Hello! First time posting. I'm a late backer (an "Ogre") of the Forbidden Lands RPG, and I've been reading the PDFs for the past few days now. I have a whole host of questions about the rules, mainly revolving around the Willpower Point mechanism. I'm not quite sure how to interpret it given the multitude of ways WPs can be spent through different kinds of talents. Some talents seem to reflect the character's superior ability (e.g. Path of the Blade) while others seem to provide the player with narrative control over what has already happened in the world (e.g. Path of Poison; the player gets to decide that the Rogue had some poison prepared beforehand). And then there are the spells, of course, which are powered by WPs.
So, in some circumstances, WPs are about the character's inner drive to excel, while in other cases it's about giving the player the option to steer the narrative in some way that makes the character look cool, clever, powerful or whatever. I can't quite wrap my head around why or how a resource with an in-world logic is mixed up with a meta-level currency.
The Transfer spell makes things even more puzzling. Suppose a Sorcerer grants WPs to a Rogue who then spends them to pull out a vial of Poison from his sleeve. Is there supposed to be an in-world explanation for this? Of course, the GM shouldn't allow the system to be abused, but would this kind of a combo be in the spirit of the game or not?
I have a few other questions about WPs, which I'll just list here:
1. What happens if an NPC uses Transfer on another NPC? Does this just reduce the GM's pool of WPs by one?
2. What happens if an NPC uses Fulgaris (The Spire of Quetzel, page 63)?
3. Do magic users know that, in order to cast spells, they must first over-exert themselves somehow?
4. If the adventurers have at least some life experience behind them before the first session (the Dark Secret or old age, for example), why does the WP pool always start at 0?
That's what I have on my mind right now. I'd like to hear from anyone who's a real fan of this game how they approach WPs.
(Hopefully this is the right subforum for these ponderings.)