Individually catering the game = make it up... rules for archery needing to be developed by those on the list who have these simple problems. Is it unreasonable to hope that a player could play the game with a group anywhere in the world? House rules are fine as groups occasional desire to make personal modifications, but the amount of interpretational analysis going on for simple situations like archery is massive. Maybe those who did the playtesting have a great belief in their own improvisational rules and effects creation, but that doesn't really seem fair to say that this is a fundamental requirement to play the game. Was Hero Wars developed only to cater to an elite group who don't need/want rules to cover archery etc. because they improvise it differently every time it's played?
The game is about the Hero *Wars*, and much as there seems to be a push to de-emphasise combat to allow a general flow to all elements of the rules as opposed to the meticulous mechanics that RQ3 became, it has to be there and whether ya like it or not it is very important to a game like this and so has caused a lot of problems with the way that everything combat related is interpreted... archery springs readily to mind of late... Close Combat has necessarily become a massive topic. I don't see the same discussion of Lokarnos' Discern Roundness skill for some reason...
Wulf Corbett:
> I wonder how long it will be until the authors decide that naming
> the feats and affinities limit's the creativity of gamers.
> I don't think it limits the creativity, but it does distract from the
> game when you have to stop for a time every time someone tries to
> think up a pretty special effect. I don't refuse to game with people
> who have limited imaginations (I don't choose my friends according to
> their suitability for gaming), but the problem here is the game is
> stuck plodding along at the speed of the least imaginative.
So true it's depressing. Feats and affinities have to be defined more. I do have problems with Flickering Blade. It could be an effect like Bladesharp to enhance a users own weapon, or make an enemies blade flicker out of the material plane and become air thus making it useless or is it not a sword modifier at all but used to call a bolt of lightning to act as a sword from thin air? People may say that it is any of these, or something else, but the fact that everyone could interpret and play it differently is easily possible. Some things are defined; Chalana Arroy : Heal Wound and Lhankhor Mhy : Knowledge have a few statistical identifiers. Humakt : Death has rules and Issaries : Trade Feats is given a play example. Taraltara mystic Mind Strike counter is given a very complete treatment. There ARE rules for enchanting runic metals, so one would assume that Orlanth : Combat (Enchant Iron) is related to this, but by the whole make-it-up-as-you-go-along-and-if-you-can't-you-are-not-*good enough* to be a Hero Wars player ethos, maybe Enchant Iron is meant to be about making a piece of Iron become an enchanted vessel for a feat (like some have suggested Truestone should be treated), but it's all just speculation. Is the official RULE then that if there is a written rule for the feat etc, use that, but if not write it yourself or make it up differently every time you play it? Also old players understand the concept of what, for example, Hedkoranth : Combat (Enchant Thunder Stone) might be about, but give the Hero Wars rules to a group of new players who know nothing about Glorantha or RuneQuest and I think you will see much head-scratching and confusion from page to page. I think I knew how the designers of RuneQuest were playing it. I think I knew how they intended it to be interpreted, and how to deal with situations not covered in the rules did not have a huge mystery surrounding them. I know I don't have a good grasp of how the Hero Wars designers are playing it or any other group for that matter. Often mention of these difficulties on the lists yields the useful (read useless?) response "well, go and play RuneQuest then!". But surely that's exactly the kind of elitist and non-embracing attitude that won't help to generate any new players or eliminate the confusion and evolve a great game from good concepts.
Wulf:
> Hero Wars isn't helping much. Now we only have a cool name. The
> mechanics are pretty much the same for each feat, and we don't get
> _any_ description for a vast majority of them.
Can the long cult format not include such information? ie. write the rules (as is done somewhat for Lhankhor Mhy : Knowledge or Humakt : Death)? Would it really destroy the concepts of Hero Wars or hurt anyone to ask that these things be defined? This does NOT destroy creativity, it sets up common parameters that everyone can understand. If it DOES destroy creativity then remove the rules references from Knowledge and Death immediately as this is destroying the freedom of the rules for those effects!!!
ie. Orlanth: Combat
At least write some common posible effects from this. Possibly "Commonly used to replace material armour with enchanted blue war-paint". Some minimal statistics of what might be expected? Enchant Iron:
Generic ritual p.233
Enchant Silver:
Generic ritual p.233
Flickering Blade:
Sword becomes as a bolt of lightning (as on cover?) and blah blah minimal rules definition of what we might expect from this? Leaping Shield:
Description / basic effects? [maybe a few dozen ways I can interpret this from very simplistic to stupidly overpowerful...] Overbear Foe:
Description / basic effects? [not really very clear...] Swordhelp:
Description / basic effects? [I don't have a clue...]
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