Buying Things

As the players come into town with their new-found wealth, I recommend letting them get about the business of buying things.  For myself, having created a very deep list of items that can challenge the pockets of nearly every character, "market day" is something of a rest.  Players ask many questions about what something is, or what use it serves, or how many are available, but for the most part the equipment list provides its own entertainment.

I am, as explained, in the process of putting this table into a book, so that it's much more than a list of items with their costs, but we need not go into this side project at the moment.  Instead, allow me to be tiresome, as I address various rules and the philosophy behind them, within the game experience.

This should be evident, given how it affects video game mechanics, but the process of spending money to purchase material things is a form of character advancement, separate from the advancement associated with experience levels.  Advancement through the purchase of armour reduces the chance of the character being hit, and so it increases the character's ratio of hit points against enemies.  This is, essentially, giving the character MORE hit points.  Superior weapons, in turn, increase the amount of damage done to opponents ... which gives the enemy LESS hit points.  Therefore, to maintain the game's challenge, effort must be taken on our part to ensure that the character's advantage, and the enemy's disadvantage, adjusts marginally.  And I mean that: marginally.

A lesson to be learned is that cost is not a sufficient obstacle against the acquisition of things that can be purchased.  Plunder is defacto a result of adventuring; the DM can deliberately reduce the amound of treasure found, but in reality this merely kicks the can down the road.  Sooner or later the player will have enough money to buy anything that's wanted.  And this is even easier if the whole party pools their money and chooses to buy the most effective equipment for each player in turn, making sure the fighter gets the best armour and weapons ... since in the short run, that improves everyone's survival, and the accumulation of more treasure.

It's possible that Gygax and crew understood this; and that they saw that the way to stave off the purchase of the most expensive items was to use player death as a balancing factor.  Characters won't "eventually" buy the best armour if the character is dead.

The problem is heightened when magical items are put up for sale.  Since the accumulation of treasure is inevitable, so long as the player continues to survive, then even items that cost tens of thousands of gold pieces will come into reach.  After all, we want players to survive; and if they're capable of planning and balancing the odds right, they will survive, they will buy whatever they want and that will destroy the challenge of the game — as powerful magic items of all sorts dwarf experience gains.

I find myself wrestling with words here.  Whether or not the campaign rewards experience for gold pieces, it's understood by players that gold is a part of what they seek when they adventure.  If we follow the structure to be found in official game modules, we're speaking of an awful lot of treasure; many thousands per person per adventure.  Where magic is for sale, this quickly transfers into mass buys of potions, scrolls, wands, magic armour and weapons, whatever the players wish.  One adventure dangerously overtips the game in the player's favour ... and that distorts, or rather weakens, the overall value of the game itself.

Even if we suspend the buying of magic items, there are still details like flasks of oil, holy water, plate armour and so on to consider.  What is to stop the player from purchasing with 10,000 g.p. a thousand vials of holy water, carefully transferred to metal jugs, so that gallons can be splooshed upon the lich we know is down below.  With characters who have accumulated ten levels over a lengthy campaign, having a six-figure number of gold pieces is normal.  Why not, at 11th, when one cannot possibly handle a well-run lich, simply have everyone in the party accumulate 8 gallons of holy water with 10,000 gold?  The take is sure to be at least double that amount when the treasure is counted.

And so, as I say, cost is not an obstacle.  It's a speed bump.  The proper obstacle to the accumulation of wealth is mass ... how much can be carried, how much can be stored, where can it be stored safely, how much can be practically transferred into the desired commodity and finally, how much can be effectively employed at any one time.

If the vial is elemental to the holiness of the water, and the water cannot be removed from the vial for more than, say, 20 seconds without destroying its inherent properties, then 10,000 gold's worth of holy water exists as a thousand vials, which cannot all be opened simultaneously, or at any great speed.  If the plate armour is heavy, and cannot be worn without reducing what else the character can carry, while slowing the character down in a fight, then the defensive benefit on one front is weighed against the offensive loss on another.  If a magic sword cannot be purchased, nor any improved variety of plain sword, except perhaps one that breaks less, than a better sword must be found.  And if the character has enormous piles of money, then all that money must be made inconvenient by placing it in a bank, or in goods so heavy — such as a castle — that it cannot be stolen.

Encumbrance is the critical element of discipline in the game's structure where the accumulation of wealth and power occurs.  The more one has, the greater imposition encumbrance makes upon the character.  The word literally means, "an obstacle, a burden or an impediment."  It doesn't matter that players don't like it; they're not meant to like it.  They're meant to fucking hate encumbrance, to despise it, to lay awake nights grumbling against it, as they invent ways to reduce its grasping, troublesome, crippling effects.

Secondary to encumbrance is time.  Wealth has a physical presence; that presence must be located somewhere in the game world.  All of it, unless it's so little that the players are not benefitted by it, cannot be perpetually carried around with the character.  This means that some of it must be located at a distance, where it's inconvenient to the players right now, so that it takes time to re-acquire it.  And time costs.  Players eat, and food goes bad.  Items age and go weak.  Complex items accumulate weak points and break.  Rooves fall in, foundations crack.  If medicines have an expiry date, why not potions, or holy water?  Combustibles sometimes, over time, combust..  Every month, wages deplete the kitty.  There's nothing time cannot destroy.  Time sucks.

It's not necessary to steal money from players.  That may happen, and eventually I'll figure out a fair way to impose that possibility ... but the harder truth is that the maintenance of wealth costs wealth.  As does the protection of wealth.

And so, let the players get about the business of buying things.  Decide what they can buy, and how much, and say nothing of how they're digging a hole for themselves.  Buying things is fun.

State of Equipment

With regards to what a character has, I wish to write a few sidenotes.  DMs ought to be warned away from things like "journeybread," a magic bread that eliminates the need to buy food, and other such items that proliferate now through the 5e system, but this is only a symptom of the wider misunderstanding of what equipment is and how it fits into the game.

The Gygaxian model, evident from early lists, is that equipment is there to manage dungeoneering, which to the voices of the time is essentially like camping.  Yet there's enough conscious awareness in Gygax and others that the players might want to buy things like cows, chickens and ships, though no rules whatsoever exist for the management or layout for such things.  Presumedly, the game's designers assumed that if players wanted to know how much a ship could carry, how fast it could move under various winds and what the arrangement of rooms and cargo space looked like, a library was available.  Which is just how we approached such things at the time.  Self-sustaining and all that.  It gave us something to do while walking miles to school, uphill both ways.

Later, as equipment lists grew through the Dragon magazine and other role-playing games, DMs realised that buying things was perhaps the best way to get rid of a player's vast income, in a way that seemed far less contrived than paying out ludicrous amounts for "training" and "research."  It does work this way, but this alone is not an especially valuable reason to provide characters with better equipment lists.

