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Has anyone ever heard of the "classic prophet-squeeze-monster trope"? What could it possibly describe? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 hours ago by Acamon@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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I came across this cryptic phrase in a description of an old D&D adventure Tale of the Comet . In context, it seems to describe the designer solving a problem of game balance by having the powerful technology items have limited charges / uses before expiring. But I cannot parse prophet-squeeze-monster and I certianly don't recognise it as a classic trope. Any ideas?

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[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I kinda wonder if it was supposed to be profit-squeeze-monster so give out powerful items to incentivize adventure, squeeze down the unbalance by limiting usage, introduce monster to deplete power.

It's still sort of awkward phrasing that I don't recall being common back in the day, but it makes a kind of sense read that way.

[–] Acamon@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

That does should plausible, some version of reward/threaten/drain. Thanks ! Even if it isn't what was intended, I can believe it meant that and thus makes some sort of sense.