Why the dislike of FR?
Mike Anderson
like FR? Why or why not?
Mike
chris7476
"Mike Anderson" <andersm...@email.uah.edu.DELETETHIS> wrote in message
news:9v8n7j$2p8$1...@info2.uah.edu...
> Just noticed a comment on another thread...but is it now "popular" to not
> like FR? Why or why not?
>
I like FR alot. I never really played it until 3ed. I was diehard Greyhawk
but since they don't really support it, I checked out FR. I'm glad I did.
R. Scott Rogers
Caesar Mike Anderson, that
> Just noticed a comment on another thread...but is it now "popular" to not
> like FR? Why or why not?
Well, FR was great back when it played in small venues. You could tell it
was "real," you know, doing its own thing for itself and the fans. But now
that it's become so popular, it's just too mainstream. It lost its edge. I'm
not saying FR sold out, but success always becomes an end in itself. The
sincerity and purity of early FR just isn't in the more recent releases.
Cheers,
Scott
--
R. Scott Rogers
sro...@mindspring.com
Visit the General Taylor Inn:
http://srogers.home.mindspring.com/dnd/main.html
John Wade
> > Just noticed a comment on another thread...but is it now "popular" to
not
> > like FR? Why or why not?
I think the 3e FR book is the best thing ever produced for dnd, and I have
a copy of eldritch wizardry in my bookshelf. Having said that, Ed Greenwood
is a bit of a tw*t
Kershek
andersm...@email.uah.edu.DELETETHIS says...
> Just noticed a comment on another thread...but is it now "popular" to not
> like FR? Why or why not?
Unfortunately, it seems it's always popular to call high fantasy
"twinkish" and "munchkin."
Mad Hamish
the arguments basically go that
- it's ludicrously high powered,
- that with all the really powerful forces for good (Elminster, the 7
sisters, the harpers etc) there really isn't the same threat as other
places and the balance is wrong.
- Elminster and Drizzt are twinks.
--
The Politician's Slogan
'You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the
people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Fortunately only a simple majority is required.'
Mad Hamish
Hamish Laws
h_l...@bigpond.com
Varl
>
> Just noticed a comment on another thread...but is it now "popular" to not
> like FR? Why or why not?
I enjoy the FR in any edition, and I could care less if it's now popular
to dislike the FR. The new 3e hardbound book is terrific, and one of the
few 3e rulebooks I endorse getting. I never had the time to sit down and
create my own world, so when the FR came out all those years ago, it was
a perfect fit for me. It has everything I wanted out of a campaign, and
has enough room for expansion. For those who don't think so, check out
the globe in the FR Interactive Atlas and spin it all the way around.
Plenty of room. :-)
--
The best interpretation of a rule is the one you make yourself.
Lord_Anthrax
On 12-Dec-2001, "Mike Anderson" <andersm...@email.uah.edu.DELETETHIS>
wrote:
> Just noticed a comment on another thread...but is it now "popular" to not
> like FR? Why or why not?
I wouldn't say it's popular. Mainly it's a very vocal minority that has
conniptions about the Realms and its(as I call it)super-heroic fantasy
world, in particular the proliferation of magic and magic items and the high
levels boasted by many of its default inhabitants. FWIW it's dirt-simple to
change things or just not have certain NPC's get involved in the game until
much later on, but some people are so hidebound they can't see past "It's in
the book so it must be!" and others just love to diss the creations of Ed
Greenwood and R.A. Salvatore.
For my part, I think the Realms is and always will be the -best- setting for
D&D, with its richly detailed history, world and culture. I -like- the high
power levels of the NPC's and of certain other elements, it suits my style
of play quite nicely, and my players adore it as well. Is it for everyone?
Hardly. But take a look at sales of Realms merchandise, and see what that
tells you about its popularity. :)
--
Regards,
The Lord Anthrax
"Arguing with people on Usenet is like participating in the Special
Olympics. Even if you win, you're still a retard." -Anonymous
chris7476
> >like FR? Why or why not?
> >
> the arguments basically go that
> - it's ludicrously high powered,
It is however you want your campaign to be. Sure the NPC's are powerful but
just don't use them.
> - that with all the really powerful forces for good (Elminster, the 7
> sisters, the harpers etc) there really isn't the same threat as other
> places and the balance is wrong.
No way! Check out Lords of Darkness. There are some nasty evil groups in
there. Actually, 3ed has been my first real taste into FR and one of my
first impressions was how many evil cults and groups there were.
> - Elminster and Drizzt are twinks.
What does this mean? Because you don't like a style of play you criticize?
Overall, the FRCS is one of the best books WotC has put out for 3ed. Much
better than the Greyhawk crap they put out for 3ed.
R. Scott Rogers
Caesar chris7476, that
>> - Elminster and Drizzt are twinks.
>
> What does this mean? Because you don't like a style of play you criticize?
Should he wait until he DOES like a thing before he criticizes?
"From here on out, there'll be no criticizing of things you don't like."
Kaos
<andersm...@email.uah.edu.DELETETHIS> wrote:
Dunno about others, but IMO it's just got too much of that
"everything's been done" feel to it.
You've got the great heros who the pc's will never even be in the same
league as, and historical events that overshadow anything the party
might possibly do.
The power issues are a minor deal to me as well, but not huge (with a
few exceptions.)
--
Can't tell one side from the other...
they're all jerks.
incrdbil
<andersm...@email.uah.edu.DELETETHIS> wrote:
there are always bashers of Camapign settings. Many fall into the
ranks of 'if it's mainstream, I'm going to hate it". Some have
personal problems with the magic level of the FR, though why it's
impossible to run a magic poor campaign in FR in some area has never
been explained.
A good deal of books have been written about the FR, along with the
supplements. Many appreciate this detail. Others don't like it
because it restricts their freedom, for some reason feeling that can't
contradict what is written. Some just hate featured NPc's, though I
can't recall a reason why anyone feels forced to use these big name
PC's.
Of course, varying the FR or any other established setting has it's
drawbacks--vary it too wildly, and you have to do a major overhaul of
many of the supplements that may have been a reason for you purchasing
a published setting in the first place. And since there are
established movers and shakers, some groups may feel overshadowed.
"Why, I'll never come close to being the Mage/Ranger/Cleric that so
and so is."
It's a matter of taste. If you want a bare bones setting, with lots
of room for you to work with altering without conflicting a lot of
material, FR may not be for you. If you don't mind a setting that
often features powerful magic and is richly detailed, there is bound
to be some setting in the FR that you will like.
Duane VP
news:9v8n7j$2p8$1...@info2.uah.edu...
> like FR? Why or why not?
There are basically three reasons. First is that relatively powerful
magic is more readily visible than it is in other campaign settings, in
large part via NPC's. Such is not to everyone's taste. Second and third
are two of those very NPC's: Elminster and Drizzt.
Elminster was overused for too long throughout FR's development as a
published campaign setting. His over-common presence I think really started
to hit it's stride within the Time of Troubles series of modules or
otherwise at about that time. He was being presented as an easy railroading
tool and deus ex machina figure for the DM to use rather than being assigned
a more sensible place in scheme of things. Being something not unlike an
avatar for the creator of the setting it's not surprising that he should be
a living Visa card - he's everywhere you want to be. The problem is that
nobody told the newbies how to handle such difficulties.
Drizzt was a popular character from Bob Salvatore's novels but soon
everyone seemed to want _their_ character to be just like him. I never read
a thing by Salvatore but it seemed pretty clear to me that removing Drizzt
(or a Drizzt clone) from the context of the novels and placing him into some
poor, unsuspecting DM's campaign was a recipe for annoyance and disaster.
There are other nit-picks that detractors like to rank on but these are
the root causes IMO. The surprising parts are that the negative response
gets to be so severe, and that it is simplicity to downplay, remove, alter,
or just ignore the big NPC's and plentiful magic and see that there's a lot
of great campaign setting underneath that just doesn't NEED that extra
baggage.
BTW, it's not just now that it's become popular not to like FR. It's
been popular in some circles for quite some time - even before FR was
announced as the "flagship" setting for 2nd Ed.
--
Duane VanderPol
God Bless the USA
http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp
Jeremy Reaban
"Mike Anderson" <andersm...@email.uah.edu.DELETETHIS> wrote in
message news:9v8n7j$2p8$1...@info2.uah.edu...
to not
> like FR? Why or why not?
Well, I doubt it's 'popular' to care about FR one way or the other,
but the main hatred of FR seems to revolve around 2 things - Elminster
& Drizzt (or perhaps the two authors behind those character, Greenwood
& Salvatore).
chris7476
"R. Scott Rogers" <sro...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:B83D850A.294D9%sro...@mindspring.com...
> And it came to pass on 12/12/01 9:29 PM, that there went out a decree from
> Caesar chris7476, that
>
> >> - Elminster and Drizzt are twinks.
> >
> > What does this mean? Because you don't like a style of play you
criticize?
>
> Should he wait until he DOES like a thing before he criticizes?
>
> "From here on out, there'll be no criticizing of things you don't like."
>
No, my point was he attributed a style of play (high-powered campaign as
negative. The word "twink" (or munchkin) implies a style of play that
somone deems a "lesser" way to play the game. To say that characters or
NPC's with high stats, etc don't fit your campaign is fine. But to put down
a different style is close-minded.
Mortimer Jones
Spoken like a true non conformist...
"R. Scott Rogers" <sro...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:B83D534C.29494%sro...@mindspring.com...
MykellSilver
appropriately. I had Elminster show up *twice*: Once to announce that one of
the PC's, a Dweomerkeeper of Mystra, was to become one of the Chosen, and
again, to a subsequent PC of the same player to mourn the death of the
Dweomorkeeper "in the line of duty". (I've been DM'ing an avg of 3 games a week
since 1995.)
He has never saved the PC's butts for them, *ever*. They never went near 10
towns, never saw Drizzt. End of story.
