Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ucla-cs.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!wjh12!genrad!decvax!decwrl!amd!dual!zehntel!hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrba!cepu!ucla-cs!srt From: srt@ucla-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.games.frp Subject: Re: Killing off characters Message-ID: <1662@ucla-cs.ARPA> Date: Tue, 16-Oct-84 18:20:45 EDT Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.1662 Posted: Tue Oct 16 18:20:45 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 20-Oct-84 06:44:36 EDT References: <3905@decwrl.UUCP> Organization: UCLA CS Dept. Lines: 34 I think magical items of the sort posted are perfectly legitimate for many reasons: (1) If you've got powerful characters, it is probably because you handed out a lot of nice magic. This gives characters instant death potential against their opponents. It is only fair that some of the items they find have instant death potential against them. (2) Powerful characters should have plenty of ways to detect cursed items or to counter their effects. If they kill themselves off through stupidity or laxity, then they didn't deserve to be high-level. (3) The spice of role-playing is risk. These magic items put some risk in to the lives of high-level characters, who may not otherwise be challenged. (4) I don't buy the theory that such items would not exist because no one would make them. Perhaps no one would make such an item intentionally (though I doubt that too), but suppose magic item creation has a 1 in 10 success ratio (seems reasonable) and that 7 of the other 9 are cursed? Or suppose that magic items tend to `go bad' over time, so that the magic items you find lying in dungeons deep are likely to be bad. Or imagine that magic items are powered by chained demons from another plane, and as time goes on, many of them manage to pervert the magic that binds them. And so on, and so on. No problem justifying bad magic. It all comes down to a question of balance and reasonability. Cursed magic items should not be out of line with the power level of your campaign, and they should be justified within your framework of magic. So why not? Scott R. Turner UCLA Computer Science Department 3531 Boelter Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90024 ARPA: srt@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA UUCP: ...!{cepu,ihnp4,trwspp,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!srt