Hadn't played Rage of Mages in probably over a decade and got it on GoG recently. I remembered that in the multiplayer mode you dropped your items in a bag on death. But that wasn't happening to me, all my items simply ceased to exist on death. In 2 it worked as I remembered.

Then I got my brother to play 1 with me and every time he dies his items are in a bag and recoverable, while mine remain lost forever.

Why?

The answer appears to be for whatever reason the host of a game does not drop anything on death. All clients do.

But when I played this a long time ago I primarily did the multiplayer with me hosting. And it makes absolutely no sense to have such a dumb distinction. Is this a bug with the GOG version?