A Reason to Put Ranks in to Forgery
It is almost a rule that if you are not present for a gaming session then your character will be brave to the point of stupidity or will end up quite badly harmed. Probably both, as one leads to the other. This is a scientific feedback mechanism that encourages players to turn up for each session. However, there are some times when no matter how hard the player-proxy tries there just isn't enough peril in the adventure that week to make the missing player regret his absence. Like last week, for example.
Bert wasn't available to play and Will had the opportunity—and it is always an opportunity to run someone's character, never a chore—to run his Ninja. Even though Gimp's efforts at scouting were poor enough to get the Ninja attacked by some large skeletons, and Will got the Ninja to pick up a trapped gemstone, the Ninja came out of the session almost unharmed. This is very poor, as it means Bert will believe it is safe to leave his Ninja in the hands of another player. But where there's a Will there's a way: remembering that the pen is mightier than the sword Will dropped the Ninja from full health to 2 hit points, wrote 'Mummy Rot' on the top of the character sheet, and, just for good measure, reduced the Ninja's Wisdom, the class's primary ability, down 5 points. So simple, yet so effective.
Poor Bert has spent the past week worrying about whether his 'wounds' are cursed as Grot's were, wondering what could have done him 5 points of Wisdom damage (to be fair, so have we; a bit of hand-waving convinced him it was real, though), and how to cure the Mummy Rot before the ability damage kills him. I can just imagine how happy he will be when he finds out that all of this harm will be cured magically through the use of a rubber! It's a shame he won't read this before tonight's session.
27th January 2006 at 7.39 am
Grrrrrr. Of course, now whenever anyone is away they're never going to really believe what they're told happened until the next session. Still, better overall to have it all a wind-up than real I suppose.