Kevin Lowe
"Jeremy Reaban" <j...@Xconnectria.com> wrote:
I'd like to point out that there are lots of good reasons to hate (2E)
Elminster or (2E) Drizzt. That doesn't mean their setting sucks.
I may be wrong, but I think I've observed that 3E works far better for
the Forgotten Realms than 2E did. In 2E the NPCs were so far off the
standard 2E PC power curve that it was ridiculous. The 3E writeups and
the 3E advancement system have closed the gap enormously. There doesn't
seem to be any reason you couldn't run a by-the-book 3E FR campaign for
a year or two and have PCs roughly comparable to Elminster or Drizzt.
Possibly Greenwood's house rules were closer to 3E than 2E, and the FR
NPCs got distorted when crammed into 2E moulds. Or maybe he just
sucked. :-) Some of the ideas embedded in FR are pretty damn stupid
(like Spellfire), but I'm sure you can just axe the dumb superhero
tropes and run a decent game.
Kevin Lowe,
Brisbane, Australia.
Bill Beasley
couldn't hope to create a character that matched the 'stars' of the world,
even given enough exp/time/equipment, because most of the simply 'broke' the
rules that everyone else had to live with. Take Drizzt for example. IIRC,
he was either a multiclassed Fighter/Range(illegal under 2e), or a Dual
classed Fighter/Ranger(again, illegal under 2e unless he's human in
disguise). He could also use two weapons of the same size at the same
time(illegal for most of 2e's lifespan, particularly the part that coincided
with Drizzt).
"Kevin Lowe" <sp...@spoof.gov> wrote in message
news:spoof-871719....@news-vip.optusnet.com.au...
Jackhammer John
>like FR? Why or why not?
>
>Mike
I don't dislike FR as I enjoy the books and Baldur's Gate immensely. I love
the new 3rd edition book. However, Greyhawk fits my style of roleplaying. Its
background can be played around more, while I feel the overwhelming historic
weight of FR. While there is a detailed background for GH, its geography and
history are still open enough for me to fill in my own verison of the world. It
is more gritty and less magically inclined.
FR is too magically enhanced for my tastes and having Drizzt and Elminster
popping in every campaign by every DM I every played with got . . .
predictable. My first inclination was to ask them, "Why don't you handle the
problem we are facing? Why don't you join us?" Of course, they can't without
overpowering the game (Now to rescue them from the clutches of an evil powerful
enemy, that would generate some fear!)
While you can play either world in any manner or fashion you want, if your
players are well versed in the lore of FR, making anything up that flies in the
face of the accepted "facts" can be a pain.
Greyhawk can handle conversions better with seasoned and new players alike.
If you enjoy a rich world to play in then FR would fill the bill, but if you
want a more flexible world that gives you just enough background to get
started, the GH is the way to go.
========================================
Jackhammer John
"Sometimes the question is more important than the answer."
Mad Hamish
wrote:
>> >Just noticed a comment on another thread...but is it now "popular" to not
>> >like FR? Why or why not?
>> >
>> the arguments basically go that
>> - it's ludicrously high powered,
>
>It is however you want your campaign to be. Sure the NPC's are powerful but
>just don't use them.
Major changes happen to the world setting if you remove most of the
major powers.
Without Elminster, The Symbol etc things are hugely different
>
>> - that with all the really powerful forces for good (Elminster, the 7
>> sisters, the harpers etc) there really isn't the same threat as other
>> places and the balance is wrong.
>
>No way! Check out Lords of Darkness. There are some nasty evil groups in
>there. Actually, 3ed has been my first real taste into FR and one of my
>first impressions was how many evil cults and groups there were.
In 1st & 2nd ed the evil forces were mostly much weaker than the good
forces, There were several high 20th/low 30th level good (or allied
with good) mages.
I can't think of evil forces with that level of power on their side
that weren't limited to very small areas (Menzoberrenzen was
ludicrous, the Phaerum were only in a couple of places, the Mulhandi
and other places with gods camping in there were also far from the
mainstream areas)
with the force disribution available the evil forces arguably should
have been completely wiped out.
>
>> - Elminster and Drizzt are twinks.
>
>What does this mean? Because you don't like a style of play you criticize?
Somebody asked why the FR set was often criticised, I gave the major
reasons that I've seen it criticised. It doens't mean that I agree
with them.
I will say that Drizzt _in_1st_&2nd_ed_ was a twink -> check his stats
in Hall of Heroes and see how many unique special abilities he had.
>
>Overall, the FRCS is one of the best books WotC has put out for 3ed. Much
>better than the Greyhawk crap they put out for 3ed.
The FR has about 14 years of history to deal with though.
Jeremy Reaban
> I'd like to point out that there are lots of good reasons to hate
(2E)
> Elminster or (2E) Drizzt. That doesn't mean their setting sucks.
Well, to me, it's not the fact that Elminster or Drizzt broke the 2E
rules (because really, I doubt either were ever actual D&D characters,
just literary/DM creations...I think Elminster is actually Greenwood's
alter ego, almost a personification of the DM), it's just the
characters themselves. Their personality, background, how they are
used, the prose used to describe them (Drizzt in particular, but I've
read some stuff about Elminster that just about made me physically
ill...)
Sir Clarence
> I wouldn't say it's popular. Mainly it's a very vocal minority that has
> conniptions about the Realms and its(as I call it)super-heroic fantasy
> world, in particular the proliferation of magic and magic items and the high
> levels boasted by many of its default inhabitants. FWIW it's dirt-simple to
> change things or just not have certain NPC's get involved in the game until
> much later on, but some people are so hidebound they can't see past "It's in
> the book so it must be!" and others just love to diss the creations of Ed
> Greenwood and R.A. Salvatore.
> For my part, I think the Realms is and always will be the -best- setting for
> D&D, with its richly detailed history, world and culture. I -like- the high
> power levels of the NPC's and of certain other elements, it suits my style
> of play quite nicely, and my players adore it as well. Is it for everyone?
> Hardly. But take a look at sales of Realms merchandise, and see what that
> tells you about its popularity. :)
And what does that tell you? When I look at the popularity of certain
politicians, TV shows or celebrities, I more often than not doubt that this is
an indicator for quality.
I agree that the FR products are of high quality and are an interesting fantasy
setting (although I don't use it), but a large percentage of their popularity
comes from the fact that other settings were neglected by TSR and later WotC.
That's marketing.
Clarence
Hunter
>Kershek <ker...@somewhere.net> writes:
>
>>Again, why do the PCs have to be as strong as NPCs? Wouldn't it be better
>>to just be one of the fishes in the sea and just try to survive?
>
>I don't mind that at all. PCs in my campaign aren't usually the top end of
>the power spectrum anyway.
>
>What bugs me is the rampant presence of characters who are the rough equivalent
>of PCs (some were clearly former PCs) that I cannot believe were actually
>created according to the rules. For instance, I don't believe for a minute
>that Mordenkainen was actually played up to archmage from the bottom,
I don't know, some campaigns did last a long time. But I wouldn't doubt that
the character got an upgrade when it became an NPC.
>or
>that he even could have been (absent lots of freebie level-ups like magic items
>or wishes). Elminster and Drizzt are just way gone from being *possible*.
IIRC Drizzt was a fictional construct, not a PC or even NPC, originally. He
was only statted after the fact for fans.
maddman
Salvatore's novels. The Moonshae books were paticularly good as well.
I ran it for almost all of 2e. When I switched to 3e, I decided to
try greyhawk. The Realms were tired. We'd been there and done that.
Name a kingdom, we'd had an adventure there.
Two problems with the setting. One is, whenever faced with a truly
epic quest, one of my players would invariably say 'If this is so
important, why doesn't Elminster or the Seven Sisters take care of
this.' The only answer I could see giving is 'They're busy.' This
implys that the NPCs are more important than the PCs. Don't like
that. It got old.
Second, I don't like the mechanics from what I've seen of the 3e
campaign setting. Every super smackdown on the ENBoards seemed to
rely on some twinky feat from FR. The PrCs grate on me as well. An
Archmage class? So, he specializes in being a really good mage?
Isn't that what they all do? Its something I dislike about some PrCs
- the ones that seem to exist only to give neat powers, not to fill
any role (I also disallow Lasher and Master of Chains as being
similarly lame).
I'm running GH for now, working on my own setting as well. If high
powered abilities, larger than life NPCs, and 15th level characters in
every hamlet and village (name me a town without a 15th level
character in it - I dare you.), go FR. I did for quite some time.
But now I want as someone else said, jsut enough background to get me
started, a map, a few gods. Gryhawk provides that, and they don't
wonder if superman is going to come to save the day.
Alan D. Kohler
> like FR? Why or why not?
Popular not to like it? Well, I know there are lots of people who the
Realm really don't appeal to, but I think the truly venemous bashers
aren't appreciated by anyone but their own ilk.
I could play in the Realms, but could never really bring myself to run
it. I has two basic objections to the realms:
-- The role of NPCs. WotC did try (or so they say) to reign in the
powerful NPCs so they weren't so overshadowing, but they still
overshadow the PCs. For example what is the first thing in the book.
Elminster. Now before you go off half cocked calling him a twink or
preparing a defense against such a statement, let me clarify that is
not what I am saying at all. It is the everpresence of Elminster and
various other figures in the setting material that makes them hard to
ignore.
-- It has some great ideas -- interesting villains, magic, and so
forth -- some of which is worth stealing or mimicing for your own
games. It just has too many of them. The Realms are a fantasy stew.
Nothing stands out as being the definitive villains or special magic
items. The Realms seems to me to a mish-mash of concepts collected
from WotCs various settings and from other areas, often with little
attention paid to how it fits the feel of the setting (for that
matter, with any idea what the feel of the setting really is.)
Alan
Dain Bramage
> And it came to pass on 12/13/01 2:02 PM, that there went out a decree from
> Caesar Bryan J. Maloney, that
>
> > In article <B83E5151.295C7%sro...@mindspring.com>, "R. Scott Rogers"
> > <sro...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Are you dissing my satire? I feel dissed.
