Hellriding

[RPGPundit]

How do you make Hellriding dangerous? What exactly is dangerous about it anyways? what can happen when you do it? Any actual play examples?

RPGPundit

[Otha]

It's dangerous the same way driving at a hundred miles an hour through a war zone is dangerous... you can easily find yourself in a situation you don't want to be in.

In campaigns I have run, things have only happened to hellriders when someone has set a "trap shadow" for them by affecting that shadow's fate.  Then again I haven't had any PC's with piles and piles of bad stuff before either, so I would consider it in that case.

[RPGPundit]

It's dangerous the same way driving at a hundred miles an hour through a war zone is dangerous... you can easily find yourself in a situation you don't want to be in.

Yeah, but what does this actually MEAN? I mean, what literally is the effect? What happens? How do you determine the risk, and what are some possible examples of the effects?

RPGPundit

[Otha]

The effect depends entirely on the context of the trap into which the hellrider is blundering.

If we're talking about a hypothetical Amberite walking into a trap laid by another hypothetical Amberite, then the nature of the trap depends on the one who laid it.  If it's a PC, then that player's description is going to be the dominant force in the way the consequences play out.  If it's an NPC, then I'll try to craft a trap that somehow illustrates my concept of how the NPC's mind works.

If it's a hypothetical bad-stuff Amberite finding karma landing in his lap, then it'll probably depend on the nature of that karma.  If there's anything troubling that PC then I'd probably take a clue from whatever subconscious demons that PC is wrestling with, and let his power make them manifest in the world by means of his hellriding.  If I haven't got a good enough handle on the PC to think up a subconscious demon then I'd just wing it.

I don't know what you mean by "risk" in this case.

To give a canon example, at one point during Corwin's hellride to Chaos, Brand ambushes him in a shadow where Corwin finds himself stuck on a tiny little world that he can traverse from one side to the other in a matter of seconds... Brand thinks he has him trapped, but Corwin manages to escape.  I think that's about the best example I can think of off the top of my head.

If Corwin hadn't been hellriding, he never would have stumbled into that shadow.

[RPGPundit]

I do like the idea of the Amberite's own subconscious being his "danger".

But again, what I'm trying to figure out is what actually happens? I mean, is the risk that he will suddenly get jumped on the highway? or is it something less obvious?

RPGPundit

[Malleus Arianorum]

Jumped on the highway, lost in a box canyon, stuck waiting for a train... I try very hard to keep hell riding problems small and manageable so that anyone with Amber or better stats can just roll on through with only a minor delay. The reason the problems matter is that getting stuck waiting for a train crossing is a big deal when someone is in close pursuit or when you have to be on time for something.

In that example, the PCs had to fight a losing battle and pray that they would be in good enough shape to flee once the train was gone. Some of them did, some of them didn't.

But the best disincentive to hellriding was a problem player with a 12 point shadow. (Primal plane, Guardian and control of Destiny.) He set it up to capture hellriding PCs and once you rode in there was nothing you could do except listen to the player explain how much you would dis-enjoy being bound and flogged by rockmen in supernatural darkness for all eternity while hearing him mock you from his flying invisible obsidian throne. :boohoo: