From: Michael Cule (mikec@room3b.demon.co.uk)
Date: Wed 02 Jul 1997 - 02:05:45 EEST
David (now recovered from his cold) takes me to task for liking an
outdated mechanism.
>But laid up at home with a cold, I feel like having a say.
>
> The slowly decreasing WILL mechanic was a clumsy attempt to capture
>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?
My feeling is that it can happen for a while and then you start hitting
(By the way, let me say that I want to keep the word Hero for its
the point of diminishing returns. This is true of the majority of
Heroes.
specific Gloranthan theological meaning: Someone who alters the
structure of Other World Reality. I don't think creating a continuum
down to the farmer defending his stead helps.)
But now that I think of it, the Pharoh is the ideal argument against
this. He doesn't act like a free-willed Harrek-type independent and he
goes on from century to century. Of course, he is fixed in the things he
can do magically but he doesn't seem to exhibit 'Hero=Plane' bouyancy.
I'm going to have to think hard about how this exception is achieved.
>In reply to Alexs query about heroquesting for the Infinity Rune, Mike Cule
>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.
>
> In other words, my mechanics don't actually explain observed
>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.
What I said is that I wasn't going to say how Harrek gained access to
I'm willing to talk about how the mechanic works. I was planning to rate
enough power to do all that he did. (And I'm certainly not going to do
it without seeing Harreksaga.)
each character from 1 to 10 in each Rune with 1 being barely touched by
it and 10 being 'I am the originating God of this Rune'. 'Normal' would
be 3. A human would be rated at 3 in the Man Rune. Trolls at 3 in the
Man and the Darkness Rune.
Non Chaotics would start with 1 in Chaos. Such a level would indicate
extreme vulnerability to the Power of that Rune.
Everybody would start with 1 in Infinity.
Will (however derived) would be Multiplied by the level in the Infinity
Rune. This should not be known to the run of players. But lo, I trust
the God-Learners on the Digest.
(Note to self: If we use the Personal POW vs Other Plane POW model have
the multiplier apply to Personal POW helping to root the character to
the Mundane World.)
> Re-Enactment vs Experimental - I think the main thing is that the
>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.
Well, that's true too but I think that the taxonomy is valid.
<<<Very good points about the incompleteness of HQ info snipped. We
don't need a mechanic for this but it should be kept in mind whenever
designing a quest: how much varies and how much the referee's view
varies from what the PCs know.)
>Mike Cule on the Sacred Time
>>In my opinion, the Sacred Time is the celebration of the Dance of the
>>World. Everything, even the things that want to unravel it altogether,
>>comes together to reweave and repair the Web of Arachne Solara.
>
> Except the part in the reweaving of the unravellers is to attempt
>to unravel, get their butt kicked, and get rewoven into the web anyway...
>
A good point yes, but also they must be re-enacting the bits where their
gods were strong and where they triumphed. Of course, each year their
recreation ends with the I Fought We Won Event and they slink back to
their caves muttering.....
- --
Michael Cule
------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 13 Jun 2003 - 17:49:07 EEST