I don't care whether the GM believes in Dragon Pass super heroes, with the Infinity Rune and CF of 20, or the Greg revisionist version, where heroes are less powerful than gamers previously had believed.
The PCs are just as much "Men of Destiny" as Greg's NPC heroes.
HQ Will Accounting Systems:
I don't think anyone is advocating these failed ideas anymore, but I did notice a few references to the pecularities of such systems. One is linking Will to the number of mastered skills a character has. This is a Silly Idea. It is, I also believe, the source of the idea that your Will value never increases after your first trip on the heroplane. (Problems would arise, for example, if you spent Will to raise your stats on a HQ, then due to increased stat bonuses, now are a master of more skills. Similar problems if the hero lost stats on a failed quest).
Linking Will to POW or points of divine spells could work. The problem I have is that I think the RQ POW gain roll is a bad game mechanic.
Trait Based Systems:
Lets say I have a rune lord candidate, with all 5 cult traits at 16 ("legendary" status or whatever it is called). His test is an Orlanth re-enactment HQ, and has to roll all five traits. His chance of success is 33%. If his traits are 18, then his success chance is still only 59%. Lastly, if there is always a 5% chance of failing a roll (as in RQ), then the chance of making 5 rolls is only 77%, no matter how good your traits are.
The more I think about HQ, the less I like dice intensive sytems. There is just too high a chance of a character failing some critical roll, and either looking like a fool, or hosing up your carefully planned scenario.
Also, my limited experience with Traits as a GM was that despite being generous with checks, not much progress was being made towards having Rune Lord level traits (score of 16 or more). Perhaps the players were being unlucky, but it adds yet another requirement for character advancement. Negative checks (in Cowardly, for example) are also a good way to start arguments with players, since they are awarded by subjective GM decisions.
Will Roll Systems:
My experience playing heroquests has been with such a system. It seemed to work OK, although required a large degree of GM creativity to work. The GM did have a complex formula for determining your success chance, but when he actually used it, he always seemed to come up with an absurdly low number.
The system could be summed up as: "GM requires a Will roll to succeed in some task. If you fail, think up a reason why you can make another roll. Repeat."
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