Cultural Classes

[Cthulhu Colin]

Hey all,

For my next piece, I'm going to put together an overview of those classes most likely to be found in each culture. While technically any individual from any culture can be any class, it is pretty obvious that certain classes will be much more common in different cultures than others, and some all but unheard of. Where necessary, some flavour text will also be included to help define the classes according to their culture a little more too.

For example, in the Keltic section, it'll be noted that their Berserkers don't acquire animal attributes, but twist and distort in form more like the warriors seized by riastrad in mythology:

"The first warp-spasm seized Cúchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front... On his head the temple-sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty, immense, measureless knob as big as the head of a month-old child... he sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane couldn't probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek. His mouth weirdly distorted: his cheek peeled back from his jaws until the gullet appeared, his lungs and his liver flapped in his mouth and throat, his lower jaw struck the upper a lion-killing blow, and fiery flakes large as a ram's fleece reached his mouth from his throat... The hair of his head twisted like the tange of a red thornbush stuck in a gap; if a royal apple tree with all its kingly fruit were shaken above him, scarce an apple would reach the ground but each would be spiked on a bristle of his hair as it stood up on his scalp with rage."

[mabon5127]

I think this will be of great assistance to those wishing to play characters of pure-blooded races, particularly those legendary races such as Atlanteans and Hyperboreans.

It will be interesting to see your take on Ixian Berserkers! Although I see them as slaves / captives trained to fight for their wizardly overlords much like the ancient Janissaries.

Esquimaux Cataphracts and Hyperborian Scouts might be a bit strange as well. I will await your info with much anticipation!

Great Idea,

Morgan

[Cthulhu Colin]

I'm only going to be providing info. for the classes you most often *can* find in the various cultures. In the case of a Player wanting to play something off-the-wall in class-culture combination, they'll have to come up with a justification themselves as said character could easily be all but unique in the history of his people. So, someone wants to play an Esquimaux Cataphract (the Esquimaux culture not even using horses!) they have to provide their own rationale for their special and unique snowflake.

[benoist]

RE: the Esquimaux Cataphract.

I think we shouldn't get too tied up into historical, real world/Old Earth sources either. If a particular referee deems that the Esquimaux in some parts of Hyperborea did adapt to their environment (especially considering that such a thing as a "warm" season lasts years as part of the 13 year-cycle of Helios on the continent) and did domesticate some mounts, including horses, it could lead to interesting variants specific to the setting that would allow such a thing as a Cataphract.

Another possibility is for an Esquimaux to have lived and been trained in some other culture that does use horses and therefore, trained this particular individual who then became a Cataphract in his own right.

A third possibility would be the campaign specific Esquimaux Cataphract that doesn't use a horse or mount, but a sleigh, along with a pack of dogs. This would mean the referee would tweak the class slightly so that the concept works, and also that the environment would allow for the concept to work itself (i.e. including some wilderness, open air game play with snow, so that the Cataphract might use his sleigh effectively and not feel that his character concept is completely useless in the game). The same way, a specific attire mingling the pelts of seals and wolves and God knows what else might be classified as an exotic heavy armor with its own AC and specificities. I'd love to play a character like this, personally.

[Cthulhu Colin]

Basically, this thing will be as rooted as were my Names and Arms articles, with the same rationale (because it makes them more immediately understandable and accessible). There will be some tweaks and changes to fit, but it deals with the cultural baselines, not what every individual does with their own campaign or what individual players and GMs might come up with in terms of unusual combinations. If someone wants to write an article giving lots of ways in which you might have odd culture-class combinations or ways in which you might change every culture to easily allow every class, that's cool (and I'd love to see it) but it's not what I'm going for in this case.

So, get writing that article on variant cultures and reasons for unusual culture-class combos, Benoist, me old mucker. It's your idea and baby now.

Colin

[benoist]

Far from me the idea of contesting the usefulness of your approach, mate! It's really great and useful, no question about it.

I'll start by seeing what you come up with in terms of usual, traditional culture class combos, and then maybe we'll spin this into discussing the unusual combos and how they might make sense in the Hyperborean setting. How's that?

[Cthulhu Colin]

Whatever works for you, mate.

Colin

[mabon5127]

Nov 18, 2012 14:01:50 GMT -6 benoist said:

RE: the Esquimaux Cataphract.

