When last we left our intrepid Lone Wolf, we were deciding whether to apprehend a young thief, let him go, or ignore the whole sordid affair. Ultimately we chose to report the little rascal:
I imagine later we'll find his severely beaten corpse in a side alley, with black-clad guard bootprints leading back to the store. Civic virtue FTW!
But hey, screw that kid, we get free stuff! We do not currently own a backpack, so if we choose anything but the Dagger, we'll have to also choose the Backpack so we have somewhere to put it. I mean, if you see some guy walking down the street holding a blankie and two bags of Big Macs, I think it's likely you would report that guy to the cops.
Also, we already have a dagger and a mace. If we choose the dagger or the quarterstaff, therefore, we'll have to dump one of those two weapons since you can only have two at one time. It would be nice if we could tie our existing dagger to the end of the quarterstaff with some of the rope, making our own Spear (which we have the Weaponskill for), but alas, this isn't quite that interactive.
For the Meals, keep in mind we can't use our Hunting Discipline since we're in civilized areas. I don't know when (or if) that restriction will be lifted, but for now, we're going hungry.
So the way I see it, we have no real choice except to pick the Backpack and one other item. However, since I know how much we gamers like to be ornery, I've left the poll open to TWO selections per person. Whichever two get the most votes is what we'll pick.
Make your case for what we should select in the comments. I love gearing up! Remember, choose two of the below options.
Backpack and rope. Why the rope? May I present a scene form Boondock Saints…
Connor: [picking out weapons and gear] Do you know what we need, man? Some rope.
Murphy: Absolutely. What are you, insane?
Connor: No, I ain’t. Charles Bronson’s always got rope.
Murphy: What?
Connor: Yeah. He’s got a lot of rope strapped around him in the movies, and they always end up using it.
Murphy: You’ve lost it, haven’t you?
Connor: No, I’m serious.
Murphy: Me too. That’s stupid. Name one thing you gonna need a rope for.
Connor: You don’t f**king know what you’re gonna need it for. They just always need it.
Murphy: What’s this “they” sh*t? This isn’t a movie.
Connor: Oh, right. [picks up large knife out of Murphy’s bag] Is that right, Rambo?
Murphy: All right. Get your stupid f**king rope.
Connor: I’ll get my stupid rope. I’ll get it.
I would remind everyone we already have a dagger and a mace. We would have to drop one of those to take a different weapon.
Like Samwise, I have often found that rope has more uses than you can count. When you don’t have it, you always need it.
Gee, I guess I need to read all of Jeff’s notes, huh?
I haven’t had lunch yet, so I vote food.
And a backpack. Cause you can, y’know, put stuff in it.
I guess I’m with almost everyone else. Backpack and rope.
Looks like this one is going to be close between the meals and the rope. I’ll wait a while before calling it to see if something pulls far enough ahead to be the clear winner.
Grab the rope, tie on some soap! 😀
Heeey, perfect! We get rewarded! HOORAY!
Man, I wish it were a wee bit more MacGuyver, so that makeshift spear would be ours. Oh well. Rope is a tool, and we’re dangerously low on those. Rope it is, we can buy a meal, after all.
Anyone else catching the parallel of “30 silver pieces, and a rope” next to “30 feet of rope?” It may be I’ve just read the Hellsing manga too many times.
Backpack and rope it is. I’m just wondering who the heck is wasting a vote on dagger.
WE ALREADY HAVE A DAGGER, PEOPLE!!!!!
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d rather not starve than be able to climb/tie something, so I went with backpack and food…
We have money. We can buy food. A meal is likely cheaper than rope. Of course, we could use the rope to strangle some dope and take his food if our little Lone Wolf wasn’t such a wimp.
Something recently struck me as funny:
Actually Jeff, no, I’d assume this guy is going on a picnic. Occam’s Razor FTW.
