if I recall correctly, in the 1st ed Dungeoneers Survival Guide, it mentions the Drow eating their elderly when they have not enough food, just like baby spiders devouring their parents. It should be clear that Drow are not all drizzt with a profession change, they are trecherous and debauched at best.
I liked your example #2 with the wagon crashing through a wall very much but then I very well could imagine that Mr. Greenwood had handled the situation exactly the same way. Just that Quelzard was the reason for the wagon to crash through the wall. Nowhere did Ed say that you had to hand the players the rescue on a silver platter (and on a regular basis). He just suggested a reasoning for the rescuing event. Someone has to set the wagon in motion. The thing is that the players won't...
View full commentI liked your example #2 with the wagon crashing through a wall very much but then I very well could imagine that Mr. Greenwood had handled the situation exactly the same way. Just that Quelzard was the reason for the wagon to crash through the wall. Nowhere did Ed say that you had to hand the players the rescue on a silver platter (and on a regular basis). He just suggested a reasoning for the rescuing event. Someone has to set the wagon in motion. The thing is that the players won't necessarily want to know who this someone is, especially if there are more pressing matters at hand. But Ed also didn't say that this has to stay a secret which the players may never learn about. So I guess that if they had bitten the hook, the potential you see would have unfolded. It's just that they didn't bite, probably because there were other things they were more interested in.
If this hurts their suspension of disbelief is a matter of trust. As a player you don't need to analyze everything as long as you can trust in your DM's ability to explain the happenings in his world. Which is a given if the DM's name is Ed Greenwood who probably never used 90% of all the things he invented for his campaign.
Meaning that Quelzard in fact enriches the game by - if asked for - explaining some of the events happening in the PCs' surroundings. But if the players don't ask the necessary questions, it's not the DM's duty to answer them anyway. Well, and if they, out of mistrust against the DM, don't ask questions "lurking around in their minds", then the group has other problems to solve.
Well, to offer up a different point of view, the cave troll in this case is actually playing the part of Quelzard. Quelzard, in my understanding, is not actually a person, or even a group of people. It's a concept. It's the idea that you can improvise and help your adventurers out, but that there should be a plausible explanation. It's the safety net that can give your adventurers a chance against what would otherwise be certain death, while still forcing them to work for it.
View full commentWell, to offer up a different point of view, the cave troll in this case is actually playing the part of Quelzard.
Quelzard, in my understanding, is not actually a person, or even a group of people. It's a concept. It's the idea that you can improvise and help your adventurers out, but that there should be a plausible explanation. It's the safety net that can give your adventurers a chance against what would otherwise be certain death, while still forcing them to work for it.