I think we shouldn't get too tied up into historical, real world/Old Earth sources either. If a particular referee deems that the Esquimaux in some parts of Hyperborea did adapt to their environment (especially considering that such a thing as a "warm" season lasts years as part of the 13 year-cycle of Helios on the continent) and did domesticate some mounts, including horses, it could lead to interesting variants specific to the setting that would allow such a thing as a Cataphract.

Another possibility is for an Esquimaux to have lived and been trained in some other culture that does use horses and therefore, trained this particular individual who then became a Cataphract in his own right.

A third possibility would be the campaign specific Esquimaux Cataphract that doesn't use a horse or mount, but a sleigh, along with a pack of dogs. This would mean the referee would tweak the class slightly so that the concept works, and also that the environment would allow for the concept to work itself (i.e. including some wilderness, open air game play with snow, so that the Cataphract might use his sleigh effectively and not feel that his character concept is completely useless in the game). The same way, a specific attire mingling the pelts of seals and wolves and God knows what else might be classified as an exotic heavy armor with its own AC and specificities. I'd love to play a character like this, personally.

I had sort of the same thought except for some reason I had the dogs on the sleigh / snow chariot replaced with Red Elk. They may harvest the flat bones of larger creatures to bind within layers of boiled seal pelt or some such, for armor.

I think for Colin to do just what he said he was going to and leave the stranger combos up to the GM is perfect. Thanks again!

Morgan

[Cthulhu Colin]

I want to pick folk's brains for a moment. I've been making notes on the various classes and how they relate to the various cultures, and one class I'm not 100% sure what to do with is the Paladin. My gut instinct is that Paladins should be so rare, especially in a setting like Hyperborea, that they are *always* unique exceptions, and that no single culture can really claim to have a real connection to the class as a result.

Similarly, I don't think the various monastic Monk orders are strictly cultural either; rather, they accept any worthy supplicants.

What do you think?

[benoist]

I agree with you. As far as the (D&D) game's history and tradition goes, the Paladin is a descendant of a subset of inspirations, namely Poul Anderson with Three Hearts and Three Lions, that are not the main focus of AS&SH (i.e. Clark Ashton Smith, Howard etc.) as far as its Appendix N predecessor in the 1e DMG is concerned. There is room in such a world of "Dungeons & Elder Things" for the Paladin as "the exemplar of the Lawful Good alignment", the champion that has the deck stacked against him in a world of gritty, weird Swords & Sorcery, but this is a character that will be really rare to say the least.

That'd be a bit like playing a Paladin in Ravenloft. You can do it, and such characters can be really exciting to play, but they shouldn't be a cultural standard by any means (unless you have a fallen Paladin or Anti-Paladin as the Lord of a particular Domain but that's another story, let's go back to Hyperborea).

Hyperborean knights still dedicated to Apollo, Amazons upholding the virtues of Artemis and keeping the natural order from the taint of Evil (or maybe trying to restore said natural order in this supernatural world instead), Ixian Judges guarding the edicts of the Great Serpent and having a very particular spin on necromancy, sorcery and resurrection as possible sources of Good in the world (!), all these are possibilities of course, but you can see how I'm already stretching the original intents and bending the concepts to create particular cases and characters.

[mabon5127]

I agree the paladin is a rare bird. A paragon of the LG alignment from a culture with a knightly tradition on Hyperborea...a pretty thin list indeed!

Unlike a cleric proper that acts as a liaison from god to man the monk withdrawals from society to worship and serve the god. Cultural differences will be sanded away to serve x god with one voice. The cleric maintains a cultural identity because he is the link from that culture to their god.

So I guess I agree the monk is tied to the worship and service of a god and loses most of their racial / cultural identity.

Morgan

[Ghul]

Re: Esquimaux cataphracts, I must admit that as soon as I read that race-class combo I imagined them as riders of leaper camels (see Vol. IV p. 17), an elite band of riders, fearsome and legendary out on the tundra.

Re: Paladins, I agree with Morgan that they are perhaps a rare bird. On the one hand I can imagine them in a sort of Moorcock sense in which they are merely paragons of Law in a world dominated by Chaos (one need look no further than Vol. VI, p. 225-233 to see how deific beings of Chaos tip the scales). Now, in my campaign, there is a rope walk in the City-State of Khromarium, and in the basement of this establishment there lies the clandestine HQ of a cult of Apollo, the highest paragons of which are not "clerics" but paladins, and they seek to expand their numbers and influence in a region dominated by the orthodoxy of Xathoqqua. My point is that if you can find an angle for paladins, they can work. They don't need to accord with Lancelot, necessarily.

