From: Alex Ferguson (abf@yeats.ucc.ie)
Date: Thu 22 Apr 1999 - 03:12:28 EEST
Mikael wonders:
> How do you handle a conflict in a manner that does not have the 'feel' of a
> combat?
When I say it has the feel of a combat, I mean not just in the sense
that there's a 'conflict' going on, which implies different parties to
it, and means of resolving same, but that HW extended resolutions
have much of the 'trappings' of the typical RPG combat system. We
have 'rounds of combat', 'attacks', 'to hit rolls', etc. (And funkily
different names for each of them.)
This may or may not be a good idea, but its similarity to combat systems
seems undeniable.
You want some radically different alternative? Where's my large
retainer? ;-)
One thing that I think HW _nearly_ managed was to unify single-roll
and multiple-roll resolutions systems (cf. skill rolls vs whole
combats), but unfortunately what it doesn't do is to make them
in any way statistically interchangable. If one could choose
between simple contests and extended contests on the basis of
situational narrative need, _without_ making a huge different on
the likely outcome, that would be a Good Thing. One could try and
fake this with some sort of bonus to the better party in the simple
test, but what this bonus should be is highly arguable. (Something
of the sort of +d*n, where d is the difference in skills, and n
is some Kludge Konstant arrived at by a rigorous statistical
analysis that it's too late and I'm too knackered to even attempt.)
Cheers,
Alex.
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