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Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room
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<blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7199660" data-attributes="member: 6778044"><p>Maybe not for you. For some of us, creating a believable world is part of the fun and part of the game, and helps immensely in the immersion and the believability that the characters are part of a real world. And part of making it a believable world is to make sure what happens in the world works within the structure of the rules. Why did 83 knights perish? Because they were killed by a small family of dragons, perhaps? And it's reasonable, within the rules, that they could/would die. </p><p></p><p>A believable world has lots of hooks for the players to latch onto.</p><p></p><p>In fact, it raises a point that to me is an important one. Over the years lots of people have complained that something like ToH is too hard. To me, a tomb that has gone unplundered for centuries, with nobody returning alive, should be very, very deadly. I don't design such a dungeon to be "interesting" to play, with "fun" challenges. I design such a dungeon to kill, and the PCs have to figure out how to survive it. That's the challenge, to accomplish what nobody else has been able to do. And in places like that (should they choose to go) they are also quite aware that there is a good chance their characters will die. And resurrection is extremely rare in our campaign, so dead is usually dead. </p><p></p><p>The DM isn't "playing" the game when writing background, but that background can very easily fit within the structure of the rules. And that mirrors mechanics. And can be something you can creature using the rules and mechanics if you wanted to spend the time to do so. The story of the 100 knights that head out could easily be the story that you <em>do</em> choose to run for your adventure. They might be the PCs.</p><p></p><p>And if you are mindful of the rules and possibilities when designing the background and the world, then the decisions don't have to be 100% arbitrary either. As I stated, sometimes I'll engage the rules and random results when determining what happens to NPCs between the times that the PCs encounter them.</p><p></p><p>Just as I like a surprise as a DM when running the game, surprises during the development of NPCs can be a lot of fun too. I roll up NPCs randomly too, I generally don't assign ability scores, etc. And that helps me decide more about them, although I often have a few abilities in mind too.</p><p></p><p>The ones I rolled up last night were quite a mix, too. I use the AD&D order of S, I, W, D, C, Ch still:</p><p>13, 10, 13, 16, 13, 9 (Rogue)</p><p>12, 10, 10, 12, 12, 14 (Bard)</p><p>15, 15, 15, 9, 15, 17 (really! - Paladin)</p><p>9, 14, 14, 14, 16, 11 (really again! Wizard)</p><p></p><p>I roll them in order, 3d6 re-roll 1's once using the same rules that the players do. Mathematically I found that it averages almost the same as the standard array, just provides for more surprises usually. In this case I was looking for a wizard, and got a few extra NPCs on the way. I already knew I was going to need a paladin, and wasn't specifically working on that last night, but there he was. I require a Charisma and Wisdom of 13 for a paladin, so it was a nice surprise. I'll go through and level them up one-by-one to what I need, looking at what options there are at each level. I haven't decided if any of them are non-human yet either, although I'm thinking there's a high likelihood the wizard is.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ilbranteloth, post: 7199660, member: 6778044"] Maybe not for you. For some of us, creating a believable world is part of the fun and part of the game, and helps immensely in the immersion and the believability that the characters are part of a real world. And part of making it a believable world is to make sure what happens in the world works within the structure of the rules. Why did 83 knights perish? Because they were killed by a small family of dragons, perhaps? And it's reasonable, within the rules, that they could/would die. A believable world has lots of hooks for the players to latch onto. In fact, it raises a point that to me is an important one. Over the years lots of people have complained that something like ToH is too hard. To me, a tomb that has gone unplundered for centuries, with nobody returning alive, should be very, very deadly. I don't design such a dungeon to be "interesting" to play, with "fun" challenges. I design such a dungeon to kill, and the PCs have to figure out how to survive it. That's the challenge, to accomplish what nobody else has been able to do. And in places like that (should they choose to go) they are also quite aware that there is a good chance their characters will die. And resurrection is extremely rare in our campaign, so dead is usually dead. The DM isn't "playing" the game when writing background, but that background can very easily fit within the structure of the rules. And that mirrors mechanics. And can be something you can creature using the rules and mechanics if you wanted to spend the time to do so. The story of the 100 knights that head out could easily be the story that you [I]do[/I] choose to run for your adventure. They might be the PCs. And if you are mindful of the rules and possibilities when designing the background and the world, then the decisions don't have to be 100% arbitrary either. As I stated, sometimes I'll engage the rules and random results when determining what happens to NPCs between the times that the PCs encounter them. Just as I like a surprise as a DM when running the game, surprises during the development of NPCs can be a lot of fun too. I roll up NPCs randomly too, I generally don't assign ability scores, etc. And that helps me decide more about them, although I often have a few abilities in mind too. The ones I rolled up last night were quite a mix, too. I use the AD&D order of S, I, W, D, C, Ch still: 13, 10, 13, 16, 13, 9 (Rogue) 12, 10, 10, 12, 12, 14 (Bard) 15, 15, 15, 9, 15, 17 (really! - Paladin) 9, 14, 14, 14, 16, 11 (really again! Wizard) I roll them in order, 3d6 re-roll 1's once using the same rules that the players do. Mathematically I found that it averages almost the same as the standard array, just provides for more surprises usually. In this case I was looking for a wizard, and got a few extra NPCs on the way. I already knew I was going to need a paladin, and wasn't specifically working on that last night, but there he was. I require a Charisma and Wisdom of 13 for a paladin, so it was a nice surprise. I'll go through and level them up one-by-one to what I need, looking at what options there are at each level. I haven't decided if any of them are non-human yet either, although I'm thinking there's a high likelihood the wizard is. [/QUOTE]
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