How does managing logistics hurt role playing?
- Thread starter Quasqueton
- Start date
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
Heh, heh, heh.Victim said:
No, not really. I mean, yeah, there's PC spellcasters, but magic is all different on Barsoom and it's almost not worth even bothering for a measly light spell. Too dangerous, too troublesome for such little effect. The party at that time didn't have anyone, however.
You have to be pretty serious about your light spells to have enough to get you through a whole day, though.
Pagan priest
First Post
LostSoul said:
Invariably, every DM I've played with that has used that rational to not use miniatures has had a game wherein I could not make full use of my character's abilities. A 3E example: I had a monk with combat reflexes who never got to make a single attack of opportunity. Without a battlemat and minis, the enemies just teleported around the battle field; there was never an issue of line of sight, no matter how many archers were trying to shoot at us.
As far as rules limiting options, that's where having a good set of rules is important and a good DM is vital. I don't see this as a problem in d20, *IF* you have a competent DM, one who can ajudicate things not specifically mentioned in the rules.
jgbrowning
Hero
Pielorinho said:
Actually, bathroom habits were important in one of my adventures.
The PC's were trapped in a small room (just been teleported in against their will) and were taking time to do some magical preperation because the flesh golems on the other side of the door didn't seem to keen on letting them pass the door.A prestidigitation takes care of it, but thats a spell and it needed to be removed from the list.
joe b.
Leopold
NKL4LYFE
kengar said:
As DM, I would be happy with this except for the fact that we have a couple players that would try to abuse this mightily. They are the types who -while they will accept the DMs ruling of "no, you didn't buy that"- will try again shamelessly over & over whenever an inventory issue arises.
"Of COURSE I would have bought six bags of caltrops and a tanglefoot bag!"
and that's where you make them write down what they buy, or a general list. I ASSUME basic things like food, water, rope, torches, etc. Maybe a ladder or so. anything that is not in the basic equipment of the PHB is fair game. All that extra stuf i just slap on the ole "If it ain't on your PC sheet you ain't got it!" deal...they learn quickly..
Bendris Noulg
First Post
That include the time he traded a Princess for a good horse?Zappo said:
Primarily, I keep minor/supply type stuff "off stage" unless the party (depleted of supplies) wonders into a 1-shop town that's somewhat developed (in a "meet the funny locals" kinda way). Major purchases (including Masterworked items, more expensive mounts, etc.) are handled in-game, however, since the addition of such equipment generally has a much deeper and long-term impact.
Encumbrance I'm a stickler for; To many abuses made by unscrupulous Players in my earlier years to not be.
We also track where items are ("This says it's on your horse, but you left that in to corral, so you don't have it.").
I've felt this adds to the RP experience than takes away.
Personally, I like using minis and a battlemat. I've found that it actually helps with immersion when people can see exactly where they are and where the mobs are.
For the longest time I kept track of everything, including spell components (ouch!). After a while I found it was very distracting and stopped doing it (except for rare or valuable components like Diamond Dust and the component for True Seeing and such). These days, I check encumbrance at times and food at times (not enough to be picky, but enough to keep people on their toes).
Arrows/Bolts tho I'd like to keep better track of, but at times being a DM precludes me from keeping a detailed track of that.
T
For the longest time I kept track of everything, including spell components (ouch!). After a while I found it was very distracting and stopped doing it (except for rare or valuable components like Diamond Dust and the component for True Seeing and such). These days, I check encumbrance at times and food at times (not enough to be picky, but enough to keep people on their toes).
Arrows/Bolts tho I'd like to keep better track of, but at times being a DM precludes me from keeping a detailed track of that.
T
Breakdaddy
First Post
Speaking of immersion, my head feels like its been immersed in a vat of acid. So much for late night drinking with your mates at the local pub. 
Echohawk
Shirokinukatsukami fan
Quasqueton said:
I once made my group of players bring real world analogues of all of their equipment to a game. Wizards brought encylopedia volumes to represent spellbooks, fighters brough mops to represent polearms, rogues brought torches to represent... well... torches and so on.
