Topic: Top 5 worst things about HARP

[Arioch]

I think that overall HARP is a good game, with many qualities (easy to learn, very flexible, fun to play, etc...), but IMHO there are areas where it might be improved. So I've decided to make this thread to point out which parts didn't convince me and why, to see what others ICE fans think about them and possibly find ways of making HARP even better. 
Sooo... here are my top 5 worst things about HARP, feel free to criticize them (or to add your own points)!

5) Goals: I actually like goals and the goal-based xp system, but I feel there's large room for improvement in it. I think that Tim had a great intuition here: the system is light on book-keeping and focus on the important bits of the game, rewarding the players for pushing the story forward, bringing up personal goals, and so on. However, I think that some parts of it are counterproductive (they seem to clash with the system's intent) and other parts are a little underdeveloped.
First of all, I don't like the Personal/Party goal distinction. Not only it's an unnecessary complication, but it also seems an attempt to drive the system towards too many different directions.
By awarding personal goals the system seems to incentivate players to bring in the game their character's motivations and issues, but by making them paying less than party goals in terms of xp seems to mean that they're somewhat inferior to the goals of the whole party. I find this a bit strange, I mean is like the game is telling you to make characters with personality and motivations on their own, but then it holds back, saying that it would be better for you just to  follow what the party is doing. Moreover, HARP doesn't seem to incentivate teamplay in any other way, so why is the party suddenly so important? (as a side note, RMX goal based system doesn't make this party/personal goal distinction, I think that's a little better than HARP one).
Another thing is that it's actually a little bit difficult to say what is a goal and what is not, and judge the difficulty of a goal. In other words, IMHO the system would need a more defined structure, helping to build and assign goals.

4) Monsters/Encounter: While creating new monsters is relatively easy (using MaFG guidelines), building good encounters is a different thing. There's basically no way to know beforehand if  combat encounter will totally wipe out a party or if it will be a piece of cake. And this IMHo is not only dependant on tactical choices or on the inevitable differencies between different parties of adventurers, it depends on the lack of guidelines for the GM on encouter building. Averaging OB+DB of the combatants in most cases will not give you an idea of how difficult an encounter will be, because it doesn't take into account things like special abilites, spells, skills, etc...

3) Skills: It's not that I don't like skills, it's that I feel that skills in HARP need a better organization. For example, I don't understand why the physical and general categories need to be separated, since evrry profession get the as favourites, wouldn't it have been easier to make them a single category?
In addition, some categories include very few skills, while others have a lot of skills under them: this gives more potentialities to some professions and less to other, wiìhich imho is not a good thing.
There are also some skill that seems out of the scope of the game to me (like the crafts skill), and a few somewhat overlapping skills (medicine and herbalism, to make an example).
Finally, I don't like very much the trend of introducing new skills with new supplements, I'd prefer to see new uses for old skills than this.

2) Playtesting: Overall, I think the game needed a little bit more of playtesting. There are minor problems here and there that could have been avoided if HARP for a longer period before being released. Unfortunately, I fear that with the limited manpower ICE has, more playtesting is impossible without the support of the fans.

1) And the winner is.... GM's Tips: While some parts of this section are actually quite good, others made me really go  , expecially the bits where the GM is invited to ignore/fudge rolls and drop the rules in favor of his story. I think this is a giant step backward in game design. Moreover, I think that HARP doesn't need this WW stuff, players already have ways of influencing the story, and the GM already has lots of things to do, he doesn't need also the responsability to be the only person in charge of making the game fun for everyone.

Enough rantings for now... what do you think? 

[Pat]

This is only my opinion but I think some of your top 5 are off the mark.

No 5 for example. I believe the xp system to be accurate with the distinction between personal and party goals to be not only desired, but should be applauded as well thought out. IMO personal goals should be developed prior to game play as well as during while party goals can be developed by the GM (or story) more than the party (while party input into goals is always appreciated as a GM).

