Talk:The Revised Ten Commandments

Item 4

50,000sp as a max is an odd thing. Unless you are limiting it to items that can be carried it makes little sence and only limits GMs. A Manor could be worth more than 50,000sp, a house in Tycho or Lunar could also be worth more than 50,000sp. Is a fixed Max of 50,000sp wise?

--Jono 08:16, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

I think items that are worth more than this are probably too powerful for players to have in the game. The idea being to limit the arms race a little. The guideline has been there for a while this is just an attemt to clarify it's reason.

Mandos 08:57, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

I realy do not see it as an arms race. I think at the begining of DQ (or any other RPG 22 years ago) the idea of costing for castles and manors didnt enter into it a great deal - with the exception on the ADD Dungeon Masters Guide.

I think it is helpful if you apply the limits to the "can be carried" rule.

--Jono 23:55, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

Item 5

Maybe not running DQ games in such places?

--Jono 08:17, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

Restricting where a GM can play seems a little more overbearing than simply requesting that techy items don't get written up.

Mandos 08:57, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

---

Some care needs to be taken here, particularly with the examples.

• Guns are not post-Ren.
  • Early guns and rapiers are from the same historical time period (cannons pre-date both) -- we have simply decided that gunpowder does not work on Alusia.
• By the same token, glasses are not post-Ren, and tinted glasses would not be too odd. Raybans and mirrorshades may have no place in DQ, by tinted eyeglasses fit the tech level.

Martin Dickson 14:53, 19 Oct 2005 (NZDT)

Item 6

This commandment has always bugged me as being an implementation solution rather than a requirement. This rewrite now covers the reason (not to give away free time), but I think we should reword the main point itself in this manner -- that is, move the recommendation to be careful with training time to the #6 point, and simply mention planar time (or other similar devices) in the explanatory notes.

Martin Dickson 02:44, 6 Nov 2005 (NZDT)

Item 9

If you have an item that is balanced then its not powerful by the fact that its balanced. So the more un-balanced an item the more powerful it is. Is this not true?

--Jono 08:23, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

I think things can still be powerful and have flaws, however the itmes most likely to annoy the rest of the players and GM's are those items without flaws. Most of the items I get asked to rewrite are problems because they are deemed too powerful for the game and I end up adding a few flaws or downsides.

Mandos 08:57, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST) It depends what you mean by balanced.

Some people will put some hellaciously nasty item/ability in the game, and consider it balanced if it has equally hellacious penalties. I think that this doesn't balance things, it just leads to long, complicated write-ups. Ensuring that the DM is going to have to do some serious brain-churning is a sure way to bring you to their attention when they're in a state of full grump. Darwin at work.

I think that the notion of balance should be focused around the character who is toting the thing in question. If a first adventure E&E mage happens to end up with an item that enslaves 1 dragon of every colour to them permanently, I might be somewhat concerned. Hell, I'd be on the ceiling so hard and so long I'd probably take up tapdancing. Anyway, I'm not sure I'd care too much what the downside was.

High level characters need high level items/abilities, and who wants to have to sit down and wade through a write-up with more subordinate clauses than an if statement in an Excel spreadsheet? Mind you...I suppose if you stick downsides into items, it provides a player with an opportunity to get rid of the wretched things. --An Anonymous user--

I think in the case of items written for a player that cannot be transferred thats fine, but many items can be bought sold and traded and care needs to be taken. A classic example is the armour detailed in the discussion below. Effectivly the whole guild could soon be equipped with 9PT Mage armour, which in turn will mean that GM's will need to increase the toughness of the opponents in order to make a fight a challenge, which casuses inflation and an arms race. If the armour has flaws so that not everyone wants it, it stays with a few people and the arms race is lessened. ( I don't know if the armour has flaws, this is simply an example)

Mandos 10:23, 14 Sep 2005 (NZST)

This is hypothetical, in the sense that it could be a discussion about any item/ability.

Nevertheless, the point stands. Balance is not achieved by an accounting exercise. It's relative to the character involved. If the problem is that people can trade items around, and this causes inflation, then this means that the economy is flawed. As a general rule, you don't find too many orchards that grow apples with special flaws in them so that only a few people will like them, and that this will defeat inflation.

