From: Burton Choinski (burt@ptltd.com)
Date: Fri 11 Jun 1993 - 18:00:19 EEST
Sheesh. I go away for a day and get mail-bombed. Good thing I like it. :)
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Paul R. Notes: (on magic)
| Spirit Magic:
| 2. Go back to RQ3 for Focussed on self, Unfocussed on others. Add in
| things like "Unfocussed on weapon in hand" for Bladesharp.
|
| Now invent a Focussing skill to cast magic. This is a standard Magic
| skill and can improve through experience.
I think back in the days I ran a very short RQ3 game, I had a "Cast Spirit
Magic" skill that started at 25% and improved from there. I think adding
this to RQ4, rather then relying on POWx5, is the way to go. But, looking
at later comments, this should be called "Spirit Harmony" (see later in
this post)
| This works great in low-magic campaigns. Interpret things like Fanaticism
| as just willing yourself to fight fanatically: spend a point of willpower
| (MP) and hack away! Strength is berserk strength, Coordination is paying
| extra attention (at the cost of willpower = MP) to what you're doing, etc.
I like this idea, but like the next one even better.
| 3. When RQ3 first added spell spirits we thought they were a dopey
| mechanic. After reading THE WAY OF THE SHAMAN and some other such
| books, I don't think they went far enough. Primitive peoples pick up
| "helper spirits" all the time.
| So another model is instead of saying "I beat up the spirit and force it
| to teach me its spell that it can't even cast itself," say instead:
| "I acquire a new spirit buddy who'll do his trick for me." Thus you get
Actually, I LIKE this even better. And it even fits the mechanic where you
have to "release" spirits in order to make room for others (to get a new
spell, or to get a "bigger" one.)
| a Bladesharp spirit - it doesn't cast a spell, it IS the spell. It can
| sit on a sword and help it fight. You have to feed it some mana, of
| course, or it won't do it's trick. You can acquire several spirits of the
| same type.
Actually, since to learn a Heal 4 requires you to give a beating to a much
more powerful spirit, rather then just another Heal 1 spirit, I think the
actual effect is to shoo away the smaller spirit in favor of the larger
one, rather then maintain a flock of tiny ones.
| If you acquire spirits of opposing types (Fireblade and
| Darkwall) you may have to break up catfights once in a while and one
| or both of them may run off and sulk. The shaman makes you a little
| house for the spirit (Focus, like an oppossum rib cage) or you find it
| on a visionquest.
Another good reason.
"The key, my young apprentice," said Old Greyfoot, "Is to never send your
spirit of Blazing spear into battle with that of the Shadow Block. In
the distant past, before the age of man, these two tribes had bad blood
between them, and have to this day maintained that animosity. Send them
both, and you get nothing from either."
| I'd probably use this model in a Hsunchen campaign, it fits much better
| with an animistic view of the world.
I may use this with ALL spirit magics. Cult spirit spells are bits of
one's god come down to aid you (after you have proved yourself to it...while
you might have to fight a Humact Bladesharp Spirit, an Issiares (sp?) might
have to haggle a deal with his (Use the same mechanics, but substitute
"Bargain" for "Spirit Combat").
And, if you are bad, said cult spirit might up and leave you. :)
"Did you hear about Assar the trader?"
"No. What happened?"
"His true tougue spirit left him during a big deal...he was ruined."
"Wow! How come?"
"The way I heard it, he offered the other guy a refund..."
Shaman justification -- you have to spend time to prove yourself to him...he
won't help those who will simply "enslave" the spirits.
And it supports the fact that True Sword != True Spear cast on a sword. Said
spirit will look at you funny, take your mana, and say "Sorry boss, not my
department."
And Sorcerers, who don't believe in such primitive stuff, don't get any.
Sounds logical to me.
----------------------------------------
Nick Brooke notes on Paul's sorcery
| I am *delighted* by Paul's suggestion that Wizards create an "artificial
| Fetch" made up of suppressed desires, self-denial and the like. It opens
| up a new moral dimension in the sorcery system, as we now have the
| groundwork for a mechanism for penalising characters who act against the
| rigid moral tenets of their religion (whatever those may be) -- their
| "Presence" would start to diminish (as well it might!). Old Wizard Marlet
| would be delighted!
Well, rethinking it out I guess I like the idea. People have suggested
names for the object, based on the culture. Loskalmi have Guardians,
Dwarves have "Batteries", etc. And having the Presense locked into an
object, stashed in an animal (familiar) or floating free is a matter of
personal taste and culture.
