On the Essence and Feel of Advanced HeroQuest

[RECIVS]

I believe it's very clear at this point that I support—and even promote—the idea that Advanced HeroQuest needs major fixing, but also that I'm a purist who wants to preserve the essence and original feel of it as much as possible. As mentioned in other threads, I firmly believe that both approaches can be reconciled.

Let's get a bit ontological here: What makes AHQ what it is and not something different? What's its essence? If we were to change some of its mechanics in order to fix its major problems, at what point does it become a different game, if at all? On the other hand, should the vanilla rules be preserved? to what extent? why? Is this even an objective discussion to begin with?

For our purposes here, I particularly like this review of AHQ because, instead of simply describing its mechanics and paraphrasing its rules as most reviews do, it seems to capture very concisely what I believe are essential features of the old classic; elements that, objectively speaking, make it what it is as a game. There're more, I know, but the ones in the review seem like a good start.

It’s worth noting that only a few of those features appear to be directly associated with or dependent on a specific vanilla rule in particular. This means that the rules can be changed or expanded (to a certain extent, of course) without necessarily affecting the validity of the statements expressed in that review, which, as I said, we can agree constitute essential characteristics of the vanilla game. For example, the original exploration tables can be tweaked to make certain results more common or have new ones added without turning AHQ into a different game. Also, the original rules for determining the number and value of monsters for every encounter can be simplified to produce similar—though more varied and speedier—results without the need for actual monster matrices, therefore reducing the downtimes while preserving the feel of the old classic. In fact, being mod-friendly is clearly one of the game's most valued virtues. Some tweaking is expected and even encouraged in the AHQ rulebook!

So, when can we say that the essence and original feel of the game has been altered? Well, the person seeing such an alteration should tell us, as there could be many possible instances. However, right now the following ones come to mind: (1) by changing the original dungeon-generation system, altering the dimensions of its dungeon sections, or the way they're arranged, (2) by changing the original turn sequence or the flow of the turn phases, (3) by changing the way death zones, critical hits, or fumbles work in the game—because those give AHQ combat its unique feel, (4) by tweaking the original to-hit tables, (5) by altering the "PV scale" used in the original bestiary, (6) by using other than D12s to resolve combat, (7) by introducing cards or card-driven mechanics instead of only dice and sheets of paper, (8) by making characters less fragile, combat less brutal, or the game less difficult overall, (9) by introducing maps and overland travel systems that shift the focus of the game away from exploring dungeons, (10) by making the storylines of quests more relevant or less combat oriented, (11) by implementing levels of character advancement that change AHQ's unique system for Hero development, (12) by excluding Fate Points, Henchmen, Sentries, Spell Components, and/or other distinctive features of AHQ, et cetera.

Now, it’s my opinion that some of the vanilla mechanics in AHQ may be flawed (see this post), and that they need at least the following changes:

*A richer character-creation system: If we don’t want to reinvent the wheel, this means implementing new class bonuses and penalties when creating a new character in the game. I believe it involves more of an addition than a change to the vanilla rules, and—if properly implemented—it doesn't necessarily have to interfere with them to the point of turning AHQ into a different game. On the contrary, it should only infuse AHQ with the variety and depth it needs without overcomplicating it.

*More tactical variety in room encounters: I believe this ultimately boils down to fixing the bottleneck issue in the game. However, making the adventurers to fight inside rooms inevitably increases the overall difficulty of the game, so other changes (such as allocating more starting wounds to the Heroes and making in-combat healing easier) may be in order. These could be considered major modifications by some people, as they would be messing with the core characteristics of the Heroes. Again, I can't see—reasonably speaking—how changes like these could alter the essence of the game or its classic mechanics. I know, however, that at first glance it may seem that giving more starting wounds and easier healing mechanics to the adventurers could make them les fragile, which is a distinctive feature of AHQ—thereby potentially invalidating one of the statements in the review posted above about dying being "easy" in the game, but that's not the case, quite the contrary. The tweaks to the rules I'm suggesting in this paragraph are only necessary countermeasures to the increased vulnerability and risk that may result from making the adventurers to fight inside rooms for a change—see this thread for more details.

*More options for character development and combat: If we don’t want to deviate from the old-school RPG tradition AHQ belongs to, this means implementing new abilties, actions, classes, feats and skills (or whatever) for the adventurers in the game. Again, these are more of additions than actual modifications, and they don't have to alter the workings and feel of the vanilla rules more than what's acceptable for a game such as AHQ.

