> 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
Yes, that sounds exactly right. More precisely, the sword and the dragonewt are props exploited by the GM. In systematic terms, the Dragonewt/GM achieved a level of success sufficient to inflict a fate of this severity on their opponent, according (probably) to the AP trading mechanism. Now that the system has produced a "dead" result, the GM gets to rationalise how that happened after the fact. The kill could have been inflicted by a head butt, being throttled, whatever. The mechanical result of character death does not mandate death by the sword, even in a swordfight. The dragonewt itself is just a GM prop for presenting challenge to the characters, a function governed by the explicit or tacit contract between players as to what sort of danger level the GM is entitled to use.
> 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
Well, no... as long as we see those game world events as primarily an ad hoc rationale of a systematic result. I mean, even a landslide or some other natural disaster could (probably) be modelled with the AP trading mechanic.
> 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
> -- Heortling tribal king is, in game world terms. No reason
> (aside from space, and people to write it, and all the other actual
> reasons) it couldn't have gone into Thunder Rebels, say, in some
Yeah, I dunno either, have to wonder about a decision that leaves out the most immediately necessary information of the propose play area. But I think this is an aspect of Gloranthas famous obsession with religion.
> form. (Is anything like this likely to be in SR1? -- if so I say
> "yippee!".) What bugs me is the seeming implication that it's wrong
> not so much to show bad grace in waiting for such things, but to
even
> _want_ them. (i.e. the "he's wealth 10W2, shaddap" approach.)
OK. Taking that question completely anew then, it is not innapropriate to want or request them, but this is not a failure of the mechanics. And I still would not want a mechanical system or table. It seems to me HW:RiG was a rather confused beastie that simultaneously tried to present the mechanics for the whole world while still presenting some information about Heortlings. It should have done one or the other.
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