Skip to main content

Not Tied Down

Theo and Sam nod gravely as I describe how the last skeleton collapses into a heap of bones at the crushing force of Odo II's war hammer, its arm still grasping the cruel shining sword that falls at Black Mary's feet. "So the sword is shining?" says Theo. "It's not rusty? I'm asking if it's rusty because I want to take it out of the dungeon and sell it?"

 Anything that's not tied down my boys will try and take. I have to be careful setting the scene with old armories or hallways lined with suits of armor, as the game drags while the boys carefully inspect every item in the dungeon that might possibly fetch some coin at the local market.

They are not content just to grab the silver candlesticks from the mantlepiece; they ask me to appraise the mantlepiece itself, if it's just wood or perhaps quality marble, and if it could be removed without damaging it. I suggest that is too heavy to be worth the trouble of carrying out of the dungeon, but they take that as a challenge and ask if they could use an old door as a sledge. They pay no mind to the wandering monster rolls I fudge in an effort to move them along, in fact they are distracted by the bone charms worn by the orcs. "Are they well made? Could we sell them?" "Probably not, orcs scare common folk." "We'll take them anyway. How many belts did you say there were? And you're sure we can't use their armor?"

There is an upside to this. The boys have a truer, more elemental kind of avarice that can't be summarized by a count of gold pieces. I'm now replacing standard treasure items -- coin, gems, jewels -- with ad-libbed magical tomes or maps of kobold trade routes. Nothing with any immediate use. The boys are satisfied with the idea that the mage Morloch mentoring Smarty Lardlo our magic-user will be interested in the old scrolls and books, or that the as-yet unnamed local baron will be able to dispatch his patrols more effectively with the kobold maps. I give the characters XP matching the loot I traded out, and make a mental note that they're getting in good graces with nearby important people.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reignac Timeline

My campaign setting is inspired by a recent trip to the Perigord where Sam bought me a Maison Fort de Reignac notebook. We also first got onto the idea of D&D during this trip, and I started using the notebook to keep track of ideas. I thought I'd pay homage by naming my campaign after the notebook. The region in general has a rich history and seemed like a good place to base a campaign setting on. It's also riddled with limestone caves so is already well-stocked with dungeons. The following timeline is almost, but not completely, factual. 20,000 BCE  Prehistoric man roams the frozen tundra, hunting mammoth and smaller goblins. Record of their activity is left in cave   paintings  and buried in the ground. Drawings of goblins are all erased during the great purge of 10,000 BCE. 1200 BCE  Egyptian colony established at Cargegnac during the late Bronze Age collapse. Some time later, a rogue priest of Anubis tries to open a portal to A Bad Place. The priest i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Helmets and Dying

For the first set of characters that they've rolled up, my kids are spending a lot of time deciding what kind of helmets each will have. For most characters the choice is between leather and metal helmets, although for the fighters there is some discussion about a spiked helmet versus one with a plume. I'm answering their questions with nuance and details while frantically wracking my brains for a mechanic to use with helmets. The boys have no idea what the rules are around helmets; Theo just bought a knight's helmet with a visor during our trip the previous week to Rocamador and they both assume something so important to them as a helmet must have an equally important part of the game. I'm not going to let them down. Grognardia's rule of opponents automatically targeting bare heads seems a little too much. I'm planning on using a variation of jrients' exactly-how-dead table: instead of negative hit points, when a character dies, they're out of the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The First Two Rooms

Theo and Sam have a posse. Character generation is fun. Abilities are rolled in order, 4d6-drop-lowest-die, which gives a random distribution of classes. In order to keep them from being discouraged by weak characters I let them roll several each, which got out of hand, and so they're entering the dungeon with 12 characters. One thief has 7 strength and 8 constitution and is named French Frie. The magic user is class-appropriate with 6 strength and 7 constitution and 15 intelligence. We decide he's obese and name him Smarty Lardlo. One fighter has 17 strength and 14 constitution and Sam chooses the name Sir Muscly Muscle. I'm running a modified version of the old Dungeon Magazine crawl Keep of Koralgesh, relocated to Reignac and transformed into an Egyptian pyramid. The entry corridor ends in two secret doors, which, thanks to their gang of 5 thieves (French Frie, Badflea, Black Mary, Troublesome Niceguy and Rukus) are both easily found. The first one they open leads to a...
Post a Comment
Read more