> >Myself, I suspect that both things are going on: there exist both
> >different "paths" through many quests ("tick here to select the Baths
> >of Nelat"), _and_ they can be done at different "depths" (which one
> >might think of as degree to which one core being is relocated to
> >the heroplane or godplane).
>
> Hmmm, different paths through many quests? I'd agree up to that point. Do
> most quests need different paths? Wouldn't the vast majority have just one
> accepted path?
Probably not, no. Most myths would have different local variations, however slight (though in some cases, considerable). Even if there's a high degree of "acceptance" of one version (That's The Way We've Always Done It), that doesn't mean no other path is _possible_.
> Obviously multi-level HQs like the LBQ need multiple paths
> but does the Initiation HQ? Or does any quest you do for different reasons
> have a different path? Flexibility is good, complexity isn't. Are these
> multi-level HQs the norm or the exception?
I think most quests have a "depth" they're "usually" performed at; but that isn't to say it's necessarily _impossible_ to perform them either more swallowly (practice HQs, as it were), or more deeply (a hidden quest based on lost portions of the myth).
> >I say this principally on the basis of
> >what I believe to be "true" in Glorantha, but by a happy coincudence,
> >it also happens to be what I think is the most flexible, fun and
> >playable approach as far as actual play in concerned.
>
> Probably but I wouldn't want to have to write them up! If your abilities
> are at a certain level go here, if not go there.
What I had in mind was much more on the lines of: write up one version, the "main line", as it were, and have people ad lib variations thereupon, either entirely off the cuff, or on the basis of "hints" about alternate versions. This helps avoid the oft-repeated complaint that HQs are "ultra-linear adventures writ large", for one thing.
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