Non-Experience Awards

This dry list was compiled from various posts on rec.games.frp.dnd.

Rewards to give characters besides experience and gold: These are good because they can add to the interest of the game, and can all cause as much harm as good.

• Maps to lost treasures or civilizations.
• Consultations with oracles.
• Information about a rival.
• Location of a secret passage into/out of a castle.
• True (or false) knowledge of the workings of the universe.

• The bards start singing your praises.
• You're in the chronicles.
  • Someone might want to take you down to make himself a reputation.
  • Privacy is reduced.
  • Everyone wants your help.

• Prove devotion to a girl through ungood tasks, etc.
• Carry her token into battle.
• Get her parents' permission and blessing (need money).
• Marriage, children (must be supported).
• Teach children.
• Kids leave home – endless possibilities.

• Lands.
• Tax-collecting.
• Immunity from tolls.
• Hunting rights.
• Timber rights.
• Monopolies.
  • New responsibility.
  • Deal with bureaucracy.
  • Deal with people who want your power.
  • Rights may have been taken from someone else to reward the char.
  • People might try to discredit you to get the rights for themselves.

paintings, sculpture, music boxes, clocks, ancient tomb transcribed with a famous but lost speech, books (poetry, philosophy, science, lore), combs, buckles, buttons (now known as cuff-links), clips, broaches, bangles, beads, jewelry, gold chains (sometimes hundreds of yards transported to a jeweler), fur cloaks, fine leather and wood saddles with silver or gold inlay and carvings, barding

Cylinder: pinned cylinder plucks the tune from a comb of tuned steel teeth.

Disc: tags of metal from perforated disk used to pluck a tune from a comb of steel teeth using asterisk-shaped “star wheels.” It's easier to change a disk than a cylinder, so these replaced cylinders quickly. Made in elaborate cases with lots of inlay and intaglio, fancy carvings, etc.