JTBHMFH
Peter Keller
: I was just thinking[1]. Has anyone else read the comic book 'Johnny the
: Homicidal Maniac'? Now /there/ is a book that is just chock full of the
: most indescribably[2] bloody LARTs I have ever had the privilige to lay eyes
: on. Truly a work of art.
Oh yes. I have read it. It is so damn funny it is unbelievable. I was
laughing for days afterwards whenever I thought about it. A definite
must see. Did they ever make any more of them?
And oh yes, you *can* describe the LARTs. I would, but it has been a year
since I read it and I can't remember them fully anymore.
--
-pete
E-mail address corrupted to stop spam.
Reply mail: psilord at cs dot wisc dot edu
I am responsible for what I say, noone else.
Derry Hamilton
> I was just thinking[1]. Has anyone else read the comic book 'Johnny the
> Homicidal Maniac'? Now /there/ is a book that is just chock full of the
> most indescribably[2] bloody LARTs I have ever had the privilige to lay eyes
> on. Truly a work of art.
I quite like 'Pooh goes apeshit'. An amusing read if you can find it.
Derry Hamilton ras...@tardis.ed.ac.uk
/********************************************************************
* I think your cats need tuning - according to a couple of quick *
* measurements on a recently calibrated reference cat, the dominant *
* frequency of a correctly adjusted cat should be 12Hz +/-20%. *
* ===Lionel Lauer on a.s.r=== *
*********************************************************************/
Chris Johnson
(Alex) wrote:
> I was just thinking[1]. Has anyone else read the comic book 'Johnny the
> Homicidal Maniac'? Now /there/ is a book that is just chock full of the
> most indescribably[2] bloody LARTs I have ever had the privilige to lay eyes
> on. Truly a work of art.
I tell you: "Grimtooth's Traps" and the sequel, Traps Too.
We are talking entirely devoted to incredibly creative, insanely
vicious LARTs. Of course, very many of them are just plain fatal. Which is
not to say that all of them LART quick! This book was originally written
for the D'n'D market, though it was arguably too nasty. There is nothing
to compare to it, nothing.
:)
Jinx_tigr
(aka Chris Johnson)
Peter da Silva
Chris Johnson <chr...@airwindows.com> wrote:
> We are talking entirely devoted to incredibly creative, insanely
>vicious LARTs. Of course, very many of them are just plain fatal. Which is
>not to say that all of them LART quick! This book was originally written
>for the D'n'D market, though it was arguably too nasty. There is nothing
>to compare to it, nothing.
Not D&D, T&T. Tunnels and Trolls. The game with the bastard combat system
from hell.
I mean it, it was insane. You added up points on both sides of the combat,
rolled a couple of dice. That represented 6 minutes of combat in those two
rolls. Then you got to figure out which two of your characters got critical
hits and are going to die. Really made you want to stay away from pointy
things.
--
In hoc signo hack, Peter da Silva <pe...@baileynm.com>
`-_-' "It takes 5 NT servers to offer the performance and availability
'U` of a single UNIX server" -- Network Computing, July 15 1998.
Bob Dowling
In article <6rc03j$a...@web.nmti.com>, pe...@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
> I mean it, [T&T] was insane.
>...
> Really made you want to stay away from pointy things.
Like managers?
Just how many hit dice are there on a PHB? More to the point, what's the XP
for killing one?
It's been a long time since I played D&D. But not long enough.
--
Bob Dowling: UNIX Support, University of Cambridge Computing Service,
rj...@cam.ac.uk New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge, UK. CB2 3QG
+44 1223 334728 http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/
--- Those who do not learn from Dilbert are doomed to repeat it. ---
Andre van Eyssen
>On Mon, 17 Aug 1998, Alex wrote:
>
>> I was just thinking[1]. Has anyone else read the comic book 'Johnny the
>> Homicidal Maniac'? Now /there/ is a book that is just chock full of the
>> most indescribably[2] bloody LARTs I have ever had the privilige to lay eyes
>> on. Truly a work of art.
I'm pretty sure I have a copy of this somewhere. If anyone wants it,
just ask and I'll mail it.
--
_______________________________________________________________________
Andre van Eyssen K.S.C., D.H.V.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaelos Computing (T4216908).
Deputy Coordinator, Hunter Region APANA.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Intel Klamath 233/192Mb/8Gb/Linux AMD K6-200/64Mb/2.5Gb/Linux
Intel Pentium 75/32Mb/0.2Gb/FreeBSD i80486DX2-66/16Mb/180Mb/Linux
Intel 80486DX-33/8Mb/Linux Am386sx-25/8Mb/40Mb/Linux
Why Bother? It all sucks
Kimberly Murphy-Smith
wrote:
>In article <35d8b62d...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>,
>Kimberly Murphy-Smith <kamu...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>}Watch the film THE SHADOW (starring Alec Baldwin and John Lone as
>}BPsychicsFH Lamont Cranston and Shiwan Khan) for some truly
>}awe-inspiring LARTs.
>
>The Shadow was one of the better movies I've ever seen, but it was a
>BMovieFH re: the first 5 minutes. A discussion with co-workers of the
>time[1]:
>
>Me: I loved The Shadow.
>
>*general agreement*
>
>Cow-orker: I didn't like it. It didn't make a lot of sense at all.
>
>Me: You missed the first few minutes, didn't you?
>
>Cow-orker: Yup. Came in late.
>
>Me: That's why.
Yep. Miss the first five to ten minutes and half the film is lost on
you.
>I don't know if they never filmed the exposition where Cranston trained
>with the monk, or if it got left on the cutting-room floor, but it's the
>first movie I've been to where the entire background information for the
>movie came from the introductory voiceover, and the background information
>was essential. I like it. :)
Me too. Forces you to remember things.
My husband had never seen it uncut (that is, not on TV) until I bought
the video last week. He was STUNNED at all that got cut out for TV
viewers. "But that scene was important!" he kept saying. "I can't
believe they cut out the dream sequences/Empire State Building/message
in the tube/agents exchanging messages/etc.!"
>For being a "cheesy", overlooked movie, they sure got the better actors for
>the job (Jonathon Winters, Peter Boyle, Tim Curry, etc.)
You can tell they had buck$ to spend.
>}Face it, haven't we all wanted to torture lusers
>}in a dark tube room like this?
>
>}"You downloaded 16 MB of porn, luser. Did you really think you'd get
>}away with it? Did you think *I* wouldn't know? HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA...."
>
>Giving a really bad luser the impression that a 20+ story window is the
>exit isn't shoddy either.
That is one of my favorite scenes in the whole film.
[1] NMF.
Kimberly Murphy-Smith (kamu...@ix.netcom.com)
http://members.aol.com/kimmurphy/
The Streak Continues...2600 Consecutive Games And Counting...
Congratulations, Cal!
Georg Bauer
>I mean it, it was insane. You added up points on both sides of the combat,
>rolled a couple of dice.
Harder than AD&D, where you even had separate hitpoints for parts of your
body? Or Midgard, where each round in combat took a minute?
bye, Georg
Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH
+-----
| Just how many hit dice are there on a PHB? More to the point, what's the XP
| for killing one?
20d20, and negative (you get promoted into its place).
--
brandon s. allbery [os/2][linux][solaris][japh] all...@kf8nh.apk.net
system administrator [WAY too many hats] all...@ece.cmu.edu
electrical and computer engineering
carnegie mellon university (bsa@kf8nh is still valid.)
Eric The Read
> Harder than AD&D, where you even had separate hitpoints for parts of your
> body? Or Midgard, where each round in combat took a minute?
Er? When has AD&D had separate hitpoints for parts of the body? I don't
recall seeing this anywhere in 1st ed (though Ghod knows I didn't get all
of the supplementary books for that monstrosity), and I'm quite sure it's
not in 2nd ed.
-=Eric
Peter Gutmann
g...@hugo.westfalen.de (Georg Bauer) writes:
>In article <6rc03j$a...@web.nmti.com>, pe...@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva) wrote:
>>I mean it, it was insane. You added up points on both sides of the combat,
>>rolled a couple of dice.
>Harder than AD&D, where you even had separate hitpoints for parts of your
>body? Or Midgard, where each round in combat took a minute?
The separate-hitpoints thing is RQ, not AD&D. Played this once with a GM who
could make a single round of combat last the entire lunch hour (which was just
over half an hour long). It wasn't so much combat as more a deep
philosophical discussion on various theoretical aspects of combat and their
repercussions on the PC's.
Anyone ever play Star Ace? I think that was what it was called, the one they
shipped without bothering to beta test it - the sample module included with
the rules put you up against about a dozen lizardmen in a swamp (their native
environment, and not yours) with a hover tank and proton projector rifles.
You had a single laser pistol. Probably came from the "get past this and it's
all downhill from there" school.
Peter.
