No one ever pees in D&D

[LadyLexi]

The thread title is a little misleading.

I find that in most D&D games things like food, water, horse feed, weight of money and a few other mundane but still mechanically applicable things are sort of waved over. This almost universally appears to apply to non-mechanical mundane things, like hang-overs or various bodily functions.

What level of incorporation do you like for these mundane things? Do you even keep track of food and water for a lv 10 party that easily can hold 100 trail rations in a bag of holding? Can a ninja/rogue wait till one member of an encampment steps away to pee?

[ThiagoMartell]

At low levels, this makes a big difference.
At higher levels, magic.

[mucco]

A friend of mine once had his character pee at a necromancer, for no reason. Said character was a rogue, but the DM allowed him a SLA at-will that displayed the word "FAIL" in his eyes. It was an utter avatar of chaos, at level 2.

On topic: we always willfully ignored all such rules unless they had some relevance. We find them to be very boring.

[Dr.Epic]

I find that in most D&D games things like food, water, horse feed, weight of money and a few other mundane but still mechanically applicable things are sort of waved over.

I highly think coins should play a part in mechanics. How well are you going to move silently with a pocket full of coins rattling around?

[Psyren]

What level of incorporation do you like for these mundane things? Do you even keep track of food and water for a lv 10 party that easily can hold 100 trail rations in a bag of holding? Can a ninja/rogue wait till one member of an encampment steps away to pee?

Having the NPCs do stuff like that adds texture to the world, I think. Especially when you're trying to nudge the characters in a certain direction (e.g. the rogue can't sneak into the enemy encampment, but when one of the bandits heads off to "commune with nature," the rogue could conceivably get a disguise off him...)

For the players - none of my groups keep track of that (we barely remember to track ammunition) but it can be a source of depth. This is doubly true for a harsh environment like a desert or jungle.


I highly think coins should play a part in mechanics. How well are you going to move silently with a pocket full of coins rattling around?

What's the point of that? The Rogue will just say "I hand my cash to the fighter before scouting." And once they get extradimensional storage they won't care at all. It'll be a one-time "gotcha" for the players, followed by hours of annoying bookkeeping while they take pains to inform you who's holding the money pouch moment to moment.

[LadyLexi]

I was referring more to the Money has weight part. Most people don't go along with this but I have played in 2 or 3 campaigns that have used it. You hand your things to the Barbarian a lot.

[Grail]

Depends entirely on the game, but I normally do.

[Suddo]

I know if you're being tracked you can give bonuses if you pee/poop in a portable hole. It might be a house rule but was fun.

[Siosilvar]

Yeah, the answer to this one is somewhere between "magic", "too many fiddly bits that only add detail without really being fun", and "it's not heroic".

I usually keep track of this stuff until I hit level 3 or 4 and after that keeping track doesn't really matter, because you've got plenty of space for everything anyway so it doesn't force the players to make decisions.

[Blind Orc]

No one ever pees in heroic stories either.

(Actually, any story ever - except if it is needed for the plot somehow)

[Craft (Cheese)]

Personally I prefer not to even keep track of that stuff unless it becomes salient: Like, if they're stuck at the bottom of a pit and need to find a way out before they starve to death.

[Mnemnosyne]

I keep track of it at all times precisely because it can come up in some situations. And then when it DOES come up, if we haven't been keeping track, some players will think it's unfair (and it sort of is because they had no warning that they needed to have rations) and there's the difficulty in determining just what supplies they have with them in the first place.

By ensuring that rations, water, and all the little details are tracked at all times, on those occasions when it does come up there's no difficulty suddenly imposed on the group to work it out.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I just handle it by specifying a "default" amount: For example, if it becomes important exactly how many arrows a character has, they have 20 unless they've specifically specified they've brought more or less. So long as everybody at the table knows it I don't see the problem.

[navar100]

The thread title is a little misleading.

I find that in most D&D games things like food, water, horse feed, weight of money and a few other mundane but still mechanically applicable things are sort of waved over. This almost universally appears to apply to non-mechanical mundane things, like hang-overs or various bodily functions.