As mentioned above, I also support and promote the idea that the working parts of the original mechanics should be preserved as much as possible. In my opinion, everything in AHQ works except for the above-mentioned problems. Other than that, almost all remaining issues (and new ideas) can be addressed with minor adjustments without altering the core system any further.

Would AHQ become a different game by implementing the major changes it needs according to this post? No, I don't believe so. I'd see it more as an improved version of the same title; one that—hopefully—could do it more justice by rousing and taking more advantage of the game system's possibilities, giving its old mechanics a new shine.

So, with all the above in mind, being AHQ "arguably one of the easiest games ever made to mod and create content for", why would one insist on playing the vanilla version despite its shortcomings?* I've come to realize that, in the end, it's a personal, subjective choice. I'm afraid objectivity doesn't seem to play a more important role than nostalgia in that decision.

[Stabsam]

I bought the Warhammer Quest card game. And i currently play it with 4 people and it is so much fun and really gives a feel of a dungeoncrawler.
i especially like the strategic part of the game. Heroes have 4 abilities that get tapped and need to be refreshed with another ability and monsters have a high variety of behaviour patterns through key words, which get executed one after the other (i.e. deal dmg, retreat to the shadows).
So if you want some inspiration i would recommend getting the game. It's really fun, very hard, tactical, teamplay discussions and it costed me only 35 bucks!

[RECIVS]

I know. I was in the alpha testing group for that game. How's your AHQ gaming going, by the way?

[Stabsam]

I dont play AHQ atm cuz i am busy but i spend some time playing simpler games / games with less build up time like WHQ card game.

[RECIVS]

I keep thinking about the subject of this thread and if it’s possible to objectively determine, in every case, whether a given game mechanic adjusts or not to whatever it is we understand as the essence and feel of Advanced HeroQuest. In an attempt to establish a conceptual base on which to build as objectively as possible, at this point I believe it’s safe to start by assuming the following:

*Regardless of what the text on page 3 of the rulebook says, AHQ is essentially an old-school combat-oriented dungeon crawler that runs on a D12 system. It’s quite obvious to me that fighting monsters in dungeons is what the players spend most of the time doing in the game. An implication of this is that, if the combat mechanics in AHQ turn out to be repetitive, for example, then a very good part of the gameplay experience will be like that.

*AHQ may be considered a tactical dungeon crawler, as its gameplay is mostly about turn-based skirmishes that take into account facing, attack timing, positional considerations, et cetera. It’s just a matter of reading through the original movement, combat, and death zone rules to realize what AHQ is actually about. The game system allows for some roleplaying, granted, but it will mostly revolve around combat anyway; in the end, the "party of adventurers” is nothing more than a squad of warriors—with its squad leader and all—on missions that are always mostly about fighting monsters in dungeons. For example, I can see the opportunity for roleplaying as the leader shouts orders and checks on the squad in the heat of a skirmish: “Enemy reinforcements coming!”, “Hold the perimeter!”, “To the left flank!”, “Incoming arrows!”, “Henchman down!”, “Stop that sentry, now!”, “Retreat!”, et cetera.

*AHQ is neither a full-fledged RPG nor a light fantasy game; it’s something uniquely different that falls in between those two categories. As far as I know, there’s still no other game like it on the market. I’d simply look elsewhere if I wanted a true role-playing game or a simpler, non-tactical dungeon crawler such as HeroQuest.

*Considering the context in which AHQ came to be made in, which includes the tradition it belongs to, I believe it’s safe to assume that the ideal of dungeon crawler its creators had in mind when they came up with the concept of the game necessarily includes “canonical” game features of the genre—still valid today—such as: (1) characters that belong to different classes with customizable stats, (2) character-development mechanics that may be implemented through the training of stats and by acquiring new "abilities", "powers", "skills", or whatever one may want to call them, (3) a dungeon-generation system that should be interesting enough, (4) a world map with (hopefully engaging) enemy encounters and NPC interactions between expeditions, (5) a storyline (the lore behind the game's mechanics exists only in one's mind, so it's not really something that affects gameplay beyond what the rules say, by the way), and (6) a combat system that should keep offering a decent variety or enemies and options from start to finish. I know that a repetitive or bland dungeon crawler is still a dungeon crawler, but it’s not exactly what first comes to mind when one thinks of a game of this type. Dungeon crawlers rely on variety to be entertaining, and game designers are supposed to know this principle well enough.