By the time everyone had arrived, the room was packed full of crud. All of the players had trouble figuring out a way to pack all their gear so that they could carry it. Eventually, with some careful balancing, most of them could just about walk around with all of their character's possessions, but the second they got into a combat situation... *thud*... backpacks, sacks and loose items hit the floor so they could move freely.
About halfway through the game, a badly planned fireball (theirs!) set fire to the building they were in. One hasty evacuation later and the group was less about 75% of their gear, including numerous potions, spellbooks and other gear that they didn't have time to rescue.
Despite this loss, the players really enjoyed the experience. It was fun to get a solid mental picture of the amount of stuff they usually lug around. Of course, after that game, they were all a lot more realistic with the amount of carried equipment.
Hmmmm... it's about time I tried this trick on my new group. Especially that heavy crossbow, halberd, longsword, light crossbow, multiple lengths of rope, hand crossbow, heavy pick, throwing axe wielding ranger
Supplies
Actually, the last online game I played in split over this issue, and teamwork...
It seems there is a group who doesn't want to be bothered about supplies ("Patience, nothin'! I'm gunna KILL somethin'!"), and the group who likes to plan (and or doesn't want to get caught unprepared). Let's call them the "SuperHeroes" (SH) and the "Boys Scouts" (BS).
The SHs want to have the set-up handed to them on a sheet of paper ("You go to the Mage, who tells you that the Cloak of Agamann is somewhere in the Ancient Dungeon of Fredd, guarded by the Ilth-Naga, whose eyes can kill. He gave you the <I>Potion of Pineality</I>, telling you not to use it until you see its eyes glow, and provided you with a map to the dungeon. You travel for two days, and are now about a third of a day's ride from there, ready to enter and earn the 1,000,000 GP he has promised you for the cloak.")
The BSs want to question the Mage, negotiate terms, get some "up-front money", buy supplies, pre-plan spells, pre-pay healing/resurrection fees, have the Bard check Bardic Knowledge, see if anyone has Knowledge (History), hit the Library and use Gather Information, etc., etc., etc....
In one campaign I played, the PCs were to ride to the aid of some villagers. One group was ready to ride. The other wanted to know what kinds of help they needed, they get supplies, pack some wagons, have food, clothes, shelters, medical supplies... So that party split, with the SHs riding off without even a tent (taking only the healer with them), while the Ranger and one other PC stayed behind with the wagons and beast-handlers.
In the recent campaign, a group of PCs who supposedly had been "travelling together for a while" (played by players who knew nothing about each other) were mysteriously transported elsewhere, overnight. There was no explanation why, it just happened. When the Ranger searched for tracks, there were none, but two maps were discovered nearby: One of what turned out to be the local area, the other of the largest city nearby. After some initial dithering, the PCs set off for the city.
That night, a Dryad nabbed one member of the party, and the next morning, two more PCs appeared in another mysterious fog similar to the one that had transported the rest. Brief consultation showed no one had any idea what was going on, so the party moved on.
During this time, the Ranger had been doing everything in his power to try to figure out what was going on, and asking who had mounts, food, etc. No one else seemed worried about this.
A few more days' travel brought the group to a crossroads, heading off to the city, or a farm temple. The Ranger's endless barrage of questions had revealed that signs in the sun, moon, and stars indicated that there was probably a war on between two local goddesses, and the other road went to the temple of the Farm goddess. Being within a day's travel, the party went there, first, and asked to speak to someone in the morning.
There, they met the final PC foreseen by the NPC Priestess in the party, and found that no one else present saw the signs that they all did. Again the Ranger's questioning revealed the clue that "others" had suffered from this "malady" in the past. He asked what happened to them, and learned that all but one had died, and he now lived in the city they were heading to. The new PC joined the party, they rode back to the crossroad, and there the Ranger asked what the party wanted to do: Head into town, or go to the temple of the other goddess.
After some discussion, the vote was to head to town (mostly because the PCs were low on supplies). When we got to the town, I was moving, had no phone in the new house, and so didn't enter the town, as I ended up being offline for almost a month... During this time, the PCs entered the town, hit the stables and an inn, then asked where to find the man in question.