As an interesting sidenote, assuming 1 g.p. contains approximately 7 grams of gold (which complies with typical Middle Eastern coins from the Romans forward), then the cost for a 1st level to train to be a 2nd level equals 1,500 grams of gold for one week; divided into troy ounces, or 31.103 grams per ounce, this is 337.6 ounces, or 21.1 pounds of pure gold.  Compared against the price of gold in 1979, when the DMG was published — $459 USD per ounce — this is the equivalent of $154,953.  Converting this into 2022 dollars equals $632,428.  

Moreover, this is per level to be risen from.  A 2nd level moving to 3rd requires twice the amount, while from 3rd to 4th requires three times as much.  To put this into context, it costs nine times as much in equivalent money to be trained as a 2nd level fighter for one week as it does to go to Harvard University for a year.  And if the DM, according to Gygax, thinks you weren't good enough in your 1st play, he or she can multiply this amount by 2-4.  By fiat.  When I say ridiculous, I mean ridiculous.

Coming back to the point.  Throughout the game's development, there have been two suppositions that cut the importance of equipment off at the knees.  I know of no exception, counting every version of D&D and every other role-playing game I've seen, including those set in the present and the future.  Those two suppositions are:

1. Pieces of equipment are complete units onto themselves; they are not formed of other things, and therefore no information need be given as to how much wood is needed to make a wagon, or how much meat a chicken supplies, or what ingredients, amount included, are necessary to make a bottle of beer.  Furthermore, for the most part, very little effort is made to include raw materials on an equipment list — except for perhaps one or two dozen commodities.  Certainly, a concerted effort to include ALL the things that ordinary human beings can buy locally are never included.

2. Players have next-to-no knowledge of how anything is made, or how it works, and therefore zero information needs to be supplied as to the pieces, fixtures, parts, materials used, or any other aspect of the piece of equipment being bought.  We're buying a "rope."  Because as players we are universally ignorant, there's no need to describe the rope's breakweight, it's thickness, the manner of its weaving or even the materials from which it's made.  All rope, we are meant to understand, is exactly the same.  This same rationale applies to every object in the game universe.

As a result, if a character wishes to transform bars of nickle, manganese and iron into a sword, there is no price for the bar, no manufacturing time, no detail of the tools needed or what space is required ... so that even if the player has done this personally, and knows the answer to many of these questions, the DM has to invent the price of tools, materials and space out of thin air, since no game equivalent has ever been offered.  And if there is some version of the game that includes a price for a "blacksmithy shop" (I've never seen it, but there have been a hundred splatbooks, so it's sure to be out there), then it's a single-type all-purpose cookie-cutter blacksmithy shop, with minimal details and the assumption that every blacksmithy everywhere in the world is exactly the same, like waking up in a Howard Johnson's.

D&D has had 40 years to address this problem and it has done ... nothing.  Because it's perceived that nothing needs to be done.  Players don't want details.  They don't want to buy raw materials.  They want things they can march into a dungeon.  They certainly don't care what their rope is made of, or what food tastes like, or how to actually make armour in game.  "It costs such-and-such an amount of money per week to make a sword."  So you pay the money and "buy" the sword that you made, exactly in the way that you would have if you'd gone to the market.  What you've done is buy the right to say you made the sword yourself ... except that you didn't.  In any sense.

This minimalisation forces the players into a conformative, passive mindset where it comes to purchasing equipment and deciding how to spend their money.  The overall result is a total lack of interest in buying things past what's immediately needed to play the adventure ... which in turn causes the piling up of player money, making it possible for them to pay for the adventure's necessities, whatever they are, because no other enticement exists for which to spend their money.  That causes DMs to lament the inexhaustible supply of player money, producing the DM's feeling that somehow this money needs to be drained in some other manner, by theft or by irrational training costs, which matters not a whit anyway because players don't care about money.  Not in the system the game has built.

To a DM, this feels off ... because it seems evident that money should matter, since that is the human experience.  It doesn't equate, however, because we view money most romantically as something that obtains emotional highs and lows, new experiences, security and power ... whereas none of these things exist in the game's structure as designed by the originators.  In D&D, money is a number that's piled up until it's exchanged for something meaningless, that brings no special benefit to my character's personality, status or ability.  Unless it does so through rules that make no sense, that are obviously invented for the sole purpose of reducing my money.

There is a solution, but it requires a complete turnaround of the game's design.  JB likes to say that "D&D is about adventure."  Adventure is exciting.  It is certainly an intrinsic part of the player's experience.  But saying that D&D is about adventure makes as much sense as saying that life is about sex, or that childhood is about Halloween.  It is not necessary to adventure in order to play D&D.  I have run a year's worth of sessions as a party established and organised their colony, cleared and planted land, interacted both peaceably and threateningly with local tribes, helped supply a war effort, freed slaves, planned for the future, began personal relationships, attended a coronation, infiltrated spies into an enemy outpost and traded goods they had mined, raised and acquired through diplomacy.  None of this falls under the heading of "adventure" in any traditional sense, yet none of the players were the least bored, they were operating entirely according to their own agency, doing what they wanted to do ... and at no time would any of them believed they weren't playing D&D.

D&D is about playing a character that makes choices in a game world regarding their ambitions and intentions to accumulate varying measurable products: money, experience, notariety, the expansion of their belief system or anything they can invent.  I once ran a character whose sole desire was to acquire books, with the intention of building an Alexandria-sized library.  My tactic was to join the siege army surrounding a city, aid in the city's fall and then rush in to pillage the libraries within.  Is this "adventure?"  As a genre, I'd call it "criminality" or "war."  Just because it's exciting doesn't make it adventure.

The frustrating two-dimensionality of the adventure-arrangement for D&D is perpetrated by the system's total inability to support any other framework of play.  The books were of no help to the DM or me in describing how to wage war against a city, or how to be a small contingent of players operating inside an army.  The DM had to invent this on his own.  The books provided me no help in helping the players develop their colony and trading intentions.  I had to invent this on my own.  This led to the development of my trade tables, my massive equipment list and ultimately the menu I launched last year.  All things that my players, and many others who have experienced these things through other DMs, to realise that "adventure" alone is an extremely shallow approach to what the game offers.

I'm stumped, at present, on how to explain any of this to a new DM, with shiny copies of 5th edition spread out before them.  Some things just don't seem possible.

Gems & Jewellery Headaches

I was just discussing an impromptu survey of D&D players through twitter and social media, answering the question, "What would you like to see on an equipment table that isn't usually there?"  The reply came back overwhelmingly, jewellery.

Okay, so this is an enormous headache.  There are several resources in the original DMG that have plagued me since I began running the game ... and since I'm deep into equipment, now's a good time to talk about them.  Let me reproduce the relevant sections of pp.25-26 first, then a piece of p.219:

Wow, did I waste a lot of time with these tables!

