A journey through a land of fantasy…

Minutiae: Relaxing adventurers May 5, 2008

This comes from a discussion (read: argument) that Robert and I have every so often, and I’d love any opinions you might have on the subject.

The party is in town, relaxing, for whatever reason.  Let’s say that they’re in town for an extended period of time: Maybe they’re waiting a couple of weeks for the wizard to scribe spells and scrolls, or there’s no work to be found, or they’re just taking some time off.  It seems to me, most of the time, if you let the characters relax, the players say they are hanging out in the tavern, drinking and partying.

So, you decide to spice it up a bit and throw an encounter into the mix.  Maybe there’s a tavern brawl, or some big baddies bust in the door with swords drawn and scream for bloody revenge on the guy at the next table.  My question is, what equipment are the PCs carrying?

My take on it is that, without any combat on planned and with the party in a “vacation” state of mind, the party is probably not fully armed.  Maybe they’ve got swords on their belts and bucklers strapped onto their arms; the wizard always has a staff (great for walking with) or a dagger; the rogue has a short sword or maybe a short bow with him.  They wouldn’t have great swords (6-7 feet long) or long bows (as tall as the wielder) strapped to their backs, simply because they are cumbersome and you can’t really sit down with them.  They wouldn’t have their packs or large shields on.  Even the paladin won’t be in full plate mail (maybe a chain shirt).

Robert says, no, they’re adventurers; they’ll be equipped for any eventuality, and thus be fully equipped at all times.  Or, at least, certainly he will.  He insists that Vryn, who considers every person a possible enemy, is always completely decked out: great sword and composite long bow strapped to his back, mace at his hip, haversack and bag of holding strapped on.  He never “relaxes.”  He also generalizes to his other characters, that they’d always have all their possessions with them. 

In my opinion, this is ludicrous.  Yes, Vryn is suspicious of everyone, but it’s extremely difficult to even navigate a crowded tavern with all that equipment, much less sit down.  He also says that Vryn tries to look as average and “forgettable” as possible, but sitting in a tavern armed to the gills with multiple weapons and jealously guarding all of his worldly possessions would make him stand out like a sore thumb (this is something I plan to have fun with the next time they’re in this situation, by the way).  I suspect that his whole point is that he wants to keep all of his stuff within a Quick Draw free action or a Heward’s Haversack move action.

The flip side of this is that if I do require my players to figure out what things they have with them when they’re relaxing, that’s a lot more nitpicky things they have to do.  In general, nitpicky things aren’t fun and slow the game down.  But on the other hand, I don’t think it’s fair that they have access to everything they own, if I decide that it’s ridiculous that they have all their stuff with them.

I’d love to know how other people handle (or would handle) this situation.