Critical Miss: Issue 1 [GMing With Nothing]

GMing With Nothing - A Five Step Guide

Step 2: Letting the Players Go Shopping

Nearly all roleplayers are obsessed with the equipment owned and carried by their characters and will take any opportunity to purchase more. Usually, you as the GM restrict their purchasing to occasions when it is plausible, such as in a city, between scenarios. However, “relaxing” your rule now can gain you further time.

Casually announce, almost as soon as your improvised scenario has begun, that they have just passed some kind of shop, warehouse or provisions store. If (when) they announce that they wish to go inside, and ask you what kind of things they could buy, look surprised (as though it never occurred to you that they might go inside) and say something along the lines of “well pretty much anything available in the rule book I guess.”

This will soon have them poring over the equipment lists, converting their gold pieces into improbably large quantities of copper pieces and working out just how many candles, ropes and ten-foot poles the average adventurer's fortune can buy.

(I once had a D&D character who habitually went adventuring carrying around 10 10-foot poles and around 500 feet of rope. Don't laugh. I was young and hadn't heard of encumbrance).

Once they have “purchased” all their items, now is a good time to rigidly enforce the encumbrance rules for the first time, insisting that they fully total the weights of their equipment, as well as determining precisely where and how they are carrying each item (on their person, in a backpack and so on).

This will cause further time-wasting as they attempt to decide which items they will discard to bring their carried weight down to a point where they can still walk unaided.

If you want to be a complete git, having let them spend half an hour coming up with their carefully selected set of survival items, then a further half an hour dividing them up between their backpack and the panniers on their horse, you can then (in your capacity of the God of your universe) hurl down a couple of lightning bolts and scare the crap out of the bastard nag, causing it to bolt off into the distance (carrying said panniers).

This doesn't in any way help cover up your lack of a scenario. It's just funny.

On to STEP THREE...

Back to STEP ONE