bb@lanl-a.UUCP (10/11/83)
Many people play in or are running long term campaigns with low level characters and little magic. Except for my last campaign, this is what I did as well, but to tell you the truth I got bored with running such a campaign. Sure I did a lot with character development and my group had some good adventures, but after a year or 18 months my players would get tired of characters that were still to weak to take on most of the monsters they saw in the MM and heard discussed about in song and legend. So I decided that my next campaign would have more rapid advancement and a greater amount of magic items found/available. I immediatly found the play more exciting and I found that the increased pace of the campaign did not mean I had to give up role-playing and become a dungeon engineer, but instead that it was easier to fit my group into the large campaign picture. Their daring deeds soon brought them to the attention of the more important people and they found themselves caught up in a whirl of adventures. The magic they found got better as they did harder and harder things, but for each new item gained, they used quite a bit of acquired magic and became excellent problem solvers. My point is that one type of campaign isn't better than any other, if a group and a DM comes away from a session feeling glad they came and looking foward to the next session, then that is an AD&D sucess story, no matter what type of campaign it is. b2 ...ucbvax!lbl-csam!lanl-a!bb Bryan Bingham
bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (10/16/83)
Sure you can play fast, but many people (often Americans, it seems) cannot resist the temptation to start a Monty Haul. I have heard kids at GenCon talk about their 32 level characters punting on Gods. Some people play the Dieties and Demigods book like a Monster Manual. Who needs it? It really is much to complex. There is plenty to be done running a medium level character. Besides, I think rpgs are games for playing with tricks, traps and puzzles, not accumulating wealth and hacking and slashing. Gygax himself says that the highest character he has ever built up is 18th level, and he's been playing since Day 1. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304