Spend half your starting gold on a wagon and mule

Because, if you're not moving on foot, you'll be able to catch up with the plot-important villain's contrived getaway plan. Now stop wanting nice things and get some blisters on your feet, asshole!

Had a GM do this to me once. I kill the local ruler, stole his shit, rolled to ans convinced the local necromancer to help me destroy everything and had three party members die (not by my hand but by a dragon). Everything that we were suppose to kill I made my ally. I was a very convincing bard at first but then someone broke my flute so I decided to become a dark lord instead.

Shit thing is GM destroys wagon and other important items for purpose of moving plot forward. At the end of arc you get your items back while everyone else gets new things.

So basically everyone took a step forward while you where forced to take one back before you could step forward.

That's fine if I'm ahead due to power imbalance or other characters building "poorly" but otherwise why would you make me fall behind the other members?

We bought several horses at the start of the game, heading towards our first dungeon, stop for the night and wake up to find our horses stolen.
Nothing else, just the horses.
The fucking expensive horses.
We started looking for clues and the Dm tells us that there are none.
Ranger and rogue both roll really high in their search and DM tells us they find lots of light foot prints and horseshoe marks suggesting they were at full gallop.
Fuck tomb-raiding, we getting our horses back.
Spend rest of session and most of the next searching for them with the DM every so often telling us that 'they would be a continent away by now, you won't find them' and generally trying really hard to make us go explore the first dungeon.
At the end of the second session, he angrily throws he's notes onto the table with a cry of 'Fuck it!'
'You obviously don't give a shit about the adventure, or saving the world from the God of Death so fuck this.'

And that's how our group lost a DM.

A bad GM breaks your shit.

A good GM breaks your shit and then dangles nicer shit in front of you to inspire you.

Is that you, Richard?

I think the proper term for this instance is 'of nothing of value was lost'

If that's how he starts off the campaign, I can almost guarantee you that whatever he had in store was going to be utter shit either way

>Not starting the game with a wagon, two horses, and a pack mule for easier travel and loot storage
You guys seriously don't do this? More masterwork grandfather clocks for me, I guess.

So instead of just letting the horses got stolen by a bunch of goblins, which could have been killed and then moved back to the dungeon, he dragged this on for two sessions?

Old school players always have that shit. How else are you going to cart loot back from the dungeons.

Wow. What a shitty GM. He could have led you to the dungeon with the horses or turned your quest to get your horses back into you guys stumbling backwards into a continent wide conspiracy to steal an empire, or *something*. Also, saving the world on your first adventure? You gotta work your way up, dude. Save a town, save a region, save a kingdom, work your way up from there.

>And that's how our group lost a DM.
lost That GM*

I admit I did that as a DM once. Didn't mean ill, but throwing the party into slavery by the first session was, in retrospective, kind of a dick move considering how much time they spent picking up their gear.

I've been more careful since, either suggesting them that initial gear might not be something to get too attached to at first, or outright telling them "You'll start butt-naked, so don't worry about it yet" when the story is meant to have them lose everything at the start.

You should've bought a slightly lower quality one and doubled down on the insurance by offering them a rate only an adventurer could afford.

Then you'd be able to buy three more every time the GM kills one.

I was taken aback when a group I joined just assumed you could carry a wooden chest of 3,000 copper coins, a sack wioth 8,000 silver coins and a backpack with three sets of leather armor and eight shortswords -somehow- stuffed in there because it weighed less than your maximum stated equip load and there'd be no trouble.

I get that some people don't like simulationism but come on. At least have us stash it somewhere hidden, imply we go back and either carry it/have it carted back and just handwaive all the fun you could have had making us guard our loot all the way home.

Yep.
All the while being thoroughly unhelpful and trying to constantly drag us back to the rails.

>DM destroys my wagon and mule
You need to treat that mule like it's your baby. NEVER let it out of the party's sight, not for a second, not for anyone. As a general rule, trust no NPC to handle it outside of your stabbing range, even if the DM wants him to seem trustworthy. Take it into the dungeon. Yes, into the dungeon, where you can see it, where you can heal it if it's hurt, and where the DM has a harder time handwaving it dead. Take turns sleeping in the wagon if you want it to still be there in the morning. Get extra wheels and be ready to fix it.

All the paranoia will pay off because it is justified. If you do not watch your wagon like a fucking hawk watching her eggs, the DM will screw you out of it. If you are vigilant, your encumbrance will be vastly increased, enabling you to take much more shit home with you. Capacity equals loot equals cash.

