In the thread linked to here the question was raised about how to assign abilities to the Common Magic keyword. We all know that heroes with the keyword start off with five abilites associated with it. I have a further interest in this and how common magic religions relate to the CM keyword, hence this discussion.

The previous quotes may not use the following, but for ease going forward, I'm going to make some assumptions about abreviations to make this go faster:

CM - Common Magic
CMR - Common Magic Religion
SM - Specialized Magic
K - Keyword

The latter combines with the others, so a character's Common Magic (CM)abilities all go in the Common Magic Keyword (CMK).

The following continues the pertinent parts of the discussion from the previous thread:

Mike Holmes wrote: For example, if one has a common magic religion as part of their homeland keyword, I think that the rules as they've been explained to me would indicate that this doesn't "cost" anything. That is, it's not the same as having a common magic keyword.

I'd like to see a rules citation as a basis for this. Or at least, a slightly more specific appeal to authority.

To be more precise, if the narrator dissallowed the player having a character with both kinds of keywords by the rules on P 18, then the player could still take the common magic religion offered by his homeland. Those skills and all would still be available. Just not the common magic itself such as would be under the CM keyword.

Note, however, that with about 1.5 exceptions, the CMRs listed in the "Homelands" section _do not have_ any listed 'skills and all' type of abilities, other than CM magical abilities themselves. (And the ones that do, very much smack of 'specialised religions by other means'.)

OTOH, if the ability were not part an offered common magic religion for the homeland keyword, but taken instead using profession as a rationale, Lanbril for example in many places, then that counts as the character's one specialized magic keyword. Thus one can't be an Initiate of some other god, and have the Lanbril CMR keyword to start.

Personally it strikes me as considerably less tortuous to simply say Lanbril is a "specialised religion that teaches common magic", or more to the point, just a 'religion' that does so, and boot the distinction for all purposes.

The clarification I don't like, is calling a common magic religion keyword a speicalized magic keyword. Not only is if potentially confusing (I thought these were mutually exclusive for a long time), but it's an exception to the pattern again.

To what pattern?

Given that set up and how the CM keyword abilities are constructed, I'd rule that in fact, CM represented general facility with the magic of the mundane world, and allow new abilities to be added at keyword level.

This of course means that your test as to the 'appropriateness' of something for inclusion in a common magic keyword now involves a cosmological criterion, rather than a game-mechanical one (feats, etc, vs talents, as per the concentration rule), or of character logic. It's also essentially using the logic that the CM keyword is some sort of 'big ability', rather than the usual pattern of a keyword, in a way that HQ doesn't really provide supporting machinery for. And doesn't this get us back to 'mix and match' common magic?

Hey Mike,

Now that I've stopped travelling for a while, I can read this forum again. And post. And start my game. :)

Did you ever get a response for this anywhere? Because now that I'm actually walking players through chargen, I have to admit this is a REALLY confusing point. Luckily, only one of the players has a character for whom magic is really of any direct importance, so they've mostly slid by the question, but the whole thing seems very vague to me.

I never did get any response. I figured that, again, I was just somehow making things more complicated than they needed to be somehow, and that people didn't want to encourage me. More or less.

I hope that I haven't confused you unneccessarily. That is, I hope that it really is as vague as we seem to think. Rather, I hope that somebody can tell me that I am making it more complicated than it needs to be somehow. Or, barring that, that they can make sense of my questions.

Mike

I have the feeling that for the moment I will do it on a case by case basis, and if it suddenly snaps into place in some way, I'll tell you. :)

Fortunately for me, playing in a different setting, making an adjustment to this was easy. The setting I'm in isn't so realistically (or even hyper-realistically) detailed as Glorantha, so I've just sidestepped the problem by saying that religions are religions - they all can provide either common magic, or specialized magic, depending on the nature of the cult in question. Most do both.

I've also ruled that you can either have common magic, or a specialized magic keyword, but not both. Interestingly, a couple of players have decided that they don't know any magic keyword at all, instead focusing on the mundane facets of their lives.

But I have played in Glorantha, and I'd like to understand the ideas behind how it works. Not just to understand Glorantha, but to allow for a better informed adjustment of the rules.

