I had my first encounter with Gwenno. Aparently I am still the Avatar from the old Ultima series. She's still wearing that same parka from the north lands in Serpent Isle. I am sure glad to see that there are still some fans of Richard Garriott (Lord British) around. Have any of you had the opportunity to visit his home? the drawbridge and secret passages in the walls are something else. It LOOKS like a castle. Look up his story some time, it is really interesting. I still can't understand why our (supposedly) intelligent troops end up waist deep in water for two thirds of the random encounters when there is a perfectly good DRY road nearby. NTFS. (and I DON'T mean NT File System) After looking at the Desperate Housewives module all I can say is that Terjon has his work cut out for him - as the old oriental saying goes ROTS OF RUCK. I really think that Co8 should do a commercial module from scatch - put me down for the first release.
Actually this should be "A few MORE comments" - I really don't know where else to put it. With the infusion of "Ultima" into the game, I now greatly miss the stones (at least a few of them) and the "Mark" and "Recall" spells - as used in Ultima 7. It would save a LOT of time going back and forth from locations in the temple to unload the chests. Any possibility of implementing these or something similar in a future mod? Reading thru the posts it seems that most of the major modders are old school PnP players. When I was DMing I had a habit of sending the troops thru portals to other dimensions like Gamma World and other non DnD locations. they eventually found another portal back, but it was fun. Additionally, things were NOT necessarily as they seemed - The good looking "Joe Clean" troops were NOT NECESSARILY the good guys, nor were the ugly creatures necessarily the bad guys. I was accused of being extremely devious. Actually I generated modules that made people THINK, not just hack and slash. Future ToEE Mod ideas anyone?
I must think of an spy located deep withon the temple of elemental evil ... I mean a spy of the "good ones", and of course he or she should be so much high in ranks that he or she could easily be mistaken to be a "bad one". This could be used to make people think : - finding out that the "spy" is a "good one" - but only through very small, almost unnoticeable things in his/gher behaviour/clothing/speech ... Or even finding it out purely accidentally ! - how does this actually affect the internal ranks ? The intrigues could even be driven further on ... The real intrigues in the original gfame could sometimes be speard by good ones, too. So for example the killing of guards of another fraction and putting earth-brown robes near their corpses. - In my own way how I played this game so far I decided to actually "use" the intrigue of all of the fractions against one another - the gamer doesn't really need to do that much - they are wiping one another out by themselves ! These are just thoughts I had in mind while reading your "comments".
Amen to that, I would love such things in ToEE (thats why I added the Orb of the Moons) but they are not in the rules. Would have to be specific magic items though, not spells. Vis-a-vis cunning thinking games, well we just had a debate about this on IRC. I want to do KotB like that - various elements where the player will have to use brains, observativeness and intuition to overcome puzzles (NOT necessarily plot-essential things, there would probably be workarounds, but making life more interesting and easier, and indeed far more satisfying, to work the puzzle out) but another modder (whose opinion I respect) said this was 'metagaming' and that PCs should only solve puzzles based on what they learn in the game, and not based on the capacity of the players as it were for imaginative or lateral thinking. Can I get some more feedback on this issue?
Many years ago - while I was actively DMing PnP, I had a few players in our group whose alignment could best be classed as Chaotic Stupid - They would just jump in and kill or destroy anything that they came across. One lesson for that type was to portal the group to another world. When the Chaotic Stupid one killed a particular person OR CREATURE, or destroyed some object, I informed them that they had destroyed their way back. I later relented and let them find another portal. Neeedless to say, the rest of the party quickly put the brakes on the more impetuous ones. I always put clues in the game as to what was going on, they just had to take a little time to figure them out. They never had to use outside information that they would not have, but they DID have to use some degree of common sense. One of my first games involved a large shimmering round black area in one wall. One of our CS types declared that he was going to jump thru it to see where it went. He got very upset when I informed him that it was a sphere of annihilation and tore up his character sheet.
Ted, I don't think the "metagaming" comment was about the concept in general, but about the specific implementation, i.e. the obscureness (or complete lack) of some of the hints and having to search every nook and cranny. The concept in general was well liked.
I think every one who's ever DM'd it has had a player try that. What's even more horrifying is how it can fool those who think it's merely a portal once they get "spat out" there naked from one of the many other portals further on.
