[net.games.frp] PLAYER characters killing gods? Give me a break.

brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (02/16/85)

Sure, in some systems it might be possible for super-powered mortal to
kill a god, but a player character?  Unless you play a Monty Haul 5 days
a week for several years, there's no way an actual player character could
ever gain such power.   I suppose if you said "everybody starts in this
campagin at 18th level" then it might be possible, but low level characters
reaching this level of skill strains belief.  In any mythology, instances
of gods killed or even hurt by mortals are so rare that you normally find
only one or two for all time.

I don't know what kind of campaigns you people run, but generally around
here you don't see people reaching high level (ie. tenth) except after
many years of regular campaigning.  But I guess some play the game
differently.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473

faustus@ucbcad.UUCP (02/21/85)

> I don't know what kind of campaigns you people run, but generally around
> here you don't see people reaching high level (ie. tenth) except after
> many years of regular campaigning.  But I guess some play the game
> differently.

It depends upon how resourceful your players are. For instance, a ring of
telekinesis, a big rock, and a convoy of fire giants walking along a narrow
mountain pass can get people a lot of experience very quickly. Also,
a bunch of poison and a fair number of crossbows (set off with wires) can
have the same effect...

	Wayne

srt@ucla-cs.UUCP (02/24/85)

In article <113@ucbcad.UUCP> faustus@ucbcad.UUCP writes:
>> I don't know what kind of campaigns you people run, but generally around
>> here you don't see people reaching high level (ie. tenth) except after
>> many years of regular campaigning.  But I guess some play the game
>> differently.
>
>It depends upon how resourceful your players are. For instance, a ring of
>telekinesis, a big rock, and a convoy of fire giants walking along a narrow
>mountain pass can get people a lot of experience very quickly. Also,
>a bunch of poison and a fair number of crossbows (set off with wires) can
>have the same effect...
>
>	Wayne


This points out a major problem with experience points.

Experience points were invented to quantize "experience".  If you follow
the DMG in handing out ep for the encounter with fire giants, then you give
out a lot of experience points.  But that's just a break down in the system.
You have to ask yourself "What experience did the party gain on this
adventure that will make them better {fighters, clerics, magic users, etc.}?"
If you do this, you quickly realize several things:

  (a) experience points are related to killing monsters only vaguely.
  (b) each character deserves to get experience in different amounts
      depending on his class and his actions during the adventure.

RQ! attempts to fix this by basing skill raises on successful skill uses.

Personally, I take this a step farther and base experience points on
roleplaying.  I do this by considering the goals the players have and how
their actions fulfill those goals.  I consider long-term goals much more
important than short term goals.

So, a typical monster-bashing trip might gain very little in the way ep,
while a a monster-bashing trip intended to finance a quest might be worth
a fair amount of ep.

I think this sort of policy is good for your campaign as well, because it
discourages mindless gaming.

					-- Scott "Always an Opinion" Turner

chuqui@nsc.UUCP (The Phantom) (02/26/85)

In article <4057@ucla-cs.ARPA> srt@ucla-cs.UUCP (Scott Turner) writes:
>>It depends upon how resourceful your players are. For instance, a ring of
>>telekinesis, a big rock, and a convoy of fire giants walking along a narrow
>>mountain pass can get people a lot of experience very quickly. Also,
>>a bunch of poison and a fair number of crossbows (set off with wires) can
>>have the same effect...
>
>This points out a major problem with experience points.
>
>Experience points were invented to quantize "experience".  If you follow
>the DMG in handing out ep for the encounter with fire giants, then you give
>out a lot of experience points.  But that's just a break down in the system.

Actually, the DMG does cover this contingency, I just think most DM's don't
worry about the rules. My copy (may 79) covers XP and new levels on page
86, and makes the following observation:

    Experience points are merely an indication of the characters progress
    toward greater proficiency in his or her chosen profession. UPWARD
    PROGRESS IS NEVER AUTOMATIC (emphasis theirs).

