Re: Affinity and Mythology (was A thought on limiting improvisation)

From: charlescorrigan <charles_at_...>
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 15:32:20 -0000

What is the problem that needs fixing?

The rules book is explicit that the listed feats are a sample from the many more that are known in Glorantha.

There is still the issue of whether any particular improvised feat makes sense to the narrator and player group. For example (sorry, rulebooks not to hand, I may have the details wrong here), the weapon maker subcult (Igenew Redson?) of Humakt has the feat of Enchant Iron in the Combat affinity. So it is obvious to me that this subcult has several other non-published feats relating to weapons making within the Combat affinity. However, the other subcults of Humakt, which have the same Combat affinity, only have feats related to direct acts of combat. Of couse, these other subcults may have their own different, non-obvious, specialisations...

In my opinion, the narrator (advised by the player group) should have veto over whether any particular attempt of improvising a feat should be allowed or not (sometimes "yes but..." is _too_ lax), keeping in mind the affinity name and the feats that have been published for the affinity. And furthermore, the narrator can and should impose a difficulty on some feats - what's being attempted is hard and the world or target gets additional resistance.

Placing mechanical obstacles in the way of improvisation will just lead to players finding mechanical ways around the problem (increasing their mythology or devotee ratings) or, even worse, discouraging creative storytelling. This is not what I see as the goal of the Hero Wars ruleset.

There are specific uses of the mythology and devotee abilities that, to be fair, have seen little use in our game so far. The mythology ability is used for rituals in general and opening the path to the otherworld in particular. The worship/initiate/devotee ability is used to see how well the user can act as their deity in ritual/quest situations and also for divination. Again, rulesbooks not to hand so I may have got some details correct here.

regards,
Charles

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