When you get your wagon, get its exact dimensions in writing (volume and carrying weight) because a DM may try to screw you over with that later (i.e "nooo you can't keep four people and their loot in a 10x10ft space...", "no you can't rest in a moving wagon", etc etc). Do not tell your DM that you're worried about him screwing you however.

An clever DM would have done this:
>lots of light foot prints and horseshoe marks suggesting they were at full gallop.
>strangely, they appear to be following the route you're taking to the dungeon

Bam. Now you're all angry and dead-set on fucking up the antagonist for stealing your horses. AND you're going in the direction he wanted you to go. It can be an overused motivation, but it works the first few times

Then,
>[doing your thing in a dungeon]
>hear some minion telling his buddies about how he nicked like five horses from some stupid travelers who weren't even taking watch
>one of them calls the minion a dumbass because of how well-armed the travelers were
>you find the minions who stole the horses
>you find the horses stabled deep in the dungeon

>Playing D&D
>Rolling for stats
>My dump stat is something stupid low, but the rest of my stats are good.
>I don't even remember what my class was just that I dumped str and was required to be lightly encumbered for some stupid ability.
>Realize I can barely carry my weapon and clothing without going over that shit.
>Want survival gear like a bedroll and shit
>Can't carry it
>Buy mule
>Buy food for the mule
>Put ranks in handle animal to control it
>All the other PCs think its cool
>DM gets REALLY butthurt about it.
>Game ends before the DM ever does anything to it, but I could tell he just hated I had it
Why DO DMs hate PCs having pack animals so much?

Sorry dude but the adventure module told me to make y'all poor.

>Because he is a shitty GM and can't adapt plot accordingly.
This.

>Because you fuckwits weren't fulfilling my carefully constructed self insert fantasy, so I fucked you.

I don't know. I usually DM but I noticed the trend. I myself don't do that, hell, I love limiting players' ability to teleport or use massive bags of holdings so that they resort to using wagons and mules. And when they get overly paranoid about protecting them, I always tell them I have an unwritten rule of not killing/destroying pack animals and carriages unless the players fuck up super-bad. I mean, unless you have some grand plan that requires slaughtering them, killing them doesn't contribute to the game at all. You weren't paranoid enough, boo hoo, you lose your shit, -10 horse points. Super fun.

So, how do you guys handle your pack animals while dungeoneering? Obviously you can only take them so far.
>Do leave them tied up outside?
>Buy a mule AND hire an NPC to guard it?
>Hirelings AS mules...three or four for good measure. Give them backpacks and spears and call it a day.

I once destroyed a paladin's weapon in her first session because of confirming a crit fail with another crit fail.

>1/400 chance to lose your weapon every time you use it.

Nice one. Assuming this is 3.5/PF and her weapon didn't have the fragile quality (because who the hell would do that) you could have at least just left it broken instead of destroyed.

As a Player and DM I consider mounts, pets and pack animals all fair game, as long as they're treated fairly/properly.

When DMing, I'll roll once each day for wandering monsters vs unattended mounts, such as those left tied up in front of some ruins while the party heads off inside. If the party heads back out within the same day, they arrive just when the encounter takes place.

It also makes for interesting random encounters, as a spooked mount/pack animal has to be wrangled in addition to dealing with whatever spooked it.
>Travelling through woods at the onset of winter.
>Grizzly attacks, pack animal freaks and runs off...
>Party has to decided to: deal with bear and track PA later, split up with one going after PA and rest of party dropping the bear.

What I can't stand is when mounts die for no reason. Since horses tend to be pretty valuable, there's no reason "bandits" should ever kill your horse (unless they're deliberately trying to murder you). Hell, the animal probably makes up the bulk of what their stolen goods would he worth anyways.

>Spend all starting gold on a water clock
>DM doesn't destroy it or do anything untoward

It's also a good reason to get a hireling or two; to guard the horses.

And hirelings are really cool.

Yeah, I went a little hard with it. To be fair, it wasn't masterwork or the like, and she instead went hardcore mode and got creative with her shield, so I don't regret it, and it encouraged her to talk to the blacksmith in the room who reforged it into something better.
I still think about it sometimes, and wonder if it was too much.

