> If you're going to invoke storytelling, fights in most stories aren't
> about power, or tactics, or blow for blow exchanges. They're about
> consequences, personal decisions, *character* development. The fighting
> is seldom an end in itself: its often merely a necessary afterthought.
> Of course characters will change over a lifetime - knowledge and wealth
> and power generally increase, physical skills decrease, and doing things
> becomes less important than having others do things for you. But that's
> not the point. And your Frodo example is even more misleading ... While
> wraiths never do much more than glower menacingly, the encounter is
> about appreciating the terror and reality of Mordor and as a baptism of
> life beyond the Shire. It's about Frodo **growing up**.
>
Quite right, IMO.
"What are you fighting for" is a lot more important to me in games these
days than "what am I fighting with" (despite my enduring nerdiness about
firearms...)
The Frodo thing is less "Will the Ring hide Frodo?" and more "Will Frodo use the Ring to hide?". In this case it was kind of a trap, since using the Ring might make it impossible to hide.
I personally think this example is *terrible.* To my mind this scene is an ideal example of those sorts of contests that aren't actually contests; this "contest" is a scary colour scene.
-- John Machin "Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All." - Athanasius Kircher, 'The Great Art of Knowledge'.
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