Here are some posts I thought I'd share:
- Dorks and Dumbasses has a post of magic items. Some of them are really neat, and I'd use them. Others, not really my type. A couple I'm not sure how they work, exactly (that rat box generated about 10d10 questions for me.) Thanks to Black Ray Gun for linking to it.
- I just saw this excellent post by Justin Aquino on old ships. The conclusions alone are interesting - yeah, buying old stuff to save money by putting in extra time? I'd agree it's a young being's game. "I can do it myself and save money!" makes sense until that time could make you more money or you have so much less time.
- I won't post a link, here, but I will note that the very final post on so, so many blogs on my blogroll go kind of like this, "Wow, it's been a while! But I'm going to be posting again regularly from now on!" Heh. I'll probably go out that way, too, as that's how one of my old blogs went once I had too little time to write . . .
- I've edited in some further thoughts into my 10x Treasure idea. Still lingering issue - how would you implement this in play if you wanted to do so after the fact?
- Also in a non-post related note, I spent a good hour yesterday consolidating down my minis collection into fewer plastic trays. I got rid of some boxes and made more shelf space. I also found that I'd kept some Bones IV minis I don't actually like. Geez, how did that happen? I'll figure out something to do with them, I suppose. I should sell them and others off now, but I'm not excited about multiple trips to the post office. Or any trips. I didn't even like to go before there was a special health risk.
- I re-read a fantasy battle sequence the other day as a light breather during a read-through of a larger, longer, historical war book. Casualty counts in fantasy battles are ridiculous. In the one that I read, the good guys manage to kill off 1000 guys with no one escaping and without marking up the battlefield enough to give themselves away . . . and then have a battle where they lose 50% of their number in a hard-fought victory. Geez, Pyrrhus did better than that, historically . . . but it made me think of other battles in other fantasy novels where 100% losses inflicted is just a normal thing and losing huge chunks of your own force is also just a normal thing. Compared to the US Civil War, which I'm reading about, where losing 1:2 in total losses - dead, wounded, missing, and captured - and inflicting a 10-20% loss on the enemy was a shattering victory, fantasy armies are expected to have way better discipline and morale, eh?
What was the book?
ReplyDeleteThis specific one was Saga of Old City.
Delete"...fantasy armies are expected to have way better discipline and morale, eh?"
ReplyDeleteIt is a fantasy after all. It's one of the things I do not like about GURPS Mass Combat, it was clearly written to favor those fantastic battles where one side is destroyed to the last man.
"I've edited in some further thoughts into my 10x Treasure idea. Still lingering issue - how would you implement this in play if you wanted to do so after the fact?"
Bottomless purses. I like doing Bottomless [SPECIFIC] [CONTAINER]. For you, not sure what I'd charge, for me I've liked going 1/4 price. It's really good for that one thing, but not so good for anything else. Basically that 'one thing', be it COINS, ARROWS, FOOD, ROPE, etc, weigh 1/3 weight in the container, anything else weighs normal weight.
So far I've seen plenty of Bottomless Sheathes†, Bottomless Coin Purses, Bottomless Quivers, Bottomless Potion Belts, and Bottomless Ration Purses... and one Bottomless Rope Bag for the guy who never seems to have enough rope.
† A number of these were 'grandfathered' in from DF where "Sheathe of Holding" and "Weightless Potion Belts" could cut a pound (or two) for really cheap... which is why I went this way. It was easier to keep allowing those items than to try to explain why the Enchanters were no longer making them.
"I'd also drop to the DFRPG standard of $100 per potion in town"
What? What is this "standard of $100 per potions in town"? Potions are way more expensive than that...
"Another sticking point - if you wanted to do this after play began, how would you do so?"
Just do it. Gear owned and loot unsold goes up in price. Coins ... I'd think real hard about that first, but probably go ahead and multiply them. Spent is spent and lost out is lost out.
The fights in lots of fantasy is lopsidedly massacre/minimal casualties. Those happen, historically, but I agree that Mass Combat makes them happen as the standard of victory.
Delete$100 for found potion is DFRPG Exploits pg. 76.
Huh. I hadn't noticed that change from DF to DFRPG. Making a note for the next campaign... or if this crew TPKs and starts fresh...
DeleteThough, to be honest I'm not sure it'll foster the 'correct behavior'. I'm fine with the adventurers selling their 'unwanted' potions... if they start thinking "But this 20K$ potion might be useful someday, it's a waste to have to rebuy it..." then they'll be back to hoarding potions that have a value greater than 1K$, just in case (previous behavior I saw a lot of in D&D). Thanks, made a note, but I'll have to think on that one.
For someone who makes up a lot of unique potions, like myself, a flat in-town sale price is a great convenience. I don't need to figure out what it would cost to buy something, and I don't need to wonder if they'll sell it instead of using it.
DeleteIt's not just fantasy fiction. There was an article in a recent USNI Proceedings that, in advocating an increased naval strike role for B-1's, said "assume war breaks out and the navy needs to sink 300 warships in five days", added an assumption that 2 Mk-54 ASW torpedoes per submarine was sufficient for mission kills, and then clarified that those ships were operating outside of the Chinese intergrated air defense system.
ReplyDeleteAs far is I could tell the writer, a serving officer, was completely serious. Also that he knows nothing about either WW1 (Der Tag!) or the Falklands war (where the Brits sank a lot of whales).
That's a different kind of fantasy fiction.
Delete