In message <1168699535.131050.207600@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
"Will in New Haven" <bill.reich@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> psychohist wrote:
<snip>
> > I think that what Brian means by 'you can always make the time for
> > roleplaying' is that the player can always make the time. What I'm
> > hearing you say is that, given the pressures of the scenarios you're
> > in, your characters cannot make the time to be noble - they can't be
> > the kind of characters that you would enjoy roleplaying. You're
> > operating at Simon's 120% level, and I agree with him that the
pressure
> > at that level prevents heroism.
>
> Tiime for roleplaying, in one sense of roleplaying, occurs naturally in
> a campaign where a great many sessions don't involve combat. Campaigns
> where combats that allow you to operate at 75% of capacity are not all
> that conducive to rolepaying, in that sense, if the combat keeps
> recurring.
>
> I don't agree that the pressure of playing at 120% level prevents
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> heroism. I can't imagine putting people in that position unless it was
^^^^^^^^
> the climactic moment of a long campaign (and then I would be aiming for
> 90%) but I would not expect my group to act out of character. When four
> of us were in that position in a long-ago RuneQuest campaign, I
> remember quite vividly that everyone was both heroic and in character
> and, eventually, dead.
No, nor do I. That table says 'XYZ /TONE/' throughout. A scenario with a
gritty tone does not preclude heroism on the part of individual
characters.
(As an aside, I also think you're right that that the table works better
at
grading the overall tone of a campaign, while individual scenarios can be
expected to fluctuate about the average.) Heroism itself covers a spectrum
from, let's call it 'bloody heroism' at the gritty end, to 'romantic
heroism' at the cinematic end. One might even include 'doomed heroism' at
150% and "cartoon heroism" at 50%. Although I don't think "cartoon
heroism"
is a good term at all, and at that level "heroism" must be a pretty fuzzy
concept.
Part of the purpose of that chart is to identify where you are on the
difficulty spectrum so that if you don't like where you are you can gauge
how far you need to move. Players who actively enjoy characters dying
heroicially will want to play in a different difficulty band to players
who
don't like characters they're fond of dying at all. And a GM who intends
to
run a long campaign with the same characters has to set the lethality
lower
than one who is happy with high turnover, or one who is planning a short
campaign with a high-lethality climax.
--
Simon Smith
When emailing me, please use my preferred email address, which is on my
web
site at http://www.simon-smith.org
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