> Mikko writes
> >
> >As I said, me and my gamers enjoy richness and complexity. They won't be
> >fooled by verbouse descriptions, if at the system level one god's magic
> >becomes pretty much the same as any others.
> >
>
> Hmm, at the system level, one god's magic *is* pretty much the same as
> any others, It is at the descriptive level that it differs.
>
> Storm gods, Sun Gods and Darkness Gods could all cause blindness - at
> the system level, they all do the same thing, but descriptively the Sun
> God causes a blinding light to appear before you, the darkness god pulls
> a veil of darkness over your eyes while the storm god sends stinging
> winds and rain/hail into your face blinding you.
But still, the blining light propably won't work on a solar cultist (of
suffiscient power), the darkness won't bling an Uz and the ice will be
useless against an ice demon.
At least this is how it would go in my own campaign. Would you say
that Hero Wars makes this clear to the new narrators?
> Some games like to build much of the "description" into the "system",
> but it is largely unnecessary IMO. (Eg, compare and contrast the gun
> rules in CoC with, say Twilight 2000).
Not that familiar with Twilight 2000, I'm afraid. One of the campaign's I'm gaming in at the moment is a Culthea (Shadow World) campaign run with H�rn rules. The rules are precise yet flexible, and really make one feel that there is a difference between usein Fyvrian (Earth) or Peleahn (Fire) magic, for instance. I like it.
> That said, maybe the Ars Magica/Mage route does offer some compromise.
> In those games magic can be "improvised", yet some "set spells" are also
> known and learned. While I don't think a complete list of "rules" for
> feats is a good idea (for all the reasons given by everyone else), and
> I'm not necessarily sure a complete list of "descriptions" is much
> better - especially at the cost of other cool information....) I don't
> think there should be too much problem with providing some descriptions
> of feats which can be taken as a "standard".
Hear, hear! The description (like the one I and Stephen White both suggested for the Snarl Darkness feat - about the BG's snarl making or bringing darkness) would help give the narrator and the gamers an idea what what the feat is supposed to be about. I'm afraid the poetic and often quite nice names aren't always enough (and not very atmospheric).
> Indeed I'm guessing that
> his will happen as scenarios/adventures get published when the Writer
> needs to explain how a feat is used by a NPC (or as an example of a way
> around a problem, even...).
True... Pretty much as additional rules appeared for RQ. I'd still like to see some quidelines or explanations in the core books.
-Adept
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