> >
> > I hadn't realized it was satire. I have come across people who have
> > thought that FR *was* edgy and full of stuff that nobody had ever
> > thought of before.
>
> Oh, oh, rub it in. Thanks. Shall I lie down to make your kicking of me
> easier? I could get you some salt to rub in that wound. I mean, you couldn't
> even be polite and just say, "Sure, I got that you were kidding. I just
> wanted to reply to anyone who missed your brilliant satire and make sure
> they got the point."
>
> Sheesh. Some people. ;-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Scott
>
> --
> R. Scott Rogers
> sro...@mindspring.com
> Visit the General Taylor Inn:
> http://srogers.home.mindspring.com/dnd/main.html
Ummmm Salt is bad for you. Use lemon juice instead.
Bramage
--
Fraternally
William Lessard
Ezekiel Bates Lodge AF&AM Attleboro Mass
Wayne Lodge #112 F&AM Michigan
Master Mason
Royal Arch Mason
Humble (usually) student of life
Do one good selfless act for a fellow human every day
Taoist
Federal Law allows for compensation of upto $500 per unsolicited E-mail.
Any person or company sending me e-mail soliciting any service or product agrees
to this per e-mail charge of $500.
Horsepool
<andersm...@email.uah.edu.DELETETHIS> wrote:
>Just noticed a comment on another thread...but is it now "popular" to not
>like FR? Why or why not?
>
>Mike
>
I generally dont like FR for the high magic ((im kinda drifting away
from DnD for the same reason, but FR has some brutal spells)).
Another reason is the PCs in DnD are heros, not by action, but by
stats and abilities. But FR dosnt need any heros.
the whole of FR is in danger. where are the PCs? in a pub getting
drunk because Elminster aswell as 7 ((i think that number is correct))
other chosen of god. Aswell as Drizzit.
The PCs can never hope to be as strong as the NPCs mentioned above.
sure its possable, but lets stay within the realm of happening. its
not going to. Ive never been in a game in where i was a lvl 36
anything.
Those be my problems with the setting.
R. Scott Rogers
Caesar Jackhammer John, that
> While you can play either world in any manner or fashion you want, if your
> players are well versed in the lore of FR, making anything up that flies in
> the
> face of the accepted "facts" can be a pain.
This is really the only aspect of FR that troubles me. I'm now in a FR
campaign, and I think most of the other characteristics of the setting are
great. Perhaps part of the reason for that is I've never had a DM drop
Elminster or Drizzt into a game. I've been lucky, I guess. Our party did
come across a spellbook once that seemed to have once belonged to that
Blackstaff fellow, but I think it fell quickly into criminal hands.
Anyway, FR does have one "out" for anyone, like me this summer DMing my
first game, who wants to just make stuff up without running into the weight
of FR history. There are lots of areas that simply don't have detailed
information about them. I set my campaign in Luiren, about 400 years prior
to the "current" time of the FR campaign. There was really no published
information to butt up against, so I had a free hand to take my players into
the world about which my regular-campaign halfling bard tells tales of
legendary derring-do (all much exaggerated and completely wrong, of course).
Varl
Exactly. It's not as if characters can get personal interviews with the
movers and shakers of the Realms whenever they feel like it. My players
take it for granted that these NPCs are in the game world somewhere, but
they're treated as legends, someone you read or hear about but never
meet, which is just the way we like it. In fact, one of my players is
often joking about how "Khelben and I are just like this (crossed
fingers)", despite the fact that they've never met, and probably never
will.... ;-)
In the end, I don't think there's anything wrong with having "characters
with Merlin level awe" in a campaign, even if the PCs never meet them.
Varl
>
> Kevin points out some of my biggest gripes about 2e FR. Namely, you
> couldn't hope to create a character that matched the 'stars' of the world,
> even given enough exp/time/equipment, because most of the simply 'broke' the
> rules that everyone else had to live with.
I don't buy this. What if someone were to create a character based off
of the Incantatrix NPC class from Dragon magazine or ask their DM if
they could create any other off-the-wall character model? It's not an
"official" part of the rules, so that would be breaking the rules,
according to this line of thinking, right? And that's the problem when
you try to create *anything* that goes beyond the core rules of the
game. You're breaking what the basic, core rules say you can and cannot
do, which by default, automatically stifles player creativity and
option. All rules structure are guidelines, or at least they're supposed
to be imo. Some of the most brilliant and inventive ideas concerning
classes have been when a DM makes a choice to go outside the standard
rules, something you're not supposed to break. I've never considered ANY
rule to be beyond alteration or modification to suit what a DM wants to
get out of his campaign. If that means I'm not playing a certain game
engine by making modifications such as that, fine. I don't care that I'm
not. I only know it's the system I prefer to run, not concerning myself
with how close to "official" rules structure I am. Campaigns are
supposed to be based on what individual DMs want out of the system, not
the other way around...
Dain Bramage
> Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
> >In article <9v9dtf$du17r$1...@ID-78602.news.dfncis.de>, "chris7476"
> ><chri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> No, my point was he attributed a style of play (high-powered campaign as
> >> negative. The word "twink" (or munchkin) implies a style of play that
> >> somone deems a "lesser" way to play the game. To say that characters or
> >
> >What is twinky about them is that they are both essentiall ego
> >projections. Elminster is Greenwood's ego projection. Du'orden is
> >Essentially Salvatore's ego projection.
>
> BJ Maloney just redefined role-playing as ego projection, make the
> appropiate changes to your rulebooks.
>
> Thus, since the two men get to
> >*invent* rules as they go along, it's like a DM creating an NPC that is
> >automatically and _a priori_ forevermore better than the PCs were, are,
> >or ever can be, just because he can.
>
> Wow, you must have something against game designers or maybe just something
> against everything. You make it sound like Greenwood just made it up as he
> went along. Um, yep. Same as Greyhawk, as a matter of fact there are still
> some spells in the CORE books that bear the spells of the original game
> designers - you may recognize a few; Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tenser, Rigby
> all pwerful heroes to rival powerful villians in the world of Greyhawk - Iuz
> the god ( my Greyhawk is rusty but I know there are more ).Other villians
> included Lloth and Asmodeus and Orcus and other interplanar baddies.
> Heroes in a world don't mean that its a twink hero , or the DM just made
> that guy up so we can't be better than him. Wah.
> In the original Greyhawk, you may remember Gord the Rogue- Gygax's .
> Gord fought scores of demons and became the" Catlord" right out of the
> original Monster Manuals. A lot of powers that catlord and he could defeat
> Drizzt with ease ( insert thread war here).
> Say what you will about Salvatore and Greenwood but if you tell me Gygax
> is a twink too then you are off my Xmas card list!
>
> Im going to start a thread about the original heroes of Greyhawk, because
> now I am interested in their names...
>
> Grandmaster E
> Canuck DM
>
> >
> >--
> >"A 'Cape Cod Salsa' just isn't right."
Going back over the original modules it is interesting to see the different
styles of the people who played 25+ years ago. Gygax's Modules tended to be very
deadly to a party. Greenwoods tended to be mental. Several others who DMed and
later converted into modules.
David Cook was a good DM, Lawrence Schick, Allen Hammack all good DMs and
writers.
Memories. Mordenkainen, Yrag, Bigby, Riggby. Elminster who was originally a
Greyhawk Character till the creation of FR.
I think I need to take one of the old modules and stick into my campaign. See if
anyone recognizes it.
Bryan J. Maloney
lorda...@yahoo.com wrote:
> D&D, with its richly detailed history, world and culture. I -like- the
FR has a "richly detailed history, world and culture"? Since when? Or
do you mean only in comparison to the other tripe that came out of TSR.
Yes, I will agree that, as far as tripe goes, it's better-fleshed-out
tripe, but in comparison to settings like Glorantha or Tekumel, it
doesn't even begin to be "richly detailed" in any sense of the phrase.
Bryan J. Maloney
> No, my point was he attributed a style of play (high-powered campaign as
> negative. The word "twink" (or munchkin) implies a style of play that
> somone deems a "lesser" way to play the game. To say that characters or
What is twinky about them is that they are both essentiall ego
projections. Elminster is Greenwood's ego projection. Du'orden is
Essentially Salvatore's ego projection. Thus, since the two men get to
*invent* rules as they go along, it's like a DM creating an NPC that is
automatically and _a priori_ forevermore better than the PCs were, are,
or ever can be, just because he can.
--
Bryan J. Maloney
<chri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> It is however you want your campaign to be. Sure the NPC's are powerful
> but
> just don't use them.
And be sure to erase everything they've ever done from Realms
history--oops, that's it for the Realms, isn't it. The power background
is essentially mandatory for the Realms. Doesn't make it bad, but
removing the feature makes it no longer the Realms. If I were to do
that much rewrite, I might as well make up my own.
>
> > - that with all the really powerful forces for good (Elminster, the 7
> > sisters, the harpers etc) there really isn't the same threat as other
> > places and the balance is wrong.
>
> No way! Check out Lords of Darkness. There are some nasty evil groups
> in
> there. Actually, 3ed has been my first real taste into FR and one of my
> first impressions was how many evil cults and groups there were.
And that is a SIGNIFICANT change from what has gone before. Before
Lords of Darkness, there is no way that any evil creature that could
form a thought of any sort would remain evil. There wasn't any
percentage in it.
Bryan J. Maloney
<ker...@somewhere.net> wrote:
> In article <9v8n7j$2p8$1...@info2.uah.edu>,
> andersm...@email.uah.edu.DELETETHIS says...
> > Just noticed a comment on another thread...but is it now "popular" to
> > not
> > like FR? Why or why not?
>
> Unfortunately, it seems it's always popular to call high fantasy
> "twinkish" and "munchkin."
