steve@avsdS.UUCP (Steve Russell) (05/31/85)
> Let's start a new discussion topic. Am I the only person who checks for > past history of magic items? Even for a mere (?) +1 sword, it's fun to > know who the original maker was and what sort of person he made it for. > For one thing it's apt to give you a lot of ideas for low-grade but > intereting sword talents that aren't in the rules. Like a +1 scimitar > made for a caravan leader might have Detect Water and Speak Camel. Our games are mostly 'modularized' so the usual opening remarks include, "Well, have you played module 'So and So' or shall we play module 'Such and Such' ", and proceed to either roll-up new charactors or use the mid-level buy-outs (my group is not much on campains). With this situation, you have little 'legend-lore', rumors, or history to fall back on and the treasure you end up with is without significant history (unless it is the *STAR* of the module). However, in these circumstances I find the lack of interesting history for the CHARACTORs to be the most distressing part of the play. The DMG has charts for rolling up history, age, etc. and K. Kerr (?) had a wiz-bang article in a recent 'Dragon' about giving your charactor a history (or at least a 'realistic' childhood). My method is just to 'pretend' that various things have occured (he got THAT sword fighting THAT battle...) and jot it down on the bottom of the charactor sheet. My favorite cleric, Falter Albright (6th-lvl, human), had his history based on a random roll for secondary skill--boat building. From this I derived the following: AGE: 1-12--Born to shipwright's wife. Lived/schooled in shipyard town. AGE: 12--Mother dies. AGE: 12-16--Work in shipyard/cabin boy on father's ship. AGE: 16--Shipwreaked off province of Shu-Long (sudo-Chinese landmass) AGE: 16-20--Cared for by Shang-Ti monks. Indoctrinated into temple of Shang-Ti. AGE: 20-30--Training in temple/community services/training in quarterstaff/ training in shirken/local travel/complete fifth-level after assisting in Shang-Ti quelling of rebels. AGE: 31-33--Sent 'westward' to 'spread the faith' (setting up little shrines along the way; carved stone pillers with a continual light inset at the top along side the road). AGE: 33-35--completed (pretend) adventure with current traveling companions/ trained in flail. (this just gets us up to the time when the real adventure starts!) AGE: 35-Present--Starting out the adventure in your 'random' town, my cleric desided to ask the local temple priests if he may set up a shrine out side the city limits. Dazzling my DM with my role-play (and having established a history for my charactor in front of his eyes) a package was waiting for me at the local temple all the way from Shu-Long. (DM was LOVING this.....) Contents: one (1) each +1 Shirken-of-Returning (ego 16, dam 1d8 +1, range 70 - 140 @-2 - 210 recon only) Accessories: +1 Glove of Catching-named Michal (to keep the +1 shirken from taking off my +0 hand on the flip-side) extra vial of holy water (tiny hole in shirken, one drop per day--no deposit/no return) NOW, you MAY ask, just what was my cleric doing with a shirken? Well, to appease the 'western' gods the monks realized that a pointy shirken was lible to get my poor cleric's fanny fried SO, what he ended up with was a thing looking like a jack (you've seen them on Saturday morning in the CBS commercials during 'Dungeons and Dragons'--you DO watch, don't you?) with the top and bottom point cut off. Each knob does 1d2 damage but it was easier to figure it off a d8 (not as high an average). Gee, wasn't that easy? Actually, Falter has another problem (whenever I finish my training for DM). Seems he had a 'gift' of a WISH granted to him and he WASTED it on getting his shirken pumped up to a +2 instead of having his WISDOM raised a level. I'll have to turn him into an NPC to get him, though; UNLESS I can talk my DM into punishing him (are you listening,DM). It's been fun so far, Falter (ha-ha). steve AMPEX "DM's need to have fun too!!!
goldman@umn-cs.UUCP (Matthew D. Goldman ) (06/04/85)
In article <37@avsdS.UUCP> steve@avsdS.UUCP (Steve Russell) writes: . . . >Seems he had a 'gift' of a WISH granted to him and he WASTED it on getting >his shirken pumped up to a +2 instead of having his WISDOM raised a level. >I'll have to turn him into an NPC to get him, though; UNLESS I can talk >my DM into punishing him (are you listening,DM). wasted??? Sounds like wh was intrested in equipment and wished for a better chance in combat... >steve >AMPEX > >"DM's need to have fun too!!! -- ------- Matthew Goldman Computer Science Department University of Minnesota ...ihnp4{!stolaf}!umn-cs!goldman Home is where you take your hat off... Banzai! Kyllara : What did you just do? Moederan : I don't know but it's going to be fun...