> I suspect the different treatments of this sort of idea, in
>particular, Will vs POW, will all come down to the same sort of thing
>in the end. I think the main problem with the old Chaosium idea on the
>subject was it was trying to do two rather disparate things: represent
>your own inherent free will; and your ability to change the cosmos.
>This in turn led to rather kludgy restrictions, such as never being able
>to raise your Will once you'd started heroquesting, which doesn't really
>make much sense. Separating the two ideas out, one way or another,
>would be a Good Thing, I think. Your "free will" really is on the skids,
>as everything one does on the HP constrains it further, in whatever way
>you represent it. But one's capacity to change the universe ought to be
>able to go _up_, especially as one gets more Hero Cult support, succeed
>in other Quests, etc. Eventually, though, the first overtakes the
>second, and you wind up with absolute power to do absolutely nothing.
Well, I don't quite agree.
Way I saw it, you would start with a certain amount of Free Will and be able to increase it by actions on the Mundane Plane. (Specifically, in game terms, mastering skills would increase your will.)
And the members and supporters of a HeroQuest Ring would be able to give their Will towards achieving the object of the Quest. (The people who stayed behind and prayed would probably be able to contribute only a little.)
But for an experimental HeroQuester (a true Hero) eventually most of your personal Will would be bound into the myth that you had created. It would take up more and more of your Will to link you to the cult that you created to support that myth as it grew into a true religion. Eventually either the 'heroplane bouyancy' effect takes you away involuntarily (I think this would start to become a risk when more of your Will was off the Mundane Plane than on) or you would decide to leacve before the very last of your Will was gone. (Query: perhaps some gods have been so foolish as to allow themselves to reach this point.... Hey, I'm about to have a bit of an insight here..... I think I can reconcile the Objectivist/Subjectivist dispute......)
(What about this: The gods are capable of resisting the efforts of their priests and worshippers to redefine them in so far as they retain some vestige of Free Will. The gods who have allowed themselves to use up all their Will are just as the Subjectivist argument depicts them, puppets in the hands of their worshippers. But gods with some fragments of their original free will left are still capable of noticing the way their worship is being perverted. The goddesses involved in the Goddess Switch were probably left with little or no Free Will, likewise Yelm if the way the Lunars have been pulling his strings is anything to go by. Orlanth probably has just enough left to protect himself: LakoWhatsisname managed to take control for a while but there was an eventual backlash. Hmm, yes, there: I've resolved the dispute and the answer is It Depends.)
Back at my original topic: There are exceptions (There Are Always Exceptions) to the pattern noted above. Some cults, such as those of Sir Ethilrist and Cragspider, remain deliberately small. Sir Ethilrist's powers are quite real and quite spectacular but he hasn't created a religion to spread his worship around the world. He has created a regiment and has kept his powers to himself and himself on the Mundane Plane.
The other exception is that of superheros like Harrek. I personally believe that access to the Infinity Rune will multiply the level of Will available to a person enourmously. Fortunately for the stability of Glorantha this is rare.
One further thought on possible HQ mechanics.
It occurred to me comparing the two sets of mechanics I had put forward, the numerical Free Will approach and the change in traits approach that they fit the two different kinds of HeroQuest neatly.
If you are just performing a Quest that has been undertaken before then you probably ought to have your traits altered by the experience. You are stepping in the path of your god in order to become more like your god. Even the basic initiation HeroQuest is like this. At initiation you would gain the +3 change to traits that PENDRAGON gives for culture. At higher levels your behaviour would become more and more extreme as you pay the price for becoming more and more identified with your god.
But if you are doing something NEW then you ought to burn your own exxence. You are cutting a fresh path through the cosmos and it is others who will be changing themselves in an effort to become more like you in years to come.
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