Nick Brooke:
> That proposed revision sounded slightly weird: instead of Heortlings
> writing "Close Combat (fyrd combat)" on their character sheets,
> they'll have to write "Heortling Close Combat (fyrd combat)". Isn't
> the "Heortling" bit already contained in their cultural keyword?
> Aren't we already capable of assuming that this doesn't give you a
> high default in "poncing around with rapiers", "sumo", and other
> unrelated techniques?
I don't recall if that's an accurate summary of the "proposed change to the text", but certainly it's not what I took to be the general thrust of it.
As HW stands, whether or not you understand "Close Combat (fyrd combat)" to mean the same thing as "Heortling Close Combat (fyrd combat)", the clear implication is that given the former, you _can_, given half a chance, end up with Close Combat (fyrd combat, rapier-poncery, sumo, karate, for about three further HPs (ever). Yes, obviously, any GM with half a heid oan hersel' will thwap a player trying to do this upside the figurative head, but that argument is rather the last resort of, if not a scoundrel, an apologist for not troubling to change some fairly ropey rules.
Surely the spirit of what Greg was saying was that one would alter "Close Combat (fyrd combat)" (a HW-I ability plus a style) to simply "Fyrd Combat" (a HW-II "narrow" ability), at the same point cost, and if anything described more concisely and evocatively. (What narks me most about "Close Combat" and the innumerable "Combat" affinities is their sheer, pointless _colourlessness_, in a game which is crucially dependent on snazzy description.) One would only need to despoil one's character sheet with the dead hand of the words "Close Combat" (and get to play triple point cost, serves you right), if one plans on taking such a motley collection of "styles" that _no_ tighter description is applicable.
I'll be delighted if HW-II goes in exactly this direction -- but especially given the noises from DD and RR (must be something about those auto-alliterate names...), pretty astonished. Nevertheless, if it goes only half so far, by introducing the "broad" concept to at least rationalise affinities as type of ability, with the added facility to raise feats (or "sub-abilities") separately, then it'll have made a significant stride forward -- plus of course, in HW's spirit of "choose your own ability tags", it'll help facilitate the heresies of we CC-haters, along the lines of the above, "officialised" or no...
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