What level of incorporation do you like for these mundane things? Do you even keep track of food and water for a lv 10 party that easily can hold 100 trail rations in a bag of holding? Can a ninja/rogue wait till one member of an encampment steps away to pee?

Neither do starfleet officers, jedi, hobbits, or superheroes unless it's plot relevant (hobbits) or make a crude joke in an attempted funny scene (Iron Man).

Nature calls. It certainly calls the players during the game. However, that is not the point of the game. You can blurb that in town the party restocks their rations, but it's a game not real life. When your dog does to jail in Monopoly, there's no arrest warrant, no reading of Miranda rights, and no trial by jury. Try paying $50 in real life to someone to get out of jail. For roleplay filler occasional minutiae will be noted. In dungeon crawls once in a while a door leads into the lavatory. However, such detail realism isn't necessary for the game. Varying mileage it's noted for particular campaigns of particular gaming groups for their fun, but for the generic it's unimportant.

[deuxhero]

The issue is slightly bigger in PF, where you effectively take penalties for 24 hours if you remove your belt.

[prufock]

For the most part, we make the assumption that bodily functions, hygiene, etc are all taken care of during down time (breaks when traveling, stays at the inn). There's no need, in most cases, to have the players act this out in depth.

As for weight, we usually have a horse/donkey and cart to carry the heavy stuff, and just carry personal items on ourselves. Besides, as you said, at a certain point magic just trumps it anyway. Bags of holding, everfull mugs, neverending ration bags. The only reason to keep track of stuff like this is the cost.

There ARE certain styles of game that encumberance and hunger should play a significant part - survival-style games (zombies, post-apocalypse, wilderness adventures) - but these are a minority.

[Kobold-Bard]

I once paid a homeless Fast Hero in D20 Modern. He stayed in a church and drank the water in the font.

Next time he peed (complete random choice, just because he had nothing to add to the current conversation) a heavenly choir echoed through the city.

Only time something like personal hygiene came up in a game.

And as for a level 10 party, if they have a way of dealing with it then it isn't mentioned. eg. an eternal wand of create food is available if you don't have a divine caster, as well as Rings of Sustenance or even the Goodberry spell. Hell I think there's a box in MIC that feeds ~15 people/day.

The PCs starving as a plot point is one thing, but by Level 10 they're in super hero territory as far as power goes, stuff like that just doesn't matter because there's a dozen ways to deal with the mundane junk. Just get a local Wizard NPC to rig up a custom teleportation effect in your trousers, and nature's calls aren't a problem any more.

[Malimar]

Nobody's brought up the Goblins story on the subject yet (http://www.goblinscomic.com/01202007/)? :smalltongue:

[Slipperychicken]

I highly think coins should play a part in mechanics. How well are you going to move silently with a pocket full of coins rattling around?

Being encumbered with a Medium or Heavy Load imposes ACP. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/carryingCapacity.htm) Coins weigh 0.02lb each, so every 50 is 1lb. I'd say it rattles around about as much as your average coin-purse does today (i.e. not enough to matter).


I don't care for that sort of thing, myself. If I wanted to worry about my character peeing himself, I'd be playing Sims, not D&D.

[Pokonic]

You see, this is why my party sought out a Cathereder of Speed in one of my Ebberon games. :smalltongue:

[rot42]

Relevant comic from Goblins (http://www.goblinscomic.com/).

Now go read the whole thing!

Good advice, but (a) already rendered a few posts up and (b) you are hotlinking from a copyrighted site you claim to like.

[GenPol]

Good advice, but (a) already rendered a few posts up and (b) you are hotlinking from a copyrighted site you claim to like.

:smalleek: Gah, my bad, missed that and didn't think that through. I need to go to sleep, I think. Sorry everybody!

[Grail]

No one ever pees in heroic stories either.

(Actually, any story ever - except if it is needed for the plot somehow)

Jack Bauer went 8 days without needing to use the loo

[LadyLexi]

The point really wasn't what should you do, it was wonder what people do.
1 lb ever 50 coins? I 3000gp isn't that unusual. What if its in copper? That's a real pain to lug for a wizard or non-str rogue.

