He has, actually, but from bad assumptions.
>and I agree with him. You can argue the toss about any
>of the points you raised - it depends purely how you define normal
>circumstances.
[snip]
>Greg believes that comptence
>can be graded roughly like this for Hero Wars:
>
>1) never fumble under ordinary circumstances
>2) never fail under ordinary circumstances
>3) always succeed under ordinary circumstances
>4) always critical under ordinary circumstances
I'd say rolls for a hero are ordinarily under adverse conditions, otherwise why bother rolling? I.e. ordinary circumstances aren't really that ordinary.
Furthermore, about the competency ranking. I judge myself as pretty good at what i do for a living. However, while not common, i do make more or less stupid mistakes that create further obstacles for myself that i have to correct. That is a fumble. It's not an irrevocable consequence, but something that makes it harder for you to achieve your goal*. If i would never fumble, i would be the God of my chosen field. The "never fumble" idiocy simply doesn't reflect gloranthan reality, especially not at starting character level.
>For Greg most mature adults will have competence 1) in at least one
>ability. This fits in perfectly in my view with heroic games (and real
>life) but YGMV.
While i agree that heroes never fumble in ordinary circumstances, that has nothing to do with never fumbling an unopposed roll. If it is an ordinary task attempted during ordinary circumstances, the roll merely means how long it will take to perform it.
>I think that is a mistaken view. Very few other rpgs have scalable rules
>which permit high power level characters. Hero Wars does, but you don't
>have to use it. There is a big difference that inflation and Arnulf the
>steadowner having Farming at 1W (which is Greg's proposition).
The "inflation" i have been talking about (and sometimes at length) is that ubiquitous masteries devalues the worth of a mastery. If everyone and their dog can sport a mastery how cool is it to have one yourself?
-- - Mikael Raaterova [.sig omitted on legal advice]
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