jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner) (05/02/85)
[...] I'm a bit of an outsider to D&D and its variants because I've only played a few times, but there seem to be some odd opinions being expressed in this whole "fleecing" business. If I may make a few suggestions to reduce the need for fleecing... When a character is too powerful, it seems to be mostly related to possessions. The party has too many gross magic items. Surely this can have so many interesting campaign side effects that they'll go crazy trying to deal with them all. Thieves will attack them every other night. Powerful sorcerors will try to plunder them. Their respective religions will demand their services...or possibly their baubles. (This is an interesting one -- the head of a cleric's religion demands that he/she deliver the powerful magic artifacts of the party to the religion's temple. After all, doesn't the god deserve as much as possible? The cleric must then choose whether to disobey and earn disfavour from his god and his fellows, or to steal the artifacts or get them some other way...plenty of material there.) Furthermore, having grossly powerful artifacts is an enormous liability if someone grabs them from you. A very simple scenario: a second rate sorceror with lots of minions (zombies, orcs, whatever) sends them after the party with one goal: to take as much stuff as possible. Sure you may be able to stomp 30 zombies for breakfast and your armour class is high enough that their claws don't make a dent; but how hard is it for 30 of them to grab your MUs wands...or to rip off a backpack and run...or to hold down a thief and pull off his/her rings? And if an enemy manages to plunder your gross magic items, all of a sudden you're just a normal 6th level fighter (or whatever) against an enemy who's very well equipped. THAT's interesting. I also think that a good scenario can challenge players in other ways. They may be combat powerhouses, but there is more to an FRP than combat. Puzzles, for example. Tasks where sheer physical (or magical) force is not enough. (The first example I can think of for such a task is some kind of hostage-taking incident. You do not save the princess from the evil sorceror's clutches by going in and killing every opponent you come to -- at the first sound of trouble, the sorceror will either slit her throat or move her somewhere else.) Or put some sort of constraint on combat from time to time. Too much FRP combat takes place in the monster's home territory where destruction is irrelevant. GMs should consider setting some scenarios in "civilized areas". Suppose, for example, some local noble hires the players to protect his castle from strange things that seem to show up inside from time to time. First, this gives the players a chance to do some real role-playing without combat as they try to find the source of the things that go bump in the night. Second, it really restricts their scope of action. Can they cast a fireball inside their patron's art gallery? Can they blithely enter any room they choose? Can they grab an NPC and force out information? As soon as players find themselves operating in friendly territory (instead of enemy territory), all those wonderful combat advantages are irrelevant. The thing to remember is that most D&D-type role-playing takes place in a very restricted region of the Fantasy genre: basically the "heroic clash". By spreading out into a wider part of Fantasy, you can find plenty of ways to get around sheer power. These include well thought out plans by enemies, "dirty tricks" (like grabbing magic items in battle), coping with political pressure from superiors, restricted fields of action, and so on. Other notes: if it becomes obvious that players are having it too easy, talk to them. Presumably, they're bright people and will realize the danger of being bored to death. Maybe you can work something out. For example, they may decide to give away some trinkets in some way that makes sense within the campaign -- a gift to a local noble; a donation to a church; something put in trust for one's children; etc. They may decide to retire a character who is too powerful, or put that character in semi-retirement while they work up someone new. In the Champions games that I GM, I have found my players very co-operative in such matters. Remember, GMs, that you are enormously valuable assets to your players. You put in huge amounts of work to see that they are entertained on a regular basis. If you are losing interest in a game because the balance is shot, your players will likely be willing to make concessions to keep you keen. Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo
euren@ttds.UUCP (Leif Euren) (05/17/85)
<14214@watmath.UUCP> jagardner (Jim Gardner): >For example, they may decide to give away some trinkets in some way that >makes sense within the campaign -- a gift to a local noble; a donation to a >church; There is nothing so pleasing for a player as a little Ego-Boo, even if it only is his character recieving is. Giving away a lot of treasure and goodies to the town officials and getting a full parade, with banners and music and crowds and everything when they enters town afgian after a travel, is pleasing my players much more than winning every encounter. And then, the encounters have become thrilling, too, now that they are not certainly won. Leif Euren