So, I admit I have not thoroughly read the rulebooks cover to cover, but I didn't find any guidance on how much loot to give out relative to how much XP I'm giving out (compared to say D&D 3.5/Pathfinder that explicitly tells you how much loot a party would expect to get each level). I'm an experienced enough GM in various games to go with my gut (which is why I haven't bothered to read the GM section very thoroughly), and I generally play a pretty fast and loose game with a lot of improvisation on the spot rather than a highly organised and well planned game, but I wondered if any GMs would care to share their opinions on loot distribution.

You'll get a lot of answers. I think personally you'd best stick to your instincts and the group you know. I do things very differently in regards to costs as I find prices on ships and vehicles to be completely wonky in relation to personal items. I bill xp in conjunction with attachments and mods, as well as, high end items, which I know drives some people into a froth on this forum, do go with what works for you.

I keep my players starving. Really.

I give 5 MAYBE 10 exp per game. I award +- 5000 credits if they finish the task. No lightsabres, no crystals ( we have just completed around 10 games now ). They're on the basic ship from the beginners game with 1 upgrade. One holodiary that enabled one player to finally learn force move basic. ( they have the options to get lighsabres but just didn't figure that out yet )

With that being said, I'm trying to be fair with body loot. When an enemy drops he drops his gear - guns, grenades, comlinks etc. Doesn't matter really as my NPC's ( pawnshops, rebels etc ) buy it back for a fraction of what it's worth

( depends on the negotiations of course ).

My advice, keep them hungry - makes the sense of accomplishment much better when they get something nice and shiny :-) And keeps the game more basic. If you're too liberal with loot, credits, XP then sooner or later your players will be really strong and that will make the game ..well less fun.

I would strongly encourage a good read through the GM Chapter. It really helps you get into the feel of the game, and IMO helps you read between the lines when it comes to rules interpretations, and helps in making in-game rulings. Even experienced GMs can get some good info from it.

In answer to the question at hand, in my opinion, a solid gaming session of 3 hours should net PCs around 15 XP and roundabout 900 credits' worth of gear apiece, on average (this is inferred from Knight Level play rules in Force and Destiny, where they give rules to start with "experienced" or "advanced" characters, explaining that the 150 extra XP and 9,000 extra credits' worth of gear represents their adventuring up to this point).

This is only a loose guideline, of course, and I would say "go with your gut" more than anything, especially if it's worked for you so far

Depends on where you want your players to be in the economic spectrum. It also depends on if you're accounting them to death with food, fuel, docking fees, etc. If you're constantly draining their funds and never giving them an opportunity to earn anything, then don't be surprised when they start stealing everything that's not nailed down and bringing along some hammers to help with the rest.

On the other hand, I've had pretty awesome games where money didn't matter and ships and gear were used once and then discarded to maintain secrecy. It all depends on the context of the game.

The important thing to note is to allow your players to have goals and make progress -towards- those goals.

Yes, I consider Gear and Guns as Fair loot for the players..

They of course may need to take them to a Merchant to unload...

I have Pawn shops and used dealers around for hat purpose.

and that is, of course, if they don't want to keep them..

watch out for marked gear.

In my games players don't get much loot. They got a lot of money but there is a reason for that. Docking fee, fuel cost, food cost etc. So if they get 10k credits about 1/3 of this money goes to pay ship expenses or even more. Also they always have some spare money for bribes, information and some other expenses.

As for loot my players mostly don't loot enemies. I had one player who always took everything after a battle but when few times he was ambushed while looting he learned that a better way to have equipment is to do your mission and buy it. Anyway i think weapon, armor attachments are good reward, ship upgrade, some items player need to be succesful in their role (like medpac for doctor or slicer kit for slicer). In this game your starting blaster can be powerfull weapon after you get some mods and people don't need to get better bigger weapons to be effective. Which is fine since my players rather have their old trusty blaster than loot enemies for better guns.

This is a pretty controversial topic. I have a very different interpretation of the concept of "keeping them hungry" than some do on here. Some seem to think that this means basically starving your players. The way I see it, it means they should be hungry--as in always wanting more. It doesn't mean you keep them on a shoestring budget where nobody can afford to upgrade their gear. It means what you don't do is give them so much money that they have everything they want. They should always have something they're saving for.