As a DM, I've lost players over this. They were taking the cart through hostile bandit territory. The loud, over-encumbered cart piled high with every little bit of niche survival gear they could possibly need. When they go into the dungeon, they tried to camoflage the cart with broken branches and even hitched the mule somewhere else.
I had them roll hide checks to conceal it. I also had them roll multiple spot checks, wherein they failed to notice they were being watched the entire time.
They finish the first dungeon, cart and mule are gone. They track cart and mule to a second dungeon, kill everything, reclaim their stuff. Go to a third dungeon, it's gone again when they're done--this time the mule is dead.
Never understood that a cart that loaded made them look like merchants... and that regularly leaving it unattended was irresponsible. Instead they quit.

For what reason would you desire a water clock?

To measure time?

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Everyone always gives this answer.

It is always the best answer.

It seems DMs in general hate it when players get pack animals or get hirelings. They either kill them immediately or in the hireling's case, betray you at a moments notice. It's almost like the DM is insulted that the party doesn't go into said area as is and if you don't "How dare you fuck with my balance issues!"

Don't worry user you did the right thing. It's far more important to be realistic in your game of pretend than it is to have players for the game.

I hate things like this. I have, however, done a similar thing once.

>Players buy mules from an ancient hermit elf, who sold them at a discount because they dueled him and managed to creatively get one punch in
>Arrive to a city
>Conflict from a few sessions back catches up
>A rep of a local mafia family offers to buy a mcguffin from the group for a hefty price
>Warns them that refusing would be unwise
>They refuse
>Next day find their mules' heads in their beds

To my players' honour, first thing they did when the guy reappeared to try and renegotiate was to stab him, torture him and leave him in a gutter to bleed out

>low fantasy game
>start with pants, cudgel and a slingshot
>first session we must get on a ship
>wont leave anytime soon
>realize I forgot to collect some rocks

>Get fancy new mount because I'm a fuckin knight and ally of justice.
>GM shoehorns the game into a labyrinth of 5ft corridors and crawlspaces.
>Me and my riding dog don't give a fuck.

Shit like this is why I always play small characters.

Borrow a net and trawl the shore before you head into deep water?

Depending on the techonology level, you might be able to re purpose cannonballs. Early cannonballs were made of stone.

To your credit, the problem with OP's DM was that they accidentally diverted the player's attention from the dungeon they planned for(and then got pissy when they couldn't deal with it). Whereas in your case, you brought their attention to what you were intending them to fight/kill.

Also, stealing player's shit is worse, since not only does the player not have that thing anymore, but now some smug dickbag is enjoying that thing the player doesn't have anymore. And smug dickbags need a good anal eviscerating.

>why would you make me fall behind the other members?
A) Life isn't fair.
B) You needed a push, so you fucking got one.
C) You're a douche IRL.
D) All of the above.

I don't get this. Why would you start your plot immediately? Shouldn't you have a few sessions to establish the setting, the characters, and prepare the ground for some personal fucking stakes other than hurr destroy the world?
And holy fuck, would you look at that, you've had enough time to adapt it to whatever they've come up with and you can use their stuff in interesting ways instead of just stealing it.

You chose to fall behind yourself when you decided to dick around with wagons instead of progressing.

>Party is set up as a merchant group for !notengland
>Be a mercenary musketeer with only a matchlock sword and armor to my name
>End up being a distraction for a full on naval invasion
>Betrayed by our king we go to warn the allies of the people we unknowingly distracted
>try to warn party to not get involved and take the boat away to make a fortune elsewhere
>Party majority decides to keep being to be the big damn heroes
>grab party medic who was my bro and convince him to grab some npc sailors and steal the boat
>gm is cool with the plan so long as we roll new characters and occasionally return to them as a side story
>next session gm does a 180 and has the ship blown up right before our eyes

Stories like this are why I think every DM should run at least one campaign that's all about hirelings and equipment. I like to do those on villain campaigns. Building dungeons and all that.

You fuckers. He crafted an adventure of conquest and betrayal and you wanted to fuck off in a stolen boat.

Closest I've had this to happening is when my group ran an intrigue game. DM started us off as a noble house in a minor port city, one player being the head of a nearby town that was our allies.

End of the session, I'm a pirate with the other player who owned the navy as we take the remnants out to see. Our spymaster and captain of the guard have fled into the woods to become bandits. The knight player is dead, along with most of the NPC nobles.

This all followed the player from the smaller town being railroaded into teaming up with some random cannibal barbarians from the north and taking over our city because we invested most of our forces into a Navy, and all our land-forces were given a hand-waved loss because the were ambushed by the sudden and out of nowhere betrayal.

