RE: Re: Scenarios

From: Matthew Cole <matthew.cole_at_...>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:34:31 -0000

ttrotsky
There was an example I was supposed to complete? Aww, man, I obviously seriously misunderstood your post! I'll go back to have another look at it now.  

• yeah I made up a fictitious roleplaying situation and left the end as a blankety blank

ttrotsky
Speaking for myself, it's not that I haven't tried the HQ2 way of doing things. It's just that I didn't enjoy it. I don't think that's "opting out from the beginning" in the way that you mean it.  

• agreed, that's not opting out without trying at all.

ttrotsky
> can you objectively surmise as to why it was removed? I'd imagine it was felt to compromise the integrity of the product in some way. Which I can sort of understand, given HQ2's stated aims as a game (which are quite clearly stated in the intro).  

• can you paraphrase those aims?

ttrotsky
One man's "trad baggage" is another man's "personal experience", I'd wager :)
- all I can say is that some of the methods and habits I picked up running
games from RQ through HW to HQ have really stood in my way when I try to adopt the new ideas. I had probably projected those experiences onto you, in reaction to what I read on this thread.

ttrotsky
I usually just write down the numbers (attached the Spoon-Playing ability, or whatever it might be), but the idea seems much the same.
- so you think that getting target numbers for resistance from base
resistance and adjusting difficulty according to story logic/flow is harder than that?

ttrotsky
> - this is a matter of opinion. To paraphrase Robin - "HQ2 is narrative, go play MRQ if you want gritty"

There's two problems with that statement, though. Firstly, "gritty" is not the only alternative to the style of HQ2 - I certainly wouldn't call my games gritty. Secondly, it doesn't work too well for those of us who don't like MRQ, either. (Maybe because it's too gritty, who knows?)  

• yes, that paraphrase is probably the problem. I think you must have been there in in the Tentacles seminar when he said that. In attempt to keep my paraphrase as close to truth as possible I retained the highly contextual (to the seminar discussion) word 'gritty' in reference to sim games. I take his meaning to be: HQ2 = narrative, MRQ = sim.

ttrotsky
> - I'm told you have to rewrite it in sim terms to be able to play it sim. I'd agree that this is so.

• and this is the central thrust of all my posts. HQ2 is designed for narrative play and part of that design is to arrive at resistance target numbers through narrative concerns. I submit that pre-defined numbers are required out of sim concerns.