While we can handwave ourselves through gaming by randomly rolling a goblet, arbitrarily determining that it's made of gold, with gems, and that it's worth 5,000 g.p., there are considerable issues with this system.  Given that the average roll for jewellery is 2,910 g.p., that's awfully high for any party less than 6th level; it doesn't tell us what gems the goblet has, so these have to be assigned.  The table doesn't tell us how much of the value is gold and how much is gems, or what gems there are or how many.  Yes, we can arbitrarily assign these things, but if we're left having to arbitrarily assign most of the details, how are we aided by having the dice assign one detail and an outrageous total g.p.?  Why is it more than six times as likely to find jewellery worth more than 1,000 g.p. than pieces of that amount and less?

Yet in my infancy I used this table for more than a decade, willfully rolling the amounts and then arbitrarily adjusting them as needed, until finally I grew up and recognized that it was easier to assign every detail and screw the die rolling.  Which I hated.  But then I built a trading system and pricing table that would allow me to exactly define the cost of the gold by weight, the cost of the 18 amber gems set into it, using specific gravity to define the weight vs. the size of the gems and the cup, etcetera.

Not that this helped me one damn bit.

Start with the variety of gems shown.  Gygax includes 54 varieties of gemstone.  My pricing system has 65, counting all the varieties I've stumbled across that are worth including.  Each has a unique value, as they come from places scattered across the globe, which for my system defines the price of the gem based on its relative type (ornamental, fancy, semi-precious, lesser precious and greater precious).  On top of this, because my system isn't random, gems come in 8 general sizes:  pea, marble, cherry, almond, walnut, plum, peach and apple, each size corresponding to the number of cubic inches associated with an object the size of a pea, marble, cherry and so on.  If you're interested:

• pea-sized: 0.016 cub.in.
• marble-sized: 0.061 cub.in.
• cherry-sized: 0.251 cub.in.
• almond-sized: 0.655 cub.in.
• walnut-sized: 1.031 cub.in.
• plum-sized: 2.015 cub.in.
• peach-sized: 3.936 cub.in.
• apple-sized: 8.646 cub.in.

The comparative objects were picked to offer familiarity of proportion, and the cubic inches determined by researching the number of cubic inches in a pea, standard marble, cherry and so on.  It's difficult to picture a diamond weighing 56 carats; quick, tell me what that is on the list above.  That's an awfully big diamond.  The Hope Diamond is 45.52 carats.  A diamond is 3,510 carats per cubic inch.  A diamond that's 56 carats would be the size of a pea.  That's all.  An almond-sized diamond, the sort that's often depicted in the movies, such as the one in Titanic, would be 2,317 carats, 2/3rds as large as the biggest UNCUT diamond that's ever been found, the Cullinan diamond.  Cut diamonds are never that big.

But forget the digression.  For a fantasy game, we can easily propose a diamond as large as a walnut.  Poof, one exists.  The bigger issue is that the varying sizes of gemstone means that not only are we picking the type and the number to go on our goblet, we're picking the size too.  Not to mention that we're also free to decide if the gold is 14K, 18K or 24K, each deciding the amount of actual gold in the metal—though if we want to use the cup, 24K is too soft.

Very well, if we want four types of gems in our cup, for colour you understand, and large and small sizes, and 14 carat gold, we'll still need a volume of gold for the goblet itself.  A 6 inch tall glass goblet weighs half a pound, or 0.23 kg.  However, glass has a specific gravity of 2.8 grams/cub.cm; 14K gold is much denser than that, so our goblet weighs 2.48 lbs.  Of course, that's arbitrary too: what about a goblet 7 inches high, or 8 inches?  What about a wider goblet, or one where the gold is thicker?  Are we going to built tables for that?

Finally, all this is entirely academic.  This one goblet of this one size and material, with this one collection of gems, is just ONE POSSIBLE object of an infinite combination of various things a jeweller, lapidary or metalsmith might make.  Any list of jewellery created for an equipment list (which is where we started), couldn't possibly account for all the jewellery possibilities a character may wish to advantage.  Suppose, for arguments sake, we want to take each object on the jewellery and items list described: 35 items.  We make each object in copper, pewter, silver, gold and white gold.  We're up to 170 items.  Let's say we make versions with gems and without gems: 340 now.  And let's say we make versions with gems of the five orders: ornamental, fancy and so on.  That's 1,700 jewellery items ... and in toto, only six of those are "earrings."  That's it.  You want a ring, you have six choices.

In fact, we could easily fill a splatbook (well, it wouldn't be "easy," it would be brain-crushing repetitive work, but ignore that) with all the types of jewellery a player might buy, with 3 columns of 30-50 items (some would need more than one line) over 200 pages, with 24,000 items, and players still wouldn't feel they had enough choice.  What, there's no silver tiara here encrusted with black coral?  THIS BOOK IS SHIT!

As such, jewellery lists don't exist because it's a hole that produces no value.

Ideally, I'd like to build a list the players could use to make their own jewellery.  A sort of plug-and-play arrangement.  And still it is sort of arbitrary to do this in a universal equipment list, such as the poster, we might as well say the jewellery is a gold tiara "with gems" worth 1800 g.p. and have done with it.  Realistically, for most game worlds, jewellery will always be known by its price tag and not its substance, which is sad, don't you think?  I prefer a system that defines the object completely, and leave the players to wonder how valuable it really is, like a sort of D&D road show.  Knowing the price tag ruins that experience.

Pity.

Effects of Equipment

I am amidst the reformatting of my pricing table, a long overdue task involving the correction of many, many errors that have been there for years, along with expanding details and adding features.  At present there are something like 1,500 items for sale and no, I don't think that's too many.  Honestly, I don't think it's enough.

As many of you know, my daughter runs a game of her own, and some of her players also play in the game of another DM, Tatyana, that my daughter knows.  My daughter uses my equipment sheet, while Tatyana doesn't ... and in Tatyana's campaign, everyone has plenty of money and doesn't know what to do with it.  They have so much coin they use it as road gravel (joking...).  Yet these same players in my daughter's world never have enough money—not only because there are many things to buy, but because the existence of things create their own game effects.

For example, we might add a dozen or more kinds of hat to our equipment table; there are, after all, many kinds of hat.  That might lead to a stipulation that in certain parts of the world, everyone has to have a hat; not having a hat is considered a moral offense ... and of course, which hat you purchase has an influence on which persons you speak with.  If everyone in the party wears one kind of hat, that being the "safe" hat, the one that draws the least attention, it can mean there are dozens of factions they can't speak to at all.  Moreover, don't ever get caught with two different hats.  It means you're not a true believer in one or the other (effectively both), and therefore worthy of having an "accident."

