I've played HQ as a player 2 or 3 times, without reading the rules back then. I very much liked the sleek gameplay, and now upon trying to get behind the rules and maybe start a group of my own, I was astonished to stumble upon various complexities that remain unclear to me. They're mostly about character generation. It's probably possible to find the answers for most of my questions somewhere in this list, or in one of the other impressively large-volumed forums, faqs, etc. I, however, was not successful and got lost in several of the --- from a beginner's pov --- rather esoterical discussions :D.
Okay, let's get to my specific questions (I'll include my own thoughts
in [])
1. I've often read something along the lines of "Additional abilities
start at 17 if part of a keyword". Does it make sense to list or
narrate this ability during chargen? It seems like a waste of words to
mention something you'll get from your keyword anyway. [The rule might
be: "If the ability isn't listed in the book, it's new and needs to be
explicitely narrated." This doesn't follow from the rules as I've read
them, though.]
2. Magic keywords and the narrative method. What do I have to include explicitly? Is there anything included implicitely? To be more precise: Doesn't every character have some common magic, no matter if it's mentioned in their narrative or not? [My guess: Yes, nearly everyone has common magic, but you still need to mention it somehow in your narrative. Purely for balancing reasons / because the rules say so. I'm not sure if they _do_ say so, however.]
3. is related to #2. I think I read somewhere in HQ that all Puma People are spiritists. I don't mean the paragraph in the Homeland description where it says "Your hero is probably a spiritist of ..." (p. 51). How strong is that notion? That is, does it mean the char IS a spiritist if not explicitly listed/narrated otherwise? So, if I don't include it in my narrative, is the char still a spiritist and gains all the abilities under that keyword? [Again I think you have to include this in the narrative. I assume you never get a specialized magic keyword for free - even less so than the common magic keyword.]
4. Concentration. Should a char who wants to concentrate their magic either during gen or in the near future pick appropriate common magic abilities only (i.e. charms for an animism concentration)? This would leave a Puma living with heortlings with only the list of sample common magic (p. 29), right? The abilities in this list are unspecified in the terms of being charms, talents, feats etc. Since the rules say that magical abilities not further qualified "on the character sheet" are talents, the player who wants to have and keep abilities from that list would have to specify they're charms in his/her case. Where does the player do that? In the narrative/list? Only on the sheet? If in the narrative/list, would it be allowable to subsume 5 abilities in one item just to make sure they're charms? [I would say it's sufficient to say sth like "has learned magic from humans" in the narrative. You'd write them down as charms when writing down the actual abilities on your sheet.]
5. Magical abilities listed/narrated. If my narrative / list indicates a one or more magical abilities, what do I do with those? Do they count among the common magic / specialized magic abilities I'll get from my magic keywords? That is, if it says "is known for munching on hot coals" (stolen from some discussion on here, I think), does that leave the player with only 4 other common magic abilities to get due to a common magic keyword included elsewhere? If it counts as an extra ability: Can it be used actively without concentration?
6. Since my first player (gonna try it one on one first) wants to play a Puma Person, I've tried to come up with a Puma on my own for testing purposes. Would anyone be kind enough to look over the narrative and character sheet I'll assemble when the questions above have become a bit clearer to me? Is this the right place to ask that, or does this belong to the HQ-RPG list?
Greetings,
Thorsten
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