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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!floyd!whuxlb!pyuxll!ech
From: ech@pyuxll.UUCP (Ned Horvath)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: role-playing in frp games
Message-ID: <419@pyuxll.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Sep-83 01:56:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxll.419
Posted: Mon Sep 26 01:56:15 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Sep-83 03:43:01 EDT
References: <2678@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: American Bell, South Plainfield NJ
Lines: 30

Yes, it can be tough playing a character of high intelligence (or wisdom,
or "street-wise" from Traveler, or...).  A convention which our group
generally, if not universally, applies (we rotate the GM-ship) is to
roll against the players characteristic and, if they "make", give him/her
a "hint" ("you notice that..." or "you recall that...").  A good example
of where this is almost always the case is the Bard trying to "legend
lore" an object or monster; there is simply no way to characterize the
knowledge gained by attending those Druidical collegia in detail; thus
a Bard may "recognize" a monster (s)he has never seen.  Similarly,
a mage may recognize an object (s)he has heard tales of.

Perhaps that broaches the whole subject lan-l!bb invited, namely what is
your group like?  We tend to put a LOT of emphasis on role-playing, and
this requires the GM to help out with the kind of problem you describe.
That is a key idea, and tends to make us avoid the tournament-style
modules you generally find in the stores: they seem to almost require an
"adversary" GM.  Perhaps my favorite to date (over 4 years or so) is
a long campaign which has had 2 ~four-month installments and is about to
have a third (one of the group members is into pre-Columbian civilizations
and has had us running around the Mayan empire about the time the Aztecs
were gaining strength).  Literally everyone in the party has a character
(s)he has really come to know well, the monsters are mostly human and from
a civilization very different from the medieval Europe D&D seems based
(loosely) on but which is historically based.  Makes for LOTS of fun, lots
of consistency (the GM has lots of obscure sources to draw from), and a
lot of character development.

'nuff of that for now...

=Ned=