>I'm in a lousy position to do this discussion, not having seen the
>rules, but I'll try.
Hasn't stopped me. :-)
>
>In Glorantha, I'd expect the world description or rules to tell me when
>- as a GM I need guidelines as to what is sensible, and I in turn need
>to be able to convey those guidelines to my players.
Yes, this seems reasonable. But that's a worldbook question, surely, not
an HQ2 question?
I mean, if the Glorantha books fail to do this, then that's a problem
with them.
If some other world someone writes up for HQ2 fails to give you a proper
grasp of what is credible, that's a problem with that.
Are you saying that any world not like the real world becomes hard to play in HQ2? Or just that any world where the players and narrator are unfamiliar with the conventions becomes a problem if the worldbook isn't well written? (I can see that.)
>I suspect he HQ2 apparently purist storytelling approach works much
>better in the real world, or something near it , as there's an existing
>shared agreement on "sense". And perhaps in groups where the GM's
>initial word is absolute and unarguable law. For Glorantha and my game
>this is not the case.
Well, that's an argument for it not being a good system for Glorantha is you and your players don't agree what Glorantha's like. Which I can see. Hardly a flaw in HQ2 as a generic system, though. It seems to me that HQ2 requires more agreement on what is in genre up front from the people around the table, since it changes from world to world. Obviously, the game or genre books would help establish the conventions for a given genre. Glorantha being famous for being inconsistent and open to interpretation with people being very invested in their version being right, HQ2 certainly isn't going to settle any arguments, I suspect.
But then, that's hardly the point of the system as far as I can tell.
>
>Let's say the character has throwing magic (say "Aid throw with wind" -
>or, in the context, perhaps not!) - at this point it becomes only a
>matter of scale.
Why? Only if you think that's how magic works.
>There's obviously not too many with this ability to
>throw moons into the sky (else there'd be loads of rocks in the sky) -
>but players are usually special. And gods probably can (if not bound by
>the great compromise, . etc.). So "credibility" is too grey to be much
>use in determining possibility.
Hmm... This doesn't seem any more grey than most other credibility tests
to me.
If you've got a game where people are throwing rocks into the sky, then
sure - it's credible. If you don't then... no.
Say it was a Comic Book game instead. If you're playing Silver Age Superman, then kicking the moon out of orbit makes sense. If it's just Post-Byrne's retcon, then no.
>This is obviously an exaggerated example, but there will be far more
>practical instances all over the place in a game with strong magic.
Only I would think in a game with strong magic, you'd have a good grasp on what it makes sense for magic to do, and so credibility would be fairly simple.
I actually do understand your point, it just seems one of those things that different people are going to disagree wildly on how easy it is. I personally suspect credibility in any world I feel comfortable in will be trivial to use as a standard. Any world I felt I didn't have a grasp on, I suspect it would be quite hard.
LC
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