Re: Hero Wars, a second comment

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_yeats.ucc.ie>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 02:11:03 GMT


James Chapin:

> To argue that HW "scales" better than RQ may well be true. So does Tunnels
> and Trolls, or Rolemaster, for that matter. The difference between the two
> latter systems is that in the former, a weaker character can do nothing to
> a stronger character, while in the latter, Bilbo could, if he rolled enough
> open-ended rolls, hurt Sauron.

Hero Wars isn't strictly open-ended (though I have a nifty variant that is, which I may playtest when my game restarts...), but it'll do until something that is comes along. Your tribal Humakti war champion _could_ be killed by an old woman with a stone. It's none too likely, but it's possible. Your tribal Humakti war champion _could_ kill Harrek the berserk -- but it's none too likely... There's exactly zero chance that an old woman with a stone could kill Harrek the berserk. One might argue that 'vanishingly small' would be aesthetically preferrable, in a sense, but it's not really a very practically important issue, unless quantum-mechanical miracles are a regular event in your games. (I do have a local acquaintaince who claims the world record in Storyteller stress-tests, mind...) If you feel these events should not merely be possible, but actually moderately likely, then you can achieve this fairly easily in HW by simply 'compressing' the scale somewhat. (Say, old woman is 10, champion is 20W, Harrek is 10WWW, or whatever.) As it stands I'm not clear if you're criticising the system as a mechanical construction, the numbers assigned from the world to the game, or if you're really just using that well-known Dragonewt mystical discipline, Pre-Flaming.

> AD & D makes it possible for an advanced
> character to kill an army with just about no risk. I haven't even looked
> at the Hero Wars rules, but judging by the comments of those of you who
> LIKE the rules, it reflects Glorantha "better" than Runequest did. And in
> Gloranthan reality, Heroes kill armies with no risk.

That's not so; on the evidence of Dragon Pass, a battle between an 'ordinary' Hero and his companions (a dozen or several people, perhaps) and a regiment of 1000 is just about a 'fair fight'. Some days you get the bear, some days thye bear gets you... Perhaps this is broadly true in HW also, but it requires too many assumptions and too much number-crunching for me to double-check right now. Not even _Harrek_ could kill an entire _army_, and nor could he in HW.

> Greg's "new" Glorantha seems to be a
> world where everything is decided by a few super-powerful characters
> striding about the landscape.

It's much the same as the old one, except that the 'super-powerful characters' that have been around since the summer I was born in are represented by the game system it's being presented in terms of. It's not decided purely by them, though, not by a long chalk. The Lunar empire isn't likely to replace its army with a few women with stones, but equally, it's not about to abolish it in favour of a rapid-reaction Hero force, nyder.

> The rules may in theory make it possible to play Timmy the Trollkin of
> beloved memory, but obviously no one will.

Why is this remotely obvious, or indeed true? Is it necessary to have a game system which says "Thou shalt not play a powerful character", written in words of fire -- or in a least a game system that breaks if you do -- in order for people to be interested in playing the sorts of characters you're apparently interested in playing? If the rules did in any way stop or impede you from running a low-level game, then I'd entirely agree with your point. As it stands, I do not.

> I suspect that the 30th-level
> wizard/samurai/priest who killed Odin will be nothing to HW characters.
> Instead of levels, people will be striding about with "w"s on their chest.

If that happens, I suggest we strive to look on the bright side: we've made a sale to an idiot power-gamer, which will keep Greg in cream bagels (or preferred provender), and us 'in Glorantha' for that little bit longer. As a marketing strategy I think this might prove problematic, but never mind. In no way do I accept that it will spontaneously turn calm, reflective Gloranthan roleplayers into manic munchkins. Of course it won't wreak the reverse transformation either, but that's life. And while I believe there's a public good case to be made for keeping rocket launchers out of public schools and type insecure programming languages out of the hands of unIlluminated hackers (call me a populist demagogue of you like...) I see no similar case for decrying game systems in which it is possible (but not inevitable) to powergame.

This is all leaving aside the implicit equation between 'playing a 'heroic level' character' and 'munchkinism'. Equally nonsensical, but it's a whole different discussion.

Slán libh,
Alex.


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