> ... combat is most of the time _the_ most exciting thing you can do.
> The immeadiacy of the danger, the sense that Destiny Is In Your Hands,
> really serves to rack up the tension level.
I ask you to reserve jusdgement on this. Wait till you've had a go playing HW. In the play test there was quite an involved encounter between the PC party and a Chieftain's advisers. It 'ran' just like a mass combat, yet what we were actually doing was using all sorts of different ways to influence one another.
The great thing was that you got all those things you describe - there was plenty of tension - without the need for combat.
What I think you have to ask yourself as a traditional role player is whether the games you've played so far have funneled your expectations down a certain direction, but in fact there's plenty of other directions you could have gone in.
Could this have happened:
The first RPGs are made by wargamers.
They like combat best so they make games where 90% of the detail is
given to combat.
Other people play those games and naturally spend 90% of their time in
combats.
New generation RPGs are judged on whether their combat is at least as
good as the previous generation.
Putting the cart in front of the horse.
You say:
> ... combat is most of the time _the_ most exciting thing you can do.
maybe because of the way the games you've played have been written.
The Hero Wars paradigm shift is, I believe, an attempt to go back to before the wargaming inspiration and produce something more even handed.
Of course, wargamers exist, and as you rightly point out there are many people who particularly like combat. But I think they should share the game with role players who particularly like other aspects.
The fact that more combat material will exist in HW relative to other activities is in recognition of the number of wargame-RPGers which already exist. I think it's more of a marketting thing. Those of use who see HW as a rennaissance will think it's a bit of a step backward - but I'm sure we'll live with it.
However the HW approach is not guaranteed. It may be the case that the reason RPGs are mainly combat oriented is because that is the natural way people like to role play, rather than because of its inception by wargamers. If that is the case then players will demand more combat details from HW, maybe requiring some supplement to be made, and not more details for any other aspect. That's fine - but I think it's an excellent idea to start with a level playing field.
When I start trying to undo the combat/exploration indoctrination which I feel inside me certain traditional aspects of the game start to make little sense. Mapping and Tactical Displays are two of them - makes about as much sense to me as drawing pictures of the PCs I interact with or detailed plans of the locks I want to pick. Furthermore I start to see this sort of stuff as a waste of time.
Monsters stats were also always a pain to me, and that's another thing I want to get rid of. I'm no longer interested in the mechanics of how many times a round a creature attacks, with what percentages, and what damage, and where it's different armour is, and so on. RQ was always a real pain for this.
In fact when I look at scenario design I would say I spent 10% of my time doing the plot, and the rest drawing maps, detailing rooms, and spec-ing all those bloody monsters. That makes scenario design take far longer than I want it to, with the emphasis all out of balance.
This is just my personal feelings and everyone else here will differ. The point is HW will, I hope, give us all an equal chance, by not forcing us to go into details over things we don't want to. I feel that's quite liberating.
Richard
Powered by hypermail