NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Distracted DM" data-source="post: 9703226" data-attributes="member: 6894926">Food is often suspicious... so I'll frequently mechanically reward PCs for partaking. Something like a temporary bonus, or inspiration, etc etc. A morale boost, if you will. Your character has been living on hardtack and jerky for days, there's a sumptuous feast available here... digging in is rewarded.. unless it does happen to be poisoned, or dangerous, etc. But I try to make sure that the food offerings in my game more often reward than punish... and usually, if food is to be used in a dangerous fashion, it's not insta-death. Everyone eats the food at the feast, everyone passes out and is dumped into the dangerous dungeon... now we can begin the adventure! (Oh, your character is immune to poison? Well it was also enchanted, so we can get on with it- otherwise everyone's going to sit around for 60mins waiting while your character tries to solo-fight the whole mansion). I actually ran Castle Amber (touched up with its spiritual successor, Castle Xyntillian) and 3/4 PCs did not sit down to enjoy the food, and just watched... the player that did participate was quite happy with his results. But there's a certain mentality required, a generosity of spirit perhaps, or sportsmanship, to enter the obviously-malevolent doorway. And this spirit is two-way- the player knowingly walks into a tropey situation that their character would, but player would not- they're trusting that the result will be advancing things, or entertaining, or interesting.. and the GM has to make sure to reward such behavior, so that they can employ such campy enjoyable things in the future.If every sumptuous feast kills those eating it, then no one will eat them. So mix it up- and preferably, make sure that more often than not, they're delicious.</blockquote>

Verification