[Glorantha] Telling the story

[Adept]

>The training and
>power level of the Imperial Field Colleges don't change to fit the level
>of the player characters I happen to currently have in my game.

[Graham Robinson writes]
:Lets go with this. You have a cool story featuring the Imperial Field
:College. You also have a book that gives official numbers for the
:colleges. Unfortunately, the official numbers mean that your cool story
:can't possibly work - the difference between your PCs and the NPCs is
:just too large.
:
:What do you do? Not tell the story? Or change the numbers? Would anyone
:really chose the first option?

For "cool story" substitute cool situation, and you have my attention. "Story", to me, implies that things are supposed unfold in some specific way. I don't do that. I set up an interesting situation, and let things unfold as they will.

And having the numbers for the Field College is important and helpful. If I have an idea involving them, the player characters involved will be such that make sense in the context. I'm not going to nerf the field college, because I'm running a campaign for Sartarite Farmers. I'm also not going to give them an extra mastery if I happen to be runnin a campaign where the PC:s are epic Sartarite heroquesters.

Scaling the opposition to fit the heroes smacks terribly of D&D, and makes skill levels pretty meaningless. What is the difference between the plucky clansman of 5w skill level, and the Hero with 5w3 skill level if the world changes and scales so that the challenge is always the same.

The field college is a magical and military force of a given strength. It is utterly overwhelming to many characters (and their entire clans), and a realistic foe for a powerful character who has the backing of a tribal warband.

I hope that ansvers the question,

        -Adept

Thinker, dreamer and adventurer Received on Wed 15 Nov 2006 - 10:53:44 EET