john@x.UUCP (John Woods) (11/01/84)
> > My characters > > usually avoid powerful-looking, unknown magic items, and there have been > > adventures when the glory hogs wound up as hamburger... > Listen to that man! Don't ever trust an innocent looking deck of cards. > It's a major blow to ones-self to see a promising M-U die when his sticks > all blow up (something which occurred this past weekend). The wimpy > characters that didn't touch the thing lived (and left the area). The > rest of us blew up. Argh!!!!!! I now feel required to defend the honor of my characters (especially since one of them is holding a knife in my back). My characters are most emphatically not a bunch of craven cowards (cowardly psychopaths, emphatically yes, craven, no), and accumulated a fair number of magic items (one group even acquired a real-live Artifact (rather by accident), before the boat they stole and outfitted was sunk...). But in playing in campaigns where 35th level Fighting Wizards abounded (no kidding!), DMs had to throw in a lot of Instant Death to get even. Playing very conservative (except when the DM's flank was obviously exposed) in such circumstances netted quite a haul. Taking risks is obviously part of the game, and a fun part -- but why stick your hand into a blender *before* you figure out where the off-switch is? Remember Walt Kelly's admonition from POGO: "Discretion is a better part than valor!" -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1114 ...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw%mit-ccc@MIT-XX.ARPA
brianp@shark.UUCP (Brian Peterson) (11/08/84)
X From: john@x.UUCP (John Woods)
X > > My characters
X > > usually avoid powerful-looking, unknown magic items, and there have been
X > > adventures when the glory hogs wound up as hamburger...
X
X > Listen to that man! Don't ever trust an innocent looking deck of cards.
X > It's a major blow to ones-self to see a promising M-U die when his sticks
X > all blow up (something which occurred this past weekend). The wimpy
X > characters that didn't touch the thing lived (and left the area). The
X > rest of us blew up. Argh!!!!!!
...
X But in playing in campaigns where 35th level Fighting Wizards abounded (no
X kidding!), DMs had to throw in a lot of Instant Death to get even. Playing
X very conservative (except when the DM's flank was obviously exposed) in such
X circumstances netted quite a haul. Taking risks is obviously part of the
X game, and a fun part -- but why stick your hand into a blender *before* you
X figure out where the off-switch is?
Death of a character is pointless (unless the character itself is pointless).
How many people have ever read a story like this:
Once upon a time, Herbert went deep in the woods to kill the
vicious nasty monster that was eating up all his town's children.
He did something stupid, and the vicious nasty monster ate him
up, too. The End.
Don't they usually last a bit longer:
Once upon a time, Herbert went deep in the woods to kill the
vicious nasty monster that was eating up all his town's children.
He did something stupid, and the vicious nasty monster captured
him, in order to torture him nastily, and maybe also take all
of Herbert's treasures. Then, a whole bunch of starving orcs
came by, and killed the vicious nasty monster and ate it for
dinner. In the confusion, they forgot Herbert, who was left
hanging by his toes from a tall tree. He escaped, but didn't
have any of his treasures anymore.
(Herbert can then proceed to get himself into more troubles...)
Playing these games is more than advancing in levels and trying to
simulate what "would" or "should" happen. It is supposed to be
>fun.< If the character is interesting, he should live.
(That doesn't mean let him get away unscathed. To win all the time
is as boring as dying all the time.)
The idea (in the games I like to play, anyway) is >character development<
(like in English class), rather than rolling up PCs, and then rolling
up a way for it to die.
Brian Peterson {ucbvax, ihnp4, } !tektronix!shark!brianp
^ ^