To give a real world example, I may want to run a company so my personal goals may be to go to University, learn the company's direction, befriend board members etc. The company's goals would probably be to earn money, keep the share price high, maintain market share etc. While my goals (personal) and the company goals (party) are both important, the party goals would be worth more xp because if they are not achieved the company could go bankrupt therefore my goals become irrelevant.

No 4 I agree with. A simplified system would be more useful to GM's in creating encounters.

No 3 I don't have a problem with. While I understand your point in regards to physical/general not being one category since all classes have them, while this is true at the moment it may not be in the future.

No 2 playtesting I agree 100% with. I think the additional supplements could have been better playtested and showed a serious lack of balance when added into HARP (I think Martial Law is a prime example. The addition of Armour adjustments could have been a great idea but was over done and virtually killed the system. Also, Monks were not considered even though they are a Martial class. The costs of metals are too cheap compared to magic bonuses (I could go on and mention other supplements.) Yes the classic get out of "The supplements are only optional rules" sound nice but can (and do) result in different GM's introducing bringing in there own selections from supplements and playtesting within game. Fortunately the HARP community can pick up problems through playtesting but should they have to?

No 1 GM's tips I didn't really have a problem with as I only really read them once and they didn't affect me to any great extent.

My greatest criticism would be the initiative format. I think a huge overhaul could be looked into as the current system does slow the game down. Also, looking at the house rules section, it seems to be a huge talking point and a problem for me and other GM's.

[Arioch]

To give a real world example, I may want to run a company so my personal goals may be to go to University, learn the company's direction, befriend board members etc. The company's goals would probably be to earn money, keep the share price high, maintain market share etc. While my goals (personal) and the company goals (party) are both important, the party goals would be worth more xp because if they are not achieved the company could go bankrupt therefore my goals become irrelevant.

Ok, but this isn't real life, this is a game, and in the whole rest of the game there is nothing that makes the party more important than the single PC.
Besides this, in your example above, wouldn't prevent the company bankrupt be part of your personal goal? Or, for example, if you show good qualities as a leader, wouldn't making you the boss part of the company goals? This is why I say that I think that the goal system need a better structure.

[Ecthelion]

Still I think that foremost the party should work towards a common goal and therefore this goal should also have a higher XP value than a personal goal. So instead of rating the XP system as one of the worst aspects I think it is, quite contrary, one of the best.

[Arioch]

So instead of rating the XP system as one of the worst aspects I think it is, quite contrary, one of the best.

I like the xp system too, as I said in my first post, I put it there just because I found it a great idea in a bad form. A few pages extra, some more examples and a little more explanation about it would have solved the problem, probably.

And your comment about the party having a common goal gave me another idea: I think it could be cool to have three different goal types:
- personal goals, developed by each player for his character (I want to become the leader of the mages' guild)
- party goals, developed by the players for really big things (we want to free the land from the Tyrant)
- GM goals, given by the GM/NPCs to the characters

[Karizma]

I'm going to respond, THEN answer with my list.

Awarding Experience:
My only complaint is a minor one, and is simply that it's difficult to gauge the difficulty of a goal, so I get worried about being too favorable or unfair.  Other than that, I think it's great. (Note that this is a problem with my ability to use it, not an inherent problem in the game itself).
Of course, I had to define some things for my self, and this is what I've come up with.

Party Goals: Goals that are important to the party as a whole.
Personal Goals: Goals that are important to one individual.
Major Goals: Major Goals are set up in advance.  Beginning an adventure, making a commitment to an organization, etc. are all openings for Major Goals.
Minor Goals: Minor Goals are more spontaneous in nature.  Things such as acting out a character's trait (there must be a real risk in doing so, of course), achieving a step towards a major goal, coming up with a clever idea, or surviving a combat.

Combat Encounters:
I've been having a lot of trouble with this, but again I'm not going to blame the system itself.  But I think it would be a good idea to come up with some guidelines on building an encounter.  It will take a LOT of effort, seeing as HARP is so flexible that every encounter will have to be built based on the party's needs.

Skills:
I agree with you here.  More on that in a bit.

