intrusion of mechanics

From: Tim Ellis <tim_at_timellis.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 01:15:26 +0000


 Robert McArthur asked

>
>I'd like to know how other people play the characters, and NPCs, knowledge
>about the internals of other cults. OK, all Orlanthi can do things with the
>wind and thunderbolt etc. All StormBull go Berserk. In "Smell of a Rat"
>the characters were talking about disruption as though the spell was known
>to everyone, everyone (except the newby) knew what it did, they knew about
>overcoming other people power etc. How many people play this? Does it make
>your campaigns more or less interesting?
>
>Do the characters know that shield 3 will stop a normal server spirit?

I played in a partially free-form game at Contraption 1 where a group of Lunars and a group of Pavisites were independantly investigating the death of a merchant, he had been decapitated, and immediately (nearly) every player said "Thanatari" - We were criticised as, in the opinion of the people running the adventure, we were using player knowledge not character knowledege, I disagree, since Thanatar is a feared & hated cult, I would think most people would immediately link them to decappitations (In the same way that murders in which large amounts of blood are lost would be popularly attributed to Vampires).

I don't have a problem with characters knowing that a spell must overcome POW, but I would if they were to say "Creature X has a species maximum of y POW". Likewise they may not think in terms of a shield 3 will stop a normal sever spirit, but they may know that a Shield 2 won't stop aa sever spirit. (Make it a habit of all NPC spell casters to routinely boost spells by eg 0-4 points, that way players won't be able to think of 'normal' power costs when facing spells)

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Tim Ellis           EMail tim_at_timellis.demon.co.uk                      |
| Curiosity killed the cat - Why? What did it want to know?               |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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End of Glorantha Digest V2 #427


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