...
> 1: There are no pre-defined skills in Hero Wars. A skill is a
> description of an attribute of significance about a person or
> creature. Keywords (including those given for creatures in AR) are
> just a package of suggested abilities to save time and effort. But
> they are not fixed in stone. I might call it Run Fast on my
> character sheet, but it has no relation to Run Fast on a horse's
> character sheet or a mouse's. It may have far more relation to
> Sprint on another humans. Understand what is being implied.
I've never detected a hint of this in any of the sessions you've narrated. When we've had contests, we've never stopped to think whether one actor's ability called 'X' was comparable to another actor's ability also called 'X'. We have always assumed they are.
<sarcasm>
Next time one of the NPCs tries to parry Karlina's spear, can I claim
that, actually, Karlina's 'Close Combat' is a different ability from
their 'Close Combat', so they must take a hefty improvisation penalty?
And how big a penalty will that be?
</sarcasm>
> The easiest way to design a `monster' in HW is to list the abilities
> they have, which are important to the story, and then assign ratings
> to them dependent.
...
Which is where the mix up is happening, I think. The simulationist approach is this:
1) Decide what the opposition (creatures, cliff height, etc.) will be. 2) Look up/calculate the statistics for that kind of opposition. 3) Note down those numbers as the difficulty level.
The narrative approach is this:
1) Decide what the opposition (creatures, cliff, etc.) will be. 2) Decide the difficulty level. 3) Lookup/calculate the statistics required to produce that level ofdifficulty.
I think you are trying to point this out, but have confused things by welding numbers to the ability ratings of animals.
(Simplifying somewhat)
In a simulationist approach using HW, the difficulty for a running race
against a horse is the 'Run Fast' ability of the horse, 2W, period. In
the narrative approach, you not only
If you accept a) but not b), you end up with the confusing idea that the 'Run Fast' ability of a horse has whatever value the Narrator wishes.
...
> Horses run faster than people.
If that is a fact that you want to represent in your game world, and you set up the rules to ensure that fact, you ARE being a simulationist, however you do it, whether with a universal 'Run Fast' scale (ala Christian) or an arbitrary fudged resistance each time (what you seem to suggest). We all seem to be agreement that outrunning horses should not be easy, even in Glorantha, so all there is left is to do is to examine the other advantages and disadvantages of the proposed methods.
Universal 'Run Fast' scale:
Advantage: Gives players and narrators alike the ability to translate
character sheets into game world terms (Gee, my character has 'Run Fast
2W', how fast is that, can he out run a horse?).
Advantage: Easy to use, relieving the Narrator of the burden of creating
numbers entirely from scratch, by providing rough figures that can be
adapted for specific situations.
Disadvantage: Can be misinterpreted as values set in stone
Arbitrary Fudging:
Advantage: No possibility of being misinterpreted as values set in stone. Disadvantage: Character sheets become meaningless, because their numbers can not be translated into game world terms. Disadvantage: Difficult for newbies to use. Disadvantage: Difficult to use, because the Narrator must work everything out from first principles every time. Disadvantage: Likely to be interpreted as arbitrary and unfair.
A universal scale wins hand down, I think, provided it is accepted as a guide rather than as numbers set in stone.
> Magical abilities are just things that
> are impossible and how good you are at them.
Except that many of the magic abilities in HW (and RQ before it) are not
impossible to do mundanely (exhibit A: 'Deadly Spear Throw').
...
> This approach to creating skills is designed to liberate you from
> the restrictions of lists of allowable skills, each with their own
> special rules.
Yes, bad. I'd say insisting that a Horse's 'Run Fast' was different from a human's was a special rule -- you would presumably not make the same distinction for a race between a human and an Uz. What about Maidstone Archers? Incomparable, or comparable only with an improvisational penalty? It's a can of worms.
The opposite of a plethora of special rules is a small set of universally applicable rules. How about these:
Hence:
a) Actors with Abilities having the same name will have the same
improvisational penalties/bonuses.
> It is agreat creative freedom, but it comes at the
> expense that it is much more open to willfull abuse. I'm reminded of
> a quote from Orkworld by John Wick, which also uses a make-up-the-
> skill approach
>
> "...The guy who chooses to destroy drama by having an `I do
> everything!' skill at everyone else expense.
Well, if John Wick had that problem, he didn't write his rules properly. We don't have to repeat his mistakes.
...
> It is possible to abuse HW - the fix is not simulationist rules but
> the exhortation - 'Don't be this guy'.
The fix is to ensure the rules can not be so easily abused (I'm not claiming you can eliminate all possible abuses). Because game balance can be subtly destroyed, even unintentionally.
Powered by hypermail