>I'm sorry. I was a playtester for a while. And I found that my two
>groups could not get their heads around the system. Its basic workings
>did not appeal to them. Examples? Like: you cannot during combat look
>down on yourself and see how badly you are wounded because that would
>not be heroic (or something). Consequences are worked out at the end.
My feeling is that AP represents Morale Points rather than Hit Points. In a combat you may well be receiving cuts and bruises but this is secondary to your own feelings of success. It is this feeling that can ebb and flow.
Once you are in a position where you have complete Morale superiority over your opponent you can deliver the coup-de-gras, and generally one blow is all it takes. It's not a matter of gradual wounding, more a matter of gradual demoralising.
And that seems to me to follow RW well enough, where a lot of the business of combat comes down to intimidation.
>And if you kick someone lying groaning on the floor and make a mess of
>it he gets back up and fights you again. ("I kick him in the balls and
>he gets better?")
If the contest was completely unopposed (i.e. the guy was out for the count) then you wouldn't use the AP system - a bit like kicking a wall. If you made a mess of it you might fall over, but you wouldn't give him any APs.
If it was opposed then your wounded opponent still has enough in him to retaliate, and if you stake all on a great final blow against an almost useless opponent and screw up you will give him a tremendous moral advantage and the fight may well start to go against you.
Richard
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