I am a first-time DM and I have homebrewed a campaign. In my last session, I had a sort of hunting festival. Party members were given a chance to go out into the woods and hunt down animals. When they brought them back to the city, they would be paid 1 gold per pound. I made 3 rings in the forest and my players went into the most dangerous ring. After doing some rolls, their encounter was with some mammoths. I didn't think of it much at the time but my players managed to kill the mammoths and they are now taking a long rest before heading back to get their gold. They plan to have one person run back to grab an official with some wagons. Then hauling back the mammoth meat. However, I didn't realize that mammoths weighed a **** ton and will give the party 24,000 gold for it all! They are only a level 4 party and there are 6 members. So this would equal to 4,000 gold per person. That is far too much far too soon. I was thinking about compensating with some homebrew items I made but realized these items are considered a rare level. Too powerful for the party just yet. And they just turned level 4 so I can't quite justify it quite yet. These homebrew items are a plot point but again, it's too soon so I can't use them quite yet. How do I justly give my players all of the reward money without it seeming I am railroading or 'punishing' them for a mistake I made?
I suspect your players grossly overestimate how easy it would be to move twelve tons of mammoth. Carts are for roads, they're going to just have to get transport animals (around sixty mules will do the job), and if they're wandering around in a hazardous area said mule train may get eaten by a monster...
Oh man, this is actually amazing and I might steal this and turn it into a low lv side quest kind of thing.
An entire wagon will only carry 400lbs total and that is if where that are can even be reached by a wagon. Keep in mind that wagons are meant to travel on roads and I doubt there is a road leading to where they were hunting.
You can no unleash all kinds of predators/scavengers/hungry monsters on them that will be attracted to the carcass of a massive dead animal. Maybe even other adventuring parties will want to come and steal meat for the reward money. Or maybe taking 24,000 lbs of meat that far takes so long that it's rancid by the end of the trip.
You have a scenario where they can take a manageable amount, make it out easily and cash in or try to be greedy and deal with the consequences.
Perhaps have a hiring fee deducted from the reward for all the wagons, animals and extra hands they need to hire in order transport all that meat back to the city before it spoils. Have a little fun with it and allow the person that ran back to try and haggle the hiring prices.
How do you get a dead mammoth onto a wagon? Unless you can shrink it, I just don't think it's feasible. The PCs would need some form of magic to move them at all, otherwise they need to cut the mammoths into pieces.
Where do you find a wagon that can take the weight of a mammoth? Standard wagons won't take that kind of weight. They're made out of wood, and intended for some agricultural produce or a few passengers.
Overall, I'd say that it's not feasible to transport a mammoth.
How do you get a dead mammoth onto a wagon? Unless you can shrink it, I just don't think it's feasible. The PCs would need some form of magic to move them at all, otherwise they need to cut the mammoths into pieces.
Where do you find a wagon that can take the weight of a mammoth? Standard wagons won't take that kind of weight. They're made out of wood, and intended for some agricultural produce or a few passengers.
Overall, I'd say that it's not feasible to transport a mammoth.
I would assume they would have to hire butchers along with the wagons and pack animals to cut up the meat. Which means more hiring fees ftw lol.
I might have the official take a look at the mammoths and reply, "Well, to be frank, I don't think we can afford to pay you for the weight of these monsters. If you want to start bringing it in we'll have to talk to the (Mayor) about how much we can afford to give you. You know, we were really thinking wolves, badgers and foxes when we wrote that ordinance. This, well, this is a whole 'nother matter."
And then you could offer to give them a lump sum of gold and one magic item, and the town takes responsibility for retrieving the animals.
Roll dice for or decide on the number of wagons available. Roll dice for the success and speed of competitors and how quickly they got the wagons.
They've got to cut up the meat. Say that it "they would be paid 1 gold per pound" for a whole animal (festival parade trophy)but a lesser rate for bits. Suggest a reward for the head and tusks but less for the rest. That would be great RP to parade the head through the town as spectacular winners while reducing the colossal gold outlay.
