Or, to put it another way: 'everything is there except some of the stuff you find useful'. Which is true, certainly, but not particularly helpful.
Now, as I said earlier, this depends on the nature of the book. The Sartar Book, for instance, wouldn't need detailed stats (or, quite possibly, *any* stats) for, say, Temertain. For the same reason, KotFS includes even less stats for the likes of Theoblanc than you have for the characters in TCS. But, in something like TCS, I, personally, would like to see more detail in the characters. "Renowned" is a pretty broad brushstroke, after all, and tells me less than a number would have.
Of course, for HQ2 this makes perfect sense - I understand exactly why you've done it this way, but it's not helpful for those of us translating to HQ1. Not that it's *supposed* to be helpful for that of course, so this not a criticism - it's merely an observation. I'm no trying to say "do things differently", I am just stating my own impressions and feelings - and that I am obviously not your target audience. Like Jeff says, you can't write supplements that undermine the basis of the game they're supposed to support. I do appreciate that (even if it saddens me, and may lead to me stopping work on future planned LotW books).
OTOH, the TCS stat block doesn't tell us nothing at all, but then, neither do D&D stats if I'm translating from them into HQ1. But, at the end of the day, I'd still have to write up the TCS descriptions in HQ1 terms, and that's a bunch of work. Granted, I at least know the cult, and what the best skills are supposed to be, which is an improvement over translating from D&D - but that's not a great reduction in work, to be honest.
But, like I also said, it's not the end of the world. Its a pain, but its not a disaster - I don't want to blow this part of it up to a bigger issue than it actually is.
> As such it is already a HQ stat block,
> but the numbers are determined during the game. Leaving them out is
> important because we want to encourage folks to set resistance
> according to the flow of the story.
I understand that, and I don't think I've actually argued that you should be doing differently, given the situation we have. I just said that I, personally, find it unhelpful. There are many people who *will* find it helpful, and they deserve good material they can use just as much as I do. And you can't please both of us :)
>
> You ask what I mean by coherence and it is exactly this. [snip]
I *think* I understand where you're coming from on this, but I do have to say that 'coherence' seems a particularly poor choice of words here. (And I appreciate that it probably isn't terminology you invented yourself). The problem with the term is that it implies that an 'incoherent' system is somehow inferior to a coherent one; it makes a value judgement. It's almost as if you're saying that narrativism and simulationism can't exist in the same system, because they would be opposed to each, or something - which I strongly refute. But, in fact, under this definition of 'coherence', an 'incoherent' system can be just as good and worthwhile, just as worthy of creating and playing, as a 'coherent' one. And I don't think most people would get that impression from the words.
But, as I say, that's a side issue, since I assume these are not terms original to you. If we can agree that incoherent systems can be just as good as coherent ones (albeit appealing to a different audience), then we're fine :)
There were some other important questions I asked earlier on, that have yet to be answered. It may, of course, be that you are typing up replies as I write this, in which case, my apologies, but it may equally be that they have been lost in all the verbiage since! So:
2a) And this is pure curiosity, rather than part of the central debate, but what on Earth did I say that made you think Burning Wheel would be the kind of thing I'd like? I'm sure its a fine system in its own right, but it's so far from what I'm after that I'm curious as to what I said that made it appear otherwise...
3) And this is the Biggie: You said "I would recommend breaking away from a mixed approach if you can." Given that I know from experience that I prefer a mixed approach, and that I also know, from experience, that I don't (at least, for general Gloranthan gaming) like a more 'coherent' approach - why should I do this? Why do something that I know I don't like? Did you, perhaps, mean to say something else (after all, we all mis-speak from time to time)?
-- Trotsky Gamer and Skeptic ------------------------------------------------------ Trotsky's RPG website: http://www.ttrotsky.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ Not a Dead Communist: http://jrevell.blogspot.com/
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