You mean superhero fantasy, right? Tolkein is high fantasy, and none of
his characters had that kind of power level. The Realms is altogether a
different beast (and should be evaluated on different criteria).
Superhero fantasy isn't automatically munchkin, but when the setup is
such that the authors' pet superheroes automatically succeed and are
defined essentially as "better than the PCs can ever get", then it's
munchkin.
Bryan J. Maloney
<sro...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> that it's become so popular, it's just too mainstream. It lost its edge.
It never had an edge. It has always been very middle-of-the-road and
vanilla.
Bryan J. Maloney
wrote:
> Bill Beasley wrote:
> >
> > Kevin points out some of my biggest gripes about 2e FR. Namely, you
> > couldn't hope to create a character that matched the 'stars' of the
> > world,
> > even given enough exp/time/equipment, because most of the simply
> > 'broke' the
> > rules that everyone else had to live with.
>
> I don't buy this. What if someone were to create a character based off
> of the Incantatrix NPC class from Dragon magazine or ask their DM if
> they could create any other off-the-wall character model? It's not an
> "official" part of the rules, so that would be breaking the rules,
> according to this line of thinking, right? And that's the problem when
Wrong. Forgotten Realms was presented as an OFFICIAL setting. That
implies that it follows the OFFICIAL rules.
Bryan J. Maloney
<j...@connectria.com> wrote:
Elminster was best when he only appeared in "Pages from the Mages".
Mike Hofer
world, and DMing another group in it.
I have to say that the sheer *vastness* of the FRC is quite daunting, and
that at first it turned me off. I thought it would be impossible to get all
the political factions, good forces, evil forces, country names, historical
events, and so on straight. In the end, I chose to ignore the vast majority
of them and only use what I need. It works, I guess, and I get a decent set
of maps. :-)
I'm actually toying with the idea of creating a different setting
altogether. One that starts off much earlier in time--in a primordial world
where the gods have just finished the creation, and have woken up their
newborn children. Little do they know that the gods of darkness loom on the
horizon, ready to tear everything apart. It would give the players the
chance to MAKE the history, instead of living in its wake. It could be a
great world, full of mists and pristine beauty, not yet so FULL of magic.
What little magic is known would not fully be understood. And the races
might not yet know each other.
What happened the first time the disparate races met? How did they
communicate? Did the gods give them a universal speech? And if history later
shows that they drifted apart or became hostile, why? What was the driving
force?
This would certainly be a world where role-playing would be important. There
aren't as many high-powered characters running around, and the slate is
pretty much clean. Say that the races have only been awake for a couple of
hundred years--long enough to develop a society (with the help of the gods,
of course).
To spice it up, have the gods of evil throwing in the occasional bad guy.
Holy cow. I've rambled again. :-)
--
Mike Hofer
"What, you think you're some kinda Jedi wavin' your hand around like that?"
--Watto, Toydarian Junk Dealer
"Jackhammer John" <johnw...@aol.comnospam> wrote in message
news:20011213025730...@mb-mv.aol.com...
Lord_Anthrax
On 13-Dec-2001, Sir Clarence <SirCl...@freenet.de> wrote:
> I agree that the FR products are of high quality and are an interesting
> fantasy
> setting (although I don't use it), but a large percentage of their
> popularity
> comes from the fact that other settings were neglected by TSR and later
> WotC.
> That's marketing.
But there again, you have to wonder why that was done. Could it be because
that's what their customers wanted from them? I doubt very seriously it was
"We shall make the Realms outweigh any other product because it will make
these people suffer, mwahahaha.." it was "Wow, this stuff's really selling,
let's put more time and effort into it, since we -are- trying to make
money..."
That's business.
--
Regards,
The Lord Anthrax
"Arguing with people on Usenet is like participating in the Special
Olympics. Even if you win, you're still a retard." -Anonymous
Dain Bramage
> I agree. I love the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting. And it's got way more
> flesh to it, and useable, non-twink flesh, than does FR.
>
> FR is just a mishmash of cultures, all jammed into the same setting.
> Maztica? Al Qadim(which I loved as a stand alone, btw)? The Horde?
> Kara-Tur? Basically, FR tended to be(though I can't say for sure now) a
> dumping ground for anyone's spiffy idea.
>
I will have to agree with this. Once they started using real world themes in
the FR it went downhill. Drow, Evermeet, Nethril and Moonshae along with a
couple others were fine but it was like "Hey lets make a Mongolian Supplement"
" Where do we put it?" "We can put it in the FR, anything goes in FR"
Don't get me wrong I love FR over any other settings I have played in or seen.
I feel the pantheon and the interlocking politics of it are done well. If you
ignore the Horde, Al'Quadim and such it isnt bad.
Lord_Anthrax
On 13-Dec-2001, "Bryan J. Maloney" <bj...@cornell.edu> wrote:
> Yes, I will agree that, as far as tripe goes, it's better-fleshed-out
> tripe, but in comparison to settings like Glorantha or Tekumel, it
> doesn't even begin to be "richly detailed" in any sense of the phrase.
So is Middle-Earth in comparison. Doesn't mean I want to game in it. ;)
Dain Bramage
>
> >On Wed, 12 Dec 2001 16:54:08 -0600, "Mike Anderson"
> ><andersm...@email.uah.edu.DELETETHIS> wrote:
> >
> >>like FR? Why or why not?
> >
> >"everything's been done" feel to it.
> >
> >You've got the great heros who the pc's will never even be in the same
> >league as, and historical events that overshadow anything the party
> >might possibly do.
>
>
The reason that there is such a big difference is this. As a DM how hard to
work to record what goes on in your gaming sessions? I am quite sure a good DM
can make a book with the PCs as the epic heroes. If you can write well enough
you can even submit it to TSR at the time and WotC now. If they like it they
arrange to publish it. That is how Salvatore got the go ahead for Drizzt.
Unfortunately once you are in they give you story lines and want you to flesh
it out such as "Dragon's Of Summer Flame" and the 5th coughjunkcough Age.
Grandmaster E
Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
><chri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> No, my point was he attributed a style of play (high-powered campaign as
>> negative. The word "twink" (or munchkin) implies a style of play that
>> somone deems a "lesser" way to play the game. To say that characters or
>
>What is twinky about them is that they are both essentiall ego
>projections. Elminster is Greenwood's ego projection. Du'orden is
>Essentially Salvatore's ego projection.
BJ Maloney just redefined role-playing as ego projection, make the
appropiate changes to your rulebooks.
Thus, since the two men get to
>*invent* rules as they go along, it's like a DM creating an NPC that is
>automatically and _a priori_ forevermore better than the PCs were, are,
>or ever can be, just because he can.
Wow, you must have something against game designers or maybe just something
against everything. You make it sound like Greenwood just made it up as he
went along. Um, yep. Same as Greyhawk, as a matter of fact there are still
some spells in the CORE books that bear the spells of the original game
designers - you may recognize a few; Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tenser, Rigby
all pwerful heroes to rival powerful villians in the world of Greyhawk - Iuz
the god ( my Greyhawk is rusty but I know there are more ).Other villians
included Lloth and Asmodeus and Orcus and other interplanar baddies.
Heroes in a world don't mean that its a twink hero , or the DM just made
that guy up so we can't be better than him. Wah.
In the original Greyhawk, you may remember Gord the Rogue- Gygax's .
Gord fought scores of demons and became the" Catlord" right out of the
original Monster Manuals. A lot of powers that catlord and he could defeat
Drizzt with ease ( insert thread war here).
Say what you will about Salvatore and Greenwood but if you tell me Gygax
is a twink too then you are off my Xmas card list!
Im going to start a thread about the original heroes of Greyhawk, because
now I am interested in their names...
Grandmaster E
Canuck DM
>
John Peralta
> The surprising parts are that the negative response
> gets to be so severe, and that it is simplicity to downplay, remove,
alter,
> or just ignore the big NPC's and plentiful magic and see that there's a
lot
> of great campaign setting underneath that just doesn't NEED that extra
> baggage.
I'm with Duane VP on this one. The dislike isn't even logical. What
crystallized it for me was an essay (or rant as he calls it) that Monte Cook
wrote about munchkins. You can read it here:
http://www.montecook.com/arch_anrant3.html
R. Scott Rogers
Caesar Bryan J. Maloney, that
> In article <B83D534C.29494%sro...@mindspring.com>, "R. Scott Rogers"
> <sro...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> that it's become so popular, it's just too mainstream. It lost its edge.
>
> It never had an edge. It has always been very middle-of-the-road and
> vanilla.
Are you dissing my satire? I feel dissed.
Anyway, if FR is vanilla, what's Greyhawk? Wonderbread? Lukewarm tap water?
Greyhawk fans note, I'm not saying Greyhawk is bad, just on a scale where FR
is called bland Greyhawk will end up someplace blander than bland.
Dain Bramage
> In article <jf6g1uotso88i1s5i...@4ax.com>, ka...@ecn.ab.ca
> says...
> > You've got the great heros who the pc's will never even be in the same
> > league as, and historical events that overshadow anything the party
> > might possibly do.
>
> There's something wrong with that? Why do the PCs have to be the most
> powerful beings in the world? Personally, I would rather see a world the
> PCs are simply part of a much larger environment that they can't hope to
> control, but simply manage in.
Depending on how you look at it.
In WWII there was a band of people known as soldiers. They fought and won the
war. These men were plain ordinary people who when a time of crisis happened
they did what was needed and others called them heroes. Not the heroes of
Literature but heroes none the less. September 11th There were many heroes
who despite what was happening around them they did what was needed. When you
look at history and even LotRs you will find people in the stories that were
nothing special they were just doing what was necessary to stop something
that was wrong. Frodo was not special.
If someone is just coping with what is around them then no they will not be a
hero. Is the grocer down the road trying to keep his job a hero? Is he
interesting to play as a character.
I have taken players who create a character and using Imagination and some
Psychology thrust them into situations that require them to be heroes.
