Realism Headache

[twwombat]

Every encounter is more of a chalenge for me than it is for them. Im glad they dont know much about the various monsters. Has anyone else had a player like this?

Yep. They're called "Rabid Rules Lawyers".

Retrain them if you can. Specifically, make the players stop relying on their memorized information. Make whatever they know wrong and have an in-game reason to back it up. Make what they know hurt them a few times and they'll either leave like the whiners they are, or they'll grow up and start reacting to your world and not the published rules.

If you don't want to put in that level of detail, screw it. Pick a number for coinage, then make vague, "Huh!" noises when they ask about perceived discrepancies and let the characters go crazy trying to figure out where the money went. I can't imagine how fervent attention to to last copper placed in an adventure is =fun=.

It's a =GAME=. Games should be =FUN=. Not just for the players, but for the GM as well.

The mercenary prices are GUIDELINES. If reality worked on guidelines, we'd all be rich. Or poor. Or both. Or at least able to predict certain events with 100% accuracy.

Do the mercenaries have to pay for their food? What about equipment? If so, pay them =in= food and equipment and services instead of having to fall back on the crutch of currency. Or maybe they're working with the promise of a huge payday. If any mercenary stockpiles all of their pay, they'd retire in a month, three months tops.

Currency was invented as a promise of other life-sustaining goods, and because it's really hard to carry a month's harvest of grain into a shop to directly trade it for a ship's mast. I rarely have currency as found treasure unless there's a =really= good reason for it to be there. I take the gold piece value and come up with gems, art objects, or raw materials in that amount. And there can be some clues in the treasure itself: if the characters defeat a mercenary band in the desert and recover heartwood from a specific jungle tree, there's a possible connection that needs to be tracked down.

I don't think many GMs have been exposed to the idea of barter outside of its direct impact on a planned adventure (i.e. "You kill this dragon/save my daughter/perform this other service and I'll back your bid for the Barony/lend you troops/free your friend/owe you a favor/whatever"). And that's what 90% of commerce relies on in a medieval-style culture. Only the rich have money, everyone else trades the sweat of their brow for food and shelter.

When my characters run into a shop and start throwing around magic items and expecting cash, I have the shop owner look at them oddly. The shop doesn't have a ton of cash lying around, but it =does= have other stock to trade with the difference made up in promissary notes. The players are learning that there's not a lot of actual currency floating around, but it's a long, slow process.

ANYway. There's another angle to look at the "problem" of actual money found deviating from published guidelines.

 

[diaglo]

Has anyone else had a player like this?

no, but you've given me an idea to try out on my DM for my kender dragonhunter.

 

[gizmo33]

What's the rate of pay have to do with how much stuff the bugbears have? Don't bugbears steal, trade, find stuff, loot, etc? If you did a real world experiment, and totalled up the assets of different people who make the exact same salary you'd probably find widely varying numbers - and that's just among law-abiding citizens.

"Realism" isn't a problem if you take into account that most situations are governed by very complicated factors. If find the most *unrealistic* thing about people who claim to follow realism is that they actually understand reality. Better to just decide things and work backwards. I can think of at least 10 reasons off the top of my head as to why bugbears would have treasure exceeding their current monthly pay.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

I have players that try and pull that kind of stuff.
When i tell them something other than what they expected they try and pull the "well a good DM would".
Doesnt work i dont know why they try, i usually tell them i dont have to give them a reason (and if there is a reason to be discovered its there job to piece it together with the clues ive given them) and if they dont like it dont play.
Last week i had to tell two players that, they said they wouldnt play and i would have the books for nothing, i told them i have three other players and i didnt really need them (and these three other players dont whine) They shut up pretty quickly.

 

[werk]

While playing they continuously made coments on 'how long it would take to dig a pit','they dont have much spare food space','I'd have expected a few slaves'.

How many bathrooms do you put in your dungeon?

 

[Ozmar]

What's the rate of pay have to do with how much stuff the bugbears have? Don't bugbears steal, trade, find stuff, loot, etc? If you did a real world experiment, and totalled up the assets of different people who make the exact same salary you'd probably find widely varying numbers - and that's just among law-abiding citizens.

