Re: "Don't mention the gyrda!"

From: donald_at_LUm_jz_uTqVs2uJ_fkgYNpta0bf4D5iOiXfZS_Qi-A9jwGoxoBYq6lx-m8XjR5e53U7uN
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:50:19 GMT


In message <p06240809c4ac4e55c411_at_[10.0.1.96]> David Dunham writes:

>Donald
>
>>The problem is that what interests one person is overly complicated
>>for others.
>
>Again, I don't think that's really the point. It's that the entire
>oeuvre is so large that you can't figure out the parts that interest
>you. Or that it's all interesting, but too much to manage.
>
>Different people will draw the brain-overload line differently, but
>anyone is subject to it.

Whereupon it becomes a matter of how you deal with that line. When I hit it I just switch off and discard that subject as more trouble than it's worth and go on to the next.

>>Gloranthan magic isn't
>>simple and needs different terms to reflect the different ways of
>>working. If you use the same terms for things which are roughly
>>equivelent rather than the same you just generate confusion.
>
>My view (not necessarily shared by anyone working on Moon Design
>products) is that this isn't true. Magic serves a purpose in the
>story. Very few stories depend on the specifics of how different
>magic works differently.

Maybe not the stories you are involved in. To me the differences between someone who tries to emulate their god, someone who begs or coerces spirits to help them and someone who reads spells from a book or prays to a saint to interceed on their behalf are important and interesting story detail. How far you go in writing rules to reflect that is a game writing decision but simplifing Glorantha to make the game rules more accessible is the tail wagging the dog. The separate section for Glolranthan magic seems a very good way of doing it.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/

           

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