battle Wear vs. Town Wear

[SteveZilla]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

Just because D&D did not do things to address the balance of offensive magic & defensive magic does not mean that every other setting is limited to that predestined route. With some forethought' date=' I am sure that you can come up with ways to suppress magic, or at least increase detection of magic. Wards against fire, any type of fire, would be something highly desired in a town. After all, fire was one of the most feared things to a town...[/quote']

 

Fire? No problem. Just prepare ahead of time by having Stations equipped with Scrolls of Water Elemental Summoning.

 

 

With every advancement' date=' there is a potential for a counter. You get a new undetectable poison, and someone will sooner or later someone will come up with a way to detect it or the anti-toxin. You come up with a new radar guided missile, and someone will come up with a way to shoot that missile down before it gets to its target. Magic is no different.[/quote']

 

Why would not a town be warded from fires? Why would there not be more utility form of magic and magic items?

 

A character in a webcomic I read once said "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!"

[Vulcan]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

Has anyone here ever GMed a game for a PC sat as a guard of 'stuff' while the other PCs went of and had an adventure?

 

I never have in 20 odd years GMing. Dragons only fly cos they're inherently magical in nature. Stone statues only walk if a magician animates it. A zombie only only rises again by magic.

 

Magic doesn't explain away why a normal villager would blink away a strange soldiers dressed for war strolling up and down the main street. And certainly doesn't explain why the local law would ignore it.

 

What do you mean? In a world where Dragons can fly in from anywhere, at any time; where stone statues can be animated at any time if a magican wants to do so; where a necromancer can get the entire graveyard walking again given an unobserved moment, why would anyone blink at highly-skilled adventurers bearing the tools of their trade with them at all times? And I note: Not one of those three examples of walking disaster would be hindered in the slightest by a 'No Swords and Armor In Town' policy.

[Lezentauw]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

What do you mean? In a world where Dragons can fly in from anywhere' date=' at any time; where stone statues can be animated at any time if a magican wants to do so; where a necromancer can get the entire graveyard walking again given an unobserved moment, why [i']would[/i] anyone blink at highly-skilled adventurers bearing the tools of their trade with them at all times? And I note: Not one of those three examples of walking disaster would be hindered in the slightest by a 'No Swords and Armor In Town' policy.

 

I am willing to bet, that the people that are actually for this idea have not seen any of the above in quite some time. Those that are against this idea, seem to all play High Magic campaigns...

 

If everything you state above is true, would not the city already be prepared to handle such situations on their own? Otherwise, how would the city survive without the pcs being there to save the day all the time? So, if a city could handle all such situation on their own, would they not want to maintain the peace so the civilians can rest assured that they are safe?

 

I know that in my campaign, it is kinda hard to raise the dead from a graveyard. Only one culture actually buries their dead, and they bury them upside down & chop off a foot so they can't walk again. Most of the cultures burn the dead or cast them to the sea. Either way a Necromancer is going to find it hard to raise a mass army, unless he happens to find a nice war with lots of fresh bodies...

[Nolgroth]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

Referring to Vulcan's post, how many dragons can there be in a world? A necromancer powerful enough to animate an entire army of undead is the "boss" monster at the end of a very long campaign. Animated statues? I suppose a few could be around, but are they so common that the average citizen would be like "Pfft, That thing? You should have seen the giant sized one we had here last week..." I think Lezentauw is on to something. While I don't consider my campaigns low magic or low fantasy even, I doubt that the average person on the street has ever seen a mage, god, dragon or undead creature. They may believe in magic, even if it is the quaint superstition that folk often believe in. They just haven't seen it in practice most of the time. So yeah, style of play has a great deal to do with this.

 

Interestingly enough, I might even go so far as to say that in the type of world where the dangers Vulcan describes are common, the inverse may be true. Instead of disarming the adventurer, the town guard are grateful that they have such capable assistance in the case of the random undead horde wandering into town. It may even be the law of the land that each and every person who can wield a weapon be required to go armed and armored most of the time. I can see that. Not exactly my style of play, but I can allow for the difference without any heartache on my part.

[Vondy]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

Why not? The fish out of water that overcomes the adversity is a classic trope of fiction. The only reason it would not translate well into role-playing is because of the prevailing attitude that the GM should never violate the character concept. There are ways to do this that add story tension without overtaxing the limited character. The people he is up against might be less competent to begin with. I might use Heroic Action Points to allow for bonuses on the one "critical" test. The other characters might have to lend a hand in some way.

