Spirit Cults Rune magic questions

[Godlearner]

I avoid all of this because in my world all santients can actually see their character sheets and made decisions based on that information.

[Joerg]

On 7/6/2023 at 11:42 AM, Akhôrahil said:

Sources differ. Paulis Longvale not only names the spells, but also the size (such as someone casting Xenoheal 4). This is probably excessive, though.

Paulis was trained as an Irrippi Ontor scribe, tasked with observing the barbarians he visited. There is a good chance that he used quantized jargon from the Imperial College of Magic to document what he witnessed.

In other words, a nerd.

[Godlearner]

7 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Paulis was trained as an Irrippi Ontor scribe, tasked with observing the barbarians he visited. There is a good chance that he used quantized jargon from the Imperial College of Magic to document what he witnessed.

In other words, a nerd.

I man after my own heart.

[Lordabdul]

On 7/14/2023 at 2:58 AM, DrGoth said:

It's interesting. HPs are obviously an out of game world abstraction. And no one (well, no one sane) would in world think their skills are on a 100 pt scale.  But the number of steps involved in spells. They could exist in world in those increments. It's conceivable that in world someone might say "I learnt bladesharp. Then improved it three times".

I once (long ago) wrote an RPG rulebook that happened to be an "in world" item of the RPG's own setting, written by a mad scientist that went insane when he realized the "reality" of his world... which is of course that everything can be described by dice probabilities, and that everybody, except a chosen few, are controlled by an uncaring "god" (the GM).

Of course, many years later, I learned about the secret of the God Learners which is called the "RuneQuest Sight" or something, and which might be very well the same thing! So maybe Glorantha does indeed work that way, but only the God Learners ever knew it!

More seriously, like others have already noted, it might all be irrelevant anyway. Swords don't "work" by dealing between 1 and 8 "points of damage" (what's a "point of damage" anyway?) But the rules model how the sword functions in "reality". So the spells also model that. Bladesharp doesn't exactly increase the severity of the wounds you deal with a weapon by a fixed amount because there's no such thing as "a fixed amount of wounds". But it does make your sword sharper and more dangerous and more precise. It's a thing that it actually does in Glorantha, and people find that very useful indeed. And some spells do it better than others, so the God Learners grouped all those spells under the same umbrella ("Bladesharp", which I believe is an in-world term used by the God Learners... Biturian Varosh uses those terms!) and gave it a number, just like we give numbers to represent better models of microprocessors or whatever.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Lordabdul

[Godlearner]

2 hours ago, Lordabdul said:

I once (long ago) wrote an RPG rulebook that happened to be an "in world" item of the RPG's own setting, written by a mad scientist that went insane when he realized the "reality" of his world... which is of course that everything can be described by dice probabilities, and that everybody, except a chosen few, are controlled by an uncaring "god" (the GM).

Of course, many years later, I learned about the secret of the God Learners which is called the "RuneQuest Sight" or something, and which might be very well the same thing! So maybe Glorantha does indeed work that way, but only the God Learners ever knew it

What you are describing has its own literary genre LitRPG LitRPG - Wikipedia. "RuneQuest Sight" can be viewed (and is by me) as manifistation of this. 

[Akhôrahil]

7 hours ago, Lordabdul said:

I once (long ago) wrote an RPG rulebook that happened to be an "in world" item of the RPG's own setting

The Dresden Files RPG rulebook is supposed to be an in-world artifact, with the objective of teaching people about the supernatural and how to oppose it, much as Dracula was in the world as well.

[Shiningbrow]

18 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Calling the god until your target  (= 90%) then nothing more (or anything involving someone as a "tool" for your experience check, then forget them) in a pure mechanic optimization is what I dislike. Playing against your passion is what I dislike (I say I, other may have different taste, no issue).

Ummm, I think I'm a little confused, but also agree.

"Calling your god until your target then nothing more" seems odd to me. I can't see what you mean by this... perhaps an example? Because, the only thing I can see that working with might be a Rune increase (and that can be taught anyway), and if you're getting that Rune increase, it's purely so you can cast your Rune spells more effectively. I am having trouble imagining someone doing it and then never using that Rune again...

 

I do agree with you about people playing against their character's passions - that's not playing the character!!! If you didn't want them to act that way, then they shouldn't have the passion! If you just want the benefits, then you're not really playing in the heart of the game/world.

 

18 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

But if you want an exotic skill, or something deeper (POW ...) then you may become an "apprentice" (priest / shaman / smith / skill master ...) . Find a master, obey, serve and learn (gain loyalty, ... or hate 😛 , change your occupation according to your master,... assistant priest / assistant shaman / smith / skill apprentice ...) but that would imply your background and how it changes your pc's view of the world. That should not play like "hey I learn 2% with this postcast! star wars yes, (my) glorantha no 😛

I would imagine that most temples and the priests/Rune Lords/GodTalkers would be more than happy to help aspiring initiates to advance in the cultic ways - especially if you were closing in on a Rune Lord position.

[French Desperate WindChild]

40 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

"Calling your god until your target then nothing more" seems odd to me. I can't see what you mean by this... perhaps an example? Because, the only thing I can see that working with might be a Rune increase (and that can be taught anyway), and if you're getting that Rune increase, it's purely so you can cast your Rune spells more effectively. I am having trouble imagining someone doing it and then never using that Rune again...

"Oh Orlanth I beg you, give me more breath to fight my ennemy"

I mean it can be spell, it can be rune, etc... but at the end of the day the gloranthan worshippers don't say I use my rune to improve xx or to cast zzz. They call what they believe/worship  to do things.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

"Oh Orlanth I beg you, give me more breath to fight my ennemy"

I mean it can be spell, it can be rune, etc... but at the end of the day the gloranthan worshippers don't say I use my rune to improve xx or to cast zzz. They call what they believe/worship  to do things.

King of Sartar supports that at the very least ”Sunspear” is an in-world term. And I think there would be a significant ludonarrative dissonance if PCs didn’t know what magic they were using. Conceivably Shield might not be known as ”Shield”, but surely the caster is aware he or she is invoking battle-protective magic?

[French Desperate WindChild]

10 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

King of Sartar supports that at the very least ”Sunspear” is an in-world term. And I think there would be a significant ludonarrative dissonance if PCs didn’t know what magic they were using. Conceivably Shield might not be known as ”Shield”, but surely the caster is aware he or she is invoking battle-protective magic?

oh yes; sure i m not saying  thy don't know (or name) what they do, just that, at least for me, they ask their gods (and when it is "augment by rune", I see that the rune is behind the god - for them - so they ask the god to improve the skill xxx)

 

so the shield spell,  could be called " Oh Great Yelm/Orlanth/... offer me your protection against your ennemies and You will be proud of my deeds, You will see our ennemies flee from our power, blablabla blabla"

or for an augment (rune for climb for example= "Oh great XXX, help me to climb this cliff"

by the way, I'm not say players have to say so many words, it could be a little bit boring (well at least for me 😛 )but I imagine the gloranthan saying more than "sunspear !!!"  ("Oh Yelm, let me use your sunspear again, the ennemies of light and justice in front of me need to understand, for ever, who is the only emperor")

 

for example (in this picture, it is more "I m the god" than "I beg the god", but that's the same:

player says "I cast heal wound and go to fight"

character :