<<
So, when a character eats in one of your games, you make sure there's a scene
where he uses the bathroom later? Are Vigor rolls involved?
-Loki
I'll use that very example to illustrate my point. If everyone eats
and... er... excretes normally, there really is no reason to bother with
role-playing a meal unless for some reason the meal itself is unusual.
However, let's say one of the party has a defect such as, can only eat
liquid foods.
At least once in the campaign, have the party have to deal with an
issue that arrises from the fact that Moe in the corner, can not partake of
Ma Gretchen's meat loaf no matter how many good intentions she had making it.
They have to deal with the issue. Or some such.
(Not that there may not be myriad reasons not to eat Meatloaf in HoE.
but try not to think about that)
Just once in the campaign, or maybe twice if it can be kept interesting.
Not every meal, but just to establish the character, maybe have some fun
interaction as the rest of the party has to console Ma Gretchen that 'No,
it's not because Moe hates her that he wont eat the meatloaf'.
Why bother? Why take a couple minutes to establish that fact? Well, if a
player took the time to make a character with some quirk (Can't eat solid
foods, talks to himself, is unusually wealthy, intolerant of spiders...),
it really doesn't do any good to never have the quirk come up. Why would you
bother adding something to your character if you didn't want it to come up in
game? If I didn't want to bother with my character's eating habits, I
wouldn't put anything in the character that would mean his eating habits are
anything other than normal.
Likewise, if I didn't want to bother with my character's cash flow, I
wouldn't put anything in the character that would make his cash flow anything
other than normal (like dinero for instance).
I'm not saying do this every time, but once or twice, sporadically in a
campaign can make all the difference between flat, boring heroic stories (It
ran at us, we rolled a natural 20, and everything was O.K.), to vibrant
stories (You know, if it had been anyone but us there, we would have been
dead, but luckily, Moe couldn't eat the meatloaf, he couldn't! and so when
the sleeping drugs took effect, he faked it, and was able to save us before
Ma Gretchen made good on her saying "There are no unsatisfied customers, only
more meatloaf").
I hope that makes my point on why the dinero edge, or any number of
factors should be brought up, in game, on screen at least once or so.
Damon