They then went to his home, asked about the signs, discovered that there was a mage in town who could help out, and that this Ex-Paladin was retired. About that time, a Barbarian showed up, claiming to see the same things the PCs did, and joined, too. So off they were trooping to the Mage's when I came back.
The Ranger asked the Priestess if she had foreseen the Barbarian, like she had all the rest, and she said no. She also said she was "disturbed" whenever she looked at him. Because of this, the Ranger tried to get her to take the Barbarian to the stables to try to get horses for all the party (in order to get him out of the room while the mage was questioned).
Much to my surprise, this evoked a violent response among the party, who didn't want to be bothered about mounts! Because the party had the Priestess on a Mule, a Halfling on a riding dog, another in Boots of Springing and Striding, and a Barbarian/Monk, the group was moving at 40.
So the questions were asked with the "Unforeseen" Barbarian there. The mage was VERY vague and general, providing only the merest details. The Ranger (who had been hard at work for days trying to wring the details out of almost no clues) pumped him for information, and finally managed to get some information... Slowly, we learned that there was a mysterious five-piece artifact that bound even the <I>Wish</I>-casting mage here, and all five pieces would have to be recovered in order for us to get home... Then things started falling apart!
The dog-riding halfling and the priestess were already mad at the Ranger for trying to get people to buy horses. The Monk objected to his asking questions and "holding up the adventure", and the Barbarian objected to questions being asked in a language he didn't understand. The Ranger quit asking questions, and said he was going to the store. The Monk, thinking he had left the room, started bad-mouthing him. The Ranger (already irritated, and still IN the room) objected. After things blew up, the Ranger left, followed only by the Barbarian, bought supplies, and the rest of the party (supposedly being "held up") remained at the mage's.
Seeing no one else about, the Ranger left the Barbarian, telling him that he was going to cool off... The Barbarian wandered back to the mage's. After some time, the rest of the party rejoined him, and they all went to the store!
Meanwhile, the Ranger went off by himself, searched the town, met a lot of NPCs, picked up a lot of clues at the temple (which never got shared with the party due to later events), then was heading to the Witch's hut when Al (the Dryad-napped PC) showed up, again. The two rejoined, then went in to see her.
The NG Ranger and the Half-Succubus witch didn't get along well, at all. She demanded an oath to free her, he refused and left. Al vowed to help her, then they left to go to the bathhouse (local social custom, and best place to gather rumors). On the way, they encountered the party on their way to the witch's hut, and the Ranger informed them that they had been there, done that, and were being scried...
The party went in and vowed service to the witch, while the Ranger and Al (a Fighter) went off to the bathhouse. When done, the party met them there, and all but two proceeded to ignore them, totally. When done, there, the party split, again, with the two fighters going off to the Ex-Paladin's house, and the rest going back to the inn. The Priestess went first with the fighters, then back to the others, while the Ranger went to bed, and the Fighter took first watch.
When the rest of the party returned, the priestess insisted the ranger be awakened, and share his information. Things quickly went from bad to worse, as he said he hadn't learned anything that would be useful the next day, but that Al was back (which was ignored by the rest of the party), and that, since he would be needing his horse back, the party's "mage" would be walking. This resulted in much rolling of eyes, sighs, one member of the party telling the ranger to leave, and more pontificating by the Monk, who apparently didn't like him, for Out-of-Game reasons. The other fighter (whose player had dropped about the time the party entered town) also revealed that he had had a "change" while in the prison after a bar-fight, and was now someone else... (a Paladin, we later learned).
After a long discussion on party unity (which accomplished nothing), the Ranger's earlier suggestion that, perhaps, the spellcasters might want to get together and choose spells in concert (which prompted the party's mage to threaten him - see below), the GM hurried through the next day, and sent everyone off to the "haunted" castle.
From that point on, the Ranger stopped doing so much... The mage had to buy a horse (as Al took his back), but no one else did. Instead of asking questions, the Ranger started asking if anyone wanted to ask so-and-so something. Questioning quickly became unproductive.
At the castle, the halfling rogue scouted ahead, saw a bugbear, didn't scout the rest of the room, and came back to report. The Ranger shot the guard, who cried for help, the rest of the party finished him off, and a bunch of bugbears (including a cleric and his zombies, and a flying, invisible goblin sorceress) showed up, behind barricades, and started a planned attack.
