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> Personally, I see the becoming a god bit as the end point of the campaign.
Their lack of free will makes gods themselves unplayable.
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>>PLAYING A ROLE >>The narrator will choose the ratings of opponents based on the average >>ratings of all the characters (more of this below)....
> when I've said "a typical clan
> champion has skill level 10W2" I am stuck with that choice. If I turn round
> and say "you're fighting a typical clan champion, close combat 10W4" I am
> cheating the players.
What I meant was that the narrator roughly decides the power level of the opponents, then decides what those opponents are. So if it will be a combat for 5W starting characters, the opposition might be some 5W weapon thanes; when the characters advance to 10W2 it might be the clan champion, and so on.
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>>Because what matters is relative ability, not absolute ability, the ...
> Given that the rest of the world *DOES* matter, this becomes a moot point,
> but...
If you were actually living in Glorantha, your absolute ability would matter, but by playing a game we take a different view point for which only parts of the world matter. Specifically, the parts that the narrator decides will matter: the parts that will have contests.
> If the rest of the party is choosing to be non-specialised, the combat
> munchkin becomes a destablising factor.
I don't see how. Could you be more specific? Can you give an example? I can think of situations where a combat munchkin can destabilize a game, but only if other conditions are met, which I discussed in my previous post.
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> Define "lax". Is a one mastery penalty enough? Two?
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> I'll agree that the received wisdom of "learn to say yes"
> is dangerous. At high levels that could lead to losing control of the game.
> Assigning penalties needs to be consistent, otherwise it smacks of
> cheating.
I think assigning improvisational modifiers is a tricky balancing act, and one of the skills a HW narrator has to acquire (perhaps lesson 1: 'learn to say yes', lesson 2: 'learn to say yes, but'). Too tough and you discourage players from finding imaginative, interesting and entertaining unconventional uses for their abilities. Too lax and a single character can dominate the game.
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> (1) Benedict sees ratings as a way of keeping track within a group.
This is a conclusion I've come to, from considering how the HW rules work, rather than something I believe a priori.
> I see
> them as a way of keeping track against a consistent world.
I'm inclined to try and have my cake and eat by saying its a bit of both... ;-)
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> (3) Benedict views many problems as something to be fixed by "good GMing"
> or caused by "bad GMing".
In this area, yes, but not in general. As you've probably gathered, I like the simplicity of the core HW rules. In this area, I believe the the similarity of the ability, contest and advancement rules at different power ratings are a feature worth keeping. Why? Because the use of relative abilities in the rules means that we only have to be sure the game system works at a particular power level (which we do) to know it works at all power levels (which we should conclude). Increasing the cost of advancement at high levels seems to be a suggestion that has not been play tested at high levels, so how do we know they don't break something else?
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> some of Benedict's ideas
> amount (to me) of punishing players for spending their HPs on skills they
> are interested in.
I was trying to suggest that some activities that the narrator should be doing anyway (using contests only for drama, varying the contests, giving each person a chance to be the star, providing realistic opponents) will naturally encourage players to diversify their HP expenditure, and so reduce the rate of advance.
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> The rules fix I suggest is
> aimed at those who want to run a long, long campaign
[that stays in the low to medium power range]
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Perhaps multiplying the standard costs by some factor would be a better
solution?
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