About Me

Friday, September 6, 2013

MIDlands Charater Creation

Neal,
With regards to chance of improving one's skill, I use the RuneQuest rule: You can try to improve the skill, only if you used it in the course of the adventure to achieve the positive difference and move the story forward. All the skills that were used (and that includes spells) become candidates for improvement. For a healing skill, it is not enough to cast the Cure Light Wounds Spell, you must have cast it on enough players to make a difference between players losing the melee and winning it. Healing skill has to be used to stabilize a character with zero and less HP and to keep him or her from dying. Magic Missile spell would be the candidate for improvement if it drops (or kills) an opponent. The frequency is ONCE per ADVENTURE. You can use the skill successfully to move the adventurers forward a dozen times, still, it only gets ONE shot. Another thing to consider, is how long an adventure takes place. For instance, My players just came off a two year long mega dungeon adventure that lasted from beginning of May until end of July in game time. I have a Magic User, who used a Sleep spell successfully at least a dozen times. Since the skill improvement represents a lifetime track record, that player will only get 1 chance at improving that skill. To make sure that he gets the improvement, I might reward him with an automatic maximum success, OR I can add the number he used the spell to attain critical success to his percentile die roll to see if his skill improves. Another thing to consider is that since Sleep is a first level spell, which the player has mastered. If he practiced the spell with another wizard, who has sleep spell and is of significantly higher level than the 1st level, it only takes one week's supervised practice, before the skill improvement check can be made. When assessing amount of time it takes for training, you should decide as DM how long a training period should take. To learn to walk on one's hands the player character mist have high STR and DEX of 16 and will take 3 to five training sessions. To become an acrobat might take 2 -3 years of active study. Healers and Herbalists may gain experience by working as healers. A season (winter, summer, give or take spring and fall), might be long enough to warrant a skill improvement check, OR a critical incident that is role played successfully that might last one evening. Have the player character treat a patient dying from human rabies. If they got enough wherewithal to make a positive difference, they get to roll for skill improvement. Again, this is rooted in narrativism, and is largely at DM's discretion.
So, you want to play a wealthy Princeling, why not? Write the DM a brief backstory that I will modify accordingly. Placement-wise, you are from the large MIDlands city-state of Starohrad, five days by the river away from the local produce walled town of Ryeland, that is the base city (well... a large town) for the players. I would let you be the Princeling from Ryeland, but the place is so small, quiet and backward, that it doesn't produce enough wealth to make a Princeling! MIDlands narrativism is where story balance is maintained. I make a social class roll for each player character to see how bad the DM's rewriting of your story will be. If you want to be from the top 1% of the MIDlands society, you will probably have to roll 99-00 on percentile dice to enter the game as a fully empowered princeling that you are anticipating. But let us say that you rolled something other, that brings you more to the ground level of peasants or artisans and craftsmen or freeman homesteaders. That would mean that you are a Princeling-in-exile, and a DM has to make up as to what happened. For instance, "Your mother cheated on your Leonian Nobleman father and he had her burned at the stake as a witch. The Rogue whom she cheated with was hunted down on the forest and you lovely Dad has severely beaten his man at arms, who accidentally killed him while taking him alive. You were in the way of your step mother and their new baby and they sent you to a Monastery for schooling. You thought that the priests were going to kill you and you ran away from them... (eventually becoming a thief that the player character had)... and that is how the backstory for each player character gets written, maybe less extreme than this case, but no less dramatic...
There are THREE ways the players can roll up a character to enter Midlands, and none of them let you lower some ability to increase the other, hence, no Min-Maxing! The Man On The Street; The Dilettante; and roll to get a particular character class, everybody gets to be any AD&D character class they like, remember. Man On The Street rolls 3d6 for each ability. The good news is that you get to reroll as many times as you like, until you get the stats that you crave! Because 3d6 versus ability gives you least advantages, and restricts your choice of the character class, this represents the typical upbringing without any special attention paid to the child. Because of this, the character relies more on his friends and neighbors to get along in the world. What this means is that the Man on the Street is written into the setting more, with more contacts, more recognition based on CHA and a few more background/cultural skills.
The Dilettante rolls 4d6 for each ability, and you can re-roll as many times as you like until you get the stats that you crave! In the real world, the dilettante is a dabbler, who is not involved in the field as a professional, but practices it as a hobby. This was typically, because their families had enough money, to where they did not have to earn a living and could become a dabbler. A sailor goes to sea to support his family. A dilettante goes on a sea expedition  as a self-styled naturalist, journalist, or an adventurer. By the same token, rolling 4d6 and picking 3 highest, gives you more opportunities and represents more attention paid by parents, better grub fed to the child, and better social position. That does not necessarily mean wealthier, for there are poor families that are loving and are well integrated into their community. Because the Dilettantes typically have the luxury of privacy and solitude, they get no advantages of the common men on the street. 
