From: CS341A002@Husky1.StMarys.Ca (Loki)
Subject: Re: rec.games.frp.campaign
Organization: The Underground
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 17:30:59 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.13.SMU

cbnorman@cayley.uwaterloo.ca writes:
>millerl@wharton.upenn.edu writes:
>>And the name also blows chunks. Absolutely every single part of a
>>roleplaying game is related to the campaign. 
>
>Not true whatsoever.  To give a minor example, how does "falling damage"
>affect a campaign? The entire concept of the campaign is totally non-rules
>specific.  This is because campaigning is based totally on role playing.
>You can have an adventure without a campaign.   You can have a string of
>adventures without a campaign.  You can not have a campaign without role
>playing and a "world environment" for the characters to live in.

   I would say falling damage has affected my campaigns a fair bit. For
example, when Colin MacDougall, one of my Dark Conspiracy PCs, fell off an
ET floater and broke his leg, I think falling damage definitely impacted
the campaign... :)

   Sheesh. Wake up. If a campaign is non-rules specific, then why do GMs
ask players if they want to play say, a Traveller campaign? Would you go to
such a thing expecting the same kind of thing as a RuneQuest game? I don't
think so...

   You can't have an adventure without role playing (unless your players'
characters are identical to your players) even at a minimal level;
similarly, you can't have an adventure without a world environment for the
characters to interact with, again even at a minimal level (eg a dungeon
full of meaningless monsters)... unless you *like* GMing for players who
are into living in a void with nothing to do but each other :)

>>That's because every single
>>extended roleplaying game is called ... a "Roleplaying Campaign". 
>
>People who call a string of unrelated adventurers where characters play a game,
>go into hibernation, and then magically "pop" into the next adventure are not
>playing a campaign.  They may call it a campaign, but they're no more valid
>than the people who say that "I swing my longsword at the orc" is role playing
>(hey, it's a role-playing game, I'm playing it, so I must be role playing!)
>
>I don't think so....

   Aha. You're defining what role-playing is here. Good luck.

   Myself, I'm somewhat of a traditional role-player. I get into characters
in a way a lot of people don't. However, I will sometimes get into
killcrazy characters... Usually, I have a background worked out for these
types of people. But it's often hard to tell their actions from the usual
munchkin killfiends, unless you examine their motivations... which is often
hard for anybody but the GM (as I usually give my characters' background to
my GM) to do.

   But generally, I don't play those kinds of characters. Of course,
generally, I play lots of different kinds of characters. ;)

         Loki         | cs341a002@husky1.stmarys.ca | Brynjolfr Myrkjartanarson
 often sysop of TWWOL | cs341a002@stmarys.bitnet    |    Compaignie Mercurie

Meekness is uncommon patience in planning a worthwhile revenge.
                  
                 --- Ardjukk Afraid-of-His-Cats
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