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Re: [dq-rules]
Hi Jason,
I've had similar experiences running several DQ
campaigns since 1985 (when I learned the the game).
One thing I try to encourage in all my campaigns is to
minimize the stepping-on of toes at the outset. I'd
venture a guess that most players want to feel as
though they are important to the group in some
irreplaceble capacity, such as being the thief who can
detect traps and open locks, the healer who can heal
wounds and minimize the effects of Grievous Injuries,
and the military scientest who wins initiatives
against the enemy and who temporarily increases
Willpower for his comrades.
If someone wants to roll up a character with a similar
skill as that of an existing player-character, I
advise that player as much for his sake as for the
sake of the other player that "we already have a
thief" for example. If they are still adamant about
playing the character then at least they have been
apprised of the situation. There is of course nothing
wrong with a back-up, in case the "primary" thief gets
paralyzed by a trap for example.
Now, as for mages, I say let them play whatever they
want. Where there is a threat to campaign balance, I
prefer to handle these situations on an individual
basis. I prefer not to tell limit players on what they
want to play, because my understanding is that certain
players are at home with either a mage or a fighter;
myself, I get killed in every first game I ever played
trying a mage, and thus stick to fighters in general.
Players MUST understand one singular and universal
rule about my campaign, however. It is the culmination
of months of work and planning, and has been created
for the entertainment of all, and as such does not
allow for power for power's sake. Some yokel starts
getting uppity with their spells, and I start bringing
in mysteriously convenient countermeasures.
You say you want to fly around all over the continent
with shadow-wings? Too bad about that large storm you
flew into with odd-colored lightning, the one that
suddenly and inexplicably shut off your spells and
drained your charged items as well. You folks are
lucky that I let you survive the fall; you should have
taken 49 Endurance points damage each. Dragons like to
fly too, I hear. Hey look, flying snacks! Yum! And why
necessarily does it have to be one dragon? Lots of
fantastical creatures also have the power of flight,
and most are after the kind of wealth that PCs like
these tend to carry, and many can sense such. Ever
tried to take on a squadron of gryphons in the air?
Large cities are likely to take a group of flying
anything as a mild threat, and what about those
companies of crack archers? Again, there is the
falling damage thing.
THE POINT BEING that my players and I are mature
enough to have an understanding: Make it rough for me,
and I make it doubly rough for you. When players start
plying their powers to the task of undermining the
ethical quality, not to mention the challenge of the
game, then I say there should be no holds barred. What
intelligent player does not understand the
relationship between ethical play and a consistently
challenging and fun campaign? Very few, I suspect.
Pat Hough
--- Jason Winter <Alarian@harbornet.net> wrote:
> Thought I would share my experiences with this.
> I've GM'd two long running
> campaigns and I've had vastly different experiences
> with both. The first I
> ran while I was in the military and ran for 2 1/2
> years with pretty much
> the same group of friends. We played 5 nights a
> week (yes, that's
> correct), Monday through Friday from 10:30pm until
> 6am. Needless to say
> after 2 1/2 years, all my players were very high
> level. We actually had to
> create a fair amount of new rules to handle the
> situation. In that
> campaign, there was very little blending of
> characters and it was one of
> the best campaign experiences I have ever had the
> pleasure of being
> in. Sure there was a little blending, but nothing
> where you ever wondered
> who was the thief in the group, who was the mage,
> etc.
>
> The second group I ran (still playing with this
> group, although we started
> the campaign over for reasons I'll list below). I
> ran this group for
> somewhere around 8 to 10 years playing every other
> weekend for the first
> 3-5 years, then about once a month or so after that.
> This group was quite
> a bit different. EVERYONE in the group was a mage by
> the time the campaign
> ended. Which definitely caused a breakdown in the
> system from my
> perspective. Having a group of 6 players who are
> all fairly accomplished
> in one area (ie. fighting, thieving, etc,and then
> throw on top of that 6
> fairly powerful spell casters and I started having
> problems. The one spell
> that I finally had to end up modifying and reducing
> the power of quite a
> bit was the ability of the party to fly where ever
> they wanted to do with
> the shadow wings spells. A shadow mage with this
> spell at say rank 10-15
> can fly at 40 to 45 mph for hours at a time can make
> for the ability to go
> long distances. Try keeping up with a group that
> can fly all over a
> continent at great speeds whenever they want. Makes
> for a nightmare when
> it comes to GM'ing! When I restarted my campaign,
> the one rule I put in
> was that only one person in the group could start
> out as a mage, and I plan
> on making learning a new college for non-mages
> difficult so the unbalance
> hopefully doesn't happen again.
>
> In the end, I ended up going to a more class-based
> system I guess. We call
> still call it DQ and it's core is still very heavy
> into DQ, but the classes
> are more defined now, though I also added in a skill
> system, so if a
> fighter wants to have some thieving skills it is
> easy to do (my skill
> system is based on Role-masters skill system).
> Mages, other than how
> damage works are 100% DQ as is combat.
>
> At 11:19 AM 1/24/03, you wrote:
> >--- davis john <jrd123@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> i think this is also a weakness of the system in
> >> that given enough time
> >> every character is pretty much the
> same..everyone
> >> has similar combat, spell,
> >> social etc capability give or take a little bit.
> >> Guess thats one bad issue
> >> of a 'class/order/occupation less' system.
> >>
> >> John
> >
> >I wondered that myself when I first looked at the
> >system. However, I never really noticed that
> >happening in my groups. Now, we all diversified a
> >bit. Everyone had some weapons they were good at,
> >some skill, and a lot of us were mages. However,
> >everyone also had their specialty and their niche
> in
> >the group.
> >
> >Part of that, I think, is built in. The division
> >between non-mage and mage tends to stick, since
> >someone who starts a fighter tends to give their
> MA a
> >5 and someone who starts a mage is commensurely
> less
> >physically gifted. Among mages, specialization is
> >maintained by the College system. We were also
> real
> >strict with the "you use to use a
> skill/spell/weapon
> >during the campaign (at least once) to Rank it
> after"
> >rule. That kept people on the straight and
> narrow,
> >once they had invested Ranks in certain things
> >already.
> >
> >You see much the same thing in D&D 3rd ed. Most
> >people end up taking two or three levels in an
> >off-class, but mostly they stick to one class. As
> a
> >friend of mine found out, being a 5th level Cleric
> and
> >a 5th level Ranger in a 10th level party means
> your
> >really just 5th level. In a 10th level party.
> >
> >Everyone in my old DQ group had a pretty
> distinctive
> >character, even as we hit Hero level. However,
> I've
> >never played in a really "high level" campaign
> with
> >DQ. I could see the homogenization thing being a
> more
> >serious problem once characters are getting such
> high
> >XP awards. It would be comparitively easy to
> increase
> >stats, etc. Does anyone have experience with this
> >type of campaign?
> >
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>
> Jason Winter
> Alarian@harbornet.net
> http://www.darkrealms.com/~alarian/
>
>
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