Okay, bear with me here, cause this is far,
far out in left field. I'm running a game of Dungeons & Dragons—if you're not familiar, it's basically a game where one guy sets up a story and the other players act as characters in that story, and you all collectively find out what happens together, using dice to determine how well you succeed at stuff you try. You're kind of intended to spend most of your time fighting monsters and stuff, but if you're playing with the sort of people I am it just kind of devolves into ridiculous shenanigans that end up being nowhere near as serious as the people who designed the game intended.
The players in my game have been renting these horses for a few weeks. They are way overdue on returning them and probably owe a bunch of money in late fees. They are in dire need of a new form of transportation. Since this is a fantasy setting, some horses and a buggy would do just the trick. But since I'm running the game I need to find a way to get one to them without just handing it to them, because that's no fun. (If by some random chance you recognize yourself in this description and your DM's name is Scott, maybe don't read the rest of the post, 'cause it's got spoilers.)
So why the heck am I posting about this on a Price is Right messageboard, anyway?
Because I was thinking about how to solve this, and suddenly, the image of someone playing One Away for a horse and buggy pops into my head. Except, of course, since they're playing for a horse—"Ladies, do I have at least one number right?"
HORSE NOISESAnd then before I know it, I'm planning out an entire episode of
The Price Is Right for these rascals. Except, you know. In a fantasy kingdom. So here's how it's going so far:
- I have three players, so I only need three pricing games. (The other three are presumed to be played by non-player characters.) However, just for funsies, I've set up four games—the aforementioned One Away, Hole in One, It's In The Bag, and Clock Game. I could settle and do a half-hour show, but then they'd wonder where the Showcase Showdowns went.
- Most surprisingly, the biggest challenge to setting things up has been that the D&D currency unit, the gold piece (gp), is horrifically overpowered compared to the US dollar. Someone else did the math and found that 1 gp equals $35.66. This leads to amusing things like the perfect bid bonus being 15 gp and the DSW range being 10 gp. Just imagine if Price had to adjust for deflation over the years.
- I'm not planning on telling them what they're going to be doing at this theater. They'll be sent here just knowing that they'll have a chance to win prizes. There will be an allusion to the fact that one of the characters remembers seeing this show as a child. Their first indication that it's TPIR will be when "Walking" starts. (Yes, of course I'm playing music cues!)
- When they arrive at the theater, they will be interviewed by Stan, of course. I'll ask them for a Charisma check at this point—their dice roll here will determine which act they're called down in. Roll a 20 (out of 20), and you get to be one of the first four; whiff the roll and you get called for Act 6.
- I'm shooting for a mid-90s feel with this. Padded turntable, my bad impression of Rod Roddy announcing, music cues mostly from the '76 package. You know what I'm going for.
- The host is going to be Bob Barker, who is either an elf or an impossibly old fey creature of some type, I haven't decided yet. Since there's no television, The Price Is Right is a traveling stage show that has being going for a long, long, long, long time.
- Keeping with that, the slate (which I fully expect none of the players to spot the humor in): "This is the Price is Right, production number 118863D, season 458, episode 22, VTR 4/2/30, and it's take one..."
- It's been a lot of fun to find prizes for this, since they have to be both appropriate to a fantasy environment and have a price attached to them. There are some items I can crib straight from the D&D Player's Handbook (IUFB #1, a his-and-hers set of longbows, ARP 206 gp), but others I'm going to have to get more inventive with.
- With the change in currency, I am going to guess that the players are going to have a hard time with pricing in general, especially the One Bids. So I'm going to try to reward familiarity with Price is Right. On the One Bids, I'm going to use the non-player characters to give the player characters a ballpark range of where the item might be, and I'm going to try to set up at least one situation where the "correct" answer is to bid 1 gp.
- The first player character that gets on stage will get to play One Away. I didn't realize until just now how easy it is to set One Away up for a win or a loss. I'm setting it up for a win. In order to get a 4-digit price to make One Away work, I had to give them thoroughbred race horses to pull their buggy. Lucky for them, if they win, this will increase their movement speed by 33%.
- After One Away is taken care of, subsequent players that get up on stage will roll dice to determine which game they get. Of course, there's going to be adjustments as it goes on—if someone rolls Hole in One, It's In The Bag is, naturally, going to be taken off the list of possibilities. (Two GP games in one episode? I'm not that crazy.)
- It's pretty neat that most of the grocery games seem to use six products. That means I can use the same grocery products for Hole in One as I do It's In The Bag.
- The putting on Hole in One is going to be done by having the player make a Dexterity check. Putting from the closest line requires a roll of 10 or better to make it, the next line back an 11, etc. (One of the characters is set up to have an extremely high Dexterity score, so this will be a natural fit for him if he gets to play this game.) I'm probably going to use Hole in One's original rules—the option of an "or Two" basically does something that, under D&D rules, gives them "advantage", which I don't feel is justified.
- The top prize in It's In The Bag is 500 gp, so the order of prizes is 30, 60, 120, 250, 500. ($16,000 = 449 gp, so they're actually getting a bigger prize than the show gives.) Since I don't have a fancy prop, I'm going to do this one by getting some paper lunch bags and putting a card with a photo of the items in the bags, with the price on the outside.
- Clock Game is just Clock Game. I made myself a 32-second sound file that plays a tock once per second, with a two-second bass buzzer at the end, to use as my "timer". I have no idea if I can actually host Clock Game or not. Guess I'll find out.
- Naturally, at one point I thought about including Plinko. But by the time I found a copy of Cue 12, it's gotten close enough to show time that I don't think I have time to build a Plinko board, and it seems cheap to run it with dice. (And besides, then I'd feel a moral obligation to build the Plinko Sign too.)
- When I was like 12, I made a "Big Wheel", but since I was 12, I only gave it 18 spaces. I have dismantled it and am in the process of repainting it. I'm gonna make some vinyl numbers for it—if anyone knows where I could get some pre-S37 Big Wheel numbers that are closer than what's in the Pricedown font, I'd appreciate it.
- I really don't expect anyone to get to the Showcases, since the odds are against it. If they do, though, the showcases are going to be almost a parody of Season 36-and-before Showcases. Showcase 1 is going to be your typical
. At least a boat will have some utility here, because there's rivers. But I'm baiting them into passing.....cause then I get to crank up the Splendido. Hope y'all like grandfather clocks.
Anyway, I thought I'd share this nonsense with you guys just because 1) this is probably the most wacked-out HYO anyone has ever attempted, and, 2) just in case someone else here ever finds themselves running a D&D game and needs some bad ideas...
