Intro – 0:00.000
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OSR Gaming Forums www.osrgaming.org
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DM Vince’s Blog http://www.theevilgm.com/
Sage Advice – 17:16.204
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Via E-mail RFIStaff@gmail.com
Table Manners – The plot and hooks for the adventure -25:16.232
DM Rules – Tournament Rules for A2 -54:50.624
Creature Feature Theater – The Cloaker – 1:21:09.121
Outro – 1:32:44.737
MP3 Download – archive.org/download/Volume3Issue105-SecretOfTheSlaversStockade/RFI105.mp3
AAC Download – traffic.libsyn.com/rollforinitiative/RFI105.m4a
Hi guys,
I liked the Slavers episode. Thanks for that.
That commenter (character assassin) who ripped on you all was hitting below the belt, but I’d steer away from calling any listener stupid or other names.
I like this Mark Twain quote:
“Don’t wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
Dig the show. Keep on doing it.
Re: Turko’s question (pod cast time: 18.18 mins)
Just to chip in about Turko’s question about the editing of character sheets between adventures to rid them of unnecessary stuff. I agree with the host DMs on the pod cast, I’m not convinced that this is the best way to go.
Turko found that his characters where retain miscellaneous random (and heavy) objects like a bag of rock and a velvet curtain. If the players asked what happened to the missing stuff (that he deleted) he’d just say they lost it. It’s not really up to the DM to delete ‘unimportant’ stuff, who knows what plans the character had for that stuff!
I think there are simpler ways to do this:
(i) DM veto: The best/simplest way, is to veto such choices from the start, not (secretly) edit after it has been taken – e.g., “nah, your fighting for your life in a dungeon/wilderness area, so your character is not going to bother taking that velvet curtain”. If they come up with a good counter reason then may be let them keep it e.g. “we are going to use the curtain to insulate the tent as it is very cold”. I think this option was suggested in the show by one of the podcast DMs.
(ii) Game disincentives/heavy levies: Find ways to make carrying such objects unappealing. For example give the party a reason to go on a boat – the captain charges an encumbrance fee for baggage (i.e. to stow their stuff), will they still want that bag of rocks if it cost 20-50 gp in shipping charges. Or better still, when they visit a town, the guards always haul them over the coals – “… so tell us again, why are you sneaking in hear with a bag of rocks and a velvet curtain?” “What are you really up to?”. Perhaps the town guards then call in a magic user to detect magic on the rocks and velvet curtain to make sure nothing weird is happening, and then charge the characters the magic user ’s fee (e.g. 1000 gp) to have these items checked. Those rocks are going to seem very expensive then! Doing this just once should curtail their magpie instincts.
(iii) Pre-purchase scheme: Another option is a pragmatic one – have a pre-purchase scheme in your game, allow the characters to exchange the items in advance for coin. Say “are you going to sell that chair in the next town?” If yes, give them the 2 cp in advance and say “have the 2 cp now, and don’t bother adding that chair to your character sheet” – If that character survives the dungeon, they will be back in a town soon enough and the chair can be considered as sold. If they die in the adventure, then who cares that they got that 2 cp in a place they couldn’t even spend it?? Obviously this system could be open to a little abuse, so put a limit on how much pre-paid gold they can cash in advance, for bulky items like chairs make it say 2-5 gp (as that is a lot of 2 cp chairs that in theory they are carrying). The players will probably soon realise that compared to a chest of gold at the end of the adventure , those pre-cashed in chairs which they get 6 cp for is not really worth the bother.
(iv) Fix it: When I ran a game, back in the day, I decided to give each player a (big) bag of holding as the treasure reward at the end of an adventure – job done.
If they wanted to keep 30 halberds in there, then fine! I basically didn’t care what they decided to keep or not. Basically, they were sensible enough not to test me on the limits of those bags, by for example trying to put a lake in one!
In fact, I always found it a bit too tedious to count torches, food or water. I generally assumed they had made the necessary arrangements in town (especially for higher level characters with a bucket load of gold). I think one of the pod cast DM’s suggested this (or was it in an earlier podcast about where magic users get their spell ingredients from)?
To that extent, I also gave the party (as a group to share) a bowl that filled with thin gruel three times, a day, a cup that filled with water three times a day and a lantern of ever light. By completing the adventure it more or less proved that they could take care of the basics if they decided to. Therefore, there was no real point in persisting with that kind of day-to-day bookkeeping. Therefore, these items ensured that the mundane basics were more or less sorted. If one of the characters ran out of food, water or light, then they could use those items. However, if lost in a desert those items would not be enough for the group as a whole, and they better sort themselves out!
The reason I did this was that to me, it was the role playing that was important/fun part of the game – the day-to-day grind of laundry, haircuts , sharpening swords and firewood collecting was all considered taken care off by the characters without comment.