Finally, if the player wants to play a particular character class, they can re-roll the lacking primary requisite attributes on a special table, that while reflecting the probabilities from the 3d6 bell curve, will yield only the numbers that will qualify the player for that character class. Bards, Monks, Paladins etc. Of course there is a trade-off, and that is where the MIDlands Narrativism comes in. Unlike other games I played in, the true Sandbox exerts Lovecraftian tentacles over the players. Each character is WRITTEN into the setting via the background essay like Silva's Tale. The player character is bound into the setting by a number of acquaintances and relationship with those acquaintances. Typically, a player gets to pick a number of "friends" in the setting equal to their CHA bonus. Equally important to the campaign development is the concept of the CANON. Player and a DM create the character's biography that places the character in the sandbox. Whatever elements of the story are agreed on, become part of the canon. If the bio thingie says that you are friends with Merlin or Conan or the King, then later in the game, if you ever get in touch with these NPC's, they will act as a benefactor on your side. How much can you get out of a friendship with a King? This is where the game ceases to be linear/by the rules and expectations, and enters the non-linear narrativist turf.
The trade-off that players exchange for the amazing choices available at the start of the game is in their independence of their characters. Most fantasy role playing games are run and played by middle class suburbanites with the expectations of the relatively privileged suburbanized white males. Almost everyone takes privacy/solitude for granted. This applies to the players sense of themselves in the real world as well as that of their characters. Essentially, a typical character exists apart from the game world, typically existing in the player's imagination as a self-sufficient traveler, who advances in their chosen profession (character class) by virtue of "experience" - loot and combat kills, which have little or nothing to do with the advancement in their chosen occupation. Typical D&D adventure starts with the players arriving into a town, getting a room at the inn, that mirrors their own room in their parents' home somewhere in the suburban sprawl. Next thing they do, is go to some "tavern" where they pick up rumors about some dungeon waiting to get looted. This is the purview of the Dungeon Master's world. Somehow the locals are totally ignorant of the riches in their midst, just waiting to be taken from the hordes of the sub-human two legged creatures ripe for slaughter. If it wasn't for the Orcs and the piles of gold pieces, I would have thought that the players were some mining company employees looking to extract the wealth of some God-forsaken 4th world nation like D&D player characters taking gold from the dungeon. Of course, one of the casualties in this adventure, is the players own vision. Typical D&D play proceeds like lovemaking in the seventies after the Joy of Sex came out: During the act of copulating, everyone is working to get themselves off, while going through the motions. The player can and will, come up with a backstory for their character, usually lovingly crafted and cherished one, and it has no more chance of surviving in the dungeon adventure than those new arrivals to the Nazi death camps selected to go take a shower or the inhalation lung treatment. The only thing that matters to the DM is the player character is expressed in terms of the game statistic that make the character playable in the context of the immediate adventure. In the final analysis the independence of the player characters is illusionary, since the only thing that counts is the in-game stats, which give the player a seat on the DM's rollercoaster.
To counteract this, The player character is written into the MIDlands setting at the start of the game. The freest ones are the Dilettantes, since they get to start the game on their own terms, a few negotiated close friends and a few problems, disadvantages, issues, by agreement with the DM. The Man on the street has more immediate resources and creature comforts, but they are part of the local story and they are least likely to enjoy the scenario of the merry traveler from far away. Those who choose to play a particular character class have the least freedom. They are considered to be in the active service of whatever organization or order employs them. Rangers, Paladins, Monks, Bards, are essentially institutionalized or closely affiliated with secret and secretive orders and organizations. They don't have to worry about level advancement or getting or finding instructors, but the DM can send them on an adventure (via NPC's who are their bosses), and they can't say no without reverting to regular fighters common men etc. By comparison, MIDlands thieves and magic users can act as free agents and have to role play finding guild affiliation and it is usually quite hard to find regular employment with the entities that train them. Even fighters have to travel the fantasy world looking for fencing instructors, but they have easier time joining military organizations and can move in and out of them, if they like.
Vagaries of embedding the players in the game world aside, there is one other important dynamic. Every set of stats that was rolled and discarded by the player as unsuitable, is not thrown out, but is taken by the DM and is used to make the NPC's who will be that player's Nemesis and will go after the player character and try to kill him or her throughout the course of the campaign.
End notes:
With regards to the spell-casters wearing fighters helms into battle. Assuming that a starting chance for the 1st level wizard casting a first level spell successfully acquired is in the ideal range of 25-40 percent; Spell-caster can wear an arming cap or an open face helm with no penalty; a 3/4 helm with a 15% penalty; and a helm with a visor that can be opened and closed with a 20% penalty.
I will go over the three books in separate posts.

