Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 19 Feb 2004 to 20 Feb 2004 (#2004-47) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 21/02/2004, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 4 messages totalling 177 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Handling Gambling 2. Filling in the Blanks: The Brute-Men 3. Elves, elves, everywhere elves! 4. Knight / Glenn Butcher ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:47:08 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Handling Gambling Keene Hammond wrote: > Hi all, > I was wondering if anyone could point me to some resources for handling > gambling. > I use 2nd edition rules with all options for my Mystara campaign and I > have a player who is a thief who likes to gamble and cheat and I am > muddling though okay, but it could go better (other cheaters, > competition, luck, Iron Ring ...) AD&D offers little in the way of gambling rules. Basically, you've the rules from the Complete Thief's Handbook and those from Skills and Powers. Even netbooks do not have much to offer. There aren't any specific Mystaran games of chance that I know of, though certainly card, board, and dice games must be popular in most nations. The Gazetteer of Glantri mentions a gambling house, and there are lots of gamblers in Cynidicea (B4). Basically, you need to decide whether the game can/should be played out or not. If not, better use the existing rules, possibly replacing the single roll by the PC with competing rolls from all players (i.e., everyone makes a proficiency check on gaming, the highest successful roll wins). This would allow you to add other gamblers and cheaters, accounting for their skill. For games of pure chance (like roulette) replace the proficiency check with a d100 roll under the chance of a win. If you decide to play out the game, make it short and use the CTH rules for cheating. This works well with dice games or other fast games, less so with longer games (especially those not based on chance). Consider that gambling houses could be easily controlled by criminals -- thieves' guilds or others. Add that established houses would use wizards and thieves to prevent cheating (on the clients' side only, of course). -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 02:52:17 -0800 From: "Ohad Shaham (Morphail)" Subject: Re: Filling in the Blanks: The Brute-Men > I like this. I agree wholeheartedly. > > Probably dwarves and humans may also interbreed. > The > > fact they don't depends wholly on cultural > reasons. > > There might also be some reasons based in > physiology, but certainly the cultural reasons would > be very strong on both sides. > -- I had messed with the humanoid races geneology for a while now. But as I have removed elves from my campaign entirely (Yeay!)I had an easyer time. So- humanoids evlove from earlier apes as in our dimention with Yehti/Bigffot (and other mythological apes) as missing link(s). The earliest humanoids are humo habilis, homo erectus creatures and finally homo sapieans brute men (neandertals) are a subspecies of homo sapieans (as some paleonthologists claim in the RW). The early brute-men diverge into bigger and smaller populations and the smaller one becomes the ancient dwarves. These CAN breed with humans but are found on other continents for a while and also have cultural taboos against that later. The rest of the brute men die out (although on Mystara nothing can really die out so there are small hidden communities left). When Kagyar (Ka Gar) the brute man fashions the modern dwarf the change makes it a totally different biological species so rockborns cannot breed with humans. As for Hin, they are a split group of huminids (probably from homo-habilis or something old enough) that had a very severe evolutionary stress to become small and agile. (Dragons eating the ones that don't hurry into small hobbit-holes sounds severe enough). Even if halflings could breed with humans on the cellular level, the mechanical constraints will make them a different species (since IVF clinics are so rare on Mystara...). BTW- there is a product called Encyclopaedia Arcane-Nymphology by Mongoose pub' that has humorous spells and the like concerning sex. They have a very funny one devised by a mage who had a thing for halflings... I won't start a flame war by being non-PC. Read it yourself... Morphail __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:33:36 EST From: Alex Benson Subject: Re: Elves, elves, everywhere elves! ::out of lurker mode:: I think that the subject of elven birth rates has come up before. I seem to recall a blurb about it in the SE GAZ, though I may be wrong. As far as the SE go, I always explained the greater numbers on the high birth defects. I also vaguely recall that Raf dictated that they breed more often than their surface brethren. Afterall, Raf knows the relationship between the defects and the crystals. This is pure opinion, but I also attributed this increase to a defensive/offensive mindest. The SE are loathed by most everyone. They live in a rough environment. They had the longterm plan of war with the surface elves. Raf perhaps saw the growing split between the old guard SE and the SE that occupy Alfheim. Surface elves are stated as being very relaxed, even playful, in their forest strongholds. The war between Daroking and Alfheim was a game to the elves. With their long lives and basically peaceful existance, casualties and death are less a factor. Hence, replacements through births are less a need. So I guess thta it is different mindsets based on different environments. This is a broad generalization for surface elves, and the factors really should be broken down on individual clan histories. Personally, I think that most surface elf populations have been undercut based purely upon a generalization based on longevity. Likewise, elves seem to be on the decline on Mystara. That seems to be a recurring theme in DnD products; elves giving way to the rise of man. In my opinion, longevity should mean an abundance of offspring and a rapidly expanding population. This would support the Clan migrations as newer lands are needed. I think we see this in the Shadow Elves. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:45:18 -0300 From: "Vinicius R. de Moraes" Subject: Knight / Glenn Butcher This guy from Perth has a very fine site about RPG: http://www.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au/~knight/rpgdata/ A lot of info can be found in the 51-kB txt (yes, a netbook of... netbooks, as he himself states) http://knight.ucc.asn.au/rpgdata/netbooks/netbooks.txt The most interesting part is, of course, http://knight.ucc.asn.au/mystara/ (Man, we should've thought of that before! What a nice idea! A fine, organised Mystara site in Australia!!!!!!!!) ;-P Is Glenn in this list? vini ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 19 Feb 2004 to 20 Feb 2004 (#2004-47) ***************************************************************