Points buying system

[Scripty]

Hi Mike:
Glad to see you're back. I'm in agreement with Janus. I don't understand what you mean by Strong 5w being less broad/effective/etc. than a Strong 17, especially as regards making this happen without falling back on a Narrator just willing it so.

Good point about the "single solution that best fits most people" in your last post. But a lot of what I've seen in this thread qualifies as the changing rules that don't fit a particular person's style of play. Hence, my appeal for us to take a fresh approach at the whole matter. While I agree that a game system could/should offer the single solution you speak of, it appears that participants on this thread have been addressing what's in HQ as that single solution and re-swizzeling what's there to suit their preferences.

That led me to my statement that I didn't think we *could* come up with a single solution, at least not with any of the approaches I had seen up to that point.

Scott

P.S. Please refrain from calling me "Scotty". I have deep-seated issues from grade-school around that moniker. It rhymes with too many things that 5 year-olds get far too much glee out of blurting out at random.

Like snotty.

Or potty.

Crap. There goes all that therapy...

;)

[Bryan_T]

Bryan, the other method you mention...it more or less already exists as the As You Go method. Well, OK, no, you can't increase these abilities, but I think that it's actually much less interesting to be pushing up numbers of things that I can't see than just bumping them up to where they need to be when the time comes for it. BTW, FATE has something like this already, "Potential Aspects." I kinda like the idea, too, it's just I can't see people spending points on them. Hmmm.

Mike--well, I know I would go for it, but I might not be typical.

But I do have an argument for it.  Somebody--it might even be you although I honestly don't remember--points out occasionally that part of what is cool about animist fetches is that decision point to release them for a big boost.  That is, it is a sure spotlight moment, and the tension when making the decision is fun.

I think this would operate similarly.  The longer you build up the ability, the more dramatic when you finally "reveal" it.  Lots of options to weigh, decisions to make, and for sure a major spotlight moment which is apt to make everyone remember the ability.

Of course, this idea does not play so well with non 1-for-1 abilities.

--Bryan

[Donald]

The last couple of sentences I quoted, I'm not understanding. Are you saying that the costing is unblanced? Or hat the value of a point at any point is different than the value of any other point?

The latter, an increase of an ability from 19 to 20 has much less effect on the chances of success than an increase from 14 to 15. And if the ability is being used to augment one point from 14 to 15 is equal to 10 points from 15 to 25. This is true within the range of resistances it is worth rolling dice for. What complicates and hides the calculation is that augments vary from contest to contest and can't be predicted.

So perhaps the question should be "Is the HQ system so unbalanced that it is detering narativist play?" rather than "Is it unbalanced?"

I sorta agree. First, there are a lot of definitions of balance. What I'm talking about here is what I call "selection balance." Basically I don't want to see players taking any particular thing more often than any other particular thing based on some imbalance (what Bryan's first rule is all about).

But, I agree that if there appears to be a gamism imbalance, that sometimes players will read this as something to exploit - leading to gamism. So that is something to be avoided.

That said, often I find the best way to do this is to simply make gamism imbalance ridiculously easy. Such that the player is informed that the play can't be about gaming the system. For instance, if I said you could take an ability at any level for one HP, what does that tell you? That you should take it high to win? Where's the "Step On Up" there? Any idiot can make that decision. No, it must be that it's not about addressing challenge with this, but instead about setting the level by some other criteria like "what I think is most cool."

So you need to write the rule to reflect this. Yes, you can have any level of that ability you like but you have to reflect it in your description of the character and know that the contests you'll face it is as likely to be a hinderance as a help.

Well, I'd go for that. But it's not what the current rule says. The current rule says that you get one keyword at 17, and then a species keyword if it's not human with whatever the species keyword normally has in it. Which for Dragons includes things like Large 10W4, etc, etc. Actually, again, it's not even so much the power level that worries me. It's that dragons are coooool. All those extra abilities to play with, etc.

This is especially true for a dragon retainer. Sidekick, well, you did pay 3 HP for it...

It actually gives the hero the option of a keyword in addition to the species keyword which is inconsistent with most of the rules where such things are at the narrators discretion. I suspect the authors didn't really think of dragons as followers as in the context of Glorantha it would be as reasonable as having a God as one of your followers. I'd regard this as a rules error which needs fixing somehow by restricting the level of followers.

