Institutional memory or accountant

[Michael Silverbane]

I tend to be the person who remembers all of the important events and characters in the groups that I play in. Of course, I am terrible with names, so sometimes it can take a while to figure out which NPC I'm talking about.

I've never been too fussed about equipment that other people are carrying around, and I don't usually carry around anything that I don't think I'm going to use more or less immediately. Then again, I prefer not to have a character sheet or anything in front of me, so I like to keep things pretty simple.

 

[Wycen]

Conversely, IMC the rule is "if it's not written on your character sheet, you don't have it".

I ran a high level 3.5 campaign some years ago and borrowed the conceit from a previous campaign that death was permanent except under unique circumstances. So, of course in the first session one of the loot drops was a minor artifact meant to help mitigate this conceit. In retrospect I should have just gone with the normal DnD rules for death and resurrection, but I kinda liked the item.

Anyway, when they cast detect magic on the treasure this item radiated magic, but of course Identify doesn't work on artifacts. So I told them they would need a more powerful spell than Identify. So, we broke for the night and went home.

And that was the last time it was ever brought up. I considered mentioning it after the second session but figured I'd wait a bit longer, but by then it was either forgotten or maybe they figured it was some sort of MacGuffin for a future part of the campaign.

Anyway, this has got me thinking maybe some of the newer group members for the sandbox game could use some background info on how we arrived at our current station. They can read a lot of it in our Facebook group and I've hinted about the truce we made with an undead general, but I don't think they know about the cult that burned down the warehouse we've rebuilt or the siege weapons in our headquarters we salvaged from a sinking ship.

 

[SkidAce]

Really very simple - inventory management and encounter management used to be a part of the game that is now considered "not fun," so most people don't do it to the level they need to.

How many of you record details of encounters with NPCs? How many record the details of how a magic item was lost or expended?

Most of this falls on the DM to enforce by way of, as previously mentioned, if not on char sheet, not in possession. Likewise, if not recorded by someone and they forget I'll give the player a chance to "remember" some detail by way of an attribute check. Can't remember and failed the check and not critical to the campaign? Sorry, you forgot.

This is the way....