I've been lurking for a few days, and, as it appears that poking one's head above the parapet doesn't seem to result in instantaneous death, I thought I'd say Hi.
I'm not really a newbie, except as relates to Hero Wars. I've been playing
RPGs since the mid 1970s, beginning, as did most people back then I suppose,
with original D&D, then Traveller, and so on. During the 80s and most of the
90s we played a lot of MERP/Rolemaster, and dabbled in other games, including
Runequest (2), which had us hooked for a while. Then, a few years ago we
discovered Columbia Games' "Harn", and have played almost nothing else since
(which isn't to say we haven't thought about other games), other than a bit of
MERP- inspired by 'that film'.
I bought 'Hero Wars' (the deluxe version) a year or so back- IIRC it was when
we were on holiday in London, and I wanted something 'heavy' to read while
babysitting the kids in the hotel room in the evenings. I was (and am)
thinking hard about game design, and how to improve/change the games we play
(as one does- I've never managed to play any RPG without customising it to a
greater or lesser extent). 'Heavy' is certainly the word. All our gaming has
been down a fairly 'simulationist' route, so the premise on which HW seems to
be based is very confusing for me. I've read it all several times, and have
bought some of the other books (Glorantha, Anaxials Roster, Thunder Rebels and
Storm Tribe). I really like the background, though it seems rather 'grown up'
compared with the Glorantha we used for Runequest way back when: the slight
sense of whimsy seems absent- the feel is more of a 'high fantasy' Harn- highly
detailed, canonically consistent etc. No bad thing in its way, but hard to get
enough of a 'critical mass' of information together to feel confident about
starting to play the game (though I felt like that about Harn to begin with,
and we managed okay).
This list advertises itself as "...and is especially concerned with introducing newer players to the game.", so here I am, a newbie, confused as, err, confused by this game. I hope you mean that literally, rather than a group concerning itself with discussing how to introduce new players to its delights.
I think I could create a character, but I have no idea how to force enough information into my players (given that getting any of them to read more than a single page, ever, is almost impossible) to get *them* to create characters which would fit into what passes for polite society in Dragon Pass.
I'm also completely lost as to where to start, adventuring-wise, what sort of thing to run and how to run it- face it folks, I'm a dinosaur of the simulationist breed, and HW is rather different to what I'm used to. :-)
In short: Help please!
Regards,
Dr. Phil Hendry
A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep. W.H. Auden, 1907-73
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