Of course there are other particularities that make AHQ even more unique, but it’s the general concept of dungeon crawler it’s based on what concerns us here. I believe I don’t need to go beyond that to make my point clear in this post, though I will if I have to.

Having said all the above, is it possible, then, to objectively determine—in every case—whether a given mechanic in AHQ adjusts or not to whatever it is we understand as the spirit of the game?

We’ve established in this post the general concept of dungeon crawler the developers of AHQ seemed to have had in mind when they came up with the original design of the game; whether or not the end result remains faithful or does justice to such an ideal is another story. We all know it’s perfectly possible and even somewhat common for a game to fall short of the mark, so to speak. We evaluate all the time if boardgames fulfill preconceived models, conventions, or expectations anyway. Here at BGG, for example, we can find countless reviews that do exactly that.

If we say that a game fell short of the mark, then we’re obviously implying there’s a mark to begin with. I firmly believe that, in our case, such a mark is the concept of dungeon crawler AHQ is based on according to this post.

If we say, on the other hand, that the original design of AHQ is what was actually intended from the beginning, nothing less and nothing more, then we can assume its designers had a somewhat limited or distorted idea of what a dungeon crawler should be (I find that unlikely, though). As far as I know, however, the most plausible—and widely accepted—explanation behind the game’s shortcomings is that its designers simply had to cut corners to put AHQ on the market. I assume they had their reasons, so I respect their decision.

Now, from my perspective, it’s clear that the creators of AHQ favored the concept of fragility of the Heroes from WHFRP (coupled with an ingenious, flashy, and ahead-of-its-time dungeon generation system) as a cornerstone, and they pretty much wrapped everything else around that premise as a result—as if implementing such an approach was their main purpose regardless of playability. Unfortunately, such a “realistic” approach ends up sacrificing tactical variety in room encounters given the scarce number of starting wounds allocated to the adventurers and how in-combat healing works in the vanilla game—see this post for more details. The original approach may work in WHFRP, but I believe it's clear by now that it wasn't well implemented in AHQ.

Restricting the tactical variety of the room encounters in AHQ, for any reason, obviously limits the game system’s potential. We may see that, under the original rules, the adventurers are condemned to the bottleneck formation ad nauseam in room encounters if they expect to survive. I have no way of knowing if the designers actually realized this or not back in the day, but it’s clearly what ends up happening in the game.

AHQ is still a game, and, as such, it should balance realism with playability. If the former is affecting the latter, then I’m afraid we have a design flaw, not a game feature—see this post about the bottleneck issue for more details. This means that the fragility of the Heroes is a defining feature that should not compromise the variety of combat in a game of this type at all. One would expect the game system to be flexible enough so as to allow for fragility of characters and variety of combat at the same time. That’s my whole point!

In any case, given the combat-oriented nature of AHQ as mentioned above, I believe the approach should be the other way around: The focus should be on the variety of characters and combat as the features that should be privileged over the supposed sense of realism offered by the vanilla game. I mean, the pursuit of realism should not overshadow—at all—the tactical variety of the room encounters in a game of this type.

How realistic is it anyway to have one Hero literally blocking groups of monsters inside a room all by himself, waiting to knock them down one at a time to his convenience while the creatures wait in line? I understand that the supposed sense of realism intended for AHQ is more about the adventurers being “as fragile as in real life” in relation to the weapons and armor used in the game, but we have shown how such an approach restricts the gameplay options to the point of making combat repetitive and creating more problems than it solves, unfortunately.

Objectively speaking, a game mechanic that limits the potential of AHQ in any way (for example by restricting the tactical variety of its encounters in the name of “realism”) may not be considered in line with the concept of dungeon crawler that inspired it according to this post. I know this may sound too abstract or metaphysical, but any house rule or variant that could add more variety of characters and combat to the game—always preserving its original feel, of course—would be more in line with the true essence or spirit of AHQ. I repeat, it could be any rule; this is about the development of AHQ in general and not about promoting my methods and conclusions in particular.

