[Glorantha] Re: Rune Magic

In message <20060614164208.70012.qmail@web42104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> David Weihe writes:
>donald@grove.demon.co.uk (Donald R. Oddy) wrote:

>> Well RQ was firmly based in a monetary economy and it's clear
>> much of Glorantha doesn't actually have such an economy.
>
>Rather, the economics were EXPRESSED in a single currency economy. In
>the RW Middle Ages, there were a dozen different florins, marks,
>thalars, etc., all of different values. Major merchants had to know
>the purity of each, and then would determine the value of an offer, by
>weighing the coins if nothing else would work. I expect that
>Gloranthan coinage worked the same way. OTOH, doing such complicated
>work would have killed the fun, unless you were running a merchant's
>campaign (not absurd, unlike AD&D, T&T, or Chiv&Sorcery).

The existance of currency doesn't make a monetary economy. Even using currency in it's widest sense (including cows, seashells etc.) it only becomes a monetary economy when the currency is actually used most all transactions. Alternatives include the barter economy which doesn't even use a standard currency, the feudal economy where most transactions are expressed as a share of crop or in days labour, a slave economy where the slave owner provides for their slaves in return for the work they do or a gifting economy such as the Heortlings use. I'm sure Glorantha has every one of these variations but equally for most games they are a irrelevant complexity. That's what's good about the HQ wealth system, it abstracts economics into a neutral system rather than a monetary one which doesn't fit many of the transactions.

>Why, it would almost be like running a business in pre-Euro Europe :-)
>
>OTOH, the Lunar Empire doesn't run on exchanging cows between the
>Emperor and his governors, so Glorantha DOES opporate on a monetary
>economy; it just does not extend down to the peasant level, normally.

Given that 90% of the population are peasants and they will be involved in 90% of the transactions the economy as a whole isn't monetary. Even in the Lunar Empire where some Heartland provinces have taxes assessed in coinage they are likely to be paid in goods at the lower levels.

>> There was also
>> an emphasis on fighting magic which a farmer wouldn't be very
>> interested in. I see the farmer learning a spell to protect the
>> blade of his plough before one to sharpen his spear.
>
>RQ Bladesharp works for both. One of the advantages of RQ Battle Magic
>was the easy way that normally useful magic could be weaponized ("Kill
>Rats" becoming Disruption, the best way to crank up your power, frex).

True, although I think this was a side effect of an easy and risk free way of boosting magic power rather than a magic system designed for general use.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/