15 comments:

  1. Brooser Bear,

    If the chance to increase skills is once per adventure, that's a pretty good cut off point. This is intuitive at first glance, and probably works as the simplest system 90% of the time, but shouldn't there be a cutoff on how long the 'adventure,' is required to last, before you get to 'start a new adventure,' and begin having the chance to increase skills, again? It comes down to semantics that a 2 year mega dungeon crawl is still just "one" adventure, and not 2 years worth of 1 month-long adventures! It's kind of like saying that 4 years of college is just "one long classroom experience, so you can only learn one new skill, even though you took 8 semesters of 6 separate courses, each semester, over those 4 years.)

    Is there any reason a party isn't going to think that pursuing a 2 year stint in a megadungeon unreasonably penalizes them for semantic reasons of cut-off points, however? In all fairness, wouldn't they think, "You know, we should wander in the wilderness for a week, cause this is screwing over our chances to gain skills at anything like a fair, realistic rate. Lets come back to the megadungeon in a week."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brooser Bear,

    I guess if the game time was from the beginning of May until the end of July, that's not as bad as 2 years of game time. My mistake. However, it's still a very sizable chunk of time to get only one chance per skill used successfully and that saves people. If the PCs do a small dungeon, like B1, In Search of the Unknown, and they go through 40 rooms in a game time period of 3 days, and get skill checks, doesn't this encourage players to steer clear of megadungeons, in favor of small bandit lairs, bear caves, etc?

    What about a mechanic that allows for PCs who meet the requirements of successful use of a skill that saves other PCs, or whatever in-game target needs to be achieved, and they can roll to increase that specific skill, one time per month/ once per season (or whatever time period seems reasonable)? It seems realistic/has verisimilitude, and doesn't create power-leveling abuses (as far as I can see).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brooser Bear,

    Ok, I read through everything. Very interesting take on beginning origins! I've never heard the like, but I've got about zero percent familiarity with anything narrative. Having your ability stats change the number of d6's you roll, very unusual, and neat.

