Getting standard equipment into the spotlight...

[weem]

Posted this on my site last night... er, this morning I suppose (2:30am or so). Thought I would share for those interested...

I miss standard equipment.

While realizing this one day (and glaring accusingly at the Adventurer's Kit) I thought, "so what's the problem?" After all, it's not like the items within the Adventurer's Kit aren't listed out, right?

Buying equipment was one of my favorite aspects of character creation back in the day (pre-3.x)... do I have a mirror? check. Rope? check. Sewing thread and needle? Wait, who in the hell needs needles... ehh, who am I kidding... check (what?! you never know who might need stitches!). Again, you can purchase items in 4e the same way as before if you want, one item at a time, taking what you like and skipping what you don't.

The difference (at least for me) is that these little individual items are no longer important to the game, particularly when the focus of the game is combat.

Now, don't get me wrong, after all <...here's where I insert the standard disclaimer/defense of 4th Edition... how I am a fan, I buy the books, etc. You get the idea...>

Our character sheets used to have many lines for equipment, and often times it was right up front with the important aspects of your sheet. I would stare at every single item sometimes, trying to imagine how any one of them might help us out of our current predicament.

"This dragon really has us cornered... how can this needle and thread help me right now??".

It sounds funny, but so often we would try the craziest things and you know, it worked from time to time!

In 4th Edition, we're essentially told, "hey, those are there, but just pay 1 price and you get all of the stuff listed". So we do, but when the going gets tough, we have our powers and our hit points/defenses. Those get the cards, those are in our faces. Items? What items? You wanna do what with it? What would the difficulty be, and if you succeeded, how does that success translate into these numbers everyone else is content to work with? Damnit Weem, why are you making things difficult...

...

What this leads to is ignoring standard equipment almost entirely while in combat, and hand-waving it outside of combat...

DM:"Do you have a grappling hook?"
Player: "Uhhh... I have an adventurers kit I think"
DM: "Yea, ok, sure - roll"

Aside from the fact that the Adventurer's Kit doesn't have a grappling hook, we are essentially just blowing off the details with that one phrase. As a DM I'm guilty for sure. If I ask a player if he has an Adventurer's Kit and he says no... well... whatever, you have one now, why would you not.

"But Weem", you are thinking, "who cares? My players and I don't care about those details anymore, they aren't important."

That's cool, and completely legit. You know what, I'm right there with you for the most part - at least when it comes to 4e.

So what is it I am trying to say?

I think we can make standard equipment sexy again (okay, that might be a stretch... let's shoot for a "great personality")

Some Ideas

I think it's not only important to make standard equipment more useful to players in encounters (combat AND skill-related), but to also help the DM make those encounters more dynamic and interesting. Here are some ideas I've had...

Equipment-Friendly Environments: As you develop an encounter, take a glance at the equipment list. Consider how certain items might be used in interesting ways. For the encounter, you might write a few quick ideas with an associated difficulty for success, or for thinking of it. For example...

- Flask: Could be hung on the wall lever to keep the North door open (Insight DC: 25)

During the encounter, you could call for the Insight check. Whoever succeeds (or perhaps whoever rolled highest in the event of multiple successes) thinks of the idea. And if they don't have a flask? Well, that's a bummer for them... next time they are in town they might just buy one! They may even think, "Damn, no flask, but I have 50 feet of rope I could hang on the lever" - either way, you have them thinking about tools that are not weapons. I think of this almost like traps, except where traps are environmental elements trying to KILL the players, these equipment elements can be used to AID them in solving puzzles or defeating an enemy.

By writing these down ahead of time you assure they can be applied to the encounter without delay. Essentially, you are taking a few items and giving them a face in this world of numbers we now require.

Hazardous Equipment: Equipment can aid, but it can also be a hassle. The thing you don't want to do is make equipment so much of a hassle that the players are over thinking how it is carried, or where, or even if at all.

Today, [MENTION=17465]Wizard[/MENTION]s_DnD posted a #dndenc buff that read...

"Another gust of icy wind blasts through the room. PCs' speed is reduced by 1, but they gain resist 5 cold."

I really liked this because, while there was a negative, there was also a positive in there. It had me thinking, you could (upon slicing a PC with an enemy's sword for example) have the following exchange...

DM: "What's in your bag?"
PC: "The usual stuff... I have an adventurer's kit"
DM: "Okay. Well, as you are hit, your bag is cut and all of the contents spill out in your square and in a burst 1, so all around you. These squares are now difficult terrain. However, the light from your sunrods, now on the ground, distract all enemies within 2 squares of you until the end of your next turn. Their AC is reduced by 2."

NPC Bartering: Not everyone wants money. Bartering was once very common, and it wouldn't be a stretch to have an NPC (who sees the PC's squirm at his prices for example) ask instead for some of their possessions...

"Tell ya what... you gimme that rope you got there... and the grapplin' hook the Elf has, and we'll call it even... sound fair?"

Again, you are highlighting equipment. You indicate that it's important and develop immersion at the same time. The player might not think about his/her equipment, but that doesn't mean the world should ignore it.

And so...

I love and miss standard equipment, or at least the prominence it once had in games I played in. If you feel the same, perhaps I may have sparked some ideas you can use. Otherwise, I hope you could get something out of it of some kind.

Thanks for stopping in and reading. Feel free to follow me on Twitter if you aren't already!


I'll just leave you with a few quick things if you have the time and are interested...

Some Items NOT in the Adventurer's Kit

These are a few things players might think their Adventurer's Kit has, but it doesn't...