In addition to all the fees mentioned above to hire wagon teams, butchers, caravan guards, (and the cost of feeding them for the journey) it is likely that there will be a requirement for purchasing a traders license, customs import taxes, fees for quality and hygiene inspections, the local merchants guild would probably require the pc’s pay to join the local guild and so on. There are a huge number of taxes and fees that could be levied to reduce the reward to whatever you feel appropriate (or make it not worth their effort to do).
How much usable meat can you get off a mammoth? I'm sure a lot of that weight is bone, fat, tough muscle. A skilled butcher could probably get a good amount of meat off, but are your players skilled butchers? Maybe with a good survival roll they only recover 500lbs of meat.
OR, you could just tell them "whoops, my bad as a DM. Let's say it's a copper per pound instead." Players understand that DM's are still human.
I'd go for either the "we can't afford to pay you for all of this - you win, but we can only afford 500gp" option, or the "You want to hire 30 wagons and 60 strong folk to haul the mammoth back over the course of 3 days? That'll cost you 5 gold per man per day, plus 50 gold per wagon per day...".
Simplest option to move the plot along is a maxed-out reward and the town will sort it out. If you are freestyling on a sandbox, have the mayor offer them a plot of land beside the town as reward, which may or may not have all sorts of cool things in it.
Final option is to make it a plot device - they ventured into unknown territory, where meat rots unnaturally fast - for there is a necrotic presence in this forest...
I might not even worry about it. So, they have a lot of money. Big piles of gold are not all that unbalancing as there is very little in this edition for them to spend it on. If you have a magic shop, maybe there's a problem, but then you control the inventory of the shop, so that fixes that. Otherwise, what are they going to do with it all? Buy a boat? Just give them the win. They went for the hardest option, and they won. Now they get to feel cool cause they have a lot of money. There's still nothing much to buy with it.
Alternatively, you could say the town offers them a non-cash reward, like a small plot of land with a house on it so the PCs have a base of operations, which is always fun for players to have. They get to feel cool about having a base, and the town gets to have a group of adventurers who are now suddenly very invested in making sure the town stays protected and thrives. It might shift the tone of the campaign, but it can also be really fun.
If you really like this idea, go ahead and steal it. To give full context, this is a large city that holds many of the country's armies. They are a very isolated and snow biome. So on the fall equinox, there is a hunting festival called the White Stag festival. It started out by a goddess sending her god animal to the mortal plane once a year. This animal is a White Stag (used giant elk stat sheet) and it is said that once the stag is slain, the hunter would receive a gift. In this case, I made it to be a part of the antler falling off and can cast Bless once per day. Also, if the stag is slain the territory gets blessed with a whole year of bountiful harvest by the goddess. The hunting competition lasts for 3 days. So the party will be able to adventure into the forest to hunt and return. Even if they don't kill the stag, they can still get hold.
During the hunt, there are three 'rings or zones'. The first zone is the outside of the forest, mainly holding bunnies, squirrels and maybe a bear. The next ring is more dangerous and holds more beasts and monsters. The ones in the inner part of the forest are deadly encounters but still doable. For each ring, I chose 6 beasts/monsters. Then I asked the party to do a survival/perception check and then a stealth check. Using the average for the stealth check. Once they did so, I will determine what animal they find or fight based on their rolls. And if their stealth is good, they don't scare the animal away or get a surprise round.
The Stag is for, however, you wish to have it show up and to see if the players can even hit it. Spotting it or tracking it is a high DC. I chose 20 and had one player able to pass it with a perception check. They got lucky and were able to kill it when it was 420 feet away because of the ranger. While my players don't know this yet but if they take that blessed bit of antler to the heart of the forest and lay it on the alter, they will receive a gift. The goddess of the event will show up and change the blessed antler to a wish spell. But getting to the heart of the forest is a whole other matter.
You can alter this or do things differently. Its all made up by me so go ahead and tweak what you like. I hope it helps!
Ask yourself, how many creatures are nearby that might be interested in a free meal?
