This one wasn't my argument, but let me borrow it.
>> 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.
That particular disgruntled fish-wife sounds a lot like one of my characters. Including the non-existant combat skill. I enjoy playing her, a lot. Look, not all of us want to start off as Heros, OK? Some of us quite enjoy being normal people in a really abnormal world, especially when events that are abnormal even for that world happen to our characters. Later, these normal people may develop into heroes, perhaps even Heroes. But they'll still have bad breath after eating onions: if they're no longer anchored to reality, why bother playing them?
Like I say, I haven't seen HW. And RQ fails me quite badly in this respect, too. What I want is a character generation system that will work for all NPCs as well as for PCs (since there's no difference other than who runs them today), can handle varying levels of detail (major NPCs get the same level as regular PCs, "drop-in" players get the same level as cannon-fodder), and can handle everything from a five- -old pick pocket to Harrek. If Salinarg's kid can become a Sword aged 8, I want to know why, and how a PC could do the same thing.
OK, so what I want is perfection. But it sounds as if HW is moving further away from this, not closer towards it.
> HW does not posit that the entire world works in a heroic fashion -- it
> posits that within the world, the PCs operate heroically.
Well mine don't, not all the time. And I don't want them to be forced into it. If I need
to fiddle dice roll to keep the plot going, I can do that. I don't want the system to
force me into letting them off every time.
> (Or would you prefer Macduff to send his flunkies in to soften up Macbeth before
> he closes in for the kill?)
Unless he's a complete idiot, yes, I would.
Still, I did get some Answers (which is a lot of the point of this discussion)
> As it happens, Intimidation was one of the notable abilities of one of the
> HW demo game characters.
Great! That's something that really needs rules, not just roleplay!
> Though since there's no real distinction between magical and non-magical
abilities anyway...
Pardon? If I understand you correctly, that's a HUGE difference between RQ and
HW. I think I'm going to like it, but it sounds like converting from one to t'other is
going to be tricky. Especially for a PC of mine who likes her Dispell Magics!
Still, I always did feel that (say) Fanaticism should be triggered by circumstances more often than by spells. ("Yes, your family are being butchered before your eyes, but you don't have Fanaticism or Berserk, so you attack as normal"). Or does HW just call it an Ability and continue to say you don't have it?
Jane Williams jane_at_williams.nildram.co.uk http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/gloranth/
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