If Phillip is a HW playtester, i am seriously puzzled as to how he came to his conclusions, since they are certainly not supported in the versions of HW that i have read.
>>In HW, a scorpion man will just have a "fight with sword and stinger"
>>ability that will be piched against the character's bland "fight (with
>>sword)" ability.
This is true *only* if the GM and players themselves make that a condition of the contest. A contest with a scorpion man can of course be designed in such a boring way by the GM and players, but if they intentionally make it thus then i fail to see how the resulting blandness and boredom can be a fault of HW.
Since a player is responsible for describing his character's abilities, it makes little sense to complain that his character's "fight (with sword)" ability is bland (especially with the implicit comparison that "Broadsword attack" is somehow not as bland).
A more valid objection to HW is that the game leaves a lot up to the creative input of GMs and players. But blaming HW for one's own ineptitude in that respect is plain stupid.
>>Unusual
>>approaches are (AFAIK) limited to finding a skill that you can bring to bear
>>in an unusual way, such as setting a booby trap with your "build things"
>>ability. But that can be no better than using ranged combat
Again, a more valid objection to HW is that the game needs better (and more!) examples and guidelines as to how to apply the mechanics. But the above is flatly wrong.
Unfortunately, i haven't saved Phillip's original message, so i can't comment on what else he said.
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