Re: Re: "Natural" abilities

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_...>
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 11:28:19 -0700

> Well, that's hard to answer. I mean, what's natural? what's magical?
> We have no intention of having the character's chameleon abilities be
> as bad as a real chameleon's (ooh, he's green, no wait! he's
> brown!)--but it probably also won't be as good as Randall from
> Monster's Inc. So is that magical or natural? It's natural as far as
> the race is concerned, but most humans would probably think it's
> magical.

Humans think a lot of stuff is magical; don't necessarily make it so :-).

It sounds like a natural abiilty to me.

> I guess my real question relates to how the game handles natural
> abilities that are beyond a human's ability. It sounds like the
> possibility of it being a natural ability is there. Right?

It handles them as natural abilities. An Uz can "see" in the dark, so can a dwarf. Both use senses that are far beyond anything a Human has. Wind children can fly (what, you think those *wings* are what keep them up? Do you know how big a wingspan you'd need to hold up a human(ish) body, even with hollow bones?). Unicorns can heal with their horn. None of these count as "magic" in the sense that they will disrupt your ability to worship whatever you worship.

> Is that kosher in Heroquest? I don't mind breaking the rules for the
> right reasons, but I want to know that I'm breaking them.

It is perfectly all right to break the rules in Heroquest. It says so. The first rule is: Play the story, not the rules.

RR
It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of this has done what he has done.
- Richelieu