> > to waffling my way around how it's "the wrong question to ask",
> > then with HW as it stands, I'm stuffed.
>
> Why? The correct method, expenditure of HP's, has been explained
> more than once.
"Asserted rather than explained."
That's incorrect. There are conspicuous exceptions to this as "the correct method" for tracking ability scores; most notably the HQ challenge mechanic, which is part of the line of thought that leads me, for one, to wonder about "mechanics" for adding abilities.
If you want to see a "pure" example of a game that really does work by this principle, come hell or high logic, look at a cutting edge product of a mere 20 years old called "Champions". (Or the Hero System, if you want to be posh about it.) This takes the maxim of "you can only have it if you pay the points for it" to lengths that might be considered maniacal, or apparently by some people's attitudes around here, "more HW than thou". If you really think this is the high watermark of a "narrative gaming" as concerns tracking ability scores, as some of the arguments here would imply, you're welcome to it.
> > It's absurd to say that you can only narrate (sorry, NARRATE) wealth
> > by trivialising and negating game-world factors that might lead to
>
> The system does not trivialises them - it merely declines the futile
> attempt to mechanically model them, and allows you the discretion of
> imposing what the physical interpretation of a change in systematic
> wealth ratings is.
And offers _no guidance whatsoever_ as to how to take account of game-world factors in exercising said discretion. For a given level of wealth, you're completely on your own for working out whether nabbing 1 cow, or 100, would "narratively justify" increasing your Wealth rating by 1 for 1 HP.
> > those original events to matter, and to have the game rules support
> > incorporating them into the mechanical description, eh? You can
>
> Fine - but recognise that this is a simulationist approach. You are
> trying to do physics - cause and effect in mechanically predictable
> manner. But the entire system qwuite clearly and obviously works on
> a different, dramatic, set of premises. All I am saying is that to
> try to insert a Simulationist calculation into a Dramatist mechanic
> is a) pointless b) going to give funny results.
It'd be silly to pretend HW was a "pure narrative game". (Indeed, the term is bordering on the oxymoronic.) Not that many people haven't gone pretty far out on this particular limb of silliness... It's clearly less simulationalist than many, but there are several elements of the rules (some of which I approve, and others of which I distinctly do not...) that are _way_ more simulationist than the proposal that's been made for wealth. (Which explicitly disclaims being "mechanically predictable", though you'd never think it, to listen to the counter-rhetoric.)
> it asks the player "how much are you changing
> your strength by". And it treats wealth in exactly the same way.
And thereby, almost entirely sidelining game-world events that intuitively _would_ change your game-world events. I'm gamed in this system, and didn't much like it, and nor did the players. (And it wasn't HW, either.)
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