Uses of Magic (was Roads, Better Vingans)

From: morganconrad <morganconrad_at_...>
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 19:09:20 -0000

In the Vingan thread, John postulates that the large sword is magically enchanted to move as light as the wind. I much prefer the simpler solution of just making it smaller, so as not to worry about whether magic can break the laws of physics, and, if it can make the sword have less mass, does it do less damage, in which case, why bother making it so big to begin with? :-)

Roderick postulates that the Sartarites expends lots of Earth Magic to maintain their roads.

I know that Glorantha is highly magical, yada yada, but there must be limits and opportunity costs. If you are spending lots of MP maintaining a road, you have less MP to fight off Malia, make the apple trees grow, stop those cold winter winds, etc.

So, partly out of personal preference for simplicity, partly due due these tradeoffs, I'm leery of just saying "it's magical" to enhance relatively mundane, uncritical things.