From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Wed 09 Jun 1993 - 12:51:16 EEST
In <FC950C24A4@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu>, you write:
> Having recently received the RQIV draft rules via a kind heart and
> the magic of e-mail, I have a few comments:
>
> a) The skills as a manipulation limit instead of free int: obviously
> the correct approach.
This mmakes powerful wizards real gross, doesn't it?
> b) I don't like the new duration/range rules: access to the better
> tables only if you spend a point of POW or spend as long to cast a spell
> as it lasts. I don't like the first as I have always seen POW creating
> some permanent effect (One-Use Divine Magic an exception), and the
> second seems pointless.
I haven't seen those tables yet, but I think it's a good idea to have
several scales - casting a spell out of your head can't have the same
results as casting it in a rather long ritual (not ceremony!).
If, as was widely proposed, divine magic becomes generally, if slowly,
reusable, to impose one-use of permanent POW on sorerers makes them an
unnecessary ballast to the game. Either leave this rule in, and all of
it out of the basic rules (as some queer optional rule, along with
illumination and troll rebirth rites), or make sorcery powerful enough
to be of interest, and throw out this overly gross POW waste!
> c) Familiars are kept as a requirement for adepthood. I dislike the
> concept and execution of the RQIII familiar rules intensely. The
> reason for the first is Gloranthan: I can't see any of the Malkionists
> accepting that one needs a bound animal/spirit to show yourself to
> be a good priest. RQ already provides enough familiars with allied
> spirits and shaman's fetches. I believe that a Malkionist would
> prefer to rely on himself, his faith and his flock (see below) rather
> than an animal or some pagan spirit bound into a ring.
I agree for the more idealistic Malkionists (at least Hrestoli) as well as
for Eastern sorcerers (I'd give those Ninja-style Mandalas), but the rest
of them would take a free run at them. Henotheists probably have familiars
similar to allied spirits of their respective cults, maybe even drawn from
that pool.
> As for the rules, I just don't like the way sorcerers have to give up
> characteristics permanently to form a familiar. The new way of just using
> POW to make the stats is better though.
There I agree. If we want sorcerers to have animal familiars, we have to
throw that INT-transfer overboard. Even after we dropped INT as the
ultimate limit, no sane charakter would voluntarily lower their INT, as
long as it remains non-raisable. I'd back up Nicks proposal to change
that, though.
> c) I still don't see any mechanisms to make good cultural play
> equivalent to good game play (like Pendragon's Glory system). There
> isn't any reason for a sorcerer to _want_ to be a pious priest.
> A suggestion to replace Create familiar and to help with priestly
> game play: allow a priest to have access to some of the magic points
> sacrificed to the Invisible God in the priest's church. This would
> take the form of a spirit that occupies the church, with a "POW"
> of (say) 1 per regular (weekly) worshipper. The sorcerer/wizard that
> conducts regular ceremonies can use this POW to cast and maintain
> spells. This would probably be the main exterior source of magic
> points to a Rokari or Hrestoli wizard. The Brithini need to Tap:
> independant sorcerers would use bound spirits or maybe familiars.
> How do you get to be the wizard of your local church, then?
> Easy, wait till the old one dies/retires, the Lord selects you
> as his replacement, and reconsecrate the church with "Make
> Church of the Invisible God", a n enchantment requireing 2 POW.
> What's that? Old priest Wexen is so pious that he's over 150 and
> still runs 5 leagues every morning before his "fire and brimstone"
> sermon? Well, you had better go out and convert some heathen, and
> create a new church of you own...
>
> I think this would get those PC wizards acting pious (and plotting to
> get the new curateship that Lord Owen has promised to create) in a
> jiffy!
> Opinions?
My foremost opinion is: Don't include experience points of any form into
the game which has done very well without this mechanistic crutch!
Experience points are gygaxic, they represent all that is wrong about
roleplaying!
I, for one, would rather forget about the whole system, than introduce
experience/glory/piety points which have no rational explanation from the
character's point of view! By which I mean that any point system is wrong,
and feels wrong, unless a point is quantified in game reality, such as a
prayer for divine help (=Rune spell).
I liked the concept of several magic systems with comman basic rules (such
as spell resistance) in RQ3, and wouldn't like to see this reduced in RQ4.
I run a world based on this idea, and I'd hate to throw it away, so I'd
rather throw away the new system, if it doesn't fit into this concept.
The world I run is not Glorantha, but contains some "alternate Glorantha".
I think that most RQ GMs play in their own worlds, which reflect certain
aspects of Glorantha as well as other literary or historical influences.
I run functioning cultures, and if the players characters choose to leave
their cultures, thats fine with me. Most NPCs (i.e.99.9%) won't, and the
PCs will experience the flavour of different cultures, be they members of
one or not.
Enough rambling.
-- -- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de 0,,
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