If you want to avoid cross-game damage inflation, attack the trade, not the item. Make items that cost EP in some way, extract stat points from the bearer when the item is given/taken away. Mene mene tekel upharsin 12:23, 14 Sep 2005 (NZST)Velcanthus

Item 10

You can buy player made 9 point Caster Armour at the guild meeting. Armour is not a balacing element between Mage/Fighter. The balance in the game is clearly in favour of Mages, and it is shown by the fact that very few people have a Fighter as a main.

--Jono 08:19, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

Wrong way round Jono. There are few people playing fighters because the balances are ignored and because players can have 9 point armour they can cast in. Get rid of the mage armour and there becomes a reason to truck around in plate mail, which in turn gives fighters an advantage and a niche in the game. Take away the niche and they dissapear.

Mandos 08:57, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

To be accurate, I believe the 9ap armour in question is 9 vs B and C class and 0 vs A class, equivalent to about 6AP overall.

Casting armour should be rare at low and medium level, getting 6 or 7AP armour is a nice reward. Higher protection casting armour is the province of high level characters.

Standard Plate armour is often not the best armour around, sure it protects you but unless you're a stat monster the lightly armoured fighter-mages have polished the bad guys off before you get there. My non-mage now wanders around in "mage-armour" because it is a better blend of protection and mobility. Give out more magical cold iron armour! :-)

I believe that the main reason that there are more mages than non-mages is that mages can do more and thus are usually more fun.

Stephen 13:51, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

Actually, the 9AP armour is 9AP against all A, B, and C class. I now have a real writeup :)

Andrew 17:28, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

Ok I retract my clarification, it is loose. Where's mine?

Stephen 17:58, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

So which loose GM gets a J rating now?

Mandos 10:12, 14 Sep 2005 (NZST)

Well, non-Mage is just one out of 14-15 flavours but it's definitely not the least popular out there.

On the other hand, the last adventure I went on we had two non-Mages who both "cast" a range of much more highly Ranked spells than my mage could, thanks to "items".

I guess people will play non-Mages regardless, but for them to keep abreast of the pack they need to have items. Since they can't spend money on learning spells, limiting the power range of items probably limits them more than the Mages.

--Ben Taberner 14:18, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

The upshot is I dont think that Item 10 which points out that Armour is a balancing issue between fighters and none-fighters or if you like mages and none-mages :-) is at all balanced.

--Jono 23:50, 13 Sep 2005 (NZST)

While the discussion has dived off into armour the point is more that people should be aware that there are balances within the game and they should be aware of them. The armour one is only an example, it just comes easily to mind because I think it is a major problem in the game at the moment.

Mandos 10:12, 14 Sep 2005 (NZST)

Games, or DMs if you like, respond to their players. If there are not many people choosing fighters, then it suggests that there is no good reason to be a fighter for most players. If enough players are looking for a particular thing, (and high PROT casting armour is something I would be looking for, were I in that situation), then eventually one of them will get it.

This is inevitable. Some DM, somewhere, will award it.

Once one player has that ability, other players will clamour to get it, as well. And, they will get it.

You can write a commandment that says DMs mustn't do this sort of thing. I would be surprised if the commandment were enforceable, and it doesn't matter how much people agree to it in a God's meeting. Games are not played in God's meetings.

Velcanthus 12:41, 14 Sep 2005 (NZST)Velcanthus

The point is not to have these as laws, merely guidelines particularly for new GM's and as something to consider when people are GM'ing.

The old ones were ignored for a variety of reasons but the intentions were good. The idea here is that we as a group can deciede what is a good guideline, mainly by the wiki way of editing the actual text rather than discussing it lots in here :-)

If people do think a bit about these guidlines then maybe some good will come of it, if not then we have wasted a bit of time and at least have a more up to date document than the old one that was ignored.

Mandos 15:01, 14 Sep 2005 (NZST)

I would be profoundly surprised. As I said, games respond to players, they don't give a toss about God's Meetings. Or the wiki. All you will have is an up to date document that is ignored. Interventionist solutions like the ones you suggest are not going to be effective because they only work when all DMs ascribe to them, and even the most controlling, conservative DM is going to find a circumstance where they think that a particular item/ablility is warranted. Once that happens, then other DMs will follow suit.

