"Just Say it is the Case"

[Tormsskull]

Hi all,

So I've noticed in various threads that people are giving the advice of "Just say that your character did that, had that experience, etc".

This often takes place in multi-classing scenarios (Example: "I want my Barbarian to take a level of wizard, but my DM said I would need to study for a while in game time, what should I do?" "Just say that your character was really interested in magic when he was younger, and his uncle who was a wizard would often stop by and show him how magic worked")

or knowledge of certain items (Example: "I really want a holy avenger for my paladin, but my DM said my character wouldn't even know what a holy avenger is. What should I do?" "Just say that your character had trained with a senior paladin who had a holy avenger and that's where he found out about it.")


As a DM, do you allow players to add important details such as this to their backstory? So you have any restrictions placed on the PCs for when they craft their backstory, or the kind of knowledge that a player might try to claim that their character has.

Also, when you answer the above questions, explain if this would apply to newly created characters starting at level 1 or newly created characters starting at 3, 5, 10, 50, whatever. Thanks.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

A lot of times even I don't know my character's full backstory, so saying he grew up in Waterdeep instead of Icewind Dale isn't a problem. The higher level the character, the easier it is to say something happened earlier, but it's not hard anyways. If you're an Evoker going into Elemental Savant, it's perfectly reasonable to say that the reason you're so interested in flames is because you had Salamanders in your fireplace as a child. Oftentimes, the RP requirements for a PrC would be impossible in certain campaigns, and ridiculously easy in others.

[TwystidMynd]

In general, when my players do something, and I ask players "Why...?" I'm not trying to find a reason to disallow them that thing, but rather I'm trying to encourage them to flesh out their character.

I frequently game with people who are more interested in combat tactics than my story, so I use such underhanded methods to force them to come up with backstory. Usually it's some PoS like "My mentor used a Holy Avenger!" but at least he and I both now know that he had a mentor, and the mentor was reasonably powerful.

If I were in a more role-playing-interested group, I'd press them for more interesting details, but I still have no problem with allowing players to amend their backstories, as long as it adds flavor to the game. That last bit is the biggest part, though; if the backstory change doesn't enhance the game, and is blatantly for purely mechanical reasons, I'll use Rule 0 to disallow it and ask the player to re-compose the change in a more fulfilling manner.

[only1doug]

I don't normally write huge amounts of backstory for my PCs but i have upon occasion (my "kid" character in WEG starwars had 5 pages of backstory, which meant i had a ready made replacement when he turned to the darkside and became the main antagonist). I also wrote a 3 page history of a item for WFRP (the GM had announced that we could swap fate points for magic items of our choice).

If i wanted to justify something then yes, i'd expand the characters backstory to explain it, but it would be a case of just say... I would write a decent story and that would then become part of the character sheet.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I do the same thing as TwystidMynd does, but I do it to myself. Gestalt Halfling Monk/Barbarian//Druid? One of my favorite characters, in part because he wore a bear pelt with the head still attached as pants. Bad*** short guys FTW. My new Malconvoker had my DM cracking up when I described her. I come up with epic backstories that fit the mechanics, and it works for me.

[Krrth]

This is valid in most games, although you need to be careful. The barbarian would have a hard time justifing wizard, even with the explination, unless he also knew how to read.
As others have mentioned, when a player does this, it both helps and hurt them. They can get what they want, but the GM gets a story hook or plot device. Take the paladin for example. If the mentor had a Holy Avenger, then he was fairly powerful. Powerful enough that his enemies may want to kill or convert his protogee .....

[Deepblue706]

Personally, I don't mind it when players fill in more details to their character's background as the game progresses. I don't think it's right to make all of my players have everything down about their character before play begins, and I don't really see the harm in cutting them some slack. Sometimes, it can even be rather interesting.

However, if it becomes habitual, I start to get a little restrictive. I pretty much always require some roleplaying when multiclassing after play has begun, although there is rarely any challenge involved. I just believe that if it's significant enough to change how your character operates, it deserves more mention in actual gameplay. I've always felt that once it all becomes about tweaking your sheet just right, the feeling of the game begins to weaken.

I pretty much enforce rolling for all Knowledge, unless it's absolutely vital for a PC to know about a specific thing for their character to work. Knowledge about a "cool weapon" is only permitted if they happen to want it because they like the idea of a "cool weapon" enough to explain to me why it's important, and not just on how they like the mechanics that come with having one.