A mammoth is a lot of food.
1) A Roc, a dragon, any dinosaurs nearby? How about a basilisk? There are any number of possible creatures/monsters that might live in the forest and could be attracted by that much meat.
2) As mentioned - how many wagons are needed to transport 24,000 pounds of meat? How will they preserve and store it? If the townsfolk KNEW that there are mammoths in the forest they would have capped the amount of gold they would award in any contest. Where did the mammoth come from? Also, what are the odds that the city or whoever organized the hunt even HAS that much coin lying around? If the city had planned to pay a maximum of 1000gp then you could either have fine print in the contest that the players didn't notice OR have the city promise to pay the 24,000 gold at a rate of 1000gp/year over the next 24 years. I'm sure that the notices didn't say they would pay all the money upfront right away.
If the characters complain then (unless they are evil) the city could mention that they could increase the payments to 3000gp/yr but then they could not support the orphanage and other good works and some in the city would starve. The city could also negotiate in other ways - perhaps offering the party valuable information that the city council was saving to sell.
3) Let the characters have the 24,000 gold. It is up to you what is available. If you've been using the typical 5e guidelines then magic items are usually NOT for sale so they can't spend the money there - unless you want to offer up ONE really expensive item :). However, other than buying plate armor, most of the money characters get can be used to purchase property - a business, a town house or even a small keep that the party can call home. Players love to have the feeling of some roots in the game and purchasing property - like a headquarters for their group - can be a great sink for gp since it has initial costs and upkeep costs while mechanically contributing little to what the party can do. The party could buy a titled block of land with a run down keep that they need to invest heavily to restore room by room (popular mini-game in a lot of computer RPGs for example). They could then start calling themselves Baroness or Baron but they are also now responsible for the folks that live on their lands - eg keeping them safe from threats - could add a whole new direction to the campaign.
P.S. Just a comment from personal experience, I would tend to avoid giving the party a Wish at 4th level unless your players are the type who will tend to save it up to resurrect a dead companion of something like that. Wishes are too easy to misuse and abuse.
OR, you could just tell them "whoops, my bad as a DM. Let's say it's a copper per pound instead." Players understand that DM's are still human.
Yeah, I think you may be better off owning the error and saying "my bad as DM, this encounter wasn't meant to break the economy". Look over how much stuff costs in the PHB and realize 1 GP for a lb of meat is astronomical. A whole pig costs 3 gp. "Modern agriculture : fantasy" fallacies aside, quick googling shows hogs yield between 150-200 lbs of meat when butchered. Let's be conservative and say 50 lbs. of generic meat is a gp. That brings your prize purse down to 480 gp. You can inflate that for exoticism of the meat, though why wouldn't mastodon be part of the community diet if they're right next door to the community? You can also boost it up for exotic materials like tusk or hide. Or you could reduce because meat to rest of body ratio. You'll see in published adventures purses in the 100-200 gp. range (not always clear whether that's for party or person) offered up to literally save the village from an existential threat is fairly norm for lvl 1-3 parties*, and we're just talking about a one encounter "prize" in this instance. Like if the village was being threatened by mammoth trampling, 400gp. and rights to the carcasses might be fair game, so to speak on a few levels, for a level 4 party.
Of course, as many will tell you, there's not a lot to do with 24,000 gp in 5e. So if you don't mind the possibility that the characters can now afford the best weapons and armor and maybe stock up on some spell components to provide contracted clerics for resurrection, you could run a party of Bruce Waynes.
*I'm a big advocate for homebrewing your own games myself. However, I also encourage new DMs, if they don't run a few, at least read a few adventures. There are little bits of game logic not explicitly put forth in the PHB and DMG that can be teased out, in this instance commensurate monetary awards for particular tasks.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I assume a festival deliberately gives out somewhat elevated prices -- I would probably put general hunting at 1-2 cp/lb, which is consistent with the prices for goats and cattle, but for a festival they might hand out more. Still, probably they haven't budgeted for mammoth.