- Candle
- Chain
- Flask
- Tent
- Thieves Tools

Some Items 4e Doesn't Have

Here are a few (just a few!) things that some older versions of D&D had that 4e does not have (or I should say, 4e does not list)...

- Belt Pouch!
- Caltrops!
- Canvas
- Chalk!
- Clothes
- Fishhook
- Hats
- Holy Water
- Ink
- Iron Spikes
- Lock
- Manacles
- Mirror
- Oil
- Pot
- Sacks
- Sealing Wax
- Stakes and Mallet (thx Barastrondo!)
- Spyglass!
- Vial
- Whistle

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Pony!

 

[Rune]

Don't forget the 10 foot pole!

Good points and good ideas. But I'd also like to see some simple hireling rules.

 

[weem]

Pony!

Yes!

Don't forget the 10 foot pole!

Good points and good ideas. But I'd also like to see some simple hireling rules.

Yea, the pole is a must have!

And yea, hireling rules would be interesting. I do miss the follower aspects of the older editions - but I think some of that can be covered decently with companion characters, etc. I would love to see rules for city/kingdom management, etc. Not that I feel I need them, but more because I just love reading that kind of stuff, using them as guidelines and getting ideas, hehe.

 

[renau1g]

I thought our party rogue was our 10' pole?

 

[Barastrondo]

- Steaks and Mallet

What, no steaks? Perfidy!

I've found that mundane equipment is frequently not all that sexy to the players' minds, save when it's sexy equipment. No, I don't mean the spyglass with the coin slot that shows images of unclad medusae when you put in a copper: I mean the stuff that makes players think more of exotic adventure than of the general store.

The spyglass, for instance (certainly in editions where its high price made it a clear status item). But also things like a poisoner's ring, or boots with hollow heels, or a collapsible grappling hook on a crossbow quarrel. The old Aurora's catalog they put out was a fantastic idea: players would frequently go diving through that to find all the interesting and exotic equipment.

Placing some of the more interesting bits of equipment as found treasure sometimes works wonders. If the PCs don't think to buy chalk, they may start thinking of ways to find the chalk they found on the duergar scouts they killed. Make it phosphorescent and you're really in business: if the players react well to it, it may become a favorite. In future, you may even find they've decided that the merchants that are really worth buying from are the ones with phosphorescent chalk in stock.

 

[Sunseeker]

Unless I am going for ultra-realism(which I almost universally never am), I never saw the necessity for most of these things. Certainly there are some obvious ones, rope, food, stuff that's GOING to be used. But moreover, much of these items never see the light of day. Why should I insist that people bring a telescope when there's an elf or something who can see just as far as relay that to the party? oh yes, the elf might be dead, but that seems like too deliberate of a setup.

At the end of the day, it becomes an excessive exercise in bookkeeping. Did joe use his candle, did frank remember to pick up his rope? Ad nauseam. After multiple times needing to use them, after several stops in towns selling, buying, trading these things, it just becomes a headache.

Not to mention, as you say, if all this stuff is spilled in a fight(which in most fights, it would be), then having to spend half an hour while players sit down, pick up all their stuff, tell the theif in the party to stop grabbing their goods, double-check their bags, and then turn to me and ask if I was tracking all their stuff!

If I'm going to use those non-Adventurer's Kit items, I will notify them, through the NPCs(should they bother to talk to any), that where they are headed they made need special supplies they normally wouldn't have. Otherwise having them carry that stuff around is just a rather annoying exercise in banality.

 

[MortalPlague]

Weem, great thread. I completely agree with your sentiments! And Barastrondo, those are some excellent suggestions.

 

[weem]

What, no steaks? Perfidy!
Placing some of the more interesting bits of equipment as found treasure sometimes works wonders. If the PCs don't think to buy chalk, they may start thinking of ways to find the chalk they found on the duergar scouts they killed. Make it phosphorescent and you're really in business: if the players react well to it, it may become a favorite. In future, you may even find they've decided that the merchants that are really worth buying from are the ones with phosphorescent chalk in stock.

Yea, this is a great idea.

In fact, one of the things my players liked a lot about Gamma World was the random junk tables - rolling at seeing what they got, etc. By handing these out in the same fashion as treasure, the players think of them more as potential tools or as items that might come in handy at some point.

 

[weem]

... Why should I insist that people bring a telescope when there's an elf or something who can see just as far as relay that to the party?...

I would never 'insist' anything. I'm just providing some ideas to help inspire players to consider actually using the gear they are paying for, or to see how some equipment they may not have could come in real handy

I'm also not suggesting adding the level of micromanagement you mention, though I can see how that could be assumed since I don't cover it. To be honest, I would let my players have all the items they are willing to write on their sheet for FREE if it means they will use them! I don't care about the number of candles they have or anything like that - if they use a candle in an encounter to great effect, awesome! Chances are, the candle won't be showcased so often that a count of them will matter much. The more important point is that they looked at the list and thought, "yea, this could come in handy" and write it down.

And as far as a player picking up his belongings, yikes - I would not micromanage that time either. After combat, the player says, "I gather my belongings"... I say, "Cool, you get it together and move on".

The point of all of this is to simply give the players some ideas and benefits to use standard equipment. I want to demonstrate how these tools can help them out if they want that option, not unlike a Ritual for example. What I don't want is to turn this into an as-accurate-as-possible inventory management game - there's no need for auditors or anything, hehe.

Thanks again for reading and commenting!