Subject: Illuminations, Volume 4, Number 5
First Distribution: March 24, 1990
This issue:
Re: Checks vs. Experience and a few toys. (Jeff Okamoto)
shamans & possession (George Harris)
FRP archive server (Anthony Kapolka)
If I sent this already, my apologies; things are rather busy around here.
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From: Jeff Okamoto
Subject: Re: RQ digest 4#4
>Subject: Checks vs. Experience and a few toys.
>From: michael p mittmann
>
>but I did want some way to reward (or
>punish) exceptionally good or poor playing (both intelligent
>actions and good roleplaying). So I came up with the system of
>giving "character checks". These are checks which are awarded
>by the GM at his(her) whim, then when the character would normally
>roll his(her) checks each one of these gives her(him) a 2% better
>chance of making each check.
This is pretty nice! At DunDraCon, I was talking with Larry DiTillio,
and he has come up with an idea that I may try too. The problem was
that his group would only play once a month, and his adventures would
often take 3 or 4 sessions, thus allowing only that many chances to
advance.
What he has done is to say, every time you successfully use the skill,
take a check. When you have accumulated 5 of them, right then it's
as though you successfully made an experience gain roll. For combat
skills, you only get one check PER FIGHT.
And of course, at the end of the adventure, you roll the rest of your
checks normally. Larry didn't mention, but I suspect that each extra
check adds some percentage to the chance of advancing.
Jeff
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From: "George W Harris"
Subject: shamans & possession
Actually, when a shaman is on the spirit plane his body is
inhabited by his fetch, which is left behind. This would require
that a spirit which had reduced the shaman to 0 mps on the spirit
plane additionally drive the shaman's fetch from the body. In a
addition, the spirit would have to manifest itself on the mundane
plane without being summoned. Furthermore, if the spirit were of a
type which cannot ordinairily initiate spirit combat, it couldn't
inhabit a body in any case (how can one be possessed by an intellect
spirit?).
Instead, it seems more likely that a shaman who is brought to
0 mps while on the spirit plane would have his spirit at the mercy
of whatever did so, just as whatever the shaman defeats in spirit
combat is under his control. What is done with a shaman under
this circumstance is difficult to imagine, unless the enterprising
spirit keeps a shaman-binding object handy.
Of course, if a shaman is battling a spirit such as a spell,
power or intellect spirit which is incapable of initiating spirit
combat, he can break off the contest at any time, so would only
be brought to 0 mps by flagrant inattention or hideous luck.
-George Harris
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From: anthony@cs.pitt.edu (Anthony Kapolka)
Subject: FRP archive server
[Anthony runs an archive server on his machine that allows people to mail
requests for various interesting files he has, including a complete
archive of RQ Digest stuff.]
To get a RQ digest Volume V Number N:
send mail to archive-server@eklektik.pgh.pa.us
Put junk in the subject line
In the message body include the following:
path machine!logname@somemachine.site.domain ;a reasonable return path
send rqdigest rqdV.N ;where V = volume #
; N = issue #
;ex. rqd1.1 rqd1.2 rqd3.12
In general, asking for help in the body of the message will bring a help
message. Asking for an index will bring a top level view of what is in
the archive. Use only lower case when issuing commands.
Anthony
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