<<well, I hope there's a decent list of the Affinities anyway, some are
definitely hard to figure (what could Babeester Gor's 'Scream of Fear' or
'Shout of Pain' do, apart from let the other guy know he's got you? And
Snarl
Darkness is even less clear...)>>
TTrotsky
No, there's no description of what any of those do. In the case of the
first two, I'm pretty confident they cause fear/induce pain in an enemy if
you shout at them (resolve using usual contest mechanic). In the case of
Snarl Darkness, and a few of the others, there's no possible way of working
out what the magic does from the rulebook, and this was an intentional
design
goal, as far as I understand it. Compared with reasoning like that, the lack
of a skill list pales into insignificance, IMO.
Roderick and Ellen Robertson
Another part of the design goal was not have to explain an ability, as that can take quite a bit of paper. A largeish chunk of each RQ cult description was a game-mechanic description of what each new spell/ability did. We leave that up to the players instead. The Keywords chapter would be three times as long if we did that for each ability listed.
The whole idea is summed up in chapter 2 in the Ambiguous References section. ALL abilities really fall under "ambiguous reference". Do you want to use your sword and shield ability to look at a sword and test its quality? sure, go ahead. While not a normal use of the skill (and thus prone to Improv mods), it is a legitimate one in my opinion. What? You say it's a close combat skill and not "Evaluate Sword"? Well that's why there's an Improv penalty...
Andrew Dawson
However, I thought that one of Greg Stafford's stated goals was to use Hero Wars to promote Glorantha. IMO, this ambiguity in the game makes the game more difficult for novices (to both gaming and Glorantha). "Figure it out for yourself" is not a newbie-friendly policy and is not in line with promoting Glorantha to a wider audience.
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