The various substances and manufactures of my world are brought into existence by my patient research through a 1952 encyclopedia; many of these things I had never heard of before: kumiss, garum, seratonin, witherite, kaolin ... a long list that is second nature to me now but were a mystery 20 years ago.  One list that I've inherited through the encyclopedia is that of wines; there are many thousands of wines, of course, but there are just 23 of name that the encyclopedia thought worthy of mention.  I've included these in my pricing list for a decade, but reviewing the list recently, and how they're described for the players, suggested I could go one better.  These wines needed more description ... and thankfully, as the wines are real, I could simply look them up and steal a brief description of each:

This should be readable if you open the image in another window; I thought it might be nice to set the list against an appropriate background.  That's not how it will appear on the equipment list, of course—I'd need a thousand pictures!

For the most part, the explanation is simplified from the real thing (wine experts tend to go on and on) ... yet I think it grants a feel for the wine that a player can appreciate for their character.  All of these specialty wines (sherry not included) are hard to find except where they're bottled ... and thankfully, my world takes place far enough along in Earth's history that there are bottles, even for champagne.  Granted, I fudge a little on the dates; magic and divination help to solve certain problems, like how to keep the cork in the bottle.  I am the DM, you know.  I'm allowed to add features to my world that I like.

The above list gets me to thinking ... and it is one of those things about rules again.  I may have mentioned this on the blog before, because it doesn't seem like an entirely new idea, but hell.  I would have proposed this a long time ago, and old men do repeat themselves.

Taking the different kinds of wine, distilled beverages, beers, cheeses, confectionary, smoked meats, with cider, caviar, opium, tobacco and such, not to mention rare naturally occurring fruits, vegetables and treenuts, I could create a list of "Cravings" that could be rolled upon randomly for every player.  A good, lucky roll would mean getting an item that could be found nearly everywhere, and was relatively cheap, though not very special as far as a character building notion; while a bad roll would be getting a Craving that was expensive and damn near impossible to find.  An example of that would be Arrack, a coconut liqueur which is distilled in only one place my world, that being on the Cochin coast of India—a long, long way from most places my players choose to be.

Here's the rub.  You get hold of your craving—Edam cheese, treacle, a bottle of Strega, gingerbread, whatever it happens to be—and if you eat it up to 12 hours before getting into combat, you get a 5% bonus to your experience from that combat.  You're in such a fine mood, you understand.  This is not such a game balancing wrecker.  There are always certain classes (as gotten from old AD&D) that get 10% and others that don't ... and how you arrange your ability stats affects that too.  Thus, if some characters got a mere 5% bonus on a day some other character didn't, that's not such a big thing.  But it would, I think, serve as a motivator for players who had trouble getting hold of some rare Craving ... which might motivate the party to walk towards that craving (the closer you get, the greater the chance it will turn up on an equipment list—you don't have to go all the way to India) and then to corner the market on it at the next opportunity.  "Arrack?  Excellent.  I buy all of it.  Let me know when more comes in.  I'll buy all of that, too."

Now, some might think the Cravings ought to be equalled out, but where's the fun in that?  Life isn't fair; and I don't play with players who grumble about die rolls or bad luck.  Others might think I ought to give a +1 to hit or damage, or both, but I tell you, I already use that bonus often enough, thank you.  Lot of the time, I'm looking for other benefits to offer.

Come to think of it, I have 33 kinds of fabric/weaving in my world.  Could be, it's not what you eat or smoke, it's what you wear ... acknowledging that things wear out, meaning you can't wear your favorite scarf forever and still feel special.  Hm.  There are lots of ways to think about this; might be fun to make a list and give it a try.

Decay

There are few rules that attract more ire than those that ask for bookkeeping.  Encumbrance is always the truly hated example, as the weights of specific things are a fiddly bit of information requiring math and extra writing.  The same could be said of asking players to identify just where a piece of equipment is ~ in backpack, on person, in saddlebags, carried by the porter and so on.  Players feel this level of detail should be just assumed, so they can get on with the real play.

But of course, the more it is assumed, the more players will abuse it.  In the days when I didn't demand it, I would discover a mage was carrying around 15 daggers, so they wouldn't run out, or that a ranger was carrying 135 arrows - in seven quivers, obviously.  All on his person.  And this says nothing of players hauling around ten and twenty thousand coins, presumedly in one sack.

Many DMs are fine with that.  So long as the daggers are paid for, or the character has written "sack" down on their character sheet, they seriously don't care about the niggling details.  I began caring, however; and though my players did complain a little, I found in short order that they cared, too.  They especially care when they've taken the time to organize their gear and one player in the party hasn't.

Ages ago, in 2014, I wrote this post about gear breaking down.  At the time, I considered it a thought experiment.  It was a bridge too far.  Essentially, I saw it as a means to give wisdom a little more importance, as I was concerned about dump stats and getting rid of that notion.  But I considered keeping track of this sort of thing somewhat less than ideal.

But I was commissioned by Zilifant, who has been a regular reader for years now, to come up with a system for decay ~ the deterioration and breakdown of gear, goods ... even food (which we might deal with separately under "spoilage").  Admittedly, I considered this infeasible.  But I do think there might be a practical method, that players could keep track of practically.

However, it could not be simple.  Things do not break down in the same manner.  Rope will fray, food rots or accumulates insects, metal tarnishes and rusts (and can be repolished) ... while gems show no wear at all.  Clothes may be servicable for putting on, but be grimed or stained in a manner that would make the wearer ashamed to be seen in public.  Animals get old, or lame, or diseased.  It isn't possible to have one across the board system that allows us to plunk in an object and spew out a result with dice.  It takes thought and flexibility.

But ... that said ...

I have a rule in my game that when a weapon is fumbled, another die is rolled to see if it breaks.  Circumstance, result.  The moment the sword is dropped, everyone remembers that it is time to check for a break.  If we could employ that same mnemonic to gear breaking down, we'd be fine with remembering to do checks.

What's needed, then, is a system of checks that produces some very specific gameplay results:

• The checks have to be meaningful.  Stuff has to break occasionally, and players have to be conscious of that.  Sooner or later, something is going to break or fail at the worst possible time, and players have to be conscious of that, too.

• The breaks can't be constant.  They have to be rare enough that, for the most part, the players are able to rely on their equipment.  If the breaks happen way too often, players will grow resentful of the system and become disheartened.

• The breaks can't be excessively random.  On some level, the players have to be able to control the decay, and the rules have to be built in a way that if something breaks, the players are apt to blame themselves, and not the system.  This is very, very important, and is often overlooked by a game designer.  IF something breaks, the first thought in the player's mind has to be, "I should have ... etc."

