> 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 :)
No I disagree. I think that a coherent system is better in play than an incoherent one.
> 1) If HQ1 is such a failure of design, why do *you* think that I
> prefer it? I've said why *I* believe I prefer it, and made it clear
> that I've tried the alternatives, but you seem to imply that my
> answers can't be right. So what would you guess the reason is?
Because you have yet to find a better match for your goals. I would guess you want a rules lite simulationist system. I suspect you like the handling time of HQ, but don't like the idea that numbers are based on story needs etc. Your issue here is that the majority of sim gamers want more rules not less, as they want to more accurately emulate certain 'genre' aspects of their world. That makes rules-lite sim systems rare. But HQ is not that system, it's too far into narrativism to successfully make it so. Hence the arguments about missile combat, animal stats etc. which have plagued this list. The problem has not been that the mechanics were broken for these circumstances but that they were not intended to work that way.
> 2) You have said that a simulationist game "needs to be gritty, the
challenges about survival." Why so? That makes no sense to me - surely
there are other possibilities?<
Well technically true. A sim game is about 'living in the world'. It
is just that most interesting 'living in the world' gaming revolves
around the challenge of survival. But true, it does not have to be
that way. It can't be cinematic though, as for example HQ is, because
the point is to have realism not movie reality. So getting stuck with
a long blade or shot with a gun is bad in sim, well as bad as in our
own world.
> 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?
More focus on the real - a 10 year veteran of the army would have these kind of skills, be this hard to kill etc.
> 3) And this is the Biggie: You said "I would recommend breaking away
> from a mixed approach if you can."
Because it is a journey we made too. We went from BRP style focus on
'how would this really work', to a mixed 'how would this really work
in cinema' to 'for a great story how should this work'. We got there
by taking a lot of side-steps into other storytelling games such as
PTA, IAWA, MLWM and you can look at games like Prince Valiant too.
Once we figured out from these games that HQ was trying to do
something different from what appeared in HQ1, and adjusted our play
style to suit our games became immensely more enjoyable.
I'm not saying that you ought to do this, just that from my experience I would recommend that you do this. I hope you can see the difference between the friendly nature of a recommendation, which you can ignore at your own discretion, and an arrogant mandate to do something which I did not make.
Jamie, I suspect we should give up on this. I have no hope of persuading you I suspect. But I wanted to make sure that this list did not go away with the feeling that HQ2 was broken when I consider it very much fixed.
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