Re: Defending against magic with mundane

From: Jamie <anti.spam_at_...>
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:54:12 -0000

My take on the whole magic v mundane debate is that it may perhaps be coloured by setting.

If your setting describes magic as somehow above reality in power or effectiveness then it makes sense for magic to be the primary defence against itself. This was very much the RQ way, where such magic as counter-magic and detection blanking was the norm.

In this respect Magic becomes a totally separate game beyond the mundane, where it is irrelevant how tough you are against disruption spells.

Staying with the Glorantha setting, as I see it, the move to HW/HQ allowed a more flexible approach to this. In RQ Detect Ambush used to be a binary "key in Lock" type spell, where if an ambush was present and the correct spell was used then its presence was detected, but now if an ambush is present your detection opposes the effectiveness of the ambush and produces a Complete / Major / Minor / Marginal result, making magic v mundane possible. (Indeed may even be used to enhance a skill.)

As written the default resistance to magic and the extra cost of magic for advancement would indicate that magic is supposed to be flexibly applied but is more than mundane, and this seems to be a Gloranthan specific decision. However there are no apparent rules for using modifiers for mundane skills opposed by magic, just the general rule of deciding how appropriate the skill used is. So as written its up to you if mundane skills are appropriate, and how effective they are.

Within a Gloranthan game this is still a style choice and open to individual interpretation, but more so if the setting is your own.

Having magic just another type of skill will have both subtle and overt effects on the way you see the world, it is therefore the kind of thing that is best discussed up-front with players.

I would advocate a flexible line, where the context of how magic or skills are applied along side the setting and style choices for the campaign, are the key to each decision on its merits.

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