I suppose another way of looking at it would be to regard HP allocation as nothing more than a player's indication of how they want the game to develop and the sort of challanges they expect to face. If so the whole issue of balance becomes moot but this needs spelling out.

Yes, you're correct. If that's the case, then the game should really make it explicit at some point.

Not an easy thing to get everyone to buy into however. And I'm not even completely convinced myself. :-)

It seems right as far as pure narrativist games are concerned but for everyone not playing that way it's going to fail badly. You'll get a circular effect of players putting HPs into one set of skills because they've found the narrator challenges those skills most and the the narrator creating contests which use those skills because they think the players are most interested in that area. I don't think HQ can afford to become an exclusively narrativist game so any rules have got to work for gamists and simulationists as well.

I should have said without surcharge for the extra effect. Basically the abilities built up to be allowed to take the secret are reward themselves (when creating "starting characters" as Shamans and allowing them to bump up just these abilities, they stick out like a sore thumb - I'm now heavily advising against that).

I'm sorry, I don't follow you. Even when you have the secret you can't have it at better than the lowest rated affinity. So you build up the affinities with HPs and then spend more to bring up your cult secret. If your aim is to build up the secret it's going to cost four times as much as building up an affinity although you get the corresponding increase in the affinities. I'm not sure where Shamans get involved either as they're animist not theistic.

Donald, Jane Williams suggested to me that her group plays sans HP for advancement and that it works fine. I'm almost OK with that - I certainly don't think that people would "abuse" it. The problem is that I like HP to be a dichotomy between being spent on bumping and somthing else.

But should that "something else" be character advancement? In a narrativist game bumping is a plot control element "I want the contest to go this way." not "I want to win". So the alternative should be another form of plot control - perhaps something like the player spends a HP to narrate the next bit of plot. It might require a reduction in the number of HPs given out but those points could be given less on the basis of achieving things but more on the basis of creating interesting stories.

[Hobbitboy]

I don't understand what you mean by Strong 5w being less broad/effective/etc. than a Strong 17, especially as regards making this happen without falling back on a Narrator just willing it so.

I believe it goes something like this...

Lets say that DeForest wants his character 'Bones' to be "as strong as an Ox" and, for whatever reason, records this as "Strong 2w3". (This is obviously a fairly high-powered game!) Meanwhile James has decided that his character 'Sco', err 'Welshie' is actually as strong as a team of oxen and writes down "Strong w7". Thus we have the stronger character (Welshie) with the lower rating (w7).

Now the game doesn't actually prohibit this and it can be quite playable if one is prepared to accept that a rating in an attribute can be seen as a measure of how much the character is willing or able to use the attribute to their advantage when it really matters rather than just an absolute measurement on some pre-determined scale.

So if the two characters are bored and decide to have an arm-wrestle to see who is the strongest the winner would be Welshie (because no roll is required). If, however, it was to decide who would have the honor of sacrificing themselves in some way that would ensure the suvival of their friends then Bones' higher 'Strong' score is likely to carry the day when the rolls are resolved.

No one is saying that the game has to be played this way and I don't even think that anyone actually does. But some people never seem to 'get' the concept and sometimes see it as a flaw in the HeroQuest system that it could accomodate such an abomination to the laws of common sense. ;)

No doubt the wise sages will correct me if I have mis-represented things but the above description is what I have come to understand after many months of lurking here (and elsewhere).

Thanks,

- John

[Scripty]

Thanks for explaining that, John.

My first problem with that approach is that I think it could easily lead to confusion among the players and between the players and Narrator about what player #2's "Strong 7w" represents. Picture this scenario...

Player #1 says he's strong as an ox and buys up the "Strong" ability to the level of 2w3. Player #2 wants to be strong too but spends loads of points on other things and can only buy up "Strong" to 7w. During play they have the obligatory contest of strength to see who's stronger. Player #1 is strong as an ox, as he said. But Player #2 comes back with the caveat that he's strong as a whole team of oxen, negating all of Player #1's focus on that ability.

Granted, a Narrator should have enough sense to step in and call BS here. But circumventing the scale of HQ (one of my favorite aspects of it, btw) undermines the whole ability ranking system. The only way "Strong 7w" will ever be more effective than "Strong 2w3" is if the GM gives the "weaker" player lower resistances. Which leads to all sorts of interesting table discussions of why Player #1 has to beat a 7w3 and why player #2 has to beat a 2w to accomplish the same task.

