Or from me. Indeed I agree with pretty much everything Mike H. posted as well - where I diverge from him and cleave closer to LC's position is around the game's written treatment of what I shall term 'possibility vs probability' in the Generally Accepted Glorantha.
It is *possible* under Gloranthan cosmology that powers derived from what the game calls Common Magic can match or surpass powers derived from the Otherworlds; similarly it is *possible* for an individual to transcend their birth culture and pick up a huge mish-mash of tricks, initiations and relationships in a wide-ranging heroic career; it is *possible* that a shaman has only bound spirits that are at the upper reaches of the guideline power levels for their practise. I don't think these things are especially probable however and the absence of the tables and crunchy detail that you get in a traditional RPG has removed one of the main routes by which GMs build up a sense of the power curve of a setting - which makes it hard for new-to-Glorantha GMs to make productive 'Yes, but' calls and assign reasonable consequences to player initiated actions in the game.
Now a large part of being a Hero is precisely that you are able to realise and achieve those possibilities where ten thousand others have failed and, since HQ is a game about Heroes, it makes sense that the written rules shouldn't put too many obstacles in the way of the characters and that the game should be encouraging of an expansive, 'say Yes' playstyle that fosters player empowerment and a 'just make it up' attitude to the crunchy stuff. What would have been nice was some bits in the GM's section which laid out indicators as to what sort of things were everyday and routine, what was a out of the ordinary, what was really unusual and what was the stuff of new legends. You can build up a sense of these things over time by reading the setting and scenario books, but this stuff is partial and scattered in the core rules.
Regards
Luke
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