Donald Oddy:
> Isn't this 60% of a devotee's time spent on cult business primarily
> a gaming mechanic? To avoid players taking the benefits and ignoring
> the obligations of the status.
Somewhat, though it's a rather clumsy one if that's the primary intent. I _think_ what's it's doing is trying to convey information about the game world. (Just as well I didn't mouth that particular heresy on hw-rules.)
> Now to my mind all those activities count towards cult business and
> in practice it is not going to be 60% but 90% - we're talking
> dedicated farmers here.
Obviously in many or most cases economic necessity compounds magical requirement (and absolutely does not contradict it).
> As far as numbers go, I would expect at
> least 5% of the average clan are devotees of Barntar with at least
> a similar percentage as devotees of Ernalda. That's on the basis
> of one supervisor/leader in every group of ten people doing a job.
I don't necessarily disagree with this ratio, but pedantry compells me to point out that devotees aren't _necessarily_ going to be leaders in any social sense. (Though often they are, certainly, and always in the "by example" sense.)
Peter Larsen:
> Barntar is an especially bad example here because he is the
> "Great Carl," not the "Great Farmer."
I don't have his keyword to hand, but mythically surely his primary association is "the Plowman". It's definitely over-broad to say simply Carl, unqualified, since that is at its most general a social _rank_, rather than an actual occupation.
But this is basically by the by. The fundamental question is, does being a "magical specialist" in [X] make you any less good at doing [X], or any less cost-effective in your social role as an [X]ist. That regards of whether [X] is farming, fighting, trading, lawspeaking, etc. And the answer, fairly clearly, is "no". Some "[X]'s" _themselves_ are economic specialisations which exist only in the context of a larger society to support more basic needs (indeed all of them are, to some extent), but that's an entirely different matter.
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