Sure, we already do that for magical abilities and the default resistance of 14. But when and how the default resistance is applied is already a sticking point on the forums here. Imagine if we applied it to every ability based, not on some setting info or arbitrary rule, but based on what the player defines that ability to mean.

This confusion could be alleviated somewhat by having the players write "Strong as an Ox 2w3" or "Strong as a Team of Oxen 7w" on their character sheets. But what if I write "Stronger than Krishna 13" on my character sheet. Does that mean picking up a mountain is an auto success?

As a follow up to that last statement, a second problem that I see is that this approach undermines the idea that players spend HP on what they want to be important to their character. Why should I pay to build up my "Strong" ability if I can make it even more effective by refining what that ability means?

So if I say my character is "Stronger than Krishna 13" and I go to lift a mountain off the ground and the GM says "Okay, roll against 10w8". Unhappy with the Narrator's response, I clarify that Krishna picked up a mountain and moved it just to impress a couple of girls when he was a teenager.

So the GM gives me a difficulty of 6. Or auto successes it. Right there I've increased the effectiveness of my ability through definition without needing to spend a single Hero Point. Sure, it's a rather extreme example. But can't you see the underlying principles applied to just about any fairly ambiguous ability?

This takes the "Sunset Leap" issue and puts it front and center. I could actually have my character's effectiveness magnified by making his abilities more obscure. In fact, defining my abilities would limit my character's power. So "Strong" is always better than "Strong as 15 men" and "Atomic Fire Force" is always better than, well, anything.

Thanks again for that example, John. I'm not going after you as an advocate of this approach. I honestly don't know if you like or dislike it. These are just some thoughts that occured to me after reading the post and thinking about it for a while. They're directed more at the ether than anyone in particular.

Personally, I don't see how this would be any easier to codify than my off-the-cuff "here's your default rating" approach. Instead, it seems that GM fiat would actually be the engine that fuels it. Can't say that I'm a fan at this point. I'd rather keep the mastery system intact and my resistances consistent for all players.

I've had a hard enough time in the past with default resistance to magic. So much so that I ditched it completely in Freedom City HQ. Besides, if a player wants to be as Strong as Krishna, he/she should put HP into it. It makes it a defining element of that character, rather than some uber-annoying side trait that overpowers everything else.

Scott

[Lamorak33]

So if I say my character is "Stronger than Krishna 13" and I go to lift a mountain off the ground and the GM says "Okay, roll against 10w8". Unhappy with the Narrator's response, I clarify that Krishna picked up a mountain and moved it just to impress a couple of girls when he was a teenager.

Scott

Hi Scott

The Heroquest are quite specific on this point. You, as a player, can call your 'strong' ability whatever you like, but your ability will be at whatever level it actually is. Thus say lift mountain is more like 10w15 or 10w20 (depending on the mountain of course). Therefore you will have to have a strength ability in this range. You don't? Then you have somewhere to spend your points then don't you!

Say I want to take a character who has the magic ability 'kill with a look'. The rules actually legislate against this sort of ability, but of course such things actually go against the social contract don't they? 5 people get together to play a game, and are asked to create barbarians who live in the hills. If they pick 'pompous' abilities and throw a hissy coz Krishna lifted a mountain in high school and they want their character to be able to do so - well then I guess its better to find new friends to play with isn't it? The social contract says that we will play and have fun within the bounds of a reasonable shared imagining. If people dysfuntionally try to invalidate this aim, there is not a whole lot any bunch of rules will do is there?

Regards
Rob

[Scripty]

The Heroquest are quite specific on this point. You, as a player, can call your 'strong' ability whatever you like, but your ability will be at whatever level it actually is. Thus say lift mountain is more like 10w15 or 10w20 (depending on the mountain of course). Therefore you will have to have a strength ability in this range. You don't? Then you have somewhere to spend your points then don't you!

Hi Rob:
You are correct that the HeroQuest rules are very specific about how this works. My response was to John's explanation of Mike's earlier statement:

There is another way to do this, however. That's to make all 1:1 as Scotty likes, and then say that breadth, depth and even effectiveness is not at all controlled by anything other than player desire. That is, your 17 Strong might actually indicate a higher strength than another player's 5W Strong. If you decouple from the in-game scale, then ability rating is completely a player indicator of importance and nothing else.

