>But laid up at home with a cold, I feel like having a say.
>
> The slowly decreasing WILL mechanic was a clumsy attempt to capture
>the idea that Gods have no free will and humans do. There are better
>mechanics for representing that, and apart from nostalgia for early failed
>heroquest drafts (which most of us never played) I can see little to
>recommend it.
> Most importantly, it seems there is extraordinarily ample evidence,
>from any number of sources (Harmast, Hon-Eel, Arkat,the Pharoah, and so
>on), that experience with heroquesting increases, not decreases, ability to
>perform further major heroquests. Anyone want to take a stab at reconciling
>this with the WILL payment mechanic?
My feeling is that it can happen for a while and then you start hitting the point of diminishing returns. This is true of the majority of Heroes.
(By the way, let me say that I want to keep the word Hero for its specific Gloranthan theological meaning: Someone who alters the structure of Other World Reality. I don't think creating a continuum down to the farmer defending his stead helps.)
But now that I think of it, the Pharoh is the ideal argument against this. He doesn't act like a free-willed Harrek-type independent and he goes on from century to century. Of course, he is fixed in the things he can do magically but he doesn't seem to exhibit 'Hero=Plane' bouyancy.
I'm going to have to think hard about how this exception is achieved.
>In reply to Alexs query about heroquesting for the Infinity Rune, Mike Cule
>says
>>That information is not available at your security clearance.
>>
>>And is certainly not going to be available to PCs.
>>
>>But is needed to account for certain phenomena.
>
> In other words, my mechanics don't actually explain observed
>Glorantha, but I have a back door to explain to my PCs why the NPCs don't
>have to follow the rules? Forgive my scepticism, but surely heroquest
>mechanics should mimic known Glorantha without kludging like the Infinity
>Rune.
What I said is that I wasn't going to say how Harrek gained access to enough power to do all that he did. (And I'm certainly not going to do it without seeing Harreksaga.)
I'm willing to talk about how the mechanic works. I was planning to rate each character from 1 to 10 in each Rune with 1 being barely touched by it and 10 being 'I am the originating God of this Rune'. 'Normal' would be 3. A human would be rated at 3 in the Man Rune. Trolls at 3 in the Man and the Darkness Rune.
Non Chaotics would start with 1 in Chaos. Such a level would indicate extreme vulnerability to the Power of that Rune.
Everybody would start with 1 in Infinity.
Will (however derived) would be Multiplied by the level in the Infinity Rune. This should not be known to the run of players. But lo, I trust the God-Learners on the Digest.
(Note to self: If we use the Personal POW vs Other Plane POW model have the multiplier apply to Personal POW helping to root the character to the Mundane World.)
> Re-Enactment vs Experimental - I think the main thing is that the
>Experimental are a hell of a lot more dangerous, and its a lot harder to
>drum up some Support for an experimental one unless there is a good reason.
>I don't think that the distinction is as cut and dried as it has been
>painted.
Well, that's true too but I think that the taxonomy is valid.
<<<Very good points about the incompleteness of HQ info snipped. We don't need a mechanic for this but it should be kept in mind whenever designing a quest: how much varies and how much the referee's view varies from what the PCs know.)
>Mike Cule on the Sacred Time
>>In my opinion, the Sacred Time is the celebration of the Dance of the
>>World. Everything, even the things that want to unravel it altogether,
>>comes together to reweave and repair the Web of Arachne Solara.
>
> Except the part in the reweaving of the unravellers is to attempt
>to unravel, get their butt kicked, and get rewoven into the web anyway...
>
A good point yes, but also they must be re-enacting the bits where their gods were strong and where they triumphed. Of course, each year their recreation ends with the I Fought We Won Event and they slink back to their caves muttering.....
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