Ah yes Tomb of Horrors - Dungeon Module S1 (1978) by Gary Gygax himself. Found my old paper copy. Also the paper copy of Keep on the Borderlands, some of my old Gamma worlds, Star Frontiers, Forgotten Realms, and Judges Guild stuff - including Tegal Manor. Does that date me or what? I have about 100 old modules, along with manuals and stuff. Maybe some day I might start another PnP campaign again. I have a few of the old members around and some new ones that might be interested. Tomb of Horrors - As it says in the Notes for the Dungeon Master - "This is a thinking person's module, and if your group is a hack and slay gathering, they will be unhappy!"
What alwys makes me think, is, that apparently (at least to my own observation) there are quite different P&P gaming stlyes both in Germany and in the U.S. (I say Germany, because I am German - and i can onmly judge as far as I can see, although I am also able to use my brain to deduce some more than that). Well, actually this is rather a thing if "(A)D&D vs. DSA", but since (A)D&D is the biggest system in the U.S. and therfore the most influental one,I guess it's also a kind of gaming style - at least in regard to fantasy RPGs. The most well-known P&P rule system here in Germany is The Dark Eye (DSA in short - that's standing for its German title "Das Schwarze Auge"). It has no dispositins like evil, lawful good, chaotic good, lawful evil ... It is a "hero system", as I call it, that means that you always play good characters - well, "good" as long as they are against evil. Truly evil characters cannot be played (at least in principle), because all adventures arte going against evil. If a character becomes evil - like a black sorcerer, for example, or doing a pact with a demon - then the character becomes a "game master's person" - basically meaning an NPC. What I see is that D&D has a long, strong tradition of Dungeon Crawls. Fighting, hacking, slashing. C-RPGs are often a carbon copy of thast, because without the strong tradition of Dungeon Crawls, Action-RPGs couldn't have evolved, I guess/assume. Dungeon crawls as such don't exist in DSA. Well, there IS fighting, of course (there's no RPG system without fighting, I guess), but no real Dungeon Crawls in the meaning what everybody understands by the term "Dungeon Crawl". There is no simple hacking & slashing, and a mindless one cannot evolve. The whole system is different in itself, because it is designed for a different style. Whereas monsters in (A)D&D are in principle merely existing to become cannon fodder, to be hacked ans beaten, just there for one purpose : To provide experience points, the monsters in DSA are living breathing creatures with an actual culture (except animals, of course). Orcs, for example, have their own culture, nd you can actually play an orc - although this is *very* dificult, since orcs are mistrusted and no-one likes them because they are known for several invasions in the several hundreds of years. A similar thing, although not so extreme, is there with Lizard folks. You can basically play one, but it is difficult, because no-one likes Lizard People. The overall setting is definitively medieval-inspired, a time before the Renaissance. There are several schools of magioc (white, grey and the black direction, whereas black sorcerers often very quicky tend to evolve into evil ones). There are actual Gods who can very, very rarely actually appear in the world of Aventuria, but also Demons can do that. Demons can be conjured, but often for a price. Arch demons can promise a certain pact - for the price of the soul. Characters who give in that almost automatically turn into NPCs, because they become evil - but they can be resued by what you would call "clerics". By the way, "clerics" in DSA are *very* different from those of (A)D&D. I'm writing so much about this to illustrate how much the playing style seems to differ between both systems. A mindless hack&slay game is almost impossible, because the world *demands* that you use your brain - everything might be complicated. And you cannot play evil characters. During the discussions about the newest official game for this system. Drakensang, of course the discussion arose whether one could plax evil characters, too. The people demanded that. Perhaps this is one of the many influences of D&D that is has over all of the other P&P RPGs and C-RPGs because it is so dominant in the RPG world. Yet the system doesn't allow that. Evil characters are not possible - read: playable. Of course the ones who asked for that cpouldn't understand that, because it is possible in almost every other RPGs, they said (the influence of D&D again). For some this might be boring. For others, who have kind of "grown up" with this system (like me) it isn't thinkable to actually play evil characters. It's like getting used to something. Ah, and by the way, for DSA we say "adventures", not "modules". Current edition of The Dark Eye is number 4. http://www.thedarkeyerpg.com/ Wikipedia article on it : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Eye
What you're describing in your observations is the evolution from the simple to the complex over a period of decades. Sure, it was simple once...walking into a room full of goblins with no explanation of why they were there, or how they got there. It's much more detailed now, with entire worlds & cultures being described. The trend has been to more thinking & role playing rather than towards less. But we all love to take on the enemy & get their cool stuff, now don't we? All D&D is a combat simulator which evolved from a system for miniatures...toy fantasy figures. It has become so much more. Check out some of the supplements to the First edition at www.rpgnow.com to see the evolution. http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1050&
On D&D is just Hack and Slash: Well, not exactly. Younger players often play it that way, and a lot of old gamers (like myself) like a good, nostalgic dungeon crawl now and then. However, there are hugely rich campaigns and supplements out there that will rarely see a dungeon and only occasionally see combat. Dungeon crawling has its place, but it's not the be all and end all of modern D&D. It's certainly not the be all and end all of American RPGs; D&D is still the big dog in American gaming, but there are a very large number of games out there where'll you'll never see an Orc. On Puzzles and Thinking Games: I like these, a lot. However, I would much rather have them make sense and have all the clues in the game world. When your character needs two chickens, a rubber inflatable woman, three short pieces of string, and an eggplant to open the shop keeper's door, he's inevitably going to start wondering how this guy manages to stay in business.
