From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #117 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Friday, 10 November 1995 Volume 02 : Number 117 TABLE OF CONTENTS Harth Henri 'rq-rules-digest' file 'v02.n107' Philippe Krait Killer scenario, fudging and Powerful NPCs Philippe Krait Killer scenario, fudging and powerful NPCs RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to add "Yeah, I agree" or "No, I disagree." Or be excoriated. If someone writes something good and you want to say "good show" please do. But don't include the whole message you praise. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. 3. Learn the art of paraphrasing: Don't just quote and comment on a point-by-point basis. When paraphrasing you demonstrate exactly how well you understand the point someone was trying to make. 4. There is no number 4. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harth Henri <101324.1005@compuserve.com> Date: 10 Nov 95 11:09:22 EST Subject: 'rq-rules-digest' file 'v02.n107' Did anybody got a FULL copy of RQRules Digest vol.02 #107 ? The one i did recieved was crippled and so is the copy in the archives... A silly question: How can i get the .zip and .tar.gz files in the archives but by mail? It seems my mailler drops every eigth bit... making the files useless. thanks, Guillaume Contesso, 101324.1005@compuserve.com "A game of chess is like a swordfight... You must think first, before you move..." Wu-Tang Clan, Da mystery of chessboxin' ------------------------------ From: Philippe Krait Date: Fri, 10 Nov 1995 19:43:08 -0800 Subject: Killer scenario, fudging and Powerful NPCs (1) >>Thats not a killer scenario, thats a suicide scenario! As far as I can see >>there is an enormous chance of you losing most of your PCs in one go. > >Your analyse is absolutly right: It was a suicide scenario! But guess what: >as a player, I had no idea of what kind of S... I was going into: To a >old-timer D&D player, it all sounded OK: the money was good, the job easy, >and the local lord not at all sympathetic to my PC. Further complaint should >be directed to the original autor, Aka Sandy-the-Benevolent, and the GMs >that carry out his evil plans ;-) I think that it is a killer scenario only if the GM wants it to be so. The Author devised a clever trap, but, when the jaws close, only the GM knows how much force to use, that is, approximatively how many PC could die. But the trap is _very_ clever... >>Added to the GMs total loss of much roleplay possibility there comes the >problem >>of 3 out of the eleven players (you indicated that three lived and eight PCs >>died) would have finished the game playing. [and] >"Conveniently appear?" How, from where? A new PC would join a group that was >hunted by everyone as murderers/assassins, with an army on their back. Where >did the handy reserve of complete madmen and deathseekers come from. I always >thought a PC joins others due to the pressures of a situation or a recognition >of their abilities being able to help the individual through cooperation. This >scenrio seems to preclude such an option. While was there loss of roleplay ? I did not start the scenario with eleven players (I can GM for that many with AD&D, with RQ I can manage a max of six or seven "only"). When characters got killed, players would reroll new ones (see below) and join. This is not a loss of role-play, because new characters have to be introduced using role-play: - The players (being quite rich because they had received advance payement) could recruit one or more mercenaries, deciding what to tell them and role-playing the engagement. Moreover, the slow realization of the aforementionned mercenaries that they just had rejoined their employers in the death trap is a great source of role-play. - If I remember correctly, one of the PC joining up was simply the owner of a house the players decided to break into to hide, and another one the guard of a tavern burned to the ground by the hell hounds attack. All these people had reasons to join the group and role-play in a different way than the usual "adventurers group". [deleted lots of interesting things about creating new characters while the surviving ones flee in panic] >>It takes half an hour usually to roll up a PC, plus over an hour to >>research his background and his lineage. [and] >Funny, I always found D&D characters so faceless and dull that it was simplicity >itself to kill them without remorse. Of course, there are exceptions but on the >whole RQ players tend to be perform better, I think the game and the background >brings it out, latent though such talents are in the majority. Yes, but at least creating new characters is still a more interesting part than in AD&D (:-). And, in AD&D, 5th+ level characters are no longer faceless, because that level means that the players have been playing them for quite a long time. First level characters are easy to kill, true, but it's not really a good idea: playing 1st-3rd level characters is (IMHO) not very interesting because their options are so limited (compared to RQ, for eample). Of course, it depends on the scenario itself, but it remains generally true. So, you have to let them survive if tou want to play characters at an interesting level, where all the highly fantastic magic of AD&D (one of its greatest assets IMHO) comes into play. >Thats fine, but it still takes time and having a bunch of guys sitting in the >corner of the room muttering PC creation stuff like "Strength 18 wahoo!, oh shit >I've got a POW of three" etc is just a tad distracting. Besides I like my >friends to come to a game to interact _together_, not by sitting apart rolling >dice. Why even bother to play if thats what happens. After a few sessions of >that I wouldn't show up anymore. I only