Not having played the game more than twice, I still tend to side with Alex on this issue. Statistic-wise, a level of mastery makes more difference than a 50% bump up for rune levels over ordinary ("initiate") characters in RQ.
Doyle Wayne Ramos-Tavener
> I ran one of the HW demos at the LA con last year, but I still can't
> make complete sense of what exactly you just said, Alex.
While Alex surely can (and will) speak for himself, we discussed much of this at and after Tentacles.
> If I understand you correctly, you are objecting to making the scale of
> inhabitants the Mundane, physical world more vast than two levels of
> Mastery. Correct?
Not exactly what Alex was aiming at. There is no problem with a select few mundane people tossing several masteries around. The objection was that every clan had a WWW person officiating at their services, because every such person would need one to three successors in training at at least WW or in case of casualty there could be no more worship services. These WW people would need a huge pool of W people to draw from, etc... Compare the difficulties of small nations to assemble first grade sports teams against huge nations or nations with a huge potential of dedicated practitioners, like Norway in skiing.
If you want to play a character starting out in 1621 and participating in the big events by 1625, you will have to start out with a level of mastery (at least) to reach the required level. I guess this is the dreaded "one level bump up" problem which caused much non-discussion earlier...
[...]
> As I understand it there _are_ individuals who should be able to take
> Cwim (or defeat entities in the Cwim class) but still be of Mundane
> (non-Otherworld) Glorantha. Correct?
Correct. There are a few individuals who stand a chance to survive against Cwim. There are several more groups who stand a chance to survive, if there is something like a Ginna Jar bonus to mastery (through preparation by ritual or quest).
> Because of the inherent limitations of RQ, it was nearly impossible to
> describe such individuals in game mechanics, much less aspire to becoming
> something close to such an individual.
In game terms, becoming such an individual is counter-productive. What I need in my game is a _group_ able to deal with such a threat by cooperation. One jack-for-all-monsters is boring.
> Having three levels of Mastery to qualify as Rune level seems to me to
>mean that the possible scale in HW to be more Finely Tuned then I would
>have initially thought. That is, the scale should not be thought of in
>terms of a 1-20 sort of thing, but rather in terms of Level of Mastery:
> No mastery: Normal Guy
> W: Skilled Guy (or good initiate)
> WW: Really skilled (nearly priest)
> WWW: Rune lord or priest
> WWWW: Rune Lord-Priest
> WWWWW: Anyone from Sartar High Council Except Kallyr
> WWWWWW: Kallyr, or Argrath, Cwim, Hungry Jack, etc.
I would have thought that a level of mastery indicates just this: mastery of the skill or ability. Sufficient knowledge and ability to better non-masters 9 times out of 10, and to pass on this knowledge. In RQ-terms, this would be a Lhankor Mhy initiate (who needs mastery in a couple of knowledge skills), a Yelmalian Sun Lord, or a Wind Lord.
Two levels of mastery should indicate a significant advantage over run-of-the-mill masters of their trade. Sartar High Council used the term "renowned heroqester" which IMO fits the bill.
WRT the clan priest, IMO a single level of mastery should compare to RQ acolytes able to conduct the necessary services, but no higher secrets, and two levels of mastery indicate good knowledge of the mysteries and the ability to lead greater ceremonies. Of this latter kind, there should be no more than one to three per clan (depending on their "magic rating"). Look around in your personal circles - how many people of international competition level in whatever they are good at do you know? (If the answer is ">10%", you're the member of a hero band...)
Your rating for Sartar High Council seems greatly overdone to me, especially for people like the Wilmskirk mayor, unless you rate them for their obscure "talk for the ordinary people" ability (and looking at some of the failures in the High Council, I doubt that).
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