RE: Re: How do you compare published abilities without numbers?

From: Matthew Cole <matthew.cole_at_...>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:19:28 -0000

For someone who has not read the HQ2 book you have managed to successfully quote the exact meaning. This is truly what Robin explained at Tentacles and what is driven at by the pass/fail diagrams and the Beowulf example in the draft rules owned by us fortunate few.  

"a tool of narrative logic"
 

Well done indeed. Does Laurent's explanation here help anyone?  

Cheers  

M  

P.S.  

Concerning this passage:

"(Especially because I suspect the players would start just learning the
table and starting contests they expect to lose to line up the big contest to be an easy one.)"
Robin's advice also covers this (from memory). Pass/Fail is intended to go generally in the direction of Pass but not on a strict 2 pass for 1 fail rota. Guessing what's next in the cycle, whilst initially an entertaining sport is not really the point of the game.  

---

LC (Laurent) :
"From what I can see, I would never use the Pass/Fail as the rigorous
application of difficulty. "  

[and later.]

"From what I can tell, it seems more to be a tool of narrative logic - when
things are going well, then something goes bad to make it interesting. When things are going bad, they get a break. "