> Forget about your examples.
I'd rather talk about something clear and pratical... How could you convince me if you refuse to solve my tricky situations ?
> Now the story begins. In one scene you want to show your players how
> cool they are so you pit them against some villains with lower
> ratings.
>
> They players win, they learn something about the game mechanics, now
> you want to provide them with a challenge, so antagonists of equal
> strength pop up. Maybe your players win again and now find out who
> the bad guy behind all of this is - we are talking about
> "boss-monster" here.
> See, what i mean ?!
Yes, it's basic gamemastering skill... Everybody does that, even simulationists...
When things are planned, no problem, adversaries are built up to be defeated, to be nearly invincible, or to be challenging. Every gamemaster in the world think that way, even space-opera or rolemaster addicts ! ;)
But problems occur when :
1)players are trying something unexpected : "I challenge this humakti guy to single combat". Then the gamemaster needs a scale to estimate if "this humakti guy" should probably be a challenge, a victim, or the nemesis of the bully player.
2)players rise in power : after some month of playing, the scale has changed and its more and more difficult to keep things consistent, logic. Players need new challenges which enable them to understand to what level of power they are now. Because the tiny numbers on their sheets need to mean something...
Many times we stopped our campaign because the characters had become too powerful to fit easily in the world because of the lack of scale...
Take a look on this thread to see what I mean : http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/HeroQuest-rules/message/22435
Maybe you don't feel these difficulties, but it doesn't mean they are inconsistent...
Cheers
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