I'd like to know why PCs never go to the bathroom.
Magic or not, don't people still have to poop in Pathfinder?
Why aren't there any stats for this?
Sure, getting less than 8 hours of sleep may cause fatigue, but what about holding your bowels INDEFINITELY? Seems unhealthy...
It's hard to imagine Seoni popping a squat behind some bushes, but I'm sure it happens.
It's something assumed to be happening in the background. I for one don't care about roleplaying that I'm on the can.
I remember when I was in high school, and I used to use my graph paper to draw dungeons instead of my homework. I came up with elaborate mansions, dungeons, etc.
I showed them to someone who was interested in what I was doing. Although he was unfamiliar with D&D, he made a comment that stuck:
"Where are the bathrooms?" He was right. I had drawn a massive three story mansion with a basement cavern and mausoleum, added dining halls, antechambers, bedrooms, trophy halls, kitchens, and other storage rooms, but no bathrooms.
"...Umm...they hold it?" I had failed my Knowledge (architecture and engineering) check.
Try playing in my games sometime. Custom Spell:
Heal Kidney
Bard 1, Cleric 1, Druid 1, Paladin 1, Ranger 1 Soc/Wiz 1
After your kidney bursts from not going to the bathroom for to long, this spell heals your kidneys. It repairs all rupturing ... you get the idea.
[/silliness]
Seriously though. My currently character, we encountered some magical snow that didn't melt in my hand, so I peeed on it.
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Three things I don't roleplay when I GM unless it is essential or unusual.
1. Eating (unless they get invited to a feast, or an nasty rogue steals their supplies)
2. Going to the toilet (Unless they're ill, or one of them gets ambushed by an assassin whilst on the loo)
3. Sex (unless the lover turns out to be a succubus/incubus or the husband/wife comes through the door with an axe)
See how that works, some things just happen, and you discuss them when they are exceptional.
Oh, I forgot number 4. Periods, unless the PC has unwittingly become pregnant...
There was an old piece of Lead that I have that might explain why characters don't go to the loo in most games ... an animate toilet with one hapless adventurer in one claw and the other already shoved down the maw -- you can just see his head in the toilet bowl :)
And in our gaming group, there's the player that, no matter what genre, is always blowing up the potty <eg>
This is my argument every time someone wants to wave the 'realism' banner.
I usually pee in the southwest corner.
I typically gloss over this issue too.
However, I have had players in a Shadowrun game visit the restroom on thier own. They were forced to hide for about eight hours while infiltrating a building. As soon as they could stop hiding, one of the PCs went looking for a restroom. I had him run into an employee working late that he had to BS his way past. It was a funny encounter.
If you roll back the time...and remember Excalibur...during the forced sex scene (witht he one dude under some guise of a spell to look like another and diddle said other's wife)...he was wearing plate at the time. Enough to say that they at least thought of some sort of emergency-hatch for the cod piece of the armor...
Food for thought :)
I do.
This is why a ring of sustenance is essential equipment. No intake of fluid and food = no need for the inevitable result of 'biological filtering'. The shorter sleep cycle is simply an added bonus.
I remember when I was in high school, and I used to use my graph paper to draw dungeons instead of my homework. I came up with elaborate mansions, dungeons, etc.
I showed them to someone who was interested in what I was doing. Although he was unfamiliar with D&D, he made a comment that stuck:
"Where are the bathrooms?" He was right. I had drawn a massive three story mansion with a basement cavern and mausoleum, added dining halls, antechambers, bedrooms, trophy halls, kitchens, and other storage rooms, but no bathrooms.
"...Umm...they hold it?" I had failed my Knowledge (architecture and engineering) check.
What you should have said is that indoor bathrooms weren't common during the medieval period. Sure, you had the occasional indoor/outdoor number, with a bucket on the first floor to catch what was coming from the second. However, most people used chamber pots and/or outhouses to do their business. Of course, in a realm of fantasy and magic, you could conceivably have a toilet of devouring. However, that's a whole different ball of wax.
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I remember when I was in high school, and I used to use my graph paper to draw dungeons instead of my homework.
The graph paper was supposed to be for homework? I thought graph paper was invented for drawing dungeons.
On topic - I always put restrooms in my buildings, or at least outhouses in the yards. In dungeons though, its normally a chamber devoted to waste and trash.
I've given out chamber pots as treasure....like one made from the skull of a wyvern. It's amazing how upset people get when their twin brother uses their chamber pot....even though they share a room.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I acutally enjoy that there are maps with bathrooms.