see some of them once a week, at the >game and game is all they want to do. As for that, it was a club, and we had to "almost" separated rooms to play in. Moreover, we played together (ah, we were young and these were good times) every day of the week, and sometimes (for those of us who did not go back to their homes for the week end) through the whole week-end. That meant about 60 hours of play per week! We had time seeing each other (and of course we had almost all the bedrooms reserved for members of the club in one of the floors of the campus residence). Now that I only play once a week for a measly six-seven hours session, I would not inflict this on anybody... >>So my questions are, what does the group, the majority of which are sitting on >>their thumbs for the whole time do? What does the GM do about his background? >>What is done about the huge amount of GM work (new PCs, NPC backgounds etc) >when > >Well, I guess he (the GM) will have to answer that himself. To his credit, I >always liked his campaign. I retired my PC and started GMing only after he >moves to another location. And after so many years, The only real vivid >memory I have from our campaign is this scenario. It was so amazing, so >incredible, so unbelivable to see at what rate the PC were dying, that we >all went into shock. I mean, after AD&D, where killing one PC is almost >obscene, what a change, Waooo! And after all, I survived :-) Well, here I am. The first thing I want to say is that I did all of that in cold blood, after much reflexion. I'd had enough (as Fred mentions) of AD&D campaigns where the characters always survived whatever their actions and "rightness" of play (more on that subject later). I had tried many times to correct this, with only mitigated success. I think, for example, that Frederic will remember the infamous "Temple of the Earth Mother", which all the 4th-8th level characters of the Ecole Centrale de Lyon tried to enter in three different waves of assault, the first two being beaten back or captured for sacrifice, while one or two survivors went away to bring back other comrades. The last wave succeeded (the defenses of the temple had been lowered by the previous assaults and the survivors had now a better knowledge of the opposition and of its defenses), with some more casualties but, of course, everybody was raised, resurrected or reincarnated and there were no permanent loses... I also tried to hit AD&D players in their weak spot: I may be one of the only GMs who had the boldness to unleash a full herd of disenchanters (magical beasts who drain magical items of their powers) at a high level characters group (Frederic will surely remember that, as he was in the front line at that time...). But fear for one's objects is not the same as fear for one's life... continued in part two... - -- ____________________ ******************************* /___ _________ ___/\ * Aux armes, aux armes, * \__/ /\_______/ /\__\/ * Debout, Lor-Karils, * / /_/__ / / / * Vaillant Guerriers, * /____ /\ / / / * Prepares a charger !... * \___/ / / / / / * * ____/ / / /_/ / * Clepsydre Dragon * /_____/ / \_\/ * -==(UDIC)==- * \_____\/ ******************************* ------------------------------ From: Philippe Krait Date: Fri, 10 Nov 1995 20:23:47 -0800 Subject: Killer scenario, fudging and powerful NPCs >>Thats not a killer scenario, thats a suicide scenario! As far as I can see >>there is an enormous chance of you losing most of your PCs in one go. > >Your analyse is absolutly right: It was a suicide scenario! But guess what: >as a player, I had no idea of what kind of S... I was going into: To a >old-timer D&D player, it all sounded OK: the money was good, the job easy, >and the local lord not at all sympathetic to my PC. Further complaint should >be directed to the original autor, Aka Sandy-the-Benevolent, and the GMs >that carry out his evil plans ;-) I think that it is a killer scenario only if the GM wants it to be so. The Author devised a clever trap, but, when the jaws close, only the GM knows how much force to use, that is, approximatively how many PC could die. But the trap is _very_ clever... >>Added to the GMs total loss of much roleplay possibility there comes the >problem >>of 3 out of the eleven players (you indicated that three lived and eight PCs >>died) would have finished the game playing. [and] >"Conveniently appear?" How, from where? A new PC would join a group that was >hunted by everyone as murderers/assassins, with an army on their back. Where >did the handy reserve of complete madmen and deathseekers come from. I always >thought a PC joins others due to the pressures of a situation or a recognition >of their abilities being able to help the individual through cooperation. This >scenrio seems to preclude such an option. While was there loss of roleplay ? I did not start the scenario with eleven players (I can GM for that many with AD&D, with RQ I can manage a max of six or seven "only"). When characters got killed, players would reroll new ones (see below) and join. This is not a loss of role-play, because new characters have to be introduced using role-play: - The players (being quite rich because they had received advance payement) could recruit one or more mercenaries, deciding what to tell them and role-playing the engagement. Moreover, the slow realization of the aforementionned mercenaries that they just had rejoined their employers in the death trap is a great source of role-play. - If I remember correctly, one of the PC joining up was simply the owner of a house the players decided to break into to hide, and another one the guard of a tavern burned to the ground by the hell hounds attack. All these people had reasons to join the group and role-play in a different way than the usual "adventurers group". [deleted lots of interesting things about creating new characters while the surviving ones flee in panic] >>It takes half an hour usually to roll up a PC, plus over an hour to >>research his background and his lineage. [and] >Funny, I always found D&D characters so faceless and dull that it was simplicity >itself to kill them without remorse. Of course, there are exceptions but on the >whole RQ players tend to be perform better, I think the game and the background >brings it out, latent though such talents are in the majority. Yes, but at least creating new characters is still a more interesting part than in AD&D (:-). And, in AD&D, 5th+ level characters are no longer faceless, because that level means that the players have been playing them for quite a long time. First level characters are easy to kill, true, but it's not really a good idea: playing 1st-3rd level characters is (IMHO) not very interesting because their options are so limited (compared to RQ, for eample). Of course, it depends on the scenario itself, but it remains generally true. So, you have to let them survive if tou want to play characters at an interesting level, where all the highly fantastic magic of AD&D (one of its greatest assets IMHO) comes into play. >Thats fine, but it still takes time and having a bunch of guys sitting in the >corner of the room muttering PC creation stuff like "Strength 18 wahoo!, oh shit >I've got a POW of three" etc is just a tad distracting. Besides I like my >friends to come to a game to interact _together_, not by sitting apart rolling >dice. Why even bother to play if thats what happens. After a few sessions of >that I wouldn't show up anymore. I only see some of them once a week, at the >game and game is all they want to do. As for that, it was a club, and we had to "almost" separated rooms to play in. Moreover, we played together (ah, we were young and these were good times) every day of the week, and sometimes (for those of us who did not go back to their homes for the week end) through the whole week-end. That meant about 60 hours of play per week! We had time seeing each other (and of course we had almost all the bedrooms reserved for members of the club in one of the floors of the campus residence). Now that I only play once a week for a measly six-seven hours session, I would not inflict this on anybody... >>So my questions are, what does the group, the majority of which are sitting on >>their thumbs for the whole time do? What does the GM do about his background? >>What is done about the huge amount of GM work (new PCs, NPC backgounds etc) >when > >Well, I guess he (the GM) will have to answer that himself. To his credit, I >always liked his campaign. I retired my PC and started GMing only after he >moves to another location. And after so many years, The only real vivid >memory I have from our campaign is this scenario. It was so amazing, so >incredible, so unbelivable to see at what rate the PC were dying, that we >all went into shock. I mean, after AD&D, where killing one PC is almost >obscene, what a change, Waooo! And after all, I survived :-) Well, here I am. The first thing I want to say is that I did all of that in cold blood, after much reflexion. I'd had enough (as Fred mentions) of AD&D campaigns where the characters always survived whatever their actions and "rightness" of play (more on that subject later). I had tried many times to correct this, with only mitigated success. I think, for example, that Frederic will remember the infamous "Temple of the Earth Mother", which all the 4th-8th level characters of the Ecole Centrale de Lyon tried to enter in three different waves of assault, the first two being beaten back or captured for sacrifice, while one or two survivors went away to bring back other comrades. The last wave succeeded (the defenses of the temple had been lowered by the previous assaults and the survivors had now a better knowledge of the opposition and of its defenses), with some more casualties but, of course, everybody was raised, resurrected or reincarnated and there were no permanent loses... I also tried to hit AD&D players in their weak spot: I may be one of the only GMs who had the boldness to unleash a full herd of disenchanters (magical beasts who drain magical items of their powers) at a high level characters group (Frederic will surely remember that, as he was in the front line at that time...). But fear for one's objects is not the same as fear for one's life... So, I decided to start a new RQ campaign, but a stressful one. I wanted to play on Griffin Island (but with a Gloranthan general setting), and I wanted the players to have an excellent reason to go to this backwater "hole". So the Fonrit scenario (I think it's called "The Big Hit") was absolutely perfect: It was totally murderous so that the fear could be anchored in all the players hearts. It was set in a city, where it is easy to recruit new characters. It required perfect coordination between characters to survive, so that a core group of characters could be forged, held together by vivid memories and "blood ties". It also requires the surviving characters to leave the (seaside) city at the end, with killers (real or promised, great possibility of future action here) on their heels, so what better destination for them than the reclusive Griffin Island ? And, last but not least, the scenario itself is excellent, with lots of good intrigue, mystery, heroic action and role-play. I have never had before the occasion to directly thank Sandy for that great piece of work, so it is time for me to make amends: Heartfelt thanks to you, mister Petersen. It is also a very easy to remember scenario, so that I could GM it three other times as a "one off" (including one as