New GM: How much loot?

[RosenMcStern]

Well, during his British travels, and with the assistance of a fair amount of ale, Obelix takes on a British accent and starts referring to Roman patrols as "une romaine patrouille" instead of "une patrouille romaine" (here Goscinny mocks the English syntax that requires placement of adjectives before the noun, whereas in romance languages it is usually placed after). So in my games when the PCs spot a patrol and say "une lunaire patrouille", with the adjective before the noun, they are suggesting that this particular patrol is going to experience what Obelix usually does to Roman patrols.

Just to go back OT, I also remember a comic book where Obelix collected the helms of all the legionaires he had beaten up, and before the end of the story he was carrying a pile of Roman helms in his off hand. Well, this is a perfect example of what a RuneQuest party looks like after a few victorious battle.

 

[Sinisalo]

Well, during his British travels, and with the assistance of a fair amount of ale, Obelix takes on a British accent and starts referring to Roman patrols as "une romaine patrouille" instead of "une patrouille romaine" (here Goscinny mocks the English syntax that requires placement of adjectives before the noun, whereas in romance languages it is usually placed after).

Do the french find that funny?

 

[RosenMcStern]

Well, during his British travels, and with the assistance of a fair amount of ale, Obelix takes on a British accent and starts referring to Roman patrols as "une romaine patrouille" instead of "une patrouille romaine" (here Goscinny mocks the English syntax that requires placement of adjectives before the noun, whereas in romance languages it is usually placed after).

Do the french find that funny?

Well, the Italians certainly do, but the British don't, I suppose. It's pre-EU, cold war era humour

 

[Sinisalo]

Is it funny in the same way some brits throw in a few french words like "gauche" or "in situ" or "bon apetit"

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Dear All,

Well we did speak French in England for hundreds of years (and in the large areas of France that we owned at the time)....

Regards

 

[atgxtg]

Is it funny in the same way some brits throw in a few french words like "gauche" or "in situ" or "bon apetit"

C'est la Vie.

 

[atgxtg]

Well, in fact my most seasoned group, as soon as they grew strong enough to dispatch standard men at arms easily, used to roll Evaluate, and not Hide, when they saw a fully armoured enemy patrol.

LOL!

I once ran an adventure with some real wealth. The group found a golden statue of some long gone big shot. As gold is about 20 times as dense as flesh, the status weighed close to 2 tons, and had armoring enchantments on it just to keep the arms from falling off under their own weight.

I think I calculated it's value at around 19 million pennies.

Watching my players try to figure out how to transport the damn thing, kept me amused for weeks! It was too heavy to lift, and too well armored to break up easily (besides, they knew it had additional historical and artistic value).

The final plan was for them to keep an eye out for a SIZ 60+ Giant that they could trust. :lol:

 

[Rurik]

The final plan was for them to keep an eye out for a SIZ 60+ Giant that they could trust. :lol:

That is truly funny. I'd really make some serious fun of their plan if I could only come up with a better one.

 

[atgxtg]

The final plan was for them to keep an eye out for a SIZ 60+ Giant that they could trust. :lol:

That is truly funny. I'd really make some serious fun of their plan if I could only come up with a better one.

Well me, I'd have used a block & tackle, a team of horses and some sort of cart or sled to drag it. Or build a forge and try to melt it down in stages.

Or go look for a sorcerer with form/set gold. I'm sure he'd be willing to waste a few months of his time for a share of the wealth, something like 3 million per person.

But the look on the faces of the players when they realized that they were richer beyond their dreams of avarice, and couldn't spend a penny of it.

Make a good ransom though.

 

[Rurik]

Well, melting was the first thing that came to mind, but you did mention it had more value than just it's gold as an artifact.

I'm thinking some kind of lower it on logs and roll it home (moving the rollers from the back to the front) similiar to some of the pryamid theories. Could a Free INT abusing sorcerer move it? With the way sorcery magnitude increases in RQ3 that might be possible too...

Finding a buyer for the whole thing could be harder than finding a SIZ 60 Giant you can trust though.

 

[atgxtg]

Well, melting was the first thing that came to mind, but you did mention it had more value than just it's gold as an artifact.

I'm thinking some kind of lower it on logs and roll it home (moving the rollers from the back to the front) similiar to some of the pryamid theories. Could a Free INT abusing sorcerer move it? With the way sorcery magnitude increases in RQ3 that might be possible too...

Yeah the rollers thing was one possiblity. As for the artistic value, I'd have settled for the 19 million.

I don't think even a FREE INT abusing sorcerer could get the INT 59 or so needed to move the darn thing.

Finding a buyer for the whole thing could be harder than finding a SIZ 60 Giant you can trust though.

Yup. The best options were either to have a sorcerer form/set it into 1kg c sections, or just give the thing to some patron nolbe and milk it for life. I'd think anyone who just gave the Emperor the statue would have made a very power friend.