    I was thinking of a Ranger, or a Fighter. I'm new to this, so those seemed more obvious to use in your campaign. Rangers, it seems are tied to an organization. If the PC is part of a party, online, does this mean my character doesn't get to go along, and has to do solo-adventures, or does it mean, everyone has to go on the Ranger's particular Military Order's requests? If he's part of an organization, that makes things easier to navigate for finding patrons, etc. So, it's not a bad place to start.

    For the background of Princeling, I originally had in mind a 5th son of a City-state Prince. My reasoning is that he'd be educated, and know how to get along in society, but, be such a distant heir to the throne, that they'd be trying to find some way to just get rid of him. He'd get money for decent armor/equipment and training, but not much of an inheritance. The old saying about having multiple sons as heirs, in case of disease/accident/death: "One heir, and one to spare," was on my mind. As a 5th son, he'd be a literal "5th wheel." Nobody would care much about what he did, so he wouldn't be tied down to a court, and he wouldn't inherit just about anything. Good start for an adventurer.

    If he got Ranger's training, then he'd have gear, an organization to back him up, give him training, healing, and directions on where to go, at least some of the time. As long as he can participate in gaming that would be good. If there is an online party, and you as GM announce, "Sorry, the Ranger's order has told him he can't play in the dungeon for the next 4 weeks, so Neal doesn't get to do any playing... AGAIN..." that would pretty much make for a suck-character. How does that work, marching off on the military order's .. orders?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Brooser Bear,

    How do I roll up characters? Do you roll for me and keep each one I discard as a mortal enemy?

    If I choose a Ranger, how many d6's do they get per roll? I didn't quite follow that part. Streetwise people get 3d6 and more connections to people based on Charisma. Dilettantes get 4d6, fewer social connections. Not sure what else.

    If Rangers are forbidden to play when everyone else is online playing, then I'd probably just go for a fighter, depending.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Neal,

    I'd love to have you as a player in my game, especially as a Ranger, but unfortunately I only play face to face at my place in New York. If you live anywhere near NYC, you are welcome to join. If you live too far, but come to NYC to visit, get in touch with me and I will let you make a cameo appearance in the game as many times as you can make it. I do not play on-line, it is strictly F2F & PNP. Anybody else reading my blog and wanting to join my game and being able to get to it physically, post a comment or drop me an e-mail message, and I will get back to you!

    With regards to 'adventures" running into months and years, think of the polar exploration expeditions that lasted 2 years and more, that still counts as a single adventure. Here is why. Rolling for skill improvement represents learning from your experience and growing as an individual. You need closure and reflection to accomplish that. Ergo, an adventure needs to end before any gains in skill are made. If you roll one time per month, or even once every three months as a "fair and realistic skill gain" and with an average skill gain of about 3%, you can go from 25% to 90+% in, say Nursing, in 25 to 75 months or roughly 2 to 6 years, and where does that leave master craftsmen who spend their lives getting good at what they do?

    Even if you wanted to play an elite character, you can choose either way to roll. As an "Every man", you roll 3d6 versus ability and if you qualify, you get the contacts of the man on the street. Ergo the better stats that can be rolled by Dilettantes, who get nothing else beyond the statistical advantage. If after that you want to play one of those elite character classes and you don't have the scores, you re-roll the failing scores to satisfy the requirements.



    ReplyDelete
  6. Brooser Bear,

    Ah... I assumed you ran online games, like Google+? Damn. I'm on the West Coast, so not much chance of face to face gaming. What is PNP?

    Well, re: skill growth. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

    Nurses must graduate from a nursing program. It takes about 2 years of college to attain an associate degree in nursing. It takes about 4 years to finish a bachelor's degree in nursing. And a nursing diploma program usually takes about 3 years.

    So if you go from 25% to 90%+ in 6 years, that's either too long, or on the longish side. I guess if you have to end the adventure to take in the experiences you've had, basically, that's a good reason for the PCs to take a week away from the dungeon, go to town and rest and absorb/ponder their experiences. Then go back and do more delving in the dungeon. No law that says an adventure has a time limit on when it must start and stop in a specific locale, unless you are going to plant timebombs...

