> calling sorcerors materialists is a very naive statment.
Gee, you're so right! I'll burn all Stafford's recent work on sorcery and belief systems as soon as I can lay my hands on it. How... how *naive* of him!
> If Robin is trying to model TV/book fiction how could the system
> handle a disgruntled (inexperienced) wife who simply plunges her
> fish knife into her husbands belly and kills him in one shot?
Is your player character the disgruntled and murderous fishwife, the suddenly deceased husband, or neither of the above? I strongly suspect that this situation does not involve a PC at all. In which case, why bring it up?
HW does not posit that the entire world works in a heroic fashion -- it posits that within the world, the PCs operate heroically. HW does not say "throats cannot be slit" -- it says that if you're a PC, you could slit throats handily (with moral exhortations and do-as-you-would-be-done-by's to urge you against wholesale slaughter), and you can reasonably expect not to have your throat slit by mischance.
Or, indeed, to be suddenly stabbed to death by a fishwife.
Your Heroism May Vary...
> major NPC's shouldn't bother throwing chaff (weaker warriors, debaters
> etc.) at the players to soften them up, because in fact all that they
> are doing is bumping up the players action points and making them
> stronger, rather than weaker.
Not necessarily, as *real* chaff can be brushed aside with unopposed rolls (and, consequently, no status point effect). But as a dramatic principle, this does kinda make sense, doesn't it? (Or would you prefer Macduff to send his flunkies in to soften up Macbeth before he closes in for the kill?)
Nick
:::: web: <http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Nick_Brooke>
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