tihor (06/12/82)
D&D has held my interest and much of my spare time for over eight
years. In this time several different approaches to playing in a Fantasy Role
Playing game have come to my attention, in addition to several approaches to
running a campaign.
In regards to playing in an FRP, some personal traits are obviously
notable from one player to the next. There are those players who are "never
say 'DIE'" types, who upon losing a character that they play go into screaming
fits. Once these limp-wits have been weeded out there are also those players
who play characters by the rules but don't really play characters. They become
vanilla flavoured people that collect gold, jewels, gems, magick and a certain
amount of power without a great deal of ingenuity. The best and most enjoyable
play I have seen is more a performance of a character by a player who has
determined in advance the background of the character. Remember that
characters, like real people, can change with time and experience. Setting
specific goals for a character (marrying the Amazon Princess who hates men,
buying a castle in Hartsdale, conquering the local Petty Dark Lord, etc) make
this a bit simpler.
With respect to running a campaign I have seen some interesting
variances. There are several systems, all of which have their good points, but
I have my preferences. Listed in ascending order of preference (to me) some
short descriptions (mostly to stimulate viscous cutthroat discussion):
Hack & Slash- a campaign in which magick plays a
very small role role and fighting/violence a great
and influential role. Gold and magicked weapons
become goals people tend to pursue.
Magick & Zap- a campaign in which magick only is
of importance. Artifacts grow almost literally
out of thin air and everything is capable of
being some unknown lost magick item from the
distant past with power over anything. Ta da-
(not a favourite)
SuperHero- a campaign in which everybody
rises to high levels, resurrection commonplace, magick
is everywhere, and gold flows like water. The Games
Master eventually will become hard pressed to produce
bigger and better treasures/magick and meaner/nastier
monsters (Gygax AD&D). Eventually the GM becomes
more or less paranoid.
Mystery/play- really a mixture of hack&slash-SuperHero
which the GM leads the players by the hand through
a series of history and clews, encounters with
interested citizens to conclusively solve some
mystery posed by the GM. I enjoy this but find that
essentially players are the characters and there
is little need for players to do anything they might
not do in real life. After all, this is Fantasy.
Magick/Hack/Mystery- a low level campaign wherein if
you've a character around 8th level you do not go
adventuring into most dungeons because you can stomp
most anything stupid enough to get your attention.
Magick and Fighting are separate to the distinction
when an encounter arises that one individual cannot do
both without lengthy preparation. GM provides list of
Mysteries/Quests. Players can also develope interest
in side information to force quests to be developed
by GM.
I've left some themes out for lack of personal interest. I do enjoy campaigns
where Magick is passive as opposed to aggressive. Subtle use of Magick, such as
the development of Dragon Launched Cruise Goblins, is more entertaining than
Blasting explosive one shot spells. Dragon launched cruise goblins are
accomplished by strapping explosively flamable oil drums to a goblin, equipping
him with a torch, throwing a Fly spell on him, (hard part) talking a dragon
into carrying him within range of the target, point goblin at target and
release. Results can be Pyrotechnic.
Go ye and find a way to torch a Balrog.
G. Christiansen
( c/o floyd!cmcl2!tihor)