[nagora]

Hi all,

So I've noticed in various threads that people are giving the advice of "Just say that your character did that, had that experience, etc".

This often takes place in multi-classing scenarios (Example: "I want my Barbarian to take a level of wizard, but my DM said I would need to study for a while in game time, what should I do?" "Just say that your character was really interested in magic when he was younger, and his uncle who was a wizard would often stop by and show him how magic worked")

Congratulations, your Barbarian is now 30 years older and shunned by his/her tribe.

or knowledge of certain items (Example: "I really want a holy avenger for my paladin, but my DM said my character wouldn't even know what a holy avenger is. What should I do?" "Just say that your character had trained with a senior paladin who had a holy avenger and that's where he found out about it.")

You mean "THE Holy Avenger", in my campaign world. It's been lost for a couple of generations, so no, you didn't. Finding the whereabouts of the Holy Avenger is something that will mark your character out in legend, song, and history, not some glib backstory hackwork.

As a DM, do you allow players to add important details such as this to their backstory? So you have any restrictions placed on the PCs for when they craft their backstory, or the kind of knowledge that a player might try to claim that their character has.

It has to: make sense within the gameworld - so no barbarian wizards or druid-paladins; be interesting in proportion to the extra power it gives the character; and come with all the logical costs such as extra aging due to training time or obligations such as knightly service etc.

Also, when you answer the above questions, explain if this would apply to newly created characters starting at level 1 or newly created characters starting at 3, 5, 10, 50, whatever. Thanks.

I don't usually allow characters to start above 1st. It never works out, IME. One of the core concepts in D&D is that you start off small and become big. So starting with lots of extras or lots of unplayed experience is really against the spirit of the game.

Things like the examples you gave are signs of oncoming munchkinism, IMO.

[valadil]

I usually ask about those options ahead of time, rather than surprising my DM with a request to learn a wizard level.

However we can't always plan ahead like that. New books come out every month. Sometimes new material will be applicable for a character whose background was written too early.

In those cases I think the GM should try to let the story accommodate the player if possible.* There's no reason why a paladin can't go on a quest where the end reward is a holy avenger. It doesn't matter if he knows of holy avengers at the start of the quest or not.

* note that I'm coming from the background where the GM works with the players to create a story. If a player wants to quest for a special sword, meet a new organization, play politics with the king, all they have to do is ask and I'll incorporate it into the game if possible.

[Thinker]

I am a very lenient DM. I approach the world as a sandbox and the characters are people living in that world. If a player wants their character to have something, I generally allow it. You could call it "story-light" since most characters that people have played don't have long backstories, most times not even half of a page.

I really don't care if a barbarian wants to pick up a level of wizard. He lives in a world of magic, its perfectly reasonable for him to know about magic and after gaining a level's worth of XP to know about at least one way to gain magical power. Learning as a child or learning on the fly doesn't matter to me.

I play with the purpose of fun, not the purpose of cooperative story-telling. This is not to say other playstyles are not fun, but that I simply prioritize it at the expense of other things.

[Telonius]

I only have a few requirements, in no particular order.

It has to make sense in the context of the character. (No, your Paladin does not suddenly become a Frenzied Berserker for no apparent reason. But, if seeing his comrade fall in battle uncorks all of the righteous indignation that's been building up after a lifetime of repressed anger, then we might be able to work something out).
It has to make sense in the context of whichever game world we're playing. (No psychic dinosaur ninjas from outer space if we're playing in a generally European-style medieval setting. No knights in mithral fullplate if we're in outer space).
It has to be fun/interesting/cool.
It can't overshadow the other players.
It has to be allowable within the rules of D&D.

If it meets all of that, then go to town.

[Tokiko Mima]

Hi all,

So I've noticed in various threads that people are giving the advice of "Just say that your character did that, had that experience, etc".

This often takes place in multi-classing scenarios (Example: "I want my Barbarian to take a level of wizard, but my DM said I would need to study for a while in game time, what should I do?" "Just say that your character was really interested in magic when he was younger, and his uncle who was a wizard would often stop by and show him how magic worked")

or knowledge of certain items (Example: "I really want a holy avenger for my paladin, but my DM said my character wouldn't even know what a holy avenger is. What should I do?" "Just say that your character had trained with a senior paladin who had a holy avenger and that's where he found out about it.")


As a DM, do you allow players to add important details such as this to their backstory? So you have any restrictions placed on the PCs for when they craft their backstory, or the kind of knowledge that a player might try to claim that their character has.