[benoist]

The whole question of the Hyperboreans still dedicated to Apollo versus today's ubiquitous Xathoqqua worship is something that made it into my campaign already. The first character created for the game, Mercurio Drakonos of the Hyperborean House of the Drakon, is the descendant of a line that kept the worship of Apollo alive. Mercurio will find that this is relevant in the context of the Boreal Coast, around the mega-dungeon in particular, once he gets there. I don't want to spoil it for you guys, in case we play together at some point and whatnot, but you'll see what I mean in the future, hopefully.

But yeah (getting sidetracked here), I totally see your point of not necessarily sticking to the "Three hearts and three lions" conception of the Paladin in Hyperborea, for sure.

[Cthulhu Colin]

I think the difficulty with the Paladin is that it still has the horsemanship/special mount combination (which immediately ties it too closely to the typical knightly Lancelot concept), and that the greatest mount you can aspire to is a pegasus (a wise and compassionate Chaotic Good beast). Add in that the class is not just "Lawful" (which would fit the setting far better imo) but specifically "Lawful Good", and it just seems "too AD&D" for Hyperborea in many ways.

For example, even looking at the Lawful deities, a strict LG stance doesn't seem the best fit. Apollo is listed as being about "death, terror, distance, and awe" for instance; imagine the Lawful paladins who could follow those precepts; very Hyperborean. Or how about Paladins of Yig, who's also Lawful? Awesome.

A generalized Lawful paragon, fighting against the Chaotic forces of the setting is very cool, but I think a lot of potential coolness (and much stronger S&S flavour) was lost in making it adhere so strongly to the mounted goodly knight schtick.

Colin

[Cthulhu Colin]

In many ways I'd love to be able to envision Paladins in Hyperborea as akin to Christopher Lee (as the bigoted and ascetic Templar Grandmaster, Lucas de Beaumanoir) in this clip from the excellent Ivanhoe BBC series. Watch it from 8:44 to 9:32. No messing about, no "good", just the word, the Law, and stern opposition to Chaos.

[Ghul]

Nov 21, 2012 18:24:58 GMT -6 Cthulhu Colin said:

In many ways I'd love to be able to envision Paladins in Hyperborea as akin to Christopher Lee (as the bigoted and ascetic Templar Grandmaster, Lucas de Beaumanoir) in this clip from the excellent Ivanhoe BBC series. Watch it from 8:44 to 9:32. No messing about, no "good", just the word, the Law, and stern opposition to Chaos.

Point well taken, Colin.

What a commanding figure Lee makes. Now I wish to see this series in whole . . .

[Cthulhu Colin]

I still love ya, mate, even if I don't like the Paladin.

The 1997 Ivanhoe series was brilliant; a lot of excellent actors in it, but Ciarán Hinds (who played Julius Caesar in the HBO Rome series and Mance Rayder in Game of Thrones) as the tormented de Bois-Guilbert, and Christopher Lee as de Beaumanoir, really steal the show.

The whole show is on YouTube apparently; not the ideal means to watch it, but better than nowt.

Colin

[benoist]

I hear you Colin. I think that constitutes a serious thematic basis to house rule the alignment in the game with Law, Neutrality and Chaos without the Good-Evil axis at all, actually (which does NOT invalidate the take of the game as written at all in my mind, but is a matter of vibe of particular, personal campaigns thereof). This would trickle down into the system though with spells like Protection from Evil becoming "from Chaos" and the like. Maybe some matter for another thread? I'd love to brainstorm on that possible change.

[jasonzavoda]

Nov 21, 2012 18:24:58 GMT -6 Cthulhu Colin said:

In many ways I'd love to be able to envision Paladins in Hyperborea as akin to Christopher Lee (as the bigoted and ascetic Templar Grandmaster, Lucas de Beaumanoir) in this clip from the excellent Ivanhoe BBC series. Watch it from 8:44 to 9:32. No messing about, no "good", just the word, the Law, and stern opposition to Chaos.

The Ivanhoe mini series was exactly what I was thinking of when I was arguing about paladins recently on Dragonsfoot.

