Giving it a fair trial.

From: Michael Cule <mikec_at_...>
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 15:37:35 +0100

I went to StabCon (a six-monthly gathering of gamers in Manchester) over the weekend and in the interests of fairness (and because I can't get the two groups I playtested it with to give HW a second chance) I ran THE HOUND TOWER with a group of six people using the Hidden Gale pregenned  characters.

It went better than I thought it would but I feel that this was mostly because:

1. I had some very good and experienced gamers there many of whom had read the rules, said 'Duhhh?' and wanted to see how it would work in practice.
2. I stuck to the simple resolution system as much as humanly possible reserving the Extended System purely for combat.
3. I was willing to over-ride or forget the rules in order to make the session enjoyable. We ran into all the forseen problems about missile combat and changing skills in mid fight but managed to fudge round them or come up with rationalisations for doing it my way....

In the end though it worked better than I had feared I still feel this is not a system that reflects the type of world or the type of 'heroism' that I think is interesting or exciting. One of the players remarked on the lack of threat they felt (from admittedly low level opponents but I think the system adds to it) and another (John Dallman) said that I wanted sequential time restored to the world and this was not a necessary thing in the world view of shamans like Greg.

I felt all the more strongly that HW has brought the Other World too strongly into Glorantha's Mundane World. There might be some justification for running something as dreamlike and unfocussed as the AP system on the Hero Plane. It doesn't work to realise the world of mere mortals. And I think wherever you end up you have to start with what you know.

So back to rewriting the Simple Resolution System to handle combat.

-- 
Michael Cule