... No one ever dies there ...

From: G. Fried (address.removed@nowhere.tld)
Date: Thu 09 Sep 1993 - 11:42:46 EEST



G. Fried here.

Wow. What a pant-load of Dailies there was today! Thanks everyone (Charles, David, Rob, Lewis, et al) for your helpful responses on the Prax tribes. Yes, I suppose I should have extrapolated a bit from their designation as NOMADS (!!) -- but just how nomadic and within what range was my question, for which I have some admirable answers. After all, Native American plains-dwellers had large tribal regions which were dominated by one tribe alone. My sense after reading your responses is that, at least after the Lunar victory, certain favored tribes do tend to PREDOMINATE in the better areas, and that others, like the Bisons, must pound the pavement out in the Wates more'n they'd like to, but that tribal clans do tend to range all over the region, interspersing with other tribes. Lewis, I particularly liked your thoughts on the Rhino riders. What are their non-Praxian habits?
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On Arkat:
OK. I relent. There should be no way for Arkati to 'detect' a difference between themselves and other Illuminates. Otherwise it spoils all the fun! Where would Nysalor/Gbaji/Arkat get his jollies without the constant lurking possibility of soul-wrenching treason?!
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Tim Westlake:
Sorry to insult you Brits with that "uncharted European market" crack. All I meant was that (outside from the UK, really), there is indeed a largely unassaulted market, which AH seems to have no strategy for conquering. BUt I think you agree on this point!
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David Scott:
This may be a cultural thing (other Yanks, back me up), but I do believe that "Hungry Jack" is a brand name for a brand of American pancake mix! A typical Staffordian, multivalent, pop-cult in-joke, no? And so maybe it had to change to Hungry Eater because of copyright issues! (REALLY?! Ken -- enquiring minds want to know!)
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Simon:
I think that the spirit plane is one of the great gaps in the RQ game-world. I dislike the RQ3 spirits, because they seem designed to fit a game-SYSTEM, not a mythological system. Shamans would be much more interesting if the spirit plane received some real thought. Since I have a player who infrequently plays a shaman-ess (?) named Piggy-O, I have given this some thought, but not enough. When traveling discorporate, she can see the spirit-shadows of the real world, including rock, water, etc. But how FAR can she travel, and for how long?

I do not allow spirits regenerable POW -- they must get it by worship or shamanic bargaining or by theft from the living. Shamans can keep only so many bound spirits as they can successfully bargain with for a POW-deal (I replenish you, you help me with spells). Fancy that -- role-playing! Who'd 'a' thunk it? No one, under the current rules, cause all you do is enslave spirits and use them to powergame under the current game-mechanics.

(Allied spirits might be an exeption to the replenishment rule -- the deity might do the replenishing here. But none of my players have attained rune status, so I haven't tested this.)

I also make spirits more 'materially' interesting when associated with a shaman or other living being. If you bind a fish spirit, you're gonna be fishier: bonuses on swim skills, but maybe a tad smelly -- I dunno -- the fun is in the doing! This sort of stuff really spices up my paleolithic campaign, and makes shamans into the odd-balls they should be. For example, an NPC tribal shaman in my campaign has bound a sea-gull spirit; he is incredibly good with Fast Talk, but he is obnoxiously garrulous, and a gaggle of gulls follows him everywhere. Piggy-O has bound a boar spirit: she is TOUGH, but damn pig-headed. How's this help?

Oh, and did I mention? I HATE (well, snore at) the present spirit combat system! Shouldn't spirit combat involve as many interesting options as real combat?! This smacks of the we-never-really-thought-it-through
syndrome. As it stands, all we have is the POW RES table. Yawn. I have made some changes, like, a discorporate shaman can cast a spell at victim he has engaged in spirit combat at a considerable advantage in a round that he has won the spirit combat role (mind-affecting spells only... maybe...). Also, in spirit combat, I use the RQ2 rules for POW damage: 1-10 = 3 POW taken, 11- 40 = 2, and 41- 00 = 1, BUT, the attacker SUBR



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