Strong Sauce Blog

Dungeons & Dragons Discussion Board

Topic: D&D Edition 4

werehairbear
09-09-07: 13 a.m.

Hey, guys, did you hear they’re making a new version of D&D? I hope they make it harder for characters to die in the new edition. As far as I’m concerned, when I’m Dungeon Master, characters should only die if it’s important to the dramatic arc of the story or if they annoy me.

DrizztDoherty
09-09-07: 19 a.m.

Ah, I don’t worry about characters dying that much as long as one of them survives and can cast Resurrection, or can pay a cleric to do it. In fact, in the campaign I run there are magical insurance policies, and sometimes the monsters say, “I just saved a ton of money on my resurrection insurance!” Well, just that one time, I’m still recovering from the beating.

Goku1443
09-09-07: 2 a.m.

You let your players cast Resurrection? How cheesy. In my game, if you want someone raised, you need to get the High Priest to do it for you. First, you have to do a quest to get someone to tell you where the High Priest is. Then you have to do a quest before they’ll let you in the temple. Then you have to do a quest before they’ll let you talk to the High Priest. Then you have to do a quest to prove to the High Priest that you’re serious. Then it’s time for some REAL questing. After that you can get your friends raised, just in time for the obligatory post-resurrection debt quests.

LordOrcus
09-09-07: 2 a.m.

I can’t believe you guys let characters come back from the dead. In my campaign, if you’re dead, you’re dead. No takebacks, no comebacks and NO RESURRECTIONS. You just grab a fresh character sheet and start statting out a new character, one level lower than the last one. I guess some people just can’t handle a hardcore campaign. I just wish they’d make the character-generation rules faster, though. It really sucks when you have to take a half-hour break three times a night.

assassin-of-gnomes
09-09-07: 2 a.m.

ONE LEVEL LOWER? You call that hardcore? In my campaign, if you die you start your next character over at first level. You get to clean the boots of the other characters for a while, until you get enough experience points to carry their torches. That’s if you don’t end up biting it in the “initiation ceremonies” the other characters come up with. Don’t like it? DON’T DIE! That’s hardcore. Anything less and the players are just going to treat Dungeons and Dragons like some sort of game.

CleanseByFire
09-09-07: 22 a.m.

What, are you playing Candyland: The Extra Nice Edition? When you die you get to START OVER? In my campaign, once your character dies, that’s it for you. You’re out of the campaign. Get out of my house, you’re done. I’ll call you when I start a new campaign. Leave the chips.

screamsofthedamned
09-09-07: 27 a.m.

You let the players just LEAVE when a character dies? Do you make them warm milk and tuck them in at night, too? Maybe give them a little foot rub? In my campaign, if your character dies, he doesn’t come back, but you do. You have to sit in on all the games and watch everyone else play, knowing that you were a pathetic loser who couldn’t even keep his character alive. HARD. CORE.

gary
09-09-07: 25 a.m.

Background
The setting is that of Howard’s Solomon Kane stories, tales that straddle the 1500s and 1600s and trace the progress of Solomon Kane, a wandering Puritan pilgrim who sets out into the world to right wrongs and to fight evil. It is a continent spanning series of adventure tales with a great deal of confrontation of cannibals, ancient horrors, dark magicians and strange, savage creatures. As with Conan Howard’s dislike of civilisation comes through and Kane, while he exhibits many of the characteristics of Howard’s other heroes, is a bit more cunning and less of a brute.

Naturally, being a product of its time, Solomon Kane’s stories are quite horrendously racist and sexist but, quite frankly, that’s part of the ‘charm’ and we have to make allowances for the period in which the stories were written. I don’t intend to dwell on this subject too long because I don’t think it is terribly worthwhile to get into a tizz over when we’re talking about fantasy fiction that was a product of its time. Suffice to say if this sort of thing upsets you and you can’t either adapt to the setting, or adapt the setting to your personal morality then a) get a life and b) don’t buy this book until you do.

Kane’s wandering span the continents and take in forgotten and forbidden places. The time period is one of colonial expansion by the European powers and the ‘civilising’ of the new world, of Africa and of The East. At this point in time though there are still mysteries and the edges of the map still have ‘here be dragons’ written upon them and this exploration and fighting of ancient evil provides rich possibilities for adventure.