Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucla-cs.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!ucla-cs!mccolm From: mccolm@ucla-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.games.frp Subject: Re: Soliciting Opinions on AD&D Style Message-ID: <7888@ucla-cs.ARPA> Date: Wed, 4-Dec-85 20:10:48 EST Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.7888 Posted: Wed Dec 4 20:10:48 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 7-Dec-85 16:15:18 EST References: <403@ucdavis.UUCP> Reply-To: mccolm@ucla-cs.UUCP (Eric McColm) Distribution: net Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Lines: 55 <"Knights are hardly worth it. I mean, all that shell and so little meat..."> So, once again, the spectre of straight AD&D by the book rears it's ugly head. Once more, it must be asked what FRP is for, and why we play. This time, let's skip the hard stuff and keep it simple. Adherence to a rule system to the detriment of the fun of the game is no virtue; Creativity by the referee to enhance the fun of the game is no vice. I invented my own rule system because I felt that I did not like other game systems. I will play in Rolemaster, Fantasy Hero, AD&D, RuneQuest and others, but if you want me to referee, then I'll run what I please. All referees have the same prerogative, but the players have the ultimate veto. Some groups I have known practice blind faith in the Holy Tomes of Geneva, and all but go into cataleptic shock when a rule change comes out, and others don't. Playing AD&D by the book is not all bad, but it's not all good either. The same goes for all game systems, my own included. In the end, it is the referee who makes the system, not the other way around. A good referee can run *any* system and make it fun, while a bad one can run *all* of them in sequence and be uniformly rotten. But a referee that refuses to make allowances for possible imperfections in an existing game system will be put on the defensive by even a moderately imaginative party. And a defensive referee is a tragedy to behold, and no fun either. My personal feelings about AD&D notwithstanding, I think one of the prime requisites for a good referee is a willingness to talk over the differences the players (and prospective players) have with the game, and be prepared to accept reasonable suggentions. Not Official ones, but reasonable ones. Now, about the comments about players going to other games in search of more power, well, perhaps this is true for Arduin (but I doubt it), but it is not for RuneQuest or Rolemaster, and as for my own campaign, no way. I left the AD&D crowd because the characters got TOO powerful, TOO fast. I am one of those silly people who believe that a person with 33 hit points looks like a seven-foot-tall Dwarf, and that a five-foot-tall human should NEVER out- hit-point a sixty-foot-long dragon, regardless of levels. I know these views are unpopular, but I made up the system to be fun from my own point of view, not anyone elses. By the way, stupidity remains a terminal disease (especially when warrior kings have 18 hit points), but that tale about the character getting munched by the unicorn sounded a bit beyond the bounds of reason. --fini-- Eric McColm UCLA (oo' - kluh) Funny Farm for the Criminally Harmless UUCP: ...!{ihnp4,trwspp,cepu,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!mccolm ARPA: mccolm@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU Quotes on the Nature of Existence: "To be, or not to be..." -Hamlet (Wm. Shakespeare) "I think, therefore I am." -R. Descartes "" -Gleep (Robt. Asprin)