It is all what the party wants. A good DM can manipulate even the most
reluctant character to be bold and heroic.
Jason Corley
> You've got the great heros who the pc's will never even be in the same
> league as, and historical events that overshadow anything the party
> might possibly do.
I think this is missing the point of the setting.
I'm running a FR game set in the Dalelands during the Zhentish occupation.
The characters are all Daggerdale militia members who must carefully
balance espionage against the Zhents with keeping the peace, stopping
crime and doing what they're told. It's about midway between Catch-22,
Casablanca and COPS. The PCs will be /instrumental/ in the conflict
between the Dalesmen and the Zhentarim. If you're setting your PC group up
in such a way that they're always going to be overshadowed, that's just
bad campaign design - not the fault of the setting at all.
Let's assume for a moment there's a group of four seventeenth-level
dickwads hanging out in Shadowdale waiting to overthrow the Zhents. If
they come charging in, /they lose/, and probably most of the population of
Daggerdale and Shadowdale get killed. But if they connected up with a
flow of information about the Zhents, they could do serious damage. And
the PCs can be that flow of information.
But really, 17th level dickwads have better things to do than worry about
Daggerdale. (Or even Teshendale, for that matter.) They're off ruling
countries and offing dragons and having romances. There are NPC members of
the resistance (Randall Morn and the Freedom Riders and all that) but four
levelled PCs are not going to be scoffed at in a force that chiefly
consists of first-level rangers and untrained peasants who have lost
everything.
In short, if you make the PCs irrelevant, it is your own damn fault.
--
***************************************************************************
"I was pleased to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't
know."----- Mark Twain, _Life on the Mississippi_
Jason Corley | le...@aeonsociety.org | ICQ 41199011
Dain Bramage
> "Duane VP" <dua...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> > There are basically three reasons. First is that relatively powerful
> >magic is more readily visible than it is in other campaign settings, in
> >large part via NPC's. Such is not to everyone's taste. Second and third
> >are two of those very NPC's: Elminster and Drizzt.
>
> You pretty much nailed my problems with FR.
>
> [snip]
>
> >a more sensible place in scheme of things. Being something not unlike an
> >avatar for the creator of the setting it's not surprising that he should be
> >a living Visa card - he's everywhere you want to be.
>
> Elminster is so blatantly a Mary Sue it's not even funny.
>
> > Drizzt was a popular character from Bob Salvatore's novels but soon
> >everyone seemed to want _their_ character to be just like him. I never read
> >a thing by Salvatore but it seemed pretty clear to me that removing Drizzt
> >(or a Drizzt clone) from the context of the novels and placing him into some
> >poor, unsuspecting DM's campaign was a recipe for annoyance and disaster.
>
> Ah-yup. Drizzie is an oreo.
>
> > There are other nit-picks that detractors like to rank on but these are
> >the root causes IMO. The surprising parts are that the negative response
> >gets to be so severe, and that it is simplicity to downplay, remove, alter,
> >or just ignore the big NPC's and plentiful magic and see that there's a lot
> >of great campaign setting underneath that just doesn't NEED that extra
> >baggage.
>
> If I were ever to run FR (unlikely but possible), I'd make Elminster into
> a senile old fraud and Drizzie would have gone back to evil.
>
> Jay
> --
> J. Verkuilen ja...@uiuc.edu
> "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it
> concentrates his mind wonderfully." --Dr. Samuel Johnson
> Dissertation pages written: 80 (plus lots of rewrites)
When it comes down to it I would rather be a Bard like... The guy who was
trapped. Damn cant remember the name and I should. Too lazy to go over and look
at the book.
Kershek
says...
> Well, FR was great back when it played in small venues. You could tell it
> was "real," you know, doing its own thing for itself and the fans. But now
> that it's become so popular, it's just too mainstream. It lost its edge. I'm
> not saying FR sold out, but success always becomes an end in itself. The
> sincerity and purity of early FR just isn't in the more recent releases.
Why do people insist on product to fail in order for them to be any good?
News flash here - if it's not popular, mainstream and making money, it's
considered a failure and therefore discontinued.
What "edge" did it lose?
Kershek
> >It is however you want your campaign to be. Sure the NPC's are powerful but
> >just don't use them.
>
> major powers.
> Without Elminster, The Symbol etc things are hugely different
Not using them doesn't mean they aren't there - it could mean that you just
don't have access to them.
Kershek
> league as, and historical events that overshadow anything the party
> might possibly do.
There's something wrong with that? Why do the PCs have to be the most
Dain Bramage
>
> --
> The best interpretation of a rule is the one you make yourself.
I agree ^
Guidelines not RULES.
R. Scott Rogers
Caesar Kershek, that
Um, the edge of satire, apparently. Did you really take my first sentence
seriously? The whole "when it played small venues" think is meaningless if I
was talking seriously about FR.
I was decrying the same phenomenon you do here, adapting the tired old "I
loved the band when nobody knew who they were but now that they're on the
radio I've moved on" routine. Almost every REM fan I know has given me that
speech.
Dain Bramage
> On Thu, 13 Dec 2001 06:50:08 -0800, Varl <bsm...@premier1.net> wrote:
>
> >with how close to "official" rules structure I am. Campaigns are
> >supposed to be based on what individual DMs want out of the system, not
> >the other way around...
>
> It's never that tidy, Varl. Almost every GM ends up comprimsing some
> when it comes time to do a campaign. Almost every GM also pulls the
> system around to serve his purposes. If you don't, I have to honestly
> state I'm _very_ convinced you're the exception.
And the ones who stick to the rules like a rules lawyer have no players.
1985 Gencon I played in a game with Greenwood as the DM. The man could
recite page and paragraph on the rules. He was playing an open game by
interperting the rules. Some kid about 15 commented that his character could
do such because of some obscure rule. Greenwood was perturbed by the little
Rules Lawyer and asked him if he wanted to play "by the rules" Stupid kid
said yes. The kid left after an hour. The rest of us just let things go and
had fun.
Guidelines not rules.
The important thing about gaming is the fun that the players and DM have.
john v verkuilen
Wayne Shaw
>On Wed, 12 Dec 2001 16:54:08 -0600, "Mike Anderson"
><andersm...@email.uah.edu.DELETETHIS> wrote:
>
>>Just noticed a comment on another thread...but is it now "popular" to not
>>like FR? Why or why not?
>
>Dunno about others, but IMO it's just got too much of that
>"everything's been done" feel to it.
>
>You've got the great heros who the pc's will never even be in the same
>league as, and historical events that overshadow anything the party
>might possibly do.
Given 3e, I'm not sure it's at all clear in an extended campaign that
the PCs _won't_ be in the same league with those types when they're
done. I looked through the FR book and I didn't see anything even the
Big Dawgs had I couldn't see a PC having after a couple years of
weekly play in 3e.
Wayne Shaw
wrote:
>I may be wrong, but I think I've observed that 3E works far better for
>the Forgotten Realms than 2E did. In 2E the NPCs were so far off the
>standard 2E PC power curve that it was ridiculous. The 3E writeups and
>the 3E advancement system have closed the gap enormously. There doesn't
>seem to be any reason you couldn't run a by-the-book 3E FR campaign for
>a year or two and have PCs roughly comparable to Elminster or Drizzt.
>
Honestly, I think a lot of the "NPCs can have it but you can't"
business went away with 3e; it showed all the signs that someone was
attempting to fit a character concept into the system it wasn't able
to tolerate. Once the hard edged borders of the class system got
softened, the whole process became a _lot_ easier.
john v verkuilen
>Kevin points out some of my biggest gripes about 2e FR. Namely, you
>couldn't hope to create a character that matched the 'stars' of the world,
>even given enough exp/time/equipment, because most of the simply 'broke' the
>rules that everyone else had to live with. Take Drizzt for example. IIRC,
>he was either a multiclassed Fighter/Range(illegal under 2e), or a Dual
>classed Fighter/Ranger(again, illegal under 2e unless he's human in
>disguise). He could also use two weapons of the same size at the same
>time(illegal for most of 2e's lifespan, particularly the part that coincided
>with Drizzt).
Drizzie's two weapon ability goes back to the fact that he was a 1E drow, not
a ranger. But otherwise, yes, I am bothered greatly by the issue you mention.
I usually dislike signature characters and tend to downplay them or kill them
off somehow (not dramatically, but by running the campaign world forward or
backward). But the FR signature characters are just plain old... obtrusive.
Were I to run FR, I'd probably crank the old time machine forward a ways to
let Mother Nature finish off the signature characters.
Wayne Shaw
Wayne Shaw
<mr_...@dragonslave.com> wrote:
>The PCs can never hope to be as strong as the NPCs mentioned above.
>sure its possable, but lets stay within the realm of happening. its
>not going to. Ive never been in a game in where i was a lvl 36
>anything.
Play the same 3e character weekly for, hmmm, probably about two to
three years, and you probably would be unless the GM slowly lessened
the challenges.
Dain Bramage
When in FR I use the Characters such as Elminster and Drizzt and MANY others as
backdrop. They do not affect the world that I run for reasons I do not try to
create. I occasionally bring one in temporarily for color but that is all. How
can you run the Star Wars RPG without at least a cameo appearance by someone
from the Movies?
It adds color and interest to the game. You just need to be careful how you use
the characters and have a good grasp of them.
john v verkuilen
>In article <9v9dtf$du17r$1...@ID-78602.news.dfncis.de>, "chris7476"
><chri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> No, my point was he attributed a style of play (high-powered campaign as
>> negative. The word "twink" (or munchkin) implies a style of play that
>> somone deems a "lesser" way to play the game. To say that characters or
>What is twinky about them is that they are both essentiall ego
>projections. Elminster is Greenwood's ego projection. Du'orden is
>Essentially Salvatore's ego projection. Thus, since the two men get to
>*invent* rules as they go along, it's like a DM creating an NPC that is
>automatically and _a priori_ forevermore better than the PCs were, are,
>or ever can be, just because he can.