Peter Gutmann
pe...@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In article <chrisj-1708...@usr1a6.bratt.sover.net>,
>Chris Johnson <chr...@airwindows.com> wrote:
>> We are talking entirely devoted to incredibly creative, insanely
>>vicious LARTs. Of course, very many of them are just plain fatal. Which is
>>not to say that all of them LART quick! This book was originally written
>>for the D'n'D market, though it was arguably too nasty. There is nothing
>>to compare to it, nothing.
>Not D&D, T&T. Tunnels and Trolls. The game with the bastard combat system
>from hell.
>I mean it, it was insane. You added up points on both sides of the combat,
>rolled a couple of dice. That represented 6 minutes of combat in those two
>rolls. Then you got to figure out which two of your characters got critical
>hits and are going to die. Really made you want to stay away from pointy
>things.
T&T never had criticals (unless it was some later version which I never
played), the combat system was very simple: Weapons got xd6 + y adds (eg
4d+2), you rolled that, the other person did as well, and whoever got less
took the difference in hits. Damage took effect simultaneously except for
magic and missile weapons which hit first (so the idea was to blast them in
the initial round, then close in for hand-to-hand). Very simple, and very
effective (much better than the artificial game-device combat necessary to get
D&D to work). It even had a simple method of ensuring that as you got weaker,
you got less effective in combat, although this only applied to NPC's.
Compare this to something like Rollmaster, which for its vast level of extra
complexity only adds a tiny level of further effectiveness.
Peter.
Lionel Lauer
that:
>Also sprach rj...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Bob Dowling) (<6rc2f8$b2p$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>):
>+-----
>| Just how many hit dice are there on a PHB? More to the point, what's the XP
>| for killing one?
>+--->8
>
>20d20, and negative (you get promoted into its place).
They also have regeneration, same as trolls.
Lionel.
--
Grep bait: qmail, Archimedes Plutonium, turkey, Kibo, Wollmann, Meow.
Grep bait de jour: Theresa Willis, Terri
Perna condita delenda est. Agree? - See http://www.ybecker.net/pink/
"Some people are alive only because it is illegal to kill them."
Christer Borang
[PHB stats]
>They also have regeneration, same as trolls.
Burn, motherfscker, burn[0]!
//Christer
[0] The PHB, that is[1].
[1] Not that I'd would stop you from burning, if you wanted to. Could
be less painful than sysadminning...
--
| Kapellgatan 6 | Phone: Home +46 (0)31 169203, CTH +46 (0)707 535757 |
| S-411 33 Goteborg | WWW: http://www.cd.chalmers.se/~mort/ |
| Sweden | Email: mo...@cd.chalmers.se |
"Actually, Microsoft is sort of a mixture between the Borg and the Ferengi"
Peter Gutmann
rj...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Bob Dowling) writes:
>Like managers?
>Just how many hit dice are there on a PHB? More to the point, what's the XP
>for killing one?
The April'84 Dragon magazine has descriptions of both PHB character types
(although they call them DM's) and luser character types (they call it the
hopeless character class), complete with the obligatory obnoxious AD&D level
names (klutz, quack, goof, incompetent, etc etc), innate bonuses (opponents
get an automatic +5 if one of these guys fights on your side, ability to cast
fumble on self 3x/day), etc etc.
Peter.
(And before anyone asks, I never played (A)D&D, which was a weenies game (the
April Dragon also contains a good summary of why you'd want to avoid it).
Things like Rollmaster when it was done by Tolkien fans was much better, but
went downhill when they started inventing their own additions (eg the Arcane
rules). Most entertaining was Gamma World when you played it the way we did
(characters were a stockbroker, a giant amoeba, a walking asparagus being
roleplayed by a potted plant called Schuebedepaus[0], etc). This weirded out
a few players for some reason).
[0] The plant, not the asparagus. The asparagus was called Fred.
Stefan Morrell
>
> Compare this to something like Rollmaster, which for its vast level of
> extra complexity only adds a tiny level of further effectiveness.
Yes... but some of the criticals in rulemaster are really funny.
"Ok... so you've killed the goblin king and all of his friends.. do ya
feel better now?" Former rulemaster GM on the subject of the Great
Goblin.
Cya
Stef
--
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
creeps in this petty pace from day to day
to the last syllable of recorded time.
smor...@dial.pipex.com
Georg Bauer
<emsc...@mail.uccs.edu> wrote:
>When has AD&D had separate hitpoints for parts of the body?
It's been a long time ago, so I might mix up parts of AD&D and Midgard -
but I do remember one game where you had a sheet of paper with a body
outline and several parts marked with their own hitpoints (for example
legs, arms, core and the eyes). I am not 100% sure if it was AD&D or
something other, though.
Georg Bauer
(Peter Gutmann) wrote:
>The separate-hitpoints thing is RQ, not AD&D
Don't know about RQ - I never heard of a game called RQ. But it might be
that it was sold in Germany under different names. Or there was some other
BroleplayinggameFH with something like that. Myself actually wasn't very
keen on the quite simple D&D combat rules - so I didn't play that often.
Dave Aronson (remove x's to reply)
> It's been a long time ago, so I might mix up parts of AD&D and Midgard -
> but I do remember one game where you had a sheet of paper with a body
> outline and several parts marked with their own hitpoints (for example
> legs, arms, core and the eyes). I am not 100% sure if it was AD&D or
> something other, though.
Sounds like Runequest.
--
Dave Aronson, Sysop, Air 'n Sun (airnsun.pcbuddy.com) @ +1-703-319-0714
Opinions MINE, not by GeoCities/Template/Mensa/NRA/SCA/CAUCE/USGov/God!
Support Rep. Smith's no-spam bill, NOT Sen. Murkowski's spam-is-OK one!
See my website, http://listen.to/davearonson (last updated 1998-08-19).
Peter da Silva
Peter Gutmann <pgu...@cs.auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>T&T never had criticals (unless it was some later version which I never
>played)
Or one of the addons or third party mods. I only played T&T with a group
that had stacks of the things.
> the combat system was very simple: Weapons got xd6 + y adds (eg
>4d+2), you rolled that, the other person did as well, and whoever got less
>took the difference in hits.
Note that this was done *for each side*, so if you had more than a couple of
people you almost always had one that was a lot better than the rest, and of
course you only got into combat when the other side was something like an
even match (otherwise you ran away or surrendered or they ran away or
surrendered, right?). So the first time we fought we invariably lost all
the weaker characters in one or two rounds, even without crits.
>Compare this to something like Rollmaster, which for its vast level of extra
>complexity only adds a tiny level of further effectiveness.
Yeh, I like simple combat systems. The Fantasy Trip was good that way too.
Joe Zeff
>Peter Gutmann wrote:
>>
>> Compare this to something like Rollmaster, which for its vast level of
>> extra complexity only adds a tiny level of further effectiveness.
>
>Yes... but some of the criticals in rulemaster are really funny.
>
>"Ok... so you've killed the goblin king and all of his friends.. do ya
>feel better now?" Former rulemaster GM on the subject of the Great
>Goblin.
>
Then they heard a voice crying, "Who has slain the Goblin King?"
Round turn our heroes, what do they see?
Swooping down upon them is a balrog on the wing,
You bash the balrog and I'll climb the tree!
--
------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Zeff Earthlink Network
jo...@earthlink.net Senior Support Joat
(800) 395-8410
Computers work in weird and marvelous ways, their
wonders to avoid performing.
------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Zeff
>The separate-hitpoints thing is RQ, not AD&D. Played this once with a GM who
>could make a single round of combat last the entire lunch hour (which was just
>over half an hour long). It wasn't so much combat as more a deep
>philosophical discussion on various theoretical aspects of combat and their
>repercussions on the PC's.
That's nothing. I once saw three rounds of combat take over eight
hours in ShadowRun. There were about eight players, each had two or
three characters and there were three different battles going on in
seperate locations at the same time. We did the first round, first
venue, second, third, then back to the first set of fighters for the
second round. Oddly enough, everybody had a great time. One of my
critters shot down a Banshee hoverjet with a shotgun near the end.[1]
[1]OK, it had just finished taking out his car,[2] and had one box of
damage left. He got a lucky shot off and blew away the pilot.
[2]A highly modified 409[3] that we towed back for repairs.
[3]Like in the song: four speed, dual-quad, positraction 409. And
that's before major mods!
Joe Zeff
>In article <6rc03j$a...@web.nmti.com>, pe...@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva) wrote:
>
>>I mean it, it was insane. You added up points on both sides of the combat,
>>rolled a couple of dice.
>
>Harder than AD&D, where you even had separate hitpoints for parts of your
>body? Or Midgard, where each round in combat took a minute?
>
Excuse me? ADND does not have seperate hitpoints for different parts
of your body; RuneQuest does.
Joe Zeff
>Kibo informs me that all...@apk.net (Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH) stated
>that:
>
>>Also sprach rj...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Bob Dowling) (<6rc2f8$b2p$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>):
>>+-----
>>| Just how many hit dice are there on a PHB? More to the point, what's the XP
>>| for killing one?
