Re: Passions and Questors - What Would You Like to See?1
Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 4:05 pm
I've always seen the Passions as being Great Patterns, so handling Questors as weaving Threads to such a Pattern makes a lot of sense to me. My only problem with it is that it does limit Questors to Adept-only.. but honestly, the idea that non-Adepts should be able to be Questors mostly makes sense seeing them from a more religious standpoint, and I'm in the camp that appreciates Earthdawn for its... agnosticism. Right now, only Adepts can really be Questors, and there's no real reason why -- handling them as Patterns would help clarify a lot of the rules for those, not really change the status-quo in terms of who-can-be-a-Questor, smooth out and enhance the effects of being a Questor, and clarify the metaphysics.
If this doesn't become canon, I think I'm going to houserule it...<grin>
Otherwise, to be quite honest, I'm pretty happy with the Passions being highly ambiguous forces. GMs can do what they want with them and don't have to justify it too much, and for pseudo divine forces, that's a good place for them to be. Too much of weighing the Passions themselves down with mechanics, or even specifics, would be bad. Although more customized Harbingers could be cool, I agree.
On the quasi-related note, Hollowbone wasn't suggesting dropping Purifiers, just handling them differently. Looking at them through a different lens. I'd like to see that, too, presumably in the Companion. Lightbringers were neat; they didn't really work because there was no precedent for them. Offering other major Group Patterns like that would fit the cosmology, and could do some Really Neat Things. Some of those Disciplines that required half their Talents to be custom-made do indeed strike me as a good place to look for inspiration. If I were doing this, I'd consider Horror Stalkers, too, but it's probably too late for that. Liberators and Purifiers sound like excellent candidates to me. And Blood Wardens. It could offer an interesting take on the Elven Paths, too, which have never really been workable in practice. Groups like the Eyes of Throal might have an established Pattern greater than the `current membership' that a standard adventuring Group Pattern can stabilize, too. Hmm...
If this doesn't become canon, I think I'm going to houserule it...<grin>
Otherwise, to be quite honest, I'm pretty happy with the Passions being highly ambiguous forces. GMs can do what they want with them and don't have to justify it too much, and for pseudo divine forces, that's a good place for them to be. Too much of weighing the Passions themselves down with mechanics, or even specifics, would be bad. Although more customized Harbingers could be cool, I agree.
On the quasi-related note, Hollowbone wasn't suggesting dropping Purifiers, just handling them differently. Looking at them through a different lens. I'd like to see that, too, presumably in the Companion. Lightbringers were neat; they didn't really work because there was no precedent for them. Offering other major Group Patterns like that would fit the cosmology, and could do some Really Neat Things. Some of those Disciplines that required half their Talents to be custom-made do indeed strike me as a good place to look for inspiration. If I were doing this, I'd consider Horror Stalkers, too, but it's probably too late for that. Liberators and Purifiers sound like excellent candidates to me. And Blood Wardens. It could offer an interesting take on the Elven Paths, too, which have never really been workable in practice. Groups like the Eyes of Throal might have an established Pattern greater than the `current membership' that a standard adventuring Group Pattern can stabilize, too. Hmm...