It seems to me that your concern is with the trade, not any item in particular. If that is so, surely it makes sense to shift your attention to that? I predict that you will not find a solution with the approach you are currently espousing. Velcanthus 17:26, 14 Sep 2005 (NZST)

Whereas I don't think everyone needs to follow the guidelines. A lot of GM's already pay attention to the old ones. I think it is important for new GM's in particular to have something they can refer to when they are GM'ing to help them ease into the multi-GM thing. Each GM who at least keeps the guidlines in mind when they create items is another GM whose items I don't have to either worry about when I GM or have to rewrite. Mandos 07:48, 15 Sep 2005 (NZST)

Why do you even bother? Is it that you think that the items/abilities are too tough in some absolute sense? In which case, I'd like to know how you determine that. Or is it that you think it's power level is not congruent with the rest of the character?

In my experience new DMs are: 1) too rare to have much of an impact on the game, however insane an item/ability. 2) far too timid to award anything except the most trivial item/ability.

If they did award something 'unbalancing', it would probably be the kind of mistake that springs from inexperience. In which case a commandment wouldn't have helped. It's a usability error of the kind to do with identifying salience.

From time to time this issue is raised and I suspect that it's really a way of obliquely criticising a DM that some other DM believes is awarding treasure loosely. In a multi-DM world, one has to be tolerant of other styles of play.

If you dislike an ability/item, don't allow it or the player who owns it into your game. Perhaps that will create sufficient counter-pressure to inhibit the stuff you don't like. Velcanthus 13:58, 15 Sep 2005 (NZST)

---

I bother because regardless of your comments I think it is a good thing to have in the game. If people do pay attention to it then it will benefit the game and if they don't then it does no harm. It is a win win situation.

13:50, 15 Sep 2005 (NZST)

I'm sure you believe that. I am asking you why you believe it is worth the bother. Specifically. I had taken it as read that you were doing it because it would be of benefit to the game. I hadn't thought you believed it because there were voices in your head telling you to say this.

Velcanthus 14:01, 15 Sep 2005 (NZST)

I am kind of interested in why you care deeply enough to worry about it. I mean obviously you have been GM'ing long enough that you will ignore them so there is no impact to you at all.

The amount of bother is minimal to put these guidelines together (although the ongoing discussion is more than I was expecting) and it bugged me that the old guidelines had some good idea's but were ignored as being out of date and badly written. So 10 mins work during a boring patch at work and we might get some good from it.

14:43, 15 Sep 2005 (NZST)

1) I've had to read a write-up for an item that was so infested with flaws that I found it hard to work out what it was supposed to do. And, as a rule, I read a player's character sheets in the week between the first and second game, so I had plenty of time to work through it. Many DMs don't. Consider how such a write-up might be disruptive to the drama of a game where the DM has to wade through a write-up that resembles a life-insurance policy in the middle of combat.

2) I don't see what will be achieved because new DMs don't usually create game-endangering items. They're usually too timid to create anything which will have any impact on the game-world.

3) The presumption here is that anything done, if it is done, will be a good thing. I am unconvinced. I suppose that this approach, were it to be anything other than ignored, stifles creativity. Creativity is in reasonably short supply where ever in the world you are. There are always people who want to find ways to make everything consistent, which is a three syllable word that is synonymous with 'the same'.

4) I think that the term 'game-balance' is misused. It seems to me that it is relative to the character and the adventure. No one has ever given me a rational description of what absolute game-balance is. Until I see such a thing, I will continue to think of it as a relation mapping effects from a character to the game world and returning a value that is closer or further from a 'balance' heuristic.

Velcanthus 15:18, 15 Sep 2005 (NZST)

Item 11

I believe that this has always been played and understood by everyone. But better to have it explicitly stated.

Many cases of your characters dealing with each other are perfectly reasonable, but it is nigh impossible to get agreement on where reasonable becomes unreasonable. Much better if your characters simply never deal with each other.

-- Stephen 16:45, 22 Mar 2007 (NZST)