Subject: Re: Combat system complexity
From:    bear@sonic.net
Date:    Wed, 27 Aug 2003 03:24:33 GMT
Group:   rec.games.roguelike.development

Graeme Dice wrote:

> 
> bear@sonic.net wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 

> > Likewise elves take
> > actual damage from touching iron or steel, and silver is damaging
> > to werecreatures and undead.

> 
> I hope your elves have copper based blood then. :)
> 


It seems unnecessary to me to speculate about what kind of blood 
they have - they are more creaturs of magic than biology, so it's 
not necessary, either for narrative purposes or for game balance.  

Elves take damage from iron or steel because legends say they dare 
not touch iron or steel.  Because an iron bar in the doorframe was 
supposed to keep boggarts, elves, and pixies out of your house
back when people cared about that sort of thing.  Because an iron
horseshoe was supposed to be able to hold your good luck so elves
couldn't steal it.  Because a lump of iron under the pillow in the
crib was supposed to keep your baby safe from being stolen by the 
elves and replaced with a changeling.  Because cold iron would cut
open a fairy ring.  

More generally, because elves are magical creatures, and iron and 
steel were involved in so many folk-charms against magic and magical
creatures that the metal itself must be presumed to have some kind 
of basic power against magic.  Humans are able to live without 
magic, so they use iron and steel.  Elves burn and blister at its
touch, and burst into flames if they can't get away from it.

What this means in game terms, as far as I'm concerned, is that 
elves can't touch iron or steel.  Iron and steel weapons also 
resist enchantment, and generally can't be enchanted like 
other kinds of implements.  Wizards who are touching any 
iron or steel will find that their magic is draining away into
it.  

What it means in narrative terms is that elves have a problem 
with humans because humans are making this stuff that just 
keeps sucking all the magic out of the world and never puts 
any back.  In just a few centuries (not much time to an elf) 
there may be no magic left, and that will mean that elves 
will be extinct.  So for the elves, anyway, part of the whole
story arc is a scramble to find "the secret of steel" -- by 
which they mean, how to get that magic back after it's sucked
out of the world by steel, or how to go to some alterworld 
that has magic but is not threatened by humans and steel.  
This is the only way short of a war of genocide against the 
humans for them to avoid extinction, and they have to find 
it while there's still enough magic for them to use to do 
something about it. 

				Bear