Re: Whose Hills?

From: bethexton <bethexton_at_...>
Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 19:59:28 -0000

wrote:
>
> Don't forget to add in the effects of active intelligences in your
> calculations Those Limestone Hills and Granite knuckles might well
(and
> probably do) have some sort of intelligence in them......Certain
animals or plants may be
> found only on a one hillside, or below a specific waterfall

Absolutely! In my mind, the main point of having a "rule" is to have fun with the exceptions :)

The thing is that a large, perfect, grove of pure white birch doesn't seem strange and likely magical unless you know first that most of the forest is spruce and ash and that the birch are normally only scattered near water. Or you only know that a wind from the east in Sea Season probably means trouble once you know about the normal weather. Or more dramatically, the dragon waking up and eating most of the lunar provincial command has best impact when you know that there are *not* dragons alive under every hill.

More abstractly, you can only make something cool, unusual, or impressive once the players have a benchmark of what drab, normal, run-of-the-mill is. The same rule applies to setting in its many forms as it does to magical objects, opponent skill, or types of magic. I firmly believe that Glorantha in general and Sartar in particular is full of wonders, but still you need to know about the mundane too *.

--Bryan

• in many campaigns people just assume the mundane is roughly what they experience or have seen on TV or in movies. That works great if you are all comfortable with it, but it makes it harder to work in subtle clues or sensible problems sometimes. Also, sometimes you hit the sort of situation that I recall from trying to run a cyberpunk game player: "OK, I pull out my gun and tell the cabbie to take me to X. me: "Well, there is a bulletproof clear barrier between you, of course, so he remotely locks the doors and heads for the police station." player: "What, why didn't you tell me about that?" me: "Well of course in a dangerous area the cabbies have security shields." player: "I've never seen a taxi like that!"

In other words, sometimes that subtle gap in assumptions about what is normal can be a source of real gaming pain.