Mike

Hello,

I hate Common Magic. It's a huge pain in the ass. I suppose I'll draw all sorts of surprised defiance at saying that Hero Wars was simply way easier when it came to keywords and setting up plain old characters to play.

I may be wrong, but at present I blame the spectre of old-school RuneQuest, whose fans probably wailed like banshees, "Wherrrrrre's my Spirit Magic?" and cited the long-standing quote from Stafford that all of Glorantha is magical all the time.

Crap. Why not just take an Ability, "Nifty magic spoo thing," with a neat general effect, and have done? Save the keywords for the really rich stuff.

Almost the same goes for "Concentrating." Geez Louise.

Best,
Ron

I agree with you, Ron, that certain of these elements exist to address a certain agenda. But I happen to be on board with that agenda to some extent. That is, I could play your version of the game, and probably have fun. But I'm still interested in exploring that other agenda here.

At the very least, I'd like to know the answers to this particular question for "historical" reasons. To best understand the intent of the game, whether I agree with it or not.

Mike

Wow do I not like Common Magic either.

I kind of think, in theory, there's a neat idea here. There's lots of magic that is easily available, and you can get at it without going to the higher mysteries of the religion.

But mechanically, it's a confusing mess, as Mike has pointed out. In making characters, I've found I don't like using Common Magic as a "keyword". It's a label. Name your magic effects, and they aren't active.

I realize that the 3 worlds idea is part and parcel of Glorantha, and therefore that's the reason for concentration, but that annoys me to. Especially since as we go on it seems that there are more and more exceptions to concentration. (Lunar magic, Lanbril magic, etc.)

So I'm thinking of allowing a religion keyword but not magic ones. And I would allow concentration along religious lines (so common magic religions can use it) with the limitation that anything outside of the religion messes with the concentration.

But really, it's sort of messed up. (I don't have first edition hero wars, so I can't speak on that. What was different? I know there was Mysticism, which I have been scolded on the mailing list for bringing up as a possible 4th magic system, despite refrences to it still existing in Hero Quest.)

I'll confess that I'm not a fan of either common magic or the 3 otherworlds eithet, and by corollary the idea of concentrating magic. Fortunately, these are very Gloranthan concepts, and in Mythic Russia it is both faithful to the milieu and also IMO more fun to ditch the lot of them. And yes, individual Weird Magical Powers taken as standalone abilities are much more the order of the day for full-blown heroes.

All the best

Mark

Odd, I find myself in the odd position of being the only defender of rules that support Glorantha.

Generally, we've made the point that one can do without the things that confuse us about Common Magic. The original question still stands, however, can sense be made of Common Magic as written? If so, how?

Mike

I think Common Magic as written is an ad hoc category and shouldn't have the term "keyword". You have 5 abilities at 17.

I would allow a keyword approach for a common magic religion if someone wanted to take one. (since it would include piety and knowledge and such).

Yeah, it's a cop out. :)

Not a cop out, that might be the most valid interpretation.

The question that remains with that version is whether or not that common magic keyword should count as something in terms of chargen. That is, can you just take all the common magic religion keywords that you like, or does it substitute for something else?

Or does it have it's own limits? Some people have suggested that they are extra, and that the player should be limited to two.

One of the most interesting things here is that in the costs to join a common magic religion, it's free, but apparently you get nothing. It says that all abilities must be bought separately. Leaving you wonder just what joining did for you - you have no relationship to the supernatural forces, no piety, no relationship to anyone in the religion, no magic, nothing. So what does joining mean?

Mike

I've just had a discussion with a little bird, and here are the clarifications that I have so far. Enlightening, IMO.

Myself wrote:
Which of the following is true?

• CMRK "cost" your SMK slot.
• CMRK are always a part of your homeland keyword, and always free.
• CMRK cost the SMK slot if they aren't listed specifically in the homeland, but are free if they are.

• What level do magical abilities start at when added to a SMK, keyword level or 13 (or something else)? That is, adding affinities to a keyword (is this possible), adding Grimiores to a keyword (I assume this is possible, but could be very wrong), or adding relationships with spirits of the same practice to the practice keyword. Is this different for the CMK?

• Given the answers to the questions above, assuming that the CMK contains all of the abilities that come from all CM sources, then what happens if/when the CMK is raised due to advanced experience? I would assume at chargen that the five abilities would be raised to the appropriate level, but what about during the game per the Saga System or something?

