General Discussion Thread VIII

[Bront]

I would think that if a player uses their background in the course of a game as a background ("When I was sailing the 'Lucky Duck'.." or talking about the wife and kids for example), it shouldn't be an issue outside of possable RP of people knowing these things later. If the use it in the game specificly (I'm going to see if Joe's Bar is still open, or sending the cursed artifact to a loved one for example), it openes up the background for that specific adventure only. Otherwise, you could technicaly have a character use a kid as a shield to hid behind ("You can't kill me when my son's here, he's background and untouchable").

I hope that makes sense and helps (If not, I'm tired, so tough)

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Therefore just about everything is private. However, if you could answer my specific question about Helena and Demetrius, then you don't need to answer it for me in the general sense you have been trying

In your specific example, I would email or spoiler a message to the player and just say "are you sure you don't want to have someone cast detect magic (or maybe detect plot) on that before you send it off as a trinket?" However, it seems really unlikely that it would be given by the party to one member to send off as he pleased without having detect magic cast on it.... if the whole party screwed up at that level, the player gets one metagame warning and then private vs public be damned, he mechanicly involved the character in the game, its "so would you you say Helena would be a 1st level aristrocrat or a 2nd level expert...."

the bit about not making character background public domain means that I can't pull someone from your background and give them personality traits you hadn't envisioned, make them a secret villain and have them attack you to be killed by your friends in self defense. It doesn't (or certainly shouldn't) mean that they have complete immunity and you can test out potentially cursed artifacts on them for fun and profit. If you send them a specificly described, 'named' object the DM has placed in your adventure, you have potentially involved them in the adventure or a future one. A nice DM will give you a metagame warning to this effect. That is all.

 

[Patlin]

Can someone point me to the LEW afterlife/ressurection rules if they ever got aproved? I know they were discussed, and I have a need for them in Faerie Woods. If we haven't established how we are handling the (ridiculously stupid concept of a) death penalty, does anyone have a problem with the DM of a particular adventure waiving any such?

I hate it when my players die!

 

[azmodean]

The proposal is here, but no real indication of wether it was officially approved. Looks like no approval. If I'm reading correctly the proposal establishes a temple where you can go to have any of the spells cast at standard SRD cost on the northernmost border of the world. Nothing about removing the level loss. It also covers PC retirement.

INAJ, but I do think waiving level loss is a problem.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I'm in the adventure that had to have someone pulled back from the brink of death by questioning their actions, and my character is almost dead and cannotcstabilise, and I still agree with azmodean: I think that it would be a big mistake to remove the death penalty.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I would think that if a player uses their background in the course of a game as a background ("When I was sailing the 'Lucky Duck'.." or talking about the wife and kids for example), it shouldn't be an issue outside of possable RP of people knowing these things later. If the use it in the game specificly (I'm going to see if Joe's Bar is still open, or sending the cursed artifact to a loved one for example), it openes up the background for that specific adventure only. Otherwise, you could technicaly have a character use a kid as a shield to hid behind ("You can't kill me when my son's here, he's background and untouchable").

I hope that makes sense and helps (If not, I'm tired, so tough)

Excellent, that is exactly my opinion as well, and the example is more-or-less what I would have used to argue if someone came on this thread and told me that of course I couldn't use the background characters or something. Thanks Bront!

In your specific example, I would email or spoiler a message to the player and just say "are you sure you don't want to have someone cast detect magic (or maybe detect plot) on that before you send it off as a trinket?" However, it seems really unlikely that it would be given by the party to one member to send off as he pleased without having detect magic cast on it.... if the whole party screwed up at that level, the player gets one metagame warning and then private vs public be damned, he mechanicly involved the character in the game, its "so would you you say Helena would be a 1st level aristrocrat or a 2nd level expert...."

the bit about not making character background public domain means that I can't pull someone from your background and give them personality traits you hadn't envisioned, make them a secret villain and have them attack you to be killed by your friends in self defense. It doesn't (or certainly shouldn't) mean that they have complete immunity and you can test out potentially cursed artifacts on them for fun and profit. If you send them a specificly described, 'named' object the DM has placed in your adventure, you have potentially involved them in the adventure or a future one. A nice DM will give you a metagame warning to this effect. That is all.

Excellent. If I recall, you were the most against my pro-GM stance the last time I brought in questions, so the fact that you also agree with me indicates to me that probably no one disagrees. Thanks Kahuna Burger!

 

[orsal]

Excellent. If I recall, you were the most against my pro-GM stance the last time I brought in questions, so the fact that you also agree with me indicates to me that probably no one disagrees. Thanks Kahuna Burger!

That does seem a rather rash inference to me. And I speak as a professional logician.

That said, Kahuna Burger has expressed my position on this issue too, probably more eloquently and clearly than I would have done myself. And I speak as a LEW Judge.

 

[Rystil Arden]

That does seem a rather rash inference to me.

Oh, absolutely rash. I completely agree. But I'm willing to make it anyway because frankly, this was a 'Duh' issue to me (with the 'Duh' answer being the one everyone agrees with so far) that I only mentioned just on the weird off-chance that I was immediately shot down by seven judges or something. It would be akin to saying that if John C. Calhoun, strong supporter of nullification and secession for states, agrees that something should be a power of the national and not state government, and I originally thought it was obvious that it should be, then I can't be conclusive, but I can get a pretty good idea that I was probably right

 

[Knight Otu]

I hate it when my players die!

Do we need to call the poli... oh, you mean character?

Don't expect much from me today, Im not feeling too well. Just don't start any bickering, ok?

 

[Patlin]

Don't expect much from me today, Im not feeling too well. Just don't start any bickering, ok?

Hope you feel better soon!

Bickering? Sure hope not. I remembered there was a post on death and ressurection, and had it confused in my memory with an article I read somewhere about death penalties and whether they detract from the fun of the game. I tend to think they do, especially when the death was so random.

(I think I jinxed the random number generator when I thought "Well, the PC has enough hit points left that even if the bad guy rolls max damage he'll only drop to exactly 0." I then rolled a x4 crit.)

I will play by the rules, whether I like them or not.