Re: party size; god-talkers; trolls; tribe

From: David Dunham <david_at_...>
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 14:19:08 -0800


James & Corinne asked

>Any tricks to stealing the statue? We sometimes get it, sometimes
>don't. Does party size have an impact, or the combat or magic skill of the
>leader?

I didn't look it up, but all those sound relevant.

Dave added

>Party size has a definite impact. I've noticed that with a lot of things
>(raids of any kind), the smaller your party, the better the chance they'll get
>in and out without a fight. However, the larger your party, the better the
>chance they'll survive

This is broadly true in the game; cattle raiding is just one example.

James & Corinne again:

>A Glorantha-clueless question: the obvious cognate of "god-talker" is
>"priest". Is the exclusive implication of this correct?

No, it's not a direct synonym. A priest is a social role, someone whose main job it is to deal with gods. (Presumably they are also god-talkers.)

>Are god-talkers
>special people, or are all the worshippers of a given god god-talkers for
>that god?

They're special people, who have a closer than usual relationship with the gods.

Dave again (on trolls):

>I was just not killing them because they seemed to be reasonable people - they
>weren't killing out of malice, could be friendly when approached
>with gifts and
>kind words, and even went out of their way to avoid war when you get the Iron
>Spike. Cragspider, no matter how vile she may seem, is willing to let your
>explorers go half the time. At least they weren't vehemently opposed to the
>human settlements; at least they were willing to make friends.

One of the joys of using Glorantha as a setting is that there are few absolutes. You can certainly view the trolls as horrible enemies (which I'm sure most Orlanthi do), but they are in fact people too.

>trying very, very hard to get the
>clans to agree to sensible things and not to make outrageous demands, to try
>and actually agree to things that I think will have long-term benefits, like
>paying for people to read or to escort caravans. And what happens? The game
>ignores all my hard work, putting in events that shouldn't have happened and
>almost never making reference to the agreements

Many if not most of the agreements do indeed have game impact.

David Dunham     A Sharp     david_at_...
Voice/Fax: 206 783 7404     http://a-sharp.com
Efficiency is intelligent laziness.

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