The above leads us to the following question: Should we preserve faulty or repetitive game mechanics in AHQ simply because we're nostalgic about the game? I don’t see why we should, though in the end it’s a personal, subjective choice as anknowledged in this thread. In any case, and I know this is going to be a controversial statement, a flawed game mechanic is still flawed no matter how much one likes the game overall.

The fact that a certain number of kids were dazzled by the game’s novel premise and presentation back in the early 90s doesn’t alter in any way the tradition and ideal of dungeon crawler AHQ is based on. Conversely, to be fair, the fact that an obsessively picky Mexican guy in his late 40’s finds AHQ’s vanilla gameplay bland and repetitive in the mid-2020s doesn’t alter in any way the experience that a certain number of kids had with the game back in the early 90s. The latter, however, evidently doesn’t offer the most objective or logical base to build on if we are to improve the game according to this post.

As mentioned above, the supposed sense of realism intended for the game (á la WHFRP) unfortunately ends up limiting the tactical options in its room encounters, as the adventurers must use the bottleneck formation most of the time if they want to survive. Again, I don't know if the designers realized this flaw or not, but we can assume they tested their prototype at some point and necessarily came across the issue—what they did about it is what's debatable here. I don't want to even consider the possibility that they didn't test their game at all, but it's still a possibility nevertheless. In the end, however, what I believe happened is that the designers of AHQ did come across the said issue, but they simply had to rush the game to the market as discussed above. It seems clear, then, that variety of characters and combat are two of the aspects of the game (or “corners”) that were cut in order to put AHQ on the market. We have, then, that preserving the vanilla AHQ rules as written may not necessarily be a good thing in and of itself.

We can see that the original AHQ rules don’t even take any advantage of the room sections that come with the base game, much less of the death zone and combat mechanics designed to spice up the encounters by making them more tactical. Room encounters in AHQ should take place mostly inside rooms like in a normal dungeon crawler, as rooms allow for more variety and combat options than corridors and doorways—see this post. Surprisingly, however, such an approach is incompatible with the original design of the game as mentioned in this post.

It seems to me, then, that preserving the original monster-placing mechanics—even with double doors—is far from being the best way of taking advantage of the game’s possibilities as a dungeon sandbox. Bottleneck combat in AHQ is the result of rushed-to-market design, not a game feature that should be preserved or in any way serve as a model for anything, in my personal opinion.

A solution for the bottleneck issue, according to what I’ve been saying in this post, then, should allow for the most variety of combat (and it should also try to take as much advantage as possible of the original game system) with the least complications. I believe that would be the “golden rule” or general standard in this case.

On the other hand, as I’ve said in other threads, modifying the rules so as to have in-room encounters—and combat actions such as push—necessarily carries a significantly steep increase in the game’s difficulty, as the adventurers become at least twice as likely to be attacked and damaged if the doorway exploit is no longer an option. The original healing mechanics would have to change as a consequence, or the adventurers would be unable to heal when surrounded by enemies. The said adventurers would then have to rely on their Fate Points (FPs), which could also potentially fix the fate-point-accumulation issue in the game, by the way. The number of starting wounds allocated to the adventurers would also have to be increased as a consequence of these tweaks.

At first glance it may seem that giving more starting wounds and easier healing mechanics to the adventurers could make them less fragile, which in turn could potentially alter the essence and feel of the game. However, one has to keep in mind that combat in AHQ becomes much more deadly when it takes place inside rooms, so the adventurers become at least twice as likely to be attacked and damaged than in the vanilla version of the game.

By the way, can we fairly say that the number of wounds allocated to the Heroes in WHQ makes that game less realistic or deadly as compared to AHQ? I don’t think we can.

Let’s not forget that AHQ is also a dungeon sandbox, so, by definition, it could never fulfill its full potential without implementing custom rules. Some tweaking is expected and even encouraged in the AHQ rulebook!

I understand that a case could be made for preserving the original mechanics based on the fact that those are the rules actually in the rulebook, and, therefore, those rules—and only those rules—have the original feel of AHQ, but I don’t see how such a case could be logically supported after considering all the above.

If we were to properly fix AHQ (“arguably one of the easiest games ever made to mod and create content for”), should we stick to the seemingly rushed-to-market product or to the ideal it was intended to fulfill?* I think the answer is obvious. I’m afraid that playing the game by the vanilla rules as written is simply not in line with such an ideal, for reasons posted above.