[Seerow]

The point really wasn't what should you do, it was wonder what people do.
1 lb ever 50 coins? I 3000gp isn't that unusual. What if its in copper? That's a real pain to lug for a wizard or non-str rogue.


Yeah, I'm reasonably sure that carrying capacity scaled so well with strength in 3e because they needed somebody to be able to carry around the literally tons of money the party found.

[ericgrau]

IMO let them happen, but "off camera". Make sure the players carry food.

Two reasons:
1. Normally these things are tedious, so there's no point to track them.
2. However it is not good to eliminate them entirely. The more you remove from the world the less interesting it becomes and the more it's like a hack-everything video game. Leaving starvation and other gritty details open leaves options open for plot and strategy. Maybe this next adventure is in the arctic tundra, for example.

IMO it's confusing for players to track the days when they might not even know precise dates so it should be up to the DM to say "Everybody mark off 3 trail rations." Again, if civilization is abundant and players have more than a few gp it may be better to ignore this instead of saying anything. That is until it becomes relevant.

On the matter of coin weights, they were actually a big part of some 2e adventures. Half the challenge of fighting a copper dragon was figuring out how to haul back the treasure in copper pieces. As was picking up every last piece of valuable furniture, artwork, scrap iron, etc. And in either case you make yourself a big obvious target for bandits. Etc. The deeper you dig the more interesting and less flat the world becomes.

[CTrees]

The point really wasn't what should you do, it was wonder what people do.
1 lb ever 50 coins? I 3000gp isn't that unusual. What if its in copper? That's a real pain to lug for a wizard or non-str rogue.

When I'm playing, I tend to convert from gold to diamonds once I start having enough cash for the weight to matter. Most people I know don't even care, but I like it for RP reasons.

[Kobold-Bard]

The point really wasn't what should you do, it was wonder what people do.
1 lb ever 50 coins? I 3000gp isn't that unusual. What if its in copper? That's a real pain to lug for a wizard or non-str rogue.

Which is why all assets should be invested in magic items ASAP (property is too risky in a world with Dragons).

[Vitruviansquid]

This stuff matters, but it's usually assumed to be taken care of "offscreen" unless there's a pretty good reason for it not to be.

For instance, if the PC's are kept waiting a long time for a meeting with a king, I might have them all roll a d20 to see if any of them suddenly realizes he needs to use the restroom really badly. Having to meet royalty or a foreign dignitary while holding in a full bladder could result in a penalty to charisma, as people wonder why you're standing in such a goofy posture. Likewise, food and water start to matter when the PC's traverse large wildernesses and lack of sleep would matter if the PC's propose things like standing guard 24/7 somewhere.

[jackattack]

Although I have brought it up in a game before, for exactly the "why doesn't this ever come up" reason, I was raised to believe that it is rude to discuss, or even mention, bodily functions. It doesn't add to my gaming experience.

Bathing (and nudity) have come up to establish character traits, or to divest the party of armor and weapons for a quick combat where the party can't use all of their various equipment and magic items.

I am very aware of the weight of coins in-game, as well as all of the various gear that a party wants to carry around. The easiest non-magical solution is to have an extra pack animal to carry all of the mundane camping gear and rations, and a henchman to carry all of the loot the party gathers during a crawl. Another solution to the loot problem is to leave heavy stuff where you find it, and pick it up on the way out after the monsters/baddies have all been taken care of.

But it can be awfully fun to give a party a treasure that they can't remove from its resting place, because it is too heavy or because it is permanently fixed in place.

Some DMs will hand-wave non-combat gear, allowing players to spend a hundred gold for a "full kit" that includes anything they would need for their expedition "within reason".

On that note, some DMs make sure to insert a "travel" session every once in a while, to impress on their players that their characters really are covering long distances between adventures. It can also give players and DMs a chance to role-play and joke around between deadly fights and serious plot developments.

[NerfTW]

It really depends on how relevant it is to the game. Peeing is pretty much going to be "Hey, find a corner/bush, and just go". There's no point in ever mentioning it. And as for "being tracked", any person in the woods for more than a day is going to know to bury poop. You don't want animals tracking you either.

