How does one learn about their destiny whilst retaining their pride?
One must pay the price of foresight; nothing in Barbarian Altanis is given for free. Strange folk of Queans Waste yell in reverence of the Great Prophet of P'than; Onsiler of the Temple of Azure Dreams is said to be a marvellous diviner; Minarax of Barath has thus foretold all dangers and led orcs to dominance of sulphur mines; Zantrin of the Grove of Serenity is haunted by a strange prophecy. And lest it be forgotten—adventurers create their own destiny.
If a rule exists only to curb a player or character that has been successful, in game terms, whilst playing by the rules fairly and candidly, then that is a pretty good signal that the rule might have been formulated in spite.
Where can characters expect to get overcome with excitment?
The vault of notorious dark elf Lesyraen Kilduis is rumoured to hold riches beyond mortal comprehension. Little is known of, or about him, except that he was extreme even by the Woelands standards. He was last spotted in the Wilderlands couple of years ago, searching for something in Hara valley and Eyestone jungle.
Easy. Be nice to them. Pay them. Give them gifts. Ask for help. Compliment them. Tell them what great heroes they are. Tell them they are fighting for freedom and for good of the people. Offer to run their estate for them while they are away, adventuring. Give them what they are asking for and be grateful for it. Spread rumours to turn local populace against them. Offer your help to “calm the situation down.” Don't challenge them face on, you will surely lose. Instead get them to self-destruct. Hang them the noose and they'll take care of everything else.
I... I don't know? I hope that most of the mystifying, perplexing, and obtuse rules stem from incompetence and lack of writerly rigour and discipline, than some perverted source of pride. “Huhu, my rules can only be understood by most dedicated scholars.” There will be no scholars if your game sucks. HackMaster 4E was deliberately written with a very tongue-in-cheek tone, drenched in High Gygaxian, so perhaps that one would qualify as taking pride in deliberate mystification. Oh, what a pity that it isn't readily available any more!
Especially when I inform them their elf or dwarf still can't see in the dark because they were gazing straight into torch/lantern/coin with continual light just moments ago.
Now their eyes need time to adjust to pitch black.
How long? Alas, only one way to find out. Will you stand in darkness until you see once again? Or would you prefer to light another torch and see the horrors that await you?
Why am I grateful for encountering Robert Conley on my path?
I am grateful for meeting a great deal of people on my gaming path, but today I wish to share more about my encounters with Rob. When I set out to run a new campaign, I was mesmerised by Wilderlands of High Fantasy, one of the original D&D settings.
That was quite recently, in 2022, and I quickly realised I have arrived to the party quite late. Judges Guild was gone, courtesy of ill behaviour from its owner, print copies that were once cheap, were now difficult to get, and digital stuff mostly existed as fan made supplements. But I found Rob was selling his updated maps of the Wilderlands. I bought them all! And then I picked Barbarian Altanis as the campaign starting point.
Besides that, I found him to be generous with his time and insight, which is indeed vast after playing and running open-ended sandbox campaigns for over forty years. How could I not be grateful to be able to learn from such a fellow!
I must confess that I prefer minimal flavour. I am not interested in accessories with pages and pages of fluff, heck, I am not interested in any item that has multiple paragraphs of fluff unless there is a very good reason for it. Now, I understand I might be conflating fluff with flavour, and that might not be entirely fair. But then again, minimal fluff is what makes flavour more palpable to me, and therefore, more exciting.
Good question. I am always curious about the provenance of a rule at hand. Is it from the author themself? Did they take it from someone else? Is that person credited? Can I trace the rule all the way back to its origin point?
I wonder about those not because of ownership but because I wish to understand how much playing has the rule seen. I am not a professional game designer. I play role-playing games for fun and recreation. I am confident in making a ruling, and even writing it down. And I respect rules that came out of thousands of hours of play.
Gary and Dave played a lot. I will always give their rules the benefit of doubt, even if something they wrote doesn't make sense to me at first. I will extend the same courtesy to any author that convinces me their rules have seen actual play. Especially if they have been tested by competitive players who actively tried to break and exploit the rules.
