AP, AP, what's an AP?

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 01:02:47 +0100 (BST)


David Dunham replies to George Harris:

> As I posted some time ago, Hero Wars is a paradigm shift from
> RuneQuest -- Hero Wars doesn't model processes. Your message
> describes this fairly well. Given that it's difficult to communicate
> across a paradigm shift (there's often an "aha!" moment where
> suddenly you understand all),

I doubt that that'll help the Deep Immersion Method Roleplayers much, and I know it still doesn't mean anything to _me_, and I have played the game (a whole once). One could take the above as implying that anyone criticising HW merely hasn't understood it yet, which would be unfortunate (and wrong to boot).

I think a more useful approach is that although HW resolution is indeed Jolly Abstract, it needn't play that way -- that's part of what the optional combat rules seem to do, and one could extend the same principle elsewhere. How "concrete" you get about what an AP "really means" in game world terms seems to be something where there's a lot of useful latitude. In fact, it'd be nice if the (final version of) the rulebook contains "sample AP values" for a reasonably large number of keywords, just to help get a "feel" for what they (might) represent in game terms. Ultimately, of course, it falls upon the GM to "manage" AP's in a way the players are comfortable with -- if that means them describing their characters' actions, and the ref doing all the conversion to AP values, then surely that will work too.

> I think you should try the game before deciding.

I'll agree with that, though.

Slainte,
Alex.


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