Playtesting:
I don't know if I can consider this a valid complaint--at least not for my self.  It could be very well if somebody likes the system the way it is.  And I think an important thing to keep in mind is the company that's producing this.  This system really falls into standard ICE affair.

GM's Tips:
They're ideas and tips.  And I'd rather a game tell me "Have fun, even if it means ignoring the game."  Than say "And remember kids, THIS TEXT IS LAW." 

Now for my top two (I don't think I can come up with five).

2) Skills.  I think it's GREAT that the number of skills is so small (compared to good ol' Rolemaster, of course).  And then HARP began falling into the Rolemaster problem of adding skills with new expansions.  The problem with this is then we have to get a new character skill sheet, but it includes all the skills, not ONLY the ones we want.

For this, I made my own skill sheet, which is static, and will never change.  Certain skills seem to overlap in my mind, such as Animal Handling and Beast Mastery.  So my solution was to make Animal Handling a skill, and Beast Mastery a talent that--when acquired--allows a character to use Animal Handling as Beast Mastery as well.

Crafts/Lores are also painfully vague.  There's no comprehensive list for me to show my players what the Crafts and Lores are.  I made one (admittedly, Lores is easier than Crafts), and find that the rules will refer to a craft that I didn't think of.

My next idea is to use Crafts and Lores in a Category/Specific dichotomy.  Such as Craft: Organic Materials and Craft: Bone/Wood/Paper/Leather.  But that seems too much work for simply crafting.

1) Magic
The magic system is fantastic, and there's a small shrine in my closet to HARP because of it.  But the Rolemaster model for spell possession infuriates me.  I much prefer the spell ideology in Dungeons & Dragons, in that Mages (people who study magic) have access to all the spells, and people who dabble in magic simply get LESS of those spells.  A "Warrior Mage" to me is a Fighter/Mage.  And there are three spells that are mechanically identical: Stellskin, Stoneskin, and Barkskin. Shame!

But luckily, HARP is a beautifully flexible system.  I'm currently working on cutting the number of spells and organizing them into schools of magic.  My goal is to essentially fall back to the D&D model for magic-users.  A Mage will have access to all of them, a Specialist gets a bonus to casting ones of his specialization (and perhaps also a Power Point discount of one point), but be unable to cast those opposite his School.  Hybrids will have access to a small number of spells, either based on school or not (haven't decided).

[Thom @ ICE]

1) Magic
The magic system is fantastic, and there's a small shrine in my closet to HARP because of it.  But the Rolemaster model for spell possession infuriates me.  I much prefer the spell ideology in Dungeons & Dragons, in that Mages (people who study magic) have access to all the spells, and people who dabble in magic simply get LESS of those spells.  A "Warrior Mage" to me is a Fighter/Mage.  And there are three spells that are mechanically identical: Stellskin, Stoneskin, and Barkskin. Shame!

But luckily, HARP is a beautifully flexible system.  I'm currently working on cutting the number of spells and organizing them into schools of magic.  My goal is to essentially fall back to the D&D model for magic-users.  A Mage will have access to all of them, a Specialist gets a bonus to casting ones of his specialization (and perhaps also a Power Point discount of one point), but be unable to cast those opposite his School.  Hybrids will have access to a small number of spells, either based on school or not (haven't decided).

Just a thought, for the specialist, simply have a reduced cost associated with those spells (2DP instead of 4DP). This would reflect their focused training as they can develop the spells more easily.

[Karizma]

Perhaps, but first I'm gonna need to look at how many spells I'm working with.  And if I feel like it, go through and rename them all for that classic D&D feel.

[mocking bird]

Just throwing in my two cents worth.

5)  exp system.  I also love its simplicity.  Especially when you compare it to RM's system.  You don't have to track anything anymore.  Dark Heresy has a similar xp method and it works great so far.

