| From: | Fade <runefo@***.UIO.NO> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: K's Dark History (A Real Warning to the Munchkin Kind) |
| Date: | Sat, 9 May 1998 06:26:55 +0000 |
> We played, By all the Gods, Good or Evil, did we play.
>
> Started as Shaper/Vampire mixtures, simply because they made a good lure for
> players with inner feelings all their own to be "really different".
It is frightening how this alternate reality reflects so well who we
are. I watch the persons I create, and in each a fragment of my
soul resides. (And the players say, 'Ok, I shoot the fragger!'.).
I have snipped Keith's story. It did not look
like something written with a light heart, and speaks very well for
itself.
Keith's story started out with how one munchkin broke a game group.
It ended describing what can only be described as a power game, and
stating 'I think most of us want to feel invulnerable, feel
powerful.'. That is truth, and it is hard to deny wholeheartedly.
And if you play a character actively for fourteen(RL) years, he will
become.. powerful. Once that power reaches a certain level, that
character attains a sense of 'completeness' where more power is no
longer necessary nor a driving force. Many starting characters needs
just a little more karma, a little more cyberware. Once that is
attained, what then? Loosing immediate ambition as a driving force,
others are emphasised - and those others are usually considered great
RP ambitions - character development, to live rather than survive. Is
that munchkinism? No. Is it power gaming? Well, in a sense. Is it
bad? No, absolutely not. In a way I envy K's position where he's able
to develop a character like that. I've done so, once, in AD&D. More
power wasn't really a priority anymore, even though we were fairly
munchkinous at the time. And it was fun. I still think back on that
character with a warm, fuzzy feeling. The feeling of a story well
told, as a GM, can be satisfying as well, but different.
But sooner or later the last page in a chapter doesn't read, 'to be
continued' but 'The End'. And that is the deciding page, the final
test, that should be made. I hope that the character I have currently
made would, on that page, die to an assassin's bullet, but doing so
knowing he had thus finally made his daughter safe. Another would, at
that page, commit suicide, realizing she had finally become what she
had fought against her entire life. Yet another, a dead man long
before he stopped moving, cornered by the police in a dirty
alley somewhere, and dying in a final scene of senseless slaughter. I
want to do that bit well. To end a story in a way that the entire
group sits in silence for a while, with emotions of both sadness and
pride and not just 'Sheesh, I can't belive he killed us!'.
I have so many stories I wish to tell. I couldn't possibly use
fourteen years on a single one. Few, if any, would or should end with
'and they lived happily ever after' in the dark world of 2059.
Well, I have said my piece. Thanks for listening.
--
Fade
And the Prince of Lies said:
"To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven."
-John Milton, Paradise Lost
