Re: What useful purpose do the concentrated magic rules serve?

From: Nick Hollingsworth <nick.hollingsworth_at_...>
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 19:13:01 -0000

Me to Mike Holmes:
> The example you give is of out-of-game player musing over how to
> best spend his metagame currency.

parental_unit_2:
> We used concentration in one of the games where I played, mostly
> in-character. [Details of theists offered useful animist fetishes
> snipped for brevity].
> some characters opted to un-concentrate and take the magic,
> ... Mine took the fetish for the duration of the quest, then
> re-concentrated and gave the fetish to the one animist character in
> our band.

What I think you are describing here is some fun play based on different PC takes on the acceptability of the three types (two in this case) of magic. OK this is the sort of play we want.

But its not rules that are enabling this for you, it would have been enough to have been told about it in the background. In fact it looks like its improvised off the PCs experiences of Shamen, so its not even inspired indirectly by the concentration rules and only peripherally by the whole colliding three worlds thing.

I am not sure that your description of what you did is within the rules as they are written. Which further begs what they are doing for you.

But anyway, if you strike out all your references to 'concentrate' and the associated rules it would still have worked as well as a fun bit of roleplaying.

The three worlds theory and the concentration rules relate to the questions 'Where does magic come from, how does magic work and hence what are the moral ways to use it?' This is one of the themes of Glorantha.

Unfortunately the rulebook now attempts to provide an answer before play. What it should have done is seperate out the information about what people commonly beleive and just describe this with prose. That leaves us free to play about with it. Different groups can than have different takes on it. Any actual questions that it raises can then be answered in play.

Providing a 'correct' answer and a set of rules to model it goes directly against the spirit of a narrative based game IMNSHO. But its a result of the RQ baggage we are all carrying with us that we fall into the trap og doing it. RQ attempts to use rules to build a partial simulation of Glorantha and so must often answer such questions up front; HQ describes the setting so we understand it then provides a set of rules that can simulate narrative structure.

I am not saying that there should be a free for all and anyone should feel free to just mix any magic appraoch they fancy. I am saying the rulebook is an inappropriate place for this sort of information as this makes it a single universal truth out of something that should be a cultural concern. And embedding it throughout the rules is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut since it makes it much harder to play about with different takes on it.

parental_unit_2:
> how do you define the types of magic that are proscribed, and what
> the penalty is, without having to do it cult-by-cult? The magic
> concentration rules seemed designed to solve that problem.

Jane Williams:
> You think an entire cult would have just one opinion
> on the matter? It'll vary by clan. Maybe even by bloodline... But,
> that's whether or not it's *proscribed*. Whether or not it
> *works*, and if so, how well, is where we need Rules.

I dont think you need to be anything like that specific. You just need a broad statement for each culture. Then, if and when you want to, you can play about with different takes on it by different sub-groups. Since most campaigns are pretty much fixed in one or maybe two cultures it should be pretty simple for the players in a given game.

The following are copied from my house notes, apologies if any of it duplicates the above:

• Every culture has an established way that it handles the otherworld and makes magic work. This is the "Worldview" of that culture. If the culture is successful then by definition this approach works for members of that culture. Most existing cultures are by definition reasonably successful, thats why they are still existing cultures.
• Each culture needs its worldview describing. This defines the types of magics that are acceptable, those that are not and the magic approaches that can successfuly be combined. It can be as simple or as complex as needed to usefully describe that culture. It can just refer to the three magic worlds, but can be more specific if thats helpful (for example it can say 'We know Dragon magic is evil' without forcing us to explain how dragon magic is to be categorised).
• People with this worldview do not, by definition, have penalties for using any mix of magic their worldview supports.
• Regardless of the potential mix of approaches a Worldview might suggest is possible, people tend not to mix deep involvement in a theistic cult, deep involvement in an animist tradition or deep involvement in a Sourcerous school. This is not because they are provably incompatible. It is a purely practical limitation to do with an individual's time, access to information, focus of interest and what is socially acceptable and expedient. These concerns can be taken into account in play. they dont need special rules.
• The look and feel of the otherworld(s) and their entities depends on the beliefs and practices of the observer and the logic and needs of the story.
• Ignore all rules for Concentration of magic. All magic is charged at the concentrated rate.
• Any penalties for drifting from your working Worldview are set by the GM form contest to contest - just like all other penalties in the game.

Lets take as an example the Orlanthi culture of Far Point:

• 'Everyone knows' that the Gods are all powerful and are knowable, that spirits are ubiquitous and can be helpful or harmful and that sorcery is evil foreign magic.
• People from this culture routinely and freely mix 'theistic' and 'animist' magic. The average person initiates to a god and yet carries a few useful charms and doesn't see a clear dividing line dividing line between theism and animism. They tend to think of the spirits as more immediate but less powerful, and often simply call smaller beings spirits and larger ones gods, leaving a grey area in between where different individuals will have different opinions. They are more interested in differentiating between them in terms of affiliations and friendships as they would with people from different clans rather than some theoretical unobservable classification system.
• Far Point culture excludes Sorcery believing it destroys the soul and so is incompatible with the other approaches. Consequently members of that culture can't become sorcerers without completely rejecting their worldview. From a purely mechanical point of view this means they cant mix the use of Sorcery successfully with anything else. More importantly the local established truth about sorcery means that people dabbling in it can expect a negative reaction from other member of their culture.
• The people of the far place believe that the spirit plane is close and overlaps the material world but that the gods world is distant, so by definition this is true for them.

A description of a Lunar area would be quite different.

I wont attempt to describe the various penalties that might be 'assigned by the GM from contest to contest' or the internet will run out of electrons. But the key thing is - its not useful having a predefined list of penalties for a head wound - so it's not useful having one for rejecting your worldview either.

But one might decide for example that cultures that view sorcery as incompatible with other forms of magic take a negative augment from any sorcery skills they have when they try to do something they believe is incompatible with it.

So for Heortlings (who `know' that sorcery is evil because it destroys
the soul):

    Secretly (or openly!) practicing sorcery gives a negative augment for each sourcerous ability against casting theistic magic, calling on the gods, etc.

    Carrying a sourcerous item does not damage the soul and so does not generally cause problems.

    Casting magic with a sourcerous item does damage the soul and gives a negative augment.

    Since sorcery is evil rather than simply incompatible. Using or studying it makes people dislike or distrust you.

Conversely Lunars `know' that sorcery is just another form of magic. So they take no penalties when mixing it with other forms of magic.

If you still need convincing let me ask: how many players do you actually have? How much of an issue is improvising penalties actually going to be? I suspect that the answer for most groups is that agreeing a penalty if someone decides to learn forbidden sorcery is a lot less hassle than trying to grasp the threeworld theory and concentrating magic. And also more interesting since it relates to the PCs.

Jane Williams:
> Adding new Gloranthan Truths seems to me to be
> something one should only do after very careful
> thought and reading of previous sources. I'm assuming,
> for now, that Issaries did that careful thought and
> persusal of source material for contradictions.

I feel slightly guilty for being so cynical. But I am assuming it is a pet theory springing up inside Issaries and in the excitement of the moment getting elevated to 'cannon'. That would seem a perfectly human thing to have happened.