Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7336078" data-attributes="member: 42582">[MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION], I agree with your comments about the gulf between what Gygax describes in those opening remarks, and the reality of play. I've often said the same thing in relation to the Foreword to Moldvay Basic.I can relate to all this very easily!As far as "abuse" is concerned, I rely mostly on the game rules to handle that. Eg let's agree that a +5 sword at 1st level is abusive in D&D - well, the 4e rules (which is the version of D&D that I run campaigns in) preculde 1st level characters having +5 swores. Of course any table is free to depart from that, but presumably they know it won't be abusive.Obviously a list-based game like 4e allows for highy optimised or even degenerate combos - we have no real trouble handling that through a mixture of player self-limiatation and gentelmen's agreements.As far as the fiction is concerned, I'm not sure the concept of "abuse" really bites: if it fits the fictional positioning, and can be framed in terms of genre + rules, then let's do it and see what happens! It's not like we're going to run out of story - or, if we do, then we know the game's done.This I relate to a bit less! I'm less inclined to "say 'yes"" to a glorious triumph - I'll at least make them roll!I can't speak for the details of how [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]'s game works, but clearly it's not utterly different from mine.In my own case, the players establish - with more or less detail, depending on the system, the player and the mood - what it is they care about in the game. (Eg one of our Traveller PCs is travelling the galaxy hoping to find signs of alien activity.)It's the GM's job to feed that into the framing of scenes ("going where the action is"), which lets the player pursue it; and to have regard to it in the framing of consequences of failure. The only "Monty Hauling" here is that the player (subject to the fact that there are multiple players, and so that player's PC may not always be to the fore) has something of a guarantee that his/her thing will be an aspect of play most of the time.The player of the invoker/wizard in my 4e game established, early on in the campaign as part of the narration of a resurrection episode, that his PC had been sent back into the world to find an artefact of great value to Erathis. As GM, I embellished this by having the original sceptre that he recovered turn out to be the first part of the Rod of Seven Parts. Later on, [urlo=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?324018-Wizard-PC-dies-returns-as-Invoker]in another resurrection episode[/url], the player decided that his PC was really an immortal deva who had been reborn as a human for one of his lives.When this PC was looking for the next (5th, I think) bit of the Rod of Seven Parts -  - , and located it in a duergar stronghold, the players ultimately failed to save the stronghold (after brining Pazuzu's wrath to bear upon it). As a result, the Rod fragment ended up being eaten by a purple worm - the PCs were eventually able to extract it after some brutal surgery!That's a fairly typical example of play in one of my games - I hope the general structural resemblance to the "looking for an alien artefact on sale in a market" Traveller episode that I've mentioned upthread is clear enough.The action resolution difficulties are the same as they would be in any other relatively demanding upper paragon 4e game. But it's not a random encounter in pursuit of a McGuffin - the whole situation is framed around this key dramatic need of this PC. (And other aspects of the situation speak to other PCs and their players: eg the PC who opened the door to Pazuzu's problematic relationship with chaotic forces; the tiefling paladin who sees, in the failure of the duergar's devil worship, echoes of his own people's fall.)</blockquote>

Verification