I do, there's been a huge proliferation in how many different kinds of everything there is. It's as though for every game world concept there have to be three or four different incompatible versions of it. These are the two most egregious, to me.
Common Magic : Why differentiate between Common Magic Talents, Spells, Charms and Feats? What damage would be done by having one form of Common Magic? (Plus perhaps Innate Magic for things like Puma People shapechanging and maybe Troll magical digestion.)
Elementals: Why one type for each otherworld? How vital is that to your game? The inner world of matter is made of Everything, so why can't elementals be mixed nature entities, and hence we'd only have to have one kind of them for each element. Instead we've got 3, or perhaps four for each element, like I care. This irritated me in HW too.
And this for someone who's heavily into Gloranthan in-world metaphysics, and likes applying it in-game.
I appreciate the three (or is it still four?) worlds model, it makes sense and has some interesting and fun implications. That doesn't mean I want three or four versions of pretty much everything. The Common Magic rules seem to have gone out of their way to come up with extra foibles and rules just so that the different forms of common magic mean something, particularly the way common magic is treated when you concentrate on a 'real' religion.
I like the extra detail in the major magic systems in general though, they add game world flavour and plenty of options for character advancement. I also like the way that starting characters have been relatively downgraded in power level without actualy reducing their ability ratings (in fact potentialy increasing them).
Simon Hibbs
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