> What is broken here is the character advancement mechanism (or it's
> application).
hmmmm .....
> Making all the numbers subjective is a poor solution, and really
takes
> a lot out of the gamesystem in my opinion.
>
> If, though great heroquests and epic deeds a character gets to be a
> force of nature like Harrek then he really should be like Harrek! It
> shouldn't mean that Harrek is scaled up to be even tougher. If the
> character has become so just because of the hero point awards of
> normal play, then I'd say it's obvious where the problem lies, and
> it's not the stats of Harrek.
>
> No matter where one puts the stats of the NPC heroes, and character
> advancement mechanic like this is going to have "ordinary" PC's
catch
> up with them. Personally I treat w2 as the end of normal skill
range.
> w3 is heroic and w4 is superheroic, and the end of the range in the
> mortal world.
>
> I have no need of D&D like character advancement for the sake of
> advancement. If one wants to be the new Harrek, one should work at
it
> like Harrek. Betray a powerful entity and steal it's power. Not just
> come to the game every week for two years.
Right, you touch upon several important points here.
I think that the difficulty with HQ is that it is a completely openended game system, unlike D&D and even RuneQuest.
I don't think the character advancement mechanism is broken at all, but that it is a fluid mechanism which can adapt to each player group, how often they play, and their gaming style.
In D&D, you can keep on adding XP and levels to extremely high-level characters, but beyond a certain point the extra levels just become either meaningless, or they break the game system (been there, done that) ; in RuneQuest, beyond a certain power level, just adding % to various skills also becomes fairly meaningless, unless you come up with house rules etc, and basically start playing a completely different BRP game than RQ per se...
In HQ, every point gained is meaningful, no matter what your power level may be.
Personally, with the experience I have of both playing in and being co-GM of a long-running high-level campaign, I think the power levels that Greg is using are too low compared to the expected results of actually playing a long drawn out high level game, although of course given Greg's style as it appears they are perfectly good for his game, and almost certainly for most games that exist out in the wild - -- because VERY FEW groups have the stamina, courage, and taste for truly high-level gaming in an open-ended game system environment.
---
But I agree with your basic POV, that it is quite possible that HQ
currently fails to accurately represent Glorantha, in this small
corner of the game system, and that some reworking of the character
advancement mechanism could possibly remedy this, and provide Greg
with a solution for his conundrum (I'm talking HQ here, but I really
mean Gloranthan representation in the RPGs in general ... ).
A possible optional rule, for groups playing often and sticking with
the same PCs for lengthy periods of RW time, might be to make Ability
gains incrementally more costly, so that levels 1-20W would cost the
usual amount ; 1W2-20W2 double ; 1W3-20W3 treble ; etc (or possibly
so that levels 1-20 would cost the usual amount ; 1W-20W double ; 1W2-
20W2 treble ; etc if more consistency were desired)
This would not affect the open-endedness of the HQ game system,
whilst helping keep PC power levels more consistent with Glorantha as
Greg and the canon represent it, and with the diminishing returns in
character advancement that helped make RQ and BRP the success stories
that they have been, as well as helping provide more consistent cross-
game system consistency with high-level RQ and with various Pendragon
and RQ -based HeroQuest homebrews, for example.
Julian Lord
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