Yep. The Fourfold Path. It has certainly passed into our gaming groups oral tradition. Particularly when the War Gamer of the group (or anyone else really) is unable to come up with a name, the character is always referred to as 'G7'.
And for interests sake, I know of at least one campaign where Onslaught would have.... well, not been outclassed, but certainly fitted in. He would have been a little more complete in his combat abilities, and so on, but certainly in the right company.
And yes, even the people playing in it thought it was dreadful powergaming.
Oddly enough, that campaign featured an illuminated shaman of Black Fang/Krarsht/Daka Fal, as mentioned by someone recently - its obviously a classic RQ Monty Haulism.
Is Onslaught a power gamer character? Well, yes. Does that mean Martin is a power gamer type? Not necessarily, though some of his comments on Onslaught seem to suggest that he may well be, and others suggest that he may not be. He probably just has tendencies in that direction, which many of us do. I certainly prefer high powered games to the 'collection of farmboys' style game so loved by many of the Tales crew - does that make me a power gamer? I happily admit to some minor powergamer tendencies, but that is certainly not the only or even main reason I like high powered games (I enjoy a strong political element, and I like people to be given some moral authority (to make their moral tests more important)).
Personally, I think Onslaught a power gamer character, but not because he is too powerful - I am sure there are many Gloranthans that could chop him into little bits. Onslaught is a power gamer character because all that military and magical power is there without context. He is just a tough guy. His heroquests have gained him nifty powers and magic items, but other than that not really changed him much. He is a cult hero with almost no connection to his cult. None of his individual items is overpowered to an unbelievable level. Even the critical proof armour is NOT some Martin L. powergamer special - its a fairly standard Iron Dwarf magic, and critical proof armor of Onslaughts level is the sort of thing that you might expect to see on a senior Iron Dwarf - the thing is that wrong with Onslaught having it is the lack of explanation for why he has it, and the lack of influence on his life for owning it. But his items are all simply 'items' - things Onslaught has, rather than items that carry with them history, obligations, enemies, allies, etc. Martin has tried to provide some context for these items recently, and it does make Onslaught seem a little better than when first posted, but it still doesn't really cut it for me - his items now have a small amount of history, but still don't seem to be as important in the greater scheme of things as their power would warrant.
Rather than simple a collection of tough combat abilities, a true Gloranthan hero should have powers that work on a bigger scale, and carry with them a place in both the social world (incur obligations, alliance, enmities) and the magical (they should change the character, not just make them tougher, but make them a bit more divine, more subject to the magical world). It may be that Onslaught could chop Argrath into bits in a Humakti duel - but Argrath is unquestionable more effective. He has hero powers like Giant friendship - which is militarily far more effective, a dozen 15 meter giants being able to kill even more people than an Onlaught. Does this mean Argrath is a 'Power game' character too? Not really - he gains the power through a storyline that sounds an awful lot like the sort of storyline that involves a lot of roleplaying. It is also a good deal more interesting as a power for PC or NPC, in terms of good old MGF. And even Martin admits that Onslaught as an NPC adds to his game fun largely as comic relief! Onslaught as a PC is someone who only a powergamer would want to play. Argrath, despite probably possessing some equally gross abilities, is definately a character that a storyteller or roleplayer would enjoy playing.
If something is to be salvaged from the onslaught of Onslaught related mail that is swamping the digest (besides some cautionary experience with the character of Martin Laurie - offendeth him not, for your in box will fill to overflowing with strongly argued responses, yea, and this will continue well after the point of boredom as been reached. Like Joerg, but with more testosterone and less reliance on Gloranthan minutia :-)), it is some insights into the nature of Gloranthan (or Staffordian, I guess, a distinction important to some of us) heroes.
To wit - there is a lot more to being a hero than being really tough in Glorantha. We already know that the most important thing about attempting the most difficult heroquests is to have support from your community. It seems that most of us think it works the other way as well - not only do you need community support to become a powerful hero, but the most powerful heroes are those that support that their community back. Its not an absolute rule - but even Harrek is tied into his community, and gains quite a bit of his importance because of it (even if his community is of Wolf Pirates).
Cheers
David
------------------------------
Powered by hypermail