I might not even worry about it. So, they have a lot of money. Big piles of gold are not all that unbalancing as there is very little in this edition for them to spend it on. If you have a magic shop, maybe there's a problem, but then you control the inventory of the shop, so that fixes that. Otherwise, what are they going to do with it all? Buy a boat? Just give them the win. They went for the hardest option, and they won. Now they get to feel cool cause they have a lot of money. There's still nothing much to buy with it.
Alternatively, you could say the town offers them a non-cash reward, like a small plot of land with a house on it so the PCs have a base of operations, which is always fun for players to have. They get to feel cool about having a base, and the town gets to have a group of adventurers who are now suddenly very invested in making sure the town stays protected and thrives. It might shift the tone of the campaign, but it can also be really fun.
This is my advice. Don’t worry about it. Give them the gold and move on. They’ll quickly discover that there just isn’t much that they can spend that much gold on, making it a meaningless reward.
My opinion of buying magic items is buying them is like buying used Ferraris. It’s possible and you can do it, but finding one that’s for sale is a challenge and requires work.
Simple. While that one party member is going back to get a wagon, the rest of the party is attacked by bandits who manage to steal a few hundred pounds of mammoth meat.
Then when they finally get their wagon and load it up with mammoth parts, the wagon creaks and groans under the enormous weight. Heck, maybe it even breaks. Bummer. Might have to go back and get a second wagon. More time for more bandits to steal more meat.
And maybe the smell of all that sweet sweet dead mammoth attracts a bunch of other animals who are looking for an easy meal. So now they've got wolves and hyenas and bears and giant boars and maybe some giant crocodiles and heck maybe even some hill giants or manticores or even a dragon! Or maybe a Roc swoops down and snatches a few hundred pounds of mammoth chunks out of their wagon. Good luck trying to stop a gargantuan CR 11 bird in a nosedives toward its next meal!
So yeah, just because the party killed a 24,000 pound mammoth doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be able to get all 24,000 pounds of it back to the festival. If they manage to make it back with 6,000 pounds they should consider themselves lucky. If they walk away with 1,000 gp each that's a nice chunk of change. They should realize that killing the mammoth was the easiest part of the mission. Getting it back is the hard part!
They do the work to skin the mammoth then a Roc swoops down and takes the kill. Some stray feathers float down. Those feathers are worth what you consider to be an adequate reward in GP.
Admit the mistake. Hey Players I goofed. Gave you too much money. I am reducing it to x amount. Any player who loses their mind is a player you need to begin to show the door. Always admit your mistakes. Always correct your major mistakes. Always be wary of players who don't accept your apology and don't want the mistake corrected.
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I am a first-time DM and I have homebrewed a campaign. In my last session, I had a sort of hunting festival. Party members were given a chance to go out into the woods and hunt down animals. When they brought them back to the city, they would be paid 1 gold per pound. I made 3 rings in the forest and my players went into the most dangerous ring. After doing some rolls, their encounter was with some mammoths. I didn't think of it much at the time but my players managed to kill the mammoths and they are now taking a long rest before heading back to get their gold. They plan to have one person run back to grab an official with some wagons. Then hauling back the mammoth meat. However, I didn't realize that mammoths weighed a **** ton and will give the party 24,000 gold for it all! They are only a level 4 party and there are 6 members. So this would equal to 4,000 gold per person. That is far too much far too soon. I was thinking about compensating with some homebrew items I made but realized these items are considered a rare level. Too powerful for the party just yet. And they just turned level 4 so I can't quite justify it quite yet. These homebrew items are a plot point but again, it's too soon so I can't use them quite yet. How do I justly give my players all of the reward money without it seeming I am railroading or 'punishing' them for a mistake I made?
I suspect your players grossly overestimate how easy it would be to move twelve tons of mammoth. Carts are for roads, they're going to just have to get transport animals (around sixty mules will do the job), and if they're wandering around in a hazardous area said mule train may get eaten by a monster...
Oh man, this is actually amazing and I might steal this and turn it into a low lv side quest kind of thing.