• The system needs to have a component that lets players sell off equipment that is in danger of breaking down ... and likewise, to buy used equipment if they wish.  If decay occurs, then naturally every object in the game universe will already be in a state of that decay; so this has to be part of the experience.  This means there cannot be just two forms of an object's existence (fine and broken); there have to be many.

I suggest five levels:  new, used, worn, shabby and ruined.  Objects in the player's possession can be easily tagged: (n) for new, (u) for used, (w) for worn, (s) for shabby and (r) for ruined.  New objects are purchased directly from the maker; these are quickly broken in.  Nothing stays new for long, before it becomes used.  Used objects are durable.  It is hard to reduce them, but with enough time and strain, they will be made worn.  Worn objects are starting to break down.  Under abnormal conditions, they will take a turn for the worse and become shabby; but under heightened stress they may bypass shabby and directly break.  Any object, even one that is new, may break under certain conditions.  It is up to us to define what those conditions are.

In broad terms, we can say that "normal use" of any object does not require a roll.  Using a sword as a sword, using a backpack to travel, attaching a saddle to a horse ... these are things for which the objects were made and therefore no roll to check their condition is necessary.  This means we need only check the decay of an object from new to used to worn to shabby, and at any point to ruined, according to the pressure or tension exerted on the object.  And to define that, we should consider unusual stress on an object.

In D&D, what counts as unusual?  Well, dungeons, obviously.  And moving off road.  And any time we use an object in a manner for which it was not intended.  Using a piece of clothing as a rope, for example; or walking dressed through a swamp; or falling into a pit trap.  These are moments in-game that we can define and apply from case to case.  But we should also consider that we are not keeping track of every moment of the character's game-day.  A trek across a wilderness obviously has moments where a character slips and lands in mud, or is caught by an old tree branch, or scrapes a boot or pant-leg on a rock, or is nipped by a horse ~ or a hundred other possible moments of stress that wouldn't cause a hit point of damage but would wear down gear.  Add to this that much gear of the fantasy game, while hand-crafted, is yet made of materials somewhat less durable than carbide steel.  That is, unless your backpack is made of mithril by elves.  There should be, therefore, a "general stress" of equipment that comes into play, even after ordinary use.

How then, to categorize this?  I suggest that a roll is made for every object that is carried, to determine if that object decays from step to step based, first, on the following generalizations:

• One month of normal use, in normal conditions.
• Three days of wilderness use.
• One day of dungeon use.

This would account not only for the wear & tear of scrambling, packing, unpacking, crawling around underground and so on, but also for the stabs and jarrings of weapons blows, should combat occur.  None of these conditions would cause a new, used or worn object to break; but would do in a shabby object.  Very bad luck and twelve days in the wilderness could wreck a brand new rope, but that is unlikely.  In any case, remember that objects such as ropes are often unpacked every night and tied to trees to serve as shelters, tethers, or as a place to hang wet clothes or wiped kitchen ware, which soaks the rope and wears it down.  Objects on the ground get stepped on as a character moves into the trees for relief.  Or kicked.  Or crammed into a pack in a way the produces strain.  It isn't just what we normally use an object for; just being along on a journey causes decay.

Exempt objects may be anything that is expressly protected.  A scroll inside a scrollcase.  A spellbook inside a metal box.  If specific care is taken, then the protecting object should always have to make a roll first, before the contents are in the leastways threatened.  That will help put some players' concerns to rest.

Second, there are unusual circumstances, things that might occur only a few times in an object's lifespan.  A new sword is fumbled.  The break load on a rope is challenged.  A ten-foot pole is used as a lever.  A horse is ridden down a very steep embankment.  A galley is used to ram.  The possibilities are endless, but manageable.  This is not a simple game.  There is no way to account for every off-normal thing a player might do with an object.  Nor can we account for how much stress someone might put on an object.  At some point, we have to use our judgment as a DM.  Fairly, obviously, and discussed transparently with the player: "That is a very, very unusual thing you're doing with your crossbow.  I'll have to double the normal amount of stress be put upon the object.  Seem fair to you?"  A good player ought to acknowledge that it is; but if the player makes a sound argument that it isn't that unusual, the DM should consider stepping back.  The particulars are not that important, after all, so long as some kind of roll is being made.  But a good DM ought to be able to convince the player about the amount of stress being employed, and the importance of more severely challenging unusually innovative tactics.

Overall, a collection of instances, shared by the whole party, should produce a consistent judgement from the DM.  Some of these can be written down and codified; but something new is bound to come up at some point and a DM must be ready to make a judgement.  I'm not a fan of DM's fiat, but some ideas are impossible to codify entirely.  Like a judge defending the law, the key is to create precedents that can then be used to manage future instances.  Once many precedents are collected, and remembered, an overall consistency can be obtained.

As a condition, some things may never really experience, at least not short of an earthquake.  A stone axe, for instance, would have to be put under a lot of pressure to crack.  An immense stone building may survive hundreds of earthquakes.  Such things may never need to roll.  It still falls to the DM's judgment. 

Rolling

The rolls themselves are not that complicated.  A new object becomes used if a 1 in 4 is rolled.  At the appropriate time, one die can be rolled per object, or groups of die can be rolled for multiple objects, with a random roll after to determine which object/s were made used.  Under stress, a new object breaks on a 1 in 100.

A used object becomes worn on a 1 in 20.  Under stress, it breaks on a 1 in 40.

Worn objects become shabby on a 1 in 12.  Under stress, worn objects break on a 1 in 30.

Shabby objects become ruined on a 1 in 8.  Under stress, they break on a 1 in 6.

Doubling the stress on an object is as simple as saying that something breaks on a 1 or 2 in 100, or 40, or whatever.

The fumble system remains unchanged.  Combat is a very, very stressed environment.

The system lets players see plainly that it is time to replace something that has become worn; or to decide that something that's shabby, like a mug (which grows chipped and stained), isn't crucial to life.  When it breaks, it breaks.

The system also lets the players grow attached to objects they can now identify as possessing for a long, long time.  That mug, for example, will probably acquire a description, and when it breaks its loss will be felt.  Some personal attachment to objects will likely be a happy result.

Overall, when a change in an object occurs, the maintanance of the equipment list is very easy.  An "n" is simply replaced with a "u."  The mnemonic for all the scales is nuwsr ~ which is fairly easy to remember.

Value

Finally, this gives players the option of buying objects that are not necessarily new, for less money.  I would suggest objects should cost 100% of list price new, 80% used, 60% worn and 40% shabby.  This is a simple set of numbers that many players will be able to calculate in their heads.  Objects can then be sold to the merchant for half this price: 50% new, 40% used, etc.

Players will likely choose to pay for things that are new or used, but if they're equipping a force or buying clothes for a hireling, they may choose to buy worn items.  The same is true if objects are needed such as swords for training or a disguise is necessary.  A shabby set of clothes may be just what a thief needs.

