confusing many threads.... from styopa_at_iname.com on 1998-09-30 (Glorantha Digest Vol 06)

From: styopa_at_iname.com
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 23:18:21 -0500

Keith misses my point entirely....twice:
><< I mean if I write in my charcter
> description that my character is handsome, is it because I think that, or
> because he IS? >>
>For all those worried about Minimaxers how about this as the GM rule to sort
>them out The player does what he thinks of himself, the GM then gives him his
>actual skills, with a character flaw; (egotistical to the point of dangerous
>absurdity, but doesn't realise it).

NAIHSTHWRY*: My point is that you run into a serious, fundamental difference of opinion here as to how a role playing game handles the characters, when you design them with text. There are two ways to handle this - the objective (Strength 18 means I'm stronger than a 17, and not as strong as a 19, every time) and the subjective (I'm "very strong".). When you base a game on the subjective as it appears Hero Wars is doing (NAIHSTHWRY) you run into the problem of whose definition is it anyway?
>From what I have seen in the responses from teh HW playtesters, it's the
player who writes the text and the GM who interprets it. I see this as a philosophical difference of opinion, that is possibly unresolveable. Personally, I prefer a system that presents the characters OBJECTIVELY, and lets them resolve their actions in a world with responses that are as far as possible OBJECTIVELY based.
With a subjective system, I suspect you beg for player resentment when the GM interprets things differently.

*(Note Although I Haven't Seen The Hero Wars Rules Yet) - an abbreviation that should come into wide use on this list...
>

Loren refers to the mailing list of Delecti's swamp:
>RQ has its own Rules mailing list. I paraphrase the text at the tail of
>every RQ Rules Digest:
>To subscribe to runequest-rules-digest, send email to majordomo_at_mpgn.com
>with the line "subscribe runequest-rules-digest" as the body of the message.
I believe that, while it's still extant, it's moribund. Unless I've been kicked for some reason (impossible - I get along with everyone!:)) I haven't seen a RQ-Rules digest or RQ Daily for at LEAST 6 months.

Keith pisses off all the elves on the list...again twice:
>Actually, I dislike most missile
>combat as I generally think it makes RPG games complicated, what with ranges
>and rates of fire and all that stuff. I tend to feature a high wind in most
>outdoor combats to reduce archery success anyway (as a GM that is).
[snip]
>I still don't like archery, unless it is by some specialist (because archers
>need a lot of practice), and I like the fact that there a very few
longbows in
>Glorantha.

I find that magic stuff complicates things too much, and the impaling rules are just too tough to keep track of, so I only give my players clubs and discard the POW stat entirely.

:)
egad, an anti-simulationist!

Alex, the inveterate Orlanthi (he's a Scot, ain't he? THAT figures...):
>There's been a comment or two implying that Hero Wars may be somewhat
>Dragon Pass-centred, or Sartar-centred, or whatever. It probably
>will be, as others have explained, at least in the person of the first
>box.
>

All I did was ASK if it was going to be Sartar-centric. While the material dredged forth regularly in this digest probably proves me wrong, I'd venture to believe that there is a limit to the number of times the same subject matter can be revisited, no? I mean, please, the natural first supplement to a Sartar-centered game is a Prax supplement....how many times have we seen this stuff? Sure, there's always *some* new material, but what's next, another Trollpak?

And George Harris daringly treads close to grognardism, by suggesting we simplify a mechanic...
>>First number is your target: roll this or above on d20. Second number are
>>your Status Points when starting a contest with that skill; the more the
>>better, as when you drop to 0 you're out of the contest.
> To reiterate a point I made earlier, wouldn't it be much simpler and
>as near equivalent as needs be (given that the sum of the skill number and
>status point total has not been constant throughout the playtest) to simply
>represent the skill by *one* number, and have that equal both the number you
>have to roll *below* and the number of status points you start with (which,
>for an equivalent skill would give you one more status point), so that
>10/10, 6/14 and 18W/2(22)
>would then be represented as 11, 15, and 3W (with the W indicating an extra
>20 SPs as well as the bump-up)? Or does this not fulfill the need for
>obfuscatory representations?

This is startlingly God-Learnerish consolidation of a clumsy mechanism into a neat, simpler package. Next he'll be switching Vinga with Jane Williams, and nobody will notice. (Sorry Jane!)
- -Steve (styopa_at_iname.com)
or at work (Steve_at_necadon.com)
http://surf.to/styopa

End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #230