From: Charles Domino (cdomino@wt.net)
Date: Sun 07 Jun 1998 - 10:57:59 EEST
I'd like to apologize to everyone regarding the
mix ups on my earlier HW posting. I did not
realize the Digest published in reverse order, nor
that I'd misaddressed the second part.
Fortunately, the folks at Issaries were nice
enough to forward it, and I've enjoyed the
clarifications, etc. Hope everyone found
something of interest in my post.
Responding to Doyle, he is hardly to blame for my
confusion. Being an observer did free me to take
notes, but I'm not that fast, and had to fill in
from fallible memory. I got to glance through the
adventure, but none of us could keep copies, since
a copying machine was something else that hotel
lacked. In fact, it lacked a lot of things, such
as sense (but I won't go there, to save
bandwith). Suffice to say, I recommend a
different hotel next time. :-)
> Nonetheless, if you bring up this point to the
> simulationists, the usual answer is "Well,
that's the way combat sometimes
> works in the real world. Weird stuff happens."
I concede the point, but
> you hardly ever see such randomness in a story
or a novel or a movie,
> etc...
Doyle mentioned one thing that Robin stressed, and
I re-iterate it here: The system is designed to
reflect _heroic_ combat, not _realistic_ combat.
Robin could care less as to whether your character
is heavily armored or just too quick to be hit.
As he put it, "How many times does Conan get
killed by an arrow?" This is a prime example of
the paradigm shift I was talking about--and I'm
just as guilty of overlooking it.
I'm not sure I get Doyle's point about the
distorted view of RQ combat, but I _really_ wish
someone had followed up on Greg's remark on the
big, heroic combat. Once a year? Like maybe in
the Sacred Time, when everyone re-enacts the IFWW
battle and re-affirms the existance of the world?
On no crits/fumbles:
> The player rolled a one. Without thinking, I
immediately said that the
> players heard something really, really
insulting. I think my exact words
> were "We don't need these bozos. Tell 'em to
fuck off!" In the RQ
> paradigm, this would be okay. Screw-ups happen,
remember? But the player
> (understandably) reacted with violence, nearly
wrecking the whole scene.
Since Convulsion hasn't happend yet, I won't get
into the exact details of the situation, but Doyle
used (unknown to us) the RQ III rule of scrambling
what was heard on a fumbled listen roll to "Yeah
we (did it), so what? Tell 'em to fuck off!" It
made the speaker look guilty of the crime, but I
want to stress here that the player in question
overreacted. She felt she was playing her
character as written, but when another player
followed her lead, it looked ready to melt down
completely. Doyle did a great job of recovering
the situation. Frankly, I didn't expect it from
the players either.
> When you have an Simple Contest with an opponent
(whatever the nature of
> the opponent) Higher result (Success beats
Failure, Big Success beat
> Success) wins. If both have the same result
(both have a Success, for
> example) higher result wins.
To clarify, I think he meant "higher roll wins" in
the last line. I don't recall the "consequence"
levels, but there were two columns. Which you
used depended on the sort of action you were
rolling for.
> Imagine a famous movie sword fight. The
advantage can pass back
> and forth between the combatants for a long
while before somebody takes the
> final climatic blow.
Very good image. In fact this did happen--the
last bad guy went down to one point, and then
climbed back to 12 before being waxed by two
characters who'd built up to 60 or so. (That
amount worries me; I'm not sure if it should).
There was a lot of debate among players over the
proper "betting strategy." Additional note: I
don't think I covered multiple opponents. When
one defender is attacked by multiple attackers,
the defense roll is reduced by 2 (cumulative) for
the second and every subsequent attacker. Thus:
Attacker Attackers
Roll Defender's Roll
#1
unmodified unmodified
#2
unmodified -2
#3
unmodified -4
etc.
So the defender's chance of matching the success
level becomes increasingly difficult, and even if
he does, he has the lower roll, which can be
almost as bad as a failure. It is not as
instantly fatal as being outnumbered in RQ III,
though.
On the abilities, Doyle's chart is correct. I
recall Robin saying that the AP is always 24 minus
the Target number to start. I should also note
that bonuses/minuses to the die roll are
possible. The Lawgiver had a +1 to whacking
people with his spear, and a -1 to his other
attack form: "belly slamming" people with his
oversized tummy! Hilarity is that it otherwise
was just like any other attack--he could
theoretically kill someone with it! "That's no
ordinary tummy!" 'Attack of the Killer
Waistline' "You don't know the power of the Dark
Flab!" I hope there was some rule that limited
its damage I didn't see.
was a gaping prisoner, and
> for a simulationist, he played the role fairly
well.
Doyle suprised the hell out of me. I was so busy
trying to be invisible and take notes, that when
he suddenly made me one of the NPC's in the middle
of the climax, I had no idea how he wanted me to
play it! Do I have combat abilities? Spells? Oh
well, improvise!
>> The oversimplified rules seemed to bother some
of the
>> players.
> As I said, this seemed to have to do with
combat, more than anything else.
Definately.
>> (Robin noted that players could do a RQ III
>> campaign to build their characters up and then
>> switch to HW at priest/lord level. This was
also
>> noted, if not favored by those who felt it
would
>> give the characters more background and "fit"
into
>> the world.)
> I heard more than one old-timer say that they
were going to do this. Or
> that they were going to integrate the rules for
social interactions but
> keep the RQ combat rules.
I also think that the new rules are far better for
doing large-scale ritual magic. A BRP based
system does not work for group rituals. Also, HW
encourages more of a dynamic role-playing approach
to non-combat events. As I noted in the original
message, persuading your clan to arm and follow
you can fall into the trap of "I made my Oratory
roll," which is both over-simplified and boring.
The complex resolution system from HW encourages a
give-and-take approach, simulating the actual ebb
and flow of an argument.
Hm, I recall something Robin said about setting up
a new, game-mechanics oriented list. Wonder if it
might be time?
Nah, then we'd be accused of trying to design the
game by mob vote or something. :-)
Charlie
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