Actually i'm thinking of things in terms of significance TO THE PLAYERS. You are at the end of the day, playing a game, and while there is a very high degree of mechanical and setting integration in Earthdawn, the fact is that Legend Points do not exist. They are something given to the players to model their character's ability to grow and improve, and also to reward them for their play, but as far as their characters are concerned there is no such thing as Legend Points. A session in which the player's characters do nothing but sit around and talk all day will probably still get two Legend Awards, one for showing up, and one for staying in character and roleplaying.The Undying wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2017 5:52 amI seem to be thinking about things as matters of significance TO AN ADEPT'S LEGEND whereas you seem to be thinking in terms of significance TO THE WORLD.
Expanding on this a little: Legend Awards have been keyed to the character's Circle since 1st Edition, i even quoted a passage to the effect from ED1. It's just that in earlier editions you got extra LP for defeating monsters, and that LP had a fixed value for each monster. So if you rescued some merchants from a gang of Bog Gobs, you'd get a Legend Award appropriate for your Circle for the rescue, and then recieve 100 LP for each Bog Gob you killed or drove off on top of that. There were also fixed Legend awards for finding treasure, but again those were on top of the Circle-dependent awards for roleplaying and completing goals. Later editions moved away from these fixed awards, since for the most part they were extraneous bookkeeping.Telarus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2017 3:10 amFalling into the line of thinking that a "2nd Circle Challenge" is worth a "2nd Circle Legend Award" is a trap in thinking, that was Lys' whole point. That is _specifically not_ how the current edition was designed (but did influence previous editions where a Bog Gob is always worth 100 LP).
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Anyway, my thoughts on High Circle play from never having actually engaged in it: The way i see it, you can't really write generic adventures for characters once they've reached Warden level or so. They have had an impact on the setting, made ties with people and places, built up histories, and established their legend. Any time they do something, they're going to be dragging all of that stuff in with them. Which is in turn going to affect any adventure you write in all manner of unpredictable ways. So high circle play usually has to be tailored to the specific group of characters involved, and much of the time it is going to be an outgrowth of actions they have already taken. For example, a group that has made friends and aligned itself with Iopos may wind up being asked to undermine Throal and other enemies of the Denairistas clan. If sufficiently powerful they may even engage in machinations against the Great Dragons.
High Circle play also requires the players to be more proactive about setting and following through on their character's personal goals. The world no longer gets in the way as much, because there's very little that can challenge you. If you just wait around for a problem you size to walk in through the door, you're likely to wind up waiting a long time, because there's very few problems your size in the first place, and many of them know about you and know better than to trouble you if you're not troubling them. So if you want challenges, you're going to have to go looking for them. In universe it's very likely that many adepts stall out at high Journeyman levels simply because they'd rather just keep doing what they've always been doing, instead of seeking out greater tasks to tests themselves against.
Dealing with the consequences of your actions also becomes a bigger thing as you grow more powerful. The greater the impact you can have on the world, the greater the fallout. Like if you decide to wipe out a particular band of Scorchers. It's possible that they had a rival band they were keeping in check, which now feels free to step up its attacks against neighbouring settlements. Or you might clean out the criminal underground in a certain city, only to find out that you've destabilized a delicate balance of power and caused chaos and disorder. You start finding that while you can throw around a lot of power, doing do indiscriminately can lead to unexpected or even disastrous results.
Related to the above is also the matter that you're not the only High Circle adepts around. There's going to be others, and they're going to be invested in the world in one way or another. Many of the things you may want to do or changed are going to be things they don't want done or changed. Which means that they will oppose you. Based on what i've seen of fights between Journeyman adepts, i expect that fights between 10th Circle adepts will tend to be fairly slow going. This usually makes gives you a greater margin for realizing that you're not winning a fight, and should best retreat. Provided both sides are smart about this, an opposing group of High Circle adepts can become a set of recurring antagonists, serving as the main opposition through an adventure, or even multiple adventures.