Martin Laurie:
> the Argrath player started as a weaponthane and is now a w4 in
> Manage Kingdom while his weapon skills topped out at w2. Sure he
can take on
> a lot of peasants but a decent clan champion should kill him in
close combat
> in no time.
I'd dispute that, actually. Per HW p.120, a clan champion's combat
skill ranges from 10w to 10w2. At 7w2, Argrath's skill should ensure
that's a pretty even match, not a walk-over for the champion. But I
digress...
> In other words, I guess what I'm saying (and this is directed to Jamie
> mainly) is that you don't have to be wandering the godplane,
fighting the MoM
> or combating the underworld denizens to have a reality grounded game
even at
> huge levels of power. [snip] See how risible the w4
> close combat character looks when he becomes king of a tribe and
then is
> asked to handle a tule border dispute or an argument over a cow when
his Rule
> Tribe skill is 17 or his Know Law skill is 13 and his opponent is
17w at
> Argue Black is White.
Your suggestion is, in summary, that powerful characters should be
challenged with things they aren't so good at, yes? This is a sensible
suggestion which will no doubt work for many, but there are, from my
personal perspective, three problems with it:
- It's my experience that a player who designs a character with good
combat skills usually does so because he wants a lot of combat. I
agree that its good to stretch things and give the character other
challenges from time to time, but I'd be wary of setting things up so
that he rarely gets to use his best abilities. Now, it may be I'm off
base here, since the example of combat characters isn't something I
can relate to directly as a player, since I don't like playing
characters who are more than barely competent with weapons (say a
maximum ability of 20 in Hero Wars). Indeed, my own characters tend to
be focused towards doing things that don't require skill rolls at all.
But I haven't noticed this to be common among other players, and most
seem to enjoy getting to use their best abilities, so I'd be wary of
constantly finding ways to prevent them from doing so. And if he does
get to use his best abilities, then we're back to the problem that the
scenarios where he does so aren't going to be the sort I feel I can GM
effectively.
- Even if the character is naff at combat because he's focused on
leadership instead, there's a good bet there's somebody else in the
party who *is* that good at combat, which brings us back to the
original situation (unless one wants to keep separating the
characters, which isn't my style either). The Humakti disciple in your
game may not be able to solve a border dispute, but does he need to,
when he's got Argrath to do that kind of thing for him? Vice versa, if
the pitchfork-wielding fyrd really does turn up, of course!
- There's still the problem that, at the end of the day, they are
that good. There may be other things they have to worry about, but
they don't have to worry about the fyrd, which is the sort of thing I
damn well want them to have to worry about. If I tell the players
'20w3 is not only as good as I'm allowing you to get, its as good as
*anybody* can get in the game world, without becoming semi-divine
entities with limited free will' I doubt there'll be a problem with it
as a limit - especially as 20w3 is rather a lot! If anyone ever does
get that good, they're happy with being one of the very best fighters
(or whatever) in the world, while I'm happy that they still have to
give pause when threatened by 188 angry fyrdsmen (or orators, or
disease spirits, or...)
I can see why it doesn't work for you, but it works for me :-)
> I suppose what I am trying to say is that this whole argument seems to
> revolve around the players becoming uncontrollable to the narrator
due to
> their obscene combat skills.
While this was certainly the problem raised by the original poster,
and your post is a good response to it, it isn't the situation I'm
worried about. It just so happens that my approach is also a solution
to this problem as well as to my own :-)
--
Trotsky
Gamer and Skeptic
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Trotsky's RPG website: http://www.ttrotsky.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/