Monte Cook and Tracy Hickman

[Purple]

All this talk about dueling letters in Dragon got me to remembering those letters from some Greyhawk player about his 320th level wizard, or something, and wanting TSR to make some new monsters for him to kill, since he'd slain all the gods, etc. It was followed up by letters of people claiming their XXXth level character could beat him, or whatever. Does anyone else remember this?

I don't know if this makes me sad or not, but you are thinking of Dragon #137, from September of 1988. I just walked upstairs and pulled it out of the bookshelf, as I remember it well, being one of the first issues I purchased.

Anyway, the character was a 358th level magic-user named Waldorf. He nuked Greyhawk, killing all creatures, and then he put the gods to work in the salt mines below his castle. Not bad if you can pull it off, I guess.

I just glanced through a couple of others, so I don't remember exactly where the responses are. Sometime within the next year, I think.

Lee

 

[Piratecat]

I followed Tracy's advice in an incredibly slow-moving and boring game that had gotten bogged down, and it turned it fun and exciting again. Every time the other PCs started to dither and argue, I went and kicked in another door. We all had a blast --

-- but I wouldn't want to do it in every game.

 

[Numion]

It's fun every once in a while, but I wouldn't do it all the time. My character did that a bit in Banewarrens, and it wasn't safe.

Nobody else seemed to mind, but the rogue was pissed he didn't get to disarm the traps because I kept walking into them.

 

[BlackMoria]

Nobody else seemed to mind, but the rogue was pissed he didn't get to disarm the traps because I kept walking into them

Hehe. My rogue is actually happy when the barbarian keeps setting off the traps - less risk to me. The barbarian character has done so much stuff against the party advice and set off so many traps that we call him 'Trapspringer' instead of his character name. Which riles up the barbarian's player....but he still carries on with the 'less talk, more action' style of play and still sets off traps.

 

[Mercule]

Last time I did the "kick in the door" routine, I got my sorcerer disintegrated (slay living, actually). Still, it was fun.

 

[Sir Elton]

KICK THE DOOR IN!

Actually, if you read the article, the KICK THE DOOR IN approach came from a time when Tracy was playing a Barbarian, and one of his friends suggested that he play one. So he did. The result was a fun session where the whole party was "TOTAL PLAYER KILLED" by the player wizard.

 

[DM_Jeff]

Tracy Says...

>>Sounds like it might have a connection to a phrase I've seen quoted >>somewhere on the internet:
>>Tracy Hickman says: Kick The Damn Door In!

Yeah, that was on my website, http://www.dmshaven.freeservers.com. My friends and I went to a GenCon seminar he held (and to my knowledge still holds) where he proports an active style of play. Not to be suicidal, but active with action, deeds and interests for your character. Not to make yourself and idiot to your friends, but if you see the game lagging and everyone dwelling on minutae and getting bored, shake things up a bit. It was a very entertaining seminar.

-DM Jeff

 

[Voadam]

It's fun every once in a while, but I wouldn't do it all the time. My character did that a bit in Banewarrens, and it wasn't safe.

Nobody else seemed to mind, but the rogue was pissed he didn't get to disarm the traps because I kept walking into them.

Hahahaha, following Hickman's advice got you smacked around in Monte's module?

Monte does like his Big power and danger evil settings where caution is rewarded (banewarrens, CoC, RttTEE). There are lots of no save bad things in Monte modules that encourage cautious and thorough investigation so I can see him defending that style of play.

When we did the banewarrens we didn't have a rogue until very late in the game when we recruited one. It was mostly my ranger eldritch knight being very careful with search checks and us carefully avoiding or setting off traps from a distance, or the paladin sucking up a lot of trap damage and effects. His best quote was "Thank goodness its only poison!" as we were enveleoped in a gas cloud and my EK coughed up a lung from Con drain.

 

[Numion]

Hahahaha, following Hickman's advice got you smacked around in Monte's module?

Heh, that is pretty funny considering the topic!

Nothing overtly bad didn't happen though, because I usually had enough spells on to trailblaze.

Monte does like his Big power and danger evil settings where caution is rewarded (banewarrens, CoC, RttTEE). There are lots of no save bad things in Monte modules that encourage cautious and thorough investigation so I can see him defending that style of play.

Yep, Banewarrens is like that. Spoiler for Banes

Spoiler

We made crazy deals that each PC has to grab a bane artifact when we broke into the vaults ..

Exciting and fun!

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

My former home game had this problem a lot. The other players would spend 20-30 minutes talking about whether or not to do something. After wasting half an hour of precious game time being overly cautious, my PC would make a decision and press on. And everyone else would follow, just because someone finally made a decision (even if it wasn't a very good one for the group--it was always what my PC wanted to do).

That group was definitely too cautious. I find the worst type of PC with this trend is the "wizard who never casts" because s/he's always saving spells for the "big fight later on." Bah, to that. Pox, I say! I just started a new game and my 3rd level wizard character used all of his spells in one fight. Other PCs in this category are the "rogue who's afraid of traps" and the "barbarian with crossbow" (wtf?!). I've played with all three types and they're all annoying because they're too cautious (i.e., they don't want their PC to die, no matter how stupid the PC looks "in game").