They go on to discuss a way to handle the taking of new levels, which
includes tutoring, game time (when they can't adventure), gold, and the
like, based upon the DM's judgement of how well they handled the XP they
received within their profession and alignment. The length of time that it
takes to actually get the new level is inversely (more or less)
proportional to the quality of the role playing. Most DM's seem to simply
take XP as the only indicator, and don't do any of the role playing they
really ought to do to simulate the training needed to gain the new skills.

Also, there is another brake in upward progression that a lot of DM's seem
to be ignoring. Again, from the DMG:

    ONCE A CHARACTER HAS POINTS WHICH ARE EQUAL TO OR GREATER THAN THE
    MINUMUM NUMBER NECCESSARY TO MOVE UPWARDS IN EXPERIENCE LEVEL, NO
    FURTHER EXPERIENCE POINTS CAN BE GAINED UNTIL THE CHARACTER ACTUALLY
    GAINS THE NEW LEVEL. (emphasis and horribly twisted grammar both
    theirs).

Quite simply, if you cross an XP boundary, your movement stops until you
spend the xGP and n weeks becoming the next level whatever. This takes care
of the famous 'My first level thief killed a dragon barehanded and
immediately got 4 levels of experience' problem. It simply can't happen.
Even if you DO succeed in killing off 25 fire giants with a bunch of rocks
and a ring of telekenesis, your entire party will probably share the XP (a
larger share to the person who through it up, but they all moved the rocks
around for the ambush) and anyone who crosses an XP boundary loses anything
beyond that. 

AD&D has warts-- all the games do. The biggest problem with AD&D isn't the
game, its the DM's who aren't willing to use the rules as they stand, but
leave out little bits here and there (unimportant, why bother?) and
suddenly find out their game is out of balance. Then, of course, it is the
game's fault. There are reasons to keep track of game time, age characters,
take time out for study, spell research, and whatever. It isn't realism, it
is balance. If someone wants to create a 5th level spell, he's going to be
out of commission for a significant period of time getting it right (in
fact, there ought to be a % roll to see if he blows it in such a way that
his corporate atoms are spread throughout the universe, just to make it
interesting-- as it stands now, he might fail, he might lose GP, but big
deal-- real magic is DANGEROUS). Unfortunately, a lot of DM's simply write
a new spell idea into the character sheets, and off they go.
Instantaneous generation. The same goes for new levels-- you don't
magically get new magic spells, all you do is get the aptitude to learn
news ones, and the new ones come about only through study. A lot of DM's
throw this out as too much hassle, and wonder why their games go out of
balance.

Oh, well, enough bickering. Gygax hasn't thought of everything, and AD&D
could stand improvement, but if you read the rules, you'll find out that
one thing he DID do was encourage game balance. It may be awkward
sometimes, but its there-- too bad more people don't use it instead of
complaining about its lack.

chuq

    NEEDED TO ADVANCE TO TH
-- 
From behind the eight ball:                       Chuq Von Rospach
{cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui   nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

We'll be recording at the Paradise Friday night. Live, on the Death label.

srt@ucla-cs.UUCP (03/01/85)

In article <2398@nsc.UUCP> chuqui@nsc.UUCP (The Phantom) writes:
>
>Oh, well, enough bickering. Gygax hasn't thought of everything, and AD&D
>could stand improvement, but if you read the rules, you'll find out that
>one thing he DID do was encourage game balance. It may be awkward
>sometimes, but its there-- too bad more people don't use it instead of
>complaining about its lack.
>
>chuq

True enough. AD&D does have some hooks in it for game balance, though it
takes a fair amount of reading to find them, and there is some difference
between how the game is played and how it is written.  I think the reason
many of these sort of rules are ignored is because they are fairly clearly
afterthoughts (like spell components) that were added to control a game
gone awry.  The DM who hasn't seen these problems sees no reason to
incorporate these cumbersome rules, and the DM who has prefers a system
that avoids the problem rather than trying to fix it posthumously.

						-- Scott Turner