But HW is not really trying to model the gamist approach (which say D20 is already great at) of 'amass cool stuff and abilites as a reward for winning'. It is trying to tell heroic stories in a cooperative fashion. If you contribute to that story well then you are rewarded with tokens of your importance to the plot, that you can use to influence events in the right direction. OK a bit theoretical I know and you just game to have fun. But the episode is not the narrators secretly prepared battle plan in a contest of wits with the players. Its the framework for telling a story that he or she hopes will create entertainment for himself and his company of players. If I face your character with a tough opponent, its not because I as the narrator want to 'win' by defeating you, its because I want to tell a cool story about you overcoming great odds, putting your life on the line to save the community.
>I think I would feel cheated if I had spent any HPs
in a contest, and then an NPC spent some.
I would only tend to give hero/villain points to a villian that has earned that prominence of the plot, and I mean earned. There is only one villain in my stories that comes close so far. How satisfying a conclusion if in the final battle the villain is felled by one lucky roll? What we want is a see-saw battle, that has everyone on the edge of their seats. Villain points give me a mechanism to do that, by allowing the villain to call upon his importance to the story, just as you can call on yours. But, yes, that has to be earned, they are not just a shield against player HPs (in fact the are not dependent on the existence of player HPS at all).
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