As for food, you can pretty much assume that at any time they have what they need. Again, it would require an idiot to go out into the wild without supplies. Maybe you see that in modern society, but not in a society with actual wilds between towns. The DM would simply look at distance and make sure nobody is going on a 3 month sea voyage or walking through the desert without making special arrangements. But if the DM forgets, that's on the DM, not the players. Again, you'd have to assume mind numbing stupidity to go on a trip without having supplies. At best it's a bit of fun RPing for the players.

That's not to say a post apocalyptic or food scarce game isn't fun. I loved hardcore mode in Fallout New Vegas, but I found food pointless in Skyrim. Almost identical systems, but the setting rendered the mechanics of food and item storage moot.

So my vote would be that food and supplies can be done well, but you'd be extremely hard pressed to ever find an instance where going to the bathroom ever needs to be brought up outside of "Hey, I need to get someone away from the group for a moment." But never randomly.


As for stuff like hangovers, that would be a good punishment for a player drinking too much, but most people who aren't alcoholics can control their drinking when they know they have to do something later.

[Kurald Galain]

I normally request that players keep track of how much gold and how many rations their characters carry. At higher levels the expected answer is "plenty" but at lower levels (which we usually play at anyway) I find that this adds to the feeling of the world.

Plus, I like how players get creative when they're short on food. Roasted kobold is foul-tasting but nourishing. Hunting 1-hp rabbits with a 10-hp damage spell is not recommend if you want anything edible to be left after you cast.

[Seerow]

Plus, I like how players get creative when they're short on food. Roasted kobold is foul-tasting but nourishing. Hunting 1-hp rabbits with a 10-hp damage spell is not recommend if you want anything edible to be left after you cast.


That seems like an interesting distinction to make. Does this mean a ranger, whose minimum damage on an arrow shot is like 20 or so, can't go rabbit hunting for fear of making the rabbit explode on impact? What's the threshold for damage he's allowed to do before the rabbit is no longer edible?

[Dr.Epic]

What's the point of that? The Rogue will just say "I hand my cash to the fighter before scouting." And once they get extradimensional storage they won't care at all. It'll be a one-time "gotcha" for the players, followed by hours of annoying bookkeeping while they take pains to inform you who's holding the money pouch moment to moment.

It mimics a real aspect of life which RPGs should in terms of mechanics. Besides, the rogue may forget or what if the entire party has to sneak past something?

[rexreg]

bodily functions are dependent on the character...some use them for low comic relief...otherwise ignored...sometimes sex drive can be a big part of individual characters...
coins & such...we have a party treasure keeper; his job is to say "we gotta go back to town, we're getting overloaded."...no actual weight is kept, however, just an eye-balled figure...
ammo...unless keeping strict count is dictated by situation, we allow a ranged-type player to pay a few gp every couple sessions & not keep track...
KISS
although, i still have a fuzzy view of the old encumbrance rules from the 1st ed. DM's Guide...remember how huge the encumbrance in gp weight for a 10' pole was?

[Craft (Cheese)]

It mimics a real aspect of life which RPGs should in terms of mechanics.

RPG mechanics should be fun. I guess there are some people who just aren't satisfied unless they have stats for their head circumference so they can determine how comfortably they can wear a particular hat, but most players are just fine with abstracting away details that ultimately don't matter.

[Jack Zander]

Plus, I like how players get creative when they're short on food. Roasted kobold is foul-tasting but nourishing. Hunting 1-hp rabbits with a 10-hp damage spell is not recommend if you want anything edible to be left after you cast.

Considering that 10 damage to a 1 hp rabbit doesn't even kill it I'd think a spell like that would be pretty practical.

Though the world's best hunters use magic missile.

[LadyLexi]

Rexreg brings up another point, do people get pregnant in D&D? Or rather, because the first one needs to be a yes, do PCs? Has this ever been a part of anyone's game? Did it have any particular effect on how the party behaved?