Post Script,

Please give me your insight on any of the above.  I'll let the reader know in advance that I intend to delete any comment that tells me how YOUR system works.  I don't care.  I've seen other systems and discarded them.  But please feel free to poke holes in the above, if there's something you feel I haven't accounted for.  I feel like there's something I've forgotten, that I thought about yesterday, but for the life of me I can put my finger on it.

Tell me also if you feel this would be an excessive amount of bookkeeping in your game.  I'd especially love to hear from anyone who tried it, or talked about it theoretically with their players, to get the feedback from a completely unprepared audience.  Please record the response if you have the means.

This could be a monumental add to the game, if it did prove simple enough and immediately graspable for a group of players.

Grapple Throwing

Some real D&D, then. I've never had actual rules for this before. About time I should think.

THROWING A GRAPPLE

A grapple is a hook or claw used to catch or hold something. When tied to a rope and thrown to catch a grip, the grapple aids in climbing. A grapple may also be used to drag the bottom of a waterway, catch items floating on the surface of the water and be used to grapple vessels together for convenience or as preliminary to boarding.

Throwing a grapple involves hurling the claw outwards with success, then hooking the claw tightly against resistance by pulling the rope taut. Snagging off the rope to keep it taut is often needed if the rope is then used to retain its hold or to support weight. The process of throwing a grapple is not unlike rolling a d20 to hit. The table shown indicates the armor class that the thrower needs to hit for the grapple to be successfully hooked.

The process requires the full movement rate of the thrower for that melee round. This includes testing the rope if successful, but not snagging the rope off, which requires 2 action points (AP). Failing includes the time needed to hold the rope until the grapple comes to a rest and avoid being hit (automatic) if relevant. It requires 2 rounds to ready a grapple to be used again.

Striking an enemy with a thrown grapple or one that is used in combat will cause 1-4 damage. The table below shows the grapple’s range adjustments.

See Also,
Campaign
Combat
Grappling & Ungrappling Ships

Lodging

Just for fun, I thought I'd post my recent work on my lodging table.  When I published my innkeeper table in 2011, there were six things on this list.  I think this is better:

I like to think players can be made to care about these things, if only enough information can be made available for them to make a choice.  I know that 4 g.p. a night doesn't sound like much to hit a player character with (+ 3 g.p. for their horse), but over a month that's something like 500 g.p. for the whole party.

And I continue to think about a rule where the players can experience a boost of some kind, a sort of "happiness" bonus, upping one of their stats by +1 (perhaps making it the players choice) if they can get hold of a random luxury (which would mean compiling a list).  This would include anything from finding oranges available or smoking tobacco, eating a pie, using a perfume or incense, getting hold of a certain kind of wine or - from the list above - having had a massage in the last few days.  I have this rather big list of stuff to make a table from that could include perhaps 200 things - some fairly common and others just damn near impossible to get unless one goes to the source of that thing.

Just one more idea for inspiring character adventuring.

Equipment Notes

Going forward, I can tell I'm going to need more space to explain and identify the rules behind a number of equipment pieces I include in my game - particularly those associated with herbal medicine and the apothecary.  I've never functionally sat down to fix the rules behind these things, except by general agreement, but it seems to me that the best way to do so would be to make it a part of the wiki.

Thus I've created this page as an index.  There's not much there just now, just three things; but I will update it continuously over the next few weeks as I work on fixing the general equipment table.  I can see this list expanding into a very large list.

The Monks that Make Chartreuse

Hmpf.

This is the sort of thing to make me bang my head on a table.  As Maxwell wrote yesterday, the pricing table is based on building blocks.  If I want to determine a price for gin, say, I can look up a recipe for gin, determine what's in it, gather those things together and compare them against a ratio for gin making and boom, I have a price for gin.

However . . .

Since I'm using details of the real world, I am forever finding these odd, unusual substances in the pages of an encyclopedia, things I would never, ever think to add.  Today's example is a liqueur I've never actually tasted, Grand Chartreuse (or simply Chartreuse).  I have this reference from Tarragona in Spain (though it should be Voiron, France - I have no idea why the detail is included this way in the encyclopedia, but I'm going with it).  This is the only reference to the distilled beverage.  Naturally, this means that if we're not actually adventuring in Spain, this stuff is going to be expensive.

Unfortunately, for my pricing table, it is a little difficult to gather the ingredients together to make the product because only two people in the world know those ingredients!

I can just see me writing to the monks:  "Please, sirs, I have no intention of making your product, but I have this table-top role-playing pricing system that needs . . ."

Uh, no.

I'll just jury-rig something, probably using saffron as a central herb, making the stuff really, really expensive.  If someone wants to write to tell me what Chartreuse tastes like, and make suggestions about ingredients, I'd appreciate that.  In the meantime, consider the same sort of restriction applied to people in your world that make, oh, magical rods and staves.

I thought some might find the linked page interesting.

UPDATE:

Oh, here it is:

"After 1904, when the Chartreuse trademark belonged to "Compagnie Fermière de la Grande Chartreuse”, the liqueur made by the monks in Tarragona nicknamed “Une Tarragone.”

I will probably fix my source table (the name I call my table that places references), moving the liqueur to Vauvert, France, where it started.

Calculation Table for Minerals

This post plays hell with the appearance of my blog, but legibility is everything.

This is a piece of my prices table, from the page I use to calculate the price of things based on their weight, workmanship and specific density.  It is sort of a 'base page' that's used to script out items before they're gathered on another page that is cleaned up and simplified for player use.

I had to post this in three parts

Basically, this is a small piece of the content I'm making available for a $10 contribution to my Patreon.  The table is in construction at the moment, but I've gotten this section on minerals done (more than half of it is polished gems) so I thought I might post it as an idea.  Obviously, it's a very big picture and looks much clearer and easier to read in excel.

There are places on the table where the cell has been left blank, such as in the first table where there are no calculations for grey-pink marble, freestone, black marble or red sandstone.  That is because these lines are used as placeholders for materials that I know exist somewhere in my world, but are not yet in the area that has been added to the actual trade system: such as knowing that Adeese in my trade system tutorial probably has products that don't exist in Pon but as yet Adeese isn't linked up.

Likewise, the image above is partly unedited.  The first table says "Building Stone, Granite" and then lists all types of building stones.  That's because I was going to make it several tables and then I didn't, forgetting to fix the heading until just now, seeing the saved image.  Also, many of the items and descriptions are cut off by the width of the column.  These things can be seen on excel; I'm just keeping the column width deliberately narrow on the page so I don't have to scan left and right constantly when I'm doing calculations.