Also, when you answer the above questions, explain if this would apply to newly created characters starting at level 1 or newly created characters starting at 3, 5, 10, 50, whatever. Thanks.

There's not really a 1-to-1 connection between character class and what the character says is their adventuring specialty. If you want to be a sneaky monk, there's no reason you need to take a monk level to call yourself a Monk. Just plain vanilla rogue works fine (better, actually) or you could be a variant unarmed swordsage or even a ranger with the Improved Unarmed Strike feat. There's no way to look at a character and tell what classes they've taken.

So when I see huge long strings of multiclassing characters, I think of it as actually fleshing out a character. If you're a Barbarian 1/Swashbuckler 1/Crusader 1/Duskblade 1/Warshaper 4 there's a story to explain that. The player just needs to develop their background along those lines. Character classes are more a set of abilities than they are packages of fluff in the 3.5 system; if they weren't, multiclassing would have been made much more difficult.

As far as "knowing" obscure lore, the existance of Knowledge skills leaves little excuse there. If you want your character to know something few others in the game world do, then you need to make the relevant knowledge check. Be sure and take enough ranks to make me believe that your character could know what you want him/her to know.

[Tormsskull]

Hmmm, interesting but not unexpected. I personally have always played that any important details of a character's past needs to be in their character's background at the beginning of play. I also nearly always start campaigns at level 1, which to me represents a green character, one without a lot of exposure to the world.

Therefore I would not let a player add an important detail into their character's backstory simply so that they could obtain some kind of mechanical advantage (or knowledge, which in my games is very important).

There's not really a 1-to-1 connection between character class and what the character says is their adventuring specialty.

While I do not agree with this general assessment, I understand it for 3e. Personally I always viewed the multi-classing penalty / favored class system as something that was used to reign this idea in, but many players who see it the way you do ignore that rule.

If you want to be a sneaky monk, there's no reason you need to take a monk level to call yourself a Monk.

You can call yourself whatever you want, of course. But when I compare a 1st level fighter to a 1st level mage, their background/experiences are assumed to be radically different. If a player didn't write anything in their backstory about having some kind of predisposition towards arcane magic, I wouldn't allow them to simply take a level of wizard upon level up. I'd require a training period, mentor, etc.

So when I see huge long strings of multiclassing characters, I think of it as actually fleshing out a character.

I think of it as blah. Nothing specifically bad about the system here, only my preference.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I guess I'm something of a hard-fisted DM, I take measures against this pre-emptively by laying out right at the start what I'm not going to allow. e.g, "there are no monks in this country, none of your characters know what one is or would have any way to find out, sorry but if you want to multiclass to monk you'll have to wait until the next game."

I think I'm pretty lucky because I have players who don't usually "set goals" at the start. i.e, capturing a Pegasus mount or finding a Holy Avenger. They play it by ear and take whatever comes up. That leaves me free to build a world I want, which may or may not have space for Pegasi and Holy Avengers.

(Uh, not that I don't ask my players what they want before we even do a campaign and try to work it in. I designed a civilized ogre kingdom and got a pretty good adventure idea out of it one time because I had a player who really, really wanted to be a Half-Ogre).

It also helps that I award my players XP if they write up a backstory and give it to me. It doesn't have to be much, depending on the starting level--for a 1st level PC, half a page would be fine, while three pages would be ideal for 3rd level, say.

[Starsinger]

"there are no monks in this country, none of your characters know what one is or would have any way to find out, sorry but if you want to multiclass to monk you'll have to wait until the next game."

Damn. An entire country where there's no one who knows how to effectively punch someone in the face. See, this is why I prefer to look at clases as a bundle of abilities instead of tying fluff to a class.

[Stupendous_Man]

Damn. An entire country where there's no one who knows how to effectively punch someone in the face. See, this is why I prefer to look at clases as a bundle of abilities instead of tying fluff to a class.

he never said improved unarmed strike was banned

[Tokiko Mima]

Hmmm, interesting but not unexpected. I personally have always played that any important details of a character's past needs to be in their character's background at the beginning of play. I also nearly always start campaigns at level 1, which to me represents a green character, one without a lot of exposure to the world.

Therefore I would not let a player add an important detail into their character's backstory simply so that they could obtain some kind of mechanical advantage (or knowledge, which in my games is very important).