4)  Monsters/encounter.  I also don't see this as a problem.  'Challenge ratings' and 'moster levels' imo are merely, and often wrong, benchmarks to reference.  Special abilities and powers always tweak the power level of the critter but in the end it is usually the cleverness of the players, the evilness of the GM and the fickleness of the dice that have more bearing on how difficult an encounter is.  After a while you just end up ignoring it and use your own experience.

3)  Skills can get a little goofy.  But I wouldn't call it a 'worst thing' by far.  Besides, after playing RMSS for many years it is kind of nice not tracking so many things.

There have actually been several threads on what makes a lore/craft skill different than another and how much overlap there is between them.  For example if you can make armor how good a blacksmith are you?  In the end the abilities represented by the skill overlap so much that it is impossible to codify them completely in game terms to make everyone happy.

2)  Playtesting.  Huh?  Again, there are some goofy things in the system but the game was quite playable right out of the box.  Not to mention all systems get tweaked no matter how well the are written.  Besides, what you might have a problem might be exactly how the designers meant it.  For example major healing seems to be a bone of contention for different people and is often modified.  Was it written as desired or was it a playtesting error?  Depends on if you like it or hate it probably.

1)  GM tips.  Are you serious about this making a 'worst 5 list'?  I can't even remember if I read them or not as they all pretty much read the same regardless of the system. 

Regarding multiple spells with the same function - steelskin, barkskin, etc. that is because they are cast by different classes and as such have different effects.  I suppose you could have just made the one spell for all the different classes but it wouldn't have the same flavor for each class.

I don't think I have a '5 worst list'.  Really my only gripes are over the moster selection that made it in the books and some of the magic rules in CoM are really confusing - circles for example.  Again, the latter of which I think were written as the author intended but I had to reread them several times to go from completely confused to merely fuzzy.

[jasonbrisbane]

5) XP system - if you want a Single player game then read a Do-it-yourself adventure...  This is a multi player game and as such requires Both rules.

Having a seperate list for Party and personal goals allows for something called ROLEPLAYING!

The adventure is a party goal, but if a paladin/cleric stops in a village and converts some people to his religion then he gets Personal XP. Its not a party goal, but a personal one.
If the fighter who hates goblins (a bad party trick gone wrong in his childhood) chases after the goblins leaving the more savage orcs to the other fighters, he gets Personal XP for roleplaying his bane/hatred of goblins..

Otherwise your playing a combat simulator, and not a ROLE-PLAYING game...


I disagree also with the #4. This is why we play ICE games - the fact that any PC can face any circumstance and succeed against overwhelming odds!

But I also agree that there could be a better system devised for GM's to create encouters and give advise as to std encounters, with std equipment and skills and recommended encounters... This would also assist in that parties that suceed too easily are therefore too powerful than the system was intended and vice versa!


But that said: if you want a combat simulator then by all means change and drop any rule you want... its your game/campaign!

[Thom @ ICE]

I've got my own handful of minor beefs with HARP - though it is still my favorite system to play.

The one major beef I have is the way that Monsters were done in the rules. Assumed 75 in all stats, Fighter Profession (including Fighter abilities - Shield Training???) and the Initiatives calculated for the chart....

Yes, we've discussed this a dozen times in the past, and yes you can create your own base version and adjust the stats as you wish - but my biggest issue is that if it was done right this would not be a problem to begin with.  The Fighter profession has abilities that make no sense for most monsters - the assumption of 75 stats exceeds standards specified for base PC creation (making level comparisons imbalanced) and the Initiative figures are just plain ridiculous (good luck getting a strike in).

All that being said... I'll still play HARP, even if I need to throw out the pregen monsters and start from scratch on my own.

[Karizma]

I've got my own handful of minor beefs with HARP - though it is still my favorite system to play.

The one major beef I have is the way that Monsters were done in the rules. Assumed 75 in all stats, Fighter Profession (including Fighter abilities - Shield Training???) and the Initiatives calculated for the chart....

