Re: Difficulty Balance

On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:18:51 +0000 (UTC),
mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:

>I am encouraged by the success of the Night of Terror, which
>was _Speaker in Dreams_ modified a bit and run for PCs of
>level+4, to think that we may be able to use a lot of the
>material if we abandon the authors' *****sments of its proper
>level.  But I have to overcome the internalized *****sment which
>says "If you want to do that, you must be a wimp and a loser."

At the risk of giving the sort of advice that is easier to give than
to take, I'd say that you should tell that little internal voice to
shut the heck up. 

Playing a module at higher level than the one printed on the cover is
rather like starting characters at higher than 1st level. 1st level
characters are really too fragile for good beginning play, at least
the way you play (and the way I play). And for much the same reason,
characters of a module's "rated" level are really too fragile for the
module. In both cases, the 'official' level assumes a hardcore,
stylized, and either casualty-tolerant or fudge-tolerant style of
play. 

I've suffered enough "you will go through the purgatory of playing
through the first few levels with your characters before you're
allowed to get to the good stuff" that I'm not going to inflict 1st
level characters on my players to start. And I'll decline to play in a
game where the GM requires such. From your descriptions here, you've
suffered enough from playing modules at their rated levels that I'd
advise you to take the same attitude.

-- 
Erol K. Bayburt
ErolB1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]