Here’s an example I find quite illustrative of the difference between design decision and design flaw discussed in this thread: The game is so focused on exploration and combat—as a pure dungeon crawler should be—that almost everything else is resolved abstractly through behind-the-scenes actions such as looting dead monsters or traveling between expeditions. Such a principle or approach doesn’t seem to be the result of rushed-to-market design, but rather a deliberate design decision that distinguishes AHQ from the other tabletop dungeon crawlers out there.

AHQ is set in the Warhammer world, which has its own map with different regions, locations, and towns to visit between expeditions—see page 3 of the rulebook. This means that AHQ does include game mechanics that deal with overworld travel and the interactions with other characters and NPCs between expeditions, as it’s still a dungeon crawler after all. However, we may see that it resolves such incidental game actions in its own abstract way, totally in line with its combat-oriented design.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but, as far as I remember, the official quests don’t give much importance or relevance to the name of the locations in which the adventures take place. We can see it’s also irrelevant to know the names of the towns and settlements the party visits between expeditions. In fact, in AHQ one could forget about the world map and back story altogether without affecting gameplay much—if at all. I'd even dare to posit that being a pure combat-oriented tactical dungeon crawler necessarily involves focusing on exploration and combat as much as possible, which is not a design flaw but rather a design decision as discussed above—one may like that or not. I would also dare to say that the world map and back story being nearly irrelevant to gameplay is also a part of the original AHQ feel, and we're yet to see a good reason to change that beyond personal preferences. It'd be pointless to even consider more detailed overland travel mechanics in AHQ according to this approach. It’s clear, then, that AHQ, as originally designed, doesn’t really need roleplaying between expeditions, as that’s clearly not the type of game the developers intended. What it really needs is to focus on keeping its dungeons, characters, and combat interesting enough throughout the game. That’s what the spirit of AHQ is actually about!

As a point of reference, in WHQ they did something about the bottleneck issue and changed how combat is conducted in the game (they also increased the number of starting wounds allocated to the Heroes and how in-combat healing works, by the way), but they didn’t modify the abstract way in which the between-expeditions phase is resolved at all, which I think hints to us as to how fond the designers were of such mechanics and how deliberate—and obvious—their intentions were in regard to them.

It’s just a matter of reading through the first few paragraphs of page 13 of the WHQ Roleplay Book to confirm that overland journeys are simply “beyond the scope” of a combat-oriented dungeon crawler of this type, and that’s what the rulebooks explicitly and implicitly say.

I’ve always thought that AHQ is a very sad case of wasted potential: It’s supposed to be a dungeon sandbox, but the rules that come with it don’t allow for much variety of characters and combat in the game, which should’ve been its main focus in the first place as established above. If that’s not a design flaw, then I don’t know what is!

There’s no perfect game, I know, but, as I’ve posted in other threads, the approach here, in general terms, is not to come up with the perfect dungeon crawler—whatever that means—but to properly fix AHQ in accordance with its essence and original feel. That’s the challenge at hand, and different minds may come up with different solutions.

In my opinion, AHQ doesn’t have to be perfect in order to be more in line with its spirit as understood in this post. There are mechanics in the vanilla game that may not be perfect, but they work well and don’t need much tweaking at all. I’ve never argued for changing the original form of the dungeon-generation system, for example, and we could agree that, though quite ingenious, it’s not unlimited or perfect. It turns out that I'm not that picky after all.

In conclusion, I believe that it’s indeed possible to set standards that may allow us to objectively evaluate whether a given game mechanic in AHQ is in line or not with the concept of dungeon crawler that inspired the game according to this post.

Just to be clear, this thread is not about promoting my approach in Re-Reforged, though it kind of summarizes it. It’s ultimately about exploring different paradigms and setting new standards for the development of AHQ that could do it more justice by taking more advantage of its possibilities, always remaining faithful to its true essence and original feel as much as possible. It’s also about proposing a practical (though I’m afraid still rudimentary) methodology for assessing the adequacy of the game’s mechanics to the spirit of AHQ as understood in this post.

