From the Mouth of Sauron
Issue: E-1
Date: 12-17-93
An Experiment
This is an experiment. Prior to the start of game 117, I ran a
newsletter to help coordinate team information and strategy. The
newsletter was discontinued with the start of the game, since many
of the members have e-mail and the remainder could be contacted by
phone far more quickly. Alas, the U.S. postal service simply proved
less than adequate in comparison with other methods of exchanging
knowledge.
Given the much faster response time inherent to e-mail,I thought I'd
give a shot at putting together an electronic newsletter. There may
be alot of interest, there may be none; I'm curious to see what you
all think of the idea.
I'll run a couple of issues to 'test the waters' and see how people
respond. If there's sufficient interest, The Mouth will go out
every Friday. If not, the newsletter will be discontinued and
revert back to a simple file of updates on encounters, artifacts,
and so forth.
Newsletters rely upon contributions by the readership. If you like
the idea of a newsletter, then by all means feel free to send in a
contribution. Possible subject ideas might include (but certainly
aren't limited to):
- questions concerning game mechanics, encounters, etc. that
you'd like to have answered by a veteran reader.
- strategy and tactical ideas.
- humor (my favorite)
- personal opinions on styles of play
- analysis of various nations, allegiances, etc.
- information or data on the market, combat, etc.
- interesting experiences, examples of brilliant or poor play,
neat tricks
- just about anything you can think of that's even remotely
connected to ME-PBM (e.g., essays on Tolkien's body hair,
whether or not his nephew actually wrote most of the
Silmarillion, etc).
I'll print anything you send me except for personal attacks upon
another player or blacklists. If you submit something, you don't
have to do it under your own name. Aliases are fine; just you and
I will know who wrote the article or response.
Should the writing bug nip you one in the ass, simply send your
article to me at my e-mail address with an attached note saying that
you want it to go out in The Mouth. Also indicate what alias, if
any, you want to use. Don't use neat-looking formats, because I'll
just have to reformat it for inclusion anyway (the various systems
of individual players cut word-processing documents to hell).
Format
During these first few issues, the format of the newsletter will run
like this:
- editorial observations by yours truly
- letters (forum)
- changes to basic game information (artifacts, setups, etc.)
- changes/additions to encounters
- rumors of all sorts
- questions that someone would like answered
- articles submitted by the readership
As this counts as the first issue, the only items here are my
comments (above) and various changes to artifacts and encounters,
plus a few notes. Mayhap the next issue will be somewhat more
interesting
Information on Artifacts
The baselines on the artifact list are slightly off in a number of
cases. I never bothered to correct these until now. Most of this
information was provided by my teammates in game 117 (who're
somewhat more thorough than I am):
- Collar of Command, 160: this is a Command +30 artifact, not
Command +25.
- Dragon Helm of Dor-Lomin, 61: my best information says this is a
Command +15 artifact, not Command +10. However, I recently heard a
rumor that this artifact has been changed to +30. Anyone with an
interest may want to do a 'research artifact'; I'd appreciate
hearing about the results.
- Ring of Impersonation, 4: this is an Agent +25 artifact, not
Agent +20.
- Lorglin, 8: This is a mage +15 artifact, not mage +20.
- Orb of Seeing, 35: This is a mage +30 artifact, not mage +35.
- Galadriel has Nenya (12); Gandalf has Narya (13). This was
inadvertantly switched on my artifact list.
And for some more rumored secondary powers:
- 15 Tinculin: Access to Spirit Mastery.*
- 16 Mothras: Alternate list has this as access to Dark
Summons, not access to Spirit Mastery.*
- 18 Tablets
of Dark
Knowledge: Alternate list has this as access to Dark
Summons, not access to Spirit Mastery.*
- 77 Ungolrist: This has a bonus to fighting spiders.
- 81 Sil-Maegil: This has a bonus to fighting evil creatures.*
- 101 E Voronwe: Access to teleport.
- 127 Aranruth: This has a bonus to fighting evil creatures.*
- 133 Dagger of
Green Wisdom: Access to conjuring ways.*
All of those marked with an asterisk haven't been independently
confirmed by other sources.
I list I recently received actually had an entry for the One Ring.
It said that the Ring gives a character a +90 to his best ability
and a Stealth rating of 100. Sounds a bit far-fetched to me. One
other list I had in my possession said the Ring gives a character a
+60 to his best ability and also a stealth bonus, but that hasn't
been confirmed either.
Rumors
Rumors abound in the game, most ludicrous. Rather than attempting
to make an educated guess, or spending hours poring over data to see
if you can confirm or deny what you hear, I suggest you ask Bill at
GSI directly. To date, I've sent my a half-dozen letters chock-full
of questions, and as a result, I've learned an astonishing amount
concerning how the game works. It also helped to dispel a number of
far-fetched but much-treasured 'old gamers tales' concerning
encounters, the economic system, combat, and so forth.
Some examples:
- the defensive bonus provided by fortifications is 10%-20% of
the constitution value of the owning army. Towers give the
force a 10% bonus, citadels a 20%, with everything else falling
in-between (I think these figures were clarified in the
November issue of Whispers).
- Most ideas on how the market system works are hogwash. It's
rather complicated, but follows many real-world rules of supply
and demand. Quickly, market prices aren't determined by
treasury alone; it's possible for a single player to buy out
the entire stock of a resource on the market (I've done this a
number of times); sells don't have built-in limitations, other
than what's provided by the overall capacity of the market;
pricing is interconnected and limited by an 'averaging' factor;
the basic laws of supply and demand play a very big role in
determining prices and capacity; and much more.
- for most encounters, you can skip the '290' order and go
directly to the '285' order, providing a response. Of course,
you have to know what you're facing, since you won't get an
option list like you do with the '290' order.
- dragons can encounter more than one person during the turn.
If a dragon finds someone in the hex, others (who don't get the
encounter description) can do a '285' and react to the dragon.
They'll do so individually, so characters can't 'gang up' to
fight a dragon (although they could fight it one after another,
eventually cutting it down if they're all good enough).
These are just a few examples of what Bill has told me in our Q&A
sessions. It pays to talk to the game creator; no player will ever
know more than a small fraction of what he does.
If you have questions that you want answered by Bill, you can just
drop him a card directly. In addition, I compile lists and send
them off to him every once in a while, so I'll be more than happy to
forward any questions you have by putting them down on the list
(makes life easier for Bill if they come in one letter).
Loyalty Ranges
There's some interest in learning what loyalty ranges correspond to
the description you get when an emissary does an 'Influence Other'.
Rebellious seems to be 1-15, marginal 16-25 or 30, etc. Anyone
who's interested can send what data they have to me; I'll compile it
and put the results out in the next newsletter.
Revised Files
The data files I have on ME-PBM have been revised substantially
since I first sent them out a few weeks ago. The formatting
problems inherent in the expanded margins were also taken care of,
for those of you who have systems that trash files with long line
lengths. I also revised the results, so that the 'escape' entry was
cut into 'escape unharmed' and 'escape injured'.
If you want the revised files, simply drop me a line and I'll send
them out. Those of you who've indicated you want the revised files
anyway will get them along with this newsletter.
Also, for those who've indicated they want entire files, I'll
probably only send these out once every couple of weeks if I get
alot of changes, or once a month if I don't. I'm sure that you
don't want to pore over a new list just to find a couple of new
additions.
Encounters
I'm always looking for new information on encounters. Anyone with
a hankering to add to my list is more than welcome to do so.
Curtain Call
That's the end of the first electronic issue of The Mouth. Hope you
found it worthwile!
Tom