But your response gives a great example of the kind of discussions a solution like this could initiate. Mainly, explaining to players exactly why a 17 Strong is more powerful than a 5w Strong. My example (with the Krishna strength above) was a hypothetical situation that I was using to point out what I felt might be a flaw in the approach.

I could be wrong, though. Based on how Mike feels this situation could be handled, it may not be a flaw at all. His approach may run completely counter to my line of thought. I'm still not sold on it though. But that's not really a requirement for an idea to be innovative or effective. I would, however, like to see how the approach would reconcile itself to terribly linear minds like mine.

Again, not a requirement for the idea to be valid, useful, innovative or good, but it would be nice. Sorta like when you buy a flashlight and it comes with batteries included. Not truly necessary but nice.

Scott

[Mike Holmes]

Sorry for the line by line...lots of people to respond to.

Glad to see you're back. I'm in agreement with Janus. I don't understand what you mean by Strong 5w being less broad/effective/etc. than a Strong 17, especially as regards making this happen without falling back on a Narrator just willing it so.

I know, this is extremely hard to explain, and I rarely do it well. I'll try again. John's explanation is actually sort of right, and sort of wrong.

The ratings, indeed the abilities on the character sheet are for the players, right? The characters don't know that they have ratings, much less what they are. Right? Well, what I'm proposing is not telling the characters. As it were. Rather, not linking the ability rating with the character's in-game description at all. That is, a character who is Tall 17 is not taller than one that is Tall 13. Er, my character is 7 feet tall, and has Tall 13. Your character is 6 Feet tall and has Tall 17. Simply don't link them with each other at all?

Now, you say, how does that make any sense? Well, what is Tall good for mechanically? It gives an augment to some conflicts, and in others it might be used as a primary ability - say to resist being leapt over. But in this case, the mechanics are not a representation of in-game physics either. They're the propensity in the story for the character to come out ahead when this ability is relevant. Right? In point of fact, in a conflict between your character and my character, where Strong Vs Strong for arm wrestling is being compared, it may occur that my character with the lower Strong rating wins. I have to be able to explain that as a HQ narrator, right (this is what John is doing, coming up with an explanation in-game for the disparity)? So I say that you got distracted, or something to explain how the less strong character won. Or, if my character is described as being stronger, despite the ratings not matching, then I can explain it that way. There is no need for these things to match in HQ.

The only thing that will not match is simulation. That is, if your character is Strong 17, and weaker than my Strong 13 character, then if we do 100 contests, your character will win an inordinate amount of them. Fortunately HQ's system is not meant to be a simulation of anything, so this is just not important.

Using this "decoupling" reasoning, abilities do not represent the character at all, but merely the player's desire to have the character tend to come out on top in the sort of situations in which the ability is relevant. In which case, only going up incrementally is just fine.

The current system is clearly meant to be coupled, don't get me wrong. That is, from the scales that are implied in the text, there is an implied correllation between ability levels and the intended nature of the character's existence in the game world. All I'm saying is that this can theoretically be dropped. It's a huge cognative leap for players to make, so I usually don't propose this for use in actual play, and leave it as an exercise to get people to understand that the game is not neccessarily simulative. That the rules can be used to serve the player's interests directly and solely (as opposed to catering to them through the means of simulation).

Does this make any more sense to you Scott? Yes, it will confuse the traditional gamers, and yes, you have to chuck the fun HQ scale. No, however, you can use any resistance you want, because the resistances are merely dramatic gauges. I'd use the same ones for the same contests tried by two characters in most cases, because there is no in-game contradiction becasue it's not linked at all to the in-game situation. Again, largely I'm proposing this to show the other side of a particular coin. Though I could play this way without a problem myself.

As it happens, Rob brings up the "Pompous Magic" rule, which actually supports this POV. As does the "Magic Item" rule. Basically if I take the "Ring of Universal Destruction 13" yes, in theory, in-game, the ring can destroy the universe. It'll just do that rather infrequently as I believe that the resistance for that should be about 10W20 or so. So, again, you'll merely have to come up with some explanation like "He's not so good with it yet" or "The spell just didn't work this time."

While I agree that a game system could/should offer the single solution you speak of, it appears that participants on this thread have been addressing what's in HQ as that single solution and re-swizzeling what's there to suit their preferences.

