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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 2775333" data-attributes="member: 1757">I have run cross-cutting, scenes separated by thousands of years, and numerous other "novelistic" techniques IMC. Loads of romance, enough surrenders, etc. I've certainly had PCs surrender because the bad guy had "the drop" on them, but that's only because I use certain house rules regarding surprise and "covering" with ranged weapons and because I am a big fan of hostage situations.As for respecting NPCs, my players have always been good about this. We've had multiple relationships, important mentors and father figures, significant local tradesmen, semi-adopted urchins and "groupies," chaste "romances" in which players have leapt to defend the honor of x tavern wench against impugners even though they have no personal romantic attachment, et cetera.Well, in the context of a lot of crappy fantasy books, yes. But "boy meets girl, boy chases girl" (or vice versa) is sorta universal story material. Think of how many individually GREAT songs and poems come out of it!The one biggie I see repeated here with which I'd have to agree is party asymmetry and/or rank. I really don't think this works well in most groups; however, I can easily imagine a game in which it's a stated situation from the outset, and where the players all agree to it. Such a game MIGHT be fun to run, but I still see the strain. The one big universal rule I've developed after 20+ years of gaming is that all players need to feel that they (a) have something to do and (b) are on a reasonably level playing field.Because I appear to be picking on PsiSeveredHead today:Well, Gandalf isn't actually superior to the bad guys in LotR. He beats the Balrog, but it's an epic struggle. He is less powerful than Saruman (until his death/rebirth/apotheosis/assumption of Saruman's persona), and certainly no match for Sauron, who is, after all, the true "epic-level character" of Middle Earth.Hmm? As for assessing an opponent, I allow this as an application of Sense Motive (and have allowed it as a fighter and rogue class ability in 2e). It hasn't led to real trouble, since I don't make it any more precise than the novels do. As for good guy vs. henchman: I don't really get your point. I thought it was usually that the good guy gets his butt kicked, and then comes back for revenge.I do "bad guy perspective" stuff all the time through two devices: cutscenes and "I alone am escaped to tell thee" scenarios. For information that's unlikely to wreck the campaign, I'll often lead off a session or get a session together after a break with the description of an "offstage" scene involving a particular bad guy. For information that I want filtered in some way, escaped (often deranged) prisoners and double-crossing followers make great storytelling outlets.</blockquote>

Verification