And I can only steal one other gamer's suggestion. astral portal underwear
Stay away from all th SW corners.
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As an interesting trivia note...there are no rest rooms in the entirety of World's Largest Dungeon.
Of course, there are also no kitchens. Nothing in, nothing out I guess.
:-)
-DM Jeff
But wasn't the WLD dug out by outsiders who didn't need to eat/sleep/poo to hold other outsiders/undead that also didn't need to eat/sleep/poo?
As to its current occupancy... well, I'm sure they smell quite nice... :p
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I used to have a paladin in my AoW campaign who's first action in any fight was always to run to the closest corner and pee his armor... Then 'he would then realize that the smell would give him away', so started fighting viciously to make himself smell of the enemies blood instead of his own urine....
I used to have a paladin in my AoW campaign who's first action in any fight was always to run to the closest corner and pee his armor... Then 'he would then realize that the smell would give him away', so started fighting viciously to make himself smell of the enemies blood instead of his own urine....
If you farted in full plate would it waft up into your helmet? Now that would be a self imposed hell.
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I used to have a paladin in my AoW campaign who's first action in any fight was always to run to the closest corner and pee his armor... Then 'he would then realize that the smell would give him away', so started fighting viciously to make himself smell of the enemies blood instead of his own urine....
I'm glad I didn't have to draw that!
I usually pee in the southwest corner.You are eaten by a Grue
+1
I generally don't bother to roleplay the situations, but I go with the assumption of chamberpots, garderobes and outhouses, depending on the building.
However, in the interest of magical realism mixed with the entertaining abuses adventurers will no doubt put such a device to, I think I'm going to put a magical self-cleaning chamberpot in the next wizard's tower my players explore. It's exactly the sort of thing your average high level wizard would consider 500 GP well spent.
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There was an old piece of Lead that I have that might explain why characters don't go to the loo in most games ... an animate toilet with one hapless adventurer in one claw and the other already shoved down the maw -- you can just see his head in the toilet bowl :)
And in our gaming group, there's the player that, no matter what genre, is always blowing up the potty <eg>
GAH!!!!!1 MIMIC!!!!!!!!!
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I was once playing in a Spycraft game where our characters get confronted by the villain in his Antarctic lair. The published adventure in which this occurred provided a map of the lair, and there just happened to be a bathroom immediately adjoining the conference room in which we met the villain.
So there we are, facing down the evil mastermind and his machine-gun-toting goons. The villain has just started into his long-winded monologue about his evil plans, his reasons for believing them necessary, and his appeal for us to join his organization.
And all I can think is, "that's probably one of the only bathrooms in all of Antarctica over there." So my character gets up, interrupts the villain's big speech to announce that he is using the facilities, and walks right past six guys training machine-guns on him to do what he has announced he will do.
After he emerges from the bathroom, greatly relieved, my character forgoes several tactical advantages, returns calmly to his original seat, and asks the astonished villain to please continue his monologue.
this is one of the best anecdotes I have ever heard, jajajaja
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It's something assumed to be happening in the background. I for one don't care about roleplaying that I'm on the can.
Sometimes it can make for an interesting scenario. Say a druid is wild-shaped into a hawk. Well, birds do what birds do. A wild-shaped druid having his morning constitutional on the face of an enemy attacking a party member could serve as a useful distraction!
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I'd like to know why PCs never go to the bathroom.
They're smart enough to do so when you're not paying attention. Just like in video games.
What you should have said is that indoor bathrooms weren't common during the medieval period. Sure, you had the occasional indoor/outdoor number, with a bucket on the first floor to catch what was coming from the second. However, most people used chamber pots and/or outhouses to do their business.
Quite true, but even keeping chamberpots in mind, you can still try your DM's patience. Like asking him to include every chamber pot on the map. :)
I was once playing in a Spycraft game where our characters get confronted by the villain in his Antarctic lair. The published adventure in which this occurred provided a map of the lair, and there just happened to be a bathroom immediately adjoining the conference room in which we met the villain.
So there we are, facing down the evil mastermind and his machine-gun-toting goons. The villain has just started into his long-winded monologue about his evil plans, his reasons for believing them necessary, and his appeal for us to join his organization.
And all I can think is, "that's probably one of the only bathrooms in all of Antarctica over there." So my character gets up, interrupts the villain's big speech to announce that he is using the facilities, and walks right past six guys training machine-guns on him to do what he has announced he will do.
After he emerges from the bathroom, greatly relieved, my character forgoes several tactical advantages, returns calmly to his original seat, and asks the astonished villain to please continue his monologue.