Dragons seem like they'd be as tasty as a Kobold. Both are intelligent creatures, is it an evil act to eat an intelligent creature? What about those similar to your species (human eating an elf or halfling)?

[Xzeno]

On the issue of coins rattling: at 1/50 of a pound, and at the diameter pictured in the PHB (p. 168), these coins are going to be wafer thin. Like, about half as thick as a dime. So I'm reasonably certain that the dread magicks that keep them from disintegrating can keep them quiet too. Of course, this is based on the generous assumption that gold coins are pure gold, which is unlikely. The gold component, however, will have to very small before it nets realistically thick coins.

As for the ethical issue of eating evil creatures... well I personally don't think it is wrong per se to eat sentient beings of any alignment. I mean, it's not like it's hurting anyone. Regardless, I don't see how the dead creature's alignment affects anything.

I've played with this idea in my campaigns. I made the "elvish" civilization (though most elves live elsewhere and not all members are elves) practice no kill cropping to feed their completely fruitarian diets. Oh, except when they eat the flesh of their dead or enemies killed in battle. Then they eat meat.

This is how I discovered that wood elves do more or less the same in the The Elder Scrolls setting, when a player suggested that I was ripping it off. None have discovered the truth: I'm actually ripping off the Slaves to Armok setting.

As for the actual main topic, I'm a fan of largely abstracted supplies. I don't even track non-enchanted ammo. Heck, enchanted ammo often gets a free ride. I make players keep track of their ability to have food, but not of food itself. I might ask them to tell me how many days/weeks of food they're bringing if they're traveling a really long time, and I like to institute a food income/outcome system for when they must survive in the wild, rather than going through role-playing hunting and gathering.

Not that I don't think it would be interesting. I think a simple survival hunter-gatherer RP would be super fun, but 3.5 isn't the system for it, and I'm not the DM to run it well.

[Slipperychicken]

Rexreg brings up another point, do people get pregnant in D&D? Or rather, because the first one needs to be a yes, do PCs? Has this ever been a part of anyone's game? Did it have any particular effect on how the party behaved?


I'm pretty sure the dreaded BoEF has mechanics on the matter, although it is also 3rd party IIRC.



Dragons seem like they'd be as tasty as a Kobold. Both are intelligent creatures, is it an evil act to eat an intelligent creature? What about those similar to your species (human eating an elf or halfling)?

BoVD just lists Cannibalism under "Fetishes and Addictions", meaning that it is "..of the horrible trait[s] common to the evil and perverse." The wording there implies that it is not necessarily an Evil act, but cannibalism is common to the evil.


BoVD; Cannibalism: Cannibals are creatures that eat others of
their own kind. In the broader sense, cannibals may be
defined as creatures that eat other intelligent creatures for
whatever perverted pleasure they gain from it. Many creatures
do this—dragons eat humans and other intelligent
creatures all the time—but usually they gain no more pleasure
(and definitely less sustenance) from a human than they
do from a cow.
Cannibals gain pleasure, and in some cases power (see
the absorb mind and absorb strength spells in Chapter 6),
from eating others. Often cannibals consume foes that
they have defeated in battle, but sometimes they simply
murder their meals.

BoVD lists Muder ("the killing of an intelligent creature for a nefarious purpose: theft, personal gain, perverse pleasure, or the like.") as Evil.


Summary: In BoVD, cannibalism (eating an intelligent creature for perverted pleasure) is not in itself an Evil act, unless you commited Murder (or another Evil Act) to do it, and gain perverted pleasure from eating the corpse.

[rexreg]

LadyLexi--
Rexreg brings up another point, do people get pregnant in D&D? Or rather, because the first one needs to be a yes, do PCs? Has this ever been a part of anyone's game? Did it have any particular effect on how the party behaved?

yes!
i played an npc female who, as part of a storyline got pregnant...not quite sure if this counts...papa was a pc & inordinately proud of his son eventually becoming a shadow druid...
another player in a game i dm'd many, many yrs ago went through the whole domestic thing with another player...their daughter became an npc/plot device...the daughter also acted as a way to sop money out of the father...what does my daughter want for her 13th birthday? asks papa...

as far as odd stats go, long ago i played w/ a group that statted out EVERYTHING...with slightly different parameters for male & female characters...it was done in good humour...all else will be left to your imaginations...