>>+--->8
>>
>>20d20, and negative (you get promoted into its place).
>
>They also have regeneration, same as trolls.
>
Beware running across the Dread UseNet Troll. Not only isn't it
afraid of fire, it thrives on flame.
Bob Dowling
Seeing as there are so many role-players kicking about on this group I have
chickened some information of potential use to the UK role-playing BOFHs.
J. Eric Townsend
As opposed to something like The Morrow Project?
"Let's see, I've got X body mass points, and my left wrist gets %2.12
of those points, and your 12ga does Y points, factor in distance..
Ok, I guess your 12ga does blow my wrist to smithereens, but for some
reason that's not considered a critical wound. Wait, lemme check page
7..."
--
J. Eric Townsend jet at goonsquad.spies.com http://www.spies.com/jet
Socialist Gun Control: The Government buys guns for everyone.
Paul Colquhoun
|In article <xkflnok...@valdemar.col.hp.com>, "Eric The Read"
|<emsc...@mail.uccs.edu> wrote:
|
|It's been a long time ago, so I might mix up parts of AD&D and Midgard -
|but I do remember one game where you had a sheet of paper with a body
|outline and several parts marked with their own hitpoints (for example
|legs, arms, core and the eyes). I am not 100% sure if it was AD&D or
|something other, though.
That is used in the "Ringworld" RPG, and (I'm sure) in most other
games from Chaosium. Who published "Midgard" ?
--
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, paulc...@andor.dropbear.id.au
Universal Life Church http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-
Georg Bauer
pau...@andor.dropbear.id.au wrote:
>Who published "Midgard"
It was a german RPG. Don't know who it exactly was, though. But - of
course - they might have stolen ideas from other (maybe older) systems.
Lionel Lauer
>long...@newsguy.com (Lionel Lauer) wrote:
>>Kibo informs me that all...@apk.net (Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH) stated
>>that:
>>>Also sprach rj...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Bob Dowling) (<6rc2f8$b2p$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>):
>>>+-----
>>>| Just how many hit dice are there on a PHB? More to the point, what's the XP
>>>| for killing one?
>>>+--->8
>>>
>>>20d20, and negative (you get promoted into its place).
>>
>>They also have regeneration, same as trolls.
>
>Beware running across the Dread UseNet Troll. Not only isn't it
>afraid of fire, it thrives on flame.
Running across them?
Hah! I regularly have sparring matches with them.
I've got several of the nan-au kook kabal 'sendsys' bombing[0] my
mailbox as I type this.
[0] For quite pathetic values of bombing - I've only received about 400
of them over the last few days, but they seem to think that it'll bother
me.
Rebecca Ore
> [0] For quite pathetic values of bombing - I've only received about 400
> of them over the last few days, but they seem to think that it'll bother
> me.
Over 400 between midnight and noon, but then I am a Very Evil
Person and you aren't known to issue cancels.
Had been running about 100 per day, but I honed some writing
skills on them.
--
Rebecca Ore
SIggi the Underpaid
wrote:
>Kibo informs me that jo...@earthlink.net (Joe Zeff) stated that:
>>long...@newsguy.com (Lionel Lauer) wrote:
[snip]
>>
>>Beware running across the Dread UseNet Troll. Not only isn't it
>>afraid of fire, it thrives on flame.
>
>Running across them?
>Hah! I regularly have sparring matches with them.
>I've got several of the nan-au kook kabal 'sendsys' bombing[0] my
>mailbox as I type this.
>
>[0] For quite pathetic values of bombing - I've only received about 400
>of them over the last few days, but they seem to think that it'll bother
>me.
>
>
>Lionel.
If I didnt know better, I'd post this to ahbou.
But I know better.
SIggi the Underpaid. (if i'm given approval however .....)
--
DNRC's Director of Freefalling Chainsawing Tech Support
au com wr at siggi | figure it out.
"Now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."
Ingvar bah!
> g...@hugo.westfalen.de (Georg Bauer) wrote:
>
> >Don't know about RQ - I never heard of a game called RQ. But it might be
> >that it was sold in Germany under different names. Or there was some other
> >BroleplayinggameFH with something like that. Myself actually wasn't very
> >keen on the quite simple D&D combat rules - so I didn't play that often.
>
> RQ == RuneQuest, an interesting game from Chaosium, IIRC. Hit points for
> body parts, so you could be disabled by a good blow, yet still be able
> to run away.
>
> It also, again IIRC, had a much more sensible way of improving skills. I
> think it was done in such a way that, given a percentage ability Y to do
> X, if you successfully did X, your chance of learning from it was 100-Y.
> Hence, the better you already were, the less chance of improving. On the
> other hand, if you were completely crap at X, you couldn't learn,
> because you never successfully did it. However, you could buy training -
> the idea, I think, was that under training conditions, you effectively
> had a higher chance, so you could actually get a chance to improve.
IIRC, depending on type of tutoring (cheap or _very_ expensive), you
either rolled at skill*2 to get improvement roll or just rolled
improvement roll. But, then, I haven't looked at the RQ rules for
almost 4 years and I didn't GM it very much before packing it down.
//Ingvar
--
"Are we all turning into AOLusers or what ? Next thing we know, we'll
all be shouting "Me 2! Me 2!" and someone will have to shoot us... "
-- Chris King in A.S.R
Stefan Morrell
>
> Then they heard a voice crying, "Who has slain the Goblin King?"
> Round turn our heroes, what do they see?
> Swooping down upon them is a balrog on the wing,
> You bash the balrog and I'll climb the tree!
Memory recalls that standard procedure upon detection of Balrog, was to
run as far and as fast as possible in the opposite direction.
That was what always irritated me about MERP (or rather rulemaster using
Middle Earth source books) was there were no good mid-range monsters to
kill. When the campaign I played in finally died (due to lack of
interest) we had a collection of characters to whom 200 orcs were only a
problem in as much as they run in 200 different directions, whereas
1(one) dragon was a serious undertaking. Still... we had some laughs.
Cya
Stef
--
"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow |UNIX, NT and Netware support
creeps in this petty pace from day to day |in *HELL*.
to the last syllable of recorded time." |Suffering in silence.
>From Macbeth, By William Shakespeare |smor...@dial.pipex.com
Peter Gutmann
Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> writes:
>That was what always irritated me about MERP (or rather rulemaster using
>Middle Earth source books) was there were no good mid-range monsters to
>kill. When the campaign I played in finally died (due to lack of
>interest) we had a collection of characters to whom 200 orcs were only a
>problem in as much as they run in 200 different directions, whereas
>1(one) dragon was a serious undertaking. Still... we had some laughs.
Uhh... if you were killing 200 orcs for fun it sounds suspiciously like
munchkin roleplaying, or failing that an unsufficient BGMFH (I once nearly
wiped out an entire party with a single orc, in the end I took pity on the
players and the orc ran off to tend to its sick mother or something before it
killed them all off). One of the nice things about Rollmaster was that it was
always possible (if unlikely) for anyone to successfully attack anyone else
(unlike, say, D&D where if A's armour class was low enough, B could pound away
at them all day without as much as raising a dent in their
armour/skin/scales/whatever).
Peter ("I put on my Ring of DM Control and take a sip of Potion That Does
Anything I Want").
Stefan Morrell
>
> Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> writes:
>
> Uhh... if you were killing 200 orcs for fun it sounds suspiciously like
> munchkin roleplaying, or failing that an unsufficient BGMFH (I once nearly
> wiped out an entire party with a single orc, in the end I took pity on the
> players and the orc ran off to tend to its sick mother or something before it
> killed them all off).
Must have been one big orc. I think our problem was that we played for
*far* too long, and got way too powerful for middle earth (party
included 3 20+ level elven warrior mages). I think thats largely why we
stopped. At that level you can apply sufficient magic that there ain't
no lock that can't be picked, ain't no trap that can't be found and even
the most terminal forms of death are simply a minor and temporary
inconvenience. When it *finally* died, all the GM had left was bigger
and bigger magical handicaps to try and stop us. As the time passed it
became an exercise in who could apply the spells in the most original
manner, and there were more of us to come up with the new ideas. Yup...
it was time to move on.
> One of the nice things about Rollmaster was that it was
> always possible (if unlikely) for anyone to successfully attack anyone else
> (unlike, say, D&D where if A's armour class was low enough, B could pound away
> at them all day without as much as raising a dent in their
> armour/skin/scales/whatever).
Hmmm.... we always got round that by saying that a natural 20 always hit
(and a 1 was an automatic fumble <grin>).
>
> Peter ("I put on my Ring of DM Control and take a sip of Potion That Does
> Anything I Want").
Can't do that in Middle Earth. You are bound by Tolkeins vision, and as
such can only do nearly anything you want.
Calle Dybedahl
> Must have been one big orc.
Or a creatively designed orc. I once nearly killed the whole party
with two Shaolin Kung Fu orcs at the same experience level as the PCs.
