>From: "Thorsten" <eisigerprinz_at_...>
>
> >As such, I suppose a Puma Person who
> > accidentally got switched with an Orlanthi child at birth or somesuch
>might
> > develop with the Orlanthi homeland, but with, essentially, a
>"PumamPeople"
> > species package that included his natural ability to shapechange.
>Classic PC
> > stuff.
>
>I don't think he made that claim because of the Shapechanging ability.
>As I understood him, his intention was to differentiate between
>someone being a spiritist/practictioner/shaman, and someone being a
>member of one of the magic systems. I'm not sure this distinction
>works, though. As far as I can see, being a member of any animist
>religion autmatically means you're *at least* a spiritist. Right?
I think you misunderstand my clarification. Yes, all members of an animist religion are at least spiritists. What I'm saying is that there are potentially individuals who exist who have the Puma Person's Natural Magic ability to shapeshift who are not animists. In a way what I'm saying is that they're not culturally Puma People then, in all likelihood (though I woudn't be surprised to find some exception to this rule generally - a Puma People who have been converted, settled in Railos and who worship western monotheism, mayhap).
The point is that the natural magic is part of their ancestry, but their culture doesn't 100% have to be the wandering Puma People culture listed in the book.
>*That* was my main question. Of course I'm aware of this not being any
>kind of "strict" rule, merely "how it usually works out". I wanted to
>know if I'm going totally against what's commonly done when allowing
>players to not specify any magic and then still have the common magic
>kw as well as the basic level of their homeland specialized magic kw.
I think that almost everyone allows both of these sans listing in narrative.
>It does strike me as a bit unfair / unbalanced though, that a player
>who wants their char to differ from the usual in regards to their
>magic has to specify that difference. This is unfair in that in
>effect, the player still gets just one specialized magic kw, but now
>they suddenly had to include it. Am I thinking too much in terms of
>numbers, gains, and benefits here?
As it happens, I use the list method to avoid this sort of problem. I don't think that requiring a player to list such a thing in their narrative is too punitive, no. Actually it fits in with the HQ model which is to generally force players to delineate how their characters are exceptions. For instance, all "Other" abilities have to be listed in the narrative, and these are all "how my character varies from the stereotypes."
Further, it can be easily argued that a specialized magic keyword is worth it's weight in words. They're generally much more powerful than the "base level" keywords. The slight incentive not to list such a keyword is fun, IMO, because it means characters who are "undecided" to some extent in terms of their beliefs. They can, at least, choose to join some cult or organization belonging to their religion later (if not some organization belonging to another). Moreover I think that a balance of characters who are less into magic makes sense.
Interestingly, the way I query players to get their keywords, I have probably 50% of characters who are at "base level" and 50% who have higher level committments.
>That's actually an issue I had with the magic system when I read the
>chapters a while ago. There's no real reason in the game *mechanics*
>to one system over the other, is there?
Well, yes and no. The system doesn't try to mechanically incentivize one method over another for any particular sort of action, no. But, obviously, certain cults fit certain character types better than others. Basically the rationales for what you have are all in-game (this is what I don't like about the concentration rule, it creates a gamey incentive to make a decision that's supposed to be based on in-game logic). Further, actually, there are some ways in which certain magics are more potent here and there - again mostly based on in-game logic. For instance, animist practitioners can release fetishes for really big bonuses to their actions (shamans with big spirits are really potent in the short-run). Wizards can, similarly, attune to essences that can allow them large bonuses in certain situations.
You will find that one warrior cult here is similar in what abilities are delivered by a warrior practice there. The "advantages" lie not so much in terms of what abilities are conferred, but in terms of how the character gets the abilities. A warrior in a theist cult has ready access to feats, and can improvise a lot, but doesn't have the kick from releasing a fetish, or using an essence. Then again, neither does he have to deal with recalcitrant spirits, or have to attune to essences either.
It's more about the nature of the magic, and how the character obtains it in terms of in-game logic. And, more importantly, it's related to the myths of the organization delivering the magic in that the heroquests and such to obtain more power will be based on the myths in question.
No, HQ doesn't (for the most part) incentivize any one sort of magic over another. What it does is to give you an in-game differentiation between the sorts of magic that the different cultures use. You're not taking a "cleric" who gets his "spells" from a set list shared with all other "clerics" in the world. The abilities that your liturgist or devotee may get come from his diety, or the writings he's learned about said diety. It says something about the characters beliefs, and how that will impact play. That's why the differentiation exists, in my mind.
>You can always fill the gaps
>in your abilities with common magic from one place or the other.
Weeel, keep this in mind. Common magic abilities have to be raised individually. For the other methods, there are ways to "mass raise" ability levels up more quickly for groups of abilities. Theists have affinities. Animists only raise up their relationships to spirits which can represent several abilties (and, indeed, a spirit can be obtained with very high abilities at any time, in theory). Adepts can raise up whole books of spells at one time (in the case of the abiding book, this is like a couple dozen abilities, for instance).
