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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 8064939" data-attributes="member: 6779310">To be fair, whether or not you'd know is more important than the actual odds. If you have no way of knowing the odds, but just know it's a magic sword, you use it when you think you need a magic sword... it's your buddies who have a chance of knowing... after you off yourself.Also to be fair, such a magic item is a Gygaxian F*-the-players d*-move, and it's inclusion in game is grounds for sane players to vote the GM out... it's the kind of thing that, when it happens in the game, it's time to find a new group.Mr. Newman's assertion boils down to "you can't judge difficulties for historic or fantasy based upon current difficulties, because the paradigms and tech are quite different." If I understand his argument correctly (and I've gamed with him for many years, and been friends for many more), if the GM and/or system doesn't give you a set of odds, you can't make an informed decision on whether to do the think. For example, the risks of Malaria are, while still potentially lethal, for a US citizen, treatment is readily available and fairly cheap... but for an African in one of the jungles, even the needed supportive care is expensive and hard to get, let alone the drugs to fight it. So, if the adventure is set in "The Great Malarial Swamp," the average american isn't going to understand the risks, unless the game is a moderns. before the 19th C, malaria was a killer. Even into the early 20th, it carried strong risks of death for those who got it... much more survivable now. Most first world people don't realize just how deadly it was. Or, in Africa, still is.</blockquote>

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