The party was ultra-optimised for the "charge straight ahead with a
big axe" kind of orc, but couldn't handle a bit of tactics at all.
After half the party had gone down and they hadn't even touched the
orcs, they were getting pretty desperate. It was very entertaining :-)
> I think our problem was that we played for *far* too long, and got
> way too powerful for middle earth (party included 3 20+ level elven
> warrior mages).
When the party mentioned above got to that level, I had them have an
accident with a magical experiment and transported through time back
to the First Age. Smack in the middle of the War of Wrath. After the
first couple of encounters with enemies capable of tossing off more
than one 50th level spell a round, they were considerably less
arrogant.
But, still, we retired the campaign not so long after that.
--
Calle Dybedahl, UNIX Sysadmin
qdt...@esavionics.se http://www.lysator.liu.se/~calle/
Peter Gutmann
Calle Dybedahl <qdt...@esb.ericsson.se> writes:
>Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> writes:
>> Must have been one big orc.
>Or a creatively designed orc. I once nearly killed the whole party
>with two Shaolin Kung Fu orcs at the same experience level as the PCs.
>The party was ultra-optimised for the "charge straight ahead with a
>big axe" kind of orc, but couldn't handle a bit of tactics at all.
>After half the party had gone down and they hadn't even touched the
>orcs, they were getting pretty desperate. It was very entertaining :-)
That's exactly how I did it. "The orc is supposed to stand in the middle of
the field and wait for us to charge him dammit, not duck underneath the wagons
we're supposed to be guarding and laugh at us when our heavy weapons get stuck
in the spokes".
>>I think our problem was that we played for *far* too long, and got
>>way too powerful for middle earth (party included 3 20+ level elven
>>warrior mages).
>When the party mentioned above got to that level, I had them have an
>accident with a magical experiment and transported through time back
>to the First Age. Smack in the middle of the War of Wrath. After the
>first couple of encounters with enemies capable of tossing off more
>than one 50th level spell a round, they were considerably less
>arrogant.
Exactly. There's always a way to even things up. Mind you, MERP doesn't
scale well beyond about 15th level and absolutely does *not* scale beyond
20th, you're really meant to move on to Rollmaster after 5-10th level. MERP
is really a kiddies version of Rollmaster to get them hooked, then you move
onto the serious stuff. Then when you start mainlining Arcane rules you know
it's time to seek rehab and switch to Star Frontiers playing a vrusk called
DOS 3.3[0].
Peter.
[0] Named after Apple's DOS 3.3, this was long before the MS one.
Stefan Morrell
>
> That's exactly how I did it. "The orc is supposed to stand in the middle of
> the field and wait for us to charge him dammit, not duck underneath the wagons
> we're supposed to be guarding and laugh at us when our heavy weapons get stuck
> in the spokes".
>
Did it spells? Was it resistant to fire/ice/light/plasma/nether? Could
it fly? What would its reaction have been to being teleported a few
miles in a generally downward direction (upwards leaves danger of it
landing on yer head). How about we teleport the wagon away from the orc
and leave it with no cover so's we can shoot it?
Your orc sounds like a good challenge for a party with minimal magic
and/or poor imagination of what to do with it. A good spell user should
always be able to apply even the most innocous(sp?) looking spell at the
critical moment in just the right way to tip the balance in his favour.
In the preceding paragraph I've used big spells to do fer yer orc, but
how about small spells...
Like how does it react to a small breeze which blows the itching powder
(your party *does* carry itching powder as part of standard kit doesn't
it?) through the spokes and into its armour/clothes. You may substitute
red-hot sand if you wish. How about a simple illusion of all it's orcish
friends attacking the party to lure it out from underneath that wagon?
Thats my 10 minutes worth of ideas anyway - now imagine 6 of us all
coming up with bizarre ideas - all of which avoid melee at all costs!
> Mind you, MERP doesn't
> scale well beyond about 15th level and absolutely does *not* scale beyond
> 20th, you're really meant to move on to Rollmaster after 5-10th level.
Yup... we started rulemaster at 1st level. MERP *is* restrictive, but
the source modules work well with rulemaster.
> MERP
> is really a kiddies version of Rollmaster to get them hooked, then you move
> onto the serious stuff. Then when you start mainlining Arcane rules you know
> it's time to seek rehab and switch to Star Frontiers playing a vrusk called
> DOS 3.3[0].
Arcane Law.. gimme gimme... now not only have I got more spells than I
know what
to do with, but I got lists and lists of spells to bugger about with the
spells
I already had. Now, with infusion of enough pp's I can make 4 plasma
balls where before I could only have one. Oh... and while we're at it
we'll make lifekeeping/lifegiving available to anyone who can get an
arcane pp together. Oh and have you ever had a character with a high
skill is spell shaping. Combine the two and you can have...
Yes... I'd like my firebolt to fork into 4 please.. two bolts fire
straight forward into oncoming traffic and the other two - one each in
either direction around the corners please.
Or how about...
I'd like my fireball to appear as a flat plane the exact dimensions of
this room please.
Or..
I'd like my wall of ice/stone/etc. to appear horizontally (not
vertically as is traditional) just below the ceiling and above the
monsters. Full gravity effects to apply in this case please.
Alchemy Law ritual rules were the final silliness that made everything
pointless. Oh.. so you think it's clever that your door was forged in
Khazad-Dūm by a 75th level dwarf alchemist do you... Well...
I'm level 25, plus half the levels of everyone else in my ritual makes
me level 100 so my dispel magic knocks your sissy door into the middle
of next week.
Too much.. had to end.
Cya
Stef
--
"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow |UNIX, NT and Netware support
creeps in this petty pace from day to day |in *HELL*.
to the last syllable of recorded time." |Suffering in silence.
Peter da Silva
Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>I'd like my wall of ice/stone/etc. to appear horizontally (not
>vertically as is traditional) just below the ceiling and above the
>monsters. Full gravity effects to apply in this case please.
That sounds like the horrible things I used to do with "Magic Mouth".
Start with casting it on pebbles to say "Has he gone yet" ten seconds
after being thrown (through J. Random Open Doorway when you're about
ten seconds ahead of the palace guard chasing you).
Oh, and it was a great "detect anything" spell. Have it scream "intruder
alert" if anyone not a member of this party crosses this line.
One time I talked a DM into letting me load Power Words into them. Instant
hand grenades.
That spell was WAY too low a level.
Carl Schelin
Peter Gutmann <pgu...@cs.auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> writes:
>>That was what always irritated me about MERP (or rather rulemaster using
>>Middle Earth source books) was there were no good mid-range monsters to
>>kill. When the campaign I played in finally died (due to lack of
>>interest) we had a collection of characters to whom 200 orcs were only a
>>problem in as much as they run in 200 different directions, whereas
>>1(one) dragon was a serious undertaking. Still... we had some laughs.
>Uhh... if you were killing 200 orcs for fun it sounds suspiciously like
>munchkin roleplaying, or failing that an unsufficient BGMFH (I once nearly
>wiped out an entire party with a single orc, in the end I took pity on the
>players and the orc ran off to tend to its sick mother or something before it
>killed them all off).
Heh. I once almost killed off a party of smart asses with my Kobold Kommando
Korps (Death from Above!).
> One of the nice things about Rollmaster was that it was
*snip*
Errr, RoleMaster ISTR
Carl
--
Carl Schelin (BOFH, Badlife, DNRC, Sun CSA and CNA) | My Cat Sucked
finger csch...@x500.hq.nasa.gov for phone and address | The Breath Out
http://dc.jones.com/~cschelin | Of Your Kid
Joe Zeff
>Memory recalls that standard procedure upon detection of Balrog, was to
>run as far and as fast as possible in the opposite direction.
That depends on the level of the critters involved. Sir William
Waggoner, the techno-paladin[1] once blew one away in one round, using
his Holy Colt Panther .45.[2]
[1]A techno picked up a Holy Avenger, and wandered into a strongly
magical area.
[2]+5/+5, never runs out of ammo, every fifth round is argent.
Matthew Crosby
Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>Joe Zeff wrote:
>>
>> Then they heard a voice crying, "Who has slain the Goblin King?"
>> Round turn our heroes, what do they see?
>> Swooping down upon them is a balrog on the wing,
>> You bash the balrog and I'll climb the tree!
>
>run as far and as fast as possible in the opposite direction.
>
>Middle Earth source books) was there were no good mid-range monsters to
>kill. When the campaign I played in finally died (due to lack of
>interest) we had a collection of characters to whom 200 orcs were only a
>problem in as much as they run in 200 different directions, whereas
>1(one) dragon was a serious undertaking. Still... we had some laughs.
Yeah. I have to agree. I realise that the lack of critters was part of
their attempt to be moderately canonical, but it did require some more
creativity. I do trying hard as a GM to play with players expectiations,
leading to things like having my players spend half an hour fighting a long
rope they where convinced was a kraken (because, after all, every deep pool
in MERP invariably has a kraken or two). OTOH, I guess when you come down
to it encouraging real Roleplaying instead of just hack-n-slash is a good
thing.
