>In my campaigns no player gets a free ride. Everybody starts from the
>bottom and earns each ability and skill with hard work.
Remind me to develop a character with you. I'll be pleased to do the "learn to crawl" heroquest at the age of 4.5 seasons, especially if you do it as a party event.
I have started enough characters at the "can't anything, aren't anything" base for years, and in character guise I have learned to swing a sword from the bones over and over again. I feel I am entitled to play a game where I can create a character which has been through that, when I can toss in all those often not so dear memories in other guises.
If this applies to younger gamers without these experiences, too - so what? If all of them want to play Hercules (the Xena counterpart), give 'em a) one of their own number to referee this and b) characters who might at least sometimes succeed in such actions. In time they may recognize that there could be something missing, and might pick up a low powered campaign - especially if offered in a magazine or so.
Especially when I play a gritty, to the ground campaign, I usually have very experienced characters in the game - farmers who can tell by the smell how the weather will be, where the missing sheep has gone, or similar. Their sword attack may be lousy, but mind their hoes... And trust them to know about botany when lost in the wild and looking for something to eat. Give them a success, and something really yucky but nourishing, and have fun as a referee. I once had a PC casualty hunting beavers...
>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.
I found that having something go definitely wrong during their success makes for even better effects, sicne they themselves will think of a follow-up possibility.
>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.
Nothing stops you from playing a guy with a "be ordinary" 2/18 ability, perhaps even with a mastery level. In Orlanthi myth this person is called Flesh Man...
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