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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7599196" data-attributes="member: 29398">Interesting that the setting is built in as an integrated part of the game; and is so restricted in scope - it's almost like the city is analagous to a Castle-Greyhawk-like megadungeon, where you can sandbox around within it all you like but you can never completely leave it and go elsewhere.Fair enough, and obviously some GMs will end up tying successive events together into an overarching plot line more than others will.The luck of dice would almost certainly dictate that not all of it goes up, as each (relevant) item gets its own saving throw. (side note: yes this can take some time at the table to sort out) (second side note: due to an incredible run of luck early on in my campaign where backpacks always made their saves - and thus protected their contents - it has been declared here that in fact Backpacks are the Master Race)But yes, if they got unlucky they could lose a bunch of gear - it's happened - and even just losing the backpack itself presents a problem as to how its surviving contents will now be carried.Good point - I should do this more often.  That said, often the gear is left in the area the PCs are defending, thus if the foes get to the gear it probably means there's no PCs left anyway. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />'Yes' to the first and 'only if it becomes relevant' to the second.  If for example a fireball spreads out enough to maybe clip their gear then we'll determine where it is, and whose is where.  Otherwise we don't bother.Kind of a combination between abstracted and assumed-standard-operating-procedures, I guess.To a point, along with a general reminder to people that it's not a free-for-all and that there are some reasonable limits: you can't normally carry a grand piano around with you, for example, no matter how badly you want to practice your concerto every night at camp. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />It's relevant, yes, but I find that once a party (or group of parties) establish a base they tend to want to go back there between adventures whenever they can in order to evaluate and divide treasury, train up (my game has training), reshuffle their lineup if desired, and so forth.  In general, once a base is established I find that if they stay in the field for more than one or two consecutive adventures it's usually because either a) they've ended up a long way from their home base and thus are temporarily using a different town or sanctuary as a between-adventures base, or b) I've used some sort of DM force to keep them there.  And once they gain access to long-range travel magic then all bets are off - they can return home whenever they like."Wandering murderhobo" play certainly happens, but IME only either at very low level while they're still finding their feet as adventures or (rare IME) when a party specifically decides to adopt that lifestyle.At higher levels, pretty much same here.  But what the castles provide is a place to safely store spare gear and backups.  The wizard types, for example, almost always keep backup spellbooks at home - or if they're really co-operative a master spellbook which they all share in the maintenance and scribing of and which they can each access to rebuild their own book if required.  The base also serves as a place to park things that are too cumbersome to take into the field but are still very useful - e.g. a full-size writing desk with a neverending supply of spellbook-grade ink or a plant-based scrying device that's the size and bulk of a dining table plus chairs.Maybe not even just in a D&D-esque game, but in any system where the mechanics allow the GM to introduce unforeseen complications for whatever reason e.g. on a failed roll of some sort.  It would seem the threat of such complications is considerably reduced if the system allows for on-the-fly inventory selection and the character (or party) have any item slots left.The same decision as to how to deal with the dog is still there in other games, except that because the inventory decisions were all made earlier the easy out-clause of throwing some meat to the dog won't (usually) be available.Put another way: in BitD, assuming at least one available slot, the dog represents a threat that first forces a metagame decision from the player whether to burn a slot on meat or not, and only if that decision is 'no' do things get to the next step - which is where a D&D-style game would start at: a player-driven in-the-fiction decision by the PC as to how to (otherwise) deal with the dog.  Fight it?  Tame it?  Ignore it?  Abandon the score for now and come back later with some meat?It's that metagame decision part in mid-play that I don't like, as it pulls the player out of character.AH, here's where we disagree I think.  I agree that meaningful decisions are good, but I want to see those meaningful decisions be made in character as part of role-playing rather than out of character as part of the metagame.I can see how they'd work well from the perspective of sheer game play if that's what's desired, but I can't get square with the way it forces metagame decisions into the fiction on the fly like that.</blockquote>

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