So the intrigue kind of died after the party was forcibly split, with the game following shortly after.

I was more mad about the lost trade goods and equipment but the gm was a bro and made up for it later. A few members ended up dying while in charge of a tercio square youtube.com/watch?v=625iTKITRoA

youtube.com/watch?v=Ev7RDGnXkkE

Sounds like the start of a good campaign

Course, old school players probably wouldn't start a thread bitching when said possessions then came up in the adventure.

Have you asked your GM that question.
That's really important. Pic related.

>Not spending all your starting gold on hunting dogs.
>Any threat is now buried is ferocious doggos.
>Literally enough HP and dmg to kill anything until level 5.
Carts are old hat.

>pander to idiots, it's important to be popular

I'd rather have no game than a shit game.

>not wanting to be popular
Nerd.

What are you doing with a water clock?

Can't speak for him, but I use them as IED timers.

>Literally enough HP and dmg to kill anything until level 5.

Sure, if your DM is so slack-jawed that he doesn't adjust CR-based encounters to compensate.

Maybe it's a way of going hard-mode, like starting with nothing but grandfather clocks in oregon trail.

>DM adjusts CR-based encounters to compensate
Why bother doing anything to improve your chances then?

A bad GM breaks your shit just cause.
A good GM lets you know why your shit got broke, thus inventing a goal for your character to thrive for.
To beat the shit out of those assholes and the shitty bastard who sent them.

(Of course, this only works farther into the game, after the player has grown attached to said shit)

>Interesting plot
>Nobody cares about it
Choose one. If your plot was actually as good as you think you wouldn't have needed to railroad the players.

/thread/

I honestly find the idea of a group of PCs going through hell and high water for something petty both a funny and interesting idea for an entire campaign.
>Find the local bandit camp and fuck them up, torturing the captives for where the horses are
>They were sold to a wealthy prince ruling a small but wealthy city state
>Start a civil war to overthrow the prince
>He fled on one of your horses as the city fell to the rebels
>Track him down to a major empire ruled by his second cousin twice removed
>Unite a bunch of Orc tribes to invade the empire and destroy it
>Fight your way through the capital city as it is being invaded by Orcs and the local militia is desperately fighting for survival
>Finally find your last horse
>It has been 25 years since it was stolen
>Your horse dies three weeks later from old age

>Playing a game
>GM is pretty cool, have a fun time though seems
a bit unmoving when it comes to the rules
>Escape dungeon and get attacked by harpies
>Kill all of them, decide to go look around for the nest for loot
>"Alright, roll to check the area."
>Roll, get alright
>"Nothing here, roll for the next area"
>"I thought we didnt find anything?"
>"Not in that area, roll for the next"
>We were using a gridded map
>Suggested the party of 4 (and npc) take the time to go to and roll for each square
>We suggested we just each make a roll to search once, since if we miss the search check in the right area, we'll just be looking around like assholes the rest of the game
>GM gets pissed out "Fuck it"s and leaves

Ended up playing again after, but (our own fault on this one) lost track of the party gold after everyone got confused with who was spending what and he went "Fuck it" again and quite the game for good.

On a side note, there is a shit ton of math in basic D&D later on.
>Got 15324 gold in one dungeon
>Party pools gold together
>Jesus christ this is in the hundreds of thousands
>Multiple carts, lucky enough to carry it into next town without getting attacked (much)
>Sell magical weapons we cant use
>Jesus christ its so fucking high, writing down pages of just numbers of gold pieces
Good thing the economys really fucked up
>We need to buy a boat
>Costs all the gold we own
How do the peasants fucking afford to live in these big towns with fishing boats?
How can I afford to spend the rest of my live renting a room in a castle and bathing in whores and yet cant afford to buy a shitty boat or god forbid any animal but a horse or mule?
We could live like kings the rest of our lives or buy a boat for a single use down a river when none of us know how to pilot one.

>Not hiring an entire army of mercenaries
>Not drowning the BBEG in corpses
>Not having a bunch of hirelings swim around with you and your shit on their backs

>warhammer rpg
>Me and friend charge in ahead and get thrown to 0 wounds
>we were a barber surgeon and a student
>wait at wagon
>test of parte kill a necromancer in a tower
>after the battle, he switches to us
>the necromancer aprentice shows up with three zombies and a flintlock pistol
>we let him take the horse since were both 0 wounds
It was all good because we were close to a town but the horse was worth quite a good amount of karls

>waaaaaaaaah why are you trying to exert free will when I already made these rails

If the players don't care for your ebin plot of maximum intrigue and adventure that means it's not as good as you think or you simply failed to consider the basic humanity of your group while formulating every tiny detail of your campaign

>Silly newfag adventurer only carries shit they can fit in a backpack.