During the combat, the Monk (who had brought no weapons, save the Wand of Magic Missiles the mage had given him) did little, the rogue tried to throw daggers more than 60' (apparently having no other missile weapons), the party acted as a non-collection of individuals, instead of a unit, and the priestess was fireballed (and almost killed) by the goblin (the Paladin managed to save her), before the Goblin-speaking Ranger made her morale-check and flee (also scoring the only hit on her).
By the end of the fight, the Barbarian and Mage's players had dropped, and after it, the "mage" revealed that he really wasn't, but was a spy. The Ranger then revealed that the Barbarian was "disturbing" to the priestess, too.
Then, suggestions were made (burn the corpses before the cleric raises them, Monk and Rogue take some javelins, create a marching order, etc). The bodies were burned, the Rogue refused (feeling a -10 range penalty was better than a -4 Non-Proficiency penalty), and the Monk took some javelins... but told no one but the GM, while Al, the Paladin, and the Monk started in on the Ranger, again...
At this point, the Ranger said "I'm going to check on the horses," and left the game. The party went on to free an elf from a painting similar to a mirror of life trapping, then killed an outsider, and recovered the first piece from the ghost guarding it (after I dropped). After that, they returned to town, where they had to ask the mage what the next piece to recover was, as it had "been so long", they had all forgotten.
It was an amazing experience, to me, to see how uncooperative a party could be, and how the GM let the PCs get away with not tracking supplies, UNTIL it suited the story to use them... The PCs must go to town, as they are low on supplies, but they can then spend a rainy night in the forest, with no tents, and be fine!
Ah well... The remaining SuperHeroes are off in the swamp, at last peek, trying to figure out where the second piece is... The Monk has even stopped threatening the remaining Elf whenever he asks questions!
Anyway, if you have a group of ALL SHs or ALL BSs, you just run the group that way. If you have a mix, let the BSs handle the equipment and any "party funds", and try to get them to do it BEFORE any table-top or online play. That way, the SHs don't have to worry about it!
If you can, have the BSs come over early, and stay late, and let them do all the bookkeeping. If someone needs a rope, they will soon turn to the BS and ask. You can ask him if he thought to bring any rope, and if he says no, tell him "Well, you'd better put that on the list, for when you get back into town".
This way, the BSs are useful to the party, often having the "save the day" equipment that the SHs will need. The SHs, however, won't have to sit around while such matters get taken care of.
Actually, the last online game I played in split over this issue, and teamwork...
It seems there is a group who doesn't want to be bothered about supplies ("Patience, nothin'! I'm gunna KILL somethin'!"), and the group who likes to plan (and or doesn't want to get caught unprepared). Let's call them the "SuperHeroes" (SH) and the "Boys Scouts" (BS).
The SHs want to have the set-up handed to them on a sheet of paper ("You go to the Mage, who tells you that the Cloak of Agamann is somewhere in the Ancient Dungeon of Fredd, guarded by the Ilth-Naga, whose eyes can kill. He gave you the <I>Potion of Pineality</I>, telling you not to use it until you see its eyes glow, and provided you with a map to the dungeon. You travel for two days, and are now about a third of a day's ride from there, ready to enter and earn the 1,000,000 GP he has promised you for the cloak.")
The BSs want to question the Mage, negotiate terms, get some "up-front money", buy supplies, pre-plan spells, pre-pay healing/resurrection fees, have the Bard check Bardic Knowledge, see if anyone has Knowledge (History), hit the Library and use Gather Information, etc., etc., etc....
In one campaign I played, the PCs were to ride to the aid of some villagers. One group was ready to ride. The other wanted to know what kinds of help they needed, they get supplies, pack some wagons, have food, clothes, shelters, medical supplies... So that party split, with the SHs riding off without even a tent (taking only the healer with them), while the Ranger and one other PC stayed behind with the wagons and beast-handlers.
In the recent campaign, a group of PCs who supposedly had been "travelling together for a while" (played by players who knew nothing about each other) were mysteriously transported elsewhere, overnight. There was no explanation why, it just happened. When the Ranger searched for tracks, there were none, but two maps were discovered nearby: One of what turned out to be the local area, the other of the largest city nearby. After some initial dithering, the PCs set off for the city.
