HW versus RQ from Nikk Effingham on 1999-04-21 (Glorantha Digest Vol 06)

From: Nikk Effingham <ENG7NJE_at_arts-01.novell.leeds.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 14:29:23 GMT

Just for my two clacks, I don't have any problems with Hero Wars versus RuneQuest. I, for one, will use both. The rules-lite(-er) ideal of Hero Wars has a certain appeal to me. After seeing it in action at Convulsion, I realised a few things - at home I have a folder packed full with fifty/sixty A4 pages of just stats for a tower of vampires in Glorantha. In Hero Wars it could more effectively, and certainly more easily, be represented in game terms. You just don't need three sides of A4 to describe a character's abilities in that game (as far as I know...). However, conversly, I have a folder packed full of fifty/sixty A4 pages of just stats for a tower of vampires in my game, and I won't convert to Hero Wars for my campaign when it comes out - all of the work that I've done in my campaign would have to be redone, and that's a lot of work. While I'll happily run both systems, there won't be conversion between the two. Especially as I doubt that my players would feel happy with the style/"feel" of the current campaign suddenly changing as I swap rules sytems.

I probably won't run Hero Wars as often. Far from it, recently I played my first game of Feng Shui and it was GREAT fun. Very dramatic cinematic etc... But, as people have pointed out, if you play the game week in, week out, you stop being inventive with your descriptions of what is going on. After a years play, with one or two sessions a week, will you still come up with such evocative descriptions as characters leaping on to the floor, pointing their sword in the air, sliding under their enemies legs, slicing their groin, hurling your arms above your head and flipping yourself back to standing position? No. It's easy, and fun, to do at first, but I believe people will get bored and just say "I hit him. Hard." After all, it is JUST combat, and why bother putting so much effort into it? The argument that Hero Wars combat/resoltuion rules are more dramatic, awe inspiring than RuneQuest isn't a valid one IMO - it's down to the how the game is run. For instance, while running RQ my players felt both scared and dramatic whilst combatting some cockatrices, even though the thought on their minds were "Will I last to the end of the round to get that Thunderbolt off..."

The two systems have their benefits and drawbacks. i for one, don't think I (notice the _I_) could run Hero Wars every week - I just don't have the inventive capacity. RuneQuest, at least, does not REQUIRE such evocative descriptions to still be fun, whilst Hero Wars will lose something without them but BOTH systems can be dressed up by inventive GM's and players to be descriptive/dramatic etc... the virtue of Hero Wars, however, is that it DEMANDS that you dress it up. Good for small campaigns, or campaigns not run as often, but not for a week in/week out game IMO.

Anyhow, the main reason why I'm running Hero Wars is so that all my RQ players who have played a three year campaign can watch these my Hero Wars players start off with far more powerful characters than theirs : )

All IMO,

Nikk