"Fact is, the n worlds crashing into and out of each other *again* is just the cosmological reality of what is going to happen during the Hero Wars"
Superb! A true Moorcockian "Conjunction of a Million Spheres" give or (especially in this case) take 999,997.
Leaving that aside for a mo he goes on:
"I am utterly unimpressed by the fact that the Esvulari Hide in Cover is a Feat, Fire Stick is a Charm, and Conceal Object a Spell. The n worlds are meaningful, the n common magics (as presented) are not."
Funny, I'd have said that if one's meaningful then the other is as well. What I'd like to have seen is where these magics come from - the same sort of way the Seven Mothers are presented - FREX you get a sharp chopper feat* from YT. However, it's no biggy to make it up: "Hide in Cover" comes from Desemborth (a sneaky Heortling Great Great Great Grandad we don't talk about), making "Fire Sticks" comes from the Praxian Tradition (another Great Great Great Grandad traded the secret for a bottle of firewater) ad nauseum.
"AFAIK this is just some RQ-type paraphernalia that should have been smashed to smithereens with a big stick. IMO, otherworld-specific common magic should be the exception, not the rule."
Perhaps it should be the More Cock and Spheres concept of all these worlds that get's smashed. After all, the game systems that support these ideas seem to resemble that which should not be spoken about...
Cheers,
Ash
*Continuity seems to have suffered a bit between ILH1 and HQ, but it's near enough.
-----Original Message-----
From: Julian Lord [mailto:jlord_at_...]
Sent: 10 October 2003 00:36
To: HeroQuest-rules_at_yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Three Worlds headaches
I usually wait 'til I get the Digest in my inbox, but this is just TOO thought-provoking to ignore.
Alex :
> > Well hey, not _everyone_ has a headache here [N-worlds,
> concentratration]!
> I think we realize. In fact, I think this has a fairly high
> marginal propensity for some of the headaches (for those that
> suffer them) to be made worse. Due to for example, every attempt
> to address people's perceived issues with rules on same turning
> into a more-loyal-than-thou protestation-fest about the lack of
> any possible problem there. Which is perfectly fair enough
> of course, more power to 'em, but it's not what
> you'd call an actual *help* to t'other lot of us.
Well, sorry, but I've got an idea of where Greg's coming from here, and I generally agree with him.
I'll cheerfully ignore the "more-loyal-than-thou" jibe.
Fact is, the n worlds crashing into and out of each other *again* is just the cosmological reality of what is going to happen during the Hero Wars, which in turn is why the n worlds have to be narratively separate, and therefore produce apparently weird rules (but thankully playable ones in their HQ incarnation, in fact I'm playing tomorrow evening, yee-hah !!!).
I realise that the above isn't going to help everyone.
I do agree with Si however : the division of common magic into the various magic systems is confusing and provides no obvious benefit. I am utterly unimpressed by the fact that the Esvulari Hide in Cover is a Feat, Fire Stick is a Charm, and Conceal Object a Spell. The n worlds are meaningful, the n common magics (as presented) are not.
AFAIK this is just some RQ-type paraphernalia that should have been smashed to smithereens with a big stick. IMO, otherworld-specific common magic should be the exception, not the rule.
IMG I will have two kinds of Common Magic : Gifts and Talents. Oh, there will be charms, and fetishes, and icons, and symbols, and Runes in various forms, and spellsticks, and matrices, and potions, and miniaturised Mostali devices, and talking rocks, and rings, and what have you. some of these will be talents ; many will be otherworld-specific ...
I know that the idea was that each culture have its low magic that ordinary folks learn, but on analysis it was a mistake to link this stuff with the n worlds model. Certainly _some_ common magic practitioners should have a link with a specific otherworld, but I think that actually _common_ magic (as defined) should need no such link.
> > OK, HQ should have made a stronger distinction between Inner Magic
> > (hint : NOT rigid) and Common Magic
>
> Hint: there's no such thing in HQ as Inner Magic. When it was
> suggested recently, Greg was heard (well, seen) to groan loudly at
> the mere mention of such a term, as being 'mysticism' by other
> means.
> (Are you using Inner synonymously with _Innate_ magic, though?)
Hah ! Now there's an interesting slip of the keyboard.
Yes, I meant "Innate Magic", but honestly I can't find it in myself to refute (pun!) the "Inner Magic" phrase I used, nor indeed deny that I would understand such magic as being a part of a "mysticism" magic system.
I'd be interested to hear why Greg groaned, although I can certainly see that it's a pretty big kettle of fish (to mix my metaphors).
> > I think that basically the new model is far, far better the
> > bad old mucho rigid HW one (many headaches retreating, kimosabe).
>
> It's much better presented; it's rather 'kindler and gentler' in
> tone; but how is it actually any less rigid in actual mechanics?
Erm, obviously because you can mix magics, contrariwise to HW.
> In HQ you
> get the fast-track to paying double HP cost with yet more alacrity
> and frequency than in HW; in some cases, you go from 'difficult'
> in HW to 'impossible' in HQ.
I'm not sure what you are referring to, but I might hazard that your HP awarding policies may require some adjustment.
;-)
> > PS OK the 'talents' word has been misused. ie used to
> > mean two fairly different things, causing confusion and
> > commentary. Can't we just say that one variety is called
> > a 'talent' and the other variety a 'gift' or something,
> > say Common magic provides talents but Inner magic [actually,
> > Innate Magic] provides gifts ?
>
> This would be oddly contradictory of what HQ says about talents,
You are amazing Alex, you can take the most non-committal observations and then proceed to disagree with them. Not that I'm complaining, it's certainly stimulating. I'm not sure I'd have answered this mail otherwise.
:-)
ONE word is contradictory of what HQ says, and that is the word 'gift'. The purpose of that word is to propose a semantic opposition between the two varieties of "talent" definitions that you complained about.
Innate magic IMG provides Gifts. YGWV. Sheesh !!!!
> Can't we just say that 'talents' are what they've been consistently
> portrayed as being (...ish), but aren't lost when performing an
> Otherworld Concentration?
We can say so, and indeed IMG Common Magic talents won't be entirely lost because of concentration, but the problem if you recall wasn't so much the talents as Puma Person shapechanging and why it doesn't go away ; answer IMG, it's a Gift, not a Talent.
Julian
To Post a message, send it to: HeroQuest-rules_at_...
To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
HeroQuest-rules-unsubscribe_at_...
To Complain constructively please email me at steve_at_....
Powered by hypermail