For Hyperborea I have a few ideas on establishing connections between the paladin class and certain cultures. I see Amazonian paladins, Atlantean (but my Atlanteans are more like REH's or even characters from A. Merritt), Kimmerian in the form of someone like Attila the Hun (a cultural hero among Magyars), Pictish such as Howard's Bran Mak Morn, Greek (I'm having a Spartan culture on one of the Islands) both in the manner of classic greek heroes and Sparta's Leonidas and his 300, an Aztec civilization with various orders of paladins including a group that undergoes monstrous physical transformations (based on the novel 'The Relic') and viking paladins (such as Beowulf and his companions as depicted in 'The 13th Warrior'). I am going to do a major viking campaign around The Coming of Odin involving a lost fleet of vikings and a war between followers of Odin and Uller.

[Ghul]

I can sympathize with Colin's concerns regarding the paladin in a S&S setting, but there was another design goal of the AS&SH game: a reconciliation with Gygaxian tropes, where possible, excepting those that were explicitly "high fantasy" in my estimation. So, we have no elves or halflings, but we do have a paladin that does, I admit, present some of those familiar romantic themes.

IMC, I prefer to reconcile this in ways similar to what Jason presents above: Amazon paladins are in fact the largest contingent of the class, as they are the strongest adherents of the Lawful Good alignment, and here I must also confess that my conception of Amazonian society was in part inspired by what George Perez did with Wonder Woman in the 80's. I mentioned Apollo, and I feel that my cult of Apollo adherents is appropriate. Do some components of Apollo's portfolio fail to match what might be viewed as LG? Sure, but I think that the sweeping nature of all the portfolio representations do not apply to each sect of worship. Let's look at Apollo as written in Vol. VI of the Referee's Manual:

Apollo: This deity of Law is associated with light, the sun, healing, archery, swordsmanship, music, and poetry. He is the twin brother of Artemis and is said to walk amongst men, oft feigning mortality as a golden-haired youth whose wont is to join the ranks of common soldiery. When depicted with bow in hand, Apollo is identified with death, distance, terror, and awe; when depicted with the lyre he is identified with music, poetry, and dance. Some scholars posit that Apollo has taken many mortal women as his lovers and that his demigod progeny are scattered about Hyperborea. Typical followers: men (any).

Now when I consider "....light, the sun, healing, archery, swordsmanship, music, and poetry..." I can clearly see the potential for paladins.

Looking a bit further down, we have "...with bow in hand, Apollo is identified with death, distance, terror, and awe..." To me, this component of the portfolio might not accord with paladinhood, but some other class or cultural representative.

Lastly, "...with the lyre he is identified with music, poetry, and dance..." might be applied to bards and perhaps Viking skalds. Viking skalds paying homage to a Greek god? Why not? It is Hyperborea, after all . . .

[benoist]

What could happen as well is to have someone like Holger from Three hearts and three lions end up going through a gate to Hyperborea like Holger emerged in Faerie. Hyperborea, by its very nature, as a world beyond the world, and by its makeup, with various tribes or ethnicities of people who arrived to, or were taken by, the continent coming from different historical eras and so on, is very welcoming of such devices, IMO.

I think the theme of the time or dimension traveler is a fairly strong trope in the pulp fantasy AS&SH itself emulates, or pastiches. Whether it's the Eternal Champion of Moorcock, or the characters of Clark Ashton Smith who accidentally stumble into gates to Saturn, or those of HP Lovecraft that regularly visit the Dreamlands, there is a strong tradition of these kinds of mixes and travels there. I wouldn't take it off the table for potential players' characters.

[mabon5127]

Nov 23, 2012 7:41:14 GMT -6 Ghul said:

I can sympathize with Colin's concerns regarding the paladin in a S&S setting, but there was another design goal of the AS&SH game: a reconciliation with Gygaxian tropes, where possible, excepting those that were explicitly "high fantasy" in my estimation. So, we have no elves or halflings, but we do have a paladin that does, I admit, present some of those familiar romantic themes.

IMC, I prefer to reconcile this in ways similar to what Jason presents above: Amazon paladins are in fact the largest contingent of the class, as they are the strongest adherents of the Lawful Good alignment, and here I must also confess that my conception of Amazonian society was in part inspired by what George Perez did with Wonder Woman in the 80's. I mentioned Apollo, and I feel that my cult of Apollo adherents is appropriate. Do some components of Apollo's portfolio fail to match what might be viewed as LG? Sure, but I think that the sweeping nature of all the portfolio representations do not apply to each sect of worship. Let's look at Apollo as written in Vol. VI of the Referee's Manual:

Apollo: This deity of Law is associated with light, the sun, healing, archery, swordsmanship, music, and poetry. He is the twin brother of Artemis and is said to walk amongst men, oft feigning mortality as a golden-haired youth whose wont is to join the ranks of common soldiery. When depicted with bow in hand, Apollo is identified with death, distance, terror, and awe; when depicted with the lyre he is identified with music, poetry, and dance. Some scholars posit that Apollo has taken many mortal women as his lovers and that his demigod progeny are scattered about Hyperborea. Typical followers: men (any).

