The Case of the Missing Sandwich

[TheAuldGrump]

Ummm, for what it's worth the Earl of Sandwich did not invent the sandwich, merely popularized it.

The Romans sold meat between slabs of bread at the colosseum (More specifically, finely chopped beef with pine nuts to add texture, which was then fried. Closer to a hamburger than a sandwich, but meat plus bread anyways. And, yes it did continue in the Italies through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Sausage in bread has a long standing in the Germanies, and I am sure that there are other examples. Cutting bread open and inserting some other food is nothing new. Neither was flavoring bread by dunking it in broth or melted cheese.

The Auld Grump, who learneed this on The Learning Channel and the Discovery Channel.

 

[Angcuru]

Umm...Celebrim...aren't you getting a wee bit too upset over a.....sandwich...in someone elses game?

 

[Tsyr]

That was sort of my logic behind the sandwhich... I had actualy been assuming I ate them a fair bit... as a travelling food, in inns, etc. It never occoured to me to even check if they had been invented.

So, I just assumed that my character had been doing something unusual all along, and finaly decided to sell the idea.

And, for the record, I did this largely to spite the DM... I was getting sick of a lot of things "Not being invented" in his world... The list, currently, includes such things as:

Grappling Hooks

Hard Tack (Yes, apparently, there is bread, but no one ever invented the most basic form of bread)

Boat Anchors (Yup, no boat anchors, in a world that supposedly has a thriving sea trade)

The morter and pestle

And all of these would be fine, if he was running a low-tech world. But it's not, it's normal DnD tech level. And we only find out about these after the fact...

Take the boat anchor example. We had hired the best ship in a fairly major port city to take us somewhere as quick as they could. After a fight in the middle of the sea, we had to stop for a couple days to repair the ship. And we drifted into his next encounter. When we questioned why no one had set the anchor, on a ship of trained sailors, he got that "Oh, carp" look on his face, and replied calmly, "What anchor? I never said anchors exist in my world...". And, I mean, in retrospect, all he would have had to done is say that we were in too deap of water to anchor... Perfectly acceptable. But suddenly, the anchor vanished from his world.

So, I sort of snapped, and chose a fairly harmless situation to spite him with. *shrug* Immature? Sure, I guess. Everyone loved it, though... except for the DM.

 

[Tsyr]

If you don't like my rulings, fine, no one is making you play.

Last time I checked, I wasn't, at least not with your rulings.

 

[Zhure]

No anchors? Sheesh, that's what rope trick is for. Use magic, man!

Sandwiches, under various names, have been around as long as bread has been around. Hard tack has been around longer than most breads have. Sounds like your DM doesn't have a solid grasp of techno-history. Maybe buy him a copy of any books by James Burke (the Connections guy from PBS, lovely speaker, too, heard him speak in Tulsa one time.)

/ramblings
Greg

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The Timeline of History would also be a good purchase as well as the excellent The Ancient Engineers by L. Spague deCamp, still in print after more than 30 years. (Don't let the Von Daniken style cover fool you, no spaceships or aliens involved, just engineering.) Another good book is The Medieval Machine if you can find it anywhere.*EDIT* Amazon lists some used copies at less than a dollar each, as well as The Ancient Engineers... For a later period take a look at De Re Metallica by Agricola, a book on mining, which I believe Burke mentioned on The Day the Universe Changed. On television The Day the Universe Changed, Connections, and Connections 2 are wonderful.

Mortar and pestle date back to the neolithic era. Boat anchors were used in the Agean Sea (though sea anchors were a later invention). Grappling hooks I am less sure about, but I believe were used by the Greek City States, to pull down pallisades, they were also used in boarding actions.

Metagaming against a stupid ruling is not quite the same as general metagaming, but it can be annoying when the DM actually has a reason for the ruling. In this case though I would send the DM back to History 010 - Remedial History. No mortars, great googly moogly!

The Auld Grump

 

[Paladin]

Boat Anchors (Yup, no boat anchors, in a world that supposedly has a thriving sea trade)

You should start a sea-rescue service. There's an awful lot of boats that must drift all over the place, virtually endlessly, until reaching docks (do docks exist?). They'll need a resupply of fresh water, food, etc., after sailing day-after-day-after-day without stopping. I mean, how could stop? You'd just start immediately drifting. You'll make millions! Especially with all that sea traffic.

There's a difference between metagaming and common sense. Here there needs to be metagaming because the DM has no common sense. No sandwiches? WTF? Are there cups? Did you check?

DM: "A vessel for holding water? Nope. Doesn't exist."

PC: "So...what, we catch rain water with our mouths????"

DM: "Who said you have mouths?"

 

[fusangite]

Had I been your DM, I probably would have done something jasper-like and had your customers complain that the sandwiches fell apart too easily and demand to know why you couldn't have baked the cheese, onions and meat into the bread. "They're not hot either," I can hear one of the NPCs whining. Then I would have had the bakers' guild turn up and demand to know why you didn't get their permission to do this. Perhaps they could bring small children along to pelt you with stale rolls while chanting "Can't bake! Can't bake!"

Anyway, sounds like a good laugh all 'round. Of course, in my campaign world, there's precious little decent bread as nobody grows wheat and sweet corn is the staple grain.

I'm completely opposed to the Celebrim solution; people should not be randomly penalized for thinking.

 

[fusangite]

oops duplicate post

 

[Angcuru]

No sandwiches...no ANCHORS, no mortar and pestels..... Damn, Tsyr, your DM is f***in' nuts.

How much sense does it make that no one has thought to cut open a roll and stick in some cheese or something, or to tie a big rock to a rope and drop it over the side of a boat to keep the boat in place...come to think of it, potions of any sort should not exist since the one most necessary implement in alchemy does not exist.

Any other odd "Not in my world!" stories to tell, anyone?