Re: Campaign pacing

On Apr 10, 9:39 am, "DougL" <lampert.d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> One of these things
> is clearly better than the other unless the GM is deliberately ****ing
> with the world to have Ravens show up with im****tant messages for me
> every 5 minutes.

I hope you don't mind that I object to your use of the f**king to
describe my gaming style. But if you wish to take this to straight to
a flame war, you've made an excellent start.

Point Systems are (or should be) designed primary to be used
specifically to justify and guide the campaign genre by means of
character (and item in some systems) construction. That's the gaming
contract they are designed for. They are not designed for any other
style and generally will not work with them.


For example, if I were to use HERO to run a Prydain game the following
things would happen:

Speak with Anything would be disallowed. That ability doesn't exist in
that setting. Very few characters on concept could buy "Speak with
Ravens", typically only those of a fair folk background.

And yes, Ravens would have rather common interaction with the
character as a result of how such a character spent his points. It
would likely be a major genre highlight for that character in fact.
This is the whole point of buying the ability in the first place.


Now lets say I was (IMO stupid enough) to attempt to run an open
setting where both "Speak with Everything" and Speak with Ravens
appears together. I require the former to be brought as Telepathy
likely at the 10d6 level, No End Cost (+1/2), Only for Communication
(-1/2) for 50 points.

Meanwhile I'd count "Speak with Raven" as a specific language for 3
points (it would work like speak wookie in a Star Wars game). Special
effect in HERO is wide open you know.

Generally there's no problem with relative effectiveness because the
latter can be afford while the former is a major and likely character
budget breaking buy.

Where things turn really stupid is when you attempt to mix a group
that insists on buying both abilities for different charaters. Any
group of players where the niche of one (speak with Ravens) is
completely contained in the niche of another who's more effective at
that niche (Speak with everything) is asking for campaign failure no
matter the system. Blaming the point buy construction is doing nothing
but deflecting blame from where it belongs- on the players/GM.


If you or Mary are not willing to play the game towards the ends in
which the system was designed, that's fine. But the fault isn't with
the game system. It's with yourself. Find another game and stop
whining about systems that work perfectly for those who understand and
accept how they are meant to be played.