"Realism" isn't a problem if you take into account that most situations are governed by very complicated factors. If find the most *unrealistic* thing about people who claim to follow realism is that they actually understand reality. Better to just decide things and work backwards. I can think of at least 10 reasons off the top of my head as to why bugbears would have treasure exceeding their current monthly pay.

Agreed. I have (kind of) the opposite problem: There usually are detailed and rational explanations for why things are the way they are in my game, but the players seldom follow up on seeking out the explanations. Instead of assuming that there must be an explanation for how there are a dozen living girallons in a dungeon that's been sealed for 1,000 years, and seeking the explanation, they assume that its a logical error, mock it, and move on. So they never find the magical food generator, the extraplanar portal to the elemental plane of water, or learn the history of the mad wizard's experiments that resulted in this isolated tribe of feral girallons. They just assume that there is no explanation, and deride the game world's "unrealistic" nature.

I keep telling them they shouldn't assume things...

Ozmar the Fantasy Realist

 

[Tonguez]

Do the mercenaries have to pay for their food? What about equipment? If so, pay them =in= food and equipment and services instead of having to fall back on the crutch of currency. Or maybe they're working with the promise of a huge payday. If any mercenary stockpiles all of their pay, they'd retire in a month, three months tops.

Excellent points and exactly what I'd do. Bugbears especially as the tend to be primitive and tribal probably don't measure wealth in gold coins but in food and weapons.
IMC Gnoll culture is based on Hunting and wealth means having excess meat from successful hunts (which relies on having enough whelps, followers and fertile lands). I don't see Bugbears as being much different so the next time the PCs go into the dungeon reward them with racks of dried/salted meat, some meat cleavers, the skull of a buffalo and if your in a generous mood maybe some hides worked into leather

I don't think many GMs have been exposed to the idea of barter outside of its direct impact on a planned adventure (i.e. "You kill this dragon/save my daughter/perform this other service and I'll back your bid for the Barony/lend you troops/free your friend/owe you a favor/whatever"). And that's what 90% of commerce relies on in a medieval-style culture. Only the rich have money, everyone else trades the sweat of their brow for food and shelter.

When my characters run into a shop and start throwing around magic items and expecting cash, I have the shop owner look at them oddly. The shop doesn't have a ton of cash lying around, but it =does= have other stock to trade with the difference made up in promissary notes. The players are learning that there's not a lot of actual currency floating around, but it's a long, slow process.

ANYway. There's another angle to look at the "problem" of actual money found deviating from published guidelines.

In my current setting I have a cashless economy and have adapted D20 Modern's Wealth system (and called it Influence) which measures the amount of influence a character has over others and their ability to call in favours (like say asking the village spear maker for the sacred Harpoon of Fish Summoning +2

I also like promissory notes - the Ancient Egyptians use to issue such notes to those depositing grain in the royal silo's (it allowed a person holding the note to access grain from any of the royal silo's at a future date)

Anyway was watching Discovery Channel 'Ancient Egyptians' last night and the tale of two twin sisters who served as priestesses to the Apis Bull cult they were paid in tokens and a promissory note

it might be interesting for the PCs to find that the dungeons treasure consists of such tokens which can only be used by a priestess of a particular cult
or a promissory note redeemable in a enemy country (or only by Bugbears)

 

[gizmo33]

They just assume that there is no explanation, and deride the game world's "unrealistic" nature.

What a strange coincidence that this happened recently to me as well. Given the existence of the Wish spell in the DnD world, does any player really have any sensible basis for challenging the DMs design since they don't know all the facts.

In my particular case the player challenged me on the fact that a certain group of creatures were found out in a remote desert. Not only did the player appear to be generally ignorant of desert flora/fauna, but he didn't even consider the fact that magical forces were at work. Sad, because the encounter would have meant more had the player thought to investigate some of the lack of apparent "logic" behind the encounter. Oh well, I'm not about to prove to this player that he's the bigger fool (in this case) by giving him information that he neglected to earn.