Man in Black: You’re amazing.
Inigo Montoya: I ought to be after twenty years.
Man in Black: There’s something I ought to tell you…
Inigo Montoya: What?
Man in Black: I’m not left-handed either.
The Man in Black switches his sword hand. The duel continues.
Inigo Montoya: Who are you?
Man in Black: No one of consequence.
Inigo Montoya: I must know.
Man in Black: Get used to disappointment.
Inigo Montoya: ‘kay.
The duel continues. The Man in Black disarms Inigo Montoya.
Inigo Montoya: Kill me quickly.
Man in Black: I would as soon destroy a stained glass window as an artist like yourself… However, since I can’t have you following me… and the rules here say that I can’t knock you out for more than 5 minutes…
The Man in Black slits Inigo Montoya’s throat.
CONTEXT FROM THE GAME TABLE
This is not as entirely random as it might appear at first glance. Yesterday one of the groups I was playtesting Keep on the Shadowfell with managed to get back together following an interminable three months of mutually incompatible schedules. And this actually happened at the gaming table.
Well, not with Inigo Montoya and the Man in Black, obviously. But the PCs had forced a goblin to surrender by making an Intimidate check, tied him up, and questioned him. Once they had gotten all the information they needed from him, the group fell into a debate about what to do with him. (“You said you were going to let me go!” “Shut up. We’re talking here.”) Half the group wanted to just knock him out and show him some mercy. The other half wanted to make sure there wasn’t any chance of him coming back to cause them any problems.
The debate was resolved when we checked the rulebook and discovered that, in the Land of 4th Edition, anyone who has been knocked unconscious wakes up after taking a short rest. A short rest is 5 minutes. Ergo, they couldn’t knock the goblin out for more than 5 minutes.
And so they slit his throat and headed for the Keep.
Poor little guy. If it had been 3rd Edition he probably would have woken up a few hours later with a headache and skedaddled back to his homelands in the Stonemarches.
ARCHIVED HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Justin Alexander
Thanks Lior. I’ll get that fixed with the next update.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008, 9:43:27 PM
Lior
Sorry for the nitpick, but you probably meant “stained glass” rather than “stain glass” (unless the error is in the original dialogue?)
Wednesday, September 24, 2008, 12:14:21 PM
Justin Alexander
Yeah. People occasionally ask why I’m not switching to 4th Edition. My comments on playtesting the game constitute the long answer to that question. But the short answer is that I don’t want to deal with the insane number of house rules I would need to make — most of them at low levels of detail — in order to get the game to do what I want it to do.
If I played 4th Edition it would be the most thoroughly house-ruled roleplaying game I have ever played. And that’s coming from a guy whose house rules for 2nd Edition filled a binder larger than the PHB and DMG combined.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008, 3:48:33 PM
Kevin Morris
I imagine the “easy” 4E response is that the rules in the book are there for PCs sake, and that if an NPC/monster needs to be knocked unconscious, you can let it happen.
But damn, is that unsatisfying.
Monday, September 22, 2008, 9:33:15 PM
Justin Alexander
Normally, sure. Stupid rules get tossed. The goal here, though, was to playtest 4th Edition and see how the game played out of the box. (The answer: Poorly.)
Anyway, it’s just a bit of random silliness. Although it does speak to the wider design ethos of shorter and smaller. 4th Edition’s designers consciously chose to eschew any serious or long-term consequences because those aren’t “fun”. IMO, the narrow range of options that results from this design ethos is bland and boring.
And, in the end, it’s the goblins who suffer!
Monday, September 22, 2008, 4:55:47 PM
“John Lee”
When talking about 3e, I was generally supportive of the large quantities of rules. While some decried it as useless burden, which it may have been; I always took the stance that it was much easier to ignore rules than to create new ones – so it’s better to have Something in the books, in order to have more options. This would be one of the cases where it may be best to throw out the rule and play on the fly.
Monday, September 22, 2008, 4:24:12 PM
Fenyx
After knocking him out they shoulda just put him in a really uncomfortable position so he couldn’t get rested!
Monday, September 22, 2008, 11:23:55 AM