Optional Rewards for Monsters:

Most Recent AAIE Update:

Added quick ideas for characters harvesting and selling parts of the monsters they slay. 
Updated the three example monsters to include my most recent additions. (Resolve point spread, and Harvestable resources.)

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In AAIE characters don't get experience like characters get in other games. So in that way there is no reason to kill a monster if  the  party can just get the hell away from it.  That was a design decision based on the realization that Characters in AAIE  will vary from  Incredibly valid and effective to woefully ineffective failures waiting to die.

The basic rewards for slaying a monster are two fold. One there's usually some quest going on that will net the party some status or financial reward upon successfully returning to town. Secondly a player may roll well enough (could be badly enough) or do something interesting enough to gain a story point.

For clarity story points are the "experience" of this game. Unlike normal experience based systems they aren't numeric, they are actual descriptions of things that happened in game.
For example:
"Fletch knocked a door down and  killed the  Blood Beast standing behind it with one mighty kick."
Or
"The inn Keeper was so smitten with Vale he  feed her and the whole party for free!"
Gathering these story points is how characters gain levels.

Today I was thinking another level of reward that the players would have to take an active role in would be good to have. I  started writing some options that allowed charters to harvest resources off of the  carcass of the monsters they kill. Things like wool, scales, and glands.

The gm would decide if the monster has any acceptable parts to harvest, and how difficult the parts will be to remove. If a character has the proper skills the player can roll to see if any of the  resource can be harvested. Failure indicates no, success indicates yes, and great success  represents a higher quality product being found. The value of the  resource will be based on the resources quality. Naturally in game this will take time, and characters might be safe standing around removing the musk glands from every ogre they meet. At least the options is there. Once back in town the  characters could sell these items for Gold crowns.
This being AAIE I included 1d20 types of resources that can be harvested from creatures in chart form. (I sort of had to)

So why do this?
I mean it's 100% optional and unnecessary. I don't think it would happen with every monster. The Gm could simply say "these creatures are not known to have any useful parts." It's best for occasional use during a game.

Here's what the game gets out of occasionally using something like this:

1. One more excuse to roll the dice. Which given how critical fails work in AAIE is very important.
2. The players have to initiate this kind of thing, giving them one more way to voluntarily interact with the world in a solid way. It's a reward they have to choose to pursue.
3. Another use for some of those skill that characters get when they are created.
4. Smart characters will be better at harvesting than brawny ones.
5. Another excuse to interact with NPCs back at "the town." Bring the apothecary some pixie ambergris and that apothecary may tip the party off to some other resource they can go after. Sell some Vampire snail blood to the wizards school and they might teach the character a new key word. Give the Caravan a bunch of  Mutant-rhino horns and they may come back on their next trip with the potions made from those horns.
6. World building. AAIE is sneaky in that it is actuality about world building one tiny piece at a time. Once the players have harvested warm maple-syrup from mutant lobster, they will always remember that those lobsters are full of valuable sugary, goodness. Even if the characters involved are long dead, maple syrup lobsters are part of the world. The players have interacted with the lobsters beyond, "I hit it it's dead!"

As always thanks for reading.

-Mark