Gee, I just realised I haven't played an RPG in years. Maybe I should get
back into it.
--
Matthew Crosby cro...@cs.colorado.edu
Disclaimer: It was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead.
Peter Gutmann
Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> writes:
>Peter Gutmann wrote:
>>That's exactly how I did it. "The orc is supposed to stand in the middle of
>>the field and wait for us to charge him dammit, not duck underneath the wagons
>>we're supposed to be guarding and laugh at us when our heavy weapons get stuck
>>in the spokes".
>Did it spells? Was it resistant to fire/ice/light/plasma/nether? Could
>it fly? What would its reaction have been to being teleported a few
>miles in a generally downward direction (upwards leaves danger of it
>landing on yer head). How about we teleport the wagon away from the orc
>and leave it with no cover so's we can shoot it?
These weren't terribly high-level characters, so none of this stuff was
available to them. The lower-level MERP spells, things functioning at a level
of "Heat a cup of tea", "Cure warts", and "Format floppy in A:", really aren't
terribly useful in combat, so low-level mages tended to get larted fairly
quickly unless they had fighters to protect them.
It also seems a bit odd to have magic-users capable of casting teleport spells
taking a job as menial as guarding a wagon train - this is the sort of thing
which mercenaries or general swords-for-hire do.
Peter.
Christian Bauernfeind
pgu...@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) writes:
>
> These weren't terribly high-level characters, so none of this stuff was
> available to them. The lower-level MERP spells, things functioning at a level
> of "Heat a cup of tea", "Cure warts", and "Format floppy in A:", really aren't
> terribly useful in combat, so low-level mages tended to get larted fairly
> quickly unless they had fighters to protect them.
>
Dunno, in combination, these three sound fairly dangerous. Cast
"Cure warts" on his windoze box. When he's unnerved enough by his
computer actually _working_, cast "format" to make him think he has
a virus. In the meantime heat his tea to the boiling point\footnotemark.
When he reaches for the cup to calm himself down, he should get a good
burn. By that time, it should be safe to sneak up on him and whack him
with your spellbook\footnotemark.
Christian
\addtocounter{footnote}{-1}
\footnotetext{Apparently, the optimum temperature for brewing tea
is $98.3^\circ$.}
\addtocounter{footnote}{1}
\footnotetext{Whaddayamean, there's no spellbooks in MERP? What am I supposed
to hit him with then?\footnotemark}
\footnotetext{Help! Ouch! Help! *OUCH!* Uncle!}
--
Christian Bauernfeind
Not speaking for Siemens
Not even working for IBM
e-mail: v2ba...@fishkill.ibm.com
Peter da Silva
Christian Bauernfeind <v2ba...@fishkill.ibm.com> wrote:
>> These weren't terribly high-level characters, so none of this stuff was
>> available to them. The lower-level MERP spells, things functioning at a
>> level of "Heat a cup of tea", "Cure warts", and "Format floppy in A:",
Reminds me of the guy using a brownie-sized enchanted war hammer to drive
nails faster in his carpentry shop.
Joe Zeff
>I think our problem was that we played for
>*far* too long, and got way too powerful for middle earth (party
>included 3 20+ level elven warrior mages).
I remember being in a pick-up game once with with a 22 level Elf
Techno. We were up against a dragon so big he liked to open up plains
of existance and peek in to see what's going on. Our techno pulled
out an anti-matter bomb, set the time delay and escourted us through a
teleport door. We ended up with a humongous crater on the edges of
two techtonic plates[1] but didn't get the dragon. The game quickly
fell apart when it became clear that the DM wasn't playing fair, as
several things we came across had six times too many HP and powers the
manuals said they didn't. Sigh!
[1]Funny, there wasn't a junction here a minute ago...
Doug McNaught
> The game quickly
> fell apart when it became clear that the DM wasn't playing fair, as
> several things we came across had six times too many HP and powers the
> manuals said they didn't. Sigh!
The DM's prerogative, especially when dealing with very high level
characters. Not that it can't be abused...
-Doug
--
Doug McNaught do...@tc.net
Senior Network Engineer dmcn...@premtec.com
Premiere Communications http://www.premtec.com
Joe Zeff
>One time I talked a DM into letting me load Power Words into them. Instant
>hand grenades.
>
>That spell was WAY too low a level.
Not if you read the description. You're not supposed to be able to
have them cast spells. Blame the DM for letting you get away with
things.
Stefan Morrell
>
> Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> writes:
>
> >Peter Gutmann wrote:
> >>That's exactly how I did it. "The orc is supposed to stand in the middle of
> >>the field and wait for us to charge him dammit, not duck underneath the wagons
> >>we're supposed to be guarding and laugh at us when our heavy weapons get stuck
> >>in the spokes".
> available to them. The lower-level MERP spells, things functioning at a level
> terribly useful in combat, so low-level mages tended to get larted fairly
> quickly unless they had fighters to protect them.
>
> taking a job as menial as guarding a wagon train - this is the sort of thing
> which mercenaries or general swords-for-hire do.
Agreed on all counts... however, my original point was that we were far
too high a level for orcs to be a challenge, but not nearly high enough
a
level for the big monsters to be a challenge - and in the world of
middle
earth, the number of mid-range monsters is highly restricted. When you
need 50,000XP for a level, and an orc is worth 35 you could clear out
Moria (Balrog notwithstanding) and still not be hard enough for the
serious [1] dungeons. Middle earth, whilst fun, only works for a party
of
up to about 20th level and then only for mebbe 40th+ level.
Nile Evil Bastard
wrote:
:Kibo informs me that jo...@earthlink.net (Joe Zeff) stated that:
:>long...@newsguy.com (Lionel Lauer) wrote:
:>>They also have regeneration, same as trolls.
:>Beware running across the Dread UseNet Troll. Not only isn't it
:>afraid of fire, it thrives on flame.
:Running across them?
Running *over* them is more the preferred style. I collect the heads, you
know.
Oh, and a couple kilotons on alt.net (and the head of Chr*s C*p*to on a
radiation-scarred platter) wouldn't hurt either.
:Hah! I regularly have sparring matches with them.
Battle of wits with the unarmed, indeed.
Joe Zeff
>jo...@corp.earthlink.net (Joe Zeff) writes:
>
>> The game quickly
>> fell apart when it became clear that the DM wasn't playing fair, as
>> several things we came across had six times too many HP and powers the
>> manuals said they didn't. Sigh!
>
>The DM's prerogative, especially when dealing with very high level
>characters. Not that it can't be abused...
>
The problem was that he had twice the level of the rest of the party,
and wasn't involved in the incidents above. The biggest trouble
seemed to be that the DM had little if any intention of letting us
solve things any way but hers and had no other way to adjust to our
thinking for ourselves.
Personally, I *love* it when parties come up with something I haven't
considered and sidestep my cleverness. That's where some of my
favorite stories come from. In one case, before ruling on what
happened, I turned around and beat my head against the wall, much to
the enjoyment of the players. I told another DM what had happened,
and he went over to the nearest wall and beat *his* head against it.
Peter da Silva
Joe Zeff <jo...@corp.earthlink.net> wrote:
>two techtonic plates[1] but didn't get the dragon. The game quickly
>fell apart when it became clear that the DM wasn't playing fair, as
>several things we came across had six times too many HP and powers the
>manuals said they didn't. Sigh!
So what? The DM isn't SUPPOSED to play fair. If you're the type who has
twentieth level anythings who haven't yet gone into politics, he's supposed
to kill your characters any way he can. The only restriction on the DM's
powers is that he amuse you while doing so.
Dave Hargrave was great. He liked adding zeroes to his dragon's hit points.
As many as it took to make them scary. Dragons are SUPPOSED to inspire fear.
Christian Bauernfeind
jo...@corp.earthlink.net (Joe Zeff) writes:
> favorite stories come from. In one case, before ruling on what
> happened, I turned around and beat my head against the wall, much to
> the enjoyment of the players. I told another DM what had happened,
> and he went over to the nearest wall and beat *his* head against it.
>
So? Don't let us die stupid. What happened?
Christian
Joe Zeff
>In article <35fbd128...@news.earthlink.net>,
>Joe Zeff <jo...@corp.earthlink.net> wrote:
>>two techtonic plates[1] but didn't get the dragon. The game quickly
>>fell apart when it became clear that the DM wasn't playing fair, as
>>several things we came across had six times too many HP and powers the
>>manuals said they didn't. Sigh!
>
>So what? The DM isn't SUPPOSED to play fair. If you're the type who has
>twentieth level anythings who haven't yet gone into politics, he's supposed
>to kill your characters any way he can. The only restriction on the DM's
>powers is that he amuse you while doing so.
>
I don't *have* any characters above about 10th level. There are two
ways to play fair with players. First, by playing things by the
manuals. Second, by not warping things when players think of things
you've missed, or try to do something other than what you've planned.
