Firstly a disclaimer: I have not read Tales #14 or John Hughes' article, so I don't know the full details of the debate's origin. Feel free to give us a summary of the article (without bias please, and also without breaching copyright :-) ). Waiving aside my usual qualms about entering a debate half-informed, I feel quite strongly that there is a real problem in some of the comments in the recent discussion.
As someone pointed out recently, the opposing views on Player vs Character insights in Heroquests are coming from completely opposite directions. Probably they have no common ground, and therefore will have extreme difficulty reaching agreement.
Given that, therefore, I'll just step in to defend the usefulness of HQing as presented by John Hughes (at least in the past). John Brown argues that without a publishable system of mechanics and rules for player and character insights, John Hughes' perspective is meaningless. (!!!) As far as I'm aware, John Hughes' approach completely does away with the notion of mechanics. (If he describes them in Tales 14 I'll accept that and read them through to find out why he thinks them necessary, but John Brown's "I think he would include rules to gain personal insights" is not a persuasive argument on John Hughes' position). Mechanics entirely get in the way of player and character interaction (between each other, other players and characters, the gamemaster, and the game). That's why freeforming and story-telling games are low on game mechanics. Sure you may need a simple system to resolve contests (such as does that Zorak Zoran hero-troll kill me or do I get away alive, somehow), but I don't think this has anything to with Insights, whatever that may mean. Surely John Hughes' whole point is to avoid those crude (but often fun) conflicts as much as possible, and focus on the personality and motivations and thereby the understandings of the players and their characters.
I played a Hero-Quest scenario by John Hughes at RQ Con Down under and loved it. No stats, no rules, just damn well written characters. Three-five pages of motivations, background, internal conflicts and relations to the other characters. Just reading the characters gave a really deep and meaningful insight into their personality and how they might act. The connection between player and character is obviously going to be less where the characters are someone else's written for a convention, but the idea is certainly a powerful one. The heroquest involved escaping from the ravening hordes of broos about to overrun a fort, by entering the Hero Plane and making a path for... whatever we wanted. That was where the player and character interactions became so important. It was a quest with themes. Of personal understanding, healing the torn self, forgiveness, and a quest for power through finding lost items etc. You could make it what you wanted, and it worked (for me at least...)
Afterwards I thought, "That was great, but I don't think I could run a game like that. I don't have the knack for picking up on themes in the freeflowing story environment that John has." But then one of my fellow players said "Who cares, I'm going to give it a go anyway." I agree with this principle. Call it Anthropowanking, call it cathartic crap, call it what you will, but don't just dismiss it just because you don't like the concept or can't see how it is done. It works for other people, and works well. I don't think John is trying to write rules for Insights. As John Brown says, the idea is just absurd (to me at this point in time). I think he is probably just trying to give other people an idea on how to run a game that has meaning for its players and characters, in the style that he likes.
Of course there are other ways to run Hero Quests, and RQ in general. Pick the style that suits you and your game best. Fun can be had in all forms, and I for one, enjoy a good variety of styles depending on the mood I'm in.
"It's something we already do and Mr. Hughes is doing nothing new." If so, then what's the problem with it? His perspective on HQing just concentrates on the relations and motivations of PCs and how they are transformed in a HQ. That IS new, I think, because previous views have tended to concentrate on the mundane aspects of power aquisition (even within a social and cultural framework). John is concentrating on a different element. These are not mutually exclusive, and I don't think John Hughes is trying to suggest that they are.
The criticism of the future direction of Hero Questing as seen by John Hughes is a legitimate one. Everyone can and should have their own opinions and say on this, because it affects everyone, just as a change in rules does. If it isn't comprehensive enough, because, say, it doesn't have ANY mechanics to do what YOU want to do with HeroQuesting, fine, criticise that, and use your own versions where necessary. But don't criticise John's view as illegitimate in and of itself.
I'll stay away from the issue of player and character linkage in and out of game. Danger? Purpose of roleplaying? These are legitimate issues, and ones which will hopefully exercise many minds now and in the future. You'll need to sort it out for yourselves though. One person's danger is another person's opportunity for fun and a good long think about things.
Pax
Saravan.
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