The Mary Sue Show (set to the music of the "Scooby Doo Show" Theme).
Mary Mary Sue, Where Are You? We've got some work to do now.
Mary Mary Sue, Where Are You? We need some help from you now.
<ahem>
Dain Bramage
> In article <7p8h1ucpo82pa1a24...@4ax.com>,
> mr_...@dragonslave.com says...
> > The PCs can never hope to be as strong as the NPCs mentioned above.
> > sure its possable, but lets stay within the realm of happening. its
> > not going to. Ive never been in a game in where i was a lvl 36
> > anything.
>
> Again, why do the PCs have to be as strong as NPCs? Wouldn't it be better
> to just be one of the fishes in the sea and just try to survive?
I do that in real life. In a game I want to be the hero and do heroic things.
If I want to just survive and eek out an existence I will stay with the real
world.
Bill Beasley
flesh to it, and useable, non-twink flesh, than does FR.
FR is just a mishmash of cultures, all jammed into the same setting.
Maztica? Al Qadim(which I loved as a stand alone, btw)? The Horde?
Kara-Tur? Basically, FR tended to be(though I can't say for sure now) a
dumping ground for anyone's spiffy idea.
"Bryan J. Maloney" <bj...@cornell.edu> wrote in message
news:bjm10-6DA657....@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu...
> In article <73UR7.52$c92.29...@twister2.starband.net>,
> lorda...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > D&D, with its richly detailed history, world and culture. I -like- the
>
> FR has a "richly detailed history, world and culture"? Since when? Or
> do you mean only in comparison to the other tripe that came out of TSR.
> Yes, I will agree that, as far as tripe goes, it's better-fleshed-out
> tripe, but in comparison to settings like Glorantha or Tekumel, it
> doesn't even begin to be "richly detailed" in any sense of the phrase.
>
Bryan J. Maloney
<sro...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Are you dissing my satire? I feel dissed.
I hadn't realized it was satire. I have come across people who have
thought that FR *was* edgy and full of stuff that nobody had ever
thought of before.
Bryan J. Maloney
E" <blac...@telusplanet.net> wrote:
> Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
> >In article <9v9dtf$du17r$1...@ID-78602.news.dfncis.de>, "chris7476"
> ><chri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> No, my point was he attributed a style of play (high-powered campaign
> >> as
> >> negative. The word "twink" (or munchkin) implies a style of play that
> >> somone deems a "lesser" way to play the game. To say that characters
> >> or
> >
> >What is twinky about them is that they are both essentiall ego
> >projections. Elminster is Greenwood's ego projection. Du'orden is
> >Essentially Salvatore's ego projection.
>
> BJ Maloney just redefined role-playing as ego projection, make the
> appropiate changes to your rulebooks.
Why don't you just go back to your Greenwood shrine and sacrifice some
more dice? Some of us don't believe in worshipping people merely
because they design something.
> In the original Greyhawk, you may remember Gord the Rogue- Gygax's .
> Gord fought scores of demons and became the" Catlord" right out of the
> original Monster Manuals. A lot of powers that catlord and he could
And Gord was a twinkie character.
Kershek
Lord_Anthrax
On 13-Dec-2001, Jason Corley <cor...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net> wrote:
> I think this is missing the point of the setting.
<snip>
> If you're setting your PC group up
> in such a way that they're always going to be overshadowed, that's just
> bad campaign design - not the fault of the setting at all.
<snip>
> But really, 17th level dickwads have better things to do than worry about
> Daggerdale. (Or even Teshendale, for that matter.) They're off ruling
> countries and offing dragons and having romances. There are NPC members of
> the resistance (Randall Morn and the Freedom Riders and all that) but four
> levelled PCs are not going to be scoffed at in a force that chiefly
> consists of first-level rangers and untrained peasants who have lost
> everything.
>
> In short, if you make the PCs irrelevant, it is your own damn fault.
*whistles and cheers and claps* BRAVO! BRAVO! At last someone else who sees
the truth and makes some sense!
--
Regards,
The Lord Anthrax
"Arguing with people on Usenet is like participating in the Special
Olympics. Even if you win, you're still a retard." -Anonymous
Fitz
<kristin...@verizon.net> wrote:
>FR is just a mishmash of cultures, all jammed into the same setting.
>Maztica? Al Qadim(which I loved as a stand alone, btw)? The Horde?
>Kara-Tur?
Unlike, for example, the Real World which as everyone knows is a nice
clean homogenous mass, culturally speaking.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Fitz
http://mojobob.netnet.net.nz
http://fitz.jsr.com
http://usa.spis.co.nz/fitz
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Kershek
>
> Um, the edge of satire, apparently. Did you really take my first sentence
> seriously? The whole "when it played small venues" think is meaningless if I
> was talking seriously about FR.
>
> I was decrying the same phenomenon you do here, adapting the tired old "I
> loved the band when nobody knew who they were but now that they're on the
> radio I've moved on" routine. Almost every REM fan I know has given me that
> speech.
Er, oops :)
Now that I have re-read it with your explanation, I will slink into the
corner and not bother anyone.
Kershek
kristin...@verizon.net says...
> FR is just a mishmash of cultures, all jammed into the same setting.
> Maztica? Al Qadim(which I loved as a stand alone, btw)? The Horde?
> Kara-Tur? Basically, FR tended to be(though I can't say for sure now) a
> dumping ground for anyone's spiffy idea.
Oh, you mean sorta the way Earth is a mismash of cultures?
R. Scott Rogers
Caesar Bryan J. Maloney, that
> In article <B83E5151.295C7%sro...@mindspring.com>, "R. Scott Rogers"
> <sro...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> Are you dissing my satire? I feel dissed.
>
> I hadn't realized it was satire. I have come across people who have
> thought that FR *was* edgy and full of stuff that nobody had ever
> thought of before.
Oh, oh, rub it in. Thanks. Shall I lie down to make your kicking of me
easier? I could get you some salt to rub in that wound. I mean, you couldn't
even be polite and just say, "Sure, I got that you were kidding. I just
wanted to reply to anyone who missed your brilliant satire and make sure
they got the point."
Sheesh. Some people. ;-)
john v verkuilen
>Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
>>In article <9v9dtf$du17r$1...@ID-78602.news.dfncis.de>, "chris7476"
>><chri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> No, my point was he attributed a style of play (high-powered campaign as
>>> negative. The word "twink" (or munchkin) implies a style of play that
>>> somone deems a "lesser" way to play the game. To say that characters or
>>
>>What is twinky about them is that they are both essentiall ego
>>projections. Elminster is Greenwood's ego projection. Du'orden is
>>Essentially Salvatore's ego projection.
>BJ Maloney just redefined role-playing as ego projection, make the
>appropiate changes to your rulebooks.
The fundamental question is: If Elminster was actually in a campaign run by
EG and play circumstance had him get killed, would Greenwood manage to weasel
a way out of it? Of course.
Bottom line: Elminster and Drizzt are the Wesley Crushers of Forgotten Realms.
Look, if you like Mary Sue type characters like ol' Wes, be my guest, but
you're going to find a lot of people seriously disliking them.
> In the original Greyhawk, you may remember Gord the Rogue- Gygax's .
>Gord fought scores of demons and became the" Catlord" right out of the
>original Monster Manuals. A lot of powers that catlord and he could defeat
>Drizzt with ease ( insert thread war here).
> Say what you will about Salvatore and Greenwood but if you tell me Gygax
>is a twink too then you are off my Xmas card list!
Gord the Rogue is just as bad, though Mordenkainen is obviously "what EGG
would be if he could"--cripes, the picture on the cover of Mordenkainen's
Fantastic Adventure actually looks like an idealized version of EGG.
Sir Clarence
> On 13-Dec-2001, Sir Clarence <SirCl...@freenet.de> wrote:
>
> > I agree that the FR products are of high quality and are an interesting
> > fantasy
> > setting (although I don't use it), but a large percentage of their
> > popularity
> > comes from the fact that other settings were neglected by TSR and later
> > WotC.
> > That's marketing.
>
> But there again, you have to wonder why that was done. Could it be because
> that's what their customers wanted from them? I doubt very seriously it was
> "We shall make the Realms outweigh any other product because it will make
> these people suffer, mwahahaha.." it was "Wow, this stuff's really selling,
> let's put more time and effort into it, since we -are- trying to make
> money..."
> That's business.
Yeah, that's business. And I know that it wasn't done to make some people who
prefer other game settings suffer.
You have to keep in mind though that, at the same time when FR really started to
become big, there was a remarkable decline in GH publications. And those
products that were published were so crappy (Child's Play, Puppets, Gargoyle...)
that I sometimes wonder if this was done on purpose to make people change the
game setting.
Clarence
john v verkuilen
>I was decrying the same phenomenon you do here, adapting the tired old "I
>loved the band when nobody knew who they were but now that they're on the
>radio I've moved on" routine. Almost every REM fan I know has given me that
>speech.
Guess I'm lucky: I hated REM from day one. Down with Mumble Stipe! :)
However, there is a point in the claim beyond the "it's not cool now that
everyone else is here" issue. Bands often move on substantially from where
they started after a big hit. A lot happens from natural evolution and the
sophomore slump is also well-known, but a lot also happens because the money
men force changes.
Take Chicago, for instance. IMO, the first half dozen Chicago albums have
some of the most vital and original music in rock 'n' roll. "If You Leave Me
Now"--which is a good song--changed that. It was a #1 hit and the record
company just HAD to have more just like it. Chicago was a group blessed with
good songwriters (alas Terry Kath died), but as time went one they weren't
allowed to write for themselves, but had to have songs done by Dianne Warren,
etc., the same writers who write every other friggin' hit on the radio. They
became, in a word, LAME because the record company forced them there.
Eventually they just gave up, because they knew thing's had become lame.
Alas, the same goes for writers, game companies, and nearly any other creative
person. In the move from relative niche market to broader appeal is dicey.
