I want to try to explain, what i think i understand by now.
An ability is a DESCRIPTION of a characte or a creature, thats the narrative approach of the game.Primary it describes the character. The "masterycode" letīs you know, where to, roughly, expect the power of that creature.
Why worldscales donīt work:
if everything had a rating that was correct for being pitted against any
other rating, that would mean, Issaries had found the worldformula, that even
mr. hawkins hasnīt found yet.
It would mean that any force could be pitted with each other, because the
ratings would be so universal.
What have sprinting 100km/h, being an expert in swordfighting, and the mass
of a cow in common ?Nothing! Thus they canīt be compared with a universal
scale, and it doesnīt matter if itīs linear, logarithmic or whatever.
I would say, that the worldscale is a VIEWSCALE, it shows your point of
view.How can you ever decide what the rating for the mass of an elephant
is?Making up numbers is totally arbitratry, when i did my trial of designing
the tables i just assessed-and i had no real possibility to see if itīs
correct or incorrect.See my example of trying to figure out the mass of an
elephant and failing quite miserably, in a previous mail.In other games, you
could try a bit and calculate what strength would give that many
damagepoints, so juggling a bit with numbers and expected results, to get a
rating.In the future of HW, there wonīt even be anymore weaponranks.And
beside that, the lethality of an attack, in HW, is very much determined by
the skill of itīs user.
So if you write a story and you want to have a fight for your players against
a vicious elephant, you have to make that elephant dangerous.As dangerous as
it fits the story, which is also the strength of your characters (,and that
changes).Of course at some powerlevels an elephant isnīt the right opponent
for your characters, so you make up another beast.Thatīs where the story is
more important than the mechanic.
Now you ask, how can i know how strong this elephant must be ?That is where
the masterylevels and meanings come into play.The description of the
masterylevel can give you a hint.
So next, i think, we need some kind of table, that shows us, what kind of
results can be expected if you pit a certain mastery against another (like
Wulf explained to me in a mail).
Also we have to make up descriptions, what the masteries beyond W4 mean.What
is a major godīs power, in Glorantha, supposed to be like, what distinguishes
him from an ordinary human? ?
If you that you get an intuitive grip how the game works, assigning ratings
shouldnīt be so difficult anymore,then.
Christian
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