Re: magical vs.mundane resistance

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 23:05:30 -0000

• In HeroQuest-rules_at_yahoogroups.com, "simon_hibbs2" <simon.hibbs_at_m...> wrote:
  > What myths of Orlanth's strength do we have? Ok probably not an
  > awful lot in official print, but as with any other feat we can
  > come up with a list of the feats of strength our clan knows
  > Orlanth performed, and go from there. Uses of the ability that
  > match these known mythic feats get a 14 resistance. other uses
  > either get an apropriateness modifier, or are 'difficult magic',
  > or however you prefer to handle it.
  

IMO, the latter two are fine, but the first is essentially unmanageable. At least in the decontextualised, counter-intuitive way that HQ presents it, absent further information. Admittedly, part of the problem is that 'give a mythicly and magically appropriate sit-mod' is gallingly vague and infuriating advice, and giving anything more specific is extremely difficult. But nonetheless, I think that would have been more Gloranthanly accurate and pleasant to game advice to give.

> Now Obviously there is a problem inthat we don't know all the
> myths, so this isn't the best of all possible worlds.

That's a practical difficulty certainly, but it's going to be one in _any_ system or rules that takes account of 'mythic appropriateness', so I'm not, personally, casting up on that score.

> I would probably run a streight running contest as ability against
> ability, because everyone's abilities and resistances
> are 'symetrical'.

My point was where one participant had a magical ability, of the 'suitably non-pompous, rolling against a 14 rather than the distance-based resistance', or where it was otherwise _not_ symmetrical. (Or at least, arguable as being such -- it beats me where one is supposed to draw the line, though I appreciate Rory's stab at it.)

> Taking account of what's happening in the game world is exactly
> what I'm trying to do. i.e. When the abilities being used and how
> you use them in the rules need to be adjusted to match what's
> happening in the game world, you adjust them. It's not just
> a purely simulationist agenda either, it's a narativist one as
> well. I don't think making everything bland and generic by
> ignoring descriptive details that make characters special is
> such a great idea.

If you mean to imply that's what _I'm_ arguing for, I don't know what gives you that impression. However, I do think that a crude binary choice between "normal" resistance on the one hand, and a flat 14 on the other, is artificial, doesn't actually model anything in the game world (at least in the notorious book example), and personally I can't square it in narrativist terms either. I don't dispute that it's there in some sense to model something in Glorantha (or Greg's Glorantha, of some week, or some simplification thereof for public consumption, or some such abstraction...), I just don't see how it can be made to serve as such, absent unusually credulous suspension of disbelief.

Cheers,
Alex.