You frequently lose your old fans during the transition.
john v verkuilen
>the 3E advancement system have closed the gap enormously. There doesn't
>seem to be any reason you couldn't run a by-the-book 3E FR campaign for
>a year or two and have PCs roughly comparable to Elminster or Drizzt.
I think that statement sums up precisely why 3E as written bothers me.
Obviously, many peoples' mileage varies.
>Possibly Greenwood's house rules were closer to 3E than 2E, and the FR
>NPCs got distorted when crammed into 2E moulds. Or maybe he just
>sucked. :-) Some of the ideas embedded in FR are pretty damn stupid
>(like Spellfire), but I'm sure you can just axe the dumb superhero
>tropes and run a decent game.
Absolutely. I've played in two FR based games that were pretty good. I would
consider using it (indeed have considered), but only after doing some
stripping down and repainting.
Grandmaster E
Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
>In article <uA5S7.6747$%Q1.11...@news1.telusplanet.net>, "Grandmaster
>E" <blac...@telusplanet.net> wrote:
>
>> Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
>> >In article <9v9dtf$du17r$1...@ID-78602.news.dfncis.de>, "chris7476"
>> ><chri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> No, my point was he attributed a style of play (high-powered campaign
>> >> as
>> >> negative. The word "twink" (or munchkin) implies a style of play that
>> >> somone deems a "lesser" way to play the game. To say that characters
>> >> or
>> >
>> >What is twinky about them is that they are both essentiall ego
>> >projections. Elminster is Greenwood's ego projection. Du'orden is
>> >Essentially Salvatore's ego projection.
>>
>> BJ Maloney just redefined role-playing as ego projection, make the
>> appropiate changes to your rulebooks.
>
>Why don't you just go back to your Greenwood shrine and sacrifice some
>more dice? Some of us don't believe in worshipping people merely
>because they design something.
Kind of an irrational hatred. I don't think buying someone's products,
reading their books and "ego projecting" or role-playing in a world of their
design. Maybe you could tell some about the world you come from.
BJ, I enjoy having a debate and really, I don't think everyone who disagrees
with me is wrong. ButShow me some sensible points instead of "Gord is a
twink". If you don't like anyone who designs Dungeons&Dragons stuff then
why do you play?
>
>> In the original Greyhawk, you may remember Gord the Rogue- Gygax's .
>> Gord fought scores of demons and became the" Catlord" right out of the
>> original Monster Manuals. A lot of powers that catlord and he could
>
>And Gord was a twinkie character.
Thats it!!!! Off the Xmas list!!
Grandmaster "Bigby's Clenched Fist" E
Canuck DM
NtlAcrobat
>because they design something.
Some of us don't believe in worshipping Anything at all...
john v verkuilen
>Again, why do the PCs have to be as strong as NPCs? Wouldn't it be better
>to just be one of the fishes in the sea and just try to survive?
I don't mind that at all. PCs in my campaign aren't usually the top end of
the power spectrum anyway.
What bugs me is the rampant presence of characters who are the rough equivalent
of PCs (some were clearly former PCs) that I cannot believe were actually
created according to the rules. For instance, I don't believe for a minute
that Mordenkainen was actually played up to archmage from the bottom, or
that he even could have been (absent lots of freebie level-ups like magic items
or wishes). Elminster and Drizzt are just way gone from being *possible*.
3E fixed this in the sense that it made it possible to get that powerful
sticking to the rulebook, though I think from a world-building perspective
it ended up making the high end too accessible (whereas 1/2E made the high
end too inaccessible). Obviously YMMV.
Bryan J. Maloney
<sro...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> And it came to pass on 12/13/01 2:02 PM, that there went out a decree
> from
> Caesar Bryan J. Maloney, that
>
> > In article <B83E5151.295C7%sro...@mindspring.com>, "R. Scott Rogers"
> > <sro...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Are you dissing my satire? I feel dissed.
> >
> > I hadn't realized it was satire. I have come across people who have
> > thought that FR *was* edgy and full of stuff that nobody had ever
> > thought of before.
>
> Oh, oh, rub it in. Thanks. Shall I lie down to make your kicking of me
> easier? I could get you some salt to rub in that wound. I mean, you
> couldn't
> even be polite and just say, "Sure, I got that you were kidding. I just
> wanted to reply to anyone who missed your brilliant satire and make sure
> they got the point."
Humperdink!
Humperdink!
Humperdink!
Humperdink!
Bryan J. Maloney
E" <blac...@telusplanet.net> wrote:
> Who is worshipping? Did Greenwood cheat you at cards or something?
> Kind of an irrational hatred.
If you think I'm feeling hatred, you must be posting from the world
inhabited by Bob the Builder.
> I don't think buying someone's products,
> reading their books and "ego projecting" or role-playing in a world of
> their
> design. Maybe you could tell some about the world you come from.
Maybe you could tell some about the language you think you're using.
Someone set us up the bomb?
>
> BJ, I enjoy having a debate and really, I don't think everyone who
> disagrees
> with me is wrong. ButShow me some sensible points instead of "Gord is a
> twink". If you don't like anyone who designs Dungeons&Dragons stuff then
> why do you play?
Are you really as stupid as you are pretending to be? I happen to have
had more than a few pleasant correspondences with Mr. Gygax over the
years (as a kid he used to fence with old-style German sabres--betcha
didn't know that). I still think Gord is twinkie. Likewise, I'll have
to agree that Elminster is a Mary Sue extraordinaire. Just how does
that mean I bear actual hatred for Ed Greenwood?
Bill Beasley
rules. As a player AND as a GM, I like to play by the rules. What's the
point of having rules, if not to give a sense of fairness and consistency?
"Dain Bramage" <bra...@bastardclan.com> wrote in message
news:3C19277B...@bastardclan.com...
> And the ones who stick to the rules like a rules lawyer have no players.
>
> 1985 Gencon I played in a game with Greenwood as the DM. The man could
> recite page and paragraph on the rules. He was playing an open game by
> interperting the rules. Some kid about 15 commented that his character
could
> do such because of some obscure rule. Greenwood was perturbed by the
little
> Rules Lawyer and asked him if he wanted to play "by the rules" Stupid kid
> said yes. The kid left after an hour. The rest of us just let things go
and
> had fun.
>
> Guidelines not rules.
>
> The important thing about gaming is the fun that the players and DM have.
Bill Beasley
"Dain Bramage" <bra...@bastardclan.com> wrote in message
news:3C1926E1...@bastardclan.com...
> Varl wrote:
>
> >
> > --
> > The best interpretation of a rule is the one you make yourself.
>
> I agree ^
>
> Guidelines not RULES.
Kershek
says...
> > Again, why do the PCs have to be as strong as NPCs? Wouldn't it be better
> > to just be one of the fishes in the sea and just try to survive?
>
> I do that in real life. In a game I want to be the hero and do heroic things.
> If I want to just survive and eek out an existence I will stay with the real
> world.
Sometimes standing out in a sea of your equals is heroic in itself.
Bill Beasley
Dain Bramage
> All that is fine and good, FOR YOUR GROUP. My groups LIKE playing by the
> rules. As a player AND as a GM, I like to play by the rules. What's the
> point of having rules, if not to give a sense of fairness and consistency?
>
When there is a conflict between the rules and the story. The story will always
win.
Dain Bramage
Ummm how the hell do you stand out if you are equal?
Bramage
How do we know Gandalf is powerful?
He fought the Balrog.
How do we know the Balrog was powerful?
It fought Gandalf.
Bill Beasley
doing, not what the GM forces them to do.
"Dain Bramage" <bra...@bastardclan.com> wrote in message
news:3C1938A0...@bastardclan.com...
Horsepool
<bra...@bastardclan.com> wrote:
>I do that in real life. In a game I want to be the hero and do heroic things.
>If I want to just survive and eek out an existence I will stay with the real
>world.
>
>Bramage
I like hackmasters opinion on the hero thing.
The only thing that makes you any differant from the adverage pessant
is a few years of training and WHAT you do. NOT your stats/Abilites.
Thats a thing i think we could all learn from:)
Horsepool
Bryan J. Maloney
Beasley" <kristin...@verizon.net> wrote:
> You should go write a book, then. The 'story' is what the players are
> doing, not what the GM forces them to do.
Careful, the One True Storytelling Way police will come and get you.
Jason Corley
> 3E fixed this in the sense that it made it possible to get that powerful
> sticking to the rulebook, though I think from a world-building perspective
> it ended up making the high end too accessible (whereas 1/2E made the high
> end too inaccessible). Obviously YMMV.
The impression I've gotten is that the high end of levels in 3e are
/extraordinarily/ varied. That is, two eighteenth level fighters may look
and act incredibly differently - you can expect them to have approximately
the same amount of hit points and class features, and to be better at the
class skills than at the non-class skills but there's not a lot else you
can say about the two of them with great certainty. High-level characters
are /designed/ in 3e, not just picked off a table.
In brief, if you're going to make a character "like" Elminster, you have
to decide to do it at about 3rd-4th level and never deviate from the plan,
ever. If you're going to make a character "as powerful as" Elminster, that
isn't really going to be a problem, for sufficiently broad definitions of
"power".
Honestly, I don't know which I would consider "more powerful" - the 20th
level single-class wizard, or the 20th level multiclass character with 5
levels in sorcerer, 5 in fighter, 5 in rogue and 5 in ranger. If you limit
"more powerful" to "who can crank out the most HPs of damage", the 20W
wins hands-down. But if you start testing other things - /anything/,
really, and the broad-skill low-firepower character will look a lot more
inviting. D&D3 actually has a skill system. Being able to do things
actually /means/ something now.
--
***************************************************************************
"I was pleased to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't
know."----- Mark Twain, _Life on the Mississippi_
Jason Corley | le...@aeonsociety.org | ICQ 41199011
RuralQLDcc
support for other characters who are NPC's, whats the point. I personally
have never really looked at FR in any great detail but if there are NPC's
who are described as being better than anything the PC's could ever hope to
achieve....
