Love this quote, though maybe only one reader's gonna appreciate it...

Shamus Young on the subtleties of rewarding gamers in pen'n'paper RPGs:

Give a player a fish, and he’ll probably try to sell it to an NPC fisherman.

Teach a player to fish, and next week he’ll show up with the book, “The Complete Adventuring Fisherman”. He’ll start hunting for some monstrous leviathan to catch and enslave, and he’ll be dual-wielding two fishing poles.


Yep. That's pretty much how it works. And when you tell him you're not using The Complete Adventuring Fisherman, he'll protest that it's an official Wizards Of The Coast product. And if it's not an official Wizards Of The Coast product he'll complain that you should have told him you weren't going to use it before he bought it and now he's bought it so it's unfair if he can't use it, because, you know, you follow him around and monitor his shopping habits like you're his mom or something.

My advice: if your players want fish, give 'em Tucker's kobolds. (Kidding. Nobody wants that to happen. Almost nobody. Okay, maybe occasionally when they're handcuffing sick elderly ladies.)

Comments

MWT said…
Heheh.

I had a giant sign at the front of my pbp game that said "we're only using these core books, period" - and people still tried to talk me into letting them use obscure things from books I'd never heard of. T.T
mattw said…
Damn it, Eric, now I really, really, really wanna play D&D. Any chance you'll be in the Chicago area with time to kill in the next few days?
Eric said…
Heh. Sorry Matt, I wish.

Heck, I hope my own D&D group is able to get their butts in gear this weekend. We've had to cancel the past three weeks' sessions because people had lives. The nerve!
Tom said…
Hmmm... Obscure references with tantalizing bits of familiarity. No, I guess I really don't know what the Hell you're talking about!

But that's OK. I don't have to GET everything. I'd be the first to admit what I don't know, if only I knew what that was...

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