An entire wagon will only carry 400lbs total and that is if where that are can even be reached by a wagon. Keep in mind that wagons are meant to travel on roads and I doubt there is a road leading to where they were hunting.
You can no unleash all kinds of predators/scavengers/hungry monsters on them that will be attracted to the carcass of a massive dead animal. Maybe even other adventuring parties will want to come and steal meat for the reward money. Or maybe taking 24,000 lbs of meat that far takes so long that it's rancid by the end of the trip.
You have a scenario where they can take a manageable amount, make it out easily and cash in or try to be greedy and deal with the consequences.
Perhaps have a hiring fee deducted from the reward for all the wagons, animals and extra hands they need to hire in order transport all that meat back to the city before it spoils. Have a little fun with it and allow the person that ran back to try and haggle the hiring prices.
There is also the following logistical question:
How do you get a dead mammoth onto a wagon? Unless you can shrink it, I just don't think it's feasible. The PCs would need some form of magic to move them at all, otherwise they need to cut the mammoths into pieces.
Where do you find a wagon that can take the weight of a mammoth? Standard wagons won't take that kind of weight. They're made out of wood, and intended for some agricultural produce or a few passengers.
Overall, I'd say that it's not feasible to transport a mammoth.
I would assume they would have to hire butchers along with the wagons and pack animals to cut up the meat. Which means more hiring fees ftw lol.
I might have the official take a look at the mammoths and reply, "Well, to be frank, I don't think we can afford to pay you for the weight of these monsters. If you want to start bringing it in we'll have to talk to the (Mayor) about how much we can afford to give you. You know, we were really thinking wolves, badgers and foxes when we wrote that ordinance. This, well, this is a whole 'nother matter."
And then you could offer to give them a lump sum of gold and one magic item, and the town takes responsibility for retrieving the animals.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Roll dice for or decide on the number of wagons available. Roll dice for the success and speed of competitors and how quickly they got the wagons.
They've got to cut up the meat. Say that it "they would be paid 1 gold per pound" for a whole animal (festival parade trophy)but a lesser rate for bits. Suggest a reward for the head and tusks but less for the rest. That would be great RP to parade the head through the town as spectacular winners while reducing the colossal gold outlay.
In addition to all the fees mentioned above to hire wagon teams, butchers, caravan guards, (and the cost of feeding them for the journey) it is likely that there will be a requirement for purchasing a traders license, customs import taxes, fees for quality and hygiene inspections, the local merchants guild would probably require the pc’s pay to join the local guild and so on. There are a huge number of taxes and fees that could be levied to reduce the reward to whatever you feel appropriate (or make it not worth their effort to do).
How much usable meat can you get off a mammoth? I'm sure a lot of that weight is bone, fat, tough muscle. A skilled butcher could probably get a good amount of meat off, but are your players skilled butchers? Maybe with a good survival roll they only recover 500lbs of meat.
OR, you could just tell them "whoops, my bad as a DM. Let's say it's a copper per pound instead." Players understand that DM's are still human.
I'd go for either the "we can't afford to pay you for all of this - you win, but we can only afford 500gp" option, or the "You want to hire 30 wagons and 60 strong folk to haul the mammoth back over the course of 3 days? That'll cost you 5 gold per man per day, plus 50 gold per wagon per day...".
Simplest option to move the plot along is a maxed-out reward and the town will sort it out. If you are freestyling on a sandbox, have the mayor offer them a plot of land beside the town as reward, which may or may not have all sorts of cool things in it.
Final option is to make it a plot device - they ventured into unknown territory, where meat rots unnaturally fast - for there is a necrotic presence in this forest...
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I might not even worry about it. So, they have a lot of money. Big piles of gold are not all that unbalancing as there is very little in this edition for them to spend it on. If you have a magic shop, maybe there's a problem, but then you control the inventory of the shop, so that fixes that. Otherwise, what are they going to do with it all? Buy a boat? Just give them the win. They went for the hardest option, and they won. Now they get to feel cool cause they have a lot of money. There's still nothing much to buy with it.