 

[yeahgday]

ok, just thowing this out there, but how about the quests, and subequently, the rewards of the quests being proportionate to how much the PC's "party" with their loot? take for example the movie conan the barbarian, he only attracted the eye of the king after he squandered his loot from the raid on the temple. if he hadn't spent up big at the tavern he would have stayed underneath the radar (ok well in as much as the king was concerned, Thulsa still wanted revenge).

now the hard part, how to deal with a mechanic like this, should the gm set x amount of gold and not tell the players, and then ask them how much of their loot they are going to spend at the tavern, once they have spent this much the quest becomes available, or should the gm spell it out? and then what to do if the players are still playing it cagey. and if the gm want's the campaign to progress in a certain direction, how would this rule be factored in?

Ok so there may be some problems, but I think if delt with properly, this could add a bit of fun for the gm.

 

[TRose]

As far as players being misers and refusing to say spend money except on the basics. In most ancient society misers where looked down on. How you dress , how you eat , and how you live and spend your money should have an effect on how society looks at you. If some one who could afford good armor, a nice war horse and was know to have gold stashed away but was too cheap to spend a gold for a room at the inn he would take hits on his rep fast. Spend money like its water and the local villagers will treat you like the hero you are.
And there should be plenty of people with a hand out for the successful adventurer to give gold to. His temple , his clan, the local lord will all be waiting for the newly rich to show his generosity. You want to rise in the temple or become a big man in your clan, then pay up. Pay the local Duke enough and you can become the Baron of Stinky Marsh

 

[Earl]

I find loot to be a balancing act, for a rule of thumb I include enough loot for the group to keep on going adventuring, to manage to save some for buying gear, potions, spells, assassinations (long story) etc but not enough so anything ever becomes easy because they are loaded.
Its suicide to tip a barkeep 5 wheels in Glorantha you may as well light a rob me sign, its also pretty dangerous to not be tough enough to defend the spangly things that you own.
Dont put anything into the game you dont think about how it will effect things if the group manage to find somone to sell it to, some things are quite valuable.
Dont let them easy sell stuff for "book price" because you will have them trying to dismantle dungeons and sell rubble runners into slavery before you can blink an eye. Puzzle canal tours ---->
If you do put too much in remember that all the little things get expencive, make the next couple of adventures point them at things they will need some sagely research doing for, and thus sink out the money that way. Have somones horse go mad (this is great fun btw) and have to be replaced.
Just bear in mind what others have said about 'wow I never knew that a 5 man group of mounted bandits when stripped to thier compound parts were worth quite so much" because as GM's we all know dam well that theres always ONE player who will try it, and in my groups its usualy all of them.

Hope it helps.

 

[homerjsinnott]

Dear All,

Well we did speak French in England for hundreds of years (and in the large areas of France that we owned at the time)....

Regards

I have to disagree with you on this. Very,very few English spoke French (The Normans were about 1.3% of the pop of England after the invasion in 1066, ie migrants) and never ever for hundreds of years. By the early 13th French was a learned language, not a native one to all but a very few (eg Richard I, where-as John was effectively a bloody northener ). If you look at the work of Chaucer, John Gower and Willian Langland* you will see that Middle English was already at its written (not spoken) peak by the mid 14th century.


*These are from a later period but show that by then, Anglo-French was already dead, buried and threatening to return as a fashion revernant in the courts.

 

[atgxtg]

homerjsinnott,

You are assuming that Lord High Munchkin is English. He said "we" did speak French in England for hundred of years. Not "we English". If he, and the "we" he is referring to are decedents of the Normans, then yes, his statement is correct.

They did speak French in England for hundred of years before finally learning and assimilating the local language.

 

[Cleombrotus]

I always thought Glorantha, at least as originally presented, was one of the most shamelessly materialistic roleplaying environments around, and I still run it that way. It is one of the worlds where the social impact of "adventurers" and the fact that most of us cannot be bothered to role play an economic system based on barter was kind of built in. We have a spiritual rationale behind cash and make it a facet of communication and give it its own rune. I think it works very well. I love casting the adventurers as outsiders and parasites because it makes the village saving stuff more dramatic and makes the mercenary vulture side adventuring have some context in the world at large. The kind of wealth adventurers acquire fosters jealousy and ill will amongst almost everyone they meet. Everyone tries to rip these tourists off, and in cities, backed up by guards, even more so. I like adventurers to understand how the rest of society views their exploits, and to know that when they try to sell something they aren't going to get anything like its full worth. I play it like the characters are junkies. They steal stuff to fund their habit and the people they try to sell it to know that they need a buyer and offer them peanuts. They can try and disguise themselves, but everyone knows adventurers: massive egos, ignorant of local customs, foreign (likely as not), and arrogant. They may be analogous to upwardly mobile psychopaths, but Glorantha is well used to their kind.