What Is DKP? Dragon Kill Points Explained for Guilds

What is DKP?

DKP stands for Dragon Kill Points. It is a points ledger a guild keeps for loot. Members earn points for showing up and helping out, and they spend those points to claim items that drop. The more you attend, the more points you hold, and the stronger your claim on the next item you want. Officers set the prices and the rules, and the ledger shows every member where each point came from and where it went.

Guilds use the name in games with no dragons too. Today the term means any points system for loot: pay members in points for attendance, and charge points for items. The ledger decides who gets each item from a record everyone can read, instead of from an officer's call or a dice roll.

How a DKP system works, step by step

A DKP system has four parts.

1. Earning. Members get points for attendance: showing up on time, staying to the end, being there for a boss kill. Some guilds also pay points for standby or for crafting for the guild.
2. Spending. When an item drops, members who want it spend points on it. Either they bid, or the item has a fixed price.
3. The ledger. Every award and every purchase goes into one record, with a date and a reason.
4. Upkeep. Decay shrinks balances on a schedule so they don't grow forever. It is optional, and many guilds use it.

A worked example

The numbers here are an example, not a recommendation. Say your guild pays 10 DKP for arriving on time, 5 for each hour at a camp and 10 for a boss kill. A player who arrives on time, stays three hours and is there for one kill earns 10 + 15 + 10 = 35 points.

That night a cloak drops, and three players want it. In this example the guild runs an open auction with a 5-point step:

Player A wins at 45 and drops to 75. Players B and C keep their points. If the guild used a fixed price instead, say 50 points in this example, the cloak would cost 50. Player C couldn't afford it, so the guild's tie rule would pick between Players A and B.

The ledger then shows 35 points earned by each player present and 45 spent by Player A on the cloak. Any member can check it.

Common DKP styles

Guilds mix and match these. The style sets how DKP bidding works when an item drops.

Fixed price

Each item, or each kind of item, has a set cost. Members who want it say so, and a tie rule picks the winner. It is quick to run, but prices need retuning as better gear comes in.

Open bidding

Members bid in public, in steps, until one bidder is left. Everyone sees what each item went for. But a player with a big balance can outbid everyone on an item they barely need, and long bidding wars slow the group down.

Sealed bids

Each member sends one private bid, and the highest bid wins. Some guilds charge the winner their own bid. Others charge the second-highest bid plus one step, which takes some of the guessing out. Sealed rounds are fast and stop people from reacting to each other's bids.

Zero-sum DKP

The points a player spends on an item are split among the other players present. Points move between members instead of being created, so the guild's total stays fixed and prices don't creep up. In the strict version everyone starts at zero and balances can go negative, so the guild's total is always zero. The cost is more math on every drop.

Decay

Decay removes a share of every balance on a schedule. It works on top of any style above, and the next section explains why guilds use it.

Why guilds add decay

Without decay, balances only grow. Over a long stretch that causes trouble.

• Hoarding. A player can sit on a large balance and win any item they want later, even when it matters more to someone else.
• Inflation. As balances grow, bids grow with them, and an item's price stops telling you much.
• New members can't catch up. A recruit who joins months in may never reach a veteran's total.

Decay takes a percentage of every balance each period. A large balance loses more points than a small one, so the gap between veterans and new members shrinks. Players who keep attending earn their points back.

Here is an example with made-up values. Each week the guild removes 10% of every balance, then pays 50 points for attending. A veteran starts at 1,000 points and a new member at 100.

Both players are heading for the same balance. To see where a steady attendee's balance settles, divide weekly points by the decay rate. In this example that is 50 ÷ 0.10 = 500. Use that number when you set item prices, so a player who attends every week can afford the items you care about most.

What DKP solves and what it creates

Where DKP helps:

• Transparency. Anyone can check the ledger and see why a player won an item.
• Less officer judgment. Officers set the rules once instead of ruling on every drop, so no single officer carries the blame for a call.
• A reason to show up. Attendance turns into buying power.

Where it causes trouble:

• Hoarding. Large balances win whatever they want, unless decay or a cap keeps them in check.
• Alts. Alts can soak up points or bid against mains unless your rules say how they earn and spend.
• Gear going to the wrong role. The highest bidder is not always the player the item helps most. A damage dealer can outbid a tank on a shield the tank needs.
• Bookkeeping. Someone has to record every award and every purchase.

DKP next to other loot systems

The main options compare like this.

Loot council swaps the ledger for officer judgment. It works best when members trust the officers and the group is small enough for officers to know everyone's gear. Our loot council vs DKP comparison covers both in more detail, plus hybrid setups.

Rules to write down before the first award

Write these rules down before the first item drops, and post them where every member can read them.

Tracking DKP: spreadsheet, Discord bot or guild tool

A good DKP tracker lets a member see their balance and every line that changed it without asking an officer. The options differ in how much officer time they cost.

A spreadsheet

It is free and familiar. An officer types in every award and every bid by hand, runs decay with a formula, and fixes mistakes that get hard to trace once several people edit the sheet. It suits a small guild with one patient officer.