 

I (temporarily) blind the computer guy, but give him some sort of voice recognition software to assist him in the programming. Plus, his opponent(s) is/are less skilled than him to begin with, so the playing field is leveled. Not only do I create tension for the one player, I can set up a whole side quest for the other characters to find some method to restore the computer guys's sight.

 

The speedster one is one that I do not grok anyway. Running a race is a difficult task for me to do well or convincingly. So no counter there from me.

 

A heavily armored warrior might be ambushed by a few thugs in an alley. Lucky for him, they aren't too tough despite the wicked looking knives they carry. With his perfectly legal walking stick, he manages to beat the snot out of them and gain a valuable lead in the investigation the party.

 

The trick is to NOT overdo it. Sporadically challenging the characters outside of their element is fun. Constantly removing their advantage is annoying. It should never be done against an archenemy or somebody as or more powerful than they. Rewarding the character (and thus the player) with something extra like a clue or MacGuffin for the next game or even a side quest that leads to some neat treasure is always a nice way to say thank you to the player for allowing you to use him and his character for exploring new territory.

 

I tend to agree, but I would emphasize that the GM who does this *must* be open minded about unexpected improvisation, or make sure doors to alternative courses of action have been adequately foreshadowed, marked, etcetera. Players and GMs aren't always on the same wave-length and one of the big issues I've seen with pushing the "fish out of water" or "off the rails" trope is the GM assuming the players twigged on his intentions, or hinted at available alternatives, when in reality they didn't. Another pitfall is shutting players down when they try to improvise because its not an alternative the GM thought of before hand. Improvisation should be considered fairly. Sometimes, when the players are thrown out of their water the GM ends up on dry land too. Its part of the job. So, yes, I say its a fine trope to leverage - if you do it right and have the talent for it.

[Vondy]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

In a world where Dragons can fly in from anywhere' date=' at any time....[/quote']

 

You hit the disconnect on the head. In such a world walking around with arms all the time is rational and probably normative. Its part and parcel of the D&D genre. But not all worlds function according to D&D genre tropes. Some of them have more realistic bedrock to ground the fantastic elements in. Some of them have rationalized societies that make sense. Some of them have scenarios, including scenarios with dragons, that don't pop out of a random encounter charts. Some of those scenarios don't have dragons showing up in towns with no sign whatsoever there was a dragon in the area. You know: no missing cows in villages, no huntsmen reporting a winged creature crossing the moon, no merchants complaining that darned dragon swooped down and trashed his cart and took off with a draft horse, no tales of the swamp dragon better left alone. The vast majority of the worlds I've played in had plenty of fantastic elements without being D&D odd. And that's what is at the core of this argument, I think. A lot of gamers were raised in D&D land. Their gaming modus operandi is D&D status quo. They're view of what is fantasy is D&D boilerplate. They can neither conceive of, nor comprehend, a fantasy environment that doesn't reflect or operate in accordance with their personal gaming experience. The result: all sorts of comments about the unreasonable and evil motives of gamemasters who may not be running a world that looks anything like what they are accustomed to.

[Markdoc]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

Referring to Vulcan's post' date=' how many dragons can there be in a world? A necromancer powerful enough to animate an entire army of undead is the "boss" monster at the end of a very long campaign. Animated statues? I suppose a few could be around, but are they so common that the average citizen would be like "Pfft, That thing? You should have seen the giant sized one we had here last week..." I think Lezentauw is on to something. While I don't consider my campaigns low magic or low fantasy even, I doubt that the average person on the street has ever seen a mage, god, dragon or undead creature. They may believe in magic, even if it is the quaint superstition that folk often believe in. They just haven't seen it in practice most of the time. So yeah, style of play has a great deal to do with this.[/quote']

 

I think that's point: a lot of posters have been saying that for many forms of play, the arguments about dragons and necromancers are simply a non-issue. In this case, disarming strange warriors makes perfect sense - it's not "to screw the players over". It can certainly be an issue in play. In last week's session, two players went to the "bad part" of town to seek information - they went largely unarmoured and with only sidearms, as is pretty much standard. And yes, they were ambushed and badly injured. A set up? No. I'm the GM. I have unlimited points. I could ambush and injure them if they were in state-of-the-art battlesuits if I wanted. And I did it because one player was (deliberately) playing "the clueless noble with lots of money". Of course he attracted the wrong sort of attention. In future, the group will treat trips into Badside more seriously. But let's just say the city guard and the militia turned a blind eye when they passed through the watch post armed to the teeth. Certainly in that case, the actual attackers (a low level street gang without armour and armed only with clubs and knives) would have been slaughtered. Which means of course, to make the game a challenge, and maintain the "bad area of town" ambiance I want, I need to upgrade my street gangs with decent armour and weapons. To make the city guard, and the crime bosses a viable institution when petty criminals are all armed like warriors they need to be in plate and probably backed up by magic. If the city guards are armed and armoured like medieval nobility, then presumably the elite troops ride winged mounts, have force fields and fire lances ....

