From: Graeme Lindsell (lindsell@rschp1.anu.edu.au)
Date: Sat 02 Jul 1994 - 02:39:24 EEST
Sandy Petersen replies to Bernard Langham on Paul Reilly and
Mike Halliday's Presence system, so Graeme Lindsell decides
to answer:
> Yet, alas, without giving us rules specifications. Bernard,
>you've raved about the problems it solved, but you didn't tell us HOW
>they were solved!
This is a message I posted to the RQ4 list (when I was still on it) about the Presence system. Paul responded that he thought it was a decent summary, so I thought I'd repeat it here:
[Aside to Sandy: your cult description of Dayzatar was chock full of CONTROL-M's, which removed a lot of it when I tried to view it]
I'll give a short description of what I know of Paul's system here. If I've made any glaring errors, or spoken for him where I shouldn't, I'm sure he'll correct me. :-)
Paul's Vessel system: the adept sorcerer, instead of creating a familiar, creates a Vessel instead. The Vessel is similar to a fetch: it just has POW, and the sorcerer can increase the Vessel's POW after creation. I'm unsure how Paul's sorcerers create the Vessel: there is a trial, but I don't think it's as risky as creating a fetch. Paul has said that apprentice sorcerers sometimes botch their attempt and create a fetch (sorcerers pity shamans and think them mad).
The primary game function of a Vessel is that the sorcerer can mainatin a number of spells of total intensity equal to the POW of the Vessel. That is, if your sorcerer has a vessel with POW 14, you can have a total of 14 Intensity of spells maintained without having to concentrate.
In Paul's system (and my Pendragon sorcery system, which has borrowed heavily from his ideas) a apprentice sorcerer - one without a Vessel - has to concentrate to maintain a sorcery spell. All sorcery spells are instant or active, and the manipulation limit a spell s/he can cast is equal to POW, as well as any other limitations due to skills.
Basically, the vessel concept throws out Duration and replaces it with maintainance of spells.
Unlike a fetch, the Vessel can (and often is) placed into a physical object. If the object is a living animal, then it's similar to a familiar. According to Paul, the Rokari tend to put their Vessels into staffs, and the militaristic Hrestoli put theirs into swords. I think that they'd tend to put them into their altars instead, making their church more important to their abilities.
The Vessel has two advantages over the current systems IMO: it ends the need to remember how long the spells will last, and it puts sorcerers into the same POW economy as Shamans and Priests. Shamans get their POW and expand their fetch, gaining fixed but constant abilities from it. Priests get POW and give it to their god, with the most limitations but the least trouble, and get the most powerful spells. Sorcerers bind their POW into their Vessel and must also learn skills to be able to manipulate it, but have the most control over it once they have those skills.
Vessel (of Power) was the term Paul chose after a number of attempts, including Twin, Presence, Shadow, Genius etc. I'm not entirely happy with the term, and I think Paul isn't either.
The main problem for the vessel system IMO is that it makes sorcery even less compatible with RQ3. I don't see this as a problem, as RQ3 sorcery could be ditched as far as I'm concerned, but others do.
Kevin Rose replies to Bernard:
>Anyway, the point of the sorcery system was to have a more or less
>"normal" sort of magician for the west. I don't think the system, as
>poorly conveyed via the assorted arguments, does define a magicial system
>that feels right to me.
My problem is that neither the RQ3 system nor the RQ4 draft 2.0 system (I haven't seen the AiG system, but have read descriptions) produce a magical system that seems right for the West either. If the idea of a Western Wizard having a Vessel seems strange, the idea of a magus of the Invisible God relying on his magic-spirit-bound-into-a-statue-familiar as an essential part of his magical power seems truly bizarre to me. It gets even worse when I think of a Westerner with an animal familiar. The way RQ sorcery has a skill for each spell doesn't help either: it gives no impression that sorcery is a body of knowledge that sorcerers understand, rather presenting them as technicians who know a couple of rote methods.
>But these sorts of arguments are exactly why there is a seperate list for
>them.
Care to point this list out for me? There is the rq4 playtest list which is an occasional forum for rules disscusion, but the RQ Daily was created explicitly for the RuneQuest system as well as for Glorantha, and so rules discussion (including alternative rules systems IMO, and discussions of how well the system fits Glorantha) are a legitimate part of it. (If Henk, who set up and owns this list, objects to something I'm sure he'll tell us).
--
Graeme Lindsell a.k.a lindsell@rschp1.anu.edu.au
Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University, Canberra.
"I was 17 miles from Greybridge before I was caught by the school leopard"
Ripping Yarns - Tomkinson's Schooldays.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:35:38 EEST