	Rare	Very Rare	Very Rare	Legendary
5	Common	Uncommon	Rare	Rare	Very Rare	Very Rare	Legendary
6	Uncommon	Rare	Rare	Very Rare	Very Rare	Legendary	Legendary

Grab the Item Dice that represent the trade goods and roll them. Consult the table and you’ll know the rarity of each of those trade goods. Write that s$&% down. Then do the same with the gemstone Item Dice and the art object Item Dice. If you used different colored dice to track the quality, you’ve got a few inferior and superior items mixed in. Don’t forget to note that.

If that ain’t clear enough, here’s an example I rolled up in five minutes.

I’m working at Adventurer Tier again, so I’ve got 3d6 to allocate between coins and items and a Coin Multiplier of 100 GP. I like items, so I allocate two dice to items — those are the white dice — and one die to coins — the yellow die.

The five on the coin die means the coins in the Trove are worth 500 GP. The white dice tell me I’ve got 7 distinct treasure items. I grab myself 7d6 and give them a roll to see if I’ve got any inferior or superior items mixed into the Trove.

Three ones! Three items of unusual quality. I slide the other dice aside and reroll the three ones.

One low roll means one inferior item. Two high rolls mean two superior items. I’ve got lots of colored d6s, so I replace the inferior Item Die with a red d6 and the superior Item Dice with green d6s.

To find out the mix of trade goods, art, and gemstones, I pick up all the Item Dice, roll them…

… and then divide them into piles of trade goods, gemstones, and art objects.

I’ve got two trade goods — one inferior quality — two gemstones — one superior — and three art objects — one of which is superior quality.

I put the gemstone and art object dice aside and roll the trade good dice once more to find out their rarities…

I make note of the [Inferior Uncommon Trade Good] and the [Rare Trade Good]. Then, I put those dice away and roll the gemstone Item Dice.

I note the [Superior Common Gemstone] and the [Rare Gemstone] and then roll the art object item dice.

My lucky players will have a chance to find a [Superior Rare Art Object] worth an average of 2,000 GP, the lucky f$&%ers. There’s also a [Common Art Object] and an [Uncommon Art Object].

All I’ve got to do now is describe each item.

And, of course, stock the adventure with all that crap.

Stocking the Adventure

A Treasure Trove’s a list of all the treasure the heroes are going to find in the adventure you’re building. Not counting the pocket change individual monsters might be carrying. I’ll discuss that at the end.

Except that ain’t quite true. I mean, the part about me discussing pocket change at the end? That s$&%’s true. But the part about the heroes finding all the treasure in a Trove during an adventure? That’s not true. Not quite. Really, the Trove represents all the treasure — the cash and the items — the heroes might find as they undertake an adventure.

And where might they find it? Well, the simple answer is anywhere. Locked in treasure chests, filling the backpacks of dead adventures, forgotten and discarded in ancient vaults, piled beneath sleeping dragons, stacked up in bandit camps, safely stored in the safe in crime boss’ offices, and so on et cetera ad nauseum. This is Dungeons & Dragons. You know where adventurers find treasure.

Of course, the heroes can acquire treasure in other ways too. If a patron NPC hires the heroes to do some dirty work, he’s going to have to pay the party. That pay’s part of the Trove too. And payment for optional objectives and side quests? Also part of the Trove.

Here again, the simple answer just ain’t good enough. This is another thing you — the adventurer writer — have to figure out yourself. Where’s all the treasure in the Trove actually found? Where will the characters actually find it? How will they acquire it? That’s up to you to figure out. Deliberately and purposefully. So that it makes some kind of f$&%ing sense in the game you’re running. And since I don’t know what kind of game you’re running or what kind of adventure you’re writing, I really can’t help you.

Except I can. I can give you some basic rules of thumb.

