What is DKP? Dragon kill points, explained

What DKP means

A raid of 20, 25 or 40 players kills a boss, and the boss drops two or three items. Somebody has to decide who gets them. Rolling dice is fair on the night but not over a season: the raider who comes every week can lose to someone who came once. DKP fixes that with a running score. Each raider has a balance of points; the guild adds to it for taking part and takes from it when they receive an item. Whoever has put in the most can afford the most, so loot follows attendance instead of luck.

The points aren't gold and can't be traded or bought. They exist only in the guild's records, and they mean something only inside that guild.

Where DKP came from

DKP is older than World of Warcraft. It was designed in 1999 for EverQuest, by a player called Thott for his raiding guild Afterlife. Many of EverQuest's big raid targets were dragons, Lady Vox and Lord Nagafen among them, which is where the name comes from (Wikipedia). Raiding guilds carried the idea into World of Warcraft in 2004, where 40-player raids like Molten Core made a fair, visible loot record close to a necessity. The name stuck even though most bosses aren't dragons.

How DKP is earned

Every guild writes its own price list for effort. The common ones:

• Being on time: a few points for being in the raid at the start.
• Boss kills: points per boss killed, sometimes more for a new kill or a hard boss.
• Staying the whole raid: a bonus at the end, so people don't leave after the boss they wanted.
• The bench: raiders the leader asked to wait outside, ready to come in, often earn full or partial points, so nobody is punished for making room.
• Progression time: points per hour on a boss the guild hasn't killed yet, because wiping is work too.

Some guilds also pay for things outside raids, such as bringing consumables or helping with an attunement, but most keep DKP to the raid itself.

How DKP is spent

When an item drops, the guild has to turn points into a decision. This is where DKP systems differ most.

Bidding: open or silent

In an open auction, raiders bid points in chat or through an addon, each bid visible, and the highest bid wins and pays. It's quick and everyone can see why the item went where it did, but players can price each other: a raider with a big balance can outbid anyone for every item they want. In a silent (sealed) auction, each raider sends their bid privately to the officer running loot, and the highest wins. Nobody can price their rivals, so people bid what the item is worth to them. Some guilds charge the winner the second-highest bid plus one, which takes the guesswork out of bidding.

Minimum bids and increments

Most auction guilds set a minimum bid, so a strong item never goes for 1 point because nobody else needed it, and an increment, so bids rise by a set step instead of by 1 point at a time. Many also cap how far into debt a raider can go, or forbid it outright.

Fixed price

In fixed-price DKP (sometimes called simple DKP), every item, or every slot, has a set cost: a weapon 100, a chest 60, a ring 30. Whoever wants the item and has the most points takes it and pays the price. There's no bidding to manage and no bidding war, and the price list is public.

Zero-sum DKP

In zero-sum DKP, points aren't paid for turning up at all. When a raider buys an item, the price they pay is shared out among everyone else in the raid. The guild's total stays at zero, so there's no inflation: a balance always means "how far ahead of or behind the raid you are". A boss whose drops nobody takes would count for nothing, so some guilds record those kills against a placeholder name. It's the fairest version on paper and the most bookkeeping in practice.

Relational DKP and EPGP

Instead of spending points, a relational system compares what you've earned with what you've received. The best known is EPGP: effort points (EP) for raiding, gear points (GP) for each item taken, and the item goes to whoever wants it with the highest EP ÷ GP. Nobody bids, and a big item simply lowers your priority for a while. Many guilds that leave DKP move to EPGP.

Decay, and why most systems need it

Without decay, balances only grow. After six months a veteran can sit on thousands of points while a new recruit has 50, and the recruit will never win a contested item. Decay takes a fixed percent off every balance on a schedule, usually weekly. With 10% weekly decay, a hoard of 2,000 points loses 200 in the first week and keeps shrinking, while someone earning 100 a week settles near 1,000. Recent attendance ends up counting for more than last year's.

Guilds without decay often use a cap instead (no balance above, say, 500) or reset everyone at the start of a new raid tier.

A worked example

A guild pays 5 points for being on time, 10 for each boss and 5 for staying to the end. One night they kill 4 bosses, so everyone who was there all night earns 5 + 40 + 5 = 50. Auctions have a minimum bid of 10 and an increment of 5.

The weapon dropped from the third boss. Thornik bid up to 70 and stopped; Kaelra bid 75 and won. Next week Thornik has the bigger balance, so he can outbid Kaelra if they want the same item. That is the whole idea: what you spend tonight you give up next week. With 10% weekly decay, Kaelra's 155 would become 140 (rounded) before the next raid, Thornik's 190 would become 171, and Mirelle's 35 would become about 32.

The same night in zero-sum DKP: nobody earns the 50, and Kaelra's 75 is shared among the other 19 raiders, just under 4 points each.

Alts, the bench and new recruits

• Alts: guilds decide whether a raider's second character shares their main's points (one balance per player), keeps its own, or earns a reduced rate. Sharing is simplest; separate balances stop a raider spending their main's points on an alt's gear.
• The bench: paying benched raiders keeps the roster willing to sit out. Guilds that don't pay the bench usually find fewer volunteers.
• Recruits: a new member starts at 0, or at a starting balance (often the raid's lowest, or its average) so they can compete for something in their first month.

Pros and cons of DKP

Common problems, and the usual fixes

• Hoarding: a raider saves points for months to win one item outright. Decay, a cap, or a fixed price on the item limits it.
• Newcomers can't catch up: decay again, or a starting balance for recruits, or a separate pool per raid tier so everyone starts the tier level.
• Inflation: as the guild pays out more points than it takes back, prices climb. Zero-sum DKP, decay and minimum bids all hold it down.
• Officer trust: if one officer keeps the spreadsheet, raiders have to take their word for it. A record everyone can read, where each change says who made it and why, settles most arguments before they start.
• Spreadsheet errors: a formula copied one row too far, decay applied twice, an old copy passed round. Keeping the points in one shared place instead of a file fixes it.

DKP vs EPGP, loot council, soft reserve and GDKP

GDKP isn't a DKP system at all, despite the name: the points are replaced by gold, which can be bought, and that's why Blizzard turned against it. Blizzard first banned it in Season of Discovery, from February 2024 (Warcraft Tavern), and in its WoW Forever developer Q&A of 17 September 2026 Blizzard said GDKP runs won't be allowed on Forever's servers either (reported by Icy Veins). For a fresh Forever guild, DKP, EPGP, loot council and soft reserve are the choices: WoW Forever DKP compares them.

Run DKP on Meadhall

Meadhall is a web hub for a guild or raid team, with a Discord bot, and DKP is one of its loot systems on every World of Warcraft line it supports. Points come in from awards and events, and go out for items, at a fixed price or through open auctions with a minimum bid and an increment. Every change is a line in a ledger the whole guild can read, which is the answer to the officer-trust problem above. Decay and auctions need a paid plan, and zero-sum means an officer awarding the split by hand. How it works, the bot's commands and what each plan includes: the WoW DKP system on Meadhall.