>From: David Dunham <david_at_...>
>
>Sarah
>
> >I think I need to
> >spend some time looking through the myths (etc) & trying to come up
> >with some "active" uses for those very passive looking feats (such
> >as Swordhelp)
>
>I actually think you *shouldn't* look through the myths. You should
>be able to play HeroQuest without having to know a lot of lore. And
>you will never know as much as your character knows in any case.
Amen. Here's how my games go, which works very well. Have your player make up the myth in question to justify his intended use of the ability. For example, instead of trying to find Sword Help myths that will justify the example uses (which is almost certainly bound to fail), simply have them make up a myth that fits. In the example ritual for sharpening, for example, the player might only have to say: "The Sword Help feat comes from when my diety sharpened all of the weapons of the gods before a great battle once."
Doesn't have to be any more detailed than that (though if a player wants to wax creative, let them certainly). Truth be told, I actually don't even require this much, and we mostly just imagine that there are myths to support whatever use the player puts the ability. Once he's used it in a particular way, it starts to take shape. At that point, if he wants to use it in a seemingly different place, he'll have to explain how the feat's use in this case relates to the previous use.
But even here, best policy seems to be to let them "get away with it." See an earlier thread in this group about the Sunset Leap ability. Every use of an ability expands the seeming depth of the myth behind the feat (whether you enumerate it or not).
Think of it this way...if the player was using the "As You Go" method and/or creating a new magic keyword, he'd have to be creating his abilities on the spot. If a player creates an item, he's urged to use the "Ambiguous Naming Rule" and to figure out what things do on the spot in play. Figuring out what feats do can work just the same. They tend to be somewhat ambiguously named anyhow - there are no "spell lists" with precise descriptions of effects. YGWV - how you interperet particular ability names will vary from how others do it.
Embrace this. It means that more abilities will become interesting in play than if you try to go looking for some myth that'll tell you why it doesn't happen to be pertinent in situation X. This is one of the many reasons that I play in a world that has very little written about it's myths, in fact, so that players don't feel like there's some pre-defined myth to go looking for, but to make up the myth as they need it.
I advocate this for coming up with hero quests as well. Sure, if the Lightbringer Quest is the right one to run, or some other known one, go for it. But if the characters have some need, and they want to turn to strong magic to satisfy it, then simply work with them on coming up with a myth that suits their need. Oh, if they need something extremely specific, you don't have to make a myth that gives them specifically that which would seem tailor made for them. But you can always come up with something plausibly close.
For instance, we had one game where one player thought it would be cool to have a heroquest in which she would become impregnated by this minor god. We didn't make it like "Foreign Girl Gets Impregnated by Diety X" but came up with a myth in which the god does impregnate the main character. And so the player got what she wanted, and the diety's mythology was expanded in our game.
This is a great way to ensure that the players are interested in the background of the world - they make it up to be pertinent to their play. As the book says, "It's Their Glorantha, Too."
Mike
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