> HeroQuest is exceptionally easy to run. (Just as one example, ALL of
> a GM's preparation time focuses on story, not statistics.)
>
It is, if you have a shared scenario, setting, or whatever.
It's easy for people on this list to have a conversation about, say, Sartarite clansmen-adventurers since we have a shared set of assumptions and symbols to represent this concept - it's a lot harder to generate a setting without those assumptions.
For example: I am intending to switch my Glorantha game from HQ1 to HQ2 when I get the books. My players were all entirely new to Glorantha (possibly excepting my wife who has had to put up with my gibbering about it from time to time) and we've had to slowly build up their comprehension of the setting - of what they want it to be - over time. I'm fairly confident of my ability to use HQ2 to run this game, even though most of them are Lunars, since I can abstract a kind of 'crosswalk' between HQ1 and HQ2 thanks to the Gloranthan appendix and because the players have a set of already established shared understandings about the setting and the game we are playing.
For another example: I am also intending to run a Nephilim game set locally (Canberra, FYI) using HQ2. I have a pretty good understanding of Nephilim's settings and systems but I am not sure how hard it is to model what I see as especially important about Nephilim in HQ2 - there is no appendix for that at the moment! It may be super-easy, or it may be quite hard; in my past experience running other settings using HQ has been a lot easier than most conversions, but is still a non-trivial amount of work for the facilitator. It will also require a lot of talking things over with the other participants working out how things are going to be modelled so that the things given a lot of mechanical attention are the things that people want to see given story attention. This is non-trivial as well, given that it's hard enough to find time to play the games at all sometimes!
The other aspect to this is that a lot of would-facilitators are highly experienced at prepping for traditional games, but may be less confident with the different (and for my money, more interesting!) prep that a HQ2 game would appear to require. This could militate against it's ease-of-use in those circles.
> It might be harder to learn how to run, but IMO it contains a fair
> amount of explanation as to how to run.
I look forward to reading it!
> It is built upon different assumptions from many games, and if you
> try to run (or play) exactly the way you'd play a game of RuneQuest,
> you're going to have harder going. But then HQ tries to explain this.
> On the other hand, the minimaxer in our group seems to enjoy the
> game, and certainly figures out how to use the system to advantage.
I am sure it rolls along fine once those assumptions and intents are worked out - I think it's openess can cause problems when groups try and work out exactly what they want to do with it. I find this to be true of many many games (I've hit it in Fading Suns, various WoD games, CoC, and even Shadowrun!), but HQ2 is pitching itself as extremely open and adaptable so these issues are likely to be increased.
-- John Machin "Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All." - Athanasius Kircher, 'The Great Art of Knowledge'.
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