Vampyres and plot poynts.

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1998 02:30:49 +0100 (BST)


Ashley Munday:
> Simon Hibbs said that some GMs would abuse the ability to dish out plot
> points and wouldn't do it consistently. I feel if the GM is going to
> abuse anything (including himself at the gaming table) the game's sunk
> anyway.

Ash, I found this comment to be offensive, _disgusting_, uncalled for, and to make laugh out loud. Stop it at once, we're supposed to be Earnest here. ;-)

The point about "GM abuse" is that it's not normally intentional, or something one is conscious of, it most usually is just a set of bad habits one can get into. I think one should think of "rules to encourage good GMing" as being in the same spirit as "rules to encourage good RPing". (Or at least, which don't explicitly reward the _bad_.)

Mind you, I'm not sure the HW PP rule is a very good one. Perhaps they ought to be given out for crucial _character_ actions, rather than for RPing, as such.

> Personally I hold the rational, considered and mature view that
> experience points are the spawn of Satan waiting to drag our souls off
> to hell. I'm amazed that someone hasn't come up with anything better
> (apart from the experience roll) in 25 years of the hobby.

Apart from i) someone decides, or ii) no-one decides, it's random, what logically _could_ there be? I find in practice that most "XP" type systems tend to be creatively fudged in such a way as to reflect abilities actually used in an adventure, to a greater or lesser extent, so I don't get too het-up about the distinction.

> Another variation on the "Take control of a village" idea is that the
> Vampyre might be locally politically powerful. This probably wouldn't
> happen in Sartar - although that Lunar sympathising Blackmor bloke might
> be a good candidate - as they're not exactly progressive.

Pretty unlikely -- "pro-Lunar" Sartarite aren't pro-Chaos lunatics (well, _mostly_ not!), they're simply Pragmatists who can see which way the wind is blowing (straight down the toilet, as of the last rebellion). The most likely fate, in _any_ provincial clan, of a discovered vam"pyre" is to get put on one. Come to that, much the same is true even in the Lunar Heartlands.

Slainte,
Alex.


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