Hey all,

so I have had multiple players ask me outside of the game to change the way people get loot, mainly due to one player in particular. During our last encounter anytime there was loot the player would just state that he is taking it and not care about other player interests. Any ideas on what I should do? Or should I just sit back and let the Players handle it themselves?

Could you expand on that description please?

Was this player deliberately looting whilst everybody else was too busy fighting or engaged in actually surviving whatever situation resulted in this loot being available?

Or claiming everything ignoring the fact they aren't alone and shouldn't be hogging the treasure or whatever it is unless they keep what they found a secret?

Do they own the groups ship too?

Seems a mite odd what exactly happened?

Talking to the problem player will likely help to put a stop to it immediately. Just let them know that you think it would be more fair if the other players can have a chance to do things first.

But if they won't listen, then right after combat you can ask one of the other players what they plan to do, what to take, and so on, and then ask the another player, and so on. You could also try tracking their encumbrance more closely, make sure they're not trying to carry a huge number of things and subsequently cause them to take pause and consider what to drop/take.

Or you could just penalize the player for carrying a mountain of stolen gear with serial numbers, names, or organization/army markings on them.

What is the player doing with the loot?

Too little information to give advice. What kinds of players? careers? specs? backgrounds? type of theme of the game itself?

Could you expand on that description please?

Was this player deliberately looting whilst everybody else was too busy fighting or engaged in actually surviving whatever situation resulted in this loot being available?

Or claiming everything ignoring the fact they aren't alone and shouldn't be hogging the treasure or whatever it is unless they keep what they found a secret?

Do they own the groups ship too?

Seems a mite odd what exactly happened?

Basically they are grabbing stuff without worrying about other players who would need the items, or are better equipped to use them.

What is the player doing with the loot?

So far its weapons and creds. Though the party has lost all of their gear and most are armed with only truncheons and improvised weapons. Being that this game is only in its third session, Im not sure if he is rp'ing his character or just being a ****.

If he is just being a jerk, then out of character conversation one on one might be called for. If he is in character, then I'd say the PCs crying to you need to gang up and beat him down in game, that's how thieves typically settle things.

I'm amazed that the other players aren't just like... No. And then divvying things up. Certainly at my table, the other players would bully someone into line. It does sound like they should speak up at the time.

Depends.

1. If he's stripping opponents of all weapons and armor, consider there may not always be time to do this before the next danger shows up. He can often be pushed along.
2. If he's picking up 5 blaster rifles from the Stormtroopers they just defeated, slap him with the encumbrance rules. If he grabs a vehicle to load up that kind of loot, refer to #1 above.
3. If he's grabbing everything and keeping it for himself without sharing with the rest of his party, consider letting the party handle the situation in-character. "Hey don't take everything we want some too!". If it goes south, then step in as Referee and talk to the players and/or put some table looting rules in place to make it fair. It may be silly for Star Wars, but I recall PCs rolling for treasure picking order in D&D (even role-played that the party had a set of dice in-game for treasure division). All unwanted loot that is picked up gets sold and the credits divided evenly or put in a party fund to save up for large purchases? If it's gear they want to keep, roll dice if two PCs both want it. Only one pick at a time and the value of whatever you grab gets deducted from any credits you walk away with from sold items.
4. If the player reverts to his PC pilfering items before the other PCs know they exist - If it's not in-character for his PC, tell the player so. If it's completely in-character for his PC to do such, make sure he makes Skullduggery checks when he grabs something. Eventually his roll will fail and the other PCs can confront the PC in-game without the Players themselves having to confront the real Player - see #3.

What is the player doing with the loot?

So far its weapons and creds. Though the party has lost all of their gear and most are armed with only truncheons and improvised weapons. Being that this game is only in its third session, Im not sure if he is rp'ing his character or just being a ****.

What are the other players saying?

One of my players was a loot ninja. After pulling this at my table a few times I caught wind of his shenanigans and quit rewarding him with gear. Every body he checked had empty pockets, every bag of coins was copper, and every chest was empty or worse, trapped.

Loot Ninja's are the result of selfish metagaming players. Even the ones who are roleplaying greedy selfish characters force their fellow players to roleplay badly by looking the other way.

I view a loot ninja as a metagamer and a cheater and I treat them as such by doing it right back.

Not quite sure how this is happening with other players at the table. Is he just stating that he scoops everything up? If he is, how does he justify being able to do such a thing with all the other characters standing around? And why are they allowing this? If you really must, you could just stop everything and do a round robin allowing each character to choose one item each until all is picked up. Otherwise, as others have suggested, you would do well having a discussion with him/the group.

He can't take anything if it's nailed down and on fire.

He can't take anything if it's nailed down and on fire.

...or if he's under fire. One way to cut down on looting is simply to not give them any time to do it. A battle shouldn't always be fought to conclusion with lots of breathing room, at best it should be the briefest of intermissions before the chase is on again.

Really, looting is a carryover from other systems that assumes you "slay all the orcs and take their stuff" and then sit around the campfire and sharpen your blades. But Star Wars is constant motion. The Empire (or whatever opponent you have) has endless reinforcements, keep them coming. Hyperspace is about the only safe space, and there's no loot there.

As per usual, this is not an in-game problem, but an out-of-game problem. Trying to solve it in-game won't work very well. The group needs to tell the player that he's being an ass and he needs to stop before he gets kicked out of the group. It's possible he'll slip up a few times and say "I grab the assassin's blaster!" At which point the GM needs to say, "No you don't." No explanation, no calling for other people's input, just "No."

