It would imply that the shamans of that tradition were intended to suck heavily, with one of their most important abilities starting at base level, implying general incompetence, with this not being mentioned
Peter, I think you are stretching your argument a bit to defend how you think it should be, even though that is not reflected in the rules.
I agree with Peters point of view, I just don't think the rules particularly support that position. But hey, poorly written keywords are nothing new in HW. Assume that some shamanic traditions should have bargain or similar and its not there. Add it in your characters if you feel like it.
> >Obviously if one clan has a Basmol lion skin fetish, other clans can still
>>worship and contact Basmol (in whatever ways his death >allows).
>
>These are not ordinary HW fetishes and thus it would be silly
>trying to infer the properties of HW fetishes based on these
>examples. The rules are fairly straightforward about the
>what an embodied fetish is so rather than vary its meaning
>to acccomodate myriad gloranthan practices, it would be far
>simpler to stipulate that a tradition can create a special
>type of fetish with the desired properties.
Yes, lets just assume that the fetish in the rules is the 'standard' fetish and there are other types that are slightly different.
At 6:01 PM -0700 24/8/00, James A. Holden wrote:
>Generally speaking, there are two kinds of spirits for any shaman: spirits
>inside the tradition, and spirits outside. As I understand it now (and I
>think I understand it more correctly, thanks to your clarifications), spirit
>combat is an appropriate method for dealing with hostile spirits outside a
>tradition, and perhaps "unruly" spirits within a tradition as well. The
>majority of spirits *within* a tradition might very well be dealt with by
>bargaining or other "social" means.
The difference between inside and outside the tradition is not so much how you deal with them, but that you know how to deal with them. Spirits inside the tradition are more likely to be dealt with without combat, but that is because you know more about it. Enemy spirits can be part of your tradition, if they are known enemies linked to your tradition methods.
Its also possible to deal with spirits outside your tradition using means other than combat - its what you have to do if the spirit is large enough that you can't beat it.
And there are often spirits in your own tradition that you have to defeat in combat. For some traditions (like Telmori) its appropriate to fight to settle dominance issues, for example.
At 6:01 PM -0700 24/8/00, James A. Holden wrote:
>* Second, does the idea make sense from an in-game Gloranthan perspective?
>(We have been busy clarifying terminology, so I think the jury is still out
>on this.)
I say yes.
>* Third, does the idea introduce problems into the game (e.g. by making
>ancestor worshippers more powerful than other animists)?
Who says its restricted to ancestor worshippers?
Cheers David
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