Re: Level of Power of Entities

From: parental_unit_2 <parental_unit_2_at_...>
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 23:40:59 -0000

• In HeroQuest-RPG_at_yahoogroups.com, "Roderick and Ellen Robertson" <rjremr_at_...> wrote:

> Somehow I knew you'd bring this up :-). Sorry, jane, but some
individuals in
> Glorantha break even the lax rules of HQ (don't even *try* it in RQ!)

I have to admit, I'm with Jane on this one. If the rules can't model Harrek, they are lame. A lot of the sales pitch for the HW/HQ rules versus RQ was that HW/HQ _could_ scale across wide power levels.

More importantly: If a narrator wants players to be proactive and develop plot by themselves, the players need some way to know what's necessary to accomplish their ultimate goals, even if those goals are ambitious, like "kill the god of slavery". A scalable rule set isn't the only way to accomplish that, but it's a way that requires little narrator handholding.

> The difference in mastery levels. Just how did Harrek get 6+
masteries through rituals/circumstances/backup?

You know the rules better than I: If you say it's impossible, it's impossible, and the rules are broken. I would have thought he could have done it through standard HQ mechanisms such as the following:

• Multiple lower-level heroquests and rituals, the benefits taken as one-time bonuses toward the critical confrontation with the bear.
• Take on the Bear as part of a god-level quest whose earlier stations all yield significant bonuses to the critical confrontation.
• Kryptonite: Some magical artifact(s) specifically designed to take out the Bear, loaned by some community.
• Companions, which might include spirits friendly to Harrek and opposed to the Bear (and which might be able to negate the Alien World penalty).
• Magical support from multiple communities (other than the artifacts mentioned earlier).