Trying to solve this in-game will just result in the other characters pulling blasters on the loot ninja, then killing him, then the player getting pissed off and yelling, and then walking out and y'all not being friends again.

This isn't an MMO. There's no "Rolling Need or Greed." There's no grabbing the purple item and logging out and just finding another group tomorrow. Everyone is working together, and if they're not, he gets kicked out and loses all his stuff.

To cure the loot ninja I would start using Gene Lock on everything. The moment he picks something up without the party consenting to it then have the Gene Lock go off. Eventually, he'll learn to stop being an ass. Usually, it requires losing a hand or two, but they always learn the hard way. After they lose a hand or two, play it up to make his life difficult. Got to eat? Who is going to feed you? Have to use the bathroom? Who is going to help you? This teaches them that this is a group game and if his character loses an extremity then it will be very difficult for them to survive by themselves.

A nice polite conversation with the Ninja sounds in order, find out why he is doing it first. Probably want to explain the Encumerance rules to them, and tell them there will be other story consequences for looting every dead or unconscious NPC they find.

Really, looting is a carryover from other systems that assumes you "slay all the orcs and take their stuff" and then sit around the campfire and sharpen your blades.  But Star Wars is constant motion.  The Empire (or whatever opponent you have) has endless reinforcements, keep them coming.  Hyperspace is about the only safe space, and there's no loot there.

I agree. I propose a treaty with my players: if you play like you’re in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, I’m going to GM like I’m in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. And you don’t want me to GM like I’m in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Who knew that Spheres of Annihilation were Force artifacts?

Honestly, I don't think this is really on the players. except the one who is being greedy with his fellows, and they should deal with that themselves. Players loot when they have no other goals. The GM controls the downtime. If they are always under pressure until they do the job, reach the safe haven, rescue the princess, or what have you, then looting goes away.

I don't think looting is the problem. The problem is being unfair and greedy. Looting is just the manifestation of the problem.

Honestly I don't understand why people get quite as frothy as they do over looting. The game is it's own worst enemy to a certain degree. This whole 'keep the players hungry' suggestion in my mind. You make people hungry, they default to looking for ways to feed themselves. That's a tangent though.

Even if you impose some kind of 'looting is sukky' rule, does that make the player fair and not greedy? It's the mind set that needs addressing. Cure the disease, don't just treat the symptoms.

I agree with some of the previous posts - It's a result of the shoot & loot D&D genre of RPGs. TBH I had this mentality for the 4 or 5 sessions of playing Edge, mainly just for weapons and armour... eventually we just looted some blaster pistols/rifles for extra weapons around the ship if we get boarded by pirates. Now we just get on with it - we've got the ship mods, weapons, armour we want.

The trick is to keep the action moving, there really should not be time to loot - unless it's part of the plot (to find co-ordinates on a BoSS pad, the name of a contact etc)

In the Outer Rim, if I was running a game the only possessions would be:

their melee/ranged weapon of choice

enough creds for a drink or two at the local bar/cantina

the clothes/armour on their back

I.D. if neccesary for the planetary law

also.... consider the PC's Obligations AND the fact that the now dead NPC(s) had friends and family...

ONLY punish the individual player. Get the other players to speak up. Give the players a loot sheet where they first write out what they find and then divvy it up.

OR choose someone each week to book keep.... names of major NPCs, loot, planet names... that way loot ninja has to wait to be loot ninja.

I played with 'doorknobs, hinge & handles' players.. during a dungeon crawl they'd remove the metal doorknobs/handles and hinges from EVERY door, then melt it down as scrap at the next available smithy's forge ( I'd had enough after 6 games and quit) the worst thing was the GM allowed it, even with the level specific gold, other rewards and XP increments.

Switch the action to swoop chases, dog fights, social interaction, places that disallow weapons on the premises.

ALSO... EoTE Core Rules, pg 151 that blurb in the dark grey box! I blame the writers

This isn't an MMO. There's no "Rolling Need or Greed."

And yet this is exactly what D&D groups I've been in for decades have done (see description above). It worked fine*. Gold was split evenly. We rolled for a loot order. Any items left over as not wanted were sold when possible and converted to gold. It doesn't feel Star Warzy, but if the group is having such a problem with looting it can and does work. We did it long before MMO's existed.

*Well there was possibly one exception, but I didn't recall it as a bad thing at the time or now. A long term group I was part of rolled 2D6 for loot order whenever we found a large treasure. During the first round of picks you couldn't pick anything you weren't going to use (need before greed). It was simulated in-game that the one of the PCs carried around dice. We did this for months (years?) in an on-going campaign. Then we started noticing that one player was way too lucky on the loot rolls. It was eventually revealed the player had purchased some loaded D6's then had his Magic-User create some magical cheater's dice (rolled good for him only) in-game after speaking to the DM. The player was allowed to roll the loaded dice to simulate the magical in-game dice. When the gig was up (via Detect Magic spell on the dice) we didn't kill the PC and had a great laugh about it actually due to the player's creativity.

Just a thought but if he's the one grabbing all the loot wouldn't that mean if someone comes looking for them and uses some marked goods that was taken when their friend/relative or subordinate who was in charge of the Emperor's nick knack when they were killed wouldn't that mean the looter is the one they will track down since it isn't being filtered via the entire group but just that one pc...?