So far I've been wise enough to stay out of this debate, but temptation has finally proven too much. Below are my somewhat carefully though through opinions on this whole comparing things issue. I expect and accept that others may not share these opinions, however I do hope that you'll give these a read and think about them before rejecting them outright.
Clearly HW does envisage absolute ability scales in at least some cases. For example, I've yet to see any suggestion that the close combat of a human can't be compared to that of a trollkin or that of a lion. Further, for better or worse Anaxial's Roster does suggest a universal small/large scale for comparing creature size. However these are very narrow cases (and I'll look again at close combat in a few paragraphs), and I'm here to argue the position that difficulties cannot be generally defined.
However, it is equally true that in general there cannot be universal target numbers, because mundane and magical abilities are not always equal. To take an extreme example, no mundane human skill let's a hero fly, while for a Vangarthi the basic target number is 14. To take a slightly less extreme example, Orlanth Adventurous devotees can easily (difficulty 14) run across mud that might pose a very significant challenge (difficulty much higher than 14) to those using a mundane skill to cross it. Finally, the infamous "sunset leap" feat may well let you leap to the hill on the other side of the valley easily at the right time of day, but may be completely useless at another time, and in either case the target number would be different than if you tried to accomplish the same with a mundane leap. I'm going to go out on a limb just a little bit here and state that all abilities of otherworldly being count as magical abilities, and further that in the otherworlds "mundane" abilities essentially become magical. Hence while you cannot use your jump 10W2 to leap across the valley that your stead lies in, when heroquesting you might be able to use that jump skill to leap across an apparently similar valley. This is because on a heroquest you become as someone of that place, and hence your abilities are not limited by the compromises of mundane reality.
Add into this the fact that slightly different skills often need to be adjusted on a case by case basis. For example, sprint and run are not equivalent skills (ask anyone who has tried running both the 1500m and the 100m). If two people both with running skill are competing, you wouldn't bother to penalize either of them, even if what they were attempting was a very quick dash, on the other hand if you are matching up someone with a general run skill against someone with sprint, and it is for a very short dash, the runner should take a penalty. (rule of thumb is that someone with a more general skill always takes a penalty when competing against someone with a more specific skill). In yet another situation, in a wide open game of tag, the runner, the sprinter, and someone with a high dodge skill might all use their abilities with little or no penalty by using different strategies. In other words, we already need to adjust abilities on the fly for different types of situations.
If you accept that different abilities face different difficulties to accomplish the same task, that the same ability might face different difficulties in different situation, and that different abilities need to be adjusted differently depending on the circumstances of their use and their opposition, then this next step is conceptually simple.
All of a being's mundane abilities carry the implicit meaning "as <this sort of creature>." Therefore "run (as a horse)," "run (as a human)." In fact, this concept is already represented in HW in things like "close combat (as a footman)" and "close combat (as a natural rider)." The difference is that although footmen have at least a 6 in ride horse (and probably more than that if they even managed to get the horse to a fight), and riders probably have at least an implicit 12 or better at walking (aside possibly from the almost magical pure case nomad who literally lives in the saddle), most horses have zero in "be a human" and most humans have zero ability in "be a horse." (I say most….I'm sure somewhere, probably in Pent, there exists people with magical access to "run like a horse.") So a human who tries to run as a horse generally has an ability of zero. Since you are now comparing "run like a human" and "run like a horse" you recognize that they each have different strengths, and depending on the nature of the contest you boost or penalize just like you would with any other contest of unlike abilities. A more extreme example would be the close combat skills of warrior ants. The ants do in fact have varying skills, and these are very important to the survival of their nests, and when they fight each other, but when comparing "close combat (as an ant)" to humans, you generally conclude that the comparison is meaningless (you could just grant the human a couple of masteries of boost, but it is easier simply to say that the ant will fail and the human will achieve an absolute victory (note that if the ant was trying to run away or hide this might not quite true, I'm talking here about a actual fight). Finally, when comparing similar types of beings, less adjustment will typically be needed "run as a horse" and "run as a high llama" are probably not so different, so in many cases can probably be directly compared. Having said all that, some comparisons for the more exotic species in AR would have been handy ("Only old, infirm, or heavily burdened humans can't outrun the stone rhinoceros" type of thing).
In a similar way, all of a being's magical abilities carry the implicit meaning "as <the power that granted me this ability>." Therefore a Vingan's "run on treetops" would not manifest in the same way as a (theoretical) monkey Hsunchen's "run on treetops" would, since the one is implicitly "run on treetops like Vinga did" and the other is implicitly "run on treetops like a monkey." Depending on what they were trying to do, if they were directly competing in some way one or the other may need to be adjusted.
Note that I don't especially see this as simulationalist versus narrative style. In every set of rules you have to tweak in various circumstances. Some games are narrow enough that you can cover the appropriate adjustments for most common circumstances in a rule book (most often when the most common circumstances all have to do with combat). None of these ever cover every situation even in the areas that they focus on (what happens when my ShadowRun character tries using his pistol skill with a slinghot? What happens when my D&D ranger is dangling upside down from the claws of a flying dragon and is trying to fire his bow at another dragon that is making an intercepting dive from above and to one side?), and are usually fairly useless in most other areas. HW aims very broadly, however, and realistically it can't offer more than token examples here or there, since it tries not to focus on any one area too closely. Now, I do hope that HQ will have many more examples that will give more guidance on how and when to make these sorts of adjustments, but adjustments are inevitable and cannot all be cataloged.
HW chooses to say "make adjustments based on the needs of the story," while most other games seem to pretend that their rules are essentially comprehensive and seldom give guidelines for how to make adjustments, but implicitly suggest that you should make the most "realistic" adjustment that you can. However since a good narrator in either case will try to tell stories that feel real and likely, it doesn't much matter which way you do it. In other words, if you try to recreate Hitchcock's "The Birds," you will want to use large numbers of fair sized birds. It doesn't really matter whether you reject the option of having the heroes terrorized by a dozen barn swallows because it would be too easy or because it would stretch the suspension of disbelief. In either situation you aiming for a challenge that strikes the players as difficult, and which will provide them a good challenge once actual numbers are brought into things. I don't think it matters most of the time exactly how you get there, so long as you get there. You may prefer to get there by looking at absolute numbers and deciding if this or that would be challenging, but getting there by deciding what is dramatic and then determining the relevant numbers is a skill that can be learned, and can equally result in much enjoyment.
In summary:
- not all abilities face the same target number for the same task, so
you can't have a universal comparison list.
- all abilities implicitly are tied to their source, so when unlike
beings (or beings with unlike magics) use abilities with similar
names, they aren't really the same ability, and hence should not be
treated as such.
- Every rule system requires adjustments to be made. Some offer
comprehensive advice within their main areas of focus, but all leave
it up to the narrator in many situations.
- How the narrator decides to make these adjustments is less
important than that the perceived and actual challenge both provide
good entertainment.
Powered by hypermail