ncg@ukc.UUCP (N.C.Gale) (03/01/85)
One of the most serious problems with all the well established frpgames, not least AD&D, is that everyone knows the rules. This becomes really serious if a player knows the rules better than his GM/DM. Such situations might arise as: "no, I think you'll find, if you read Page 316 of the DM's Guide, paragraph B, subsection (1), seats 16 thru 20, that dwarves get +1 on their saving-throws against monster charms when standing on one leg in a pool of Holy Water" OK, so a good DM can bluff his way out, saying that the modification does not apply in this particular situation, because the concentration of mana in the Holy Water has been decreased by a freak magnetic environment brought about by... But the smartarsed player will inevitably feel hard-done-by, because the *Rules* say it should not be. If I had my way, my players would spend most of their time in a state of complete bewilderment, not knowing exactly what is possible, and what is not. In fact, since I have mutilated AD&D beyond recognition, and not shown the players many of my modifications, this is largely the case. They cannot quote the rules at me , because I make them up as I go along. They know that, and accept it. It makes it far more mysterious not knowing what effect a magic missile will have when cast at a man wearing bronze chainmail, not knowing whether a Cloudkill can be Neutralised as Poison, etc etc. It makes it a lot more rewarding to DM, I think, anyway. -Nigel Gale
west@utcsri.UUCP (Thomas L. West) (03/05/85)
> They can't quote the rules at me, because I make them up as I go along. They > know that, and accept it. > -Nigel Gale Strong disagreement here. While I strongly like the idea that the players don't know all the rules, I think it is extremely important that the players know that you are being impartial. Having been a DM, I know that occasionaly it is *extremely* tempting to 'save' crucial NPCs who are done in by accident by the players (i.e. by doing something that was fatal to the NPCs even if the players were not aware of it.) or the reverse thereof, where the party is going to get creamed because of something in the modifications they are unaware of. If rulings are arbitrary, it is extremely easy to rule in favour whatever happens to do the least destruction to the campaign. However this has the net effect of (1) reducing the players victories and (2) reducing the player's risks. I've been in a campaign where this occured, and it is extremely frustrating when you do something that the DM hasn't forseen that will badly trash the world situation in a way the DM doesn't want. Suprise, suprise, there is a new rule that we weren't aware of. If we knew this was impartially set before it would be acceptable, but knowing it was made up on the spot had the effect of snatching victory out of our hands at the DM's discretion. Not a very fun situation at all. Hence in my own campaign, while there are a lot of strange things and strange rules (I've rewritten the entire Gods idea, and cross world/plane travel is totally different) these are entirely set out and the players know it. Thus they know that any victory is theirs as well as any defeats. This, I believe, is necessary to get full satisfaction out of the game. How else do you know that this strange rules mod that saved your party wasn't just placed because the DM was merciful. How else can you know that the weird type of spell caster also had innate teleport ability and not just a wish by the DM that he continue to live. Of course, the alternative to this is the *appearance* of total impartiality. I prefer true impartiality since appearances can be seen through eventually. However if your players can be duped (or more importantly, they want to believe that their victories are by their abilities, not your whim) then arbitrary rulings are acceptable. Tom West aka Feanor the Xenophobic.
faustus@ucbcad.UUCP (03/07/85)
Making up rules as you go along isn't that good of an idea, because the players tend to know that you are doing it and get annoyed. What I like to do is to tell the players that I have a lot of stuff prepared in great detail when I really don't have much at all, and then whenever I want something to happen, I just make it happen in a "something is going on here but YOU don't know what" sort of way... Then later on I can figure out why it happened. This tends to make things a lot more interesting, because it keeps both the players and the GM guessing, and it makes it easy to avoid dull situations... Wayne
reid@dciem.UUCP (Reid Ellis) (03/08/85)
In article <utcsri.844> west@utcsri.UUCP (Thomas L. West) writes: > ...in my own campaign, while there are a lot of strange things and > strange rules (I've rewritten the entire Gods idea, and cross world/plane > travel is totally different) these are entirely set out and the players know > it. > > Tom West aka Feanor the Xenophobic. I am a player in Tom's campaign. His idea for world/plane travel is quite good, I think, so I will share it with you, since Tom is too shy: Please note that this is from the viewpoint of a player and thus may not contain the whole truth. We are still learning about Tom's universe. First of all, there are a number of worlds (16 so far as we know) which exist. Travelling between/amongst worlds is very difficult indeed. Even gods have problems with this. A god has an 'avatar', or facet, on different worlds. If an avatar is destroyed on one plane, all others will know it. We have no idea as to how this affects other avatars as far as power goes. Not all gods have avatars on all worlds. There are two ways of travelling between worlds: the risky way and the safe way. The risky way involves the use of a wish spell or something similar. We used a Word Of Recall once. It worked because we rolled the 3 on a d16 that we needed. The safe way is to use a spellsinger. Spellsingers have the ability to travel from world to world through a skill that varies from one 'singer to the next. For instance, we met a 'singer who used a pool of water and some concentration. One felt as if one was falling into the pool until one found oneself elsewhere. An interesting point is that my two characters [two bards who are married] may be spellsingers. When they sing a particular song, people listening to it find themselves seeing a vision of Drowhold and feeling themselves being drawn into it. They haven't completed the whole song since they became aware of its potential and thus are unsure as to its power. Note that each world seems, so far, to be in a universe all of its own and the stars are actually just lights in the firmament. But then again, we have not gone star-hopping recently. Any corrections Tom? -- Reid Ellis "With great power comes great reponsibility" - Spiderman {allegra,decvax,duke,floyd,linus}!utzoo!dciem!reid
ncg@ukc.UUCP (N.C.Gale) (03/09/85)
