Re: Re: Collecting the PAQ - pretty darn long

From: Andrew Dawson <asmpd_at_...>
Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2000 23:18:40 -0400


At 07:51 AM 03/31/2000 -0800, Steve Lieb wrote: [Andy Dawson wrote:]
>> 4. The game isn't novice-friendly: The world isn't clearly explained,
>yet
>> the mechanics are very world specific and certain abilities
>(especially
>> feats) are so vague as to even confuse those who are old hands at
>> Glorantha. On this fourth point (or any, but especially the fourth
>point)
>> please try to prove me wrong. I want to see a logical argument that
>> convinces me the Hero Wars is novice friendly. (Serious request)
>
>I think the problem isn't HW. ANY game world, developed tightly enough
>(including but not limited to Glorantha, Tekumel, etc.) makes more
>demands than a shallow, superficial, artifical world that would accept
>just about any goofy thing without straining its believability (because
>it's not too credible to start with). Glorantha is no question the
>most deeply developed game world I can think of. That's why I think it
>a good idea to start players in the traditional areas of Heortland or
>Prax - they probably have the closest analogues to RW history and thus
>are "swallowed" easier by new players. IMO of course.

I'm not arguing about the problem with novices coming in to a very developed game world, my point is that:

Due to Glorantha being such a complex game world, it is not novice-friendly to have ambiguous abilities like "Sunset Leap" when you could have had a sentence of explanation--just for the complicated ones--without adding a lot of bulk to the game book. A website is only a partial fix; not everyone who can purchase a book has convenient (or any) web access.

Having such ambiguous abilities can be seen as stemming from: encouraging the imagination, oversight, lack of desire for novice players, thoughtlessness, lack of concern, exclusiveness, smugness, etc. (I'm not saying that it indicates any of these.) Of all of these "encouraging the imagination" is the only positive spin and Hero Wars already encourages the imagination without needing to fall back on ambiguous abilities. Further, a brief explanation or example doesn't hamper the reader's imagination.

I think that the problem is a lack of perspective regarding novices. I have heard several success stories about groups that already gamed in Glorantha or that had a Narrator who was steeped in Glorantha lore. None of this satisfies my question about accessibility for newcomers. Anecdotes about RQ gaming groups may be enjoyable reads but they don't address this problem.

To restate my request: Please explain to me how Hero Wars can be considered more novice-friendly than other new games. (The handicap of a complex world has been noted, but I still don't see an excuse for ambiguity.)

My hypothesis: Hero Wars is not as clear as it should and could be to novices to the setting and to the system which is tied to the setting.

My qualifications for this criticism:

  1. I edit and write computer manuals for a living. If I go through a 10-page section of a book and from the perspective of a novice I can say "What the heck are they talking about?" more than once, then there is a problem. There are plenty of such 10-page sections in the Hero Wars rules.
  2. I go through the process of explaining the games that I like to novices at conventions several times a year. I'm pretty good figuring out what is generally confusing to the average con-goer who is actually willing to try a new game. I'm guessing that other people are even more unwilling to try a confusing game.

Disclaimer: I like Hero Wars and will be enthusiastically running it at home and at cons. I just want it to succeed and I don't see how being obscure is a survival trait in a game that isn't backed by a ton of money.

Roderick: Will the Introduction to Glorantha clear up all of the ambiguous abilities? (If it does, that is a partial solution, though it requires the purchase of another book just to have the core rules.)

Thanks,
Andy

P.S. I'm willing to place Tekumel on the same level of world complexity and it is much less accessible to newcomers than Glorantha at the moment.

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