On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 11:16:26PM -0500, Thomas Ward wrote:
> Unfortunately, someone who is blind may not have any idea or clue what
> these creatures look like. If they are not really up on Egyptian
> mythology and religion they might not even know as much as I described
> above.
[My Reply:]
Then they google it and the game becomes educational as well as
an adventure. I knew what a lamia was because I used to play AD&D, as
well as having seen Eddie Murphy's "The Golden Child," and if I hadn't,
then I most likely would have had to look them up too.
You can always add a brief description of what they're facing,
as well as it's name, in case they still want to look the name up for
further information, say off a wiki page that might shed a clue to
solving the puzzle. Especially if god X was a fire god, and was enemy
to god Y, the rain god, you might gather that god X's weakness is water.
Then the player can go back to that broom closet, grab the bucket in it,
fill the bucket and solve the puzzle. They get both a history lesson,
and a tricky game to play.
I don't know about the other gamers, but as the saying went,
"Knowing your enemy is half the battle." If you're knowledgeable about
your subject, winning is a pleasure. Then you get to come back here and
post your bragging rights that you kicked serious butt with little real
difficulty, while the clueless stand around, dumbfounded, wondering how
you figured that one out.
I think that's what makes a puzzle a good puzzle, giving the
player both a problem, and the means to solve it, starting off with easy
problems, and progressing to harder ones.
I say work it into the game as you see fit. When I Dungeon
Mastered a game for a couple years, I learned to give only brief
descriptions, and let the players fill in the blanks They would come
back later and describe things in the game I never said, yet they added
in on their own. Their imaginations were working overtime behind my
back, and what I envisioned was nothing like what they envisioned. Then
again, I would describe a silvery, crystal handled dagger that had a
flat, unsharpened tip with a handle that was warm to the touch to them,
and they'd be holding a flathead screwdriver and not know it. I'd try
describing 20th century artifacts to them in 12th century lingo, and
drive them nutz. Giving the artifacts a plus 1 rating because the steel
was superior and with far better hardening just made them all the more
magical in their book. <.snickers.>
You might find a 1 foot diameter ring or crown-like ring made of
an ivory substance, slightly wider at the base than at the top when laid
flat, and anything you put within the ring, would turn counter clockwise
when you held the handle on one side, no matter what it was, and would
continue turning for as long as the object was within the ring's
influence, be it a bar of steel driven into a stone, someone's arm or
leg, and even light. While the object within the ring's influence would
turn, the ring itself would not, no matter what was placed within the
ring's influence. To you, it could be just about anything, but to me,
it would simply be a 22nd century jar opener.
Descriptions have their valu when used creatively, so I figure,
in the end, it doesn't really matter how you describe something or not.
If I hadn't told you the ring was a jar opener, you would have come up
with something suitable on your own to explain it, and probably found a
good use for it as well. Turning a millstone, for instance...
Michael
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Postings Copyrighted 2010-2011 by: Michael Ferranti
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