Re: Contest minutiae.

From: Michael Cule <mikec_at_...>
Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2000 00:29:11 +0100


In message <200006021824.TAA04852_at_...>, Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...> writes
>In a narrative game, my point is you can hardly blame 'the system'
>for producing ridiculous results -- the question is, if such are
>produced, why did you you chose game mechanical tools from the set
>provided (and the larger set you're implicitly mandated to 'wing')
>that would _produce_ ridiculous results?

The hidden assumption in your statement is that there is some set of rules provided that doesn't. And if I have to 'wing' it to such an extent that I throw the rules out of the window more often than not then the game has limited utility as a product to me.
>
>The worst possible way to play HW, IMO, is as a sort of 'narrative
>simulation'. There's an extreme, if only implied, example of this
>early in the book, somewhat bizarrely: playing the 'AP game', and
>then adding on the 'narrative' as a sort of running commentary, _after_
>the situation has been resolved 'by the numbers'. Really, what's
>the point? Played that way, it's effectively just a bad simulation,
>not a narrative game at all.

Yes. This puzzles me too. I can't for the life of me make myself see what the point of that passage at the top of the Narrator's Book is.

What I'm after (and what I'll probably end up writing) is a system that allows my players to say: I want to try ABC (whether that's a combat move, an appeal to the clan chief or a magical invocation) and I can after one dice roll: the result of that attempt was XYZ and then go on to the next thing. Which the peculiar 'suspended resolution' of the AP system doesn't permit.

-- 
Michael Cule

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