In a message dated 2/13/02 3:11:04 AM, mikrin_at_... writes:
<< I at least would like to see tribal boundaries of some date. 1600 ST would be neat. In the history for most campains, so people don't have to feel "oppressed" when they have decided differently for their own campain present.
It would help make the place a bit more solid, >>
Do you know, I don't feel oppressed by information, but rather by its absence.
My players are grumpy enough because in Runequest they understood what they were doing in a fight, while in Hero Wars, the standing joke is "make it up!"
I justify Hero Wars by saying, look, now you have rules for political fights and all the other abilities than slicing off people's arms, and besides, even if the rules are fuzzier, the world is more detailed.
But then these obviously gaping holes in the detail. At its worst, this becomes that old Greg Costikyan concept of freeform design: assign arbitrary numbers and meanings to dice and roll them.
This certainly happens in BA. While there was much useful information in the book, some parts certainly shouldn't be read by players, and it wasn't well organized for GMs.
For scenarios, there should be some idea of location in time and space. The Healer scenario of BA would certianly work better if it had some sort of time line, and some route that the ladies were following. The sudden escalation of the scenario at the end comes right out of left field, and isn't even well justified, as it could be if one understood anything that was going to happen next. If I use it at all (telling characters suddenly that they must lose a vital body part/ability without sufficient preparation might result in my losing one of the body parts in question) it probably would have to follow some ceremony which results in everyone hearing the prediction at the end of the book and some better idea of whatever might be coming next than "see the next (not yet available) book."
Especially when that book includes the tribal questionaire that you would need to set up an independent story line.
Jim Chapin
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