>
Most feat names are very self explanatory. How many myths do you need to read to work out what "Decapitate Foe" or "Run On Treetop" might do? Sure, you need to know myths in order to make up heroquests and knowing the myths of your culture/god can add a lot of richness and depth to play. But you don't *need* this to enjoy the game as a player.
> Any successful game system needs clearly
> described, objective power descriptions. Magic in Hero Wars, for me, is way
> to vague, and the magic system is one great indication of how HW is designed
> with the Gloranthaphile in mind, as opposed to the new gamer.
If what you want is a specific, mechanical description of what each feat does then I can see how HW is disappointing. However, I think that the lack of such (unlike the rules-heavy spell lists of, say, D&D) actually frees up the new gamer who, rather than having to memorise the specific effects of what "Leap Over Obstacle" does ("you can leap over an obstacle that is no more than 6 inches high per point by which you make you roll" or some such) can instead concentrate on describing something to do with their feats. And how do they know what they can do? A combination of the Affinity name and the name of the feat. Thinking of, say, Movement-related things to do with a "Burst of Speed" or "Run Up Cliffs" feat isn't asking for a great leap of imagination/mythological thinking.
Having run demo games of HW for RQ2-vintage fans, for roleplayers who are complete newcomers to Glorantha and for people who've never roleplayed before, I've found that new gamers seem to love the freedom that not having a set description for each feat and enjoy being able to decide what to do with them without learning a whole load of special rules.
Regards,
Bruce
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