[Gavinfoxx]

My characters do this sort of thing in games.

Here is how I handle it.

"In the morning, I take care of hygiene and cleanliness issues and such, before I leave the inn."

See? There you go.

[Thurbane]

In my group, it depends a little who's DMing (as we take turns).

All of us expect characters to track equipment encumbrance accurately.
Most expect characters to track money encumbrance as well, although once Heward's Haversacks and Bags of Holding are in the party, it does get waived to a degree.
It's about 50/50 on tracking water and rations - half of us handwave it, while the others expect it to be accurately tracked. Again, once magical holding devices are on the scene, it matters a lot less.
Living expenses (board, food etc.) are tracked at lower levels, but at higher levels, the DM usually skims a couple of percent of treasure (rounding coinage down to units of 10 etc.) to cover assumed costs.
Personal hygiene and toilet breaks are all assumed to occur "off camera", and none of us bother letting it have any in game effect one way or the other.

...actually, now that I think about it, there was one DM way back in our 1E days that loved to use stuff like this to "get at" the party. The guy was a bit of a jerk, and he loved to torment the players (or at least the ones he didn't like IRL) with random BS. One player had his Halfling Thief take a bath in a nearby lake because he wanted to be clean and well presented when we arrived in town, and met with the local nobility. So the DM uses this as a wafer thin excuse to have the character attacked by a Bunyip (1E Fiend Folio) while bathing, and (because he was alone, separated from the party) it almost killed him. :smallannoyed:

[deuxhero]

Person Hygiene is very easy for wizard/sorcs (Prestidigitation), another reason spell casters win.

[Honest Tiefling]

A PC in a party I was in did indeed get pregnant. (It was her player's idea) Of course, since it might be a half-fiend, it might not go so hot. Luckily, the other female PC is a lesbian, so no worries there!

I admit, I am tempted to RP my character taking a leak somewhere and the nearby plant life becoming sickly, but I fear that would have rather bad repercussions since there are cities with sizable tiefling populations, or other people attempting to weaponize it.

Also, agreed on presitidigition, and barbarians with survival. I wonder what the rules are for charging a deer and punching it to death to make dinner.

[dspeyer]

If you do mundane stuff, it's important to let the characters be as competent as they're supposed to be. If you have ranks in Move Silently, you know how to stop your gear from clanking. If you have ranks in Survival, you know how to deal with solid waste. Even if you don't have ranks in Survival, once you've made a few multi-week deep wilderness treks, you know more about coping with wilderness than most city-dwelling D&D players.

[Kerilstrasz]

The point really wasn't what should you do, it was wonder what people do.
1 lb ever 50 coins? I 3000gp isn't that unusual. What if its in copper? That's a real pain to lug for a wizard or non-str rogue.

buy smthing with that money.. or.. if you dont want to buy smthing now convert em into a high style golden(or any other precious metal) ring with gems on it that you can resell for about the same money... or go and let them in that bank in that Paladins Metropolis :P

uh... buy a belt of pockets (dont remember the exact name) and make it your treasure pouch :P

[kabreras]

Big box (i mean BIG box) for all my coins and values.
Permananced shrink item (cloth like on it)

Make a nice purse... sure it take place to open it but still.

[The Gilded Duke]

Two stories who have pivotal moments based upon excreting waste immediately come to mind. A Song of Ice and Fire, and Pulp Fiction. Multiple times in pulp fiction in fact.

[Slipperychicken]

Big box (i mean BIG box) for all my coins and values.
Permananced shrink item (cloth like on it)

Make a nice purse... sure it take place to open it but still.

I think that casting Shrink Item on a container only targets the container, not the contents, so the coins should all be compressed into a small cube. Also, that seems a lot less efficient than buying a Haversack (1500xp as opposed to 2000gp. XP is usually valued at 5 gold each.), which would hold about 120lb of coins (~6,000 total), and make them all just a move action away. Also, a Haversack wouldn't compress your money :smallbiggrin:

[LadyLexi]

Did you just find the D&D trash compactor?

