Give Them Enough Rope!

by Robert Plamondon

Originally published in Dragon Magazine #135, July, 1988.

What Can You Do With Fifty Feet of Rope?

My characters have always used a lot of rope. They’ve used it to build bridges, lower people into chasms, climb mountains, hog-tie orcs, tether mules, and create traps. The creative uses of rope are nearly endless, but most game systems barely mention it. How much does it weigh? How much can it lift? Does it come in decorator colors?

Once, in a Chaosium RuneQuest® campaign that involved looking for a lost city in a big swamp, my character wanted to bring lots and lots of rope—about 1,000′ of it, in fact. RuneQuest gives the weight and breaking strength for rope (AD&D gives nothing but a price). According to the third-edition RuneQuest Gamemaster Book, a 30-meter rope that weighs 6 kg has a strength of 366 kg. Converting this to the D&D game’s standard 50′ rope, that would mean that a 50′ rope would weigh 6.7 lb. and be rated at 805 lb.

That sounds good, except that there are lots of different sizes of rope, and adventurers have uses for many of them. In addition, a quick look at a table of rope strengths would seem to contradict RuneQuest’s numbers. According to Mark’s Handbook,¹ standard fiber rope sizes start at 3/16” and go up to 4”. The weight of a 50′ manila rope varies in that range from 12 ounces to 219 pounds! And the breaking strength. varies from 450 lb. to a whopping 105,000 lb. The size closest to RuneQuest’s weight of 6.7 lb. per 50′ is 11/16″ rope, which has a breaking strength of 4,400 lb.

Fiber rope is usually made out of plant fibers; hemp, jute, and manila are the most common. These ropes are cheap, strong, and relatively durable. The biggest problems with rope are rotting and simple wear.

The strength of rope is its breaking strength. You have to understand that a rope with a 1,000-lb. breaking point breaks if you try to lift 1,000 lb. with it. Now, suppose you try to lift 980 lb. with it. It’s just possible, if you apply force very gently to the rope. Jerk on that rope with more than 20 lb. of force, and the rope breaks.

In practice, ropes are used in situations in which jolts, weights that fall before they run out of slack, and other sudden loads are routine. To allow for this, ropes should only be subjected to forces at most only one-quarter of their breaking strength.

Rope: Size, Weight, Strength, and Cost

Properties of Manila Rope2
Diameter (inches)	Pounds per 50’	Breaking strength (lb.)	Useful strength (lb.)	Cost per 50 feet
				D&D	AD&D	RuneQuest
3/16	0.75	450	110	1 sp	2 cp	5 p
1/4	1	600	150	2 sp	3 cp	7 p
3/8	2	340	1,350	3 sp	6 cp	14 p
1/2	4	2,650	660	6 sp	12 cp	27 p
11/16	7	4,400	1,100	10 sp	20 cp	45 p
3/4	8	5,400	1,350	12 sp	25 cp	55 p
1	14	9,000	2,250	2 gp	4 sp	90 p
1 1/2	30	18,500	4,600	4 gp	8 sp	180 p
2	50	31,000	7,750	8 gp	15 sp	340 p
3	120	64,000	16,000	15 gp	30 sp	675 p
4	220	105,000	26,000	25 gp	50 sp	110 p

Going back and applying that to our 11/16″ rope, the 4,400-lb. breaking strength shrinks to a 1,100-lb. working strength. Furthermore, that strength is for manila rope, which isn’t available everywhere (for example, you can’t grow the plant in Europe). For agava or jute ropes, the value would be 825 lb. This is very close to RuneQuest value of 805 lb., so we know that Chaosium did its homework here.

Still, why settle for just one type of rope? The Properties of Rope Table applies to manila rope, which is the best sort. Agava or jute ropes are two-thirds as strong as manila.

Thus, my character’s 1,000-foot supply of rope would weight 134 lb. Is chose the 11/16” baseline, with a working strength of 825 lb. But suppose he’s okay with a lower working strength? With 3/8” rope, his thousand-foot coil of rope weights only 40 pounds, with a working strength of 340 lb. (manila rope) or 228 lb. (jute). Tempting.

A Thousand and One Uses

“Rope!” he muttered. “No rope! And only last night you said to yourself: “Sam, what about a bit of rope? You’ll want it, if you haven’t got it: Well, I’ll want it. I can’t get it now.” — Sam Gamgee

Finally, what can you do with 50′ of rope? Here are a few ideas. Think about them—and make up some new uses for this most useful piece of adventuring equipment.

1. 1. Tying horses to trees or posts.
   2. Climbing and rappelling.
   3. Lowering a lantern to see what’s at the bottom of a shaft.
   4. Lowering a kobold to see if the monster at the bottom of the shaft is hungry.
   5. Creating trip lines for traps.
   6. Keeping prisoners out of trouble by tying them up.
   7. Lashing together stretchers for wounded characters.
   8. Creating handy bridges and rope walks.
   9. Going after big fish.
   10. Winching doors and boulders out of the way.
   11. Winching out supports to collapse roofs (this one’s fun at parties).
   12. Providing support to keep from falling out of a tree after being chased up there by a monster.
   13. Knitting sweaters for giants (using spears for knitting needles, of course).
   14. Making hammocks if a large piece of cloth is available.
   15. Making clotheslines so you can wash everyone’s smelly adventuring clothes.
   16. Holding up large boulders until monsters walk under them (another favorite party trick).
   17. Dragging things you don’t want to have near you (like cockatrice bodies or dead rust monsters).
   18. Forming rope skeins for catapults.
   19. Swinging Tarzan-like across rifts.
   20. Hanging particularly obnoxious enemies.

And, by the way, no, ropes are not available in decorator colors except in Elven lands.

Footnotes

1. Lionel Simon, ed. Mark’s Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, Eighth Edition. McGraw-Hill Books (New York, 1978), pages 6-152 and 8-93.
2. Information for this table was taken from Mark’s Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, page 8-93.