OK, but unfortunately for my purposes I have to discard preferences, and look only at that which will make for the best overall design. So I'll try to discriminate between the two in the future, and not reply to those comments that are merely statements of preference.

In any case, I know that there is an "optimal" solution to the problem out there (ontologically if nothing else). It may not work for everybody, but I can only make the best game possible, not one to please everyone.

P.S. Please refrain from calling me "Scotty".

Sorry, I have a player who everyone calls Scotty, so I've just gotten used to it.


Bryan, I find the argument compelling, personally. And, heck, I'd suggest the inclusion of the idea based on the sheer level of interest I think it could have - and it certainly couldn't hurt to have it. I'm just not seeing it as a solution to the overall problem. (And, worse, I don't think that such a change without being able to prove that it's neccessary is in the scope of my current project. I'll allow you to use it in our game if you like, however.) :-)



Donald,

What complicates and hides the calculation is that augments vary from contest to contest and can't be predicted.

I could argue this point with you, but we agree that nobody worries about it, so it's a moot point.

So you need to write the rule to reflect this. Yes, you can have any level of that ability you like but you have to reflect it in your description of the character and know that the contests you'll face it is as likely to be a hinderance as a help.

Well, yes. That is I always try to write rules so that the player gets them. Rather, let's criticize the text after it's been written, OK? :-)

It actually gives the hero the option of a keyword in addition to the species keyword which is inconsistent with most of the rules where such things are at the narrators discretion.

I agree. That was my point that it's inconsistant. Again, I don't think it would be abused. It's just the opening makes it seem like a very strange rule.

I suspect the authors didn't really think of dragons as followers as in the context of Glorantha it would be as reasonable as having a God as one of your followers.

Well, to be clear, I was thinking of Shadow Dragons, and I could point out Giants, or the mega-trolls...this is moot as well, we both agree that...

I'd regard this as a rules error which needs fixing somehow by restricting the level of followers.

This was my point to begin with. My personal rule would be simply to only allow the species keyword if it were separately paid for. My argument is that if I don't get the homeland keyword for a porter, then why should I get the species for a Troll, unless I pay for it separately? That is, a follower is not a complete character, so any logic that says that you must also get the other parts of the character is incorrect. OTOH, I'd also accept entire characters for followers as a balanced interpretation. Just not one where you can have species optionally where some beings don't get a species keyword.

I don't think HQ can afford to become an exclusively narrativist game so any rules have got to work for gamists and simulationists as well.

Well this is a very sticky point that's well outside the scope of this conversation.

I'm sorry, I don't follow you.

I'm saying that if you buy three abilities to 1W2 to get a secret, any secret, these are pretty good abilities, and are worth every HP paid for them. To give a bonus of any sort for getting there is unbalancing. Many secrets then further break the normal rules of the game giving out quarter augments instead of tenth augments. Or allow cool stuff like traveling in the Spirit World (the secret for all Shamans) for only the cost of the surcharge. There's no really good reason for any of this. The normal system can handle it all fine.

But should that "something else" be character advancement? In a narrativist game bumping is a plot control element "I want the contest to go this way." not "I want to win". So the alternative should be another form of plot control

Again, from one POV (above) character advancement is plot control. Especially if it's really more about Character "Development" than "advancement." Not that I don't like your narrative control idea or others. That might simply be out of scope for what I'm looking at now. Anyhow, I'm not adverse to something other than advancement - but I'd also like there to be a mechanism for characters changing in terms of abilities in any case.



Mike

[soru]

In my experience, I could have one player with "Sword and Shield Fighting 2w". A pretty general all-around combat skill. And I could have another player with a relatively non-combat character using "Eclipse Bezerk 2w" as his primary combat skill. The fiat would be that "Eclipse Bezerk" is a frenzied magical attack form that can only be activated during an eclipse.

In the interest of not downplaying the other player's "Sword and Shield Fighting" while also not playing up the "Eclipse Bezerk" to an implausible level of one eclipse or multiple eclipses per session, my gut instinct is to let the "Eclipse Bezerk" start at a higher rating so that the player will get some serious mileage out of it when it does come into play. So I'd likely let him buy it as per normal but, where most broadly applicable abilities would start at 13 or 17, I'd let his "Eclipse Bezerk" start at 17 or 2w. Even higher if it was only going to come into play with rarer frequency.