AD&D, and one without notes, dices, rules, whatever...). There were lots of casualties every time but a lot a fun for everybody... >Hmmm, sounds like a PC conveyor belt to me. How did you build up any PC history >and interaction when burning through your guys like that. Again, its okay for a >one off but not okay for any non-slaughterfest campaign. Anyway, after this killing start, the campaign could proceed at the pace I wished, with truly careful characters. I could never do again (not that I needed it, or event wanted it) that kind of scenario in the course of the campaign, because of the aforementionned reasons. >To get a really objective view, you would need to interview the owners of >dead PCs. Well, I think that only "bad" players died this evening. I may stick my neck out a little too far this time, but I think that the mark of a "good" player is that he can truly visualize what is really happening, seing everything in his mind's eye and acting upon this vision. Of course, it's up to the GM to provide enough accurate information so that his vision and that of the "good" players is the same. In the case of the Fonrit scenario, Fred and the other two survivors had the "right" vision, that of a death trap, and played accordingly. The others played as they used to in AD&D scenarios, were therefore not "in tune" with the campaign as I saw it, and had to be warned that the usual style of play would not work there. Deaths, in that case, were big warning signs telling: if you don't play my style, I don't want you in my campaign. I know this sounds harsh, but I truly wanted a change of pace. If it had not worked (too many players leaving), I would have dropped my ambitions and gone back to AD&D again. Happily, it did not happen, and the campaign ran smoothly for (I dont't remember exactly) about two years. Anyway, due to the incredibly high number of hours of game-play each week, "dying" players could not be truly frustrated (even if they were quite shocked). At least, I hope so... Another point is that players had to be kept on their toes for the rest of the campaign. After the initial shock, an occasionnal death arranged that. It is at that point that fudging came into play, because killing off "pillars" of the campaign would have really crippled it. But, except in the very obvious case mentionned in previous postings, it was really very rare because: - "good" players always remain "good" players, so that they do not take unnecessary risks. - Their characters have more experience, better skills, armor, spells and magic than new ones, so they can stay alive more easily. - They know much more about the world and the possible opponents, and therefore make less mistakes. - Old timers stick together and are more prompt to employ one-use powers or items to save each others than to save newbies (this is very important in RQ, where the life-saving spells like Heal Wounds are almost always one-use, as, in two years of play, no one even came close to rune-level). - Even when they do die, they have the necessary role-playing connections with NPC powerful and with reasons enough to attempt DI or cast resurrection for them (it did happen once or twice in two years of play). But deaths _must_ occur so that the spirit of the campaign stays alive. You can even consider characters lost that way as sacrifices on the altar of the god of fun of the campaign. How can you arrange that? It not always easy, because the GM must _never_ be prejudiced, and always killing the characters of the same players will appear that way. So I had to set very dangerous conditions of play, so that every mistake could easily kill. Old timers could get through, while newbies... Well, let us say that they died more frequently. When that happened, all the aforementionned reasons could be brought into play, by the players as well as the GM, justifying the death in some cruel way. I tried to take care that death was never pointless (at least retarding the opponent so that the others could escape, or furnishing a big enough meal to the beast so that it lost its interest in the others), but it was not always successful. But I _never_ fudged to kill someone. If the newbies were clever enough to stay alive, that was truly great by me, because it meant that the "good" play I like had been used. Overall, players cared more for their characters, listened with great attentions to the descriptions, and were happy at the end of the night just because they had gone on living in a dangerous world, using their brains more than simply roll-playing through evrything. There were few other rewards, very few magic items and gold. Danger, and surviving it, were almost the only rewards, but I still think it was great. >One thing about "fudging" die rolls, is that DM's usually try to balance >the adventure so it's challanging, but not overwheliming. However, >unless we sit there with the character sheets and a little precognition, >we don't allways do it. I've gotten in the situation where I've NOT >wanted to do a critical hit on the sorcer with a great sword on round >one of combat....I sorta counted on him making a parry or dodge and >getting nickle and dimed. But since it's MY story, I decide it's just a >special... Everybody has done it, even to the point of, "Gee, the big >bad nasty guy shouldn't get taken down on round one by the sorcerers >critcal hit with a dagger....I think he got a special parry..." Shrug, >it happens, and we can't control what the players roll, but we can >control how it affects the situation. I can agree with you (even if I do no longer use fudging that way) if a die roll on the player's part is the source of the problem. It's one of the reasons that I _never_ roll dices in front of the players (when I still roll the dices; all