Jeff:
>Further, heroquesting is not an exercise in power-gaming. It is not the
>"next level" of power - my carls, godi and thanes are inveterate
>"heroquesters". When a thane fights a dream-dragon, he invariably
>heroquests - when the Lodrilli peasants kill a shamefully unjust overseer,
>they invariably "heroquest", and when a child becomes a man, he heroquests.
I think if we acknowledge that you can become a Hero without slaying the greater gods, or that a simple peasant who gives his life to save his village temple (even if it is just a shack with a small twig statue of Ernalda inside) then the HeroQuesting debate becomes far easier. I think the debate at the moment is orientated towards the more widely recognised acitivity of HeroQuesting, the uniquely Gloranthan activity of transporting yourself to the Mythic Plane to interact with the myths, for personal or social gain. Sure, in the end knowing the myths are all important but the game system used to do so is equally important. Can RQ as it stands represent Kyger Litor on the HeroPlane??? I think not. The system is flawed, and to do these high-powered HeroQuests, as opposed to the low-power (yet equally important) HeroQuests, we need system changes such as those being described. IMHO, of course.
Rules Systems
>Frankly, I don't rate "Rules Lite" systems very much. The rules are
>_always_ a backup to the creative interactive storytelling aspect of
>roleplaying, which should be dominant except at the times when you _want_
>to rules play. I've found that having an all-encompassing and (dare I say
>it?) fairly complex system does help when you want to fall back on
>something.
I agree, to a point. In a rules-lite system, such as Storyteller (or TWERPS :) ) you find that the players have to have a lot more repsect and trust in the Gamesmaster as he will be called upon to make rules interpretations constantly. Not that I'm implying that your group lacks trust, but the rules heavy systems like RQ (which I like) and MERPS (which I detest) give you a stable framework to ensure that rules arguments occur less and less. The rules are the ultimate GM aid, because they are impartial and therefore you cannot argue against them. Not to say that the GM should not invoke their rights to ignore the rules if and when they interfere with the game (which occurs very rarely). Anyhow, I find tinkering with the rules and solving RQ's inherent flaws, a pleasant passtime....
> To me, Pendragon is (generally) a rules-lite version of RQ when it comes
>to combat mechanics and the like, and really doesn't seem to work too well
>for this sort of thing, which is a shame.
If I recall correctly, I found that Pendragon had too many "special case" rules. Since it was written solely for adventuring knights then I suppose this isn't much of a problem. I found the personality rules to have merit, but were not good enough, in my opinion, to warrant me transferring them directly to my game.
>I'm hoping
>G:tG will be midway in complexity between RQ and Pendragon, with
>Pendragon-style personality traits and the promised social systems.
Are there any currently successful social systems??? I haven't seen Epic, which I've heard rumours of, and Aria was a total flop by all accounts - -- although I s'pose i shouldn't pass judgement until I read it for myself.
> Nikk, I think Storyteller sucks, and Mark Rein-Haagen Dazs is a
>pretentious wanker. There are far too many rules holes in the Storyteller
>system.
I found that when I regulary ran Storyteller the holes rarely appeared, and in the heat of gaming such minor points as the multi-functional fighters who can pick up one weapon they've seen it before and use it just as well as their favourite sword didn't really occur to us.
> For a similar system that actually works (apart from the magic
>system being too powerful), try Shadowrun. It's better than Storyteller,
>anyway.
I might well do that, thanks.
>No offense to you intended at all, Nikk, just my honest opinion.
None taken.
Steve E. Barnes:
>Harrek does not "violate the rules", there is no special case for him.
>Anything he did, a PC should be perfectly capable of (potentially) doing.
Here here!!!
>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).
Not neccessarily. This is how, IMO, the old system of belief went. Skill mastery demonstrated that your character had achieved self mastery, which was linked with Free Will. The more self mastery you had, the more you controlled your own destiny (think of ancient Japanese ascetics in most American films, superior in every mental and physical way). You are probably right whe you say this is where the idea that HQers never gain more Free Will originated from. However, it does make a form of sense -- as soon as someone begins to interact with the Mythical World at large by HQing they lose the capability to have a "detatched view of the world" and in doing so are unable to easily adjust their own views. Think of the relationship between children and adults, children are susceptible to change and new views etc... when they grow older these views become pressed into their minds and as adults they find it difficult to change.
>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.
Congratulations, welcome to YAHQS, a diceless HeroQuest system that solves most of the problems that everyone is arguing about at the moment.
>Am I the only one who can only read the first 30,000 characters
>of a message ?
Yes :)
All IMHO,
Nikk E.
Nikk the Broo Shaman of Thed
http://www.personal.u-net.com/~eff
"If absolute power corrupts absolutely,
where does that leave God?"
-- George Daacon
------------------------------
Powered by hypermail