I’ve always found the way many RPG games dole out loot to be a bit strange. Many games encourage you to roll on a table based on some sort of tiered approach to determine the loot the players get, and then you try to find a way to fit it into the narrative of whatever adventure they’re on. But sometimes it’s very odd and you get very weird situations like defeating a fire elemental dropping a +1 shortsword in 5e, and that has been hard for me.

Because of this, I tend to not roll on the tables to determine loot for my games, but that can be a bit cumbersome, especially when playing Voidrunner’s Codex. There’s no real loot system or advice in the book, you’re more encouraged to check out Trials & Treasures and determine how many credits they should earn per level by converting gold to credits, and then kind of figuring it out from there. Even if I don’t use the roll tables in 5e, I can at least look at them for an idea of what would be appropriate loot for the challenge they just fought. No such reference exists for Voidrunner’s Codex.

I’m currently working on a supplement to help GMs who prefer rolling on tables for loot to determine what loot comes up from encounters, however, the approach I’ve been using is that the only loot they’re going to find on enemies is the gear they’re wearing – usually nothing special – or some general gear or medicinals they can find searching cabinets, containers, etc. If they want the good stuff like specialized modified weapons, advanced gear, etc. they need to seek it out themselves.

Players Planning Sessions

I like to think of this as offloading the mental load of determining what adventures the players will undertake and what they’ll find there onto the players themselves. If they are about to come into contact with a powerful alien creature that they know spews acid, can crawl on walls, and spawn more little aliens, they’ll want to be prepared for that.

This is when you would encourage them to look for equipment that’ll help them. Some quick ideas are:

• Ways to get acid resistance
• Increase their own mobility
• Have equipment that works in an area of effect.

As an example, these can come in the form of an armor mod, jetpacks, and grenades. Grenades I leave pretty readily available – they just need to find a weapon shop – but the others I usually require for the players to acquire from a location or find a specialized seller.

This results in checks to find information, a travel sequence for them to get to the location with the gear they need, and then either spending credits to obtain them or going on a short adventure to find them. They then need to travel again to where they plan on fighting that strange alien creature, equip what they need to fight it, and then prove their preparation brought them success.

Encounter Design

With this idea in mind, you can change the way you drop hints and encounters. You can throw a lot more powerful creatures at your characters as quest hooks if they are able to learn more about it ahead of time and prepare by seeking out specialized equipment. It also rewards player ingenuity, and makes them a lot more proactive in the way that they engage with the setting.

This does also mean you need to provide plenty of opportunities for players to study and learn about threats they are going to face ahead of time. Luckily in a sci-fi setting, information is a lot easier to access than in a fantasy setting (though there are of course ways to mitigate this in fantasy, especially if you are playing in a high magic setting). Encouraging the players to speak with NPCs, hack into terminals, and spy on locations will present plenty of opportunities for them to learn more about a future threat.

Location Design

This does mean you need to focus more on the locations that these encounters serve. You need to carefully study whatever statblock you are using, see what tools that creature has to defend itself and its layer, and create the location to best serve that creature. It ups the danger, but also better rewards any preparations the players make to take on that encounter.

However, not every preparation has to deal with a monster hunting style mission. If they want to plan a heist, then they’ll need equipment for surveillance and scouting to gain more information from the location, infiltration equipment tailored to the defenses they discover, and possibly an escape plan in the form of a vehicle. All of these can lead to additional smaller missions, adventures, etc. for them to get better equipped. At minimum, at least, it’ll serve as a credit sink.

Choosing Rewards

Since players are now deciding where they want to go so they can get the equipment they need to accomplish a larger goal, picking out loot drops becomes a lot easier. They just defeated a bunch of ruffians? The loot is their blasters, combat knives, and synthweave armor (I tend to make these damaged if they are looted after a fight). They fought a xenid? There’s no real loot by default, but maybe they can harvest their acidic blood to create a compound.

The real loot is going to be in secured armories, storage facilities, and as rewards from NPCs, all of which has been informed to the players ahead of time as they seek to get better equipment. The best part here is you don’t need to have an integral knowledge to how their characters work to know what loot might actually be useful to them – they’ll tell you what loot is useful to them by actively seeking to acquire it.

Downtime

This type of gameplay does lean more toward adding more downtime to your game. Downtime is a great opportunity to acquire new information, but also a great way to get any crafting needed to get the equipment players need. It helps resolve player subgoals, gives you a bit more information toward what the player cares about, and helps further the timeline along to make your player characters’ progression make just a tiny bit more sense.

Overall, incorporating this method of loot acquisition helps alleviate the burden on you as the game master from having to prepare these things ahead of time. You know what they’re looking for, so you can plan your adventures and sessions with the loot they’re looking for in mind, so you can put more of your energy to making interesting locations and encounters.

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