Re: Re: Improving magical items

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_...>
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 11:04:32 -0700

> Roderick, I think you missed the original point on this one. It was
> about the differential between the best of the heroes' skills and the
> rest of the heroes' skills. That when you have sword and shield 2W,
> there are times that you will use brawl 17, dodge 19, intimidating
> glare 17 or glib 14 to solve certain problems. But once sword and
> shield has reached 2W2, if those other skills haven't improved much,
> any opponent of note can only be defeated by using sword and shield,
> so you become more reliant on it, and so it is the skill that you can
> most often buy up cheaply, and it pulls even farther ahead.....

That's a problem within the playing group, not the rules. There are times that Sword and shield might be an appropriate ability to use, but there *should* be plenty of times during play that it is the wrong thing to use. Take a page from Pendragon, where sure, you can by Sir Studly with all your combat abilities in the high teens and twentys, but you'll never get far in court that way. Can't run a manor, can't sweet-talk the ladies, can't add to an eveneing's enjoyment by reciting a poem or playing a song or dancing? Well, we'll send you to the fromntier where no-one will notice. And you'll die alone, in an unmarked grave, and no-one will bother to remember you.

> The other solution suggested comes down to narrator choice. Make
> sure they face a variety of challenges regularly, so that no one or
> two skills are always the solutions, or are always the ones that can
> be bought up cheaply. The players are then more apt to increase a
> broad array of skills. At least that is the theory. Again, no idea
> how it works out in practice ("no plan survives first contact with
> the players.....")

This is certainly *my* preferred solution.

"So, you want to woo the Princess? You know, she thinks that warriors are clods. What ability are you going to use? "

Then there's the tried and true "make sure the opponents are tougher at the hero's best skill than he is":
"Okay, here's the king surrounded by his bodyguards. You recognize Big Bart, who slew a berserk minotaur single-handed; and Wily Wally, who can shoot the eye out of a hummingbird's head at 250 paces; and Mad Martin, who is known to control at least a dozen fang spirits. And you're drawing your sword on them? okaaaay".

I just don't think that the difference in ability levels is something that needs to be addressed by rules (house or otherwise). It's a player decision as to how they want to allocate their points, and if they want to be a Johnny One-Note, then sometimes they won't be able to play along with the rest of the band. The second or third time that Johnny uses Sword and Shield inapprpriately and gets everyone in trouble, social pressure from the rest of the players should do the trick.

RR
It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of this has done what he has done.
- Richelieu