We're probably going to have to agree to disagree on this. While I don't like players revising their history after the game has begun it's sometimes hard to keep that seperate from developing their character. Some players write almost nothing about their characters to start and let the game experience and game world shape their characters pasts. I'm not prepared to say that's a wrong way to play, and sometimes it even results in a character that fits in better. Your mileage will vary.

While I do not agree with this general assessment, I understand it for 3e. Personally I always viewed the multi-classing penalty / favored class system as something that was used to reign this idea in, but many players who see it the way you do ignore that rule.

The Favored Class system is sooooo broken though. Elves have a favored class of wizard but are giving racial feats that suggest they're rangers? Not to mention the fact that I can walk all around multiclass XP penalties by only taking 1 or 2 levels of each base class and jumping into PrC's ASAP pretty much invalidates the whole penalty concept. Not that it made much sense in the first place.

It makes much more sense to ignore the class labels and look at what a character is able to actually *do.* Can they do a lot of unarmed damage? Then this character is Shaolin monk-like. If it uses a big freakin' sword and wears lots of metal armor, people will assume the character is a fighter regardless of the class actually being Paladin, Barbarian, Crusader or Warblade. If the character wears cloth and carries a staff, how is one to tell if it's a wizard or a monk until a spell is cast or a punch is thrown?

You can call yourself whatever you want, of course. But when I compare a 1st level fighter to a 1st level mage, their background/experiences are assumed to be radically different. If a player didn't write anything in their backstory about having some kind of predisposition towards arcane magic, I wouldn't allow them to simply take a level of wizard upon level up. I'd require a training period, mentor, etc.

Not necessarily. Wizards don't always have to be scholarly types who live in towers and read endless numbers of books. You could be a savage tribal wizard, tattooing your spellbook onto your own body and performing arcane experiments on the bodies of your tribes foes. Until I cast a Shocking Grasp spell, how do you tell the crazy tatoo'ed wizard from the 15 or so other equally colorful barbarians?

You could be a smart fighter (like Roy) who studies tactics at a University and knows history and the fine points of combat. Without his armor, he'll be just as eloquent and knowledgeable as your garden variety wizard and his background will be very similar to one.

You don't have to let class defined stereotypes guide how you build your character. But on the other hand it's simple personal preference if you choose not to. As long as the players and the DM generate characters so everyone has fun it makes no difference.

I think of it as blah. Nothing specifically bad about the system here, only my preference.

I like playing optimized (NOTE: Not theoretical optimized. No one plays Pun-Pun or Omnisifier and has fun) characters. It doesn't make me a bad roleplayer. I'd like to think it makes me a better one, but that's not true. In truth how you build your character and how you roleplay your character has almost nothing to do with each other. Play the way you prefer, but keep in mind that there are people out there that have a totally opposite perspective from yours on how classes should work, and you're both equally right about them.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Damn. An entire country where there's no one who knows how to effectively punch someone in the face. See, this is why I prefer to look at clases as a bundle of abilities instead of tying fluff to a class.

Did you just imply that the monk was effective at something?

On a more serious note, you can't, or at least shouldn't, write down the complete, detailed minutia of every minute of your character's life in your backstory. It would kill your hands, your mind, and your DM's mind. If the Holy Avenger is a famous item, the Paladin doesn't need to have an excuse in his backstory as to why he knows it - he knows it because any Paladin with his head screwed on straight (all two of them) knows what it is. Finding it is a different story.

As for the example of the barbarian with the wizard uncle, it again depends on the setting and the character's specific background. If he was just a bit of a wild child who grew to love hitting people with large weapons while screaming bloody murder, he could easily have a wizardly relative who attempted to show him a different path years ago, and it might not even have been worth mentioning in the original backstory. If he was a part of a wild tribe, then it probably requires a more fleshed-out explanation, but obtaining that explanation is usually a good thing.

[Starsinger]

Did you just imply that the monk was effective at something?

Now let's not be silly. A level dip or two in monk is good if you want to fight unarmed.

[Worira]

You mean "THE Holy Avenger", in my campaign world. It's been lost for a couple of generations, so no, you didn't. Finding the whereabouts of the Holy Avenger is something that will mark your character out in legend, song, and history, not some glib backstory hackwork.

That's really not relevant here, since the character in question isn't in your campaign world. The default assumption of DnD is that Holy Avengers can be made by 18th level clerics (or 17th level with the Good domain). In my (hypothetical) campaign world, only 10 cubic feet of adamantine exists, but that doesn't mean I should go into a topic and criticize someone for playing a character who wants an adamantine greataxe.

