Re: Community Support funkiness

From: Nick_at_...
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 11:29:16 -0000


Michael Schwartz wrote:

> The following represents my attempt to redress this lack at least
> somewhat, and I invite comment. Those seven levels of support
> match up with the levels of victory and defeat as follows (a no-
> brainer, I imagine):
>
> Complete Victory = Extraordinary Support
> Major Victory = Total Support
> Marginal/Minor Victory = Ordinary Support
> Tie = Neutral
> Marginal/Minor Defeat = Objection
> Major Defeat = Forbiddance
> Complete Defeat = Condemnation

I was thinking of something similar, in which -- rather than start from the above -- the depth of religious involvement of the community was factored in, based on their level of initiation (for theists, similar for other traditions).

You could ordinarily expect to receive:

1x      Marginal or Neutral Support from Lay Members
2x      Minor or Ordinary Support from Initiates
4x      Total or Major Support from Devotees
8x      Complete or Extraordinary Support from those funky Avatar
        chappies (whose name eludes me for the moment, and who will
        be published in "Storm Tribe" per Roderick's leaks).

This could then be bumped up or down based on your success or failure in the contests or unopposed roles made to enthuse your community and followers and gain their support:

        Marginal: one bump
        Minor: two bumps
        Major: three bumps
        Complete: four bumps

The figures go negative (turn from support to opposition) if bumped below x1 -- fumble your attempt to get the community's support (two bumps down from Initiate), and you get x1 opposition rather than x2 backing. I don't think you can bump above x8.

The suggestion would then be to equate support in each category with a multiple of "one lay member's neutral support" (see that left-hand column), thus deriving a single figure for the effective supporters backing the heroquest.

This would allow us to junk the Community Support table and align the system used for HeroQuest community support more closely with the worship rules and contest resolution system. You'd redraw a single table based on outcomes from this calculation.

Example: 150 Heortling initiates (x2) successfully Orated to (one bump up) = 600 supporters.

A party of six Lightbringer Devotees = 6x8 = 48 supporters if keen, 6x4 = 24 supporters if so-so.

Routine support from a Dara Happan temple with 500 communal lay worshippers = 500 supporters.

A suggestion: the number of "lay-member-equivalents" each supporter provides *also* equals the percentage of time they spend backing the heroquest (thus, if your lay members are giving x8 extraordinary support, they are also spending 80% of their time at the temple -- that this is well out of "business as usual" shows how total their committment to your heroquest must be).

Written without access to the rules, so I may have fumbled something. Could developing this further result in something more elegant than the current clunky table?

Cheers, Nick

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