it's not all a quote really.

From: Daniel McCluskey (Volt) <"Daniel>
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 08:15:23 -0700


to all, my apologies for having to use a stupid &*)*(#$ braindead Microsoft Outlook(tm)(r):-( mail client that sends anything I comment as if it were part of the quoted text. (it looks real purty like BEFORE I send it... and thats what Really Matters here at microsoft)

um, and so this aint all non-gloranthan...

        Kudo's to all on the elf ponderings... I've been wanting to see this sort of discussion on elves for about two years now!!! great stuff

        The last Last Icebreaker installment was superb.

	and on non-human PC's...
	I have desperately attempted to play a non-human in one of Jeff
Richards' assorted campaigns for (well, pretty much forever...) Talk about Lost Causes!!! (well, in Jeff's defence... he very rarely vetoed a char -- just reminded the other (orlanthi) chars "now just exactly WHY are you hanging out with that [insert non-human of choice here]???")
	The attempts (and notes on playability)...
	Troll AA trader. -- he prolly would have worked if the party's
Vingan hadn't "discovered" that she was a die-hard Troll-hater with an ancient clan feud against the Kitori...

        "Broken" Dwarf Sculptor -- He would have been kinda neat... a 500% sculpt stone skill, and well pretty much a newborn every other way... (he did have a pretty narsty hammer attack tho...) I think the party got tired of waiting for his stubby little legs to catch up to them... and just kinda left him behind someplace.

        Rootless Green Elf -- Vetoed. too psycho and alien. We couldn't figure out a way to even TRY and integrate a Twitchy little Plant into a party of Orlanthi Swashbucklers. Might have worked as a one-off (sort of a nPC).

        And of course my favorite -- my beloved Sorcerer (counts as a non-human to Orlanthi ;-) who was REALLY twisted. I'm sure he's off somewhere hiding out with trolls as a bronzesmith, and still desperately plotting to destroy the red moon... He really was a nightmare to GM tho... (frex: a Crit'ed multi-spelled Venom, which got the Giant in SnakePipe Hollow down to about 5 total hp so that the Brave Orlanthi Heros could kill it after only about five mins of Hacking with no casualties(how many AP does that thing have anyhoo...))

Really the best way to deal with non-human "PCs" in my experience is to have someone "Play" the "Bad Guys" in an adventure or series thereof. Adds some spice to the combat when there is a real person who actually WANTS the "Evil ZZ Runlord" NPC to win, and will put some effort into really exploiting the full horror of Lord Demon on the Wussy Windbag "PCs"

        Even the most die-hard of Farmer GM's is forced to deal with Gloranthan Non-Humans on occasion. It's Fun, but I do have to agree that the very most important thing is the theme and flavour of the campaign, and sometimes a Troll just Doesn't Fit. (with the theme part... Flavour could be argued)

danm


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