Both Tim Dugger and Heike A. Kubasch state in the games forward that it was designed to be "less daunting" to new players. This implies that RM is "daunting" in some way - I believe it is because of the extreme complexity in many areas of the game. I agree that sitting down and playing the game (barring any rules disputes) is easy and I have played the game quite a bit over the years. But I am pretty-sure that the way I played/ran is seriously toned-down compared to most RM players. I did not dig into many of the behind the scenes rules - even when GMing - because of their complexity. I would just assign the numbers I thought fit the situation. (As for the CC and other rules: I am not a genius, but I am not stupid either and I get confused in the first few paragraphs. Overly complex.)
As for which is easier, just sit down and make a RM character while someone familiar with HARP does the same. I guarantee that the HARP character will be done well before the RM one. Simpler & easier. (This is not to say that the player will come up with a concept quicker, just the sit down making the PC will be.
) Other areas are just as easy compared to RM.
The game was designed from the ground up to be a quicker, easier alternative to RM without giving up on the cherished aspects of RM. Namely: tiered success, ability not inherently tied to level (i.e., you don't
have to take more ranks in your sword), greater range than other games, & a level of realism not incorporated into many other games.
That argument does not make sense...how would the difficulty of learning of an ICE game system change depending on how advanced analysis unrelated people do at the ICE forum?
Unless you are Dr. Brennon from the TV show
Bones (or just like her*), when you keep hearing things about something, you tend to believe it. Not saying it's right, it just is. As my friend kept hearing about all the overlycomplicated rules discussion on the web boards, he got less and less interested in trying HARP. He was, and still is I believe, in an easy game kick. Which started immediately after he quit an d20 game. He wants a game that is not too complicated because he doesn't want to have to constantly make rule changes and have in-game conflicts due to rules confusion - an inevitable side affect of overlycomplicated rules.
Also, I was pointing out that of the two of us, he (my friend) would have the least difficulty with learning and understanding the rules and he didn't want any part of it due to the responses on the message boards.
*MUST have empirical evidence before you believe
anything.