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Followup to Thursday
Jun. 17th, 2007 09:37 amThat risk seeking vs. risk aversion piece? See the two styles illustrated in inimitable stick figure fashion here.
...okay, it's an oversimplification. Both characters are well role-played... er, well-written. But Xykon (the lich) is, well, a hideously powerful undead who can more or less afford to blindly rush in and do whatever seems like a good idea at the time. But he has to partner with mere mortals like the hobgoblin Redcloak, who's interested in saving his neck via proper planning. (In most games, both "PCs" would be of an equivalent power level, so the choice to seek or avoid risk is more of a meta or play style issue, and only secondarily a character issue.)
And the shift from Xykon's "let's get an army of goblins and do a full-frontal attack" plan to whatever Cunning Plan Redcloak has in mind is as a result of the "GM," or "how the world reacted to the PCs actions." The world gave the two villains a smackdown for failing to sufficiently prepare their attack. So, the PCs decide to plan more so that this doesn't happen next time.
There's a brief essay on that in White Wolf's Adventure! game, too. If your PCs try to swing from chandeliers and the GM has the chandelier snap and fall because "It can't possibly support your weight, what were you thinking?", the GM is not going to get a chandelier-swinging adventure, even if that kind of play is what she thought she wanted. The PCs are smart and will stop doing things for which they are punished.
...okay, it's an oversimplification. Both characters are well role-played... er, well-written. But Xykon (the lich) is, well, a hideously powerful undead who can more or less afford to blindly rush in and do whatever seems like a good idea at the time. But he has to partner with mere mortals like the hobgoblin Redcloak, who's interested in saving his neck via proper planning. (In most games, both "PCs" would be of an equivalent power level, so the choice to seek or avoid risk is more of a meta or play style issue, and only secondarily a character issue.)
And the shift from Xykon's "let's get an army of goblins and do a full-frontal attack" plan to whatever Cunning Plan Redcloak has in mind is as a result of the "GM," or "how the world reacted to the PCs actions." The world gave the two villains a smackdown for failing to sufficiently prepare their attack. So, the PCs decide to plan more so that this doesn't happen next time.
There's a brief essay on that in White Wolf's Adventure! game, too. If your PCs try to swing from chandeliers and the GM has the chandelier snap and fall because "It can't possibly support your weight, what were you thinking?", the GM is not going to get a chandelier-swinging adventure, even if that kind of play is what she thought she wanted. The PCs are smart and will stop doing things for which they are punished.
