Berengar
July 25, 2013, 7:02pm
42
I linked your full post, but did not copy parts irrelevant for the argument: no reason to complain.
Jonathan.Link:
It is perfectly reasonable, under RAW, to teach the Gentle Gift, I'd even go so far as to say it's possible before Opening the Arts. It's not something I'm terribly fond of, but Matt Ryan made a compelling argument.
He didn't. Indeed, he didn't even intend to give an argument "to teach the Gentle Gift". You better first read the entire thread again: Apprentices: In my hands... - #66 by Matt_Ryan , and then again the following quote from it:
I’m glad some folks are enjoying the book and expected others wouldn’t like parts of it. I’ll just say a couple things.
First, I didn’t think I needed to say, “use the rules you find useful to your saga and ignore those that you don’t,” because everyone I know already does that. I do it. I figured I’d just give the reader the intelligence due him and get on with it.
Secondly, I decided not to provide a list of what Virtues and Flaws could or could not be taught by an apprentice’s master. The more I thought about it, and the more Virtues and Flaws I put on the list, I kept thinking, “why not.” And I couldn’t come up with a good enough reason (to me) for such a list. Any list that tells players what they can’t do kills stories. And we are dealing with magic. I mean, I don’t know how magic works in Mythic Europe, I just know that it does. Personally, I don’t think it follows biological rules, or modern science, or even medieval ideas of science. I think it is magic, essentially undefinable, and able to do all kinds of things.
In my modern-thinking-mind, I might think that the type of Gift a person is born with is either Gentle, regular, or Blatant and that can’t be changed. That is a very strict notion. In my narrative-generating-mind, I might think, “maybe a person can be born with the Gift and it can be awful and problematic and stick out like a poop in a punchbowl (Blatant), but a master that knows how to shape/blend/mutate it into a less pronounced manifestation can teach the apprentice how to tame it (regular Gift) or even hide it (Gentle Gift). That’s kind of cool. That is a story. Suddenly, I want my apprentice character to have the Gentle Gift but not start play with it. His master doesn’t have it, so I have to convince my master to find a magus who will teach it to me. What is that going to cost? Since money means nothing to wizards, I’ll have to convince him some other way. Maybe if I steal the dragon’s eggs for master he will let me perform a service for the magus I want to teach me, if I can convince him to teach me in the first place. I get a lot more mileage out of this than saying, “you can’t teach the Gentle Gift.”
That said, if you think it is dumb that a magus can teach the Gentle Gift, or Mythic Blood, or anything else, don’t let it work in your Mythic Europe. I once thought Mythic Blood should probably not be an allowable taught Virtue, but then thought (again), why not? Maybe the master who has Mythic Blood discovers that the apprentice has it also, and that his “instruction” will unlock it and allow him to use it. The apprentice wouldn’t be the first character with a surprise past that is suddenly awesome. Again, a prohibited list didn’t seem helpful, but silence lets players imagine run wild.
Recall it now again? This is quite the opposite of having Apprentices "rule" that parentes can teach the gentle Gift to apprentices - it is just keeping the book Apprentices out of the decision making about it.
Cheers
1 Like