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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7760600" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I think it's worth trying. It's very heavy rules-wise (heavier than 5e, I would say) and players have to engage the mechanics to make it work - they can't be "carried" by the GM like they can in 5e or even Rolemaster.</p><p></p><p>And I find it a pretty demanding game, both as player and GM. But it produces some pretty intense FRPGing.</p><p></p><p>We played some MHRP (<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?339757-GMed-first-MHRP-session-on-Sunday" target="_blank">here's a session report</a> - a post about a more recent session seems to have been lost in an ENworld crash) but I'm the only in my group who's a big comics person, so that game is currently unresolved (with Wolverine trapped on a power-cancelling slab in Dr Doom's secret sub-level in the Latverian embassy in Washington DC, where there is reason to think Mariko Yashida is being held prisoner). We've also played a Fantasy Hack version (obilgatory <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?530990-Into-the-North-Cortex-Plus-Heroic-Fantasy-actual-play" target="_blank">link to report of first session</a>) which has proved popular with the gang. Compared to 4e, the system is very free-flowing, and compared to BW it's light in its demands (both cognitive and emotional) on the players.</p><p></p><p>Our approach hasn't been hex-crawl so much as hijinks. Because PC advancement is about milestones, which often depend on intraparty interactions or player responses to situation, there's less pressure on me as GM to come up with thematically engaging stuff: like a comic, it's more about just presenting opposition and then seeing how the players express their PCs as they engage with it and trigger their milestones and rack up their XP (I've found advancement to be fairly rapid - we've now got quite a few d12 abilities on the table).</p><p></p><p>Thanks on both counts.</p><p></p><p>Prince Valiant is a game I've read quite a bit about over the years. And I'm a big fan of LotR/Arthurian-style romantic anti-modernist fantasy. So when the chance to pick it up via Kickstarter came along I did. We've played 3 sessions so far, and it's fun: light in overall theme, but with moments of drama when the opposed rolls for jousts or other fights are made.</p><p></p><p>In the lead-up to 4e I was following the development repotts from WotC, and participating in discussion on these boards. My group was just finishing up a long Rolemaster campaign, and with a couple of group members having moved overseas we merged with another group (who had one member overlapping with our group, and whose other members were also long-time friends of mine) and started a 4e game. That game ran steadily for 7 or so years, and is at 30th level, but about a session or two from its resolution - around 2 years ago one of the guys started a serious building/renovation project, and so can't make many sessions, and we have an undertanding that we're not going to play the 4e game unless everyone can be there, given how close it is to its climax.</p><p></p><p>I had high expectations for 4e based on the previews and pre-release discussion, and from my point of view it more than delivered. For me, it showed how all the Gygaxian "unrealisms" that systems like RM, RQ, Traveller etc repudiate (ever-growing hit points; level-based saving throws; and the like) could be combined with the fiddly PC-build of 3E to create a game of character-driven gonzo fantasy heroics with this really engaging tactical combat subsystem embedded as a coherent vehicle for that and not just an afterthought or a separate mini-game.</p><p></p><p>I mucked around a bit with this in the early-to-mid 80s but never really worked out what to do with it. I can't remember what prompted me to revisit it a bit over a year ago, but I'm glad that I did: as I've said in the threads I've started about it, it holds up really well and delivers a distinctive play experience: not really character driven like 4e or BW, not as light as Cortex+ Heroic or Prinve Valiant, but interesting setting supporting intriguing situations, and all these robust subsystems for finding out what happens.</p><p></p><p>Of the systems I've posted about, I reckon both BW and Classic Traveller could support this: in BW using Wises and Circles as the mechanics to support giving effect to the players' declarations about what is going to happen; in Traveller using the robust content generation like patron encounters and the like to let the players drive it with you just reacting and generating the worlds etc to support it as needed.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7760600, member: 42582"] I think it's worth trying. It's very heavy rules-wise (heavier than 5e, I would say) and players have to engage the mechanics to make it work - they can't be "carried" by the GM like they can in 5e or even Rolemaster. And I find it a pretty demanding game, both as player and GM. But it produces some pretty intense FRPGing. We played some MHRP ([url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?339757-GMed-first-MHRP-session-on-Sunday]here's a session report[/url] - a post about a more recent session seems to have been lost in an ENworld crash) but I'm the only in my group who's a big comics person, so that game is currently unresolved (with Wolverine trapped on a power-cancelling slab in Dr Doom's secret sub-level in the Latverian embassy in Washington DC, where there is reason to think Mariko Yashida is being held prisoner). We've also played a Fantasy Hack version (obilgatory [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?530990-Into-the-North-Cortex-Plus-Heroic-Fantasy-actual-play]link to report of first session[/url]) which has proved popular with the gang. Compared to 4e, the system is very free-flowing, and compared to BW it's light in its demands (both cognitive and emotional) on the players. Our approach hasn't been hex-crawl so much as hijinks. Because PC advancement is about milestones, which often depend on intraparty interactions or player responses to situation, there's less pressure on me as GM to come up with thematically engaging stuff: like a comic, it's more about just presenting opposition and then seeing how the players express their PCs as they engage with it and trigger their milestones and rack up their XP (I've found advancement to be fairly rapid - we've now got quite a few d12 abilities on the table). Thanks on both counts. Prince Valiant is a game I've read quite a bit about over the years. And I'm a big fan of LotR/Arthurian-style romantic anti-modernist fantasy. So when the chance to pick it up via Kickstarter came along I did. We've played 3 sessions so far, and it's fun: light in overall theme, but with moments of drama when the opposed rolls for jousts or other fights are made. In the lead-up to 4e I was following the development repotts from WotC, and participating in discussion on these boards. My group was just finishing up a long Rolemaster campaign, and with a couple of group members having moved overseas we merged with another group (who had one member overlapping with our group, and whose other members were also long-time friends of mine) and started a 4e game. That game ran steadily for 7 or so years, and is at 30th level, but about a session or two from its resolution - around 2 years ago one of the guys started a serious building/renovation project, and so can't make many sessions, and we have an undertanding that we're not going to play the 4e game unless everyone can be there, given how close it is to its climax. I had high expectations for 4e based on the previews and pre-release discussion, and from my point of view it more than delivered. For me, it showed how all the Gygaxian "unrealisms" that systems like RM, RQ, Traveller etc repudiate (ever-growing hit points; level-based saving throws; and the like) could be combined with the fiddly PC-build of 3E to create a game of character-driven gonzo fantasy heroics with this really engaging tactical combat subsystem embedded as a coherent vehicle for that and not just an afterthought or a separate mini-game. I mucked around a bit with this in the early-to-mid 80s but never really worked out what to do with it. I can't remember what prompted me to revisit it a bit over a year ago, but I'm glad that I did: as I've said in the threads I've started about it, it holds up really well and delivers a distinctive play experience: not really character driven like 4e or BW, not as light as Cortex+ Heroic or Prinve Valiant, but interesting setting supporting intriguing situations, and all these robust subsystems for finding out what happens. Of the systems I've posted about, I reckon both BW and Classic Traveller could support this: in BW using Wises and Circles as the mechanics to support giving effect to the players' declarations about what is going to happen; in Traveller using the robust content generation like patron encounters and the like to let the players drive it with you just reacting and generating the worlds etc to support it as needed. [/QUOTE]
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