Hi Mark,
You are correct, that there is no one way to play. I apologise if I came off that way.
> This is in no way to make any criticism of Ron and his wonderful
> style of play, but IF anyone knows what the 'Gloranthan style of
> play' is, I'd presume it would be Greg.
I actually did quite a bit of digging into the old email archives and particularly took note of a lot of Greg's emails to try to discern where he was coming from with play. Most significantly I saw a lot of encouragement towards player empowerment and the addressing of issues and themes as a group. If you'd like, I can pull several quotes and provide links to the archived messages.
> I wrote one of the examples at the last minute, the rest were,
> AFAIK, written by Greg. As such, I think he was trying to convey the
> sense of how most gaming groups do play or interact rather than
> necessarily how they should. You might regard this as a missed
> opportunity, but on the other hand it does avoid a degree of
> preachiness that can otherwise sometimes creep in.
AND
> It is very, very difficult to provide scenarios accessible to
> narrators and players who may never have played or run any RPG (I've
> raised the question as to how likely that is elsewhere, but let's
> accept the design rationale that this is the case) which does not
> entail a degree of 'railroading'. Not impossible, certainly. But
> also, my experience is that a lot of players and narrators like that
> kind of approach.
I do see it as a missed opportunity- primarily because most other rpgs out there DO provide advice regarding railroaded adventures- many games in fact, promote it as the only way for people TO play. Amongst the gaming community, railroading IS the preachy road, as so many people do not even believe improv is a functional form of play, or that players could have full input over the choices of their characters without railroading and not ruin a game.
I think, though, the biggest misconception is that railroading is an "easier" way to play. One need only look at the amount of message boards, listservs, and articles available addressing issues of "How do I keep my players from ruining 'my game'?(The Plot)" to see that it is not an easy way to play. Games like Dogs in the Vineyard and Primetime Adventures both have advice to play without predetermined plots in a few short pages and in a manner that's easily accessible to old hands as well as brand new gamers.
I concur that HQ(as a system) allows for many styles of play. My criticism is that the text doesn't say, "You can do X or Y, and here's how..." instead it says, "Play like X" in one section and "Play like Y" in another.
Please understand that my criticism is by no means saying that this is a bad game, but rather these are important issues for people to take into account when reading it, or for future editions. I personally love the game, and my criticisms are intended for people to think about, build on, and to hopefully clarify some of the issues that people are encountering in terms of how the rules are read and used.
Chris
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