[Piedmon_Sama]

Damn. An entire country where there's no one who knows how to effectively punch someone in the face. See, this is why I prefer to look at clases as a bundle of abilities instead of tying fluff to a class.

The problem with the monk class (and one of the reasons I don't like it) is that it's very hard to divorce the fluff from the abilities. I mean, if you want to play a pugilist that's fine, but that doesn't explain stuff like Diamond Body and becoming an Extraplanar Being.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

The problem with the monk class (and one of the reasons I don't like it) is that it's very hard to divorce the fluff from the abilities. I mean, if you want to play a pugilist that's fine, but that doesn't explain stuff like Diamond Body and becoming an Extraplanar Being.

That's why you only take 2 levels, or 6 if you're desperate. The "abilities" don't start till after that.

[Mewtarthio]

The problem with the monk class (and one of the reasons I don't like it) is that it's very hard to divorce the fluff from the abilities. I mean, if you want to play a pugilist that's fine, but that doesn't explain stuff like Diamond Body and becoming an Extraplanar Being.

You can punch things so hard, that you beat the crap out of age, disease, and the like.

[Tormsskull]

I'm not prepared to say that's a wrong way to play, and sometimes it even results in a character that fits in better. Your mileage will vary.

Obviously not, we're talking about preferences here. Regardless of what someone's preference is, it doesn't make it wrong.

The Favored Class system is sooooo broken though. Elves have a favored class of wizard but are giving racial feats that suggest they're rangers? Not to mention the fact that I can walk all around multiclass XP penalties by only taking 1 or 2 levels of each base class and jumping into PrC's ASAP pretty much invalidates the whole penalty concept. Not that it made much sense in the first place.

When you say that elves get racial feats that suggest that they are rangers, you are saying that they optimize well as a ranger class? Or something else?

As far as avoiding the multi-class penalty, I'm sure it is possible, it just seems that most of the time when players make a 'build' with a variety of classes in it, they disregard the rule. That made me assume that they often would be affected by the rule.

It makes much more sense to ignore the class labels and look at what a character is able to actually *do.*

Again, a preference, but I don't like to do that. I like to read the description of the class, which explains to me how that class is. I think only looking at the mechanics often ends in "huh, what?" moments.

Not necessarily. Wizards don't always have to be scholarly types who live in towers and read endless numbers of books. You could be a savage tribal wizard, tattooing your spellbook onto your own body and performing arcane experiments on the bodies of your tribes foes. Until I cast a Shocking Grasp spell, how do you tell the crazy tatoo'ed wizard from the 15 or so other equally colorful barbarians?

That depends on who you ask. Some people like to play that mechanics are interpreted in character. So if an enemy has low hit points, then they will actually appear so to a character. If your spellbook is tattooed on your body, then another spell caster might be able to determine that it is a spellbook with a spellcraft or knowledge arcana check in 3e.

You could be a smart fighter (like Roy) who studies tactics at a University and knows history and the fine points of combat. Without his armor, he'll be just as eloquent and knowledgeable as your garden variety wizard and his background will be very similar to one.

I'd disagree. Being smart is something two people are likely to share, but two people of separate classes will likely have a lot of characteristics/knowledge that separates them.

As long as the players and the DM generate characters so everyone has fun it makes no difference.

100% Agree.

I like playing optimized (NOTE: Not theoretical optimized. No one plays Pun-Pun or Omnisifier and has fun) characters. It doesn't make me a bad roleplayer.

I think you're shadow-boxing here.

[OneFamiliarFace]

As a DM, do you allow players to add important details such as this to their backstory? So you have any restrictions placed on the PCs for when they craft their backstory, or the kind of knowledge that a player might try to claim that their character has.

Also, when you answer the above questions, explain if this would apply to newly created characters starting at level 1 or newly created characters starting at 3, 5, 10, 50, whatever. Thanks.

I think, as always, it comes down to the roleplaying. I have, myself, played a character who would remember stories told to him about his uncle when I needed to bring player knowledge to the character. Eventually, we started meeting people who had met my uncle in his previous travels. I never used it for stuff like, "Oh Uncle Featherfoot always said you could be a troll with acid," but if you could put it in a neat fairy-tale rhyme, then we're talking.

So as a DM, I almost wish people would add to their backstories randomly, not only during character creation but during play as well. My primary rule is this:

"If the players can do it, then so can I."

