Will wrote: > Are the basic equations determining skills going to change in DR2? Not much, though I have fixed a few of them. I have taken Solo Battle out of all the weapon equations and replaced it with Courage, Endurance, etc. > One of the things that my group had a lot of trouble coming to grips with > was discovering things like, "Well, for rescuing those orphans > from the fire > my kindness went up. Hey! That means I do more damage with my Battle > Axe!!" One of the peculiarities of the system. Some of that can change, but the weapon skills cannot be determined purely by physical stats. > It seemed to us that the purely physical skills should be > independent from a characters spiritual development. No such animal. A physical component of say, Bow is Vision. Vision is partially determined by the spiritual component Hope. So, we would have to revamp the entire system to separate the physical form the spiritual. I will look at it again anyway. > And of course, the > spiritual development should weigh in as the heaviest benefit for the > character in the long run. My group got frustrated enough with this that > they went looking for ways to combine the word runes from DR with > the basic > system from other RPG's like GURPS from Steve Jackson Games. Did you see the DR Lite and DR Ultra variations? The equations are much simpler. > Second question: As we played some of the packaged scenarios, like > Rescue of the Sacred Scrolls, we found that the Player Characters > were often > attacked by human characters who had lethal intent. They argued, and I > would have to agree, that they would have been justified in killing those > NPC's if they did so in self defense and if it was the minimum force they > could have used to stop them. Once a guy is trying to split your > head open > with a broadsword it is a little late to try witnessing to him. Obviously you do not witness to such a one at that time. But that does not mean that you HAVE TO kill them, you always have a choice. Why not beat them into submission and then later you will have a chance to explain why you did not kill them. Witnessing is much more effective to a live person. Granted, there are times when a real person has to kill in order to survive, but this is a discipleship game. No matter what, the penalties for killing a OnceBorn (or even a TwiceBorn) apply. > I just wanted to share a few of those thoughts with you. I think > the game has great potential, and am interested in using it for ministry > with my Sunday School class of about 10-14 teenagers (including my own > three). But they are a tough crowd when it comes to RPGs. Many > of them are > veteran players of games like AD&D, RIFTS, and GURPS. I am an old hand at > RPGs myself and have been playing them for about 25 yrs. These kids are > pretty savvy about game mechanics, but not theology. I'd like to > reach them > more at their level and take them from being excited about hacking up > monsters and sacking treasures to being excited about killing demons for > Jesus, and right on to extending that spiritual warfare concept into their > own lives and building up treasures in heaven by really becoming warriors > for the kingdom in their own lives. That is great. Thanks. But you can remind them from time to time that they are comparing the latest and greatest to a 20-year old product. Game mechanics-wise, it isn't a fair comparison. And, a secular game is not a good comparison to a discipleship system. Differing intents. > You guys have started a great thing here, and I'll be praying for > you as you put DR2 together. I hope my comments were helpful. Thank you, but I inherited the system. Dick Wulf and a few others who are no longer active with DR started it. Joe --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.368 / Virus Database: 204 - Release Date: 5/29/02