I presume that everything takes 'an action', unless there's some actual rules reason that means more effort is required. To some extent you're right, though, as all if this is very much undefined in game-_world_ terms, though of course it's perfectly well nailed down in terms of the game-_system_, abstract as that is. I don't think this is in principle hard, but I agree that one does need to make sure that the books are thick enough with data on likely such game-world/game-system correspondances, as well as just giving as much actual description of the game world effect themselves, to obviate the risk of 'creative anxiety' on the part of the GM abd players. "I _think_ I can come up with a 10AP Thunder Magic effect, but Is It Gloranthically Correct?"
> I suspect your going to get a lot of:
> "Mark, what do you do?"
> "I use my combat magic, 5 points, and score a standard success."
> "Ok, he fails. You get 5, he takes 10 points. OK, Steve, what do you
> do?"
>
> I still don't think that is better than "I hit him with a lightning bolt."
> "You blow his arm off and he falls down." RQ magic laid out a logical
> structure of what the spell did and what it looked like and how long it
> took to do it. More flexability would be nice, but a totally unstructured
> approach does not seem to be the solution that will take the world by
> storm.
Unstructured is potentially cool, for those that are into it, but Formless is unquestionably bad. I agree with the drift of Kevin's comments; HW needs to provide, at the thin end, at least Copious Examples, and at the thick, an actual set of guidelines/subrules about how one can use particular abilities, so that one _at least_ can instantiate the former example to the level of game-world-ism as the latter. I'd suggest Ars Magica as a reasonable example of way of doing this, without having either no framework at all, or one that's too rigid.
Simon Hibbs:
> I like a good game of RQ3 as much as anyone.
"... except possibly my wife."
Cheers,
Alex.
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