Yes, we've discussed this a dozen times in the past, and yes you can create your own base version and adjust the stats as you wish - but my biggest issue is that if it was done right this would not be a problem to begin with.  The Fighter profession has abilities that make no sense for most monsters - the assumption of 75 stats exceeds standards specified for base PC creation (making level comparisons imbalanced) and the Initiative figures are just plain ridiculous (good luck getting a strike in).

All that being said... I'll still play HARP, even if I need to throw out the pregen monsters and start from scratch on my own.

Yeah... I wanted to say this, but I wasn't sure how to word it.  This sums it up.  It's going to be a pain in the ass, but I think it would do HARP some good for someone (I'm essentially volunteering myself aren't I?) to build Monsters from the bottom up.

[jurasketu]

I'm not sure what to say... Most of the "flaws" listed here are 'features' in my mind...

I award all of my XPs for "good play" with "good play" being defined as accomplishing anything resembling a goal in a suitably entertaining or competent manner.

Craft skills? Craft skills are often critical in my game - carpentry, cooking, jewelry, mining, painting (forgery), farming and even sewing have all played important roles in my campaign.

Encounters are butt simple. Its like D&D, make up a description, slap Hit Dice, instead its RRs, OB, DB, CO, Init... Done. As a GM "tip", I usually structure encounters with one or more batches of bad guys. If the first batch is kicking the adventurers butt - I'll just drop the other batches. But if the adventurers slaughter the first batch, another batch enters the fray (and maybe a third). Adventurers learn very quickly to conserve resources in a fight so that if they expend all their Power Points and effort against the first batch - the next batch might prove difficult to handle. It makes for better 'role playing' with players fearing the unknown. My set encounters typically use a lot of "playable races" as the bad guys - so it is a little easier to judge the balance.

I use my own combat system but the HARP design made it easy to slip into the overall picture without having to errata everything.

I consider the Codex and College of Magics *must* have supplements.

You don't like the GM tips because it says don't let the rules [guidelines] dictate the game? I'm a "on-the-fly" GM - if I wanted to play by the rules - I would play Magic the Gathering (oh wait - I do - every week).

I want the players to do things that are entertaining, original and clever. Such things often aren't *best* play strictly by the rules. If someone does something really entertaining that I quash with lucky dice rolls or overly ponderous rule interpretations - I'm discouraging what I WANT. I don't want munchkins or rules lawyers - I want entertainment. It is HIGH ADVENTURE ROLE PLAYING - not SQUAD LEADER for pete's sake.

Robin

[Arioch]

I'm not sure what to say... Most of the "flaws" listed here are 'features' in my mind...

Just wanted to make clear that the flaws I've listed are what I see as flaws, thing I don't like/would like to see improved, of course, your opinion could be different! I didn't open the thread to hear people agreeing with me, but to see what's the opinion of others ICE fans about that (and yes, I'm still playing HARP, after all).  

Having a seperate list for Party and personal goals allows for something called ROLEPLAYING!

Totally agree with you on this, I simply don't understand why personal goals should pay less than common ones. Having personal goals giving more or less the same number of XP than party goals IMHO increases the chances of having conflicts between the goals of individuals and those of the whole group.
More conflict = more roleplaying = more fun.  

GM's Tips:
They're ideas and tips.  And I'd rather a game tell me "Have fun, even if it means ignoring the game."  Than say "And remember kids, THIS TEXT IS LAW."

I firmly disagree, I prefer a game telling me:
"Here, these are the rules of the game, they're fun to play with, enjoy!"
Rather than one telling me:
"Here, these are the rules of the game, but you almost certainly aren't going to have any fun following them, so please ignore them".
If not only because I paid to have a rulesbook, and I would like to play a game described in it, rather than having to make up my own game...

Warning: Rant

(click to show/hide)

As mocking bird said, this sort of "GM's Tips" are repeated in many games (many, not all). I see them as basically a leftover from the '90s, when it was quite a common practice to hide the inconsistency of a game's rules behind the statement that "real roleplayers don't need rules!".

And they're bad, really really bad imho.

1) bad for the players, because they promote a sense of mistrust towards the game rules and towards the GM. Surely something you don't want to see in a game, where everybody's supposed to have fun.