Now when I consider "....light, the sun, healing, archery, swordsmanship, music, and poetry..." I can clearly see the potential for paladins.

Looking a bit further down, we have "...with bow in hand, Apollo is identified with death, distance, terror, and awe..." To me, this component of the portfolio might not accord with paladinhood, but some other class or cultural representative.

Lastly, "...with the lyre he is identified with music, poetry, and dance..." might be applied to bards and perhaps Viking skalds. Viking skalds paying homage to a Greek god? Why not? It is Hyperborea, after all . . .

Looking a bit further down, we have "...with bow in hand, Apollo is identified with death, distance, terror, and awe..." To me, this component of the portfolio might not accord with paladinhood, but some other class or cultural representative.

This is the way the enemies of Law and Good see this enigmatic figure!

I prefer the Paladin to be a quixotic follower of an ancient and unfashionable tradition. He values Law and Good in a society that spurns them finding only secretive pockets of aid and comfort along the way. He is the first into battle against evil and the last to retreat, etc.

The sacred mount may change based on culture but otherwise keep it quirky!

Morgan

[Cthulhu Colin]

I think that, even ignoring the issues of its thematic fit with Hyperborea, the Paladin class has always been possibly the worst considered class there is.

So, it’s like a fightery cleric on one hand, stepping firmly on the shoes of the cleric archetype (which really represents the martial arm of the faith contrasted to the more scholarly/sorcerous Priest).
Oh, but it’s also often a clericy knight too, stepping firmly on the shoes of the cavalier/cataphract archetype.
Oh, but it’s like both, but with some extra bells and whistles as well.

And then, of course, there’s the whole “Only Lawful Good” issue. What makes LG so special? Are only the LG entities capable of empowering such Super Soldiers? If not, why don’t other deities/powers have their own Super Soldier types? If so, why can’t or haven’t others? Is it something about being extreme in Alignment? So, what then about the polar opposite of Chaotic Evil? Ah, so then we have the Anti-Paladin. And you have a whole can of worms opened about, “Well, what would the empowered Super Soldier templars of X Alignment be like?”

And then we get into all the old chestnut discussions about Detect Evil being a license to kill, “oh, but it’s detect evil intent”, “Lawful Good ain’t Lawful Stupid”, etc. Blech.

That’s why my revised version is a) more about Law vs. Chaos than Good (so it fits Hyperborea more thematically), b) is open to Lawful Good and Lawful Evil (so you *can* have a trad-style Paladin, but you *can also have* a severe, bigoted, tyrannical, merciless bastard of a paladin too), and c) moves away from being a knight (so as not to kick the Cataphract class in the archetypal nuts). Besides, the idea of there being Lawful Good and Lawful Evil paladins of the same deity is too delicious to pass up, especially if they ever have to work together.

Colin

[Ghul]

Nov 23, 2012 18:21:33 GMT -6 Cthulhu Colin said:

I think that, even ignoring the issues of its thematic fit with Hyperborea, the Paladin class has always been possibly the worst considered class there is. <snip>

For a brief time during the early development of the AS&SH game, I worked with a fellow who was similarly opposed to the whole druid concept, which is a different fish entirely; the AS&SH druid is not "nature's protector".

In short, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the paladin front, my friend, which is fine -- I want folks to make their own Hyperboreas. If that means Benoist creating a hydromancer (cryomancer) or sorcerer class, Jason developing or adjusting monsters to fit his dungeon concept, Morgan creating his own island with unique racial admixtures, and you reconceptualizing the paladin class, then I think it is all excellent.

I must admit, I am intrigued by the Law vs. Chaos concept for a paladin, and would not be opposed to such for my own campaign, but I'm not too excited about some of the other modifications you've made to the paladin class. You see, I am of the mind that the paladin is its own archetype, and my fascination with the class traces back to my boyhood, the first time I laid eyes on Sutherland's "A Paladin in Hell", one of the most iconic images of the hobby, IMO.