A Discord bot

Members bid where they already talk, and balances update when an auction closes. Check what the bot does about attendance and decay. If it only runs bids, an officer still feeds it points by hand.

A guild tool

The ledger connects to events and attendance, so points go to the members marked present instead of names an officer types in. It takes setup time and usually a subscription, and in return it removes the weekly data entry.

How CoGM runs DKP

CoGM keeps the DKP ledger next to your events and attendance. For Monsters & Memories guilds, our Discord bot also runs loot auctions. DKP is a Pro feature. As of October 2026, Pro costs $10 a month per guild. An M&M guild on the Free plan has a read-only ledger, and its attendance and quests pay 0 DKP.

• Attendance awards. On Pro, attendance and quests pay DKP, so points come from who actually showed up.
• Scheduled decay. Run decay daily, weekly, every 2 weeks or monthly, at the day, hour and time zone you choose. Each period applies once, and missed periods are not replayed. Every run posts a summary to your announce channel.
• Manual decay with undo. Officers can also run decay by hand and undo a run.
• Discord loot auctions. Officers post up to 5 items at a time with /auction start, open or sealed, with a minimum bid, a bid step, anti-snipe and an optional scheduled start. Open auctions can carry a buyout. /auction bulk posts up to 25 items at once.
• Fixes after the drop. Officers can list sold items still waiting for handover, undo a sale, give an unsold item to a member, run a recorded roll-off with optional MS/OS tiers, or relist an unsold item.
• Balances for members. Members check their balance and the points held in open bids with /auction status.

New Monsters & Memories guilds start with two-minute sealed rounds: minimum bid 1, step 1, the winner pays their own bid, and ties go to the bidder with better attendance. Presets also cover a quick open round and 24-hour sealed or open auctions.

Setup steps are in our DKP docs. The M&M DKP tracker and M&M loot auctions pages show how it works for that game, and pricing lists what Free and Pro include.

If your guild plays Black Desert Online or Throne and Liberty, our guides to DKP in Black Desert Online and DKP in Throne and Liberty cover running points on your own. As of October 2026, CoGM's DKP tools don't support those two games.

DKP in Monsters & Memories

Monsters & Memories entered Early Access on October 1, 2026. The developers balance its content for small groups, from two or three players up to six, and say the game is built around grouping. Dungeons aren't instanced: groups hold camps in open zones that every player shares, and as of October 2026 the developers have no plans to add instancing. Fights that need more than one group come as world events and open-world targets, and the developers don't plan a raid progression track as the main endgame.

That changes how a DKP system fits an M&M guild:

• Award per camp, not per raid night. Pay points for camp hours and named kills, and a larger award for world events that bring several groups together.
• Keep rounds short. Since the September 30, 2026 patch, corpses of NPCs above level 60 last 28 minutes, up from 8. A two-minute sealed round fits inside that window. A long open auction does not.
• Expect small bidder pools. A single group is small, so only a few players can use any one drop. Fixed prices or sealed bids usually fit better than open bidding.
• Decide No Drop items first. A No Drop item can't be traded or dropped, so whoever loots it keeps it. Pick the winner before anyone loots. A Lore item can only be equipped one at a time, so check that the winner doesn't already wear one.
• Roll the leftovers. For items nobody spends points on, the in-game /random command rolls dice.

Our Monsters & Memories guild guide covers the setup step by step, from creating the guild in game to your first sealed round.

FAQ

What does DKP stand for?

DKP stands for Dragon Kill Points. Guilds use the name for any system that pays members points for attendance and lets them spend those points on loot, in any game.

How does DKP decay work?

On a set schedule, every balance loses the same percentage. Large balances lose more points than small ones, so hoarding stops paying off and new members can catch up. For example, with 10% weekly decay a 1,000-point balance drops to 900 before that week's earnings.

Is DKP fair?

DKP is transparent, because every point has a recorded reason. Whether it is fair depends on your rules. Without decay, alt rules and main-spec priority, players with the largest balances can take gear that would help someone else more.

What is zero-sum DKP?

In zero-sum DKP, the points a player spends on an item are split among the other players present. Points move between members instead of being created, so the guild's total stays the same and prices don't inflate.

Can you run DKP in Discord?

Yes. A Discord bot can post auctions, take bids and update balances in your server. On CoGM, officers in a Monsters & Memories guild run auctions with /auction, and members check their balance with /auction status. DKP and auctions are part of Pro.

Run DKP without the spreadsheet

CoGM keeps the ledger, decays points on your schedule and runs loot auctions in Discord for Monsters & Memories guilds. As of October 2026, Pro costs $10 a month per guild. The first Monsters & Memories guild you create in a community gets a 14-day Pro trial that starts with its first /upload, with no card needed.

Create your M&M guild or compare Free and Pro.

Sources: Monsters & Memories official gameplay page, Early Access page, new player guide and community FAQ, and patch notes 0.30.2.1 (September 30, 2026). CoGM feature details come from our own product and docs.