Our Balazar campaign wasn't even farm boys, but hunter-gatherer boys.
I still remember (I was the GM) the PCs first visit to a big town (Trilus!)
and their splurging their vast cash resources on buying a pan to take back
to the tribe. One of my teen-age sons grumbled sotto-voce "I hate being
a primitive." As the campaign evolved, just by the luck of random
encounter rolls and courageous player decisions and good combat rolls
(our campaigns don't fudge those things), the players emerged as being
far more powerful in reputation than they were in fact.
This led to some interesting role-playing indeed -- people who everybody
thought were tough but knew they weren't that tough. So far, they have
managed over the years to manipulate circumstances enough as to become
much closer to the level of toughness that most of their acquaintances
thought they had in the first place!
So far, we have played the exact opposite of Sandy -- only published
game scenarios -- then again, I am not a Famous Game Designer -- only
a reasonably busy real world person who likes to play games, and we have
always had enough parties around (about 4 "standard" RQ parties) to fit
them into most of the adventure scenarios -- and we will pick up npcs
from adventure packs such as the Borderlands as some of the original party
died or faded out, and occasionally take the whole party suggested (as we
did in River of Cradles) and then keep playing them along into the other
new Praxian adventures.
By the way, I can't forbear noticing that MOB's account of the major
characters he has played is mostly an account of disaster and defeat --
maybe he should play farm boys! After all, MY Theoblance might have lost
the election, but he kept his life and walked out with his Church following,
and if Gordius had just recognized the wonderful skills of my Count,
maybe the Lunars would still have kept Boldhome in the American version.
For that matter, I am sure that my wonderful diplomatic skills as a
female Lunar diplomat explain why our expedition into Tarsh was such an
all-around success. Now, if I could only figure out a way to follow the
Runequest rules and get a character anywhere near Rune level . . .
I could do the same thing on a table-top!
Jim Chapin
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