That's almost as good as the time the BBEG gave us this speech and we agreed with and went home.
We don't know whether the GM was pissed at us for walking away from the final fight with an NPC he undoubtedly took quite some time to stat out. All we know is that a couple of years later, the earth was destroyed because we didn't fight that fight...
i've got a few stories on this lol.
years ago we were all playing AD&D and were dungeon crawling along, we had been playing for hours and we were near the end of an epic storyline that had taken us years, everything was tense, everyone was in character, real hush hush as we crept along avoiding the numerious monsters that inhabitied the complex...suddenly one of our players let a fart crack, normally we wouldnt give a damn, but the DM said that since we were all roleplaying so well and had been in character, that the character had acctually let one rip! obviously alerting the bugbears we were trying to sneak up on. ugh.
I also noticed that several maps have been missing some kind of plumming, but have you ever noticed how often a rooms discription will include something along the lines of a "pile of refuse" in one corner? what you think that refuse is? think bout that next time you go pokin round for a loose gold piece ;)
last story (i swear) was at the very beginning of my gameing experience, two other players, one a bard, the other a ranger of sorts had come across a lair trapped to the teeth so to speak, including a latrine armed with a venomous spike, well hours pass, the bad guy defeated, these two cannot decide amiably over a certain magic item, well the bard being the vindictive sort, used his bardic magic and convinced the ranger he had explosive dirrereah (sp?) of the most evil kind, well the ranger, under magical compultion, rushes to the nearest latrine...and falls victim to the very same trapthey had ALREADY discovered....good times. yay potty humor.
That's almost as good as the time the BBEG gave us this speech and we agreed with and went home.
We don't know whether the GM was pissed at us for walking away from the final fight with an NPC he undoubtedly took quite some time to stat out. All we know is that a couple of years later, the earth was destroyed because we didn't fight that fight...
I remember the time the BBEG captured our party and went on to tell us her master plan, which I then began to discuss with her, pointing out various things she hadn't thought off, shortcomings and dangerous pitfalls, and how lucky she was that we had been the ones to come investigate, rather than a well-known trigger-happy fire wizard. I then convinced her to let us all go, give us back our magic items, release the rest of her prisoners shortly thereafter, and what's more, give me copies of all of her spellbooks. In return, I'd become her apprentice and business partner.
She became a hell of an ally, and later brought back most of the party from an almost total TPK after I bribed her with all the tapestries and antique furnishings from the vampire lord's mansion. Which bringing this back to the subject, probably had even less chamberpots than mirrors.
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Well, every time I've ever been in a game and the GM mentions 'Don't you guys ever go to the bathroom? innocently, someone will say 'Yeah, I use that room we passed before the stairs' or something, and they get ambushed by a monster.
I like to have community potties in Dungeons (No Attack Zones, like Cleaner Shrimp stations...even sharks will not eat the other fish there, because everyone needs to use them).
Of course, I put an Otygh/Neo-Otygh at the bottom, but still...Waot, that makes me one of those Ambushing DMs...Hehehe.
PCs also never get drunk. When you, the DM tell them that they are starting to get drunk, or buzzed, they will say that they only have one, or two, but not enough to get any penalties...and they never let a flirty barmaid seduce them. She may be a Succubus, or a Drow Assassin...
Players are silly.
One of my regular PCs always says 'Screw it' when approached by cutie ladies of the night,etc...and goesfor it. And I have him roll a Fudge Die to see if he catches anything...and then he usually fails a Fort Save. And he has caught something three times...Cure Disease is a wonderful thing. He loves it, and laughs every time...
-Uriel
This is why a ring of sustenance is essential equipment. No intake of fluid and food = no need for the inevitable result of 'biological filtering'. The shorter sleep cycle is simply an added bonus.
Ok, somebody should come up with an essay explaining the influence of ring of sustenance to human biology...like where do all those dead cells which are now filtered out by metabolism go?
And does it also mean that the people with ring of sustenance don't sweat? How does it affect the body cooling mechanisms?Also, considering the effect of fasting to stomach, would it mean that if someone who has been wearing ring of sustenance for quite a while would decide to eat something, he would get violently ill unless very very careful?
The danger of gaming with scientists: every now and then you will spend a session discussing scenarios like this.
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This is why a ring of sustenance is essential equipment. No intake of fluid and food = no need for the inevitable result of 'biological filtering'. The shorter sleep cycle is simply an added bonus.Ok, somebody should come up with an essay explaining the influence of ring of sustenance to human biology...like where do all those dead cells which are now filtered out by metabolism go?
