At 07:33 AM 6/10/99 , Alex F. wrote:
> > 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, no. Harrek is an inhabitant of the Mundane, physical world,
>but I'd give him more than W2. One could argue that Orlanth and
>the Red Goddess are 'inhabitants the Mundane, physical world'
>(among others), and they sure as eggs do, though I suspect you didn't
>have them in mind... Perhaps you should further elucidate where you're
>imply 'mundane, physical' to max out, in Gloranthocentric terms.
I should probably define "inhabitants the Mundane, physical world" with the adjectives "typical, mortal inhabitants..." Much like I believe you already supposed to be true.
> > 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?
>
>No-one I could give you the address and phone number of, but as a
>hypothetical proposition, it doesn't vex me. But this merely means
>that such individuals ought to be representable in HW terms, it
>says nothing about how many double-yoo's they ought to have.
OK
> > 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.
>
>Well, that's one way of looking at it; pointlessly small-grained, would
>be another. It's effectively putting about 50ish 'increments' between
>Joe Orlanthi and Rune Lord, which is 'worse than' RQ2 (or Pendragon), and
>'about as bad as' RQ3. Is the distinction between 13WW and 14WW in
>such a scale worth caring about any more than the difference between
>73% and 74% was?
No, obviously not.
> > 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:
>
>That would be fine, if the categories you identified really were
>each of a different 'order' from the last. But a scale that
>has such rivettingly evocative distictions as 'skilled guy' from
>'really skilled guy' leaves me cold. Give the 'really' skilled
>guy a higher target number, sez I, and save a whole level of
>mastery for something _meaningful_.
I think I can Grok what you are saying, in general. Profound differences in levels of power should be marked with levels of Mastery, while fine differences should be marked with better Target numbers.
> > Otherwise the discernable differences between various power levels
> > become to close in game terms, and as a consequence cease to make sense
>
>I don't follow this at all. Why should 'power levels' that aren't
>readily distinguishable in the game world in some fairly explicit way
>(other than, "Yeah, Snorri and Harvat are both Skilled Weaponthanes, but
>Harvat is a *Really* Skilled Weaponthane") be hard-coded into the
>game system as such? Ought not going from 19W to 2WW (or however
>it works this week) to mean something a bit more than just 'another
>notch closer to rune lord'?
>
I guess that depends of the functioning definition of Mastery, doesn't it?
If one assumes that a level of Mastery means having actually mastered a skill, and become incapable of learning little or nothing new about the practice of the skill, any 'multiples of Mastery' are semanticly meaningless.
So either a level of Mastery is really 'a level of aptitude' or multiple levels of Mastery imply Otherworldly, magical improvement of the skill beyond mundane, non-magical capabilities.
The latter makes more sense to me. It would then follow that levels of Mastery are meaningless in human terms. Harrek is deadly warrior, skilled in use of his weapons, and in the Dead Place, where no magic functions, he can be taken, just like professional wrestler can be taken down by any five trained cops. But when Harrek is nearly anywhere else in Glorantha, Harrek can easily mow through any five Loskalmi Knights.
>Here's a somewhat different scale, that makes a lot more intuitive
>sense to me:
>
>0..W : Joe Orlanthi
>W..WW : 'ordinary' rune master
>WW..W3 : tribal champion
>W3..W4 : local cultural hero
>w4..W5 : pan-cultural hero
This does make more sense than my list, which relied on RQ terminology. But
are you saying the difference in these guys is all mortal mundane skill, or
access
to the Otherworld boosting of their skills?
DWRT
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #626
Powered by hypermail