> Thus the words "go overboard in trying", above. Oh well, even when I am
> dead-on in predicting what people will jump on, it still doesn't help to
> try and head it off at the pass... :)
I'm not sure why this is considered 'jumping on', but if you want some hints and tips on this, I'd suggest it's usually "the manifestly incorrect statements".
> Well, first off, we were talking about the GM describing the results of
> combat damage...now unless you're proposing that the players get to
> decide the effects of the damage (or the "negative outcome of the
> contest" for non-combat stuff) for themselves [shudder], then I don't see
> the problem with my statements.
*sigh* You were talking about 'narrative', unqualifiedly Brian, throughout all or most of that post. I'd go back and quote it back to you chapter and verse, except that your subject lines make the particular topic a tad hard to identify... :-/
Players contribute to this 'narrative' in the form by describing their actions. Or the intended effect of their actions, to be more specific. The GM gets to determine what the actual effect is, based on the _rules_, the _random roll_ (remember those), and the player's description. To characterise this as if the GM is solely responsible for creating the 'narrative', as if out of whole cloth, indeed, seems to me to be wholely unreasonable, and well worth 'jumping on'.
> As for the players sharing it with the rest of the group, I think I've
> already made it clear that I don't think players will continue to do this
> effectively for long. Even if they did, it turns the game into an exercise
> in impromptu speech-making
There seem to be some remarkably predetermined opinions out there on such matters, don't there? Firstly, the charactisation of 'description' as 'speech-making' is just silly. If you like the level of detail of an RQ combat, then the descriptions ought to correspond to about that level. If you like a greater or a lesser level of detail, then ditto. It's absurd to suggest that people's will will be insidiously sapped by the pernicious nature of 'storytelling' that they will devolve to a _lower_ level of they themselves look for in a roleplaying environment. "Gee, a 24 SP loss. Wonder what that was?" "Dunno, sheer ennui prevents me from exercising any thought about whether it was a Lightning Bolt or a Mind Blast -- it was just a Combat Magic Big Success, 'kay?"
That different people will have 'style clashes' on this and that having wildly different such people in a group could have drawbacks is, I think, not in doubt. No change there, frankly.
> Another point I should have expounded upon (but its difficult to always
> predict every facet of one's posts that will be nit-picked) is that the
> "imagined events" of each player and the GM are *all* better than any
> detailed narrative that would come from *anybody*.
People's imaginations do not go to sleep just because someone exercises their descriptive abilities. Yes, it would be absurd to attempt to *exhaustively* describe everything, complete with A1 flip charts and iambic pentameter. When your road to Damascus conversion to HW happens, please restrain your understandable enthusiasm to go to such lengths. (Oops, forgot the </irony> tags.)
> It takes only a basic level of description to get
> the imagination-ball rolling for this...
Then use whatever level of description works best for your group. What I find hard to accept that the best possible basis for such a description is a set of RQ sets, which seems to be your bottom line on just about everything.
In particular, as others have others have hypothesised and Eric has confirmed (ish), HW will have 'frameworks' within the rules for conventions about what an 'SP' and a particular ability will mean in typical conjunction. It'll hardly be beyond the wit of man to make these 'frameworks' as rugged and sturdy as one desires, if for example one wants to set 'standard tariffs' for how many SPs it takes for said Lightning, or to go for a shield bash when your opponent winds up for an overhead swing. Or whatever.
Cheers,
Alex.
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