From: David Cake (davidc@cyllene.uwa.edu.au)
Date: Tue 01 Jul 1997 - 12:54:45 EEST
OK, I've been quite on this one. Mostly because I've been two busy.
The slowly decreasing WILL mechanic was a clumsy attempt to capture
In reply to Alexs query about heroquesting for the Infinity Rune, Mike Cule
In other words, my mechanics don't actually explain observed
Mr Malcolm
But laid up at home with a cold, I feel like having a say.
the idea that Gods have no free will and humans do. There are better
mechanics for representing that, and apart from nostalgia for early failed
heroquest drafts (which most of us never played) I can see little to
recommend it.
Most importantly, it seems there is extraordinarily ample evidence,
from any number of sources (Harmast, Hon-Eel, Arkat,the Pharoah, and so
on), that experience with heroquesting increases, not decreases, ability to
perform further major heroquests. Anyone want to take a stab at reconciling
this with the WILL payment mechanic? The only explanation I have heard so
far is that all these individuals must have access to the Infinity rune,
which seems rather a cop out (especially as no one really believes in
infinity runes, at least as a necessary superheroic attribute, anymore).
Alex F, as usual, has made this same point more eloquently than I.
says
>That information is not available at your security clearance.
>
>And is certainly not going to be available to PCs.
>
>But is needed to account for certain phenomena.
Glorantha, but I have a back door to explain to my PCs why the NPCs don't
have to follow the rules? Forgive my scepticism, but surely heroquest
mechanics should mimic known Glorantha without kludging like the Infinity
Rune.
>Anyway, if we want to go with a single "WILL" stat, I think it is
>probably better to junk all of the INFLUENCE characteristics of it;
>i.e., use WILL to "make the decision" and have the GM hand-wave the
>effects of support/POW/whatever.
And this alternative seems to me the worst possible solution -
reducing the subtleties of the roleplaying aspects into the value of a
single number, while winging the magical manouvering aspects, which are
where I really feel I DO need mechanics, in order to adjudicated opposed
heroquests.
I agree very strongly with Alex in the question of how practical
heroquest mechanics might work, though I have a fair few other idea (there
are some ideas along these lines on my web page
http://www.cwr.uwa.edu.au/~cake/glorantha.html ). I think my main
objective, though, it to convince people to break away from ideas Chaosium
have already rejected
Mike Cule says
> the mechanics I'm proposing are trying to reflect what Greg says
>about how HQ works and the observable facts about Glorantha.
but unfortunately, Mike, they look a lot like the mechanics that
Greg has already well and truly rejected. Gregs thoughts have evolved a
great deal from those days, I think.
>I note what you say about Chaosium's hostility to the single Free Will
>characteristic. But I think we can use this model to talk about the
>issues involved in all mechanics. (And in fact we are.)
Well, OK, as long as you aren't suggesting we actually use it! Its
Re-Enactment vs Experimental - I think the main thing is that the
------------------------------
certainly proved a great starting point for discussion.
Experimental are a hell of a lot more dangerous, and its a lot harder to
drum up some Support for an experimental one unless there is a good reason.
I don't think that the distinction is as cut and dried as it has been
painted.
Most heroquests are trying to re-enact myths that are known in only
fragmentary or incomplete forms. Even if you have a really good report of
one successful heroquest, that is no guarantee at all that everything will
go exactly that way when you try it. And often, you don't really understand
what you do have. And even if you do know it all, say you are acting out a
really well known myth (not the LBQ, which is way too big and complex, but
say the dragon fighting Heler quest) you have to anticipate how the various
quest stations and preparations can best be fitted to your own situations.
Its a continuum, from the well known to little known quests, not a distinct
dichotomy (and then obviously, Arkati quests are similar except you are
combining myths from multiple cults not a single one).
I kind of wish everyone could read Harmasts Saga! It certainly made
a couple of very useful points about heroquesting to me. The two main
points being, that even the big famous quests are put together out of
fragmentary myths in practice, and that even knowing the myths well still
is no guarantee that following the path will be easy - even very small
mistakes are disastrous - which only reinforces the danger of heroquesting
without a myth to follow.
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