Peter Metcalfe says:
>Peter Larsen:
>
>>RR>The game mechanics of blesses and curses are pretty much the
>> >same, but there are differences, such as Blessings not having Number of
>> >Target mods (Curses do).
>
>> I don't know if I like this distinction. A blessing/curse (or
>>positive/negative, if you prefer, or even defensive/offensive) shouldn't be
>>handled two different ways. Feats, for example, seem to work exactly the
>>same wheather they are "Swordhelp" or "Scare the bejeezes out of the
>>neighbors." Similarly, spirits have more or less the same rules used to
>>help the shaman or hurt her foes. Why should liturgy be any different?
>
>Because then it will be just as easy to curse a whole nation as it is
>to curse one foe.
Well, of course not, but it ought to be as easy to curse a nation as bless a nation. My point is: why have no "# of target mods" for blessings? Why not use the congregation's support to negate those negative modifiers (e.g. for blessing the congregation) or make the blessing stronger (e.g. increasing the power or duration of a "bless marriage" at a wedding)? The only reasons I can think of for it being easier to bless your congregation than curse the enemy are distance and not knowing what sort of protections the enemy might have.
Roderick Robertson says:
>> I don't know if I like this distinction. A blessing/curse (or
>> positive/negative, if you prefer, or even defensive/offensive) shouldn't be
>> handled two different ways. Feats, for example, seem to work exactly the
>> same wheather they are "Swordhelp" or "Scare the bejeezes out of the
>> neighbors." Similarly, spirits have more or less the same rules used to
>> help the shaman or hurt her foes. Why should liturgy be any different?
> It's not (at least to my way of thinking). The target of the magic is
> different, and the modifiers are different, but otherwise it acts pretty
> much the same way. We all get together and pray, and our liturgist directs
> that magical energy in the appropriate manner.
>Oh I know, I was pulling your leg (forgot to add the smiley). :-)
I figured that. I should have been more jovial (not a big fan of those faces, I must admit).
>> If we agree that using liturgical magic in a friendly manner
(non-resisted,
>> I suppose, for a game definition) on a theist is polluting both for the
>> theist and the liturgist this has to be depicted somehow. Saying that
>> liturgical magic works one way for blessings and another for curses seems
>> (to me) to be a much more clumsy game construct.
>I don't see how they are different, but I'm perhaps too close to the rules.
There are a different set of modifiers for blessings and curses; that suggests to me that there is something fundamentally different in the process. Now part of that is the old problem that you have to have some rules, but those rules will be an imperfect model of the world they are representing. It's like Borges's (or Eco's) 1:1 map; where would you put it, and, besides, the map doesn't include itself, does it? I'm not so much against the rule or the explaination, but I's like to see the two fit together. Spiritual pollution and community anger strike me as better reasons to avoid "blessing the heathen" than a game construct that says you can't. Besides, blessing a heathen now and again might be good for conversion, especially among the damned Heothenists....
As this is already too long, I'll just thank you for the rest of your comments; they've clarified the veneration rules for me (and given me a better sense of how they work in Glorantha).
Peter Larsen
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