Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 30 Oct 2002 to 31 Oct 2002 (#2002-283) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 01/11/2002, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 4 messages totalling 197 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Gold 2. I need some help (2) 3. MYSTARA-L Digest - 28 Oct 2002 to 29 Oct 2002 (#2002-281) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 10:27:15 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Re: Gold On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Murphy, Jason wrote: > damn... does anyone know the next verse? > Try the Monty Python Money song :) Ville ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 10:57:20 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: I need some help Joe Kelly wrote: > I am using the Mega Dungeon from the wizards of the coast site, but I want to give the rooms each a specific purpose, but I CAN'T THINK OF THAT MANY! So any suggestions of what they could be would be much appreciated. Instead of a Dungeon, I'm making it more of an underground base. Any website suggestions? Thanks! It could work for several types of dungeons, including a base (followers of Barimoor come to mind) or a tomb/temple (a Nithian or Taymoran tomb?). I'd work this way: make an early decision on the most important rooms, e.g. the central room, the hall with pillars in the north-western section, the rooms with pools or pits, and other odd-shaped or detailed rooms. This should be based on the functions you want the dungeon to perform--example, if the dungeon is a base, you will need a command room, barracks, a temple, watering points, possibly some underground farming areas or even aquaculture pools! Then you can tick off smaller rooms that happen to be located at corridor junctions as guard rooms, while isolated sections might be living quarters, prison sections, warehouses, armories, etc. Secret doors would cover the access to those sections that are both of primary security value and rarely accessed--treasure vaults or escape routes. The remaining rooms should be clustered around the major features: if you have a temple area, e.g., you will need rooms for the priests and their holy items and vestments, then if you had more room you could place other features, like barracks for temple guards or lay brothers, or the kind of rooms you could find in a cloister. Then, if your underground base is supposed to run for prolonged times without interacting with the surface, you will need rooms devoted to all those activities that people would do outdoors, like weapon training, and rooms for "life support"--kitchens, bathrooms (and some kind of sewage/waste disposal system!), and so on. On top of all these structures, you might have special purpose rooms: for example, a facility built by Barimoor might have special containment rooms for extra-dimensional monsters, rooms for spellcasting training, libraries, and workshops and alchemical laboratories. -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 09:57:03 EST From: Bruce Heard Subject: Re: MYSTARA-L Digest - 28 Oct 2002 to 29 Oct 2002 (#2002-281) In a message dated 10/30/02 7:02:05 PM Central Standard Time, LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM writes: > Going back to gold... I think the value depends on > availabity/accessibility and also on the ability to > barter with it. In Mystara, it is so widely > accessible and available, that generally I don't see > how it can be valuable given common sense economics of > valuation, and also being that humanoids probaly > cannot trade it to humans (considering that they might > perhaps be slayed on sight), the humanoids could > barter/trade with something completely different > amongst themselves and different groups. One has to > consider the motivational and driving factors behind > different groups, often competitive groups, and > consider the value of things (such as gold) given > availability and accessibility. Greetings This is a very good point. Scarcity is a powerful motivator for valuation. Although yes, Mystara is a fantasy world, if one can still make parallels with RW-Europe just as a way to root fantasy into reality to some degree. Gold in med-Europe was scarce. Silver was more common and that's why it was used as a main component of coinage. Actually for a long time, the large denominations of currency were merely values merchants used in accounting. The actual coins did not really exist (Pound/Libra/Livre...) . It's only later that gold became a part of currency. As a matter of fact, Europe of the later medieval period had so little gold to go around that there was a real need for more of it. Gold was needed to trade with the East, since little of what Europe produced was really marketable in mid- and far-eastern lands. So, gold was the ticket. European need for gold was a powerful motivator for the exploration of Africa, and later of the Americas. Explorers and traders dealt with western African kingdoms because they produced gold. This started out as an opportunity for African nations, and quickly turned into a curse as Europeans crept in and took over eventually. Sad but true. But think about it. If Europe had lots of gold, first it would not be as valuable, and second much of the world's history during the Age of Discovery would have been profoundly altered. So, how does this impact Mystara? Well, that's really up to you. Where gold is scarce, it can buy a good number of things. On the opposite extreme, it does not and you end up with monty-haulistic treasures a la D&D. There's nothing wrong with either approach. It's a question of personal taste. :-) Hmmmm.... gold! Bruce Heard ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 10:00:32 -0800 From: Joe Kelly Subject: Re: I need some help Thanks Agathokles! by the way everyone the entire dungeon is now complete! = Here is the link: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=3Ddnd/mw/mw20021031a >>> agathokles@LIBERO.IT 10/31/02 01:57AM >>> Joe Kelly wrote: > I am using the Mega Dungeon from the wizards of the coast site, but I = want to give the rooms each a specific purpose, but I CAN'T THINK OF THAT = MANY! So any suggestions of what they could be would be much appreciated. = Instead of a Dungeon, I'm making it more of an underground base. Any = website suggestions? Thanks! It could work for several types of dungeons, including a base (followers of Barimoor come to mind) or a tomb/temple (a Nithian or Taymoran tomb?). I'd work this way: make an early decision on the most important rooms, e.g. the central room, the hall with pillars in the north-western section, the rooms with pools or pits, and other odd-shaped or detailed rooms. This should be based on the functions you want the dungeon to perform--example, if the dungeon is a base, you will need a command room, barracks, a temple, watering points, possibly some underground farming areas or even aquaculture pools! Then you can tick off smaller rooms that happen to be located at corridor junctions as guard rooms, while isolated sections might be living quarters, prison sections, warehouses, armories, etc. Secret doors would cover the access to those sections that are both of primary security value and rarely accessed--treasure vaults or escape routes. The remaining rooms should be clustered around the major features: if you have a temple area, e.g., you will need rooms for the priests and their holy items and vestments, then if you had more room you could place other features, like barracks for temple guards or lay brothers, or the kind of rooms you could find in a cloister. Then, if your underground base is supposed to run for prolonged times without interacting with the surface, you will need rooms devoted to all those activities that people would do outdoors, like weapon training, and rooms for "life support"--kitchens, bathrooms (and some kind of sewage/waste disposal system!), and so on. On top of all these structures, you might have special purpose rooms: for example, a facility built by Barimoor might have special containment rooms for extra-dimensional monsters, rooms for spellcasting training, libraries, and workshops and alchemical laboratories. -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 30 Oct 2002 to 31 Oct 2002 (#2002-283) ****************************************************************