Re: Singing 10%, Snooker 85% (was: stuff)

From: Jeff Richard <richaje_at_...>
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:53:45 -0000

> > And I think it failed because it tried. Ultimately that grasp for
> > simulationism weakened the final product. Modifiers and special rules
> > to help simulate 'reality' created a tension with the story first
> > attitude of the rest of the game. It was incoherent to that regard.

I've long been deeply suspicious of the "simulationist v. narrativist" distinction in games (personally I increasingly think the distinction is driven from the war game roots of the hobby; RQ still has aspects of old fashioned miniature wargaming, HQ2 doesn't).

But I agree the HQ1 was structurally flawed - at least with regard to how it was presented for Glorantha. I actually think HQ1 stripped of the Glorantha content worked pretty well on its own terms (and Mark Galeotti did a fantastic job smoothing out many of those structural flaws with "Mythic Russia"). But those structural flaws IMO had nothing (or at least very little) to do with the "simulationist v. narrativist" debate.

Jeff