2) bad for the GM, who is loaded with the responsability of making the game fun for everyone, while a game (by its own definition) should be automatically fun for everyone playing it.

3) bad for the game, because with the premise that rules will eventually be ignored by the GM, designers are not motivated very much to make sure that the rules will actually make the game fun.

I think that HARP is a fun game and that it doesn't have many internal-consistency problems, so I find these "tips" to be detrimental to the game.

[Ecthelion]

Totally agree with you on this, I simply don't understand why personal goals should pay less than common ones. Having personal goals giving more or less the same number of XP than party goals IMHO increases the chances of having conflicts between the goals of individuals and those of the whole group.
More conflict = more roleplaying = more fun. 

The above formula is IMO simply wrong. I agree that it can be fun to also have goals for the individual PCs that now and then conflict with those of the entire group, at least with players that can do good roleplaying. But, in the extreme, to have only conflict situations is probably fun for only the fewest players. It is IMO important to have a good balance, so that the players see that the plot makes some progress and that they also have some extra opportunity for good roleplaying. And, from my experience, the lower value of individual goals creates this good balance. If this is different for your group then you are free to change the values, but I think for most groups the values are fine (at least when looking at the comments in this thread).

I firmly disagree, I prefer a game telling me:
"Here, these are the rules of the game, they're fun to play with, enjoy!"
Rather than one telling me:
"Here, these are the rules of the game, but you almost certainly aren't going to have any fun following them, so please ignore them".
If not only because I paid to have a rulesbook, and I would like to play a game described in it, rather than having to make up my own game...

Yes, I also prefer rules that work. And I think this is exactly what the HARP rules do. The GM tip "don't let the dice rule the game", the one you criticized in your initial posting, only tells the GM that he should learn when he should roll the dice and when he should decide how the story progresses. I have seen GMs use the old RM encounter tables and unleash a dragon on a low-level party just because he did some unlucky rolls on these tables. The result was of course the demise of the party. This is just an example where you have to learn as a GM that sometimes a second roll is needed or sometimes picking from a table instead of rolling the dice is the better result. This has nothing to do with not having fun when following the rules. But you just can't codify every single possible occurrence in an RPG game, and therefore the GM sometimes can't find every answer in the rulebook but has to apply common sense.

[Arioch]

The GM tip "don't let the dice rule the game", the one you criticized in your initial posting, only tells the GM that he should learn when he should roll the dice and when he should decide how the story progresses.

I was referring to the part where the book says that the GM should change the results of the die behind the screen without getting caught by the players.
Deciding when to roll is entirely a different thing and I agree with you on that.

[Karizma]

I don't remember it saying you SHOULD, but saying you CAN.  HARP is designed to appeal to a wider audience than Rolemaster, so I'd expect little bits like that to be thrown in there.

But I just don't see how a small bit of optional advice is detrimental to the game.  When I introduce new players, I want them to see what they're capable of and have fun.  When that player's first roll in casting a spell was a fourteen, I said "What was that?" until they gave me a higher number.

He was quite happy to hear just how hard he zapped the Bad Guy.

You can say I'm indoctrinating him into a horrible playstyle.  You can say I'm "babying" him.  But I don't see a problem in having fun even if it means fudging a bit.  It certainly wasn't that serious of a game for him because it was his first time playing.  In fact he was mostly there for the social aspect.

Whether the game holds the 80s mentality of "GM is god and these rules are law." or the 90s of "It's okay sweety we'll hold your hand and make sure the bad guys don't hurt you." or the current "It's not about killing it's about the story and your character should be hammered out like that of a novel and we can't let cumbersome rules oppress character development!", I think it's nice to know that the writers were comfortable enough with multiple options for how to play their game.

In fact, you can say that the GM's Options is what gave us all of these optional combat resolution systems.  GM's Tips were usually tips/advice for non-mechanics, while GM Options were options for mechanics.  Hack 'n Slash, Life Points, Damage Dice, and Condensed Combat are all "GM's Options".