In AHQ there're different ways to skin a cat, so to speak, and I’d gladly accept other house rules and variants that could offer better results than mine with even fewer complications (I think that’s the main goal after all), but that’s not the point here. Before getting into that, the question here is what are those variants supposed to do to take full advantage of the game system’s potential to begin with? Again, what’s the essence of AHQ? Objectively speaking, how exactly do we “do justice” to the concept of dungeon crawler AHQ is based on according to this post? What’s the standard? Is variety enough? These questions leave room for discussion, creativity, and skill that could eventually allow us to assess and improve the game’s mechanics in a more systematic way. That’s ultimately what this post and thread are about.

[b_0]

Perhaps the problem people are finding with AHQ is between the GM screen and the chair. The GM's job is explicitly described as to make life for the heroes as difficult as possible. There are different ways for the GM to move monsters. Although the monsters are not to retreat, there is no rule saying they can't evade ranged attacks from doorways, such as by moving closer to the door wall in the corner, out of the line of sight of the archer in the doorway. And there is no rule saying that they can't have a stand off, or wait for the right moment to attack, or use Mongolian lure tactics with feigned retreats. They just can't flee. I suspect that a lot of the doorway bottleneck problems result from GM's using the monster AI of the old video game "Gauntlet', where the monsters just mindlessly move forward into the meat grinder. Don't blame the rules for that. The GM holds the responsibility to make things difficult.

[Neuralstasis]

Whew, what a write up!

RECIVS, I read through it all and I very much agree with your ideas about AHQ and the variants that circle it. I'm a bit to tired to comment on specifics, but I think the idea of balancing up the essence of the game (clobbering monsters in a dungeon for gold) with re-working a set of rules that had clearly cut corners, is an issue that many of us AHQ players enjoy toying with. (The best thing about Advanced Heroquest is making a variant for Advanced Heroquest!)

For me personally I love your work on re-reforged. Currently I am using a lot of it to produce my own "de-forged" variant that keeps most of the gameplay mechanics but strips back the huge amount of clutter that I think reforged suffers from. (bye bye 70+ weapons to choose from). Probably not planning on releasing it as an official complete variant, but I might release some of my rules as separate smaller mods.

Cheers from a picky Australian guy in his late 40s. Keep up the good work.

[RECIVS]

Whew, what a write up!

I read through it all

I hope it was readable enough. I just spotted a few misplaced commas and minor gramatical issues, by the way, so it'll be edited soon.

This whole project started as a self-imposed English practice exercise (hence the long posts); the initial plan was never to redesign Reforged. I don't use translators, AI, or grammar correctors for that reason, so please bear with me.

a set of rules that had clearly cut corners

This is so obvious to me too that I really don't understand how anyone can say otherwise.

For me personally I love your work on re-reforged.

Thanks for taking the time to say so! That made my day!

Currently I am using a lot of it to produce my own "de-forged" variant that keeps most of the gameplay mechanics but strips back the huge amount of clutter that I think reforged suffers from. (bye bye 70+ weapons to choose from).

I do think the vanilla game needs more variety of equipment, though, and Slev did an incredible job with that in my opinion. Should the ideal combat-oriented dungeon crawler offer a poorer variety of equipment than that? I don't think so.

Probably not planning on releasing it as an official complete variant, but I might release some of my rules as separate smaller mods.

I'll read through your notes for sure! It seems we both agree that the improvement of AHQ should be conducted in more systematic ways.

Cheers from a picky Australian guy in his late 40s. Keep up the good work.

Cheers back at you mate! Thanks again!

[RECIVS]

Whew, what a write up!

I read through it all

I hope it was readable enough. I just spotted a few misplaced commas and minor gramatical issues, by the way, so it'll be edited soon.

I’ve edited posts #1 and #5 of this thread, improving the grammar and adding a few lines of text in the process; I hope they’re more readable now. The points expressed therein, which haven’t changed a bit, are still up for debate.

By the way, I recently came across the following threads that I believe may enrich our discussion here:

What does every dungeon crawler do that gets boring and repetitive?

Why dungeon crawls need sophisticated combat? Where are combat games?

The Metaphysics of Games

I see some very interesting points of view in those sources, all relevant to the subject here, in my opinion.

Probably not planning on releasing it as an official complete variant, but I might release some of my rules as separate smaller mods.

I'll read through your notes for sure! It seems we both agree that the improvement of AHQ should be conducted in more systematic ways.

I replied to your other thread as you may have noticed already.

[RECIVS]

I just came across this recent interview with Jervis Johnson. As far as I know, nobody had asked him those questions before. He pretty much confirms my assumptions in this thread.