• Put another way, is there any use for the CMK after chargen? If not, then why do we bother listing it (it's on every character sheet I've ever seen)?

I agree with Ron. In some ways I am a Hero Wars grognard, mostly running stuff from the rules synopsis from the HW deluxe set. I think Heroquest has not added much to my games because of these complicated issues. I do not like the points based chargen, the priority given to keywords (17) over narrative generated abilities (13 - hardly worth writing the 100words for). I do not think the otherwords have been explained any better, and common magic, although a nice idea, is really confusing to everyone, as witnessed by this, and many other threads.

I think the basic design, of drama driven mechanics, has been ignored in order to add these extra complications to it. All the different HP costs, for example, would have been neater (IMO) by making misapplied magic just 'difficult' magic, for example, or with higher resistance to getting to the otherworld.

Ron:

I hate Common Magic. It's a huge pain in the ass. I suppose I'll draw all sorts of surprised defiance at saying that Hero Wars was simply way easier when it came to keywords and setting up plain old characters to play.

I do think that some of it is potentially problematic, and I certainly agree that it could be simplified without losing a whole lot, if anything.

But, again, I like the structure. Applying it to worlds other than Glorantha, has made those world's come to life in a way that's hard to explain unless you've seen it. That is, much of the extra sim-sounding stuff, when applied to "converting" a world, cause changes to occur that not only add sim depth, but create a framework that allows for thematic development over them as well, IMO.

I'm not saying that one can't throw some of this out and play successfully. I am saying that I'm interested in investigating just which parts of HQ do have a positive impact in this process, and I'm not throwing anything out without looking at it closely. The point of the thread is to get at the basline so that I can look at it closely.

Mike

Ron Edwards wrote: Hello,
I may be wrong, but at present I blame the spectre of old-school RuneQuest, whose fans probably wailed like banshees, "Wherrrrrre's my Spirit Magic?" and cited the long-standing quote from Stafford that all of Glorantha is magical all the time.

I'm sure it makes sense to Greg, no matter how opaque or clear it may seem to any of us.

So, you're saying Imarja is a demon? What does the distinction matter, if she acts like a diety?

That said, I agree with your assessment that CMRs, per se, don't hero quest, but most CMRs are, in any case, really part of larger religions that include otherworld portions. That is, Imarja is common magic, yes, because she's in this world (essentially being a titanic landscape diety for all of Esrolia), but she's still overall part of the Esrolian Earth pantheon. If I was confused about that previously, I had it confirmed for me recently. As such, there probably would be hero questers on her side. They might or might not be able to affect her myths, I'm not sure on that (given that she was at some point from the otherworld, or at least part of everything when there was only one world, I think she still has myths on the hero plane). But even if one cannot affect the myths positively on the other side, that makes the diety relatively inviolate to heroquesting against them as well, does it not?

I'm going to guess that Ron's counter-argument to all of this is that one doesn't need such mechanisms to create an opportunity to examine these issues, just the appropriate back drop. The question becomes to what extent, these rules exist to inform about what glorantha is like vs allowing one to examine the themes implicit.

Anyhow, I think we might be getting into a whole new topic here. Again, for purposes of the thread, I'm not so much concerned with the philosophy behind this, but rather just getting the mechanisms straight. If it turns out that the mechanisms are something I don't want when I understand them, then they can go then. But I'm not going to discard something before understanding how it works.

Mike

I don't want to wander too far backwards, but something you said, mike, intrigued me.

It really is that whenever you learn a new common magic thing, it starts at the level of your keyword? Automatically?

This doesn't apply to other magics, though, right?

I split off my reply to a new thread:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=13117

Mike

Mike, please don't ascribe statements to me or anticipate my responses.

Best,
Ron

Ian sayeth:

Common magic that comes from this world is talents. Everyone can do this. Common religions also offer feats, spells, and charms from Otherworld entities resident in this world (so effectively demons in popular terminology). So joining a religion gives you access to the powers of these petty entities.

My personal assumption is that common religions thus rarely heroquest - they don't have the Otherworld access that would allow them to enter the hero plane. I've never checked this with the power-that-be, perhaps I should do a divination on it.