[Glorantha] Heroquest: people, heroes, deities and magnitudes of power.

There was some general discussion of powerlevels in HeroQuest system.
(and of stats of Jar-Eel and Kallyr and the like). I have a pretty
simple and beautiful guideline to help me if HeroQuest game statistic get inflated above W4 range with augment.

I always look at the original skill level!

And the ruling in the guideline goes like this: the original skill
(the value of highest ability used in contest, before augmentation)
sets the limits of magnitude for victory (contest results).

The magnitudes are the same that are used in frex. Hero's Book p.9: <W ordinary, W good, W2 masterful, W3 extraordinary, W4 true heroic, ever increasing, demigods W3-5, godly W6<... and beyond.

No result is ever greater in magnitude than the ability had range for! Basically the magnitude in results is the same as rating of the skill. Ordinary skills -> mundane results. Good skills -> good results.

However, "mastery rune" increases the limit. Masteries count double when the limits of magnitude for contest results are evaluated. So that people with good skills might beat champions (magnitude W2 range). And an "all-consuming passion" might drive a philosophical superheroine to make love - straight away from a battlefield (magnitude W4 range).

But there are limits for powers. No mere armed man, no matter how good, would ever truly defeat Sir Ethilrist.(skills w, range W2 < Ethilrist w3) It would take a champion or backing of a powerful priest. (w2, range W4) With augment whomever might win a contest, but that is different.

There seems to be some sense to this guideline also with greater powers!

A hero is someone who could potentially interfere directly with god-level. A super hero reaches the treshold of theoretically messing with the lower end of the great entities. Though, one would have to be a true god W6+, to be recognized as having even infinitesimal chance to affect the great gods of W12 range (- ie. to change their essential nature). A great being has range that encompasses the whole world, even transcending a portion of themselves to the ineffable heights within entities nearing W16.

A great example of this IMO, were the events in Whitewall. There, lunar sorcery was directed in a highly complex manner against the heortling great gods Orlanth&Ernalda. The Lunars succeeded. Obviously in HQ terms tons and tons of support, preparations, augments and separate contests were involved. And definitively the total energy of the expenditure must have reached at least W9, propably higher than W12, to yield the succes. Yet the total effect was nonetheless local, albeit massive.

The magnitude of magical effect was limited far below what W12 means, indicating a mostly mortal origins of the thaumaturgy. But the fact that great gods were nevertheless affected tells us that also lunar gods (Hon-Eel, Crimson Bat, etc) were invoked in the grand process.

So, a short sum up: my take on augmenting helps contestant to win, but doesn't allow any power to exceed its potential maximum impact. If an augmenting ability is greater than the base skill, I treat, always the greatest skill as limit setting factor.

 -Topi

Btw. for the sake of gloranthan reality, and integrity, and factuality, fundamentally I rather rely on my gloranthan common sense, my (YGWV) vision of the world than abstractions of hq-game mechanics.

That said, HeroQuest is a great system and it helps me to find out new truths from the old lozenge. It prompts me to be insightful.

PS.
Odd Thought: God's Miracles are rare, but if all of Loskalm would bend on their knees on Holy Scriptmas and pray in perfect unison with all their heart and mind and soul for One True God, to reach out - The Allmighty Would. The auspicious community support of whole Loskalm would easily beat even the Huge resistance for Miracles 10W9. The Supreme Being has no limit to what to do. Think of it, Great Orlanth can do everything. It is only, that the gods cannot change, because of the compromise... But instead of beating a huge resistance, an orlanthi initiate, needs to overcome mere 10W3 to be heard by his god, a being very capable of affecting the whole world, and certainly powerful enough to turn himself around (ie. affect a great god).
Ergo, gods can chance. All it takes, is a single hero to tell them to. Or perhaps a whole nation to have One Vision.

"There is nothing like desire for preventing the thing one  says from bearing any resemblance to what one has in mind." - Marcel Proust, Rememberance of Things Past - Received on Mon 16 Jan 2006 - 00:55:42 EET