Re: Initiates using feats.

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 23:49:32 +0100


On Mon, Aug 09, 2004 at 09:57:09PM +0100, Jane Williams wrote:
> Because he points out (as I understood it, anyway), that the apparently
> insignificant expenditure of one HP (or one word/phrase in the 100) is
> not that trivial to the character.
>
> Also that the one-feat gain is narrow, whereas the affinity is broad.

Certainly both the case.  

> I'm still trying to sort out why you can't learn your "own" feats
> standalone, but I think it's to do with that "learn by rote" idea. Vinga
> says "oi! You do that *properly*, or not at all! Mess about with other
> people's stuff at a trivial level if you must, but *my* feats you
> understand or leave alone."

Right, this is what I thought we were at. I think on a 'deep Gloranthan' level, you probably _can_, in principle, learn your own feats standalone, or not, just as you can learn 'associated' magic standalone, or not. What this omits, though, is the social context: you have to persuade one or other set of religious flunkies that what you're doing is kosher, not have your clansfolk burn you as a heretic, and other such constraints. (Setting aside any possible 'inherent' magical difficulty one way or other.) Presumably in an established cult that corresponds to a legitimate, accepted social function, you're expected to take the 'package deal': cherry-picking would be seen as disrespectful, or over-specialised, or some such. OTOH when learning 'outside' magic, the dynamic is likely to be very different: it might be not so much a case of "take the whole affinity, we insist!" as "okaay, we'll let you have _this_ feat, I suppoooose". (And assorted other variations, such as the the rather 'compulsory' situation Jane alludes to.)

In short, I think it's rarely the case that 'ordinary' Gloranthans get an actual choice as to which 'format' they'll learn a given magic. (Which is a separate issue from whether PCs get such a choice, and different again from whether to give that choice to _players_.)

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