[Winterknight]

Didn't we already have a thread a few months back, that covered the issue of GM cheating?  For my part, I'm still an unapologetic cheater, and will remain one.  It's got nothing to do with system.

Now, as to XP, I assign points as I see fit, which may or may not exactly match the chart.  I also tend to have the goals spread out across somewhat different categories.  I call the story/campaign goals plot goals, chapter goals, and quest goals.  (Yes, for continuity, I should probably refer to the third as scene goals, but that doesn't always fit my definition of a scene.)  Individual goals are simply that, but they can be major or minor.  Individual goals are character driven, and often advanced by the players, for interest's sake. Because they have more flexibility in saying HOW their individual character develops over time, it's entirely appropriate that the rewards for these would be somewhat less, especially in the minor individual goal category.

Plot goals are those that advance the major storyline.  Meeting these goals is typically a cumulative experience, with a series of chapters building up to accomplishing one plot goal.  Chapter goals are typically the major adventure type goals - what you'd find as an overall goal of a module, for example.  Quest goals are incremental steps within a chapter that may consist of clever information gathering, encounters, new discoveries, etc. 

Individual goals might be major - "I want to be the King's Champion,"  "I want to be the wealthiest thief in Arakar."  These are usually an end-game type goal, and built over time like plot goals.  For the individual, they are plot goals.  However, development in stages can be largely driven by player choices, more so generally than story plot points.  By taking time from the main story to pursue individual goals, the player can choose to advance his personal goals to the exclusion of the main story goals.  We certainly don't want 5 people running in different directions all the time - it's boring for the group as a whole, and time consuming.   Reduced XP rewards for the individual goals is simply one method to help alleviate some of this, although there are others.

From a world/story perspective, individual goals are usually less important as well.  My players like to reminisce. However, I never hear them say, "Hey, do you remember that time my paladin had that internally satisfying epiphany, which led him to realize his personal goals had changed, and caused him to leave the church?"  While at the time, it might have been very character satisfying, it isn't a memory the group shares.  More typically, I'll hear, "Dude, do you remember that assault on the mage's tower where we had to infiltrate and obtain the information that would lead to the Duke's involvement?  Then we got caught on the second floor, and had that pitched battle?  Man, that was a good night."

Individual character goals/development are what makes us cherish the pieces of paper that represent our imaginary avatars.  Story goals/development are what keep the group coming back to the table.

[ArmoryDave]

I know I'm pretty new to HARP, but I don't really see this being about shortfalls of the system.  In fact, I don't see a shortfall of any kind. 

One of the best things about this system appears to be that if you don't like the way something was written, HARP has the tools to change it without destroying the game. 

As to the comment about the holdover from the 90's being an indicator of inconsistency and a detriment to the game, I will say that the detriment is added only when someone chooses to look at the GM Tips as a "required" part of the system.  Couldn't one dismiss the GM Tips just as easily as a problematic rule? 

[mocking bird]

I was referring to the part where the book says that the GM should change the results of the die behind the screen without getting caught by the players.  Deciding when to roll is entirely a different thing and I agree with you on that.

Funny thing is that if I asked for an Aye from all GM's here for who have never fudged a roll I bet I would hear crickets.  If it didn't happen I bet there would be a lot more dead PC's and irate players whose character's fate was decided on an unimportant 00 or 01 roll at the wrong time.  Or at least major headaches for the GM.  Sometimes fluke rolls can ad enjoyment to the game and some unexpected excitement but most of the time they just end up being a real bummer for everybody and a detriment to the game in general.

One of the best things about this system appears to be that if you don't like the way something was written, HARP has the tools to change it without destroying the game. 

I am not sure what 'tools' you are referring too but HARP at least has more compartmentalized and fairly uniform rules so that a little tinkering won't cause problems later.  For example tweaking a spell or two is fairly simple whereas in RM it might affect numerous lists and classes.  Same for skills - you most likely wont' have to worry about a whole catagory or cross skills if you tweak one.