    Well, that sucks. I guess I'll have to find an online campaign on Google+. Not sure who runs them, but they probably have boards where you can sign up or "walk-in."

    ReplyDelete
  7. Neal, how do you figure that someone fresh out of school is at the same level of professional skill as someone with 30 years of experience? A degree in Nursing might give you basic tools to do your job, but it takes years of experience to insert IV needles into veins the first time around, recognize clinical symptoms at the first glance at the first instance they appear and perform life saving intervention. Same goes for the tactical skill. US Army considers urban battle to be the most dangerous combat environment. It believes that a soldier needs a minimum of 8 years in the infantry unit to get the training and experience that a soldier will need to be properly aware of his surroundings and be ready to fight in an urban environment. A Midlands skill rating represents the lifetime mastery of the craft or a skill and not just the basic educational minimal. Personal growth occurs within the framework of critical incidents and significant emotional events in a person's life. Going off into a wilderness adventure for a week before going back into the mega dungeon would not give the person the required closure and reflection. If you sit on a dungeon siege for three months, pursuing the same adversary, that would be the same mission, same adventure, regardless of whether you went into town for two weeks rest or not. Now, if the mega-dungeon was there all along, before and after the players came and went, and the players went on a specific mission into the mega-dungeon, and came back after completing it, THAT would count as a single adventure for skill improvement purposes.

    You are not conceptualizing the AD&D Rangers correctly, especially the ones in MIDlands. Check out the AD&D Second edition the Complete Book of Rangers. Ludicrous, preposterous, staff hack-written drivel, BUT they got some of the stuff down the way I see it, and it should you a better idea of what a ranger is versus a fighter with a lot of wilderness skills and hunting/tracking ability.

    PNP means Pencil and Paper. 75% of human interaction (as in involved multiple narrator story-telling) is non-verbal communication that gets lost over the internet, Skype and other remote communication means. Which is why I only do face to face. You can probably find a D&D gaming group if you wanted, or start your own! Check out Meetup.com website for your area for D&D gaming groups. Look through or advertise on Craig's list, I got players through there. Go down to you local D&D gaming shop and ask the staff about any local gaming groups and also if there is a local gaming board. Of course, there are people, who hide behind the internet from the hostile world. I hope you are not one of those. Good luck finding a local game. Let me know how it goes!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Brooser Bear,

    Well... my sister is a nurse (RN). They learn how to insert needles pretty well from practicing on family members before they leave nursing school, and if that isn't enough, they learn it on the job with many, many patients, giving multiple shots each day, within the first year in a hospital. Diagnosing other things, RNs are only allowed to do so much low level diagnosis, since that is the physician's job, in some cases the Head Nurse's job. But, those are very specialized jobs, and not the norm of nurses or LVNs. Lawyers are very eager to bring lawsuits for that stuff, and hospitals are rightly very paranoid about that. There's a saying about why many doctors pay $200,000-$300,000 per YEAR, on medical malpractice insurance, while lawyers (who commit more crimes each day - than a so-called 'career-criminal' in and out of jail) pay about $5,000 a year for legal malpractice insurance... the saying is "Why do doctors pay so much more for malpractice insurance than lawyers?" "Because lawyers sue doctors, not the other way around." And it's absolutely true!

    Yeah, I've looked at Meetup, and local groups in my area, as well as the local game-shop website for game nights, and groups. I don't doubt I can find people online, I'll probably do that. Probably something like 75% of communication is nonverbal, so I see your point. I have seen online fantasy games where the players used video feeds, shown on youtube, so that's one alternative.



    I wasn't aware that it took 8 years of combat experience for an Urban environment, but it sounds reasonable. House to house is the most dangerous for the soldier. Too many civilians you aren't supposed to injure, and too many of them may be assassins, or children/retarded teenagers, with hand grenades, who have no idea they are being used for jihad (this has happened since Nam, and in Israel). Not to mention snipers at windows and rooftops, or taking civilians hostage on the street or in their homes. It gets nuts. The jungle is actually safer!