We got a very good example of Orc Culture when reading Old Book's creative walkthru. I don't think Old Book would have been inspired to give the Orcs the personal touch if AD&D hadn't already guided him in that direction. By no means am I attampting to critique Old Books work, (wich I look forward to experiencing more of )
Since I started this thread to discuss ToEE in general, I have a few more comments. I agree that you are following the rules to the best of your ability within the restraints of the programmed limitations. I feel that you are doing a wonderful job and the game is a lot more fun with your additions. Thanks Guys. My main gripe is with the 3.5 rules themselves. When I was playing PnP, and even the older computer games, NO ONE of 10th level was able to craft - much less obtain - +3 armor, +3 weapons of mass destruction (HOLY, FROST, LIGHTNING, GREAT CLEAVING, KEEN, etc) in the quantities that can be obtained under these rules. Sure, you can create a custom troop with your own preferences of skills and abilities, but how would you ever be able to keep all of these variables controlled in a PnP game? In my NOT SO HUMBLE opinion, you NEED a computer to utilize all of these custom stats. As a computer game it works well, but as for PnP I think I'll stick with the older rules. I once put in a +5 sword with a chicken headed pommel (Sword of Cowardice) that was a lot of fun with the troops trying and most of the time failing to make a saving throw to use the sword. It finally fell into the hands of a Paladin who was successful in using it MOST of the time and not running away. - I was accused of Monty Hauling the game. Those players would have a heart attack to see the equipment I can put on the troops LEGALLY now. I generally start ALL of my troops out as F1 in order to get my choice of weapon, Power attack and Cleave. (CG is no problem as you can make 2nd level without any major combats) I change them to Cleric, Druid, Rogue, and Wizard at second level and advance them in those classes from there on. I then give the the proficiencies necessary to get Great Cleave and multiple attacks as soon as they qualify. Crafting a few Amulets, Gloves Belts, etc. and boosting the weapons that can be picked up, along with the other loot can make an F1/M6 a pretty formidable opponent for any enemy that makes the mistake of heading for him/her - which the AI seems to take into account. A high armor class coupled with good hitting power makes them pretty awesome. I purposely beef up my fighter mages for this purpose. Just for kicks, I created a set of troops from scratch with the best I could console in. They were so rediculous I couldn't use them. An F1/M1 with an AC of 36 without any armor (Tattoos only) and doing crit damage of 60+ points on almost every shot. NAWH! Why not add limitless wands of 10th level Fireballs too. Shock and awe anyone? This is not playing the game! I DO custom console my characters from the start, I give them all Monks Robes and matching non-magical capes. I like the looks of the monks robes - they look closest to medieval tunics than anything else I have seen, and the different colors make it easy to keep track of who is what after they change classes. I also give the cleric a Helm of Reading Magic. This is a spell that is obtained at first level by all spell casters and costs nothing but time to use, so I do it just to save playing time. These are the only console changes I make. Everything from there on is earned. BTW, even my fighters ultimately end up without conventional armor. The limitations to the abilities inherent in the armor make them better off dressed like my mages.
