Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="SHARK" data-source="post: 738289" data-attributes="member: 1131">Greetings!Dragonblade! Zenon! Volaran!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> There you are my friends!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Yes, it was a great session. My players are all mature enough to engage in dramatic roleplaying without "bleeding" over feelings into a real-life personal conflict, which I'm glad for. I stress often that they should remember they are playing a different person, a different character, and for them to embrace playing their character as faithfully as possible. I encourage them to play them realistically, with faults and good points all taken into accounts. If a character is a strong, courageous, and loyal person, then good. But I would also hope that the player can at the same time, for example, play the character as deeply religious, opinionated, and even abrasively arrogant. Such I think, tends to help the character become more three dimensional. The next step, so to speak, is for the character or the player rather, to come to grips with this character coming to grips with these personality traits, as well as dealing with the consequences of such traits. It is then that real depth is achieved, as the player gets to experience a different reality from their *character's* point of view as they interrelate to people in the world around them.The players realise that such characters are being just that--those particular characters, and the way the characters act, what they say, and so on, has absolutely nothing to do with them personally in real life. I encourage this kind of genuine, deep roleplaying, as it helps the players get into the characters and not only explore different personalities, but different world views and life circumstances. Zenon, indeed, the Vallorean is young, heh?<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I have two separate low-level campaigns (both are 1st-3rd level) going on now, one mid-level campaign (15th-20th), and one high-level campaign (35th level and up). It is refreshing in many ways, because the players don't have the toys, the financial resources, the troops, retainers and followers, nor do they have any political connections or influence. Essentially they are helpless nobodies in a vast, dangerous world!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> It is different from the higher level stuff for sure! I like all stages of play, though, for different reasons. It's just great watching players fight together like this with their different philsophies and approaches to life.As for "detect evil" spells, I use them to "detect immediate evil intent" which means that it often only works on demons for example, as they think of evil on a constant basis. Evil humans, for example, unless actively intending evil in some immediate sense, do not detect as evil, just as in the Gnolls, having an evil alignment, would also not detect as evil, unless the individual itself is planning evil. This magical detection of course, is not really a judgment on the alignments at all, but merely a limitation on the actual magical spell's detection/informational ability. This way, races can, and are, born evil, as an alignment, but it doesn't mean that a spell is necessarily going to detect them as such. This also doesn't mean that a sword that is enchanted to deal extra damage to evil creatures won't work, for in fact, it does, but the character doesn't necessarily know that. The player knows that the sword is doing extra damage, but the character, does not. It is in this manner that I preserve some element of mystery for people and plots, and avoid much of the problems that the detecting spells cause and project. This of course doesn't mean that the world isn't or doesn't have many situations of black and white morality, for it does indeed have such, but it provides a richer tapestry from which the characters can intereleate and wrestle with moral and philosphical problems and differences. In that sense, I want a player to form their own views based on their character's religion, upbringing, and experiences, and I would like for them to be able to have a well-reasoned system or framework for believing in the world view that their character believes in--but I want them to do so, regardless of specifically what it happens to be--because it is being faithful to the character, and faithful to the character's background and experiences, not because they have used a spell and the spell said so, and thus makes all the choices for them, or because I, as the Game Master, said "thus and so" so now their character no longer has to think or have passion or faith in what they believe or why, they can just shrug and say, "the spell says their evil!" or "well, the Monster Manual says they are always evil, so let's kill them!" or, in a similar fashion, "Well, the Monster Manaul says that race is "Usually" evil, so we should let them live!" In that sense, I want their attitudes to be framed along the character's beliefs and background, not based on what I say, or what a spell says, or what the book says. The character doesn't have the Monster Manual to read after all.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I hope I didn't ramble along too much there!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Semper Fidelis,SHARK</blockquote>

Verification