Really, is'nt part of the attraction of a Role Playing Game something about
the fact that there is the possibility to do anything, become anyone etc.
Those sorts of basics built into a setting are already infringing on some
players wishes.
Renquist
"Grandmaster E" <blac...@telusplanet.net> wrote in message
news:uA5S7.6747$%Q1.11...@news1.telusplanet.net...
>
> Bryan J. Maloney wrote in message ...
> >In article <9v9dtf$du17r$1...@ID-78602.news.dfncis.de>, "chris7476"
> ><chri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> No, my point was he attributed a style of play (high-powered campaign
as
> >> negative. The word "twink" (or munchkin) implies a style of play that
> >> somone deems a "lesser" way to play the game. To say that characters
or
> >
> >What is twinky about them is that they are both essentiall ego
> >projections. Elminster is Greenwood's ego projection. Du'orden is
> >Essentially Salvatore's ego projection.
>
> BJ Maloney just redefined role-playing as ego projection, make the
> appropiate changes to your rulebooks.
>
>
>
> Thus, since the two men get to
> >*invent* rules as they go along, it's like a DM creating an NPC that is
> >automatically and _a priori_ forevermore better than the PCs were, are,
> >or ever can be, just because he can.
>
> Wow, you must have something against game designers or maybe just
something
> against everything. You make it sound like Greenwood just made it up as
he
> went along. Um, yep. Same as Greyhawk, as a matter of fact there are
still
> some spells in the CORE books that bear the spells of the original game
> designers - you may recognize a few; Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tenser, Rigby
> all pwerful heroes to rival powerful villians in the world of Greyhawk -
Iuz
> the god ( my Greyhawk is rusty but I know there are more ).Other villians
> included Lloth and Asmodeus and Orcus and other interplanar baddies.
> Heroes in a world don't mean that its a twink hero , or the DM just
made
> that guy up so we can't be better than him. Wah.
> In the original Greyhawk, you may remember Gord the Rogue- Gygax's .
> Gord fought scores of demons and became the" Catlord" right out of the
> original Monster Manuals. A lot of powers that catlord and he could
defeat
> Drizzt with ease ( insert thread war here).
> Say what you will about Salvatore and Greenwood but if you tell me
Gygax
> is a twink too then you are off my Xmas card list!
>
> Im going to start a thread about the original heroes of Greyhawk, because
> now I am interested in their names...
>
> Grandmaster E
> Canuck DM
Dain Bramage
> You should go write a book, then. The 'story' is what the players are
> doing, not what the GM forces them to do.
>
And if the RULES say that someone has to do something one way and it will
negatively affect the story? Why not show some leeway and allow the player to
do what the they want and the story needs.
Besides a game this might be but it is not Monopoly. It is a game of
imagination and expression. It is a story that the players create their
characters actions and dialogue. You might as well ROLL-Play if you want to
stick to the rules.
Quote from 1E DM Guide
Is Dungeon Mastering an art or a science? An interesting question!
If you consider the pure creative aspect of starting from scratch, the
"personal touch" of individual flair that goes into preparing and running a
unique campaign or the particular style of moderating a game adventure, then
Dungeon Mastering may indeed be thought of as an art.
If you consider the aspect of experimentation, the painstaking effort of
preparation and attention to detail and the contunuing search for new ideas and
approaches, then Dungeon Mastering is perhaps more like a science - not always
exacting in a literal sense but exacting in terms of what is required to do the
job well.
Esoteric questions aside, one thing is for certain - Dungeon Mastering is,
above all, a labor of love. It is a demanding, time consuming and certainly not
a task to be undertaken lightly buy as all DM's know, the rewards are great -
an endless challenge to the imagination and intellect, and enjoyable pastime to
fill many hours with fantastic and often unpredictable happenings and an
opportunity to watch a story unfold and a grand idea to grow and flourish. The
imagination knows no bounds and the possibilities of the game of Advanced
Dungeons and Dragons are just as limitless. Who can say what awaits each
player, except a cornucopia of fantasy and heroic adventure? So much is waiting
indeed!
This book (1e DM Guide) holds much in store for you as a DM - it is primarily a
tool in constructing your own "world" or milieu. It contains a wealth of
material and combinded with the other works of AD&D gives you all the
information you need to play AD&D but as always one more thing is needed - your
imagination. Use the written material as your foundation and inspiration, then
explore the creative possibilities you have in your own mind to make your game
something special.
Dungeon Mastering itself is no easy undertaking to be sure but Dungeon
Mastering well is doubly difficult. There are few gamemasters around who are so
superb in their conduct of play that they could disdain the opportunity to
improve themselves in some way. Fortunately, this work addresses the matter at
lenght and gives you plenty of suggestions on all aspects of Dungeon Mastering
(as well as some of the finer points) in order to help you improive your own
efferts. Take heed and always endeavor to make the game the best it can be -
and all that is can be.
Mike Carr
TSR Games & Rules Editor
16 May 1979
An excert(sp) from page 9
The final word, then, is the game. Read how and why the system is as it is,
follow the parameters and then cut portions as needed to maintain excitement.
Bascially follow the rules and when necessary for the fun an story dont follow
the rules.
Dain Bramage
> john v verkuilen <ja...@uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> > 3E fixed this in the sense that it made it possible to get that powerful
> > sticking to the rulebook, though I think from a world-building perspective
> > it ended up making the high end too accessible (whereas 1/2E made the high
> > end too inaccessible). Obviously YMMV.
>
1e Bard - Argueably one of the most powerful classes in AD&D at the time.
Party - Average Level of 14.
XP = to about 1,575,000 Assuming Cleric as mid range XP gains.
Cleric 14
Fighter 13
Magic User 13
Thief 16
That give the Bard about level 17
Amazingly enough that is how the XP works out.
I checked it twice.
This is by the numbers as well.
16 Con = +2/level
Fighter 6 so maybe about 55 HP
Thief 7 add about another 45 HP.
Bard 17 add about another 75 HP
Total HP = 175
Hit like a fighter.
Sneak and such like a thief
Cast spells like a Druid 4/4/3/3/3
and use Bardic abilities.
One bad ass character by the rules.
I do not think 1e was hard to hit the high end.
BTW Bard has and will always be my favorite class in AD&D/Medieval settings.
Everyone who has gamed has had their one perfect roll for character stats. Mine
was for my Bard in 1976. He attained level 18 in 1983 and I retired him.
Bramage
How do we know Gandalf was powerful?
He fought the Balrog.
How do we know the Balrog was powerful?
It fought Gandalf.
--
Varl
> It's never that tidy, Varl. Almost every GM ends up comprimsing some
> when it comes time to do a campaign.
Explain. I'd love to hear some of the compromises you had to make to get
the campaign you wanted. :-)
Almost every GM also pulls the
> system around to serve his purposes. If you don't, I have to honestly
> state I'm _very_ convinced you're the exception.
Of course I manipulate the system to what I want it to be for me. I
wouldn't have it any other way, well, unless a player comes up with a
better alternative than I have for a rule or something.
Rupert Boleyn
<bra...@bastardclan.com> wrote:
>Bill Beasley wrote:
>
>> All that is fine and good, FOR YOUR GROUP. My groups LIKE playing by the
>> rules. As a player AND as a GM, I like to play by the rules. What's the
>> point of having rules, if not to give a sense of fairness and consistency?
>>
>
>When there is a conflict between the rules and the story. The story will always
>win.
What story? In my games the 'story' is what you sit round the campfire
and tell everybody after the campaign's over. As far as I'm concerned
there's no story when I'm running the game. Rules lose to fidelity to
the setting and very, very occasionally to my sense of drama (such as
it is) or fairness, but that's it. And IMO the first and last case
shouldn't happen with a good set of rules (actually make that "a
perfect set of rules") because they'll accurately reflect the world
and be fair.
Right now I use D&D3 for heroic fantasy because the rules co-operate
better than any other ones that I have handy, so the amount of
house-ruling, fudging and outright cheating required to keep things
working is kept to a minimum.
--
Rupert Boleyn <rbo...@paradise.net.nz>
"Inside every cynic is a romantic trying to get out."
Varl
>
> All that is fine and good, FOR YOUR GROUP. My groups LIKE playing by the
> rules. As a player AND as a GM, I like to play by the rules. What's the
> point of having rules, if not to give a sense of fairness and consistency?
Sorry Bill. I didn't mean to imply in any way that you don't use fair
and consistent rules. I'm sure you do. That being said, rules changes
can stand side by side official dogma and still be fair and consistent.
You're right. The fact that certain NPCs in the FR use skills or
abilities that PCs cannot ever gain access to is, by itself, a
restriction supported by the DM *because* the official rules say PCs
cannot gain access to those skills or abilities. I'm merely saying it's
okay for a DM to change those rules so PCs can get those abilities too,
no matter what that skill or ability happens to be, and that action in
no way compromises the fact that the DM is still using the core FR rules
for his campaign. It becomes a variant setting of the FR, true, but
still is the FR at its core, and especially if the game world still
exudes the flavor of the campaign setting.
Robert Baldwin
<andersm...@email.uah.edu.DELETETHIS> wrote:
>Just noticed a comment on another thread...but is it now "popular" to not
>like FR? Why or why not?
My dislike comes from:
a) It's over-worked. I want generalized info, not a fully detailed
world.
b) The mass of incredibly bad fiction using FR as a setting made it
ripe for ridicule. Either a game setting *or* a playground for
writer's pet pc's, please.
c) *Any* world with Elmonster desrves to be diss'ed. Repeatedly.
--
Saint Baldwin, Definer of the Unholy Darkspawn
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"So here we are going into battle, butt freaking naked.
What's wrong with this picture?"
Nene Romanova
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"Everyone dies someday; the trick is doing it well." [St. B]
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