[Ernir]

I remember pee coming into play in a high-level game.

There were two groups of guards. One on ground level, another on some kind of balcony just above the other group.

One Mass Suggestion later, the top group relieved itself all over the lower group. We slipped past.


No one ever pees in heroic stories either.
Does Song of Ice and Fire count?

Those characters pee, poop, and even masturbate. And as has been mentioned, sometimes it's relevant.

[Seerow]

Does Song of Ice and Fire count?

Those characters pee, poop, and even masturbate. And as has been mentioned, sometimes it's relevant.

Now that I think about it, I can remember exactly one instance of each of those actions happening in ASOIAF.

That said, I wouldn't consider ASOIAF a "Heroic" story. It definitely falls more into the grim and gritty range.

[jackattack]

In my experience, pregnancy doesn't usually come up in games.

When it does, it is:
1 - an NPC who isn't a main fixture in the game (a PC's non-adventuring wife)
2 - something the player brought up as part of their character development (an excuse to retire the character for a while)
3 - a major plot point that the DM cleared with the player ahead of time

[Craft (Cheese)]

Rexreg brings up another point, do people get pregnant in D&D? Or rather, because the first one needs to be a yes, do PCs? Has this ever been a part of anyone's game? Did it have any particular effect on how the party behaved?

Every so often on these boards you get a thread to the effect of "Hey, one of my players wants to be a pregnant adventurer, how should I handle this?"

So I'd say it comes up often enough, though I've never played a game where it did.

[Arcanist]

After 13 long years of training, the fierce Paladin, Ilos finally arrived upon the throne room of the dreaded Demon King... As he marched into the throne room and prepared himself to duel the king for the freedom of his nation he realized one unfortunate truth... He had not peed in over 13 years... In fact he cannot remember when he ever peed... Truly a horrible realization...

You are free to tell me which part of that story makes it less epic :smalltongue:

But honestly? I'm tempted to actually homebrew some rules for bladder control in my campaigns now... However I'd feel that a lot of party members would want to be Necropolitans :smalltongue:

[Kurald Galain]

That seems like an interesting distinction to make. Does this mean a ranger, whose minimum damage on an arrow shot is like 20 or so, can't go rabbit hunting for fear of making the rabbit explode on impact?
No, because arrows don't normally explode on a hit. This is why you don't go hunting with a Fireball spell unless you enjoy eating cinders.

And yes, Magic Missile is a good choice. Of course, not every arcane caster in every campaign I've run actually had Magic Missile.


Considering that 10 damage to a 1 hp rabbit doesn't even kill it I'd think a spell like that would be pretty practical.
Meh, whenever the rules give clearly ridiculous results (such as the well-known "healing by drowning" glitch) they should be ignored in favor of something that makes sense. That is, after all, the DM's job. Bunnies don't get to multiply their HP tenfold just because humanoids can go to -10 before dying.

[LadyLexi]

@Arcanist The part where the Paladin doesn't ride in on a white horse. Or the part where the Paladin goes off to train for 13 years.

Bunnies actually don't die till they are at -30 and someone uses a wish spell... or is that something else?

[Lycar]

The issue is slightly bigger in PF, where you effectively take penalties for 24 hours if you remove your belt.

It is your own fault if you use your Belt of Physical perfection to hold up your trousers. :smallbiggrin:

You can wear more then one belt. Just not more then 1 magical one. And I'm pretty sure your sword scabbard also doesn't hang from your magical belt.

Now the thing about having to go to bed every night with your magical belt and headband however... :smalleek:

[Kalaska'Agathas]

No, because arrows don't normally explode on a hit. This is why you don't go hunting with a Fireball spell unless you enjoy eating cinders.

And yes, Magic Missile is a good choice. Of course, not every arcane caster in every campaign I've run actually had Magic Missile.

