Daily Archives: November 16, 2009

The Magnificent Four

The village elder looked weary; two nights of attacks had taken their toll. “How is morale?” I asked him.
“Aye, much better now, stranger, thanks to your efforts we have a chance. The weapons are ready, and those you persuaded to fight with us should make a difference.”
I nodded. “With my spells and the blades of my three companions, we’ll be a match for anything. Nothing for it now but to wait to nightfall and the inevitable onslaught.”
The elder hesitated a moment. “Aye, nothing for it… unless… well…”
“What?”
“It’s just… you mentioned there were another three of you back at the camp outside town?”
“Oh, yes. A golem, big bugger that, dead handy in a fight, and a bard who’s pretty nifty with a bow, and a shape-shifting mage.”
“Right. Um. And they’re happy at the camp there, are they?”
“Blimey, no, they’re desperate to get into the action, raring to have a crack at the dark forces threatening this town.”
“But… they’re not actually going to come and help?”
“Oh, gotcha, I see what you mean. No, my hands are tied, it’s the Thedasian Working Time Directive, no party member is allowed to adventure for more than forty five hours over a rolling seven day period and that lot have done their quota, the Union would have my arse if I tried to get them down. Plus it’s night-time, see, they’d need to be on time and a half, and with the downturn in the economy caused by the fall in house prices what with all those demonic creatures stalking around the place, we just haven’t got the operating budget.”
“Oh. Still, never mind, I can’t imagine we’ll face wave after wave of relentless attackers in a situation where it would be really, really useful to have some extra bodies fighting on our side. Waiting for nightfall it is!”

(sometimes fixed party sizes in RPGs don’t make much sense…)