You know that Parrot in "Aladdin" was a familiar. With that attitude, he must
have about 25 POW stashed in there. :)
| I'm not sure that we need to call the "anti-Fetch's" POW characteristic by
| any special name (after all, Shamans get by with "Fetch POW"): what we need
| is a name for this Spiritual Thing that Wizards have but the rest of us
| don't. "Presence" doesn't ring any bells for me. Nor do the obvious
| "spiritual" things -- "Genius", "Daimon", "Guardian Angel", etc. Ideas,
| anyone?
A possible "generic" term for the rules (for common reference) might
be "Aura".
| Apart from those, I have no conceptual problems with this (yet?), which is
| more than can be said for any other proposed Sorcery system I have seen.
| It has flavour! It has a social dimension!! It might even work!!!
And a social dimension is needed for the Loskalmi society to work. I agree.
If Presense or Aura or whatever is used to maintain spells for sorcerers
(I think "Adept" is the best term, "Sorcerer" being the generic term for
Adepts and Apprentices), this level should fluctuate with his duties and
actions w/regards to the Invisible God and his/her sect.
----------------------------------------
Carl Fink on Nick's comments
| >You keep supplying rules allowing players to roll their initial
| >culture, magical background, profession. Nobody sane would use
| >these; anybody insane enough would create their own. I'd prefer
| >my rule set not to include this generic, soulless twaddle.
|
| Nick, you seem to be using "nobody sane" a bit loosely. I know
| lots of people who like to roll randomly and generate characters
| based on the rolls - it's a challenge. That's why we have
| several ways to do it, so people don't have to use methods they
| don't like. Does the physical presence of a rule you don't use
| in the book bother you that much?
I agree with Carl. They have a use. But I think that they have more use
as a seperate pamphlet. That way the GM could refer to it for quick
background on some nameless NPC, rather then crack the main book.
But if such a task is more expense then the ease gained, put it in.
Oh, and a secondary question on format. What is the format going to be
like? 2-column per page? 2-column with a thin sidebar for optional rules?
Have you seen Powers & Perils books? I liked their scheme of noting
optional rules. Grey box was used with general use tables, pink for optional
rules, red for seriously optional rules.
| >I would like to abolish them, and characteristic training in
| >general, and go the Pendragon way....
|
| We're trying to maintain continuity with RQ-past and -present,
| which would make us very reluctant to simply discard POW gain
| rolls.
I have no problem with POW rolls, as long as you keep them to reasonable
rates of use.
| What do people think of adding Stormbringer-style
| characteristic increases? (If you "stress" any stat, you roll
| 2D6. On a 7, the stat increases, on a 2, it decreases.)
Yuck. By stress, you mean where a fumble or Critical were made on a
stat roll? I'm not sure if I'd like this.
| >...The random table is boring, colourless, and will only be used
| >by idiots; why should we help them?
|
| Because we want their money.
Sometimes having random tables is useful for adventure hooks. In
Powers & Perils one can roll up military treasure, and it had tables like
you would not believe for all sorts of junk (perhaps some RQ4 team member
can peruse a copy of P&P book 4 from Avalon Hill...some ideas in there look
pretty good). Anyways, military treasure has a chance of having some magic.
One time, the group were picking over the gain from some creature's cave
(this type of creature was treasure relevant). One of the objects was a
flag/banner, with magic on it. Argument ensued on the value of it. From
that time on, if they were looking over the potential rewards of a looting
mission, and they felt they would get little out of it, there would always
be at least some comment on there probably being nothing but "Battle Flags".
"Battle Flag" also came to be a generic comment when a worthless item was
| >...You should also note that spell effects vary as well as the
found.
| >names. I'm a Humakti, and have piously learned Swordsharp 4.
| >Cast on a spear, this spell will have exactly NO effect: it
| >isn't "Bladesharp by another name", but a different, distinct
| >spell. Get people used to thinking like this and we'll have a
|>lot more realism and fun in our games.
|
| I'm not so sure we want to dramatically weaken Spirit Magic
| this way. (I.e if you learn Slay Pest, you can't hurt humans or
| elves.) BTW, "realism"? About Glorantha?
One might compromise -- A Spear is a weapon, so you might get half effect
out of it -- just like with Heal you only get half effect on another
species.
| I represent a minority opinion that hates the "limited number of rolls"
| system, and I also had no problem with check frenzy. Okay, one problem,
| but I squelched it fairly quickly.
I don't see any skill-check frenzy, or at least, I haven't put them in the
position to make it cost effective. Training Frenzy is another matter.
If the group is dorking around a town for half a week while waiting for
the next barge to their destination, out come the training requests.
I make sure they pay their room & board (Actually, they decide on how they
want to live (like a duke, like a commoner, etc, and pay that way) and
give them their training points available.
-- Burton
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