Re: Scenarios

From: ttrotsky2 <TTrotsky_at_...>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:27:01 -0000


Matthew Cole:

>> 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?

Essentially, to provide a game that runs on story-based logic, (for example, by deciding the difficulty first and then working backwards to justify it) rather than according to "simulationist" concerns. The intro says quite clearly that if you try to run HQ2 in a sim manner, you'll likely end up frustrated. I certainly can't fault it for not being up front about its intentions - or for that matter, for failing to meet those intentions.

>> 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.

Sure; I mean that my years of RPing experience tells me that those ideas won't work for me. This is only "baggage" if you assume that adopting the new ideas is desirable. Which, for many people, it is (which is cool), but not for everyone.

>> 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?

No; I find that doing that in game is harder than doing it all before hand. Jeff, among others, clearly finds it the other way about, so I'm making no claim of universality here, just stating my own outlook. Doing it beforehand, of course, inevitably reduces the narrativist element, since you don't know exactly what the situation is going to be ahead of time.

>>> - 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.

Not that I recall. I do that know I missed one seminar about the new system at Tentacles, being down in Bacharach eating a kebab at the time.

> 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.

Which solves the first part of the problem, perhaps, but not the latter. Not that I'm sure how the latter *could* be solved easily, mind you.

> - 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.

I don't dispute any of that for one moment.

My main argument is that it's harder to do the style of gaming I like with HQ2 than it was with HQ1. I'm not claiming that this was unintentional on the part of the designers. I'm not claiming that they've failed to do what they've set out to do. I'm not even saying that they shouldn't have done it. Indeed, as I said previously, why shouldn't clear narrativist gamers have a system that provides for their needs? They have just as much right to a good game as I do.

But that doesn't mean I'm *happy* to be left out in the cold.

-- 
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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