In article <1168563253.908371.52170@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Will in New Haven <bill.reich@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Most people I know who find it difficult to roleplay in a campaign have
>difficulty with the frequency of the challenges, not with the
>difficulty of the challenges. If every day in character is a grind of
>fighting, planning, problem-solving and then fighting again or, worse,
>fighting, fighting and fighting again, it would be very difficult for
>anyone to roleplay.
I have trouble with this, but I also have trouble specifically with
difficulty. The problem scenario in SCAP nearly killed the game all
by itself: "that was seven hours of hell, my morale is broken, I never
want to do it again."
>If things like this happen _often_ it must be an extremely tough
>scenario.
One thing has dawned on me in writing this. It seems obvious now but I
hadn't grasped it before.
We play single-player, multiple-PC. It works for us as we're married to
each other and it is much easier to schedule that type of game than with
a group, and also we really like each others' play styles. But. If
a group of 6 players hits one of these modules and one PC dies each
session, each player has experienced one session with their PC dying
and five without. If I do it, I have had the experience of losing a
PC *every single session*. The impact is worse.
In terms of emotional impact, it may be that one should count deaths
per player and not deaths per character, and we need to drop the
lethality level sixfold over what a multi-player group could handle.
(No, having more than one PC doesn't buffer it at all, for me.
I thought it might, but we've been doing this for 20 years now and I
can conclusively re****t otherwise.)
>Don't you ever get a chance to roleplay practice and asking advice from
>fencing masters or whomever your character would consult? While the
>campaign I am in right now, and the one that I run, features very tough
>scenarios, the fighting occurs in a minority of sessions and I have
>time to learn and practice.
The GM is not omniscient and in general cannot give much useful advice
on the specific tactics of my party. So there is no one available to
do the fencing-master thing. We can have a fun conversation but it
will not cover the fact that I don't know how to use the PCs' trickier
abilities.
Example: you can buy potions of Bless Weapon that will get through a
devil's
DR10/good. But they last a *minute*, and don't work on missile weapons.
How do you use them tactically? I have failed every time so far: too
soon
or too late. How to realistically practice this? I didn't even know it
was
a problem until the first time I tried to do it in combat. And I can't
ask
a fencing master, because the GM has no clue either. I'm not sure this
item
*is* usable, but I doubt I'd ever have known without trying it repeatedly
in play.
"It's not the things you don't know that will kill you. It's the things
you know that ain't so" (like the idea that potions of Bless Weapon can
be used to fight a devil). Real combats reveal this. I don't know how
to set up a practice scenario that does, because I don't know where the
issues *are* in advance.
We could do a lot of fake combats, but I would rather do real combats
against not-so-lethal opponents than do fake combats.
>Well, I am sorry to hear about your RL problems but I don't think
>gleichman did an ad hominem and you are taking offense that was not
>given. On the other hand, you never talk to me anyway. That, of course,
>is not offensive at all.
I lost net access around the time you started posting heavily, did you
notice? I wasn't responding to anyone. But yeah, after "people who play
like you are crappy players and ruin the game" I wasn't all that
motivated.
I will try to give it another chance, but no guarantees.
Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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