War games are simulationist, but RPG's aren't.
The gamemaster is God, and anything he says goes. This is as true of RQ as it is of HW.
Any RPG depends upon the GM to provide the Illusion (sigh) that what the players does matter.
HW, as defended, seems to be for gamemasters who aren't satisfied with their already all-powerful position, and want to be able to tell the player, when he naturally enough looks at his sheet and wants to know "what does number this mean I can do?":
"It means anything that I choose it to mean, and don't ask me questions like that, you naughty simulationist, you."
Now, HW it hopefully exists, in someone's mind, provides some internally coherent way of presenting words and numbers in such a way as the average GM and his players can understand what they mean.
If all HW actually is is an exhortation to everyone to be creative and make things up, then it is an exhortation rather than a rules system.
If I want to make things up, I do it. If I buy a rules system and its adventures, I hope to be able to play them without having to do all the work from scratch.
In my HW adventures so far, most of my players have found the lack of clarity in the rules to be more an obstruction than an aid to role-playing. Now it may be that another GM could have done a better job at it, but it's not as if I'm just out of my britches.
Ironically, not knowing exactly what the rules are, whether in life or in games tends to limit creativity rather than to expand it.
Jim Chapin
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