Lord Calis` reply to amber role

[Alaric]

Paul Eves wrote:
>
> I am afraid to say that I have never liked amber, but that aside, all the
> stuff ya wrote is really common sense, except for this one.
>
> > 3. Death and Final Solutions Must be Fair.
> > There's nothing so irritating for a player than to have a character
> > penalized for a single unexpected wrong move. There should be no "button
> > of death" that instantly wipes out a character. Not unless the character
> > has repeatedly been warned of the possibility.

> Let me tell you a little story. It is about a not so bright group of
> adventurers, who were just beginning their journeys through dangerous
> lands. They were just a wee inexperienced lot (ie. lv. 2 and 3), about 8
> of them, when I had them out investigating the disappearance of some town
> folk. They chose to investigate the area around some swamps and they
> encountered 2 trolls, they chose to stay and fight, and despite some
> serious wounds, they managed to successfully slay them. All sounds good,
> right? Well the very next day (3 priests in the party) they decide they
> are all powerful troll slayers and go out in search of trolls. Initially
> the find a large group of 8 trolls which they cleverly flee from, but later
> they find a party of 6 and decide to attack them. I did everything but
> smack them all upside the head to try and get them to flee, but do you
> think they listen to my NPC or me, hell no!! So my NPC takes off, and
> there they are 7, 2nd or 3rd level characters fighting trolls, ya know 6+6
> HD creatures who deal huge damage (and not the pcs trying to flee even when
> they start losing). To make matters short, all the PCs but one (she
> finally fled) died. Now I had no sympathy for these poor bastards what so
> ever, they just died do to their one action. NOW THAT IS AN EXCEPTION
>

Sorry to cut and paste so much, but I don't know what's not relevant to
this...like you said, I think that that certainly falls in the catagory
of having repeatedly warned them. On top of that, there was no instant
death or unfairness. What was intended by #3 was that you shouldn't ever
just kill off your players (umm, I mean characters, really) unless
they've been repeatedly stupid and ignored warnings. You both gave them
an out and warned them. Perfectly within the rules. And as you said,
this has nothing to do with Amber or BR or even AD&D, just good
roleplaying, which I believe is on topic anywhere.
Thx,
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[Jeremy Baker]

>> 3. Death and Final Solutions Must be Fair.
>> There's nothing so irritating for a player than to have a character
>> penalized for a single unexpected wrong move. There should be no "button
>> of death" that instantly wipes out a character. Not unless the character
>> has repeatedly been warned of the possibility.
>> Exceptions: There really are none. Sometimes, for the sake of a story
>> line, a character will start a scenario by being unfairly zapped,
>> kidnapped or taken out as a way of setting up the action. This should be
>> only as a ploy to get things moving, and should not permanently affect
>> the cahracter
>
Paul Eves wrote,

>Let me tell you a little story. It is about a not so bright group of
>adventurers, who were just beginning their journeys through dangerous
>lands. They were just a wee inexperienced lot (ie. lv. 2 and 3), about 8
>of them, when I had them out investigating the disappearance of some town
>folk. They chose to investigate the area around some swamps and they
>encountered 2 trolls, they chose to stay and fight, and despite some
>serious wounds, they managed to successfully slay them. All sounds good,
>right? Well the very next day (3 priests in the party) they decide they
>are all powerful troll slayers and go out in search of trolls. Initially
>the find a large group of 8 trolls which they cleverly flee from, but later
>they find a party of 6 and decide to attack them. I did everything but
>smack them all upside the head to try and get them to flee, but do you
>think they listen to my NPC or me, hell no!! So my NPC takes off, and
>there they are 7, 2nd or 3rd level characters fighting trolls, ya know 6+6
>HD creatures who deal huge damage (and not the pcs trying to flee even when
>they start losing). To make matters short, all the PCs but one (she
>finally fled) died. Now I had no sympathy for these poor bastards what so
>ever, they just died do to their one action. NOW THAT IS AN EXCEPTION


I agree, no sympathy, but that is not an exception to the above
rule, the party did not die because of ONE action. It sounds like it took at
least a couple of rounds of combat for the party to die, hence with eight
characters involved and six trolls there were several actions performed that
led to death, and the possibility of escape was always there.
The rule applys to turning the handle of a seemingly innocuous
looking door that causes instantaneous teleportation to the negative
material plane and instant, irreversible death. Or something similar.
Jeremy

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[Kenneth Gauck]

Instant death is "tough the Verdant Seal and you die, no save" or "Kalin
poisoned your mead, he used a poison with no save".

Fighting a bunch of trolls are a lot of little actions. Every opportunity
that they had to flee, but chose to stay was an action.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@earthlink.net

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