I want to thank Toksickburn for a chance to address this. You've addressed some issues that cloud even experienced HW players.
At 10:31 PM 8/14/2002 EDT, you wrote:
>There is something,i´m not quite sure about:it´s the abilityscale in HW.As
we
>all know,everything in HW is a skill.
>so this all relates to HUMAN possibilities.
>If you have a look at"Anaxial´s Roster",the whole thing seems to be a bit
>different.
This is a fundamental error in understanding the game.
This is a simulationist approach to the game but the game is not
simulationist at all.
This is a narrative game, and applying simulationist methodology to it is
like using plumbing to carry electricity. Wrong tool for the job.
Misapplied worship kind of thing.
>So my question is:to what do ratings
>relate?Is the scale accordant to all phenomena´s in the world or do they
>relate to human´s only?
They relate to the story at hand.
Everyone knows that a horse can run faster than a person. The game does
nothing to define the relative speeds of a horse and person, but in the
story your human may learn to run as fast as a horse. He will have a human
bonus to his Run ability.
Some horses can run faster than others, and one with a bonus of 2W2 runs much faster than another one.
>If you want to be able to compare all ratings with each other,they should be
>based on one perspective,that is the whole world.Which means the scale
>describes all things with one "view".
No, this is a simulationist perspective, and HeroQuest is a narrative game.
>So how can an ordinary human have "Run Fast" at 2W(a trained runner,maybe a
>messenger),when the Run Fast ability of a horse is also 2W????
These number measure the relative Advantages between opponents. But if a human and a horse were to race to start out you would have to gauge the starting abilities and resistances to each other. For this scenario I'd say that the human is about half the ability of a horse, or maybe I'd decide a horse was ten times faster. The decision is up to the narrator at the time of the game. From that point --"how hard is it for this guy to catch a horse?" -- you'd draw a starting resistance. How often do humans out run hoses? Almost never on a sprint or short run, so by crudely extrapolating from the rules I'd give the horse an ability.
Look to the likely results. What's most likely to happen? A Major Defeat
for the person. They lose the race. What game system number is this? A
Minor victory. What resistance guarantees this? Two bumps usually does. So
for the average joe has the default 17, to fail his opponent of xW2 suffices.
But so what? The real question is, "what will it mean for the story if he
out sprints the horse?" If the narrator doesn't want outrunning horses
every time they show up, then the guy should fail. But if success is
possible, likely or desirable for any story reason, set it lower. What if
the story was about a person who somehow got the magic of Outrun Horses?
Heck, right there the resistance would be 14. If the story plot was
"learning to live with horse racing," then the resistance is simply
something less that the "stated bonus," but around equal to the player's
chance of success.
But it's a cooperative venture, so the narrator calculates in the amount of
trouble the player took in this: is running one of his big things these
days? Has he spent time preparing, etc. Those are all modifiers to his
starting ability.
Can a running person run down horses?
Yea, of course! This is Glorantha.
I acknowledge that HW does not adequately press this perspective, and frankly HW has way too many petty rules and numbers to properly present the perspective. HQ will change that and present a more clear game perspective.
The Old World is Over.
There is always another way.
>If it´s all about a good story,for what reason do we need a bestiary at
>all?
For ideas and plot lines in your story. Most of the stories therein are potential story hooks, most of them associated with the GodWar and hence, Heroquesting.
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