George W. Harris is partly assuaged, but:
> now my only real concern about the action
> point mechanic is that it is easily tractable to game theory and thus
> encourages gamist play.
All systems do that; certainly I don't think one would accuse RQ of being rules-artifact-free. But since the "optimal" strategy for AP-betting is pretty clear, and since the rules actually point out what it is, at least no-one is likely to be sitting around with their abaci in mid-game trying to determine what it is. Whether this strategy has a sensible game world rationale or not in the generic case is another matter, of course.
Michael Cule, too, has some reservations:
> The fact that the system was geared to high level characters. In HW
> you are starting at about Rune Level equivalent.
[snip]
> Little Hate first. The idea that PCs start out with a Level of Mastery
> over the 'average person'.
Surely these two are (firstly, the same thing, and, more to the point:) easily "configurable"? I don't, to be honest, know a thing about HW chargen, but this _sounds_ like something that it'd be simplicity itself to change by fiat. In fact, is the above true of _all_ HW PCs, or just the ones in the demo game? Who I agree, were pretty high level -- I had a real powergamefest with Broadus ;-)
> The Plot Points system. [...] Given that they are also what they
> spend to advance their characters they are going to treasure these
> and not throw them around like confetti as they did in the demo I
> watched at CONVULSION.
I'm sure that was simply demo-itis (and the fact that we wanted to finish our game before Greg Reads, in our case, so Big Successes all round certainly sped things up...).
> I would be happier if they were given out for good role-play
> and stuff like that
You mean, they aren't? *boggle*
> For me the Action Point resolution system does not make the flow of
> things more exciting but bleeds all the detail and reality out of
> conflict, especially combat. It is (as Robin will tell you) an
> abstracted system. And as others have noted here it is the concrete that
> makes the situation real to the player's imagination not the abstract.
I agree with that much. As I remarked in an earlier message, the "fix" is simply to put the concrete back in, where it's dramaticly appropriate to do so. The advantage of doing it this way is that one now has a much greater _choice_ about the appropriate level of detail for each resolution. Leaving all this waffle about paradigm shifts and what-not aside, there's really nothing in the rules that _prevents_ one from interpreting Action/ Status points in as concrete a manner as one likes, if that's what serves the needs of the game -- and anyway, if there _are_ such rules, I sez, throw the bums out. Just treat "abstraction" as a licence to be flexible (not that one should need one).
Slainte,
Alex.
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