> > Told me section' and in the Tribes information. Agreed, the history
> > is not as detailed as in KoS, but do we want too much repeated
> > information.
>
>Indeed, and there lies the rub. HW suffers a personality crisis
>about whether it is for newbies or established gloranthaphiles. A
>product which requires a seperate purchase should a) come with a
>warning as in batteries not included and b) can freely be considered
>broken or deceptive.
But BA does NOT require KoS to be useful. Its an introductory scenario pack, and, if my group is anything to go by, scenarios and cameos that will fill a dozen or so sessions. It does require Hero Wars itself (which is mentioned on the back) and much of it needs Thunder Rebels or Storm Tribe, which perhaps should be mentioned. However, even without anything but the rules, this is perfectly usable, and neither broken nor deceptive. (Itself an un-necessarily abusive term.)
> > am justing pointing out that it does not stop play.
>
>It stopped my play. I was initially very excited with HW, but
>decided in the end there was not enough info for me to be happy and I
>would wait for more to be published. But what I got was a spell
>list - oh sorry, a book of myths. OK, so now I'm being sarcastic,
>but I thought ST was pretty much a waste of money; or more
>accurately, it would have been perfect if a later supplement after
>more setting material had been established. Now I'm in the position
>of waiting to see IF the setting material will be established.
Okay, remember the box for the initial rules release? The description of 'in Mythic Glorantha'? 'Mythic'? (OK, So I'm being sarcastic too.) Books of myths, gods to interact with, choices for players outside the norm, are VERY important. Thunder Rebels gives a ton of background/setting detail, but it would have been useless (to me, anyway) without Storm Tribe. Many people want to play Vinga/Humakt/Yinkin/whatever worshippers. Hardly a waste of money.
Aren't you also the person who's refusing to buy BA? So you won't spend money on the setting book you claim to be waiting for? What's putting you of? Descriptions of all the tribes? How feuds work? How raids work? Details of Lunar forces? Interaction between PCs and their community? Sure there's stuff missing, but its only 72 pages long. Next volume will have more. And the one after that. BA does go a long way towards filling the 'I can't play HW because there's no ready made scenarios' hole.
>In fact L5R is quite
>interesting in this regard because it pays so little attention to the
>actual religious beliefs of people; but it discusses that culture
>anyway through its objects - the role and significance of a gunsen, a
>saki cup, the daisho, how clothing is made, the peasant economy.
Whereas TR and especially ST discusses the culture directly, with the role and significance of objects being secondary. Read both again, you'll find plenty of discussion of objects, weapons, clothing, hairstyles, but all within their cultural context. L5R, along with most western takes on Japan, suffers from focusing on the objects, because it DOESN'T (seem to) understand the culture that lies underneath. TR tries to deal with the culture and beliefs first.
>Honourable mention also to Ars Magic's Mythic
>Europe, a marvellous piece demonstrating just how easy it is to do a
>gazzeteer that gives good and useful information about named places
>without ruling out any ambiguity - and provides not merely a "who is
>king" but who WAS king too. Obviously AM has the advantage of a real
>world to work from, but I certainly think it was a good example of
>how world exposition can be carried out.
Obviously this is a completely different Ars Magica's Mythic Europe than the 'produced by a guy who failed first year medieval history' piece of tat that I've seen... Seriously, pick up any reasonable text book on the era, and see the difference. I've known a few people run the game, but no one who didn't throw the setting guide out in favour of the text book...
-- Graham Robinson graham_at_... Albion Software Engineering Ltd.
Powered by hypermail