Thinking of the fondness that the great Sam Gamgee had for rope, I think I have to agree with picking the rope. Though I suppose I might regret that when we’re out in the wilderness with nothing to eat but a couple weapons and 30 feet of raw fiber…
Logosgal (13): That’s the beauty part of it. Once we’re out in the wilderness, we can use our Kai discipline of Hunting for nutritional sustenance. That rope will come in handy when we use it to snare a doe, which we then brain it to death with our mace, and the use our dagger to skin and butcher it. Or something like that. Seriously, taking the food is for chumps.
Then you, Myro, are insufficiently paranoid. I call the police on almost everyone I see. In fact, what’s your address, my dialing finger is itchy …
Jeff (15): Woot! This is the first time anyone has ever said my paranoia was “insufficient.” Usually they say it is “over-developed.” Maybe this means I’m getting better. You still can’t have my address though. I know a Ponzi scheme orchestrated by the Illuminati when I see one.
Jeff (15): don’t you live out in the middle of nowhere? I mean, I might call the police on almost everyone I saw if I lived out in the country where you only see maybe two people a week who don’t live with you…
Myro (14): There are lots of different kinds of wilderness, though. Not all of them have does for us to throttle and brain to death. Obviously, I was talking about the urban wilderness, where we can’t hunt and are almost certain to get mugged or at the very least ripped off two or three more times at the least. Yes, that’s what I was talking about.
Thirty feet of rope is just enough to hang ourselves with. So we should probably avoid that.
(The standard 50′ you buy in classic D&D, on the other hand, should never be left home, even if you can’t think of a single time you’ve ever used it.)
Real life and Dungeons and Dragons both taught me the importance of rope. That, a good knife and sturdy back pack are the three basics. If food does win that would be okay too. Which is good since they are tied tied
I voted backback and food. Why?
After consulting a map (because I wanted to see if need rope), I discovered that we will be crossing a wide, open area that in the subtext of our hunting skill, shows that we can not use our hunting skills.
I say grab the food, and hope we find some rope along the way.
@Corran Horn: Like Star Wars much? 😉
And, isn’t looking at a map, in this context, cheating a little?? 😛
I vote for rope and more rope!
Wow, now the Meals and the Rope are tied! I don’t think we’ve had a decision this close before.
@Worf: Yeah, how could you tell? 🙂
And I never cheat, I just use my resources…
X-stacy (18): I was actually notorious for punishing my players for not having rope when I was DMing. There was always at least one encounter where having rope (and also a good grappling hook most of the time) was necessary to moving on without having to take the long way around, or you needed it for getting a cool new item, or some other random reason. It actually got to the point where a couple of my veteran players would deliberately equip their characters with 2 lengths of 100 feet of rope, just so they knew they’d have enough.
@Myro, glad I never played with you! 🙂
Rope and backpack. Backpack allows you to carry more items so it should be an obvious choice. Rope is just plain useful. Thirty feet ain’t much in the long run, but it’ll allow you to get away with quite a bit. And think of what you can do with it. Rope can be used as a weapon. Strangulation anyone? Or maybe as a whip, if it’s thin enough. And of course you can always tie an impact weapon like a club to it and swing it around to greatly increase the damage it can do. With thirty feet you could build a raft, a small raft but still it’d be better than nothing. How about a meal? A little rope, a tree, and you’ve got the makings of a snare trap. Speaking of traps, rope makes a good trigger line to spring a deadly trap on whoever’s following it. Not to mention allowing you to climb or tie someone up. And hey, if you cut off a couple of feet, unbraid it and take individual fibers you can produce some nice garrotes. Or you can take an even long section, unbraid, get the fibers, tie them together, and make yourself some fishing line.
Sure you may be hungry at some point, but enough food for two meals versus something that has the potential for dozens?
@Corran Horn: I’ve read most of the EU books, so I know Mr. Horn well.
@Jeff: Still a tie between rope and food. We might need an executive decision here (like choosing the rope ’cause it’s a better choice) 😉