First rule of thumb? The heroes should acquire at least half the treasure in the Trove — by value, not by number of items — as a direct result of completing the adventure’s objective. If the heroes go dragon-slaying, the dragon’s hoard should comprise at least half the treasure. If the heroes do some dirty work for a king, the king should hand them a sack containing half the Trove’s treasure. And if the king hires the heroes to kill a dragon, half the treasure should be divided between the dragon’s hoard and the patron’s payment. At least.

Make sense?

Well, sometimes it doesn’t make sense. Obviously, if the heroes are plundering an ancient ruin on the off chance it contains a whole bunch of treasure, all the treasure in the Trove’s probably just scattered around the ruin. That’s fine too. But whenever possible, the heroes should get half the Trove as a prize for finishing the adventure. At least half. Half or more. After all, dragons are notorious whores. That’s the noun form of hoard, right? One who hoards is a whore? I can’t be a$&ed to look this s$&% up. Whatever.

Point is, the half thing is a rule of thumb. Break it when it makes sense to break it. If the heroes are hunting for a legendary lost treasure, that treasure might contain two-thirds or three-quarters of the Trove. As might a whoring dragon’s hoard.

Second rule of thumb: after you allocate half or more of the Trove to completing the adventure, half the reminder should lie on the path to the finish line. As the heroes explore the dragon’s lair, for example, they should find at least half of what’s left in the Trove. Maybe as archaeological finds in the ruins the dragon calls home. Maybe in the personal piles of the dragon’s chief minions. Or on the corpses of the adventures who didn’t survive the dragon’s guard monsters or traps.

Third rule of thumb: whatever’s left after you’ve put a bunch of treasure at the finish line and a bunch more treasure along the racecourse? Squirrel that away down optional paths or hide it behind secret doors or give it to optional mini-bosses to guard. Or allocate it so NPCs can pay the heroes for doing side quests or completing optional objectives.

Since you’re heading to the dragon’s lair anyway, I could really use some lava blossoms that only grow in the hearts of dragon-infested volcanos. They really spice up a salad.

Crap like that. Point is, the remaining treasure should be optional, hidden, or otherwise missable. What that means is up to you. It depends on the adventure.

Final rule of thumb: it’s okay — good even — if some amount of the on-the-way and optional treasure is unguarded. In corpse backpacks, untrapped and unlocked chests, sitting in offering bowls, or whatever. But don’t leave more than one-third of the treasure unguarded. Make sure the heroes have to work for two-thirds of the on-the-way and optional treasure. Doesn’t matter if the work entails defeating encounters, dealing with traps, solving puzzles, discovering secret doors, overcoming obstacles, taking risks, or spending resources. Just make sure there’s a risk or cost or effort involved.

Remember, this s$&%’s just rules of thumb. Just guidelines. Do not break out a calculator to figure out any of this s$&%. Don’t overthink it. It’s about feels, not thinks.

And with that, now you know how you should handle treasure.

Except for one little note about pocket change.

One Little Note About Pocket Change

Troves contain all the significant treasures the heroes might find while they do hero things. But while they slaughter their ways across the world doing hero things, the heroes also do a lot of scrounging for pocket change. That is, they search a lot of bodies. Individual goblin mooks and orc brutes and footpads should have some personal funds on them. But it just ain’t worth micromanaging that s$&%. It’s worthwhile to give major NPCs — the goblin shaman, the orc underchief, the named bandit lieutenant — some treasure out of the Trove to call their own. It ain’t worth splitting up hundreds of coins from the Trove between the dozens of cannon-fodder minions that fill out the adventure’s encounters.

Don’t do that. Instead, just give the monsters some appropriate pocket change. It ain’t going to break anything. Hell, I don’t even assign pocket change in advance. I just roll it up when the players go scrounging. Generally, I assume poor mooks have 1d6 c.p. in their pockets. Average mooks have 2d6 c.p. and 1d6 s.p. And the well-offest cannon fodder has 3d6 c.p., 2d6 s.p., and 1d6 g.p.

It ain’t worth giving it any more thought than that.

And with that note, now you know how you should handle treasure.

Finally.