[Cthulhu Colin]

No worries at all, mate. Life would be boring if everyone agreed with each other about everything, and like you said, everyone should always tweak and adapt any given game to their own tastes. The whole "only play by the rules as written" trope that seems to spring up now and then in rpgdom is horrendous, because no ruleset can ever expect to suit every group out there, and I think it has its roots in a fear of tweaking brought on largely by more complicated interlocking rulesets.

Besides, the fact that the Paladin is one of the very few things I would change about the game, means there's a heck of a lot more I absolutely agree with you on. It's all just like tastes in food or flavours of ice-cream in the end.

Colin

[Ghul]

Nov 24, 2012 9:15:58 GMT -6 Cthulhu Colin said:

It's all just like tastes in food or flavours of ice-cream in the end.

Colin

Well, obviously one has poor tastes (and no cultural class!) if they don't agree that black raspberry with jimmies, in a waffle cone is superior to all other selections! ;D

[mabon5127]

I must admit, I am intrigued by the Law vs. Chaos concept for a paladin, and would not be opposed to such for my own campaign, but I'm not too excited about some of the other modifications you've made to the paladin class. You see, I am of the mind that the paladin is its own archetype, and my fascination with the class traces back to my boyhood, the first time I laid eyes on Sutherland's "A Paladin in Hell", one of the most iconic images of the hobby, IMO.

I thought I read a couple essays by Gary in which he stated or implied Lawful Good (particularly good) was given certain advantages in D&D on purpose. The Paladin was one of those advantages. Good Dragons were more powerful than their counterparts etc. That's why we never saw a Paladin for every alignment at least in 1e. His world view drove his belief that evil was powerful but the cosmic balance was in good's favor and would prevail ultimately.

Jeff can validate or not as he worked with Gary for several years but I believe this to be the case.

Morgan

[mabon5127]

Jeff,

You should take it as a great compliment that we think enough of your setting to want to tweak it and make it our own. I love the sofa so don't mind if I fluff a pillow or two!

Morgan

[Cthulhu Colin]

Nov 24, 2012 9:52:05 GMT -6 Ghul said:

Well, obviously one has poor tastes (and no cultural class!) if they don't agree that black raspberry with jimmies, in a waffle cone is superior to all other selections! ;D

I might agree if I knew what on Earth you were talking about. I know what a waffle cone is (I think; isn't it just a harder ice-cream cone with the sort of grid marks on it?), but the rest is gobbledygook. Some folks here call pyjamas "jimmies", but I don't think I want to eat pyjamas, covered in black raspberry jam or whatever it is.

[benoist]

Nov 24, 2012 8:36:13 GMT -6 Ghul said:

In short, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the paladin front, my friend, which is fine -- I want folks to make their own Hyperboreas. If that means Benoist creating a hydromancer (cryomancer) or sorcerer class, Jason developing or adjusting monsters to fit his dungeon concept, Morgan creating his own island with unique racial admixtures, and you reconceptualizing the paladin class, then I think it is all excellent.

I think this goes right to a fundamental of what I'd consider old school gaming. The idea of considering the game books not as word of law, or "canon", or anything of the sort, but as a framework, an aid, a structure that in the end real people around real game tables will grab and modify and tweak so they get THEIR games off the ground with them.

It's the idea that what matters is the people using the books, and not whatever the books say, that is in the end very important, that the guy behind the GM screen is a referee, with all that implies of discretionary powers, responsibilities of fairness and leeway thereof, rather than a mere "applier of the rules as the LAW".

So whether we are talking about different takes of paladins, about hydro and cryomancers, about sorcerers in Hyperborea, what it's really about is using the framework provided by AS&SH and each shaping a campaign with it that is truly ours, in every possible sense of the word. And I think that's one thing game designers have forgotten: that RPG gaming isn't about "one size fits all", not about shaping behavior around game tables with rules, not about scripting the game play in every possible way to create what they think of as a "consistent", predictible experience. It's about providing gateways to the imagination. About providing the tools for each and every gamer out there to play whatever it is they want to play.

If you get that (not "you, Jeff", you ... "general you", anyone, everyone), if you really internalize that fundamental of role playing games, that this is a game of THEIR imaginations, out there, then you can create some great games and modules and exchange ideas and appreciate where everyone's coming from on this board. If you don't get it, then you're bound to recreate the same mistakes that have been done by various game companies over years and years of narrowing of the role playing experience and well, that'd be another lost opportunity, really.

That's how I see it, anyway. Hope that post isn't too off-topic for you guys. It's a bit of a rant, maybe. I think it has to be said and repeated, though.