Re: Handling power

From: Ian Cooper <ian_hammond_cooper_at_...>
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 13:43:37 -0000

> Martin Laurie
> It is like the old joke about the gaming bar fight. Eventually the
>entire Zolanthi Martial Arts Olympic team has to be having a beer in
>the pub for the players to have a decent bar fight. My answer is
>that when someone gets that important, they go to banquets not bars
>and have way to many responsibilities to be that dumb. Except
>Harrek of course.
>Give em lands! Give em a mortgage! Give em wives and kids! Give
> em Sacred duties!

Good post, thanks to Martin for sharing his experience. I would say that there is a correlation with our experience. We are in the mid-W2 region for best skills now and as we first made the transition from the W range I was a little uncomfortable, the clan weaponthanes began to seem less of a threat, the rank and file less of a danger. But at the same time we realised that as the players grew in ability they also grew in stature so the people who wanted to interact with them grew as well. Whereas the clan chief was once boss, now the tribal king wanted their attention, tribal affairs became more prominent, and their world view is shifting (sometimes clan vs. tribe can be a choice). As they increase in power their enemies become greater too, before they were the villains behind the schemes, but now they appears on stage, and they too will be discovered to have masters. Its like an onion, peeling back the layer of this perspective reveals another one. After the tribe will come the nation, after the nation whole peoples.

I also fully suspect that the heroplane will grow in significance as heroquesting takes on greater importance to the players as the best way to achieve their goals, and there the rank and file are often W3. As the players engage more with the mythic world they may become more divorced from earthly concerns.

Simple contests are your friend, they let you deal with encounters that are now trivial easily. Rituals and preperation are also a significant leveler. If the players enemies are prepared and ambush them, or have huge community support then they may have bonuses from thier magic that let them equal the heroes.

Sure there are some new difficulties like the individual needs of players not corresponding but so far with techniques like rapid cutting (play each person from decison point to decison point giving them the chance to thinkn about their next action in the lull) and echoing (what I am doing and you are doing are parts of a larger whole)we have been able to keep the game cohesive. The Empire Strikes Back is a good example of a movie cutting between seperate strands.

Sure, if you want to retire people at the border of w4, but you can play at those levels