[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by spydar: what is this hacknslash you speak of? it sounds like a good catharsis.

A style of play that has been around as long as AD&D.

"Hack-n-slash" players don't want to waste time with story plots or character development...they only have one goal in the game - IF IT MOVES, KILL IT!!!!

It can be fun - at least for awhile - but it does tend to get old. Most "1st person shooter games" are this style. You're not on a quest to interact with the locals and do sub-quests in order to have characters join your party. Nope, you just go in with your own personal armory and start blasting away at anything that moves.

Why do people like it? Because it's FUN!!!! It also gives a sense of POWER!!! You become a lean, mean, killing-machine...and woe to the foe who dares stand against you.

Personally, I prefer games like BG 1 and especially 2, where there are MANY different paths, options, and quests for your character to undertake. Some require serious firepower skills - others require subtle finesse. It's a good mix and much more enjoyable over the long term (IMHO, of course).

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When I played PnP AD&D, Cerek was one of my favorite characters. He was a barbarain as outlined in the Unearthed Arcana and was a pure fighting machine. He had an ungodly number of hit points and figured he could take any damage the DM dished out - so his style was straightforward and simple. He could detect traps on a door or portal. Toss a warhammer at the door...if it blows up, gets burned, electrified, frozen, or disintegrated...then the door was trapped. A hammer may not work an open portal - so grab the party mage and throw him instead...that works just as well (besides, they're supposed to have all those magical protections up to avoid damage anyway). Yep, Cerek was definitely a lot of fun. [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

On the other hand, I had another character - a halfling thief - that once saved the entire party. He got separated from the main party, and they ended up getting captured by the enemy. My thief had to use all his stealth skills to sneak through the enemies keep without being seen. If I had been playing Cerek (or any other fighter-type), then he would have been captured too and each of us would have been in danger of actually losing our characters that night. That game is far more memorable than any "hack-n-slash fest" I ever had with Cerek