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From: jfw@mit-eddie.UUCP (John Woods)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Killing off characters
Message-ID: <3010@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 28-Oct-84 16:50:22 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.3010
Posted: Sun Oct 28 16:50:22 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Oct-84 19:19:05 EST
References: <3905@decwrl.UUCP>, <1662@ucla-cs.ARPA> <20@sdamos.UUCP>
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 30

On Nasty Magic Items:

Generally, my characters are the "cowardly psychopathic" types, and I have
in fact managed to do quite well even in dungeons which were famous for
slaughtering huge numbers of excessively powerful characters, mostly by
taking risks only when I can fudge the odds WAY in my favor.  My characters
usually avoid powerful-looking, unknown magic items, and there have been
adventures when the glory hogs wound up as hamburger...

In my worlds, magic tends to be scarce, and a fair amount of it is bad (you
see, there are these magic users who feel that abuse of magic is a really
bad thing -- and this way, they ensure that!).  What do you do if you want
to be careful?  Every major city has a Sages' Guild (you can even rent a
Sage, if you are willing to put up with less than top-notch quality), and
while Mages (that is capital-Em) are not cheap, and often resent the waste
of their time, that extra few thousand GP you spend *would* buy a nice pile
of Eye-of-Newt, now, wouldn't it...

A phrase that many FRPers chant, over and over, like a mantra, is
"Play Balance".  A world which is balanced is a world which can be enjoyuable.
I prefer balance at the low-power, long-duration campaign level;  others
prefer Monty Haul campaigns with instant {riches,death} galore.

I've easily said too much.  Bye...
-- 
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems
decvax!frog!john, mit-eddie!jfw, JFW%mit-ccc@MIT-XX

When your puppy goes off in another room,
is it because of the explosive charge?