Re: Re: Narrativism, again

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 01:10:37 +0100 (BST)

> No. Whats "going on" is a change of the characters wealth rating as
> implemented by GM or player. What happens in the game world is the
> detail you use to rationalise the change. Therefore, trying to build
> a method which starts with the game world as the point of departure
> and procedes to define a character attribute is going backwards
> against the system design.

This is a bit like saying that character death is just a narrative decision made by the group gestalt, and that that sword sticking out of his chest, and the eight foot tall dragonewt that stuck it there, are just rationalisations of his pressing karmic need to die. (Then again, the 'newt might try to sell you something along those lines itself, before starting to knit a raffia basket with your small intestines.)

There's nothing in principle heinous or un-HW about game-world events having a profound effect on a character; the key point here is in how much detail we might wish to mechanise that. (And you could argue that the 'correct' answer is "not much" for wealth, and "lots" for klanth-inserting draconics; but at least pause to recognise the question.)

> OK. But so far, we have text published on the mentality of the
> heortlings, their religion and whatnot, and little or nothing about
> the physcial existance of heortlings, in terms of clans on the
> ground, how many cattle they have, what their populations are, etc.
> Don't you think you should wait for these to be published before you
> start complaining that there is insufficient detail?

I dunno, how long a wait is polite before the moaning can start, according to protocol? I'd be delighted to see something telling me how "rich" the average -- OK, better, some vaguely illustrative

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