[geeks] D&D 4e is here

[Nadine Miller]

On Jun 11, 2008, at 11:42 AM, Shannon Hendrix wrote:

> On Jun 11, 2008, at 12:37 , Phil Stracchino wrote:
>
>> Or there's the counterpart:  the player of the barbarian with the  
>> 19 STR
>> and 6 INT who glances at the arcane diagrams on the temple wall and
>> solves the complex puzzle at a glance, or who is fluent in every  
>> known
>> language...
>
> Well, one thing to remember too, is that in a lot of ways, gathering  
> in person to play an RPG is a serious drawback for a lot of  
> character types and stories.
>
> Certain roles are really hard to manage.  For example, what if you  
> want to steal something by posing as a fighter?  It's kind of hard  
> to pull that off when everyone is sitting together...
>
> Computer versions offer a big advantage in that regard.
>
> For example, when I first played Oblivion, I played a thief.  Now,  
> Oblivion has no hard and fast rules about what role you play, but I  
> wanted to steal something which belonged to another guild.
>
> The only way to steal it was to join the other guild to gain access,  
> which I did, and promptly nicked my little treasure.  I had to spend  
> 20 minutes running from some really ticked off mages, but it was  
> worth a lot of cash.
>
> It is very hard to do that when gathered with others.

True.  Passing notes isn't really conducive to sneakiness, nor is  
going aside with the GM in another room. This is the big advantage of  
IRC, especially with a little forethought and planning so the GM  
doesn't get bogged down in /query with you such that the other players  
notice.  I've used this quite a bit in my Tekumel game because my  
char. had a past where some parts were known to the other chars, some  
parts were not.

I still get a lot of flack from my husband and several of my friends  
because they assume my contract thief was the one that wreaked the  
fiery havoc which aided us in getting out of some tight spots in a  
Jorune game, thanks to a lot of note passing.  The only bit that I  
admit to was having said thief cause the trouble that incited a civil  
war--but they don't hassle me over that...  :-)  That was a good  
campaign.

=Nadine=