Group Refuses to Fight Anything Until Given Reasonable Quest Offer

A four-player party paused a dungeon crawl Tuesday to request written quest terms, a compensation schedule, and an end date before engaging the first hostile creature, according to a counteroffer note slid across the table.

The note went into the group's Session Zero document under a new heading. It sets a rate of fifty gold per character per session, payable on completion; caps encounters at six per night; guarantees rest between them; and reserves the right to decline work without the game master sighing.

Three of the four players cleared the same dungeon last session without asking who was paying. One of them killed a shopkeeper in March over a line the group has since agreed was flavor text.

A fifth attendee, who has read every chapter of the rules and has never once opened the scheduling poll, cited precedent for each of the four demands. The precedent was struck when the game master noted it came from a different edition.

Ada Rourke, who issues procedural rulings for a standards board, held that "a quest giver who has not stated terms has not made an offer, and a party working without an offer is working for exposure, which is what they have been charging all along."

The game master's reply was also in writing: a deadline. The party had until the end of the third round to accept or the patrol moves on.

The party tabled the deadline and reopened the rate.

Ada Gable, who lives with one of the players, said she heard the negotiation through the wall and asked how it was going. "They told me the game master was trying to rush them into a bad contract," Gable said. "The same four people will start a fight in a tavern over an insult they did not hear."

Talks stalled until the game master offered a bidding session: three quest-givers, each with terms, party picks the best. That is when the party crossed town to the optional village, the one with the tax code, prepared twice, and sat through a grain tariff hearing instead. The game master ran it for an hour, then asked if anyone wanted the quest.

Kaito's Old Receipts: this table filed a counteroffer in April as well, over a locked door. They wanted the lock priced before they picked it.

Settlement came at the end of the night, on the back of a character sheet, signed by all four and initialed by the game master. The final clause requires that the agreement be read aloud before enforcement.

Session resumed. The party killed the tax collector and his four guards in two rounds, and nobody asked what the guards were paid.