 

Forget dragons and necromancers - altering the base of the pyramid is logically going to have an effect on how the whole society operates. If you are not much fussed about how society operates, if it's there mainly as a backdrop for your games, that's fine, you can just gloss over this. But if you like more detail (see for example the thread about trade and Saltmarsh) then it raises issues.

 

Interestingly enough' date=' I might even go so far as to say that in the type of world where the dangers Vulcan describes are common, the inverse may be true. Instead of disarming the adventurer, the town guard are grateful that they have such capable assistance in the case of the random undead horde wandering into town. It may even be the law of the land that each and every person who [i']can[/i] wield a weapon be required to go armed and armored most of the time. I can see that. Not exactly my style of play, but I can allow for the difference without any heartache on my part.

 

Sure: you could certainly play in a world like that (Sky galleons of Mars!) but one of the reasons many GM's avoid that is that the more you change, the less logical a "medieval society" like the one we are familiar with becomes. If powerful magic is so ubiquitous that heavily armed men don't register as a significant threat, how is law and order maintained. What do law enforcement agents look like? They'd have to be pretty powerful chaps! Why do castles exist? They'd likely be as redundant as they are in modern warfare (unless they are magic, of course). Same for walled cities. Traditional city and local government systems like feudalism are not going to survive if security is based on wandering groups of adventurers. This isn't to say you couldn't do it, or even shouldn't do it. Just that it's a lot of work: look at Vondy's threads on his post-apocalyptic Antarctica. Lots of work, but a really cool result.

 

And if your reaction is "Who cares about logically constructed systems of government! The game isn't about tax policy!" - that's cool. But there are groups for whom logical construction of society is important. That's what many of these GM's are about: not "screwing the players".

 

cheers, Mark

[Lezentauw]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

To go along with what Markdoc said. A friend and I noticed, that when you have a High Magic campaign, you usually always end up having to answer more questions than it solves. At least if you want the world to make some sort of logical sense. We noticed that with the High Magic worlds, that we started to answer those questions by logically escalating the other side to form the balance. But, it never quite worked out that simple. What ended up happening was an escalation war. When we finally said enough was enough, many of our original concepts were altered so much, that we no longer could recognize them. Some times our answers would remove things that we very much wanted to keep, like castles...

 

I think you hit it on the head, when you stated that a "medieval society" cannot function the same as it did in our history when you start making major changes. The biggest change that is typically brought into a world is magic. The more magic is like technology, the more it is going to advance the society. Just like how every form of technology advances us today, the same can be said about a "medieval society".

[Curufea]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

Speaking of highly stereotyped and unrealistic beliefs about fantasy RPGs - how many heroes in fantasy RPGs actually spend their time "freeing the enslaved peasants from their tyrannical noble overlords" rather than leaving the serfs to their fates and selfishly seeking out treasure for themselves so that one day they can be the "tyrannical upper classes" themselves?

[torchwolf]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

Speaking of highly stereotyped and unrealistic beliefs about fantasy RPGs - how many heroes in fantasy RPGs actually spend their time "freeing the enslaved peasants from their tyrannical noble overlords" rather than leaving the serfs to their fates and selfishly seeking out treasure for themselves so that one day they can be the "tyrannical upper classes" themselves?

Well, that question might be worth putting up a poll for voting on.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

Speaking of highly stereotyped and unrealistic beliefs about fantasy RPGs - how many heroes in fantasy RPGs actually spend their time "freeing the enslaved peasants from their tyrannical noble overlords" rather than leaving the serfs to their fates and selfishly seeking out treasure for themselves so that one day they can be the "tyrannical upper classes" themselves?

 

Hmm...probably not many, considering how rarely the "enslaved peasant" comes up. The peasant tied to the land concept is downplayed or ignored in most fantasy games.

[dmjalund]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

I helped rescue an Elven girl from an insane Dragonborn the other day - does that count?

[tesuji]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

Why not? The fish out of water that overcomes the adversity is a classic trope of fiction.

