Re: (TFT) TFT Healing

[ErolB1@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/11/2006 10:29:53 PM Central Daylight Time, 
johnnyboytmm@juno.com writes:


> I like a mix of opponents too.  I NEVER scale the challenge to the 
> party, but to the circumstance. 
> A group of hobgoblin brigands,
> 5 highwaymen and their pet Etin,
> 3 drunken thugs, 
> a violent bandit gang, 
> a small but disciplined raiding party of kobolds, 
> a hymenopteran hive over 100 strong, 
> a dozen giants and Ogres led by a giant wizard, 
> a cave with 50 Trogledytes
> 
> are all out there in the world, how challenged you are depends on 
> which ones you go after, and whether you survive depends mostly on how 
> smart, prepared, and lucky you are.
> 

And an important skill is knowing when to take on an encounter and when to 
slip quietly away to avoid it, right?

> 
> The gang seems to enjoy this style, though I imagine it is not for 
> everyone.
> 

Some people think it's a screwy way to play, while others think it's the only 
way to play. The trouble comes when the GM plays this style and the players 
are expecting the GM to set up only challenging-but-beatable encounters and to 
get annoyed if the players try to avoid an encounter. Or vice versa. 

Or, to a lesser extent, in a discussion like this one: What might be a great 
house rule or piece of advice for one style might turn out to be... suboptimal 
for the other style. 

Different GMs, players, and groups game for different reasons. What they want 
out of a game varies. 


Some groups want their games to produce cool stories, and will tweak the 
rules, fudge the dice, and adjust the encounters to produce this. 

Some groups want a fair and interesting wargamish challenge, and find fudging 
the dice to be anathema. 

Some groups want to world to be a Real place (not necessarily *realistic* in 
terms of working like our world, but Real in terms of being a living breathing 
"actual" place and not just stage dressing for the game). If the GM adjusts 
the encounters, their PCs will start looking for the Conspiracy that is sending 
those challenges to test them. Even though no Conspiracy exists and the PCs 
are reacting to a purely meta-game convention. 

And some groups want various other things. Most groups want a mix of two or 
more different things, but in various proportions and with differing priorities 
given to the different aspects. 


> Oh yeah, and no magical healing for me, getting stabbed hurts around 
> here.

And likewise with the style differences. Which exist because different 
players, GMs and groups are looking to get different things out of a game. 

Some players are looking for a game with lots 'o combat - because fictional 
combat is a fun fantasy that simply isn't practical in the real world, and to 
them the whole POINT of playing is to indulge in fun fantasies that aren't 
practical in the real world. They'll be peeved in a game where the GM pulls the 
hoary trick "I'm making combat dangerous so as to discourage it." Their response 
will be "That's just like the real world - and that's precisely what we DON'T 
want, when we game for fun."

Some players are tired of the "hack and slash cliche" and welcome games where 
combat is a bad idea - and so "realistic" (i.e. deadly) combat is a feature 
rather than a bug.

And so on and so forth. 

Or as it was once put on rec.games.frp.advocacy: 

 #For a long time, the newsgroup had an unwritten but strongly enforced 
 #rule.  Posters were supposed to at least pretend to accept the two 
 #following statements: 

 #--different games aim for different effects; strategies that work for 
 #one type don't necessarily work for others. 

 #--different players enjoy different kinds of games. 

 #I'm going to call this the "difference rule."  Its history on the 
 #newsgroup began, I think, with efforts to convince David Berkman that 
 #his way was not the One True Way. 
 #A lot of the group's internal watchdogging or "net-cop" behavior was 
 #directed to enforcing the difference rule.  This allowed us to discuss 
 #many kinds of games without (many) flame wars, and a community grew 
 #up. 
(Mary K. Kuhner on rec.games.frp.advocacy)

Erol K. Bayburt
Evil Genius for a Better Tomorrow 
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