Alternatively, you could say the town offers them a non-cash reward, like a small plot of land with a house on it so the PCs have a base of operations, which is always fun for players to have. They get to feel cool about having a base, and the town gets to have a group of adventurers who are now suddenly very invested in making sure the town stays protected and thrives. It might shift the tone of the campaign, but it can also be really fun.
If you really like this idea, go ahead and steal it. To give full context, this is a large city that holds many of the country's armies. They are a very isolated and snow biome. So on the fall equinox, there is a hunting festival called the White Stag festival. It started out by a goddess sending her god animal to the mortal plane once a year. This animal is a White Stag (used giant elk stat sheet) and it is said that once the stag is slain, the hunter would receive a gift. In this case, I made it to be a part of the antler falling off and can cast Bless once per day. Also, if the stag is slain the territory gets blessed with a whole year of bountiful harvest by the goddess. The hunting competition lasts for 3 days. So the party will be able to adventure into the forest to hunt and return. Even if they don't kill the stag, they can still get hold.
During the hunt, there are three 'rings or zones'. The first zone is the outside of the forest, mainly holding bunnies, squirrels and maybe a bear. The next ring is more dangerous and holds more beasts and monsters. The ones in the inner part of the forest are deadly encounters but still doable. For each ring, I chose 6 beasts/monsters. Then I asked the party to do a survival/perception check and then a stealth check. Using the average for the stealth check. Once they did so, I will determine what animal they find or fight based on their rolls. And if their stealth is good, they don't scare the animal away or get a surprise round.
The Stag is for, however, you wish to have it show up and to see if the players can even hit it. Spotting it or tracking it is a high DC. I chose 20 and had one player able to pass it with a perception check. They got lucky and were able to kill it when it was 420 feet away because of the ranger. While my players don't know this yet but if they take that blessed bit of antler to the heart of the forest and lay it on the alter, they will receive a gift. The goddess of the event will show up and change the blessed antler to a wish spell. But getting to the heart of the forest is a whole other matter.
You can alter this or do things differently. Its all made up by me so go ahead and tweak what you like. I hope it helps!
Ask yourself, how many creatures are nearby that might be interested in a free meal?
A mammoth is a lot of food.
1) A Roc, a dragon, any dinosaurs nearby? How about a basilisk? There are any number of possible creatures/monsters that might live in the forest and could be attracted by that much meat.
2) As mentioned - how many wagons are needed to transport 24,000 pounds of meat? How will they preserve and store it? If the townsfolk KNEW that there are mammoths in the forest they would have capped the amount of gold they would award in any contest. Where did the mammoth come from? Also, what are the odds that the city or whoever organized the hunt even HAS that much coin lying around? If the city had planned to pay a maximum of 1000gp then you could either have fine print in the contest that the players didn't notice OR have the city promise to pay the 24,000 gold at a rate of 1000gp/year over the next 24 years. I'm sure that the notices didn't say they would pay all the money upfront right away.
If the characters complain then (unless they are evil) the city could mention that they could increase the payments to 3000gp/yr but then they could not support the orphanage and other good works and some in the city would starve. The city could also negotiate in other ways - perhaps offering the party valuable information that the city council was saving to sell.
3) Let the characters have the 24,000 gold. It is up to you what is available. If you've been using the typical 5e guidelines then magic items are usually NOT for sale so they can't spend the money there - unless you want to offer up ONE really expensive item :). However, other than buying plate armor, most of the money characters get can be used to purchase property - a business, a town house or even a small keep that the party can call home. Players love to have the feeling of some roots in the game and purchasing property - like a headquarters for their group - can be a great sink for gp since it has initial costs and upkeep costs while mechanically contributing little to what the party can do. The party could buy a titled block of land with a run down keep that they need to invest heavily to restore room by room (popular mini-game in a lot of computer RPGs for example). They could then start calling themselves Baroness or Baron but they are also now responsible for the folks that live on their lands - eg keeping them safe from threats - could add a whole new direction to the campaign.
