Wednesday, April 13, 2011

J is for Just a few questions

 
A few questions for my fellow gamers.

Have you ever seen a player find jewelry or artwork in a treasure hoard and decide to keep it rather than sell it for gold? Outside of my brother's PCs, I have never seen a player hold on to any trinkets.

For that matter, has any PC held onto an old magic weapon when a new one becomes available? My Engines & Empires PC used the same short sword +1 for the majority of the six-month campaign. When he finally got a hold of a +2 short sword, he held onto the old weapon for sentimental reasons. Is that normal?

Why do so many members of the OSR get their shorts in a twist when a game refers to the arcane spellcaster as a 'mage' instead of a 'magic-user'?

How long does a party usually adventure before they think of getting mounts for their characters to haul them around?

Henchmen and hirelings, useful or just another hassle to keep track of?

What is worse, a player that hardly shows up, or a player that tries to show up everyone else?

1 comment:

  1. I've seen players keep items for personal use. I'm guilty of it myself. Giant bed? Ship it home and outfit it with fine linens. Find some unusual, slighty valuable treasures, such as figurines made out of semi-precious materials? Use them as gifts in diplomatic situations. Find a wealth of rare dwarven books? Return them to the dwarven kingdom for a nice boost to your reputation.

    Granted, many of these examples occurred after we had already amassed quite a fortune (despite the costs of all the gnomish tinkering), so money wasn't a concern.

    When we lost a very elderly clerical NPC, her fine sword became my off-hand weapon. And it was named in her honor.

    Personally, I've never made much use of mounts. Except when THE gnome used a "polymorph other" device to turn my character into a mount. (I sure do miss that campaign... it was so bizarre. And seriously epic.)

    But we didn't often need mounts, because I played a sylph and he just developed a device for persona flight. We also had an airship, which I suppose counts as a mount in it's own, non-biological way.

    You wouldn't think one little gnome and a sylph would make much of a team, but I think teamwork becomes easier when you're playing a small, intimate campaign with friends.

    Games with friends seem to operate quite differently from games at a "friendly local gaming store". I suppose it really depends on how close player's expectations are to each other's. I've also seen games with friends fall apart immediately, because everyone had different ideas on what they wanted to do and were difficult to corral together for a common goal.

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