And that rule applies to bad guys and players as well. So if a character adds a detail to his character, which I think is only for metagaming purposes, then I'm okay with that story detail coming back to bite him in the posterior once or twice. It actually often ends up making the world more vibrant, and in future games, the players tend to be much more interested in their backstories as roleplaying tools than as character building excuses.

[TSGames]

As a DM, do you allow players to add important details such as this to their backstory? So you have any restrictions placed on the PCs for when they craft their backstory, or the kind of knowledge that a player might try to claim that their character has.

Also, when you answer the above questions, explain if this would apply to newly created characters starting at level 1 or newly created characters starting at 3, 5, 10, 50, whatever. Thanks.

Why not? Unless they're a khobold. F$%&ing Khobolds

[ghost_warlock]

@OP

When I'm DMing I try to get a general feel for the character's backgrounds and get them to put together a rough idea of how they want to progress the character with regards to feats, skills, PrCs, and character development (like, are they hoping to play through an alignment shift later or do they have certain goals for the character such as "king by his own hand" stuff).

Unfortunately, I find that I'm more-and-more playing with players who like to "just wing it." This grates my nerves because I'm the type of player who'll submit a 5-20 page character bio (depending on starting level), complete with NPC names, suggested plot hooks for the character, and a tentative advancement progression (with the understanding that new material may result in some changes). Also, "wing it" players tend to desire more retcon-ish things for their characters like you're describing.

Generally, I'm willing to allow a certain degree of "just say..." so long as it makes sense for what I already know of the character and what's said could actually happen/make mechanical sense in the game world (saying, as a 1st-level character, that the character single-handedly killed an mind flayer is just dumb).

I tend to lose my patience with a player/character that needs retroactive "just say..." frequently.

Higher level characters tend to have more leeway with their backstories since, really, all of the character background is "just say..." information. My major source of annoyance comes in when the background needs to change or requires major additions.

[Bassetking]

You can punch things so hard, that you beat the crap out of age, disease, and the like.

I have actually played a monk based around this concept...

Kinda like an Orcish Jack LaLanne.

[nagora]

That's really not relevant here, since the character in question isn't in your campaign world. The default assumption of DnD is that Holy Avengers can be made by 18th level clerics (or 17th level with the Good domain). In my (hypothetical) campaign world, only 10 cubic feet of adamantine exists, but that doesn't mean I should go into a topic and criticize someone for playing a character who wants an adamantine greataxe.

The point was that players don't get to make up background information without clearing it with me, the DM, especially if the backstory is, as in the example, dull as ditch water, and assumes something about the background.

As to editions of D&D that assume magic items of that power can be churned out by mere NPCs - you can keep them. It's a small step from rubbish like that to buying magic swords in shops, at which point the game might as well be about accountants.

[Knaight]

Well yes. That said sometimes the players want to advance a character a certain way, and just don't write it down, with only a loose idea of the background. For instance I had a character who was an arrogant, condescending person who always assumed people would fail, and was incredibly harsh on mistakes, and who had traveled the world because whenever he settled someone would inevitably screw things up. The idea was that he would come to trust in his companions, and become less arrogant and condescending. That said, it made sense for him to have quite a few abilities, since he refused help because he assumed he could do everything better than everyone he met, even though in many cases he couldn't. So for instance one combat trick had the justification of it coming to him when he was rushed by a goat because:

"That idiot goat herd apparently didn't understand the concept of goats running fast with horns, and put some flimsy gate up. At some point they got scared, probably due to his idiocy, and one rushed right through the gate at me. So I used my sling as a weighted rope, sort of like a man I saw a few countries ago, although without breaking any expensive objects, slung it around the goats feet, grabbed the other end, twisted it, and yanked, pulling the goat to the ground. Of course some of the others escaped, and I left the city, seeing as nobody involved with the goats had decided to reinforce the gate, and I didn't want to risk death again to those incompetents. Not that the people in the next city were much better. I had to build my own house there because about three days after I got there there was a minor earthquake and about half the city fell down, so clearly nobody knew how to build there. Then some kids sabotaged it any my house fell down"

This was justification for using a sling to try and trip three guards. It failed, because they stepped over the sling, except for one of them. And it was typical of the character, he could have fixed up that gate at any time, and it was mostly bad luck, and a minor mistake. And of course I cleared it with the GM. Oh and as for the house, it was horribly built, and the collapse was inevitable, not that the character would admit it.