D&D General Getting The Gold Out of the Dungeon

[GrimCo]

It works out to a statue of a human about four metres tall, which is big, but not ridiculously so. I don't know why you'd make it of solid gold, instead of gold sheathing on a skeletal frame, but weird cults are going to do weird cultish things.

If it's 4 meters tall, then it's thin. So you can just chop it up to pieces for ease of transport.

 

[Meech17]

If it's 4 meters tall, then it's thin. So you can just chop it up to pieces for ease of transport.

Reminds me of the scene from "A Knight's Tale" where they win the golden statue from the jousting tournament and pay people by breaking pieces off of it.

It'd be fun for the party to show up to the blacksmith with three or four golden dragon talons to pay for their armor.

 

[Reynard]

The most boring response possible is "cut it up."

 

[GrimCo]

The most boring response possible is "cut it up."

Old engineering principle KISS- keep it stupid simple.

 

[Reynard]

Old engineering principle KISS- keep it stupid simple.

Right, but the thread is about how to make it fun.

 

[TiQuinn]

How would you, as GM, make that fun? As a player, would that sort of challenge be interesting to you? Have you ever done this before in a game, as player or GM?

So it's a problem of getting something very big from point A to point B. Clearly, this calls for a magical gate to make the distance between point A and point B smaller - it's just a short hop between different planes of existence...what could go wrong?

 

[GrimCo]

Right, but the thread is about how to make it fun.

And for me, fun is making up most practical and easy way to get it out.

 

[Greenwheat]

The most boring response possible is "cut it up."

It's the boring, but sensible, option. If you want the players to think about doing something else, they need a reason why they can't cut it up.

That probably means one of two things. They can't cut it up where it is, because of dungeon inhabitants, the environment, or something. In which case they have to solve the problem of making the space suitable for cutting it up. Or, they have a prospective buyer who will pay a lot of money for an intact solid gold statue. Enough more than it would be worth as metal to justify the effort of moving it intact.

Incidentally, a twenty-ton(ne) gold statue is between 1.36 and 1.53 billion US dollars at today's prices depending on the ton you're using. I'd settle for the mule train and hacksaw approach; I don't need the hassle of finding a buyer for an intact statue.

 

[Stormonu]

If it's 4 meters tall, then it's thin. So you can just chop it up to pieces for ease of transport.

Same idea as hacksilver, used by ancient Celts. Wear your silver jewelry, cut it up when you need to buy some stuff.

 

[Meech17]

It's the boring, but sensible, option. If you want the players to think about doing something else, they need a reason why they can't cut it up.

They cut into the tail to discover it's not solid gold, and it's an actual dragon, encased in gold!

And now it's really pissed off!

Edit: I went back and re-read older replies.. For some reason I was assuming it was a 20 ton golden statue of a dragon, but that was never explicitly stated in the OP.. My bad.