That night, a Dryad nabbed one member of the party, and the next morning, two more PCs appeared in another mysterious fog similar to the one that had transported the rest. Brief consultation showed no one had any idea what was going on, so the party moved on.
During this time, the Ranger had been doing everything in his power to try to figure out what was going on, and asking who had mounts, food, etc. No one else seemed worried about this.
A few more days' travel brought the group to a crossroads, heading off to the city, or a farm temple. The Ranger's endless barrage of questions had revealed that signs in the sun, moon, and stars indicated that there was probably a war on between two local goddesses, and the other road went to the temple of the Farm goddess. Being within a day's travel, the party went there, first, and asked to speak to someone in the morning.
There, they met the final PC foreseen by the NPC Priestess in the party, and found that no one else present saw the signs that they all did. Again the Ranger's questioning revealed the clue that "others" had suffered from this "malady" in the past. He asked what happened to them, and learned that all but one had died, and he now lived in the city they were heading to. The new PC joined the party, they rode back to the crossroad, and there the Ranger asked what the party wanted to do: Head into town, or go to the temple of the other goddess.
After some discussion, the vote was to head to town (mostly because the PCs were low on supplies). When we got to the town, I was moving, had no phone in the new house, and so didn't enter the town, as I ended up being offline for almost a month... During this time, the PCs entered the town, hit the stables and an inn, then asked where to find the man in question.
They then went to his home, asked about the signs, discovered that there was a mage in town who could help out, and that this Ex-Paladin was retired. About that time, a Barbarian showed up, claiming to see the same things the PCs did, and joined, too. So off they were trooping to the Mage's when I came back.
The Ranger asked the Priestess if she had foreseen the Barbarian, like she had all the rest, and she said no. She also said she was "disturbed" whenever she looked at him. Because of this, the Ranger tried to get her to take the Barbarian to the stables to try to get horses for all the party (in order to get him out of the room while the mage was questioned).
Much to my surprise, this evoked a violent response among the party, who didn't want to be bothered about mounts! Because the party had the Priestess on a Mule, a Halfling on a riding dog, another in Boots of Springing and Striding, and a Barbarian/Monk, the group was moving at 40.
So the questions were asked with the "Unforeseen" Barbarian there. The mage was VERY vague and general, providing only the merest details. The Ranger (who had been hard at work for days trying to wring the details out of almost no clues) pumped him for information, and finally managed to get some information... Slowly, we learned that there was a mysterious five-piece artifact that bound even the <I>Wish</I>-casting mage here, and all five pieces would have to be recovered in order for us to get home... Then things started falling apart!
The dog-riding halfling and the priestess were already mad at the Ranger for trying to get people to buy horses. The Monk objected to his asking questions and "holding up the adventure", and the Barbarian objected to questions being asked in a language he didn't understand. The Ranger quit asking questions, and said he was going to the store. The Monk, thinking he had left the room, started bad-mouthing him. The Ranger (already irritated, and still IN the room) objected. After things blew up, the Ranger left, followed only by the Barbarian, bought supplies, and the rest of the party (supposedly being "held up") remained at the mage's.
Seeing no one else about, the Ranger left the Barbarian, telling him that he was going to cool off... The Barbarian wandered back to the mage's. After some time, the rest of the party rejoined him, and they all went to the store!
Meanwhile, the Ranger went off by himself, searched the town, met a lot of NPCs, picked up a lot of clues at the temple (which never got shared with the party due to later events), then was heading to the Witch's hut when Al (the Dryad-napped PC) showed up, again. The two rejoined, then went in to see her.
The NG Ranger and the Half-Succubus witch didn't get along well, at all. She demanded an oath to free her, he refused and left. Al vowed to help her, then they left to go to the bathhouse (local social custom, and best place to gather rumors). On the way, they encountered the party on their way to the witch's hut, and the Ranger informed them that they had been there, done that, and were being scried...
