Re: Re: Just Curious

From: Benedict Adamson <badamson_at_...>
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 10:19:46 +0000


Michael Schwartz wrote:
...
> one of my players wrote the
> following:
>
> Tenacious and resourceful, he discovered a secret path
> to Kero Fin's Hall. Captured there, unpredictable Merlar
> cheated death...

...
> I permitted the player to take a "Cheat Death" magical
> ability unrelated to his Affinities.

...

Looking at my character sheet, all the unusual abilities are justified in this narrative way. However, I wrote the narrative that way to wring as many abilities as I could from my 100 words ;-)

I'd give all the following abilities for those three lines:

Tenacious
Resourceful
Knowledge of Kero Fin's Hall
Unpredictable
Cheat Death

Giving 18/5 = 3.6 words/ability.

Writing 'He can cheat death.' is 4 words/ability.

The storytelling method can be compatible with power gaming!

However, bear in mind that the list method is an option for character generation. As that merely provides a list of abilities, without justification, I would not require much justification even in 100 word narratives.

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