The way I handle things like that is by situational modifiers. Any time two abilities face off, the one that's most appropriate to the current situation, most specialised while still being applicable, gets a made-up-on-the-fly bonus.

If it's an eclipse, and beserking seems tactically plausible, then 'Eclipse Bezerk' facing 'sword and shield combat' gets +15 or so. Ouside an eclipse, -20, and would need some excuse to be allowed at all. Now, if a healer has 'Calm Eclipse Bezerker', then that's an even more specialised ability, so that would gets the bonus instead.

As an aside, this automatically gets rid of weapon bonuses and all that junk, as 'unarmed fighting' is considerably less specialised than 'rhinoback lance charge'...

soru

[Mike Holmes]

I handle these things pretty much like Soru does. I'm actually probably stingy on bonuses, but I'm open to use of abilities is a wide variety of situations. For example, Eclipse Berzerk I'd allow a player to use without an eclipse going on at a penalty. Heck, you could explain that the character merely remembered what it was like to be berzerk last time the eclipse happened, and tried to emulate that non-magically. Or any other explanation people would like to proffer.

Basically in my game, any ability can be used at any time in any conflict limited only to the imagination of the player. The only limits on the breadth of any ability is if the player is willing to put in the energy to make an explanation that everyone can enjoy. Yes that includes plausibility, but not the "this ability is limited to use in X circumstances" plausibility, but "OK, that's an interesting way to look at the ability" plausiblity.

To whit, Origami has been one of the most used abilities in my IRC game, because Thomas Robertson goes out of his way to ensure that it comes into play as often as possible.

The fact that the ability is penalized actually favors that ability, IMO. That is, as we've been saying, actual ability level isn't really important. In coming up with the explanation for it's use, and getting the narrator to apply an improv mod, this acutally makes the ability more interesting than less. My players have taken to taking oddly named abilities just to see how often they can get them into play as a result. Take Charles who took "Fond of My Body" recently when his character had, as the result of some "switch soul" spells and his original body being killed, and then having a ritual in which his soul was reattached to his body, had become very attached to his original body. He used it in the very next scene when under attack my zombie-creating demons arguing that now that he was back in his body, there was no way that he was going to let come demon make him a zombie. He'd come too far for that.

So...
A. Giving a higher level doesn't seem to do anything to counteract any potential discrepancy between usablility. And
B. Usability is a non-issue, because the extent to which something is hard to use merely makes it an interesting challenge to use. In fact, the odd abilities are what's incentivized under this model.

Now, I realize that not everyone plays this way. But I think in terms of a coherent rule set, it's a good way to play.

Mike

[Scripty]

Now, I realize that not everyone plays this way. But I think in terms of a coherent rule set, it's a good way to play.

Mike

I think I understand but you are correct about the cognitive disconnect from the current scaling system. I think this idea would work best if removed entirely from the idea of scaling and, instead, made all difficulties relative to the character's rating. Such that a difficulty or resistance of "easy" would be equivalent to the character's rating -10. "Moderate" would equal the character's rating and "Difficult" might be the character's rating +5 or higher.

The proposal needs something like that, I think, to single it out from vanilla HeroQuest. Otherwise, it requires far too much explanation with far too little concrete instruction of how it should be used in play. The current model appears to be sustained by fiat and fudging to explain why the ability didn't work better than one with a lower rating. An understanding that difficulties are derived from the rating (and not some crunchy, objective scale) and a guidepost as to how to set those ratings by what would (or would not) be considered easy/difficult for the character could at least reduce the amount of fiat involved.

That said, one of the things I like most about HeroQuest is its scaling. When running, I have a chart I keep near me that gives me ratings to benchmark off of. Either approach requires some fudging on the GM's part. I like using the chart because I get my conflict resolution and my crunch. For me, HQ runs a bit like the old Marvel Supers game from TSR. I like that. So, I'm naturally going to feel a little uneasy about abandoning the scale.

Treating everything like Pompous Magic would be consistent and would solve the HP issues raised thus far. But it's hard to wrap one's head around at present. I think explicitly stating that difficulty is derived from a character's ability rating and doing so using some sort of gauge would help with this. I'd miss my chart though and HQ would lose some of its appeal for me by moving in this direction. Not saying that it's a bad direction, just that I have a strong affinity (pun intended) for the way HQ scales.

Scott