Re: "Natural" abilities

• In hw-rules_at_yahoogroups.com, "Roderick and Ellen Robertson" <rjremr_at_s...> wrote:

> > One race has chameleon abilities (they can blend

> > in with their background).

> >

> > How does that work in terms of:

> >

> > Is it a Talent or just an Ability?

>

> How is it described in the story? Is this a magical ability, or a
natural

> changing of skin colors & patterns? Does everyone have it at birth
or is it

> something you can chose not to learn? Is it natural and instinctive
or

> require thought to trigger?

>

> Magical, Chose not to have it, Require thought, I lean towards a
Magical

> Talent.

> Natural, Instinctual, everyone has it from birth, I lean towards an
Ability

> like an Uz's Darksense or a WindChild's Flight.

Well, that's hard to answer. I mean, what's natural? what's magical? We have no intention of having the character's chameleon abilities be as bad as a real chameleon's (ooh, he's green, no wait! he's brown!)--but it probably also won't be as good as Randall from Monster's Inc. So is that magical or natural? It's natural as far as the race is concerned, but most humans would probably think it's magical.

Everyone has it at birth, but it requires thought (i.e. it doesn't happen all the time--he doesn't get lost when he leans against a wall). Not sure how the requires thought matters though. A hedgehog's ability to stickits spines out so it's hard to pick up requires thought, but it's certainly not magical.

I guess my real question relates to how the game handles natural abilities that are beyond a human's ability. It sounds like the possibility of it being a natural ability is there. Right?

> > If it's a Talent, does it count against you for the purposes of

> > concentrating your magic in, say, Animism?

>

> Probably not. Unless you want to cripple (or at least, make
difficult for

> everyone in that culture), I'd say that it is as much a part of the
magical

> nature of the culture/species as Seeing is to humans.

Is that kosher in Heroquest? I don't mind breaking the rules for the right reasons, but I want to know that I'm breaking them.             Received on Mon 14 Jul 2003 - 11:09:21 EEST