From: gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au (Graeme Lindsell)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: RuneQuest advocacy (Rebuttal)
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Date: 16 Dec 1992 06:50:19 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.36.75

In article <254@blue.cis.pitt.edu>, seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp)
wrote:
> 
> In article <gal502-071292183900@150.203.36.75> gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au (Graeme Lindsell) writes:
> >In article <10488@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP>, seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea
> >Wasp) wrote:
> >> 	"50" weapons is of course an exaggeration. Three each was the
> >> usual number (not counting ranged, etc). But it did rather remove the
> >> normal tendency of people to focus on ONE weapon; everyone used
> >> all of the "really good" weapons.
> 
> >actually in the rules of RQIII, but I could be wrong. If one is blase
> >enough to be willing to switch weapons in the middle of a fight, obviously
> 
> 	I've already said this twice: you didn't switch IN THE MIDDLE of
> the fight (unless the "fight" really WAS unimportant), but from fight to
> fight. That is, Joe of Hormka runs into a trollkin. He whips out his 
> sword, the two beat on each other, trollkin bites the dust. Ten minutes
> later, Joe encounters a broo. Joe now whips out his axe and chops broo
> to bits. And so on.

 And I have already replied: ALL  experience increases are given at the
_discretion_ of the game master. If (s)he thinks that you are attempting
to abuse the system, you are denied any increase. The condition for an
increase is that it is used in an important and/or desparate situation.
If you are willing to use a weapon you are second class at, you musn't find

the fight very desparate. Most RPG's I know of put the experience award 
in the hands of the GM; the problem with RQ is that the amount of award
isn't
under the GM's control - it's always 1d6, and only if you make an increase
roll.


> 
> > But spirit magic is not meant to be this kind of magic. I once
> >read about a tribe in New Guinea who were playing a game of cricket, a
> >tribe who still practiced magic. The bowler was casting spells to guide
> >the ball towards the wicket, the batsman spells to guide it towards his
> >bat,
> >the wicket-keeper (short-stop for North Americans) to guide it to his
> >hands.
> >The fielders were casting spells to help the bowler, or confuse the
> >batsman.
> 
> 	That's true. But even if those spells worked (and obviously
> with all those people throwing opposing spells around, I doubt you
> could ever prove it), the implied effects are... puny. Call it minor magic
> or weak TK, but just not what I've always associated with the term MAGIC --
> you know, earthshaking, awe-inspiring, etc...

 But the people mentioned are puny magic users. I'm sure those New Guinea 
believed that their tribal Shaman could have had much greater effects on
the 
game than they had (so they probably didn't ask him to play). In RQ there
are people with access to much more powerful magic than simple spirit
magic:
Shamans with fetches,spirits and elementals, Priests with divine magic (and
some spirits and elementals too, in some cases), Sorcerers with sorcery
(and
maybe some elementals as well). These are the people with the powerful
magic.

The point of spirit magic is this: that in a world where magic exists,
where
it has a powerful influence on the fabric of the world, there is no reason
to limit effective ( not necessarily powerful ) magic to only the
professional 
magicians. The professional magicians do have the earth-shaking magic
(literally, in the case of the Maran Gor cult).

Glorantha is such a world, and everyone has access to weak, but effective
magic. 
You will argue that most fantasy isn't like this: only the magicians have
powerful magic. The New Guinea example describes a culture that believes in
a
lot of magic: everyone can use some. The fact that most modern fantasy
isn't like
this  has a lot more to do with the spectacular unoriginality of most
recent
fantasy IMHO.

 Your other problem, the rather unheroic lives of most RQ characters, I
dealt
with in my previous post, and even agree with to an extent. I am currently 
playing the BorderLands campaign: I find the life of professional mercenary
/hired thug tiring.

 NB: If you didn't play Gloranthan RQ, then in my opinion, you didn't play
RuneQuest: the game was originally designed with that world in mind. Other
people disagree, of course.

> 
> 
> >> 	Nope. Haven't seen [Seven Samurai] yet. And going through TEN swords in
> >> one battle sounds more like Inspector Clouseau meets Monty Python
> >> than heroic battle...
> 
> > Do yourself an enormous favor and see what they plagiarised (sp?) to
> >make "The Magnificent Seven".
> 
> 	The what? Never heard of it, except maybe vaguely. I've heard of
> Seven Samurai, and intend to see it, eventually. But I can only very
> vaguely remember hearing of the Magnificent Seven.

Have you seen "Battle Beyond the Stars" then? Or read "Thrud the Destroyer"
perchance?

> 
> 
> 
> 					Sea Wasp

Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au
Research School of Chemistry,
Australian National University
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy