re: HW's power level from Sergio Mascarenhas de Almeida on 1999-04-21 (Glorantha Digest Vol 06)

From: Sergio Mascarenhas de Almeida <sermasalmeida_at_mail.telepac.pt>
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 10:29:27 +0100

Alex:
> Is there a rule in RQ that prevents you from storytelling the combat
while
> you play it out? I think not. There is no rule which forces you, either.
> This is just a question of style. But in the GM book we find:
>
> "Avoid speaking game lingo, use dramatic narrative"
>
> In RQ you don't find crits table as in other games I won't name, because
> describing damage in actual term is a complicated issue that is best left
to
> GM's improvisation. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be described (it's
> the same for spells, BTW). There is no rule in the RQ system that
> encourages yu to roleplay (XPs for good roleplay and the like), but since
> we're talking about a role-playing system I think it is implicit, isn't
it?

There's something more: how many legs do you need to brake before it becomes mecanical, meeningless, and boring describing the nature of damage? In how many ways can one describe the effects of a blow without becoming stereotiped in the descriptions? (Specially since most role players are not literary genious.)

An abstract system has the advantage that it leaves to each individual player to imagine the exact nature of the result. It's up to the player to visualise it.

Also, IMO the focus of the combat situation (I'm using combat as an example, but any other type of interaction could be used, specially social interaction) is not the outcome of the blow, but the effect of the blow on the equelibrium of forces between the PCs and the NPCs. A good description of the outcome of the blow is nice, but it may add little iin terms of role play, or even distract from role play.

Finally, purely descriptive systems have a big drawback: a lot of players doesn't know enough about what they're trying to do, so they can't have enough variety and deepeness in their descriptions. I was reading some time ago a description of a fight between two fencers in pure story-telling terms. I was thinking all the time: I couldn't do this, since I don't know enough about fencing to go this deep. In such a game, I would be at a disadvantage in comparision to the players I'm reading about since I couldn't provide all this detail.

In fact, I think that the best approach is to combine rule mechanics terms with descriptions. Forex, as a GM, in RQ I never tell the HP lost by the NPCs, but provide a description of the results of the damage done by the PC to the NPC. Because that's more dramatic? Not at all (I buid drama in different ways from this.) If I do this, is because I don't wnat to disclose the exact effects of the blow in the NPC. I provide a qualitative aproximation, and prefer to leave the players guessing what's the exact situation of the NPCs. The reason as to do with my way of attempting to simulate reality, not because I'm trying to be a story-teller.

Sergio