[Hero Wars] The Morganthi Campaign

[Skadedyr]

So I got to play today and enjoyed myself. Unfortunately the session ended with a down point.

The character was finalized before play. The gamemaster sent us a few pages of information on the Morganthi, who are the Sartarites we're playing. I changed my initiate cult from Orlanth Adventurous to Morganth. Morganth is a son of Orlanth, and he guided our people through the time of darkness with a parcel of light stolen from Yelm.


Alberic

Culture: Morganthi
Homeland: Mount Dancing Shadows
Age: 19
Gender: Male

Keywords:
Morganthi
Warrior
Initiate of Morganth

Physical Skills:
Ride 17
Evasion 17
Keen Hearing 17
Hide 17
Run 17
Strong 13

Mental Skills:
Orlanthi Myths 13
Morganthi Myths 17
Knowledge of Mount Dansing Shadows 13
Orientation 17
Find Shelter 17
Stay Awake 17

Recognize Enemy 17
Persuasion 13

Relations:
Loved by Conobar 13
Loyal 17

War band 17
Morganthi tribe 13
Allied clan 13
Godfather 13
Storm tribe 13
Weapons bearer 13
Morganthi cult 17

Combat:
Lance and shield 5m
Sword and shield 17
Javelin 13
Sling 13

Personality Traits:
Ambitious 13
Bragart 17
Brave 17

Common Magic

Paths 17
Bless path
Overcome obstacles
Walk on the wings of wind
Sense peril
Sign of the hidden path
Read hidden path signs

Good husband 17
Alleviate quarrel
Make a woman shut up
Amorous vigour

Discretion 17
Walk without sound
Walk without trace
Meld into environment

Equipment
Fury of the Heavens 1m (magical spear)


The other PCs were Hornkarl, a Humakti swordsman, and Donngal, a bard. Donngal was an initiate of some bardic deity, I think. My follower was Perandal, a young boy (13 years old) who's task is take carry my arms and armor. Donngal's follower was a guide.

The session started during the time of year between winter and spring, if I recall correctly. It was a time when many rites were made to appease the spirits in the mountains to keep them from assaulting our communities. Our village was gathering at the sacred healing spring. While the procession neared, the was a clamour from the front. The villagers surged forth and panicked when they saw the waters dessecrated. The Morganthi priest had been slain and his body was floating, the waters tainted by his blood. The village panicked, for the pond was the source of our tribe's good fortune. It could heal the sick and wounded, and with it no babies were stillborn or deformed. The priest was the only one who had the knowledge to purify the waters. Soiled, its properties were lost.

Conobar, the clan chief and Alberic's father, tried to calm the people down and lead them away. However they continued to trample the ground and would not draw back. At this point I had the idea to use my spear, Fury of the Heavens. I had intended for its power to be to strike fear in the hearts of my enemies on the battlefield when banging it on my shield. But I figured I could use it to grab people's attention and make them listen to my father, since this was a sacred place that had been dessecrated and Morganth would surely be displeased at his tribe bleating like witless sheep instead of taking action against the offenders. So I asked Perandal to hand me my spear and shield, and struck my shield thrice. On the third blow, a great thunderous clap was heard, a rumbling was felt through the ground, and all fell silent. I commanded those assembled to do as they had been told, and draw back, away from the pond. Conobar asked some to stay to discuss the matter.

Conobar tasked me with finding who had done this. Harnkorl drew the body out of the pond and inspected the wound. He determined that it had been done by a curved blade, like Lunars used, and no more than one hour had passed since death. Donngal tried to use divination, but could see nothing, having miserably failed his die roll. I asked one of the village's trackers to attempt to find a trace of the enemy around the pond, further than what had been trampled by the villagers. He quickly found trace of six horses, with horseshoes like the Lunars used. I reported to Conobar and he sent war parties out to intercept the Lunars from one of the paths they could have used. I assumed command of my band, we cut through the wilderness and posted sentinels. One of these saw that another band had found them first. We hurried over at full gallop. The Lunars were atop a small hill. They had lain their horses to use as cover, and were pelleting the Morganthi warriors with arrows. The Morganthi were making circles around and throwing javelins.

I arrived with the Humakti swordsman and we rushed in. Our horses leapt over their improvised barricade and we tore into them. I made some more-or-less daring bids 10 to 15 points) and quickly slew two Lunars. The Humakti was on fire, having a maxed out two-sword fighting style, two magical swords, and a boatload of common magic that sent him into a bloody frenzy. He slew 4 of the Lunars.