>> They can't quote the rules at me, because I make them up as I go along. They >> know that, and accept it. >> -Nigel Gale > > Strong disagreement here. >... >[for a DM] >it is *extremely* tempting to 'save' crucial NPCs who are done in by accident >by the players (i.e. by doing something that was fatal to the NPCs even if the >players were not aware of it.) or the reverse thereof, where the party is going >to get creamed because of something in the modifications they are unaware of. 1. I have an awful lot of NPCs in my campaign, and if a vital one gets killed off before fulfilling his function, I just invent another that can do the same thing. With my combat system, which means that every so often someone is going to get killed outright by a lucky blow, regardless of hit points or defence modifier, my NPCs vanish like <something that vanishes very quickly>. I just can't afford to get attached to NPCs. After all, they are there for the player's benefit. 2. The party should not get into a situation where it will be creamed because of some modifier it is not aware of, with no chance of escape. This would be bad DMing. My party's worst close scrapes have been when I abide too closely to the AD&D rules (for spells). And what's wrong with a DM intervening to prevent the party getting massacred because of his own misjudgement, anyway? It's surprising how proficient you get at providing escapes in crises, and making it look genuine. I can only judge my success by the happiness displayed by my players. I have killed several, maimed a couple, disgraced a couple, but overall the casualty rate is acceptable. They have stacks of money, lands, titles, fame, experiance as a reward. I think I've been quite impartial, and they can see it. With a little practice, it becomes quite easy for a DM to display such impartiality (though, admittedly, it was quite difficult to begin with). When a rule looks like spoiling the balance, it can be changed. -Nigel Gale
west@utcsri.UUCP (Thomas L. West) (03/10/85)
faustus@ucbcad writes: >Making up rules as you go along isn't that good of an idea, because the >players tend to know that you are doing it and get annoyed. What I like >to do is to tell the players that I have a lot of stuff prepared in great >detail when I really don't have much at all, and then whenever I want >something to happen, I just make it happen in a "something is going on >here but YOU don't know what" sort of way... Then later on I can figure >out why it happened. This tends to make things a lot more interesting, >because it keeps both the players and the GM guessing, and it makes >it easy to avoid dull situations... You must either (1) be incredibly quick on your feet or (2) have PCs who don't counter-check previous rulings and incidents very often. I don't feel this works particularily well most of the time. What happens is that it requires *incredible* contortions on the part of the NPCs to have motives for their actions. Often arbitrary rulings have a very nasty way of cropping back half a year later in an unconnected situation. For example, the players find out that Wizard X is a member of a secret council of mages. But hold on, X blasted a high level mage on the coucil about 2 years ago. Aha, the council must have been divided among itself! But no, if it had, about 6 months ago, X's faction would have intervened to help save a certain castle involved in a war with the supposed other side of the council. What now? Well, there must be the *meta-council* that actually controls the council, causing this strange and illogical behaviour. But if THAT had been, then when the entire council was being trashed 4 years ago, why didn't the *meta-council* intervene.... and so on and so on. As long as one's universe is fairly simplistic, making things up as one goes along is okay, but as soon as the campaign gets complicated, one runs into deep trouble. You can see the incredible difficulty that sf authors have in trying to keep their future histories consistent, and they spend tons of time thinking each little thing out. I really can't see the players not catching on to the fact of ill-preparation in a year's worth of playing. The affairs of 10 kingdoms, with independent powers, the Gods, the structure of the universe, secret councils and such is enough to make the universe *so* complicated that unless you have optical-disks for memory, your ruling won't be consistent, and you'll have to add yet another kludge factor, which, if done properly, will take days to figure out all the effects on all the other different power groups. And heaven help the day that the players *do* find out. It will dawn on them that all the adventuring they have done, their successes and failures have depended not on *their* achievements, but *your* whim. This sort of thing can destroy a campaign (and has nearly destroyed one I adventure in). Of course none of this applies if one runs a world without complicated politics, but if you ask me, that's where all the fun lies. It's an amazing feeling as a player when you unlock a small piece of information that suddenly explains some rather mysterious incidents that have occured over the last 3 or 4 years. It's like the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle. When things are made up as one goes along, this almost never happens, since it is pretty difficult to figure out the influence of a mysterious power group over possibly hundreds of events without hours if not days of forethought. Of course this means one tends to have several binders of material for a campaign, but such is the cost of preparation. Besides, the best thing to do is to write up the campaign while coasting through high-school so that one doesn't immolate[:-)] oneself during university. My campaign has lasted about 5 years with no major rewrites except where the PCs have done something significant enough to force a total rewrite of the event-calendar on their world. The only other time consuming factor is when PCs wait a game year of two. Then one is forced to update all hundred or so NPCs that they know. (Yes, I *do* kludge it. NPCs that players have not met do not, for the most part, go up levels or die when time passes. I use the "NPCs don't activate until they would affect a PC" rule most of the time.) Tom West aka Feanor the Arch-mage ELF! (approx. 600 wish spells to go...)
wjr@utcs.UUCP (William Rucklidge) (03/21/85)
> ... the PCs have done something > significant enough to force a total rewrite of the event-calendar on their > world. > > Tom West aka Feanor the Arch-mage ELF! > (approx. 600 wish spells to go...) Ah yes... the event calendar, otherwise known as 'the script'... :-) -- William Rucklidge University of Toronto Computing Services {decvax,ihnp4,utcsrgv,{allegra,linus}!utzoo}!utcs!wjr GISO - Garbage In, Serendipity Out. This message brought to you with the aid of the Poslfit Committee.