But, yeah, there's really no limitation on what the character can have for magic. Heck, skip the common magic, and just give them natural magic abilities that do whatever you like. The system isn't there to stop you from getting any particular ability, it allows any, including magic. What the character generation system does is to try to give a framework for how the character obtains his magic, and what having that magic means.
For natural magic, it means that the character just has an innate ability - that's going to strongly inform the character's identity (that Puma Person raised in Seshnella is going to have some explaining to do when he accidentally goes puma in the town square one day...) For Common Magic, it simply means that the character has picked this up from the general culture about him, or even places he's visited. For Theism, the keyword places the character in some stage of learning about specific dieties. For Wizardry the magic obtained can come from various paths, each dealing with it's own way of understanding the essence of the world. For Animism the character has to indicate what groups of spirits he has familiarity with.
In all specialized cases, more importantly, the character has relationships to people and beings involved in these organizations. In many ways this is what "differentiates" the user of the magic... who he owes duty to for it, or who he can rely on to help him with it. This is key. Is the character a protege of a shaman? Does he attend a wizardly school? Does he help a particular priest out a lot in return for help in learning new feats in the God World? On the higher level, what is the Shaman's relationships with his various spirits like? What grimoires does the wizard study, and what essences does it teach him about? What daimones does the character have experience with, and how does his diety feel about his level of devotion?
These things are all listed on the character sheet, and will all inform how well the character can perform magically. In the case of common magic and natural magic, these things are usually conspicuously absent, which says a lot itself. An Adept might get his school masters' help in enchanting a magic sword, but the Puma Person has to learn to shapechange all on his own.
>What do you mean by "passive" magic?
The rule is that any non-concentrated common magic is "passive" meaning that it can only be used to augment. Sometimes people use the term "augment-only," though this also gets used for abilities that just never seem to get used as primary for contests, despite it not being disallowed entirely.
>And yes, it is very tempting to
>treat all listed magic abilities as natural magic. I'm just worried if
>that's not a tad too powerful?
Again, given that most players will just concentrate their chosen form of common magic, and thus have active abilities, it's no more powerful. All this does is to leave a less powerful option, which is not concentrating, for which there is little to no incentive. We're just supposed to understand that few Gloranthans do it, and that the high percentage of PCs who do is about them being special cases, if that happens.
Interestingly I don't mention concentration to players who don't take specialized magic, and so, again, 50% of my characters aren't concentrated. That said, I also don't charge double for non-concentration, and generally have an entirely alternate rule for handling concentration (I just make it an ability like any other). So nobody would have reason to complain. In this way I hope to make concentration an "in-game" sort of decision again.
>Isn't it a situation that regularily
>comes up in chargen? Someone narrates/lists an ability that's clearly
>beyond the mundane skills. How have you people coped with that?
That's a fascinating question. For most players sticking to the options in the book, this just won't come up. That is, they see common magic as an option, but don't even know that natural magic exists unless they've read the essay. Many narrators don't even know it exists as separate (possibly assuming that the Puma Person's shapeshifting is some sort of animism Hero Forming or such). Given this, no, actually it's not been a huge problem that I've found.
Again, the way I handle chargen is to ask for a concept, and then query the player about parts of the concept: What sort of place does the character come from? What's his position in society? What does he believe? What other things can we say about him?
Doing it this way, sometimes players do come up with natural magic ideas for characters. I had one player who wanted to be a dragon with amnesia trapped in human form (he didn't know he was a dragon). He had massive natural abilities. But it came about as part of the character concept, not as a way to get more ability for the same number of points.
....And, again, I actually make the points the same for all of these systems in play. I don't charge extra for non-concentration, and play fast and loose with the "passive" magic idea (indeed this is implied in the text as the way to deal with it - that's a complicated discussion I don't want to rehash right now). So through some small adjustments my game varies from RAW in ways that make all of this a non-issue, and puts the decisions back on even ground for the player. With the chargen method I use, they don't have a chance to "min-max." But after chargen, they might feel that they've made a mistake if they learn that their choice means that they have to spend more points for the same powers (or less powerful versions), so I just eliminate that.
I have played with the RAW, and it wasn't a huge problem or anything. Given players who understand that the idea is to create a character based on what's cool about them in terms of their beliefs and such, I don't think there'll be much issue (they'll just find some of the cost rules confusing). With players more used to the classic RPG paradigm of powering up, this might lead to some behaviors that eliminate whole character options, yes.
One thing to consider is that everyone will still have Common Magic if they're interested, and you allow it, since it gives them a free 5 abilities without mentioning them in the narrative. It's only any "other" magic abilities that might not end up being common magic. Again, not a huge deal.
Mike
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