Don't common magic religions eat up 10% of time and HP? Usually that can be considered part of normal life, such as Flesh Man for the Heortlings, but Self Rock would be different. As has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, your munchkin spends 10% of his time talking to his rock.
> The Glorantha.com site notes that this scenario is possible, and
> suggests a number of ad hoc solutions to avoid it, such as inventing a
> social sanction for characters who concentrate on common magic
> exclusively, or arbitrarily prohibiting proposed specific common magic
> abilities case-by-case. I am looking for a solution that's less ad hoc
> and requires less narrator discretion, namely house rules.
So your beef is actually with Common Magic, but your solution was generalized to all forms of magic. OK. I was a bit slow on the uptake of that.
>>> My heortling warrior would have to concentrate on theistic magic upon
>>> initiating in Orlanth? Well, since "all" the population is
initiated to
>>> O or E, you've just emasculate Flesh Man.
>
> For the Orlanthi "all" of 85%, that's correct. Somewhere in that 15%,
> however, there can be someone who devotes himself exclusively to the
> Flesh Man. With the proposed rules, he will be handicapped, compared
> to his fellow Heortlings, until he learns the Selfrock Teaching and
> subsequently maintains it with 20% of of his time and resources
> (modeled as Hero Points).
OK. That sounds like a good way to quick power, but lousy when it comes to Hero Questing. I would think that this type of character would be crappy at taking the roles of the various Gods, so for most HQ's he'll end up as a secondary character. Or give Common Magic a penalty on the otherside.
> Even if you don't buy that interpretation (it's contradicted by the
> Hero Improvement Costs table elsewhere in the HQ book), a character
> who has learned the Selfrock Teaching can use any common magic
> abilities actively. Learning the Selfrock Teaching is simpler to do
> than even devoting to a deity (half a mastery simpler, according to
> the rules).
Sure, each common religion only eats up 10%. But much like animism, it seems a way to have lots of diverse powers quickly but fewer big guns in the long run. Like everything else that is a trade off. You've obviously had more problems with it than I've had.
>>>> > 2. All Specialized Magic Systems, even the Selfrock Teaching,
require
>>>> > an ongoing commitment of no less that 20% of a character's time and
>>>> > resources, modeled as Hero Points.
>
>>> Isn't that already in the rules?
>
> The Selfrock Teaching at presented on page 108 of the HQ book requires
> no ongoing commitment, just beating a 10w resistance with one's best
> Common Magic ability and paying one Hero Point.
As I said, I thought that it was a common magic religion so it takes up 10%. Of course, this is less than the 20% you propose.
>>> I thought that most initiates could only augment from the affinities.
>
> An initiate who concentrates theism can improvise a named feat within
> an affinity at -5. If he raises the relevant affinity to 18 (cost: 3
> Hero Points), his rating is 13, just as good as many of his starting
> abilities. So there's no reason why initiates won't use feats actively
> on a regular basis, unless the narrator disallows it for some reason.
Oops. Is that another HWism of mine? I've not been very good at changing mental gears. I need to reread some rules.
> I can devise various ad hoc incentives to steer them into specialized
> magic, such as arbitrarily shooting down common magic abilities that
> players devise, requiring them to join specific religions to even
> participate in the game, and so on. But I'd prefer to create a small
> set of rules that all the characters know up front, so the whole
> business is less arbitrary.
Have you tried talking to said munchkin and asking him to stop? If not, make him the center of a few sessions. Since won't name his god and he talks to a rock, I"d guess that he was a trickster or a shaman. Either way, you can have a bit of fun at his expense. Someone used the term "social contract", which is not how I had thought of the problem, but that hits the nail squarely on the head. If your munchkin breaks the contract, then you can too. I'm not talking about trying to kill him, just have some fun at his expense.
Since this isn't a rules-y solution, it isn't exactly what you were looking for. It is less drastic than removing Self Rock from your Glorantha, and might be more fun. Good luck with whatever you try.
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