Do you buy/carry trinkets in-game?

[Someone]

One of my 2e characters had a Rat Tickling Apparatus, a colorful string of pennants, a coin with a hole, Mr Stick (the party´s ranger, later transformed into Mr Charcoal by an evil drow), a minotaur´s horn, and other things I don´t remember. Never had a bell, though.

 

[Buttercup]

I'm wondering if other people bother spending the coin/weight to give their characters other stuff.

Everyone's got the rope, or the grappling hook, or the torch. But does anyone buy the bell? Or the mirror? Or stuff like that?

Oh yes. If I play a character who uses a bladed weapon, I always purchase a whetstone. I always buy other stuff too, like chalk, a mirror, soap and so forth. When I'm DMing, my players do too. As a matter of fact, there have been times when mundane odds n ends like that have saved the day.

I love it when my players make creative use of doodads to thwart the enemy.

 

[Carpdiem]

Every low-level character I've played has had a list of stuff. In fact, I once made a "survival package" list of equipment that I use as a base for new, 1st level characters (just cross off whatever's unappropriate). At higher levels we just assumes that everyone has all of the little things.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Yep. Whenever I play, which is rare because I usually GM, I tend to take equipment nobody else will.

For instance, one of my 2e thieves had a bag of marbles. Everyone else in the party laughed at him. Until, as luck had it, he faced about 40 kobolds at the edge of a cliff alone.

I had a swashbuckler that had a penchant for dried fruit, and always kept a supply of raisins or other dried fruits on his person.

I also have a penchant for using spells in odd ways, such as the time my 2e wizard convinced a kobold he was interrogating tha the was a god using prestidigitation to make a shower of glitter when the kobold lied....

 

[Snapdragyn]

10 pieces of chalk -- every character. Never used it, but if we ever end up in a maze, I'm ready.

Mirror -- only the bard. Used it daily.

50' silk rope -- every character. Only the bard ever used it, & nm what for.

Grappling hook -- characters strong enough to handle the weight. Used once as diversionary bait in an encounter with a rust monster, which saved the party one less ruined item (man, that encounter HURT).

 

[KB9JMQ]

Myself and my players always buy lots of the mundane minor items.
But we tend to use them a lot rather than "yeah my sheet says I have one".