StoryKeeper
2010-08-12, 11:09 PM
So in an effort to help a friend and fellow player learn the rules of DnD 3.5, I threw together a very quick and dirty plotline to hold together the meat grinder of goblins I was going to throw at her. The plan was to get her familiar with making various attack rolls and kill checks. Just really basic stuff like that. In the end, however, I couldn't resist giving the leader of the goblins a back story and personality, and thus was born the blood-addicted sprite/water spirit. I gave her all kinds of special abilities that she shouldn't rightly have had. I let her heal so long as she was near a lake she was attached to, gave her a couple of other abilities to tie her to the lake and make her feel like more of a lake spirit, and generally made her a more capable villain.
All in all, it was a really great day of role-playing, way better than was expected, and it was largely due to the special stuff I let the sprite have that, by the rules, she shouldn't have had.
I stuck to the rules I gave her once I came up with them, but I was basically making up things she could do as I went, and it really really worked well. So what do you guys think about something like this? Giving NPC's powers and capabilities that aren't strictly defined by rules in systems like DnD?
All in all, it was a really great day of role-playing, way better than was expected, and it was largely due to the special stuff I let the sprite have that, by the rules, she shouldn't have had.
I stuck to the rules I gave her once I came up with them, but I was basically making up things she could do as I went, and it really really worked well. So what do you guys think about something like this? Giving NPC's powers and capabilities that aren't strictly defined by rules in systems like DnD?