The Multisim version of HW was certainly published with this design point in mind, and *every* HW/HQ article we published in Les Erudits de l'Ambigu used the same. I'm a bit mystified as to why his is being touted as some "New !!!" feature of HQ 2.0 --- or should one be just too embarrassed to admit that Greg's idea of encouraging people to get as many multiple augments as possible out of people's monstruous lists of abilities and keywords was a gamebuster ? LOL
Something else I find quite intriguing is that this return to the Runes is in fact functionally identical to the Runes system in Steve Marsh's OLD OLD OLD HeroQuest rules, that Greg IIRC shot down with a certain amount of violence at the time (and in Tales N° 7), saying oooooh nooooo the *real* HQ will be *nothing* like *that* !!! LOLz
I mean, I don't mean to be directly critical of anyone here (not *this* time :D ), and anyway having the ability to change one's mind is one way of defining the adjective "intelligent" -- but this is all starting to beg the question, WHY was the shift from BRP to a D20 Pendragon-like system even necessary in the first place ?? To satisfy Greg's fetishistic desire to roll D20s instead of D100 ?? Or was it just to marginalise the original RQ authors and get moral control of the Gloranthan gaming rules back in his hands ?
The *brilliant* advances in HW/HQ are 1) the Mastery levels 2) NO more boring and useless lists of detailed skills descriptions 3) keywords/professions/character-classes/whatever are just a kind of meta-ability --- but TBH, **ALL** of these could easily be/have-been implemented into RuneQuest.
The problem as I see it being *NOT* that HQ is a bad game in any way, but that it caters to one particular playing style ONLY -- whereas the Gloranthan gaming market past and present uses multiple playing styles. This is the basic reason why HW was a commercial failure in France for instance, basically because the playing style that it promotes is a very unpopular one among French gamers -- so that (demonstrably) perpetuating a niche gaming philosophy in the HQ rules = losing customers and money.
I understand Greg and everyone has nothing but the best intentions in making HQ more generic, in returning to the classic Gloranthan settings, and all that -- and clearly it is very hard to let go of the real, actual artistic and design triumphs of HW/HQ -- but I cannot help but feel a real and tangible disappointment that so much effort is still being put into a game system firmly based on a single, niche design philosophy (compounded by the FACT that Glorantha has also become a niche interest) when *exactly* the *same* amount of effort, if it were expended on the *inherently* generic RQ system, would clearly have yielded more generally acceptable and therefore more lucrative results.
There is NOTHING in the core design of RQ that would prevent narrativist/story-driven/freeformist/whatchamacallit gaming -- but OTOH the *entire* design of HW/HQ is preventive of crunchy/simulationist/gamist/whathaveyouist roleplaying (at least not without some *serious* bugfuck houseruley reverse-engineering and frankly who's got the time?).
I just fail to see ANY virtue whatsoever in publishing games that a significant section of your target audience will never want to play...
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BAH ! not that I expect anyone to listen to this, nor do anything else at all meaningful with it ...
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Regarding Prince Valiant a) it was just a watered-down version of Pendragon b) oh COME ON !! simple versus extended contests in RPGs were first invented for grandaddy D&D c) "episodes" ?? can someone please explain how these are different to "encounters" ?? <rolleyes>
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I'm not saying this is unique to Glorantha/HW/HQ, I mean D&D 4th edition is a GLARING example of how one temporarily powerful clique of tabletop miniatures enthusiasts managed to FUCK an entire game for everyone else.
aaaaaaaaaaaaahhh anyway, I could go on and on and on, but I guess -- rant out, and back to your usual brand of IGQ insanity...
Julian Lord
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