Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6609682" data-attributes="member: 42582">The last sentence makes sense to me. It's the interface between problem/puzzle solving and GM discretion that I'm interested in. If the GM's choices around how to resolve interactions are completely opaque to the players, then that part of the game becomes less of a puzzle and more of a lottery. My sense is that the GM's choices shouldn't be opaque.I think it would be obviously wrong to say that the reaction system anticipates "say yes, or roll the dice". But I think that it has some sort of connection or resemblance to that approach. So if the players come up with their strategy (promises, lies, whatever) and the GM just goes along with it rather than rolling the dice with some sort of bonus, that's fine. And rewards the players' problem-solving.If the players come up with their strategy and the GM tells them it fails because there is some prior relevant backstory (say, the ogre hates elves and always attacks them on sight) then that's fine. The players should have done better exploration (via ESP detection magic, rumours, etc), to learn about the ogre's elf-hatred.If the players come up with their strategy and the GM factors it in as a bonus on the reaction roll, that's also fine and I would think is pretty close to a system default.But if the players come up with their strategy and the GM decides, on the spot, that it fails and that the ogre therefore  attacks, I think that's a bit problematic. How were the players supposed to solve that puzzle? It's fine to have a spontaneous elf-hating ogre, but shouldn't that be a possible narration to make sense, in the fiction, of a hostile reaction roll, rather than a bit of spontaneously inserted backstory that straight-out hoses the players, and which (in virtue of its spontaneity) they couldn't have protected themselves against via exploration?Some comments on that, then!Swords +2 are very strong (given the Moldvay combat maths). In a system without weapon proficiencies, this doesn't hose anyone too badly, though (it's a class penalty for clerics and MUs), unlike the preponderance of magical longswords in AD&D, which heavily punishes non-longsword using fighters.The wand of enemy detection, medallion/potion of ESP and crystal ball are all important parts of the exploration focus. Though they want their friends back (Treasure Finding, Metal and Mineral Detection, intelligent swords etc)! - I think these were all in Expert.On the issue of proportionality between loot and numbers, in addition to the example on p 50 that you mentioned, there is one on p 56:Rolling the chances according to the given Treasure Type for hobgoblins (D), it is found that the monsters have 3000 silver pieces and 1-8 pieces of jewelry. Since ony 4 hobgoblins are on guard (out of a possible 24, or 1/6 of the possible Number Appearing), the number of silver pieces is reduced to 1/6 the rolled number (down to 500) and the minimum (1) piece of jewelry is used.Whereas in the example you quoted, the reduction is based on averages (30 being typical for a goblin lair, with a number appearing of 6-60), here is it is based on maximums.I'm not sure the combat example on p 28 fully bears this out, though. Clearly that is involved, and is meant to be interesting. And at least shots from bows seems to be treated on a "one attack roll = one shot of an arrow" basis; likewise the throwing of an axe. I agree that melee combat is not differentiated in the same way, although positioning is being tracked in a fairly fine-grained manner. Also, there are no blind declarations of intent: for instance, Silverleaf's player is able to decide not to cast a spell after initiative is rolled and the PCs lose.In other words, some of the narrative pressures resulting from the scaling down of "unit" combat to "individual" combat are pretty evident, I think.</blockquote>

Verification