The party went in and vowed service to the witch, while the Ranger and Al (a Fighter) went off to the bathhouse. When done, the party met them there, and all but two proceeded to ignore them, totally. When done, there, the party split, again, with the two fighters going off to the Ex-Paladin's house, and the rest going back to the inn. The Priestess went first with the fighters, then back to the others, while the Ranger went to bed, and the Fighter took first watch.
When the rest of the party returned, the priestess insisted the ranger be awakened, and share his information. Things quickly went from bad to worse, as he said he hadn't learned anything that would be useful the next day, but that Al was back (which was ignored by the rest of the party), and that, since he would be needing his horse back, the party's "mage" would be walking. This resulted in much rolling of eyes, sighs, one member of the party telling the ranger to leave, and more pontificating by the Monk, who apparently didn't like him, for Out-of-Game reasons. The other fighter (whose player had dropped about the time the party entered town) also revealed that he had had a "change" while in the prison after a bar-fight, and was now someone else... (a Paladin, we later learned).
After a long discussion on party unity (which accomplished nothing), the Ranger's earlier suggestion that, perhaps, the spellcasters might want to get together and choose spells in concert (which prompted the party's mage to threaten him - see below), the GM hurried through the next day, and sent everyone off to the "haunted" castle.
From that point on, the Ranger stopped doing so much... The mage had to buy a horse (as Al took his back), but no one else did. Instead of asking questions, the Ranger started asking if anyone wanted to ask so-and-so something. Questioning quickly became unproductive.
At the castle, the halfling rogue scouted ahead, saw a bugbear, didn't scout the rest of the room, and came back to report. The Ranger shot the guard, who cried for help, the rest of the party finished him off, and a bunch of bugbears (including a cleric and his zombies, and a flying, invisible goblin sorceress) showed up, behind barricades, and started a planned attack.
During the combat, the Monk (who had brought no weapons, save the Wand of Magic Missiles the mage had given him) did little, the rogue tried to throw daggers more than 60' (apparently having no other missile weapons), the party acted as a non-collection of individuals, instead of a unit, and the priestess was fireballed (and almost killed) by the goblin (the Paladin managed to save her), before the Goblin-speaking Ranger made her morale-check and flee (also scoring the only hit on her).
By the end of the fight, the Barbarian and Mage's players had dropped, and after it, the "mage" revealed that he really wasn't, but was a spy. The Ranger then revealed that the Barbarian was "disturbing" to the priestess, too.
Then, suggestions were made (burn the corpses before the cleric raises them, Monk and Rogue take some javelins, create a marching order, etc). The bodies were burned, the Rogue refused (feeling a -10 range penalty was better than a -4 Non-Proficiency penalty), and the Monk took some javelins... but told no one but the GM, while Al, the Paladin, and the Monk started in on the Ranger, again...
At this point, the Ranger said "I'm going to check on the horses," and left the game. The party went on to free an elf from a painting similar to a mirror of life trapping, then killed an outsider, and recovered the first piece from the ghost guarding it (after I dropped). After that, they returned to town, where they had to ask the mage what the next piece to recover was, as it had "been so long", they had all forgotten.
It was an amazing experience, to me, to see how uncooperative a party could be, and how the GM let the PCs get away with not tracking supplies, UNTIL it suited the story to use them... The PCs must go to town, as they are low on supplies, but they can then spend a rainy night in the forest, with no tents, and be fine!
Ah well... The remaining SuperHeroes are off in the swamp, at last peek, trying to figure out where the second piece is... The Monk has even stopped threatening the remaining Elf whenever he asks questions!
Anyway, if you have a group of ALL SHs or ALL BSs, you just run the group that way. If you have a mix, let the BSs handle the equipment and any "party funds", and try to get them to do it BEFORE any table-top or online play. That way, the SHs don't have to worry about it!
If you can, have the BSs come over early, and stay late, and let them do all the bookkeeping. If someone needs a rope, they will soon turn to the BS and ask. You can ask him if he thought to bring any rope, and if he says no, tell him "Well, you'd better put that on the list, for when you get back into town".
This way, the BSs are useful to the party, often having the "save the day" equipment that the SHs will need. The SHs, however, won't have to sit around while such matters get taken care of.
Last edited:
Similar Threads