Generally, imprompteau ignoring the first is used as a way to enforce
the second. This person did both, simply because we weren't doing
what she wanted.
>Dave Hargrave was great. He liked adding zeroes to his dragon's hit points.
>As many as it took to make them scary. Dragons are SUPPOSED to inspire fear.
Put ketchup bottles in front of their lairs.
Joe Zeff
>In article <35e6ce7b...@news.earthlink.net>,
> jo...@corp.earthlink.net (Joe Zeff) writes:
>> favorite stories come from. In one case, before ruling on what
>> happened, I turned around and beat my head against the wall, much to
>> the enjoyment of the players. I told another DM what had happened,
>> and he went over to the nearest wall and beat *his* head against it.
>>
>
>So? Don't let us die stupid. What happened?
>
I had then going down a narrow corridor, over a deep crack on a narrow
stone bridge. A door opened, a man came out, cast a spell and 1000
spiders came at the party, looking a tad unreal. The idea is that
somebody should cast Dispel Magic to get rid of the Phantasmal Force
spiders, also dispelling the Wall of Stone bridge they're on. Alas,
the Illusionist cast a Phantasmal Force of the spders fading away.
After beating your head on the wall, what would *you* do?
Peter da Silva
You're shattering the world down to the moho and you don't have any
characters over 10th level? Um.
--
In hoc signo hack, Peter da Silva <pe...@baileynm.com>
`-_-' "Microsoft is a cross between The Borg and the Ferengi.
'U` Unfortunately they use Borg to do their marketing and
Ferengi to do their programming." -- Simon Slavin, in the Monastery.
Christian Bauernfeind
jo...@corp.earthlink.net (Joe Zeff) writes:
>
> After beating your head on the wall, what would *you* do?
>
Have illusions of invisible[0] spiders crawl all over you?[1]
Christian
[0] What did you think "fade away" meant?
[1] I don't know about the system in question, but if Phantasmal Force can
create a bridge you can walk on, I wouldn't want to deal with the
creepy-crawlies it can create, visible or not.
Ben Avling
> I had then going down a narrow corridor, over a deep crack on a narrow
> stone bridge. A door opened, a man came out, cast a spell and 1000
> spiders came at the party, looking a tad unreal. The idea is that
> somebody should cast Dispel Magic to get rid of the Phantasmal Force
> spiders, also dispelling the Wall of Stone bridge they're on. Alas,
> the Illusionist cast a Phantasmal Force of the spders fading away.
> After beating your head on the wall, what would *you* do?
This all comes down to how you play Phantasmal Force. We used to play
it that it's just a sort of hologram, i.e. you can give the appearance
of anything you can imagine (i.e. you know what it looks like) The bit
about imaginary creatures doing real damage we just used to ignore.
There are plenty of ways a hologram can be fatal as is. [1]
Using that ruling you can make something appear easily enough - but
disappearing is another matter. Which would make the 2nd Phant Force
impossible. Probably a Good Thing[tm].
I know other people who played Phant Force differently; they said it
affected the brain directly, ala Mandrake the Magician. i.e. I can
hypnotise you into thinking your guns have turned into snakes and vice
versa, I may be able to hypnotise a snake into thinking it's been
turned into a gun [2] but I can't hypnotise a gun into thinking it's
a snake. I don't want to think about using Phant Force on a creature
to make it think that it's vanished - perhaps it would suddenly gain
invisibility to everyone who fails a saving throw.
So I guess I would rule that everyone would think that the
non-existant spiders had vanished, except the PC Illusionist. [3]
Of course, if (s)he told the other PCs what (s)he had cast I would
give them a saving throw to realize that the spiders had only
appeared to vanish. [4]
Regards, BenA
[1] EG Illusion of plank over 10e3 foot chasm
[2] Not sure what effect that would have
[3] What you don't know really can't hurt you.
[4] Guess which RPG I used to GM
--
"It's not my job to teach you how to read or to think. If you have a
critical failing in either of those abilities, you will find yourself in
situations where you will look foolish because of it." -Sean K. Reynolds
Peter Gutmann
jo...@corp.earthlink.net (Joe Zeff) writes:
>pe...@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva) wrote:
>>Dave Hargrave was great. He liked adding zeroes to his dragon's hit points.
>>As many as it took to make them scary. Dragons are SUPPOSED to inspire fear.
>Put ketchup bottles in front of their lairs.
I did that to the players once as well - as they wandered down a corridor they
had first salt, then pepper, then ketchup sprinkled on them from concealed
vents in the ceiling. For some reason this made them very nervous.
Elsewhere in the same complex they saw flashing lights up ahead. As they came
closer they noticed a tripwire stretched across the corridor with spotlights
aimed at it and flashing neon signs saying "TRAP!" and "Mind the tripwire".
I love messing with the players minds.
Peter.
Calle Dybedahl
> I had then going down a narrow corridor, over a deep crack on a narrow
> stone bridge. A door opened, a man came out, cast a spell and 1000
> spiders came at the party, looking a tad unreal. The idea is that
> somebody should cast Dispel Magic to get rid of the Phantasmal Force
> spiders, also dispelling the Wall of Stone bridge they're on. Alas,
> the Illusionist cast a Phantasmal Force of the spders fading away.
>
> After beating your head on the wall, what would *you* do?
Silently congratulate them on a creative solution to the problem and
give them nastier problems in the future?
Once upon a time nearly a decade and a half ago, I was gamemastering
for a bunch of friends. I had spent several nights preparing an
adventure in a haunted castle, and I was really proud of my work. I
had detailed maps of all the levels in the castle, details on all the
traps and stats on all the monsters. Play started, and the group
arranged their equipment, inventoried their magic resources and
optimised the marching order. Eventually, the most leader-like of them
spoke up and said:
"Well, are we ready to march?"
to which one of the other guys replied, with a desperate look:
"No! We have no BREATH MINTS!"
The others looked at him in stunned silence. After a short while, the
leaderlike guy looked at me and said "Well, I guess we go into town to
buy some breath mints, then." Whereafter the rest of the night was
spent trying to figure out where the hell one buys breath mints in a
medieval town, visiting herb dealers, visiting alchemists, running
away from insane alchemists, breaking into the Magicians' Guild,
getting put in jail, breaking out of jail and generally having a very
interesting time. They never got to my oh-so-detailed haunted castle,
but we all had *lots* of fun.
As far as I can remember today, that was the gaming session that made
me realise that not only *can't* you consistently outsmart the players
(they have several times as many brains as you have, after all), you
don't even *want* to. It's far more fun to see what insane ideas they
will come up with if you let them loose. Nowadays I regularly put my
PCs into situations I have no idea how they'll get out of, blindly
trusting that together they'll be able to out-think me without great
difficulty. I have yet to be disappointed.
The sort of puzzle Joe descibes up there ("Ok, they're on this magic
bridge, so I attack them with a spell, so they'll dispell it and fall
down when the bridge vanishes") feels quite alien to me. If I want
that sort of predictable interaction, I'll get a computer game. When I
roleplay, I want to be surprised. I want a story that's the synthesis
of everything a group of warped minds can image, not the story of a
bunch of people trying to find out what I thought the night before. I
already *know* what I thought yesterday, and I'm not impressed.
Well, that's my opinion. You don't have to agree at all.
Joe Zeff
>In article <35eaccc3...@news.earthlink.net>,
> jo...@corp.earthlink.net (Joe Zeff) writes:
>>
>> After beating your head on the wall, what would *you* do?
>>
>
>Have illusions of invisible[0] spiders crawl all over you?[1]
>
The party believed in the spiders *and* believed they'd gone. Now
what?
>Christian
>
>[0] What did you think "fade away" meant?
>[1] I don't know about the system in question, but if Phantasmal Force can
> create a bridge you can walk on, I wouldn't want to deal with the
> creepy-crawlies it can create, visible or not.
The bridge wasn't Phantasmal Force, it was Wall of Stone; permanent
until dispeled. I carefully put things so that there was no way to
dispel the illusion without the bridge being affected as well.
Joe Zeff
>So I guess I would rule that everyone would think that the
>non-existant spiders had vanished, except the PC Illusionist.
The big problem is that the spiders weren't really there in the first
place. Now, the party believes they're not there anymore. How can
something that isn't there and you don't believe is there hurt you?
Joe Zeff
>jo...@corp.earthlink.net (Joe Zeff) writes:
>
>> I had then going down a narrow corridor, over a deep crack on a narrow
>> stone bridge. A door opened, a man came out, cast a spell and 1000
>> spiders came at the party, looking a tad unreal. The idea is that
>> somebody should cast Dispel Magic to get rid of the Phantasmal Force
>> spiders, also dispelling the Wall of Stone bridge they're on. Alas,
>> the Illusionist cast a Phantasmal Force of the spders fading away.
>>
>> After beating your head on the wall, what would *you* do?
