In a way this relates to last week's post about how fast PCs level. It's about the GM who hands out a heck of a lot of toys and treasures during the game. Suddenly the PCs have access to all kinds of toys.
Mind you, I'm going to talk about 3.5 type games. I'm looking at 5e and there's less of a chance of this happening due to the restriction on magic items but it can still be done. Any game where there's loot given out it can be done. And it's far too easy to slide into that problem.
I consider it a problem. Having been on the receiving end I've got the perspective of seeing what happens in the game when PCs have access to really powerful stuff. And I've seen what happens when the GM simply can't keep track of what they've given out.
I'll give examples.
My PC acquired a sentient weapon that also had several magical abilities. We were of a high enough level that it wasn't completely inappropriate. But the weapon didn't have what I consider to be necessary limits on it. That meant every morning everyone in the party could use it to get four different magical effects for the day and we did. By getting those effects (I can't find the card with all of them) we got the benefits of a lot of higher level spells being cast on us in a way that we couldn't have done if we didn't have that shiny toy. It might not seem game breaking but when you have +10 resistance to something and +2 to an attribute and so on and so on it's going to make it so the PCs are more overconfident of their abilities. And it means taking options away from the GM.
My PC also had masterwork armor and enough money was given to us that I could have multiple magic effects put on it. That armor almost didn't need my PC to function at the end. It was impossible to catch me unarmored as my PC had the ability to summon it and be fully armed as a fast action if my PC was within some distance of it. It turned spells. It did all kinds of things. My PC was not just a tank but also some other kinds of offensive and defensive weapon.
Finally I'll get to one of my best stories. It has to do with careful bookkeeping, judicious GM management, excellent dice rolling, and good players. As the party accountant my PC was very careful (that meant I was as the player) to note what we got, how we got it, where we got it, and when we got it. The GM had one of her pet NPCs (who was like 35th level or something) give the party 3 bags of dispelling dust she made so we could accomplish a quest for her. I noted that down. We used 2 of them in the quest. I noted their usage. We never gave back the last one.
In a different encounter a couple of years later we were up against a wizard who polymorphed himself into an adult dragon. This is where it gets fun. I had that dispelling dust and threw it at him. Since it was created by her pet NPC it easily defeated his save and he went back to being a squishy wizard. The warlock turned him into a greasy smear. What was supposed to be a huge boss fight was over in one round.
The GM was upset and asked where we got that. When I pulled out the paperwork and told her exactly what happened she had to accept it. She gave it to us, she didn't remember to ask for it back, we used it in an appropriate situation. It was really her own fault since without that magic item it would have been the big boss fight she prepped.
Side note - she later tried using Mordenkainen's Disjunction on us in another encounter that wasn't going her way. If you're not familiar with this spell it's a nasty one to cast on your players. The short version is that any magic item you're not carrying has to make a saving throw or lose its magical ability. It's kind of the equivalent of trying to take away all the magical loot the PCs have acquired.
The group rebelled and said if she was going to do that then we all quit. We were at pretty high levels so we had a lot of high level magic we'd found or bought. This was seen as the cheap trick it was and we called her on it. She backed down in the face of unanimous group opinion and realized that she couldn't give out stuff and take it back because she got played.
Anyway. To summarize the point of this. Be careful about how much loot you hand out. It's fun to give the PCs stuff they can use. It's fun to give them treasure. But it's also a way to unbalance your game and set expectations that every treasure pile is going to have magic items and piles of gold. Judge it carefully so the loot is appropriate to the encounter. Just don't go the other way and make the players perpetually poor. That's another blog post too.
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