 

where we seem to be disconnectting is i dont see those examples as fish out of water at all. they are fish IN WATER and yet still drowning.

 

they are taking the character's strength, his focus, his schtick, deliberately hobbling it, and forcing him to then answer a challenge in that theme.

 

its taking what he was intended to be good at and spitting on it and still asking him to perform.

 

he did not play a computer guy to have to handle simple computer tasks, regardless of whether he is hurt or not.

 

I dont believe in neutering the character at his strength.

 

that imo tends to annoy and deprotagonize more than it spotlights his heroism.

 

imx

 

when i do fish out of water, i do fish out of water.

the warrior gets put into a situation where he has to cook something

the computer guys gets put in a fight.

 

remember die hard?

 

did john mclean wind up injured taking easy kill shots to highlight that he was hurt but still able to shoot as well as an untrianed grandma?

 

no, even hurt at the end he was faced with a difficult challenge with low ammo and wife threatened needing quick snapshot one shot kills.

 

meanwhile it was funny when the limo driver punched the compiter geek.

 

in one game i ran in, the party combat guy cut through a kitchen and "for fun" the gm had him beaten up and knocked uncomscious by the irate chef. she did not think twice about having his focus be basically shat upon.

 

out of water scenarios are great, often humorous and dont squat onto the character's focus, the player's vision.

 

but hobbbling his strength and then providing easy enough "challenges" isn't imo an out of water scenario.

 

i prefer to let the character shine in his strength, excel in his focus and overcome difficult challenges and be awesome in those areas and play out of water with his weaknesses, using them for unusual and funny, not his main theme.

 

a difference in styles, but imx the more you as gm degrade the character's main focus the less enjoyment the player tends to get, tho others sometimes take extreme joy in seeing them "taken down a peg".

 

in hero terms - i let him use what he pays a lot for to its utmost and exploit his complications or areas he did not pay for for the "out of water" challenges.

 

to me that seems reasonable and fair.

 

but my way is certainly not to everyone's taste.

[Lezentauw]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

where we seem to be disconnectting is i dont see those examples as fish out of water at all. they are fish IN WATER and yet still drowning.

 

they are taking the character's strength, his focus, his schtick, deliberately hobbling it, and forcing him to then answer a challenge in that theme.

 

its taking what he was intended to be good at and spitting on it and still asking him to perform.

 

-snip-

 

remember die hard?

 

did john mclean wind up injured taking easy kill shots to highlight that he was hurt but still able to shoot as well as an untrianed grandma?

 

no, even hurt at the end he was faced with a difficult challenge with low ammo and wife threatened needing quick snapshot one shot kills.

 

meanwhile it was funny when the limo driver punched the compiter geek.

 

Sorry Tesuji, but all I see when I read your post is irony. You use an example that really can be used to explain of how town wear was demonstrated in Die Hard.

 

Did McClain have a M4? Nope. Did McClain have an Assault Shotgun? Nope. Did McClain have his bullet proof vest on? Nope. What did he have, IIRC a 9mm with a couple of clips. To most gun enthusiast, they call a 9mm a Mickey Mouse due to its lack of stopping power. He did not even have a .40 or a .45... Sounds to me like he had is town gear on...

 

Then to really pull his fangs, the 'gm' pulled his backup from him. So that takes away any chance he has to outnumber his opponent. The 'gm' took away the swat team, there goes his chance to out gun his opponent. So McClain was out gunned, and out manned. Ohh my the 'gm' must of been screwing him... Guess not, because he was able to use his wits and use his CVs to win the day...

 

Not much different from a warrior who goes into a slum area of town without all of his battle gear. He is going to be out numbered, but at least he will not be out gunned like McClain was. He will have his wits, and most likely his greater strength and CVs. Will he be walking away a bloody mess like McClain, probably. But, guess what, he will be the one walking away...

 

Thank you for giving us an example of how Town Wear was used in a movie about today's society, and yet the 'pc' could still rise to save the day...

[Curufea]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

A better example of "take your stuff with you at all times" is perhaps MMOs or CRPGs.

Games not noted for their storytelling ability

[Nolgroth]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

a difference in styles' date=' but imx the more you as gm degrade the character's main focus the less enjoyment the player tends to get, tho others sometimes take extreme joy in seeing them "taken down a peg".[/quote']I never want to play with those players. I must be fortunate, because when I have played and GMed, the other players have almost always rooted for each other to succeed.