>
>Silently congratulate them on a creative solution to the problem and
>give them nastier problems in the future?
>
Exactly what I did.
>The sort of puzzle Joe descibes up there ("Ok, they're on this magic
>bridge, so I attack them with a spell, so they'll dispell it and fall
>down when the bridge vanishes") feels quite alien to me.
I've run that dungeon many times. Only one party "fell for it."[1]
They've tried many things over the years, but using the Phantasmal
Force is the only memorable one.
[1]Sorry for the cheap-shot, but there's no better way to say it.
Joe Zeff
>In article <35ebd024...@news.earthlink.net>,
>Joe Zeff <jo...@corp.earthlink.net> wrote:
>>I don't *have* any characters above about 10th level.
>
>You're shattering the world down to the moho and you don't have any
>characters over 10th level? Um.
No, some other critter had the anti-matter bomb. Even *he* admitted
it was monty.
Georg Bauer
(Dave Aronson (remove x's to reply)) wrote:
>Sounds like Runequest.
I am most definitely sure that I never played Runequest. But then - maybe
someone just stolen the idea.
bye, Georg
SIggi the Underpaid
wrote:
>
>
>jo...@corp.earthlink.net (Joe Zeff) writes:
>
>>pe...@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva) wrote:
>
>>>Dave Hargrave was great. He liked adding zeroes to his dragon's hit points.
>>>As many as it took to make them scary. Dragons are SUPPOSED to inspire fear.
>
>>Put ketchup bottles in front of their lairs.
>
>I did that to the players once as well - as they wandered down a corridor they
>had first salt, then pepper, then ketchup sprinkled on them from concealed
>vents in the ceiling. For some reason this made them very nervous.
>
>Elsewhere in the same complex they saw flashing lights up ahead. As they came
>closer they noticed a tripwire stretched across the corridor with spotlights
>aimed at it and flashing neon signs saying "TRAP!" and "Mind the tripwire".
>
>I love messing with the players minds.
>
>Peter.
ROFL!!
You bastard. You utter, utter bastard.
I love it.
SIggi the Underpaid. (rooting[1] through his junk, looking for his
original 1st edition AD&D DMG[2])
[1] TTTSNBN? I think not!
[2] You should know this.
--
DNRC's Director of Freefalling Chainsawing Tech Support
au com zipworld at siggi | figure it out. Address Changed.
"Now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."
- Dark Helmet, Spaceballs, the movie.
Stefan Morrell
> So what? The DM isn't SUPPOSED to play fair. If you're the type who has
> twentieth level anythings who haven't yet gone into politics, he's supposed
> to kill your characters any way he can.
No.. NO... NOOO... NOOO!!!
It is *not* a DM's task to kill characters. It's the players task, by
which I mean that the only reason someones beloved character dies, is
because they have done something stupid. Role-playing is *not* a contest
twixt player & GM, but is the telling of a story within guidelines set
by the GM. I for one would *not* play in a campaign where I knew the GM
was going out of his way to kill me[1].
Characters die.. it happens, but it should happen because they've not
run away when they should, they've not found the trap and opened the
chest regardless. It should *not* be because the GM thinks it's his job
to kill them.
Cya
Stef
[1] Unless I was playing paranoia, in which case this kind of behaviour
is expected and acceptable!
Peter da Silva
Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>Peter da Silva wrote:
>> So what? The DM isn't SUPPOSED to play fair. If you're the type who has
>> twentieth level anythings who haven't yet gone into politics, he's supposed
>> to kill your characters any way he can.
>No.. NO... NOOO... NOOO!!!
Yes... YES... YESSSSSSSS..... Y E S !!!!
>It is *not* a DM's task to kill characters.
Depends on the character.
>It's the players task, by
>which I mean that the only reason someones beloved character dies, is
>because they have done something stupid.
Playing 20th level characters counts as "something stupid".
>I for one would *not* play in a campaign where I knew the GM
>was going out of his way to kill me[1].
You're probably not the type who has 20th level characters who are still
running around questing and messing things up for everyone... or forcing
the DM to brevet all the other players to get a balanced party...
And I for one wouldn't play in a game with characters like that.
Would you?
Really?
--
In hoc signo hack, Peter da Silva <pe...@baileynm.com>
`-_-' "If Microsoft don't think you need it, it's not there and there's no
'U` way to include it yourself." -- Geoff Lane, a.s.r.
Stefan Morrell
>
> >It is *not* a DM's task to kill characters.
>
> Depends on the character.
>
> >It's the players task, by
> >which I mean that the only reason someones beloved character dies, is
> >because they have done something stupid.
>
> Playing 20th level characters counts as "something stupid".
>
> >I for one would *not* play in a campaign where I knew the GM
> >was going out of his way to kill me[1].
>
> You're probably not the type who has 20th level characters who are still
> running around questing and messing things up for everyone... or forcing
> the DM to brevet all the other players to get a balanced party...
>
> And I for one wouldn't play in a game with characters like that.
Why?
Firstly I'm gonna assume you're playing AD&D (different RPG's react
differently to high level characters).
Secondly, I'll assume for the sake of this hypothetical scenario that it
is a 20th level party, with characters worked up lovingly from low
(perhaps even first) level.
OK.. so now we're all pretty damn hard, mages are tossing off fireballs
like they're going out of fashion, and the fighters are having multiple
attacks per round at +x to hit. But there are still adventures to be had
and stories to be told surely. There's the elemental planes perhaps?
Played properly an ancient red dragon should *still* not be an easy
kill. Try putting such a beasty on the plane of fire, with smaller
dragons and elementals in attendance. With any luck, the players will
avoid the combat. Why fight when there's enough magic not to need to?
There are other ways of adventuring than the hack & slay that
characterises half a dozen mid-level characters in the orc lair. Hack
and slay is also why only 3 of them escape with the loot.
Role playing isn't about stats on a sheet, it's about playing a
character. In fantasy literature there *are* big wizards and powerful
fighters. Why should you deny yourself the opportunity to play one. It's
more challenging for the DM admittedly, because he has to come up with
scenarios that stretch the already powerful, but there are ways and
means. It's also more challenging for the players though, who have so
much more to lose. To give an example (from my rolemaster days), to lose
Sandek, the 7th level lancer would have been irritating. To lose
Umberto, the 25th level Warrior/Mage/Alchemist would have been the end
of the world (and yes, I did work him up from 1st!!).
>
> Would you?
Only if the DM had enough imagination. Stop looking for bigger and
bigger monsters (although the monsters are important) and look for other
ways of making the dungeon challenging.
Having said all that, AD&D is perhaps not the best medium for a high
level campaign, although there are methods of doing it.
Cya
Stef
Calle Dybedahl
> Having said all that, AD&D is perhaps not the best medium for a high
> level campaign, although there are methods of doing it.
For a seriously high-powered game, try Amber Diceless RPG from Phage
Press. A way cool game.
Peter da Silva
Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>Secondly, I'll assume for the sake of this hypothetical scenario that it
>is a 20th level party, with characters worked up lovingly from low
>(perhaps even first) level.
Bah. I've never seen such a thing.
>OK.. so now we're all pretty damn hard, mages are tossing off fireballs
>like they're going out of fashion, and the fighters are having multiple
>attacks per round at +x to hit. But there are still adventures to be had
>and stories to be told surely. There's the elemental planes perhaps?
>Played properly an ancient red dragon should *still* not be an easy
>kill. Try putting such a beasty on the plane of fire, with smaller
>dragons and elementals in attendance. With any luck, the players will
>avoid the combat. Why fight when there's enough magic not to need to?
>There are other ways of adventuring than the hack & slay that
>characterises half a dozen mid-level characters in the orc lair. Hack
>and slay is also why only 3 of them escape with the loot.
I do not believe that anyone who is actually role playing could possibly
get a character up to 20th level, experience point by experience point,
over the period of time that AD&D has existed. Hell, I'll let you go all
the way back to Dave Arneson's original book, and you still couldn't do
it. Not by role-playing. Anyone who's managed it is not the type to avoid
combat, not when they can add a few hundred thousand meaningless experience
points to their hoard.
>Role playing isn't about stats on a sheet, it's about playing a
>character. In fantasy literature there *are* big wizards and powerful
>fighters. Why should you deny yourself the opportunity to play one.
I've only ever had one super high level character, and it was created as
a result of an outrageously unlikely die roll and a GM with a sense of
humor. The poor bugger had "escaped from hell" (more or less) and was
pretty traumatized as a result... I retired him to go around preaching
to the goblins and started over.
>It's
>more challenging for the DM admittedly, because he has to come up with
>scenarios that stretch the already powerful, but there are ways and
>means. It's also more challenging for the players though, who have so
>much more to lose. To give an example (from my rolemaster days), to lose
>Sandek, the 7th level lancer would have been irritating.
