Re: "Sufficient" detail

From: Thomas Bagwell <tnbagwell_at_...>
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 19:47:24 -0000

So do I, but this is the sort of thing that, for me, a 'feel' is sufficient for. Hard to describe. Too much detail can actually get in the way for me if it isn't -my- detail...and I often operate better generating the specific details only as I need them.

> I suppose we just operate under different levels of detail. I
> need to know quite a bit of a gameworld to run it so that it feels
> real and believable to myself. I'm not just running stories for my
> gamers with some backroundcolor. I try to run a world in which
> their characters live and die.

And I need the above mentioned 'feel' for the gameworld to achieve the same effect for my campaigns. You're right...we just have different approaches to the same goal.  

> > The overall background, history and mythology make it
> > Glorantha...not the specifics of a few feats, which is all that
> > I've intended to address here.
>
> Coherense and clarity help in my view. The feat's have to fit the
> rest of Glorantha, and the myths and mythic reality of the deity in
> question.

For me, coherence and clarity don't depend on the details, and I want the feats to fit -my- view and feel for Glorantha, as well as the myths.

> Ah, but Tom, this is one of the reasons I bother writing these. I
> like to have that detail, and am not happy with the fact that I'm
> not gettin any guidelines as to what a given feat is supposed to
> do. Would you be opposed to there being those guidelines, for
> people like me who want them? Nobody forces the people who don't
> like them to use 'em, but the current situation is forcing people
> like me to try to play ESP games to figure out what the author had
> in mind when naming the feat.

What if they had nothing specific in mind when naming the feat?:) But, no. I don't oppose the detail being there, since as you say, I'm always free to ignore it. It does lead to additional work for me, in that anyone new to my game who knows Hero Wars will be assuming the feats work certain ways which may or may not match how I want them to work. If the feats are not detailed, then they come into the game -knowing- that they have to learn how I interpret the feats.

Tom B.

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