 

As to the other, you did read where this is an out of the ordinary situation to "degrade" the character. Honestly, in HERO, there is little need. With a rabble of untrained peasants, there is a significant chance I can take down any warrior built within campaign guidelines and kill him. That's not the point of this sort of challenge. The idea is to allow the player to expand his horizons when it comes to running the character. If all the warrior ever does is engage in high powered combat against foes of equal stature to him then the player never has the chance to experience something else for their character. I never suggested that every session is an exercise in frustrating the players by hindering their characters. I only suggested that the occasional curve ball get thrown at them. If you prefer, this is a 0 Point Complication called GM Prerogative to Tell a Story.

 

I know that I would hate to be pigeonholed into a precise role within the game. I always like it when the GM throws an interesting situation at me. When the challenge is met and defeated, there is a real feeling of accomplishment there. Again, styles are different so what works for you, works for you.

[Alibear]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

When I get the rare chance to play in our campaign I play a templar like Knight for the 1 of the known world's 2 schools of wizardary. She has armour but doesn't wear it unless she is going to battle. She could wear it whenever she wants, she paid 2 points to be a knight, and is from a noble (and rich, have to be to pay for the armour and training) family and as such is a cut above local militia and town guards who would not dare question their betters anyway.

 

However when she is in civilisation then she is civilised too. She doesn't walk around in battle armour, she normally doesn't even carry a sword. Respect for laws and customs in her mind must go two ways. The locals respect her for who and what she is but she respects them too.

 

If it was a bunch of mercenaries in full battle armour was swanning about in a village I dare say the local lord would send his men at arms to and see who was questioning his authority and flouting his justice.

 

 

 

If the GM wants to way lay her but armed toughs that's fine and acceptable. As a GM you spot othre GM's tricks and sometiimes play along to drive the story forward. I wouldn't assume the GM was 'out to get me' or was picking on me.

[Markdoc]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

Speaking of highly stereotyped and unrealistic beliefs about fantasy RPGs - how many heroes in fantasy RPGs actually spend their time "freeing the enslaved peasants from their tyrannical noble overlords" rather than leaving the serfs to their fates and selfishly seeking out treasure for themselves so that one day they can be the "tyrannical upper classes" themselves?

 

I don't find anything "unrealistic" about that!

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

When I get the rare chance to play in our campaign I play a templar like Knight for the 1 of the known world's 2 schools of wizardary. She has armour but doesn't wear it unless she is going to battle. She could wear it whenever she wants, she paid 2 points to be a knight, and is from a noble (and rich, have to be to pay for the armour and training) family and as such is a cut above local militia and town guards who would not dare question their betters anyway.

 

However when she is in civilisation then she is civilised too. She doesn't walk around in battle armour, she normally doesn't even carry a sword. Respect for laws and customs in her mind must go two ways. The locals respect her for who and what she is but she respects them too.

 

Right. This is the flip side of what we have been talking about: my players were initially a little bit shocked in the current game when they found how open and friendly local society was - if they played nice. I pointed out "One of you is a genuine noble. One's landed gentry. Another a priest. You've got a member of the respected warrior class, who looks like a bodyguard and two guys who look like servants. As far as the local nobility is concerned, you are exactly the kind of small noble traveling party they would put together themselves if they were going somewhere. Add that to the reputation you acquired for saving the Harvest Festival and the warrants you have from the Local shiplords and of course the local nobility will open their doors for you - as long as you don't look like a party of roaming thugs. It's what they'd expect if they were traveling themselves".

 

This sort of thing is - for me - integral to running city games. It's not all about slaying giant monsters that come rampaging up out of the sewers. Hell, half the cities in the Seven Kingdoms don't have sewers! The reputation of the PCs as good citizens gets them invite to the Shiplord's party, where the nobles at least get to dance with his nubile daughter - and the less noble get to snoop after the neighbouring Lord's activities ... Seriously, can anyone envisage going to the ball in full armour and dancing with the Lord's daughter with a backpack, two handed sword and crossbow dangling from your shoulders?

 

cheers, Mark

[Nevelon]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

where we seem to be disconnectting is i dont see those examples as fish out of water at all. they are fish IN WATER and yet still drowning.

 

they are taking the character's strength, his focus, his schtick, deliberately hobbling it, and forcing him to then answer a challenge in that theme.

 

its taking what he was intended to be good at and spitting on it and still asking him to perform.

 

he did not play a computer guy to have to handle simple computer tasks, regardless of whether he is hurt or not.

 

I dont believe in neutering the character at his strength.

 

that imo tends to annoy and deprotagonize more than it spotlights his heroism.

