Rant
>
You just can't do all of this in 32 attributes and
> have it
make sense to the D&D player.
>
and
later ...
> My D&D
friends have different expectations.
>
> Aidan
Yes.
Expectations is the perfect word. Other phrases could be what they
are
''familiar with'', or what they are ''used too'' yet these are
too passive to
describe the truth of it. Expectation is more
active. More anticipatory.
Just as you describe they like the
minute details, and I can see why. A layer
of minutia will let a
player see clearly when danger is approaching as there
are more
concept layers for the threat to get through before actual
combat
starts.
For the sake of
brevity I will now proceed as though everyone agrees that I
too
understand and value this finer granularity of more modern RPGs.
Don't
try to talk your players out of it. Let them continue to
walk on the beaches
they are familiar with.
Consider.
A characters' statistics and abilities are a combination of
numbers
and words. What I am suggesting is that the rate at which
numerical values
are increasing is causing a simultaneous
devaluing of word meanings. Said
another way. Math is beating the
brains out of vocabulary. Math, numbers,
and formulas have
multiplied, propagated, overgrown their original fields
and
completely erased the lines of definitions that used to exist
between words.
It's excessive and out of balance.
I
remember early role playing to be a nice balance between new
vocabulary and
new formulas. I am merely bringing a way for GM's
to see what their players
do not. Namely that this period of post
modern deconstructionism is coming to
an end. Breaking things down
to smaller and smaller pieces to see how they
work is almost
played out. Coalagulation lies in our future. The ability to
join
small pieces together and get a larger result.
In
my experience players love it when their designs have positive impact
on
the game world. Sadly most players pull together dissimilar
elements in a GMs
campaign only to be frustrated and denied the
result they wanted. What
motivated GM's to act this way is not
germaine. What I'm suggesting is a way
to indulge them, and still
maintain a balanced game world.
Let me
speak in visual terms now and paint a picture for you. Imagine
some
complicated game system as a three dimensional world, with
mountains of power
levels, various streams of treasure, and
veritable oceans of magic. The
immortal super beings floating over
it all in their fortresses made of aether
and cloud.
Now
imagine a motive. Do these cloud cities come floating in and cast
their
shadow on the players world. Do they strike their favorite
magic items with
lightning and disenchant them. Dispatch minions
to rob them of their wealth
and kidnap their followers? Or are
they more elusive, and non interfering.
Allowing the players to
find their own way, and just watching with interested
detachment.
Hoping that one day they will rise high enough that they can
be
invited to join their ranks.
I'm
talking about how you GM your campaign. In my campaign where the
players
have confidence that they are being encouraged to grow and
gain power. To
climb higher and higher. Defeating greater and
greater evils. They have no
problem staring out chained to the
wall in the bottom of a dungeon ruled by
some petty tyrant. But in
some other campaigns the GM's don't convey that
sense of optimism.
>
Similarly, if I'm in a high-lethality game where one bad roll can
kill my
> PC
right out of the gate, then I can only view my PC as being
bugshit
>crazy to
even CONSIDER an adventuring career.
>
>
E. K. B.
Paragraph
7
http://tft.brainiac.com/archive/0609/msg00051.html
Now
imagine every GM ever has their own three dimensional world,
with
mountains of power levels, streams of treasure, oceans of
magic, with cloud
cities of immortals floating over them. An
infinity of these worlds existing
in an infinite space. Lets just
run all the numerical values right up to the
max. An infinity of
infinities. We'll name this space now, to make the
concept easy to
discuss. We'll call it hyperspace. A small move in
hyperspace
covers thousands of light years. Not so alien when defined
this
way.
Now let's personalize it.
In the role playing tradition lets give it a
personal name and
call it our own. I'll call this one "Cidri", you may
wish
to call yours something else. And in this space, since all
numbers have
already been run up to infinity, the only thing left.
The only way to
distinguish between things. Are the values and
meanings of words.
Specifically the tension between the relative
value of each individual word
within the entire framework of the
whole.
So continue to run your D&D
games with the players expected version of the D&D
numbers.
Just remember that when you want new ideas, or to visit the tops
of
the mountains and see a balanced ecology of word value, a trip
through TFT
will server you well. Precise, subtle, yet gentle use
of each phrase. A
sense of the balance of the whole system in each
nuance. TFT knocked the
mathematical ball out of the park when
compared to D&D of the time, we all
know that. But that was a
meer byproduct of it's clearer vision of
immortality.
I
suggest that one day players may want to reach that high. When, and
if they
do, the GM may find that TFT is already there, on the
other side of
hyperspace, waiting for them. He doesn't have to
convert them, or even let
them read any of the books. But by
having read them any GM is better
prepaired to guide them through
with a sense of meaning and understanding
available to few
others.
David Michael Grouchy II