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Originally Posted by Tom B
The extended contest, supposedly descriptive and less numbers-oriented, basically boiled down to numbers. (You bid 8. (roll) Your opponent loses 8. He bids 6. (roll) You transfer 6 to your opponent. You bid...) Now, this is couched in descripted terminology, but that's what it boiled down to.
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I agree with you 100% Tom. GMs, as well as players, need to adopt a different approach to make HQ work as its meant to, or it becomes a bean-counting exercise. I'm running a Hawkmoon game using HQ, and to prevent this type of thing happening (ie, just bidding numbers without any rationale), I have to preface contests by telling the players that I want descriptions of what they're doing or I won't allow any augments to the ability they choose. I also demand plausible reasons for why an augment applies - even obvious ones.
My GMing style is narrative-focused anyway, so HQ suits me, but amending my approach hasn't always been easy. The players have started to get the message, and instead of scouring away for tenuous abilities with max power, and suspicious augments, they start to describe what they're doing, how they're doing it, and why.
It does work. But I agree that it won't work for everyone, and I can see how, despite its cleverness, it will disappoint on some levels.
And Dan, an excellent review!