P.S. Just a comment from personal experience, I would tend to avoid giving the party a Wish at 4th level unless your players are the type who will tend to save it up to resurrect a dead companion of something like that. Wishes are too easy to misuse and abuse.
Yeah, I think you may be better off owning the error and saying "my bad as DM, this encounter wasn't meant to break the economy". Look over how much stuff costs in the PHB and realize 1 GP for a lb of meat is astronomical. A whole pig costs 3 gp. "Modern agriculture : fantasy" fallacies aside, quick googling shows hogs yield between 150-200 lbs of meat when butchered. Let's be conservative and say 50 lbs. of generic meat is a gp. That brings your prize purse down to 480 gp. You can inflate that for exoticism of the meat, though why wouldn't mastodon be part of the community diet if they're right next door to the community? You can also boost it up for exotic materials like tusk or hide. Or you could reduce because meat to rest of body ratio. You'll see in published adventures purses in the 100-200 gp. range (not always clear whether that's for party or person) offered up to literally save the village from an existential threat is fairly norm for lvl 1-3 parties*, and we're just talking about a one encounter "prize" in this instance. Like if the village was being threatened by mammoth trampling, 400gp. and rights to the carcasses might be fair game, so to speak on a few levels, for a level 4 party.
Of course, as many will tell you, there's not a lot to do with 24,000 gp in 5e. So if you don't mind the possibility that the characters can now afford the best weapons and armor and maybe stock up on some spell components to provide contracted clerics for resurrection, you could run a party of Bruce Waynes.
*I'm a big advocate for homebrewing your own games myself. However, I also encourage new DMs, if they don't run a few, at least read a few adventures. There are little bits of game logic not explicitly put forth in the PHB and DMG that can be teased out, in this instance commensurate monetary awards for particular tasks.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I assume a festival deliberately gives out somewhat elevated prices -- I would probably put general hunting at 1-2 cp/lb, which is consistent with the prices for goats and cattle, but for a festival they might hand out more. Still, probably they haven't budgeted for mammoth.
This is my advice. Don’t worry about it. Give them the gold and move on. They’ll quickly discover that there just isn’t much that they can spend that much gold on, making it a meaningless reward.
My opinion of buying magic items is buying them is like buying used Ferraris. It’s possible and you can do it, but finding one that’s for sale is a challenge and requires work.
Professional computer geek
Simple. While that one party member is going back to get a wagon, the rest of the party is attacked by bandits who manage to steal a few hundred pounds of mammoth meat.
Then when they finally get their wagon and load it up with mammoth parts, the wagon creaks and groans under the enormous weight. Heck, maybe it even breaks. Bummer. Might have to go back and get a second wagon. More time for more bandits to steal more meat.
And maybe the smell of all that sweet sweet dead mammoth attracts a bunch of other animals who are looking for an easy meal. So now they've got wolves and hyenas and bears and giant boars and maybe some giant crocodiles and heck maybe even some hill giants or manticores or even a dragon! Or maybe a Roc swoops down and snatches a few hundred pounds of mammoth chunks out of their wagon. Good luck trying to stop a gargantuan CR 11 bird in a nosedives toward its next meal!
So yeah, just because the party killed a 24,000 pound mammoth doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be able to get all 24,000 pounds of it back to the festival. If they manage to make it back with 6,000 pounds they should consider themselves lucky. If they walk away with 1,000 gp each that's a nice chunk of change. They should realize that killing the mammoth was the easiest part of the mission. Getting it back is the hard part!
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
They do the work to skin the mammoth then a Roc swoops down and takes the kill. Some stray feathers float down. Those feathers are worth what you consider to be an adequate reward in GP.
Everyone wins.
Admit the mistake. Hey Players I goofed. Gave you too much money. I am reducing it to x amount. Any player who loses their mind is a player you need to begin to show the door. Always admit your mistakes. Always correct your major mistakes. Always be wary of players who don't accept your apology and don't want the mistake corrected.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.