Hero Wars and Pendragon

[Alai]

The synergies and differences between HW and Pendragon are something I've given a bit of thought to in the past, partly as HW was ahead of time rumoured to be vaguely "Pendragon-like" game (and perhaps relatedly, the prior existence of "PenDragonPass", a Pendragon-for-Glorantha homebrew by David Dunham), and partly due to my interest in both, in setting and in rules.

A pretty pertinent illustration of both similarities, and pretty basic divergences between the two would be the Passion rules in Pendragon. This represents this sort of thing you can represent in game terms in either (and which some people object to about both...), but very differently. The KAP rules for these are very detailed, very specific to the setting, and powerful enough to be potentially unbalancing; the analogous temperamental abilities or virtues in HW would be very much the opposite. (I feel a little bipolar about the two; I like aspects of both, and like the proverbial indecisive gourmand, I want to have my cake and eat it too. Pending either a Grand Unified Gaming Theory, and/or a quick and dirty hack to reconcile the two, I'll just have to deal with this.)

Ron makes some interesting comments about the storyline differences, but to be honest I think these are far from startlingly evident from the two lines of RPG product, much less from the actual _rules_ of same.

I think there's some confusion about Prince Valiant, btw: it doesn't feature masteries, or in any way resemble HW (other than being both by intent story-telling-oriented games), and PV was published long before HW. OTOH, perhaps Greg is now such an old hand at designing Arthurian RPGs that he's churned out a _third_, some lunchtime, when he was otherwise unoccuppied. ;-)

On HW at cons and other "pick-up games": I have a similar reservation myself. I think there's no inherent difficulty with the rules-set here, just that it's pretty difficult to "showcase" Glorantha in a single session (as come to that it is in many a setting, which is an issue I tend to have with one-off games in general).

I know, btw: once again I'm guilty of Zombie Thread Reanimation. I throw myself on the mercy of the court! Let's hope we're due a flood of new topics 'round about March, though...

Cheers,
Alex.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Alex,

I went and split your post into its new thread so it would be a live offspring. Folks, the original thread is Hero Wars and Pendragon.

It just so happens that the essay coming to the Forge on Monday uses GURPS, Sorcerer, Pendragon, and The Riddle of Steel in an extensive example about Narrativist vs. Simulationist design priorities regarding character passions. I'll be curious to see what you think of it.

Best,
Ron