Wading into the granite phalanx fray...
> Which is sort of my point - if they are trained Hoplites, then they
>don't need spells to form Shield Walls, they are already good at it. Now
>obviously they use their spells to enhance their combat efficiency, but why
>take a silly step like writing the details of their combat tactics into the
>spell descriptions (seemingly in an effort to enforce and encourage shield
>walls) when a trained Hoplite unit is going to be doing it anyway for more
>natural reasons?
Because a) Gloranthans make no distinction between extreme pyschological
states and magicially induced ones.
b) being in a hoplite or other tight order group formation does
have some benefits that are not present in looser units.
c) It is no fun trying to create rules for pyschological benefits
for fighting in a certain formation when it can be described
easily as a spell.
> And describing the training of the cult as 'rituals' is silly - it
>implies that it is their religious nature which is important. I'm sure anI think they are rituals to _promote_ group cohesion and effectiveness. Look at the 'Ie Paeon' sung by the Greek Hoplites before they went to battle. Look at the Roman Legions sacrificing to their standards.
>that spells should be designed as custom crafted things of highly limited
>use, rather than a general way of creating a magic effect (which for a
>start I find mythologically unsatisfying).
Umm, but most spells are 'custom crafted things of highly limited use'. Only damnable atheists can do otherwise (at the expense of being forced to tap their souls).
> Does Berserk say 'only to be cast on a Storm Bull berserk charging
>towards the enemy'
No, but the nature of the beserk spell means that it is not cast anywhere else. Namely the spell 'enforces' the beserk to attack someone. Which is what you were raging against in the first place. And look at the Humakti Morale spell. Even that has a lot of interesting conditions placed on it which 'enforces' the time and place where it is cast.
End of Glorantha Digest V2 #458
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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