I think I've managed to get a 7th level character a couple of times. It took
a LOT of weekly games. If getting a character up to 7 is routine, then I'd
hate to see the kinds of campaigns you've been playing in. "Behind door number
1... an ancient Red Dragon with Rheumatism!"
>Only if the DM had enough imagination. Stop looking for bigger and
>bigger monsters (although the monsters are important) and look for other
>ways of making the dungeon challenging.
Dungeon? Bah.
Carl Jacobs
>
> Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> writes:
>
> > Having said all that, AD&D is perhaps not the best medium for a high
> > level campaign, although there are methods of doing it.
>
> For a seriously high-powered game, try Amber Diceless RPG from Phage
> Press. A way cool game.
This just reminded me of a campaign I was in a few years back.[0] IIRC,
We were not particularly high-level (7-10, I think), but the GM was the
most amazing GM I've ever had. The entire fscking world (including all
of the dungeony bits we found) were in his head. It had a comprehensive
history. In his head. It had cool (and non-cliche) magical items and
stuff.[2]
One of the best gaming sessions we had was on a road-trip, in a car, at
night, with no dice. The GM knew pretty much what all of our abilities
were, and just did probabilities estimates in hid head when combat was
required.
And I never. ever. Ever. EVER. saw him stumped by something we did.
Including the time one of our mages miscast a wild surge at a big
fscking demon, and ended up (randomly) binding that demon into a
(previously) unimpressive sword. Made a kick-ass sword once we got it
cooled off again...then it went and possessed someone *else* in the
party, but well, he *was* always kind of odd anyway...
[0] Before she complains, I'll mention that Rebecca[1] was in it, too.
[1] B. Gray
[2] Like my intelligent vorpal weapon, which had a penchant for argument
and a willingness and ability to turn on and off its special powers,
depending on whether I had been being nice to it of late. Basically
it was pissy all the time because I was a lawful character and it
was chaotic. Every time we went into combat I had to convince it
that killing them there creatures would greatly advance the cause
of chaos, while fending off questions about why I'd want to do it,
then, what with being lawful and all. Also, it was shaped sort of
like a big gonzo potato-peeler.
--
Carl Jacobs - Software Engineer by title, SysAdmin by fait accompli
Opinions expressed are not those of Raytheon Systems Company.
cjacobs at fallschurch.esys.com, hyde at rtfm.netset.com (munged)
"I'm tired of dykes being swept under the rug. . .as it were."
-Rebecca
Q Stephens
:>Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> writes:
:>
:>> Having said all that, AD&D is perhaps not the best medium for a high
:>> level campaign, although there are methods of doing it.
:>
:>For a seriously high-powered game, try Amber Diceless RPG from Phage
:>Press. A way cool game.
Or how about Chaosium's Stormbringer? A good excuse for some
*seriously* gross characters.
qts
Usenet users, please reverse the elements of my given address to get my real one.
Henrik Jonsson
Carl Jacobs <cja...@fallschurch.esys.quux> wrote:
>[2] Like my intelligent vorpal weapon, which had a penchant for argument
> and a willingness and ability to turn on and off its special powers,
> depending on whether I had been being nice to it of late. Basically
> it was pissy all the time because I was a lawful character and it
> was chaotic. Every time we went into combat I had to convince it
> that killing them there creatures would greatly advance the cause
> of chaos, while fending off questions about why I'd want to do it,
> then, what with being lawful and all.
Damn, this sounds just like my NT machine here at work.
>Also, it was shaped sort of like a big gonzo potato-peeler.
Oh, it's a Compaq...
/Henrik
--
To post or not to post, that is the question...Whether 'tis nobler on the 'net
to suffer, the flames from outrageous loonies or to press 'F' against a sea of
slander and by opposing end them? To send KILL signal; to sleep(1); No more...
---*** d1...@dtek.chalmers.se ***===---===*** h...@cd.chalmers.se ***---
Stefan Morrell
> <snip> 20th level character worked up from 1st</snip>
> Bah. I've never seen such a thing.
> get a character up to 20th level, experience point by experience point,
> over the period of time that AD&D has existed. Hell, I'll let you go all
> the way back to Dave Arneson's original book, and you still couldn't do
> it. Not by role-playing. Anyone who's managed it is not the type to avoid
> combat, not when they can add a few hundred thousand meaningless experience
> points to their hoard.
Ok.. ok. Perhaps *not* in AD&D. But in other systems it's perfectly
possible. Rolemaster, for example grants experience for other things
than killing monsters.
> I've only ever had one super high level character, and it was created as
> a result of an outrageously unlikely die roll and a GM with a sense of
> humor. The poor bugger had "escaped from hell" (more or less) and was
> pretty traumatized as a result... I retired him to go around preaching
> to the goblins and started over.
Well, thats yer problem. If you don't start at low level, you're far too
busy being a great big character to develop character traits, and then
it ain't no fun. For example, Umberto (the 20th level
Warrior/Mage/Alchemist) a rolemaster character used to sulk every time
an item he had made got damaged. Regardless of where the party were, or
what they were doing he would sit down and enter an Elvish sulk trance,
with his familiar biting anyone who came too close. This was actually
kind of fun, cos it was only when one of the party got bitten that they
realised that his cat had a huge bite attack with additional poison
damage. Anyways, at 20+th level with something like 250 spells to choose
from at any one time he still did it. If I had started him at 20th level
I'd never have found his little irritating traits that made him so much
fun.
>
> I think I've managed to get a 7th level character a couple of times. It took
> a LOT of weekly games. If getting a character up to 7 is routine, then I'd
> hate to see the kinds of campaigns you've been playing in. "Behind door number
> 1... an ancient Red Dragon with Rheumatism!"
>
Actually I haven't played AD&D at all for about 10 years. It's
restrictive, primitive and the XP system sucks big style.
> Dungeon? Bah.
Bah yerself - for dungeon, read scenario.
Or whatever.
Peter da Silva
Mike Andrews <mand...@fd9ns01.okladot.state.ok.us> wrote:
>In article <35F63F23...@dial.pipex.com> in alt.sysadmin.recovery,
>dated Wed, 09 Sep 1998 09:41:07 +0100, Stefan Morrell>: > ... preaching
>: > to the goblins ...
>Now _there's_ a story title!
That's the closest I've come to C|N>K, ever. Luckily my deja-vu subsystem
couples closely enough to my motor reflexes that it disengaged the ingestion
device from my intake port before the full impact hit.
Joe Zeff
>If I had started him at 20th level
>I'd never have found his little irritating traits that made him so much
>fun.
I know what you mean. I have a low-mid level half elf, half dwarf[1]
techno-mage[2] with a fair wisdom. The first few times he got into
combat, I had him do rather risky things. I quickly realized that he
was impulsive once action started, and have played him that way ever
since.
[1]His father says his mother seduced him, she says it was rape; *you*
figure it out!
[2]He was just a mage until he sat on a Rube Goldberg device in one of
Scratch Gallowy's[3] adventures and learned everything about techno
that I know.
[3]One of the playtesters for the World of Greyhawk.
Devin L. Ganger
in alt.sysadmin.recovery Joe Zeff wrote:
> I know what you mean. I have a low-mid level half elf, half dwarf[1]
> techno-mage[2] with a fair wisdom. The first few times he got into
> combat, I had him do rather risky things. I quickly realized that he
> was impulsive once action started, and have played him that way ever
> since.
>
> [1]His father says his mother seduced him, she says it was rape; *you*
> figure it out!
I had a half-orc fighter/cleric (5/5, IIRC). His father was an Orc who
came down to town one day with a bunch of his buddies, got drunk, and
was introduced to the local barmaid. She was a lovely lass who hated
being a barmaid and aspired to whoredom. She practiced on Daddy. After
he sobered up and realized he enjoyed the experience, he even decided
not to press charges.
It was a fscked-up world, let me tell you.
--
Devin L. Ganger <de...@premier1.net>
Chief Systems Administrator, Premier1 Internet Services, Sultan, WA, USA
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS
Ingvar bah!
> Stefan Morrell <smorrell@!spam.dial.pipex.com> writes:
>
> > Having said all that, AD&D is perhaps not the best medium for a high
> > level campaign, although there are methods of doing it.
>
> For a seriously high-powered game, try Amber Diceless RPG from Phage
> Press. A way cool game.
Waaaaa! I want to know what happened to John, the seriously
brainwarped mercenary[1]!
//Ingvar
[1] Imagine mercenary clad in ornamented full plate, behaving as if
said plate was beefier than MI suits, seriously believeing that
this same plate was the reason he managed to (a) survive the most
incredible things[2] and (b) do some serious bad-ass close combat
magic.
[2] Lost in desert? No sweat, just flip over stones and find something
edible. Walk over a sand dune and spot a small pool of water. All
in a day's work, mate...
--
"You know, if I can get other BOFHs to view me as a barbarian, I really have
to wonder how the lusers see me. I must be pretty damn frightening. Cool."
Rebecca Gray - scary.devil.monastery, 1998-09-05 18:19:24 GMT