Eh, given the highly abstracted nature of D&D combat and Hit Points, I think it's absurd to say that one means of dealing the damage ruins what you're attempting to do when another, which does precisely the same amount of damage (in our theoretical example) is perfectly acceptable. Were I the DM on the scene, I'd say fireball hunting obviates the need to cook the thing - just skin it and you've got seared rabbit. Or would you require the spell to be modified by the Searing Spell metamagic, to really lock in the flavor?

As to the thread topic, this sort of thing is appropriate for some games, less so for others. From a simulationist viewpoint, it makes some sense to keep track of these things. From a gamist viewpoint, it makes sense only inasmuch as keeping track of things serves to overcome the challenges associated with them - starvation, bladder failure, &c. From a narrativist viewpoint, if it serves the narrative, say one of the characters had been on a doomed expedition during which many died of starvation and therefore wishes to prevent the same from occurring again, then it makes sense. But if it is not conducive to the players' fun, then I think it is generally unnecessary to keep track of these sorts of things.

[eggs]

I hear there's a reason BM: The Regularity never led RPG sales. :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

Now that I think about it, I can remember exactly one instance of each of those actions happening in ASOIAF.

That said, I wouldn't consider ASOIAF a "Heroic" story. It definitely falls more into the grim and gritty range.

Agreed; Wheel of Time is more heroic and almost never mentions things like that.

[whibla]

Agreed; Wheel of Time is more heroic and almost never mentions things like that.

Are you joking? Every book starts with wind...

[Psyren]

Are you joking? Every book starts with wind...

Wind? :smallconfused:
I meant stuff like bowel movements and onanism...

[Dire Panda]

Generally waste expulsion isn't mentioned in my campaigns unless the players have some reason to care about it, like jumping a guard when he takes a pee break. It can also make for interesting RP fluff, though - one of the most memorable PCs in my games was a fairly neurotic wizard who considered biological processes beneath him and spent in-game resources on developing a spell that prevented him from needing to excrete, sweat, or otherwise soil his local environment. This was in addition to regularly using illusions to make himself smell like a bed of roses, having his cleric cohort cast Remove Disease daily whether he needed it or not, et cetera.

(Another example, this time from a BoVD-themed campaign, involved one of the villains, a cancer mage, figuring out what inn the PCs were staying at and literally waiting in the outhouse pit to collect their waste as a scrying focus. Very thematically appropriate for that character class, and when the players figured out why I'd suddenly started asking them if they used the outhouse, their hatred for this particular villain doubled.)

I've only had a pregnant PC once, and that was a pure roleplaying decision. The party had just defeated what they thought was the BBEG and brought peace to the lands, so after a few in-game months with no threats on the horizon she decided she'd earned the right to settle down and start a family. Flash forward eight months and the world is undergoing a full-scale apocalypse, the PCs have assembled the mightiest alliance of men, elves, and dwarves in history to deal with the BBEG, and right on the eve of the final battle I give the PCs one more challenge: dealing with cowardly NPCs who wanted to desert the army. They had a fairly charismatic leader who was going to take a good chunk of the alliance with him, until the pregnant paladin climbed up onto the stage, shoved him down, and gave him the most emasculating verbal beatdown I've ever heard - about how this was a war for the future, and if she could fight for the future while actively producing the next generation, then men ought to try to do at least one of those things. Wish I could remember all of it, it was truly brilliant. After seeing their leader so thoroughly humiliated, the deserters decided to stay.

Said paladin ended up dying in order to deliver the final blow to the BBEG (I penalized her physical ability scores pretty heavily over the last few months, but the player was a good sport about it). The other heroes managed to save the baby, though, and she ended up becoming a legendary adventurer in her own right (read: one of the PCs of the next campaign).

So yeah, pregnant PCs work well if you have a mature RP-heavy group.

[Malimar]

The ranger once persuaded his wolf animal companion to pee on a fire elemental in my game.

Same ranger also had to deal with his animal companion's reaction to encountering a female wolf who happened to be in heat.

And I have been known to ask players whether their characters' horses are stallions, geldings, or mares, for similar reasons. (I may have gotten this idea from ASOIAF, actually: the trick the Knight of Flowers used in his joust against the Mountain that Rides.)