Mike:
> Your argument seems to be that no rules can create a sensible
character
> philosophy, and I'd agree with that. But the fact is that the
rules have
> never attempted to do this.
If I may interject on Charles behalf (although I know he is quite capable of speaking for himself!) :-)
I was at teh seminar that Charles was at where Greg was answering the 'Mysticism' question. I enter the caveat that I am merely regurgitating what I remember. As we all know Greg is a spiritual guy and he didn't like the mystics rules in Hero Wars as not being authentic or anything like authentic, which is why they were cut from HQ.
Greg went on to explain, in his opinion, what a real mystic is like, someway to explaining what his understanding of their goals are, and in summary, how unsuitable and uninspiring they are to play. I think just doesn't want the chop-sokey type mystic or parlour charlatan type cariacuture in Glorantha.
> Take Theism, because it's well known - what
> rules enumerate the philosophy itself? Basically it's your
> character's
> relationship to the god in question, and his knowledge of the
> myths. Those
> ability ratings don't give you any details of how the character
> knows the
> god, or what myths he knows. Just how well applying that
> relationship to a
> contest will affect things.
Mystics then have no skills or relationships. They are superfluous to their existence, and interfere with the detachment necessary to reach enlightenment. A decent stab at a player mystic would be the martial artist, but then he not a true mystic - certainly not as Greg describes them. Hence it is more appropriate to give them feats and talents.
> So I don't think that mysticism will have to do what you're asking
> it to do,
> either. Instead I think it'll just have some relationship to
enlightenment
> ability rating, and some rules for what magic this allows you to
do (which I
> think would be from a special non-otherworld otherworld). Doesn't
seem
> particularly hard to me.
Now, I have a penchant for movies such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Hence I actually have mystics in my game, based loosely on the Hero Wars model, which gives a playable type feel, and heck I am only in this for fun. Hence the feared mystic Seven-Seventh terrorises my players with his amazing abilities like phasing through walls, running at 60 mph, flight, knocking a fully armoured man unconcious with a punch, etc, etc. SS by the way is working off his mystic abilities in the M4 range!!!!!
Regards
Rob
>
> Never say never.
>
> Mike
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