Hero Wars Wars

From: Michael Cule <mikec_at_room3b.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 22:49:31 +0100

Well, some people want to cut short the discussion of HW. I haven't much to say that I haven't already said but here goes.

1. I've seen the playtest version of the rules and not just the demo. I still don't like the way the central mechanic works.
2. Unassigned skills: far as I know this is part of the 'Make-the- character-up-as-you-go-along' option and once you've chosen to include the ability in the character it becomes fixed to the best of my understanding.
3. I don't find it odd that people with very poor skills score many of their successes as criticals. It merely reflects 'beginners' luck' which is the fact that they will try things that no experienced person would and will sometimes find them working. But more often the tried and true methods of the trained person prevail over them.
4. Yes, Mastery gives you a bump up in result level based on how much Mastery you have over your opponent. I think that's a very neat mechanic!
5. Yes, you can work back in detail but combat needs to have rules for people getting wounded other than looking at how far negative they are at the end. Yes, it is fixable but not with the philosophy that currently rules the design.
6. Alex said:

>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.
>

That was specifically not the thing that gave me problems.

>[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 ;-)

Yes, it is fixable (and will be fixed in any version of HW that I use) but it reflects the central philosophy of the game which I dislike.

>> I would be happier if they were given out for good role-play
>> and stuff like that
>
>You mean, they aren't? *boggle*

They aren't though I'm told it was in an early version of the rules and taken out.

>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).

But concrete needs support where abstract can rely on waffle.

7) And Jane Williams said:

>
>Back to the point: if a lucky hit from your opponent takes out your sword-arm,
>you
>can hold them off, heroically, with a dagger. But only if you know it was your
>sword-
>arm that got hit. What I've heard of HW makes it sound as if all you know is how
>many Points you've got. Boring! So I hope what I've heard is wrong.
>

I'm afraid that what I have seen means that everything, physical and psychological, magical and mental involved in a fight comes down to Status Points. And that is flavourless as hell.

>OTOH, in a "real" fight you can get an advantage over your opponent by pure
>intimidation, and I don't mean spells. RQ doesn't allow for that. Does HW?

Yes, but it all gets put in the same pot.

"You may say it's brocolli. But I say it's spinach and I say the heck with it!"

• -- Michael Cule

  ---