Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions

  • 12 Replies
  • 11465 Views
Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« on: February 13, 2013, 05:15:38 PM »
I'm wondering how people deal with the resource abstractions like Adventurer's gear and Books that have a limited number of "uses".  Certain things, like torches, make a lot of sense, but if a character needs a rope, and crosses off that use, then do you allow them to now "have" a rope?  What if they use some iron spikes, and then later collect them?  Do you allow them to add an "use" to their Adventurer's Gear, or do they just add "Iron Spikes" to their character sheet.  Another example:  a character wants to look around the corner with a mirror, and crosses one use off of their Gear.  Then later, they want to use the mirror again.  Do they cross off another use?

Thanks!

Re: Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2013, 05:39:10 PM »
The way I play it is that each "use" of Adventuring gear isn't a strict "use." It's a blank spot in your inventory that you can fill in and define as you need it.

So, your character needs a rope? Cool, mark off one "use" and now you have a rope for the rest of the adventure (unless the rope worms eat it) and four more blank slots to fill. A couple hours later when you've defined your Adventuring Gear as rope, chalk, mirror, lantern, and towel, and you really need an iron spike, then you're out of luck.





Re: Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2013, 07:54:30 PM »
With "use up their resources" as a GM move, I don't think letting players keep their use-generated gear is necessarily disastrous. I'm not sure how it works with load, though.

Re: Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« Reply #3 on: February 13, 2013, 08:15:37 PM »
The way I play it is that each "use" of Adventuring gear isn't a strict "use." It's a blank spot in your inventory that you can fill in and define as you need it.

So, your character needs a rope? Cool, mark off one "use" and now you have a rope for the rest of the adventure (unless the rope worms eat it) and four more blank slots to fill. A couple hours later when you've defined your Adventuring Gear as rope, chalk, mirror, lantern, and towel, and you really need an iron spike, then you're out of luck.

Oh, I really like that  a lot. There are so many great ideas and clarifications on this forum. They could almost do a revised or second edition of DW with all of it.




Re: Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2013, 01:40:13 AM »
With "use up their resources" as a GM move, I don't think letting players keep their use-generated gear is necessarily disastrous. I'm not sure how it works with load, though.

Well, I don't see why their load would change. They haven't gotten anything new, just defined what's there.

Re: Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2013, 02:19:28 AM »
Adventuring gear is torches, rope, chalk, spikes, flint, tinder, map paper, ink, etc etc.  Think of it as Felix's bag - once you pull something out, it's a thing.  It's real.  Add it to your inventory.

Thus, a bag of books with 5 uses becomes:
- a book of demon tattoos
- a book of snake cult rituals
- a book of elvish chants
- a book of maps of the northern wastes
- a book of recipes using taters

Re: Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2013, 06:03:56 AM »
Yes, but we all know that the five uses of adventuring gear will ALWAYS end up as:
  • 50 feet of rope
  • A ten-foot pole
  • A grappling hook
  • Another 50 feet of rope
  • Yet another 50 feet of rope

*

zmook

  • 64
Re: Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2013, 07:16:40 AM »
Yes, but we all know that the five uses of adventuring gear will ALWAYS end up as:
  • 50 feet of rope
  • A ten-foot pole
  • A grappling hook
  • Another 50 feet of rope
  • Yet another 50 feet of rope

You need a lantern in there somewhere.

Re: Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2013, 01:20:16 PM »
Yes, but we all know that the five uses of adventuring gear will ALWAYS end up as:
  • 50 feet of rope
  • A ten-foot pole
  • A grappling hook
  • Another 50 feet of rope
  • Yet another 50 feet of rope

  • ten foot pole
  • ten foot pole
  • ten foot pole
  • ten foot pole
  • fifty feet of rope

Forty foot pole.

Re: Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« Reply #9 on: February 15, 2013, 05:43:42 PM »
With "use up their resources" as a GM move, I don't think letting players keep their use-generated gear is necessarily disastrous. I'm not sure how it works with load, though.

Well, I don't see why their load would change. They haven't gotten anything new, just defined what's there.

Naturally; I'm just not sure how you'd keep track of what piece of gear handed to whom was from what adventuring gear load out and how much it all adds up to. I suppose you could just say that every five full uses of adventuring gear, regardless of source, was one load. It's kind of an outlier anyway, not terribly likely to come up in play.

Re: Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« Reply #10 on: February 16, 2013, 11:53:48 PM »
Edge case: in my current game, I totally used an adventuring gear use to produce enough coin to pay the innkeeper for a night's rest- sort of like that $20 you hide in your shoe, just in case.  It's not something I'd spam or otherwise abuse (in this case the GM kind of hand waved us into staying and I kind of hand waved us into having enough coin to pay).  How do people feel about using adventuring gear to be hardtack (1 ration), a single arrow (when at 0 ammo), a knife (when disarmed), poison (when surrounded), or trivial sums of coin? 

Re: Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« Reply #11 on: February 17, 2013, 01:00:12 AM »
It depends on the character, and I'd go back to the old "ask questions" routine.
I can totally believe the Thief would have an extra vial of poison, but he'd have to tell me about the misadventure he had in his past that thought him to stash an extra bottle of black lotus in his shoe.

*

noofy

  • 777
Re: Adventurer's Gear and other Abstractions
« Reply #12 on: February 21, 2013, 05:39:15 AM »
I like that Marshall :)
It sorta makes adventuring gear the 'wild card' resource until revealed. Cool actually. It makes for all sorts of good grist for GM moves too, especially telling them the consequences and asking or offering an opportunity with a cost.