My dearest next paper man,
By the time you read this I will be unresurrectably dead. I hearby leave you all of my stuff, my stuff's stuff, anything I might even have the vaguest claim to, and all knowledge and understanding of my adventures as I, myself, posses. This will also functions as a letter of introduction to my former adventuring companions, who will immediately like and accept you in a way they won't with any NPCs. Happy adventuring! Avenge me!
A staple of our AD&D days was a Will, leaving your gear to your next guy. The party collective style of adventuring group wasn't a thing - your stuff was yours, and for your current and future paper men. My stuff was mine, and for my current and my future paper man.
This is certainly because our official TSR character sheets had wills on them.
But does anyone use them now? My gamers sure don't. It's not "that kind of game" in a lot of ways, but it's especially not the kind of game where these paper men have families, dependents (except for the much-discussed Mrs. McDougal, wife of Desmond McDougal), or lives outside of delving. No one dies and leaves their money to their kids. They die and leave it to the other delvers, along with their stuff. Magic items pass from hand to hand - the staff of healing that Ulf carries has been handed down from one cleric to another (and lost and regained) since 2011-12. Money only serves for adventuring purposes. Nothing leaves the collective unless lost, expended, or sold.
But no wills - it's divided as the players see fit, with the input of the dead guy (possible with Summon Spirit, but done regardless).
Does anyone use these kinds of things these days? Is this a relic of the past or something people still use in the present?
I've forgotten about Last Wills. Might have to file a few with the local Guild for a few Characters I've got in gwythaint's game, as some of those characters aren't communists and very much would think of their families before their adventuring companions, which in some cases they can barely tolerate.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably a function of campaign - out of all of the PCs, literally one has made any mention of outside attachments. In my previous campaign, multiple PCs had multiple outside attachments.
DeleteMany of the players overlapped, though, and had a similar communal outlook on items. It's tricky for them when there are NPCs who don't want to pass items around based on maximal use, but consider their own items their own items. It's an adjustment. They make it, but still . . . it's not automatic.
In my experience, this is a strong function of three things:
ReplyDelete1. How "real" NPCs seem compared to the PCs.
and
2. How lethal the main game activity itself is compared to how important fitting in with social norms is.
and
3. How co-operative the players are with each other.
For the first point, you generally want the other players to succeed, but the DM (who plays all the NPCs) is at best a neutral moderator. Overcoming this by making the players think of the NPCs as "people" can overcome this, but it is hard because the person portraying those NPCs has their attention very divided, and also plays the skin-eating dragon that your PCs has nightmares about.
For the second point, folks in life or death situations will often choose effectiveness over social norms. "Loot/power goes to person who will make the most effective use of it" is very effective. Less optimal allocation may happen because of feelings of greed or fairness, but outright removing loot/power from the party to fit with social norms is a terrible plan in most RPGs. Social norms are less likely to (metaphorically) bite the PCs hard than the skin-eating dragon is to (literally) bite the PCs hard because they buried Meodin in his magic full plate instead of re-allocating it. This is also why tomb robbing is accepted or encouraged in so many RPGs.
The third point is just a negator of the first two - when the game is PVP instead of (or in addition to) PVE the first two points simply don't apply, so other systems of loot sharing become more palatable.
I think it is the system/campaign and the GM that set that expectation. I've never had a Will outside of OD&D and related pre-1985-rules campaigns but most of those if not all allow and encourage it. It is a player reward: Player, you have worked hard and just because your paper man is gone you shouldn't have to start over like a stranger, come in with some of the fruits of your labors (minus an "inheritance tax" which is really there to punish you for dying). But like your group, all the groups I've played in that run newer systems (AD&D2 or later) are "for the greatest good of the party" distribution of treasure and "when you die all your possessions revert to the group." I could see Wills working in those games if the GM made the players think about their families and lives outside of adventuring. Many GMs want to know who a PC's loved ones are (and we as players all expect that the GM will one day take them hostage). Perhaps the possibility of the Will would allow the GM to build that part of his campaign and collect that information without the players all being orphans with no siblings and no love prospects. In a mega-dungeon where home base is safe, players shouldn't be worried about their families being used against them, so I don't really see why they don't have them except a singular focus on the dungeon and the party to the exclusion of all else.
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