From: Colin Watson (watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk)
Date: Wed 24 Nov 1993 - 19:35:26 EET
>Which brings me to how to make an adventure of players climbing Wintertop.
[...lots of terrifying suggestions for spicing up the climb...]
These are great ideas which make mountaineering a lot more interesting than the
standard climb rules suggest: "Make a roll every 10m" is fine for short climbs,
but it is tedious for long ascents (not to say deadly - even the best climber
would fumble every 1000m or so).
I played a game recently which involved climbing a mountain. The GM had to
work hard to convince us that it wasn't completely insane to begin with.
Then we spent a good hour or so rolling dice to see how the climb went: this
was a big mistake (and the GM realised it) - it was *mind-numbing* up to the
point where somebody would fumble their climb, then desperation would strike
as we attempted to save the unfortunate PC from certain death. It's a bit like
playing Russian roulette (and about as enjoyable). Consequently now I'm
heavily in favour of abstracting climbing rolls as much as possible.
I think shifting the emphasis away from random dice rolling is a great idea.
>In the real world people die every week on mountains because they thought
>they wouldn't need any fancy equipment.
Mountaineering with bronze-age equipment seems close to madness IMHO. I like the idea of inflicting environmental hardship on the PCs to create atmosphere, but personally I wouldn't make it too deadly. There's nothing heroic about dying of exposure (same goes for falling or drowning) so I would tend not to inflict fatal damage with these methods if I can help it (unless the PCs have been exceptionally dumb). If PCs are going to die I prefer them to go out with a bang rather than a whimper. ;-)
>Just when all hope/food/fuel is gone have the players find a snare with a
>mountain hare in it, or an adventure frozen for decades with a pack
>of firewood and an ignite matrix. Most of all give them hope, have the clouds
>part briefly showing them the summit, or a dream of the safe end to the
>journey.
I'm glad you added this. Nice to see someone else likes to give their players a break once in a while.
BTW Are there any climbers out there who would like to give an estimate of how far you can climb on average before making a mistake (fumbling) and finding yourself dangling unintentionally from a rope?
And has anyone actually scaled Griffin Mountain in a game? It looks like sheer folly to me unless you can fly...
Hmm, I thought they were gormless-looking smileys for folk with strangely
shaped noses. ;2)
___
CW.
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