Tekumel using HeroQuest

[RaconteurX]

Mike: I agree that programmed behavior can seem to be volition, that is not the issue. We have not seen many Tekumelani express superstitious behavior when encountering or using devices of the Ancients, so I find it difficult to ascribe that sort of behavior to them. While they lack ability to create such items for themselves, modern Tekumelani seem to possess very little awe where such artifacts are concerned.

"Surely the clan masters will know something of this, Trinesh, or one of the Temples, or the Palace of the Realm. We will take it to be examined. Be not concerned, it will not harm you."

[RaconteurX]

An eye to be very similar to a talisman... in that you cannot improvise what the eye does. So it feels very like wizardry.

Which you'll note I mentioned in the sentence immediately following the one you quoted. :)

Giving the item an ability rating. In this context... is more similar to animist magic fetishes. The hero point costs to cement their rating [could come] straight off the animist magic table.

More or less what I was thinking, though some eyes have broad functions more akin to affinities than spells. HeroQuest does not really give us guidelines for cementing "items of great power", and the costs found on the Animist magic table are as good as any.

Good call, Ian.

[Ian Cooper]

HeroQuest does not really give us guidelines for cementing "items of great power", and the costs found on the Animist magic table are as good as any.

I had not thought about it until ruminating on your question, so I am glad to have 'realised' that use of the table. Thanks for asking the question.

[Mike Holmes]

Mike: I agree that programmed behavior can seem to be volition, that is not the issue. We have not seen many Tekumelani express superstitious behavior when encountering or using devices of the Ancients, so I find it difficult to ascribe that sort of behavior to them. While they lack ability to create such items for themselves, modern Tekumelani seem to possess very little awe where such artifacts are concerned.

"Surely the clan masters will know something of this, Trinesh, or one of the Temples, or the Palace of the Realm. We will take it to be examined. Be not concerned, it will not harm you."

Good point, but I guess I point to my own experience with people and computers. People are always telling me that their machine "hates them" or has other anthropomorphized attributes (like getting a less buggy machine that then "likes them"). Essentially, lack of understanding about how the thing works precisely, even if they understand that it's programmed leads people to treat devices very much as though they were people. Up to, and including "relationship difficulties". I do find that the people who are most technophobic and unwilling to learn have this cycle reinforced on themselves by themselves by their own refusal to see that it's just a process going on. By thinking that the thing hates them, they become worse at using it. They actually start to believe that it's the machine's fault that things go wrong when they misuse it. Easier to believe than their own mistakes, certainly.

I dunno, maybe I'm stretching. But I see the phenomenon every day working in a technology company. So perhaps I'm biased. But I think it could work as an abstraction.

Anyhow, the "normal" item rules would work just fine. I'm just looking for some way to inject a little more feel to this particular situation. It could become all rather dry if player start thinking in terms of plain technology. Maybe there's a third way to handle it.

Mike

[RaconteurX]

As I mentioned here, I am into my new apartment. I have actually located my copy of Imperial Lunar Handbook and expect to post some tentative Five Empires keywords in the next few days provided I complete the preparations for my introductory HeroQuest events at U-Con (wish I had a copy of Adobe Acrobat so I could tweak the Heortling section of HeroQuest Voices to fit the particulars of my scenario background. Ah well).