Accessory - Dragon Magazine #111.pdf - Index of

you is subject to your rules. If players don’t
wish to have their PCs’ powers altered or
reduced, they don’t have to play in your
game. Players may have their PCs weakened
only for the duration of their stay, or
they may accept permanent alteration of
their PCs. Make sure the players are informed
of this before they bring in their
characters. A favorite technique of mine is
to have the means of arrival to my world
(gates, spells, mystic explosions, summonings,
etc.) be the means of their alteration.
For example, NPCs may take magic items
in trade for transporting characters to my
world, good gods may “cleanse” evil characters
so they can adventure with good
ones, mystic explosions may alter characters
in attributes and levels, and dimensional
“police” may forbid certain items to be
brought into my world.
If, despite everything, your campaign has
characters far beyond the rest in terms of
personal power, other options exist. The
easiest solution for me was to craft adventures
with a very tough, central adversary
surrounded with lesser underlings. As a
matter of course, a powerful character
would seek out a fight with the major foe,
while everyone else mopped up the lesser
beings. The tough guy needed the help
because he would have been swamped
otherwise. Everybody fought, everyone was
busy, everyone was happy.
Another way is to create adventures in
which a character’s power is useless. An
adventure requiring the solving of riddles is
one example,-since-the player must depend
on his own cleverness, rather than the character’s
power, to solve problems and finish
the scenario. This balances things well for
everyone.
If a character is still too powerful for a
particular group, there are other measures
that can be taken. The DM can talk to the
controlling player, who may agree that
something should be done to make things
more workable. It could be a matter of —
giving up some items or taking voluntary
cuts in some powers or abilities. The character
could be retired until the rest of the
group catches up, or it could be played with
a more powerful group, if one exists. Or the
character can go adventuring alone, which
gives the DM a chance to make more demanding
adventures without killing weaker
characters.
The character may also be run as an
NPC by the DM if the player agrees. The
DM would then assume control of the character,
possibly allowing the player to use it
on special occasions. If the player wishes to
be helpful, he may give powerful items to
the gods or to wizards until such time as
they are needed again, or the items may be
sacrificed to stop a great evil. Personal
power could be passed to others or mysteriously
returned from whence it came.
Some characters might simply not use
certain powers or weapons. The great warrior
Vendil, for example, uses only his 18/00
strength and his bare-hands on most oppo-
nents he meets, saving his sword +5 “for a
truly worthy foe.”
If the player doesn’t see the problem with
his character, the DM may have to take
other actions. Killing out-of-control characters
is one solution, but I believe in being
fair. Destruction is easy; any DM can kill
any character if he really wants to, but I
abhor off-handed destruction of PCs. I
believe in giving every character a fighting
chance for life. Try to solve problems creatively;
creation is always harder than destruction,
but is worth it. Above all, be fair!
If the main problem is an excess of powerful
magic items, it can be handled in
much the same manner as physical prowess
was handled. It is only the psychology of
owning magic items that is different. For
many players, magic is the most interesting
thing in a fantasy campaign; the roleplaying
aspect of the game often takes second
place to the power and glitter of magic
items. Instead of developing the character
as a person, it becomes far easier to define
him in terms of his possessions.
To satiate the cravings of players for
magic items, the DM can create items that
are-flashy but not powerful — i.e., they will
impress local peasants but not slay dragons.
This process also satisfies the desire of the
DM to create new magic items. If done
properly, the DM can create items that
become more powerful when their owners
behave in certain manners. Thus, the players
are forced to role-play with their characters
more often when-they must act noble,
macho, or crazy.
Another type of possession is money.
Occasionally, characters will acquire enough
money to make them an economic power to
be reckoned with. This may unbalance the
DM’s setup of the game. In my campaign, I
once used a pre-packaged module featuring
a dragon that possessed a tremendous hoard
with great heaps of gold. Since no gold
piece value was given, I decided that 100
million gp was appropriate. Naturally, the
group destroyed the dragon, leaving four
people with 25 million gp each. Well, since
gold was worth more in my world than in
the typical AD&D game world, I soon
decided I had made a major mistake. Here
are some methods I could have used to fix
the situation:
Steal it back. Such a large amount of gold
(5,000 tons) takes a lot of wagons, equipment,
and time to move. Such a lengthy
project would be hard to keep secret.
Thieves could get wind of it and hijack the
caravans moving the metal. If an army was
hired to guard it, the mercenaries might
turn traitor and hijack the gold themselves.
Even if the group decided to make the
dragon’s lair their base and not move the
gold, other treasure seekers will eventually
come after it once they learn the dragon is
dead. Powerful forces may decide they
deserve the gold, forcing the PCs out. Other
dragons may come to avenge their brother
(just possibly lured by the treasure, too).
Gold is a powerful lure, especially in such
amounts and especially to dwarves, who
may decide to claim the gold out of sheer
greed or as a just “inheritance.” After all,
the gold belonged to someone else once, and
the original owners (or their descendants)
may show up, too.
Swindle it back. The characters suddenly
discover friends and relatives they never
knew they had. This leads to charity, bad
investments, and outright fraud.
Handle it. The sheer responsibility of
having to deal with wealth could become
burdensome. If the players are faced with
the prospect of dealing with their wealth as
businessmen, the accounting work might
make them decide to chuck it all.
Back-fix it. Create an after-the-fact condition.
Perhaps the dragon cursed his hoard
to make it unusable after his death. The
gold may disintegrate in time, it may prove
to be fool’s gold (especially after being
spent, leading to angry mobs), or it may
simply bring misfortune to its owners. I
don’t like to invent after-the-fact safeguards;
it’s sloppy, but it may be necessary.
Here are some methods that I did use to
divest my players of their gold:
Tax it. The players considered this the
same as stealing it. The local king took 10%
as taxes, which replenished the wardepleted
kingdom, but didn’t really affect
the characters that much. Some forms of
taxing I didn’t use were tithes to the local
churches (another 10%, easily) or “finder’s
taxes.” Since the gold was originally stolen
by the dragon, the kingdom could claim at
least 50% of the treasure as a finder’s tax,
to put the money back into the economy.
Sacrifice it. I invented a method of destroying
gold which made the PCs want to
do so. One character’s land contained a
tower he wanted to claim — but in the
tower’s basement was a demon of enormous
power, held by a device powered by the
destruction of gold. To destroy the demon
itself required a deposit of about 4,000 tons
of gold placed in the device. With some help
from the king, the PCs destroyed the demon
and gained the tower, probably saving the
world as well. This left them about 250,000
gp each, plus their lands and castles.
Use it. The king had given the PCs land
and made them barons, with the understanding
that they would build strongholds
and defend the land — which just happened
to be in a hazardous area the king could not
afford to protect. Another 3,000,000 gp was
eventually spent here. More could have
been spent if the characters were allowed to
support large armies and build vast fortifications.
Of course, that could easily have
led to the problem of too much manpower.
Make characters take chances
If the players enjoy having their characters
hire “monster fodder” to do all dirty
work, there are ways to discourage this. If
they like to have NPCs test potions, draw
swords, and press buttons, make sure the
NPCs now and then find devices like magic
swords that grant wishes to the first to draw
them. Create potions that have a good effect
on the first sip, then turn poisonous or
cursed. Make traps that blast everything
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