    My point about adventures being an arbitrary period to learn from something still stands. An adventure can last a few days till you go to town, or years of siege. During wars, which are one long adventure, without let-up, often (think British shipmen on ships for 7 years in the age of sail), they advanced from midshipman to lieutenant and on up the ranks, from learning on the job each day. The way I'd probably go about skill advancement checks, would be to say "If you use skills successfully to save somebody, or improve the game in some way, then you get to roll to improve each of those skills one time per month/ 3 months, whatever." I think a gain of 5% a month, at least to start is reasonable. It can taper down to 1-3% a month later on, or it can taper to 5% checks every 3-6 months. If you figure what your starting score is, and add in successes (not automatic!) each month for 6 months, that would be a 30% gain. After that, you get improvement checks every 3 months(?) and 5% if successful. The knowledge gets more abstruse. People learn most in the beginning (think soldiers in boot camp, or infants learning half the skills they'll need in life in the first 3 years, I think the figure is). Every year or two years, you learn half the remainder of the skills you need to get through life. How many more social skills does a 60 year old have that a 50 year old doesn't? You've learned most of those skills by that point. Less and less as time goes by, usually. Something to think about.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I don't know about you, my dentist has 20+ years on the job, and I turned down a kid straight from med school. You, no doubt would let him practice on your teeth. I can't tell you how many medical staff missed my veins on try 3, so I prefer older ones, who get called in later anyway. When soldiers are on deployment they are too stressed out to actually improve their physical training. Gyms over there actually only help them maintain the shape they are already in, and I know guys who suffered injuries overseas BCAUSE they fitness level deteriorated while they were running over the canyons and the ridges.

    To improve skill requires increased confidence and reflection, emotional qualities where closure actually has an impact. You can do anything you like in your game. I just find automatic success, boring, just like munchkinism, but, you seem to be going for instant gratification, and that is always popular. Whatever rocks your boat.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Brooser Bear,

    Hey... that sounds pretty touchy and accusative. Relax dude, I'm not attacking your system. I thought this was about friendly sharing of ideas, back and forth? I'm not in favor of having anyone 'practice on my teeth.' I think I'm making reasonable statements, and it's not fair to equate them with me looking for automatic success, or anything remotely to do with 'instant gratification,' 'munchkinism,' etc.

    If troops overseas are getting injured due to a lack of experience in the field being processed, that doesn't refute what I said. The idea I was floating, not insisting that you were wrong for not using it... just floating, was that the PCs could either have a monthly/ 3 months/ 6 months roll that was NOT AUTOMATIC, but at normal chances of success, in a continuously reducing probability of success. The second idea, was to retire from the adventure after a week (which is something troops overseas can't do, so it's not a fair accusation!) and go to a town, where they can absorb the ideas. Or practice them in a dojo, spar in an open field, etc. Those are sensible, adult ideas. If you don't want to adopt new ideas, that's fine, just say so. "I like how I do things, and I don't have any enthusiasm for altering my systems. They have worked for years, and they're about as perfect as I need without any more work on them." Ok, I'm not arguing with whatever your reasons are. I was nothing but polite about sharing my thoughts. Why chew into me, like that?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Actually... you do.

    For starters, read my previous replay again. I did not say that soldiers in Afghanistan suffer physical injuries, because of lack of field experience. What I said, was that troops in Afghanistan suffer physical injuries because (among other reasons), THEY NO LONGER EXERCISE AS MUCH AS THEY DID WHEN THEY WERE BACK HOME, and as a result, their physical fitness level deteriorates during the months on overseas deployment.

    Second, I told you that:

    1 - I am thinking of character growth in terms of critical incidents and significant emotional experiences, ones attained during combat.