About the rose highlighting in the jewelry tables: this is just some conditional formatting that tells me when a certain gem size meets a pre-determined value, so that it can be selected and put on the vendor table as that variety and size of gem.

Anyway, I'm updating this weekly for the moment until it is back to working order, which should be some weeks.  This is an terrifically complicated evaluation process but it is the means I use to calculate literally everything that exists, from small items like a flint for starting fires to big, multi-component constructions like a gatehouse.

Illumination Details

Not fun, but cool to have this written out.

Matters regarding illumination:

Where underground movement, exploration and combat is concerned, light is absolutely necessary. The various forms of illumination in the game are described below or - with the case of cantrips and spells - given links. In each case, effects of illumination on combat are difficult to manage and usually completely ignored where the game is concerned. Combat rules described below are untested.

In each case below, the limitation on illumination describes the distance to which an enemy combatant appears visible enough so as to have no effect on attacks to hit. However, the fading point of illumination drops off quickly where detail is concerned; therefore, any combatant that is located one hex beyond the limit of illumination will be -1 to hit; two hexes beyond illumination, -3 to hit; and three hexes beyond illumination, -6 to hit. Beyond that, the target would be in darkness.

Moreover, if a combatant stands between the light and the target, then an additional penalty of -2 should be added to the to hit score. This penalty is cumulative with other penalties listed above.

In some cases, such as starlight or moonlight, both described below, man-made illumination will make visibility on the periphery of that illumination worse, as well as creating penalty causing shadows.

Torches: the cheapest and most available form of illumination. Torches can be made using a strip of cloth (cotton, linen or wool) some two inches wide and 36 inches long, which is wrapped repeatedly and tied around one end of a torch stake about 18 inches long, weighing between 16 and 24 ounces (about 1 to 1½ lbs.). This is then soaked in 1 ounce of whale lamp oil. The operation takes about 8 action points (AP) to complete. A torch will last approximately 100 rounds (20 minutes). Torch stakes can be reused.

A lamp oil torch will clearly illuminate to a distance of about 6 hexes; a whale oil torch to 5 hexes. A torch may be put down, though it will sputter out on a wet surface after ten rounds and potentially set a dry surface ablaze (make save against normal fire). In either case, regardless of the oil used, a torch that has been set down will illuminate to a distance of only 2 hexes.

Lantern, hooded or bullseye: because my world takes place in the 17th century, these have a bladder below the lantern's bell that can be filled with up to 4 ounces of whale or lamp oil, which is then adjusted by a valve that controls the degree of illumination. There are only three settings of illumination: off, dim and bright. A lantern burning lamp oil will be brighter, but the oil will burn away faster.

The hooded lantern includes a plate above the illumination that will enable the lantern to be carried without the light shining in the holder's eyes. It does not possess a 'hood' that will enable combatants to black out the light, as is often misunderstood. The bullseye lantern is a directional light that cannot be expanded to shine in every direction (again, a misunderstanding) but does possess two handles at the back that can be closed in order to snap the light closed with a shutter. The bullseye lantern shines a greater distance because the 'eye' is a lens intended to intensify the light. Details regarding how bright each form of light is, depending on the oil used, is shown below:

A lantern can be adjusted from from dim to bright, from bright to dim or from dim to off with 1 AP. Lighting a lantern, assuming everything is at hand, will take 4 AP.

Light (spell): the light spell will illuminate perfectly to a distance of 4 hexes. However, all hexes beyond the light spell must be treated as pitch dark; while a magical effect, the spell does not cause a central glow and the division between light and dark is a fixed boundary (making light more useful in a partially lit space or in a room where the whole interior falls into the light's range.

Bluelight (cantrip): illuminates partly to a distance of 2 hexes, so that even within the sphere of the light there is a -1 penalty to hit targets that are not directly adjacent. Increase all penalties for attacking outside the range of the illumination by -1. Treat all weapons and magic items that glow as equal to the effects of this cantrip, with the exception of items such as the wand of illumination.

Notes regarding natural light: below are four levels of natural light. Where penalties to weapons and range conflict (for example, a range of 2 hexes for a dagger indicates -3 to hit while the adjusted medium range indicates a -6 to hit, always use the highest applicable penalty). Also, treat any environment where a forest canopy completely blocks out the sky as dark, listed below. If a partial canopy, then reduce effects to the next least visible natural light. Rangers receive a +1 bonus to hit against the increased negative adjustments listed.

Moonlight, full: includes periods on clear nights where the gibbous and full moon are 45º or more above the horizon. Treat periods where the gibbous or full moon are lower in the sky, or the moon in any other phase than a crescent, as partial moonlight, below. Visibility will be near daylight, though penalties for medium and long range targeting will be increased by 1, to -3 and -6 respectively. Employing any man-made light will spoil the moon's effects, though torches and lanterns will enjoy double the effective range of normal illumination. A torch would therefore allow visibility to 10 or 12 hexes, depending on the oil used.

Moonlight, moderate: includes periods on clear nights where the moon's phase shows more light than a crescent, but is not sufficient to provide full moonlight, above. Visibility will enable persons to see one another well enough to fight, though all attacks beyond melee range (1 hex) will suffer a -1 penalty. The ranges of all hurled and fired missile weapons will be halved and penalties for medium and long range targeting will be increased by 2, to -4 and -7 respectively.

The druid spell, starshine, provides effects similar to these - in which case, druids enjoy a +1 bonus with rangers vs. to hit adjustments.

Starshine, ordinary: includes periods on clear nights featuring a crescent or new moon, where the temperature is no warmer than cool. Visibility will enable persons to see one another well enough to fight, though all attacks beyond melee range will suffer a -2 penalty. The ranges of all hurled and fired missile weapons will be reduced to one third and penalties for medium and long range targeting will be increased by 3, to -5 and -8 respectively.

Dark: describes any night in which the sky is clouded or overcast, the moon is shrouded by thick clouds, hasn't risen or has already set, or where the warmth of the night has created a haze or humidity that limits the amount of starlight. Visibility will be extremely poor, so that even persons who are adjacent to one another in melee will fight at -1 to hit and all attacks beyond melee range will suffer a -3 penalty. The ranges of all hurled and fired missile weapons will be reduced to one quarter and long range will be impossible. Medium range attacks will suffer a -6 penalty to hit.

Semi-Precious Gems

I've put off doing this for years, after this post in 2010 and this post in 2011.  Here is a list of semi-precious gemstones, based more or less on the original DM's Guide with regards to value.  There are no tables for actual gem values (purposefully, as the jewellery and lapidary industry does not want you knowing how valuable or invaluable these are).