Do you even adventure?

Great way to punish the forward thinking player, dumbass. When the 'push' fucks the fellow who is thinking of the logical contingencies of life as an adventurer, you're a shit. And if your plans consistantly fuck the guy who's more in character than basically anyone else, guess what? You're burning a dude because he's not being a chucklefuck.

>waaaaah

Bitch you're the one crying about your wagon getting destroyed, then crying again when your prize is a restored wagon instead of more loot.

>everyone I disagree with is the same person
>only my star-chosen nemesis could possibly try to cloud the clarity of my arguments with his lies

Sometimes when you try to cross railroad tracks, you get hit by the train.

>implying he wasn't the one to make retarded accusations first
>"hur dur you can't just assume people are X"

Fucking moron.

I was directly responding to the posts I quoted in the first of my only 2 posts in the thread, 3 counting this one. So yes, you're the only one to make any retarded accusations

Is that Viggo Mortensen?

high ac characters are harder to deal with than high damage ones.

>If your plot was actually as good as you think you wouldn't have needed to railroad the players.
Usually I run things more by the seat of my pants, but the one time I tried to have a fully-structured investigative game it all went according to the "maybe, just maybe, they'll do *this*" plan aside from going into an optional encounter that would have gotten them a nice reward.
They even fell for the plot twists hook, line, and sinker!

Probably the most satisfying go at DMing I've ever had.

So, you basically run Elder Scrolls games?
>players keep ending up in jail with all their equipment gone
>Get stuff explained to them as they loot gear through the 'tutorial' session.
>none of it they can actually make use of.

Because... Your cart and mule were lame. My PCs ride in fucking style. Always.

Try cornering in that wagon, you top-heavy fools!

Enchantments, motherfucker, do you know them? Also, weighting down the bottom compared to the top.

Or I could give them a cool ship like what you posted, or an airship.

That's right, my magical realm is bitchin' rides. Dare you enter and take the wheel?

>muh free will

Then stop bitching about your GM not creating a socialist paradise where everyone is 100% equal at all times.

>Well Jim lost his donkey so you all need to lose something of equal value as well, that's only fair.

I think a good GM would have made the player abandon the cart/mule out of their own volition because of things like: upkeep/maintenance cost, a disease or festering wound that prevents the mule from pulling it (if it gets hurt during an ambush for example), terrible road maintenance damaging the wagon or getting it stuck in mud so that it can't proceed unless you have time, skills and means to fix it, or simply telling the players the next dungeon/point of interest is way off the roadside on terrain the wagon can't traverse. So they'll need to think about trying their luck anyway, trying to hide it, or splitting the party so someone can guard it.

And if the players can overcome all those hardships, damn they've earned their cart, let them have it and be proud of their accomplishments.

Damn dude, you're fucking awesome!

>damn they've earned their cart

Why do they have to 'earn' the cart if they bought it with their starting money? Why can't the player just have a thing?

Where did socialism even fucking come up? Keep it on your pants

>Team up with another character and each pick traits that let you start out with more starting gold
>Spend almost the entire amount on a wagon and two horses, along with a list of traveling gear, trade goods, and supplies
>Everyone uses the cart, sleeps in or under the cart, stores things in the cart
>During play, another player decides to take Engineering and upgrade the cart, giving it a sturdier frame and making it able to move through hexes it normally wouldn't be able to
>Group buys a variety of tabards to disguise the cart, or use the cart to disguise ourselves (we once painted it up as a traveling entertainer's wagon to avoid suspicion)
>The cart almost becomes a character by itself

10/10 would buy again.

Shit that sounds fun.

>Wagons slow you down
Says the guy who needs to stop constantly to get more food and water and to sell their loot. With a wagon you can load up enough food and water for weeks and over time you can have more and more room for loot. Plus a wagon lets you move faster as you can have people sleeping in the back while one person guides the horse and horses don't need long sleeping patterns like people.

tl;dr get a wagon and stop slowing everyone down with your setting up camp and buying shit.

But dude.
Those are some damn good camels horses.