Actually I want to play a knight of Ehilm, but I'd feel bad about taking a character with the concept of "prowess" and then not being able to follow through with it because my magic is inherently mechanistically weaker; I think I'd still do it (story trumps game for me), but I am enough of a gamey gamer to cringe a bit when I self-nerf.
> No-one is saying that player heroes should only have Common magic/Community
> level magic. What they are saying is that the Rules give the impression that
> most people in Glorantha have active magic - which is wrong most people have
> augment-only magic. Those with Active magic are rare, unusual, and strange.
Aha!
These rare, unusual, and strange folk are also among the most interesting and (dare I say) exciting to play for (dare I say) most people. There are assumptions that are made on the part of the user when they read the title of the game I think.
> I'm playing a character now who's an initiate, and never plan to move him
> over to Devotee - there is far much more that can be done when you don't
> have restrictions on you... And yes, description is the main part of the
> game - the numbers are after the fact.
That's neat, and I can see the appeal in some situations - but I have players of initiates in my games that bemoan their lack of nifty magic compared to players of devotees.
I also wince a little at the statement "description is the main part of the game, the numbers are after the fact" - that is certainly true, but its not exactly inspiring me to invest in rules to play Gloranthan stories with. I find it a lot easier to play stories that AREN'T Gloranthan (using "concentration" rules much like those mentioned by some recently) with the HQ ruleset. This seems pretty weird to me.
Good description can beat wonky rules, but the fact is that from reading the central book its not obvious (to me) what "good description" of Glorantha is.
--
John Machin
"Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All."
- Athanasius Kircher, 'The Great Art of Knowledge'.
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