Alexandrite (a type of chrysoberyl): America, Brazil, Burma, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Tasmania, Ural mountains, Zimbabwe

Almandine: Afghanistan, Austria, Bohemia, India, Sri Lanka, Brazil

Amber: America, Asturias, Burma, Canada, Dobruja, East Prussia, Latvia, Lithuania, Pomerania, Sicily, Tibet, Transylvania, West Indies

Aquamarine (a type of beryl): Brazil, Burma, California, Carolina, Colorado, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, New England, New South Wales, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Zimbabwe

Beryl: Brazil, Madagascar, Sri Lanka

Black Coral: Malaysia, Northern Territory, Yemen

Coral: Andalucia, Canary Islands, Comoro Islands, Corsica, Hawaii, Japan, Kenya, Kerala, Peloponnese, Seychelles

Fire Opal: America, Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Ionia, Mexico, Western Australia

Garnet: Bohemia, Carolina, Idaho, Madagascar, Mexico, New York, Ural Mountains

Goshenite (a type of beryl): New England

Grossular (a type of garnet): America, Canada, Punjab, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania

Heliodor (a type of beryl): Brazil, Madagascar, Namibia

Hessonite (a type of garnet): Sri Lanka

Jade: Brazil, British Columbia, Burma, California, Formosa, Guatemala, Japan, Kiangsu, Mexico, Mongolia, Ningsia, Poland, Sinkiang, Yunnan

Jet: Asturias, Colorado, France, Utah, Yorkshire

Melanite (a type of andradite garnet): Black Forest, France, Latium

Morganite (a type of beryl): California, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe

Pearl: Arafura Sea, Bahrein, Burma, Central America, Dubai, Ethiopia, Gujurat, India, Japan, Kuwait, Mannar Gulf, Mexico, Northern Territory, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Tahiti, Venezuela

Peridot: Brazil, Burma, Egypt, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Norway, Queensland, South Africa, Zaire

Pyrope: Australia, Bohemia, South Africa

Rhodolite (a type of pyrope): Brazil, Carolina, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Zambia

Spessartite (a type of garnet): America, Brazil, Madagascar, Rhine Valley, Sri Lanka, Sweden

Spinel: Afghanistan, Brazil, Burma, Ionia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, New Jersey

Topaz: America, Australia, Brazil, Burma, Cornwall, Egypt, Japan, Madagascar, Namibia, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Saxony, Scotland, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe

Topazolite (a type of andradite garnet): Switzerland, Trentino-Alto Adige

Tourmaline: Angola, Australia, Brazil, Burma, California, Colorado, India, Liguria, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, New England, New York, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Zimbabwe

Uvarovite (a type of garnet): America, Canada, Finland, India, Poland

Water Opal: Mexico

Smash Things

I thought I had published this post four hours ago.  Turns out, no.  So below it, the reader will find a post called 'Half-Life' . . . which was actually written after this post.  FYI.

I wrote earlier this week about the amount of coin to be found in dungeons versus seeking entrepreneurial success . . . understanding, as nearly everyone does, that dungeons are far more lucrative that anything to be found on the surface.

This got me thinking about the overhead in starting a business venture as opposed to starting a dungeon adventure . . . and along those lines, I found myself thinking about the preparations explorers and spelunkers take before starting out on their journeys - proper helmets, lamps, protective clothing, lamps, ropes, ladders, picks, food, water, medical gear, a means to make fire, a whistle, padding for the knees and elbows, an extra dry set of clothes, good shoes, alcohol, flags, a knife, anti-venom, twine and so on.  A standard kit.

Of course, no D&D player has an electric torch or nylon waterproofing, not to mention most of the medical gear we can take now, but some of that is compensated by magic.  Still, the purpose for having these things is that without them, injuries happen, people get hypothermia or they lose their way and starve to death.

So you want to take enough gear.  And you want to take back-ups for all your gear.  And you want that gear to be brand new, because if the gear is old, it is sure to give out on you.

When was the last time your players replaced the same rope they've taken into other caverns and dungeons?  How many times has the party been suspended by that rope?  How often have your players had to replace their lantern?  How often as a waterskin broken, just from scraping against a series of sharp rocks?  How long has it been since your players bought a new pair of shoes?  Does their clothing ever wear out?  Hell, when was the last time your characters lost a hat in a high wind? Or a helmet that rolled off while they were scaling some mountain; or a lost a weapon because a belt broke?

For that matter, how many scrapes and cuts and bruises has the party collected during their adventures?  I'm not talking about immediate, life-threatening gashes, I mean the sort of thing that's nothing more than a scrape or a small cut?  I expect that, like me, you're not keeping track of that sort of thing.  There are no rules for it.  From experience, however, I've never gone into the wild, hiked through woods, climbed the side of a mountain and plumbed into a cave without damaging something.  The body is soft and it's very easy to take hold of a rock in the wrong place or slit a finger while grabbing onto an old tree branch.  Even the hardiest boot soles split on sharp outcroppings of shale or limestone.  And let's not even start on dry socks and blisters.

Well, let's a little.  Has a party of yours ever had to turn back because of blisters?

In the short story I included in How to Play a Character, I pointed out that the character's scabbard never grew stained, that the leather seemed as good as the day it was bought.  This is a fairly standard role-playing trope.

Before adventuring at all, a party ought to equip itself from scratch, every time.  And the price for doing so ought to be quite high.  Most goods that we buy, even at the standard price, show themselves to be junk in the wilderness.  The good equipment costs.  Even then, it gives out long before we'd like.

Tell your party that every time they suspend more than 100 lbs. with this rope for 2 g.p., there's a 10% chance the rope will break.  Then tell them they can buy this rope for 20 g.p. - but the chances of the expensive rope breaking is 5%.  Then watch the party spend their money.

What's needed are proper rules to take into account the of breaking of equipment - so that when the party clambers out of the dungeon with their four thousand gold pieces, they've lost a fortune in lanterns, broken weapons, armor that they've wore into fetid water and that smells to the point where it's unwearable, torn pants, a helmet that's been dented and because of that doesn't fit now (or fits uncomfortably), cuts from the vial of holy water that broke their hand, etcetera, etcetera.

I can think of a very, very simple way of managing this.  Every time that the players lose a hit point, assign a cost.  Call it 5 g.p. in equipment that's wrecked when an enemy's sword or claw or bite crushes the backpack as well as 2-12 of the character's hit points.  Assess this damage at the end of every fight.

Perhaps, count up the items the character is carrying; divide this number into the character's hit points.  Say Bob had 20 hp and is carrying 30 things.  He takes a hit point of damage and thus ought to lose one and a half objects.  Roll randomly to destroy one thing, then allow a 50% chance of the second thing surviving.

Or roll a 5% chance for everything on the list breaking.  Yes, some things will be stronger than others, but we can get around that by saying that it isn't the sword that breaks, it's the handle.  Or we could establish a heirarchy for some things over others - always remembering that the more damage Bob takes, the more things are smashed or ruined.