    2 - Skill Mastery, or gaining experience is a function of emotional growth and self-confidence building in a face of a very stressful and potentially traumatic experience, that is combat, same as "D&D melee" or "adventuring", and for that process to solidify, you need emotional closure and putting the experience behind you.

    3 - RuneQuest skills represent a lifetime achievement and personal growth.

    You seem to ignore the whole model on which the MIDlands skill improvement is laid out, and insist that the definition of "adventure" is arbitrary (okay, instead use the "combat exposure incident") and you would do a 5% gain in skill every three or six months, citing the experience of the Navy sailors.

    Very nice, but where does it address or touch on what I was talking about? The Navy technical training experience might be useful somewhere else, but not in a medieval combat game, is it? You are not responding to anything I am saying, so what am I to say to you?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Brooser Bear,

    That's really not accurate or fair. You were making straw man arguments that were very condescending of me.

    If soldiers on deployment for a year or more at a time, are too stressed out to exercise in gyms, and then lose physical fitness, and may get injured because of that loss, that isn't a week adventuring and then returning to town to recouperate. Those are two widely separated situations, and it's not comparable to adventuring in short bursts.

    Since, those are two separate situations, like I stated, and bringing long-term stress induced/lack of exercise, etc isn't relevant. It's a distraction from the simple situation I was bringing up: One week/one month of adventuring, followed by going to town to absorb the experience and practice it, or gain XP. That's reasonable. If you don't do it that way in your world, just say so, and it's fine. No reason to drip all this hostility! What ever happened to a give and take of friendly ideas, without sarcasm and condescension? Why be so defensive and angry? I'm being completely polite, and getting a huge amount of hostility in return. That isn't any way to treat me, or anyone. I would assume there isn't any reason to argue that hostility is necessary, is it? You're obviously angry, if you can't point to something I said that shows me initiating this exchange with rudeness, please do. I don't see me being rude, so why treat me like this?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Neal,

    you came across like a power-gamer, trying to negotiate a faster skill growth game mechanic.

    You are not going to convince me on this one. I have enough sense to know when a prolonged dungeon siege will count as a single "adventure" in that tenting near the dungeon and only coming up for air to heal, sleep and memorize spells is a lot like a year long deployment or an extended patrol, and when there are several week-long separate missions taking place, each counting as a separate "adventure". One thing that you may be missing, is that it is not just a single skill that get a chance at improvement, but every skill that was used successfully during the course of adventure.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Brooser Bear,

    Since, on September 7, you stated you only did in person games, any statements I made as ideas I was throwing out there on experience, can't be construed as me trying to power-game anything. If I'm saying again, on September 10, that my observations about experience being something that would make sense you would gain by leaving a dungeon and going back to a field you could practice in, is a fair observation. Since there isn't a chance to do any gaming, I'm clearly not guilty of power-gaming, nor can you use that as a reason for being frankly abusive to me. If I live 3000 miles away, and there isn't a game without face to face, it's clear I have no plans to manipulate my way to any kind of gains.

    Contrary to how you are trying to frame this, this isn't about me needing to convince you of my good intentions, this is about you being very defensive about someone else's independent observations that were not attacks on you, but you responded with real attacks. If you have any intellectual and moral integrity, I think you owe me an apology for treating me as though I was being manipulative, and being abusive about it. It was hurtful. I've dealt with enough abusive people and those that can't recognize it aren't worth any more of my time. How you treat people, when you may have to retract actions against them, speaks to who you are, and I have enough self respect that I only deal with people that show respect to me as a matter of course.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Neal,

    You can argue for power gaming, or for anything else from 3000 miles, or from across the globe. I run a game. I run it however I see fit. You too can have a D&D game of your own, and you can run it however YOU want! Your observations re: experience were not independent, they were slipshod, having nothing to do with the arguments as I stated them, and what's the point of having a discussion if you are insisting on ignoring what I am saying?

    ReplyDelete