04-02-2016, 04:33 PM | #21 |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Unhealing
Not many people like the adversarial Gygax style of gaming anymore.
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Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check. |
04-02-2016, 05:07 PM | #22 |
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Midland, MI
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Re: Unhealing
True that. So far, I've dragged my players through one of the aforementioned areas only once. It was an interesting challenge for them.
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"I'm gonna go rescue all the babies in town. Only the babies." -Jake the Dog |
04-02-2016, 05:34 PM | #23 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: Unhealing
It doesn't need to be a thing done for the GMs amusement/revenge.
Hazards are just as valid in an RPG as they are on a golf course - standard golf-course hazards are maximal "fairness" (pun not intended) as you have full information about each one before having to deal with it. "Mini-putt" is "less fair" in that the hazards become dynamic or complex, making them harder to get all the information about them, and can include hidden components (A large box with many entrances, and many exits, but only one exit leads to the end - no obvious information which entrance leads to the end). "Least Fair" is your Tomb Of Horrors level of "every hazard is hidden, complex, violates the apparent rules of the game, an instant fail condition, and ideally all of the above". Bad mana conditions, like a sand trap or water hazard, can be completely fair when used the same way - everyone knows about it, everyone has the equipment to deal with it, and it doesn't dominate the fairway. It's added to increase the challenge by making you avoid it, or if you can't/don't avoid it, by making you wade through it. They can also be used like the mini-putt hazards - anything from annoying windmills that are totally obvious, totally blocking your way, but also obviously can be dealt with, to the mysterious black box type that are obviously something and can be figured out with experimentation and observation without it eating your ball. In mlangsdorf's DF game, we encountered a small dungeon with tainted, and death-aspected mana - -2 to EVERYTHING, an extra -5 to healing spells, +5 to necromancy and such, and both critical successes and failures in that region did some horror-themed things. The critical successes did things that helped us, on the whole, but were still alarming. We knew it was bad when we went there. It wasn't secret, and we had choices. We had alternates to healing spells (potions), the dungeon was small so we could always retreat outside to heal (sacrificing the initiative, however), and generally it was a hazard we chose to deal with. I wasn't playing a caster, but I was playing a character dependent on lots of healer babysitting (SM +1 600 lb berserker :P). I soaked up SO much healing despite the penalties, until my barbarian's leg got broken in the final fight and the party was left with the problem of how to move 600 lbs of nearly-dead berserker plus over 200 lbs of his equipment. Not counting treasure, which they were sort of hoping he'd do the heavy lifting on. I had a lot of fun - because we knew we were going into the Dungeon Of Many Deathy Dead Things That Are Dead and Cursed, Did We Mention The Curses? It's like going into a dungeon in an active volcano - you don't get upset because you get set on fire a few times.
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All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table A Wiki for my F2F Group A neglected GURPS blog |
04-02-2016, 05:34 PM | #24 | |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Unhealing
Quote:
"How do you like it now, Gandalf the Yellow?"
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Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check. |
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04-02-2016, 06:11 PM | #25 |
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Midland, MI
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Re: Unhealing
Obviously. Though it can be hard to resist the urge at times. Very hard.
In case you're wondering, I don't randomly alter things with no warning just to be a dick. Though I have arbitrarily killed one character because a player ****** me off. It was years ago and the culmination of weeks of her driving me and the other players nuts. It, along with the superpowered hive-minded psychotics, pretty effectively drove home the area's danger. Which was the point after all.
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"I'm gonna go rescue all the babies in town. Only the babies." -Jake the Dog |
04-08-2016, 09:28 AM | #26 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Unhealing
The limitations on regaining HP are these:
Either Level
— In short, Unhealing is essentially a restriction on whether you can make daily HT rolls to heal, get First Aid, have the Regeneration advantage, or steal HP. Neither level prohibits being healed via supernatural means (e.g., Healing spells) or extreme physical intervention (e.g., Surgery skill), both of which always work on everyone. Invent a new, higher level to forbid those as well.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
04-08-2016, 09:32 AM | #27 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: Unhealing
Thanks Kromm, and welcome back! I hope you're feeling a little better.
I'll see if we can get this on the uFAQ.
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All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table A Wiki for my F2F Group A neglected GURPS blog |
04-08-2016, 11:27 AM | #28 |
Never Been Pretty
Join Date: Jan 2005
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Re: Unhealing
Thank you so much for clarifying that, both here and in responding to my PM.
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04-09-2016, 12:44 AM | #29 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Unhealing
Concerning mana levels, it is much more dangerous when the mana level is very high because the temptation to use magic is so great, but normal failures become critical failures and critical failures are so much worse. Within an area of very high magic, a wizard becomes a lunatic that likes to juggle nitroglycerin, which is why they are great adventure locations in societies where magic is taken for granted. It is less ideal in a secret magic society because people are used to doing without magic.
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