> But, yes, back then RPGs didn't make you associate with certain folks to
> get
> magic. I think that the associations for magic are the key to making HQ the
> game that it is.
>
I do not think this is entirely accurate. Runequest was ALL about making assocations with cults in order ot get magic - whether by paying the cult to teach you with the money you looted from trolls, or as a reward for killing broos, or by not wearing armour on your left leg as a geas, or by reciting poetry at your enemies, or whatever. The method of simulating/modelling this relationship was different from HQ but it was there.
In fact, the cult descriptions of Runequest, IMO, give more of a feeling of how people in the cult actually might think than all this talk of "common religion", and power from otherworlds and concentration. I think real people are usually more concerned with the trivial details and specifics of a social situation (such as a common religion) than in the metaphysics, which no one would really unerstand properly. Common magic seems to me to be along the lines of "we do this, and this happens, we never do this or else this happens" -more like superstitions than an advanced theology. With specialized religon we have ":we do this, *because of this*, and then this happens" - with more understanding of how things work, or what things mean.
Keith
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