Brian' s interesting point

From: Kmnellist_at_aol.com
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 07:16:29 EDT


In the clans vs brian debate I have been thinking 'no Brian, you are wrong - there are lots of 'clan' references' but as is often the case, the debate has become a question of the exact meaning of a word (in this case 'Clan'). I do agree with Brian' s point about

 " nobody ever heard the word "clan" in  a cowboys-and-indians flick, I guess."  

But in the middle of it he gets to an interesting POV:

<< Well, here's an interesting "played vs. published" POV I can jump on:  

 Waha is not the defining social cult in Prax, from a game perspective. It's  Stormbull. How do I know this? Because there's at least 20 Stormbull  player characters for every Waha player character. It doesn't really  matter how important the "background" material says Waha is or what  percentage of Praxian tribe members the books say worship him when there are  so many more PCs, *NPCs published in official scenarios*, etc. that are  Stormbull, and not Waha. What difference does it make what the background and
 overview material says when in the course of gaming you run into 10 significant
 Stormbull personalities for every significant Waha one? Waha is a washed-out
 bit-player by comparison.>>

And I have to agree that -as it has been played - he is probably correct. I used to think that it was a shame; why did everyone want to be a Storm Khan when becoming a Bison Khan would be a much more satisfying achievement? Storm Bulls, it seems to me, are crazy, dangerous social outcasts whose one redeeming feature is that they fight chaos. I once tried to run a
'clan/tribal' campaign set in Prax, in a tribe that didn't worship Storm Bull
and pretty much limited cult membership to Waha, Yelmalio, Eirtitha and Daka Fal (it was the Ostrich Tribe). It was an interesting experiment (ie it didn't really work) but I still think Waha should have been a more PC friendly cult. Perhaps when/if HW gets back around to Prax (2035?) it's more
'community integrated' system would encourage Waha players.

Keith N


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