Having gone into lurk mode, and warily noting the unfortunate similarities between the current Vadeli thread and the old KoW thread, I was going to swallow my tongue (hmm; too graphic?) and avoid comment until David Henderson wrote:
>Another example of this sort of situation would be the Kingdom of War
>(Hoorah! Where's Mark Smylie?).
(sigh)
Having continued to mull over the mechanics of the KoW, I would like to point out that there is, on some level, a distinction between a mechanistic understanding of how something works and the manner in which it is presented within a gaming context (in effect, that the organization of the KoW has nothing to do with how that organization winds up being exposed/described to players in the context of a game). A number of folks have noted the efficacy of the "suggested" horror -- a point on which I agree as a matter of style -- and several have brought up the effective use of that horror style in CoC (with the noted exception of I think Dominic, who perhaps rightly slams recent Cthulhu fiction for operating too much in the open). I think I would argue, however, that CoC actually kind of presents a different case point -- after all, in CoC we, as gamers and GMs (pardon me, Keepers?), are actually given a fair amount of *detail* about the Lovecraftian universe. I mean, Great Cthulhu has *stats*, fer crying out loud, but frankly I don't think that has any particular impact on the playability of the game and the development of the "suggest, don't tell" nature of the game's horror. The fact that those stats exist may cause some -- er, power gamers? -- to turn CoC into a shoot-em-up, but in all likelihood that's going to happen anyway if someone wants to take the game in that direction, and most CoC players I know are perfectly capable of entering the Lovecraftian mindset even if they know there's a rulebook a couple of feet away giving the horror around the corner a name and some hit points.
A similar point could be made, I suppose, about the particular Gloranthan horror of the Crimson Bat. I have yet to hear the suggestion that printing stats for the Bat somehow robbed it of its horror or suggestive power, though I don't doubt that there are some folks who feel that way, since the Bat is still best used as nothing more than a source of rumor and fear; in fact, from a personal stand-point, I'd be willing to say that the Crimson Bat's stats actually added to my own feelings of horror and fear as a player, because when I heard a GM say "the Crimson Bat", I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that in a confrontation with the Bat my PC would be dead meat.
So I have to admit my instincts tell me that on the face of it there's nothing particularly wrong with Martin Laurie's details! details! approach to the Vadeli, IMO, though I'm no fan of splatterpunk.
I tend to side, OTOH, with what I interpret as Peter Metcalfe's general position, that the notion of the Vadeli as "evil" and "immoral" is a wee bit cockeyed, though I'm sure most Gloranthans think that's true. Gaining magical potency from breaking so-called taboos only works so long as you believe you're doing something wrong, IMO; after any length of time, what was once taboo becomes traditional, and what was once traditional becomes taboo (any analysis of noncomformist youth culture will undoubtedly reveal this), so after the course of many centuries I find it difficult to believe that the Vadeli would continue to gain magical benefits as a result of the "conscious" breaking of (what are at that point *someone*else's*) taboos. Unless, of course, you believe that in Glorantha these taboos are universal and *true*, which ain't the case IMG. I would vote more for something along the lines of Peter Metcalfe's formulation of "shit, blood and death" as being the sources of Vadeli magic and go with the liche theory for the Blues in particular.
Just some thoughts,
Mark
Powered by hypermail