RPGs are meant to be fun, and part of the fun of the game is the growth of character. This doesn't just mean roleplay. It means experience--gaining new abilities, and it means money--gaining new toys to play with.

Another thing worth mentioning, some character concepts require far more credits to realize than others. If you starve your players, you may well prevent one or more of your players from realizing his concept.

This is a pretty controversial topic. I have a very different interpretation of the concept of "keeping them hungry" than some do on here. Some seem to think that this means basically starving your players. The way I see it, it means they should be hungry--as in always wanting more. It doesn't mean you keep them on a shoestring budget where nobody can afford to upgrade their gear. It means what you don't do is give them so much money that they have everything they want. They should always have something they're saving for.

RPGs are meant to be fun, and part of the fun of the game is the growth of character. This doesn't just mean roleplay. It means experience--gaining new abilities, and it means money--gaining new toys to play with.

Another thing worth mentioning, some character concepts require far more credits to realize than others. If you starve your players, you may well prevent one or more of your players from realizing his concept.

I take that this is somewhat directed at me :-) Let me try and shed some light as to what i meant in my previous post.

Prior to running any adventures in the Star Wars world with FFG system, I've browsed this forums for tips and tricks. One particular topic caught my attention - one about the difficulty level when players start to be overpowered. It seems that if one allows his PC's to advance faster ( more loot, better loot, more XP, quick access to FORCE powers etc ) he will eventually have to throw ridiculous enemies at the PC's to give them some challenge.

I chose to slow things down. Maybe my wording was off ( with English not being my first language ). What I meant by saying hungry, starved etc is :

1) My players get little Credits as raw award per completed mission/adventure. Instead they get items or they clear their obligations. For instance they have received a crate of illegal alcohol, ship upgrade, transponder to mask their ships identity. Holo diary to learn a force power ( A message from a young padawan to his father where he shows what he has learned, somewhat like a modern email from a collage student to his parents ).

That's more or less payment after adventures.

2) I consider force being the must fun but also the most OP skill set and direct danger to the game balance . To tackle this I deliberately slowed down my group in ways of learning new powers. My two force sensitive PC's can buy all the talents from the exile tree as I consider this a instinctual use of force. Power however have to learnt from books/holocrones/mentors etc.

I might consider other options if a PC is creative. Trust me I can't wait when they start using force more often so i can finally involve some vicious inquisitor :-)

3) Lightsabres. I'm OK with this weapon as it can be moderated with the crystals that players find. learning how to fight/use this weapon however is a different story. Again, mentor, holocrons etc.

4) Modifications. This is pretty common in my group. The droid mechanic is cannibalizing every piece of junk he finds ( great option to utilize his talents) and literally swims in spare parts that he then uses to construct modifications both to their ship and their weapons.

Long story short, I think they like it. with every little reward they're super excited. While I don't have to use that adversary level 5 nemesis yet :-)

Art.

There's a d100 loot table - https://app.box.com/s/o4jl4sb3na0d0bpukp88- always useful to keep the game moving forward.. especially if they roll 100 on the 'rare item' list

Thanks everyone for sharing, it's been an interesting read. I'm pleased to find out that I haven't missed some definitive guidance, but thanks to awayputurwpn for pointing out the Knight level XP/loot comparison.

For my part I've been going down the popular route of keep feeding them titbits but keep them hungry. Initially they were struggling to even have a weapon each (after they dropped their best blaster during a speeder chase) but now that they've overcome that hurdle (after they killed their first few Stormtroopers they at had at least one blaster rifle each) and got out of the financial debt of paying off their massive starship repair bill from their first disastrous dogfight they now are in a state of basically having enough money for their basic needs and any small bits of kit they want, but not yet able to afford expensive toys. I did give them a bit of a weapon upgrade when they were ambushed by well equipped bounty hunters and one player in particular is very thrilled with their new sniper rifle, but in my game if you shoot up an enemy then their armour is of course wrecked. If a player was particularly interested in salvaging parts from multiple foes to get a working set I'd allow it but they don't seem bothered.