my GMing has been made with Amber Diceless RPG for more than a year). But I have to disagree with your first statement if the source is player cleverness. For example, we are currently playing a Rolemaster campaign. In one of the latests scenarios, we devised an extremely clever plan to recue some women being dragged off to sacrifice by a little army of bad guys. This rescue was vital for us, an important goal for the campaign Even with that plan (which impressed the GM a lot), we barely succeedeed, with only two PCs left standing (it's very hard to die in RM). Half the enemies were still alive but retreated for reasons still unkown. Well, it was very frustrating because we knew (the campaign has been running for 1 1/2 years) that we had to survive and succeed. So, had we designed a bad plan (or no plan at all), we should have died. But that could never had happened. So we knew that the GM had fudged so that the opposition would still appear challenging even after our great planning. He did not realize that all the fun was in this planning (which involved a lot of role-play to decide how to go about it, morality and honor coming into play about our methods, and a lot of sneaking about, which is always fun), not in the resoluton of the ensuing battle. I would have played (or at least I would have tried to play) the bad guys to their best without helping them in any way so that the "good" play of the PC would truly have been rewarded by an easy victory. >> Boy do I ever agree with Fred here. I HATE the savior NPCs. >> I remember one campaign in which our characters were trying to rid >> the valley of invading scorpion men. The GM, obviously feeling we >> weren't up to handling the situation, provided us with a helpful >> group of Tusk Rider mercenaries, who were unfailingly polite, >> honored the Lunar Way, etc. I spent the entire campaign plotting >> against the bastards. Their destruction was a MUCH higher priority >> with me than the scorpion men's. >> For that reason, I stay away from deux. When I do saddle my >> PCs with an NPC, I always make him obnoxious or powerless or both. >Even more infuriating is the GM who throws his powerful NPCs around and >then adds insult to injury by fudging every other roll for them so that they >never fail to succeed in the most "cool" fashion: Adjoining a powerful NPC to a group of adventurers is one of the most commonly used nethod of fudging a GM can use. The first times it looks good, if tactfully done. But it very quickly falls into what we call the "baby-sitter syndrome": "A campaign in which a PC or NPC deigns to chaperon a relatively weak group of characters. The baby-sitter can often be found at the rear of the group, waiting for an opportunity to save its wards in protecting them from their mistakes, while always assuring them that it truly is _their_ adventure." This is really dangerous when coupled to the "GM6 Symdrome": "Any PNJ posseding at all times all the information known by the GM. This kind of character can usually be detected by his stats (god-like intelligence or divine access, for example) and a complete lack of individual personnality, except when acting as an extension of the GM's." Those definitions are paraphrased from an old humourous article (from Dragon magazine, I think). We spent five years ridding our current RM GM (we played a runequest campaign with him for about 4 years before that) of his tendency to give us GM6 baby-sitters. As he can now feel the temperature of the room drop by several degrees whenever a poweful NPC tries to travel with our group, this tendency is now much reduced, to our entire satisfaction. Win or lose, we do it on our own, thank you. Now, our mission (yes, we decided to accept it and we are on our own) is to rid our GM of another syndrome (same origin are the preceding ones), The Fickle Hand of Fate: "The capability of one character to survive when throwing himself full in the mouth of an enraged red dragon, as long as his player has not personnaly been offensive to the GM (in which case the character is usually struck by blue lightning bolts of unknown origin)." Well, our GM does not apply the second part of the syndrome, but the first one is annoying enough. Recently, we were battling a Vampire, who was regenerating while we were slowly being beaten, our ressources, magic and HP whittled away. The Vampire was back to a fire pit (kind of sudden death for him, but for us also). This was a kind of climatic fight, my character was of the heroic type, and my wife, being pregnant, had stopped playing another character who suited me perfectly, so I said to myself: "what the hell, I will sacrifice myself by using a Jump spell to throw the Vampire and myself into the fire pit." That was a heroic death and it did not bother me too much even after playing Glaive (that is his name) for more than a year. Well, to make a long story short, I survived. Of course, I now had a geas (which induced a lot of role-play later), but I had not been able to die even though I was voluntary! Of course, the Vampire himself was consumed by the flames... Phew, that was long. I hope I did not bore you to death with my ravings, and I bid you all good playing... Philippe ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V2 #117 ******************************* This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill, and Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium. With the exception of previously copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to archive unchanged for electronic retrieval. Send electronic mail to Majordomo@hops.wharton.upenn.edu with "help" in the body of the message for subscription information on this and other mailing lists. WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html