NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="BryonD" data-source="post: 5275936" data-attributes="member: 957">If you are identifying a medusa by inspection, you have already screwed up.Funny thing is, in the original tellings of the story, way back in the day, it was even more scary.  There was only one Medusa.  And, anyone who had ever seen her was stone.  So NO ONE knew what she looked like.  You did not know that there was a snake-haired woman over there to avoid.  You just knew SOMETHING over there would turn you to stone with a glance.  If a medusa is the random monster in room 14d on level 6 of the Black Dungeon of Dave, then yeah, that is anticlimatic and no fun.  But, as far as I see it, that isn't a story or even hardly a narrative.  Again, if you pull it completely out of any remote context, then you have removed every reason for playing in the first place, as far as I am concerned.I've never played in a *good* game in which there were wizards throwing semi-random finger of death spells at PCs around every corner.  In my games, if you go after a wizard with the potential to cast finger of death, then you better be ready to deal with whatever it is he may be casting.  It may be FoD.  It may be something completely different and just as bad.But that is what heroes do.Defeating the Finger of Death wizard is glorious.Getting killed by the FoD wizard can also be glorious, and memorable and fun.Defeating the Finger of Booboo wizard is lame.  Getting defeated by the FoBB wizard is pathetic.You can't overcome a challenge if you cower from the challenge.But, tastes CLEARLY differ.  If you want to fight marginally contextualized battles against a string of random baddies and be reasonably assured that pure statistics won't kill you, then SoD is a horrible element from a gamist point of view.</blockquote>

Verification