My game is more story/roleplay based than shoot and loot anyway, so I don't think they've really had time to stop and think about shopping, the plot keeps rolling on.

My game is way to the opposite side. One of my fellows players runs his campaign credit poor and comments regularly on how my game it "raining credits". It just as my story line follows a group of intergalactic hit men. They are not exactly working for chicken feed here. They usually have the opportunity to earn between 10,000 and 20,000 per play session. The group divides up a portion of the loot to the crew and puts the bulk in the ships hold. They are sitting on about $150K right now in their ship. They could go on a spending spree anytime they wanted, but are always saving for that big purchase.

With that being said the party is constantly being screwed out of their full reward. I promise 50K for a job and they walk away with 15K. This makes picking up blasters and vibroknifes pointless though as it's too much hassle. They can't buy restricted equipment but unrestricted stuff is fair game. Where the choose to go determines the rarity level and if they want to buy too much I just say it's not available.

I guess the moral of my story is the right amount of your loot is determined by your story. There is no right answer in my book.

I guess the moral of my story is the right amount of your loot is determined by your story. There is no right answer in my book.

I definitely agree with that. Sounds like your rewards are perfect for your game.

If the party is walking around with stormtrooper rifles at this point, I really hope they aren't carrying them anywhere that there is a chance of running into Imperials. If so, then tonight's adventure is running from the Empire. Restricted, and all that.

This is a pretty controversial topic. I have a very different interpretation of the concept of "keeping them hungry" than some do on here. Some seem to think that this means basically starving your players. The way I see it, it means they should be hungry--as in always wanting more. It doesn't mean you keep them on a shoestring budget where nobody can afford to upgrade their gear. It means what you don't do is give them so much money that they have everything they want. They should always have something they're saving for.

RPGs are meant to be fun, and part of the fun of the game is the growth of character. This doesn't just mean roleplay. It means experience--gaining new abilities, and it means money--gaining new toys to play with.

Another thing worth mentioning, some character concepts require far more credits to realize than others. If you starve your players, you may well prevent one or more of your players from realizing his concept.

I take that this is somewhat directed at me :-) ....

Not specifically, no. There are a lot of people on here who go light with the cash and/or xp, for the same reason as you, usually. One guy on here once talked about going so far as to make it such that his players ran from combats because they couldn't afford to get hurt.

It sounds like your reward system is working for your players, and that's the important thing. I know I'd get frustrated with so little advancement though.

This is a pretty controversial topic. I have a very different interpretation of the concept of "keeping them hungry" than some do on here. Some seem to think that this means basically starving your players. The way I see it, it means they should be hungry--as in always wanting more. It doesn't mean you keep them on a shoestring budget where nobody can afford to upgrade their gear. It means what you don't do is give them so much money that they have everything they want. They should always have something they're saving for.

RPGs are meant to be fun, and part of the fun of the game is the growth of character. This doesn't just mean roleplay. It means experience--gaining new abilities, and it means money--gaining new toys to play with.

Another thing worth mentioning, some character concepts require far more credits to realize than others. If you starve your players, you may well prevent one or more of your players from realizing his concept.

I take that this is somewhat directed at me :-) ....

Not specifically, no. There are a lot of people on here who go light with the cash and/or xp, for the same reason as you, usually. One guy on here once talked about going so far as to make it such that his players ran from combats because they couldn't afford to get hurt.

It sounds like your reward system is working for your players, and that's the important thing. I know I'd get frustrated with so little advancement though.

Well true,they don't go up that fast as recommended in the books. But I'm trying to think into the future here. I got all 3 books - and plan to move through the elements of the game - we play once a week. Is it that slow of a progress?

Shelf life and time frames on campaigns will guide rewarding PCs.

Nothing wrong with some narrative restrictions on some game elements, particularly the Force, too much potential there for sessions to just skip over it and reduce it to simply spending xp.

I don't spin up over cash but I've made some house rules about costs, and expanded the sorts of things xp can and needs to be spent on. Makes it easier to reward PCs for me.