And does it also mean that the people with ring of sustenance don't sweat? How does it affect the body cooling mechanisms?
Also, considering the effect of fasting to stomach, would it mean that if someone who has been wearing ring of sustenance for quite a while would decide to eat something, he would get violently ill unless very very careful?The danger of gaming with scientists: every now and then you will spend a session discussing scenarios like this.
This all depends on the kind of setting you're in. In a setting where science doesn't exist, meaning gravity works the way it does because the gods said so, then there is no way to scientifically explain a Ring of Sustenance.
This may also be true in a setting where both science and magic exist.
However, in a setting where magic and science not only coexist, but are equals, then things get more interesting.
If you have such a place where science and magic are merely two sides of the same coin, simply being different methods to reach the same goal, then I would rule the following: The Ring of Sustenance magically converts mana(pure arcane energy) into usable energy for your body, much like solar plates collecting and converting the ambient solar radiation into electricity.
I do like me some science, but I do my best to divorce the idea of applying real world science to game worlds which simply do not follow the laws of physics, thermodynamics, and so forth.
Ok, somebody should come up with an essay explaining the influence of ring of sustenance to human biology...
It's magic, so it makes it all good.
Used to be different, but then fantasy and magic ganged up and ambushed science in a dark alley, beat it up and took all its valuables.
Thus, in today's fantasy roleplaying, magic does everything, has all the good stuff from science without and of the bad stuff, and science lies bleeding in a dark allay.
We sometimes go into that allay and kick science lest it gets back up again.
PCs also never get drunk.
Oh yes they do. I have several ruined taverns and one ruined throne room floor to prove it!
Dwarven-forged full-plate armour: 10000gp
One dwarf-full of strong dwarven ale: 30gp
Being hammered and thinking it's a great idea to make a grand entrance into the throne room by sliding along the floor, in full armour, thus ruining something like 50 square feet of very expensive marble floor: Priceless.
There's things in life you cannot buy, but for the rest, there's Platinum!
...and they never let a flirty barmaid seduce them. She may be a Succubus, or a Drow Assassin...
Players are silly.
Your players are a bunch of wimps, and you can tell them I said that.
I had lots of players getting drunk.
Some of my players not only score the flirty barmaid, they score flirty succubi (knowing full well what effects they can have, and thinking that they're prepared for it with a measly death ward).
That's the kind of heroic courage I'm talking about! Look doom right on its shapely behind and grab it by the hips!
One of my regular PCs always says 'Screw it' when approached by cutie ladies of the night,etc...and goesfor it. And I have him roll a Fudge Die to see if he catches anything...and then he usually fails a Fort Save. And he has caught something three times...Cure Disease is a wonderful thing. He loves it, and laughs every time...
Not all of them are lost causes then!
And if he thinks getting a veneral disease from scoring is bad - I remember one guy getting something nasty because he used the filthy tavern's bathroom.
And cure Disease indeed is wonderful.
Now all we need is magical spell equivalents of "the blue pill with a V on it" (Stallion's Endurance?) and contraceptives (Craviss's Confluent Coil?) and it's golden.
And if he thinks getting a veneral disease from scoring is bad - I remember one guy getting something nasty because he used the filthy tavern's bathroom.
In one of the games I played in the paladin ended up getting seduced by the local "royal lady" who turned out to be a succubus and he ended up doing a swan dive off of a 4th floor balcony in nothing but his boots and cloak. My rogue thought it was hilarious because I was the one that convinced him to do the lady.
The DM got +1 DM levels for that one.
^_^ That IS hilarious, 'specially if that swan dive was fatal.
I can see it now.
Sign outside of the Temple of Elemental Evil
Last Rest Stop for 3 Levels
He ran away? From evil? A true paladin fights evil in all its forms, and takes the fight to the evildoers, no matter where they may be.
Succubus: Wow! Earthquake?
Paladin: Smite Evil!
Succubus: Wow!!
....
Succubus: I see you're a PF paladin, not a D&D one, because you can do it longer and more often.
Paladin: What?
Succubus: Smite Evil.
Paladin: Ah.
Succubus: That's why I forsook Toughness for Skill Specialisation (Bluff: Double Entendre).
I can see it now.
Sign outside of the Temple of Elemental Evil
Last Rest Stop for 3 Levels
^^ I can also see enterprising kobold trapmasters installing portapotties on the various long stairwells, interspersed between chilled water fountains (even vending-machine versions of same, with flavored and 'percolated' fluids! or coffee!!).
Most of the time, they're safe ... until you cheese off (or gack) said kobolds ...