 

imx

 

when i do fish out of water, i do fish out of water.

the warrior gets put into a situation where he has to cook something

the computer guys gets put in a fight.

 

remember die hard?

 

did john mclean wind up injured taking easy kill shots to highlight that he was hurt but still able to shoot as well as an untrianed grandma?

 

no, even hurt at the end he was faced with a difficult challenge with low ammo and wife threatened needing quick snapshot one shot kills.

 

meanwhile it was funny when the limo driver punched the compiter geek.

 

in one game i ran in, the party combat guy cut through a kitchen and "for fun" the gm had him beaten up and knocked uncomscious by the irate chef. she did not think twice about having his focus be basically shat upon.

 

out of water scenarios are great, often humorous and dont squat onto the character's focus, the player's vision.

 

but hobbbling his strength and then providing easy enough "challenges" isn't imo an out of water scenario.

 

i prefer to let the character shine in his strength, excel in his focus and overcome difficult challenges and be awesome in those areas and play out of water with his weaknesses, using them for unusual and funny, not his main theme.

 

a difference in styles, but imx the more you as gm degrade the character's main focus the less enjoyment the player tends to get, tho others sometimes take extreme joy in seeing them "taken down a peg".

 

in hero terms - i let him use what he pays a lot for to its utmost and exploit his complications or areas he did not pay for for the "out of water" challenges.

 

to me that seems reasonable and fair.

 

but my way is certainly not to everyone's taste.

 

When you bring up Die Hard I thought of something completely different. For RP reasons he takes off his shoes. Then the excrement hits the air conditioner and he's fighting shoeless. This opens up a lot more story options, adds some twists to combat. Was the writer (GM) laughing maniacally while saying "I'm going to take your shoes away and make you walk on broken glass MWahahaha" No. It makes for a more interesting story, that's why he did it. Not to say there arn't bad GMs out there who cruelly do that kind of stuff for a power trip, but I wouldn't write off a whole trope just because of them.

 

In hero you pay less points for things on a focus. Expect not to have them from time to time (no power armor at black-tie events) Your GM -should- scale things to where the fight is appropriate to the conditions.

 

An example from my D&D game last night: We just killed the evil monster that was secretly running the city and part of a conspiracy to cause a planer rift to some demon realm. We gather the who's-who of people we trust to let them know everything is about to drop into the crapper. The more social members of the party (the fighter type and myself, the rouge) change out of armor into our social duds. Some crazy mage and a bunch of berserkers port in during the meeting. Fight is a little more interesting then it might have been. Frequently we as the players restrict ourselves more then the GM might, for RP reasons. On the flip side in the same group we have someone who takes his greatsword everywhere (It's my holy symbol!) and tries to keep his armor on at all times. Mithril chainmail is not appropriate to wear to the high-end nobles club.

 

A lot of it boils down to trust. I trust most of the GMs I game with only to jerk me around for plot-driven reasons. One GM I don't trust, and with him I never let anything out of my sight and minimize disads he can use to screw me with.

[SteveZilla]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

I have a question. What the heck does "deprotagonize" mean?

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

Let's see: sterile gauze, peroxide, dressings... looks lke I've got everything I need, SteveZilla. So if you'll just put on this here gown, I'll show you!

[Nevelon]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

I have a question. What the heck does "deprotagonize" mean?

 

I'm guessing:

protagonist=the hero

deprotagonize=the act of making the hero less of a hero.

 

at least that's what I'm taking from the context.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

"Deprotagonize" is used on some boards to mean "taking away a player's control over his character", usually by means of some kind of personality mechanic. Wouldn't apply to Disadvantages/Complications because the player takes those voluntarily, and knows (or should know) their consequences. If the GM says to you, "You feel hungry, let me roll your EGO roll..." "Looky there, you missed. You immediately go for the large pile of food right there in front of you..." that's deprotagonization.

[BlackSword]

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

 

"Deprotagonize" is used on some boards to mean "taking away a player's control over his character"' date=' usually by means of some kind of personality mechanic. Wouldn't apply to Disadvantages/Complications because the player takes those voluntarily, and knows (or should know) their consequences. If the GM says to you, "You feel hungry, let me roll your EGO roll..." "Looky there, you missed. You immediately go for the large pile of food right there in front of you..." that's deprotagonization.[/quote']

So if a player were wearing armor that was, say, OIF, it could be expected that the point break he got for making his defense a focus could come up and it would not be considered deprotagnization since the player choose to use OIF.