> From: "Nick Brooke" <Nick_Brooke_at_compuserve.com>
> 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?
I don't like portraying such events in my game which cannot be enacted by the players themselves. As it stands in HW my players would think that the fishwife must have had a level of mastery in knife, or a plot point to boost her knife success. Rather than the everyday fact that a knife in the stomach is usually lethal.
I'd like all human NPC's to be just as vulnerable to a surprise knife attack in the gut, unless they have heroquest 'strengthen tummy' powers. ;-) And in my opinion the skill/death system doesn't currently reflect this very well.
> 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...
Indeed it does. ;-)
In my campaigns no player gets a free ride. Everybody starts from the bottom and earns each ability and skill with hard work. And when they do overcome insupassable odds by luck or intelligence THAT is when they are regarded as heroes. And in my experience the players feel more of a sense of acomplishment when they do so.
The greatest hero I ever had the pleasure to roleplay with was the weakest member of the party who spent his life valiently saving the clan from a Malian superbroo. His death was noble and he sacrificed himself with the knowledge he wouldn't return, and as his reward he was made the first clan hero and had a rune spell associated with him. The guy wasn't even rune level. But he was the most heroic of us all.
Now if a hero in HW has things biased in their favour I think it loses an opportunity and could remove some players sense of satisfaction.
But we all have our own way of running things... ;-)
> 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?)
I would always prefer the chaff to weaken the players. As they get weaker, they become more desperate and the impending feeling of doom makes their _possible_ success more savory.
I don't want them to act like Conan characters chopping their way through a wall of guards, stopping only for a soliloquy and feeling no fear until the final fight. I want to roleplay and let them taste doubt, conflict, pain and fear. Not give it to them on a plate and create the whole story just to satisfy their egos.
But to be honest I have degenerated into a GMing style discussion and this has nothing to do with HW.
Pete
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