It certainly seems like Loot is the essential fuel of Torchbearer (as befits a game of bedraggled murderhobos…). After all, without Loot you’re stuck at Resources 0, and then you’re sleeping in the street, and the rolls will go against you more often than not. And the only way to replace the gear your evil GM keeps taking away is to strip it off the corpses you make, and they never have anything nice. Besides, without any money you’re probably loaded down with conditions.
In fact, Loot seems like it will act like a difficulty slider–increase the Loot, and the players can stay at nicer places in Town, and afford to do more there without failing Lifestyle Maintenance checks. Decrease it, and they’re living on the ragged edge.
So, with that in mind: are there any guidelines as to how often the group should be finding loot, and how much of it?
Well, Under the House of the Three Squires has 24D of loot for the taking, not counting incidental loot from Wandering Monsters. Much of it is hard to recognize or difficult to carry. In general, groups tend to come out with a lot less.
For a group of 5 characters, we generally feel like we’re making progress if we can haul out 18D to 20D of treasure. About 3D to 4D per character. Early on we made due with less than that!
Awesome! I saw the guidelines on Loot per encounter, so I think together I can cobble together a reasonable amount. For my intro adventure I’m already planning on having coins and gems mortared into the wall (along with lots of cheap colored glass) in a mosaic, and some gear in a trash pile, as well as stuff on victims encased in webbing.
(As an aside, I did some poking around to find other such sliders, and I found several. One is low-Ob conflicts - give a few of these, and the party will be awash with checks (since they can afford to take some big check-earning penalties. Another is the ease of finding a safe place to camp, though that’s a bit obvious. One of the most dangerous things that can possibly happen is for the party to get stuck somewhere they can’t camp.)
Or getting separated. In many cases it’s a very tempting twist. But it’s incredibly harsh. Don’t do it unless you know the group can handle a serious challenge.