We got to test the extended contest. The Lunars weren't too great at fighting, I was pretty decent and the Humakti was a death machine. After slaying our first foe we were pumped up with APs and were pretty confident with making daring bids. However the Humakti PC made a final bid of 60 AP because he wanted to completely destroy the last Lunar. He won and his bid was doubled so the Lunar was sliced into ribbons. I wasn't too happy with this final bid though. The player had certainly not taken a risk worth a 60 point bid. Even if there was very little chance of getting a double loss (he had two masteries over the opponent), so essencially a simple loss would have resulted in him having a few APs left (somewhere under 10). I'm not sure I'm very happy about the charging up aspect of defeating enemies and APs transfering to new extended contest. I would have preferred if 5 of the Lunars has been followers-augments to the leader, not worthy of being AP batteries.

Alberic was very happy with this victory. Donngal arrived and we questionned the prisonners. We learned that they were an patrol, which was unusual because Lunars did not come up this high in the mountains. We learned they had bathed in the sacred water and killed the priest when he ordered them to leave. Furious, Alberic ordered the prisonners to be tied by their feet to the horses and dragged back to the village.

We arrived at the village with the Lunars half-dead from the trip. A council was formed. The priestess of Chalana Arroy was not pleased with how I treated the prisonners. She was even less pleased when said that putting them to death would be merciful, in the state they were in. Conobar decided that a band would be sent into the mountain to steal the secret of purifying the waters from the trolls, like Morganth had done long ago. The other two prominent families insisted that they should have the honor of sending their men to retrieve the secret, and that Conobar's familly didn't deserve the honor because his warriors had failed to guard the sacred pond. Conobar decreed that each of the three famillies would send a party. (A HeroQuest was not an option because the time of year did not permit the community to give the necessary support).

The following morning we had a ritual where we rode around town like Orlanth and the tribe gave its blessing. I had to spend my only hero point to keep from failing. That gave us 37 points to distribute among our traits. The gamemaster decided that no more than 10 points could be placed in a single ability. We weren't too sure about the rules at this point, the gamemaster imposed a limit because he thought 37 points in a single ability was too much (which the Humakti was likely to do with his combat ability).

We headed to the cave entrance that lead to the trolls. There were three paths upon entering. I used my Find Peril affinity from the Paths magic to find the most perilous path, which we took. The other two bands headed into the other corridors. At this point there was much crawling through caves. We had a few obstacles to overcome. No trolls yet. Some slugs that corrupted some food, which made the weapon thane Conobar had sent with us sick, though he was healed by sacred water that had been bottled by the priestess of Chalana Arroy before the tainting. There was a point where there was an odour that reminded us of farm animals (turned out to be methane). My torch burned out, we were illuminated by some shining mushrooms we had found. We crossed a chasm from which the methane was coming. I'm not sure what was the point of whole methane thing. It was like the gamemaster wanted us to metagame so that we wouldn't die a horrible explosive death by fire if we brought a lit torch too close.

Eventually we reached a room where there were spider webs bloking the path. We burned our way through with a torch. In another room many trollkin riding spiders bloked our path and threatened us with bow and arrows. We demanded passage, and we said to avoid having to slaughter each and every one of them in a bloody carnage, we could instead have our champion fight theirs. We could continue if we won, or turn back if we lost. The bard was translating with one of his affinities. One of the trollkin went away and we were eventually summoned inside.

We were brought to meet a troll queen. Which the gamemaster handled with excellent descriptions of her size and hiddeousness. We joked about my PC using his Good Husband affinities of Appease Quarrel, Make a Woman Shut Up, and Amorous Vigour to extract the secret of purifying water from the troll queen.

She told us she would make delicious morcels. We asked for hospitality, which was an ancient custom they could not refuse. At this point we tried to get her to talk about the secret of purifying water. Some rather excellent roleplaying was done and she left saying she would discuss the issue with the six other den mothers.

The following day we were told that we would face three challenges. If they could learn our secrets during these challenges, they would reveal the secret of purifying water. The first challenge was facing an adept of Zorak Zoran, which the Humakti gleefully accepted. The Humakti had his combat skills boosted and an iron sword, so the troll was cut down in two rounds. This disappointed the gamemaster as he had miscalculated the challenge he would pose.

The second challenge was taming a spider. Which I accepted and to which I failed miserably. I initially used my discretion affinities to sneak up to the spiders and leap onto its back, but it have monstrous size and strength and my ride ability was no match. I had lost a whole bunch of AP, so the Humakti use some affinity to lend me some APs, and the bard sung a song to appease the spider and drain its APs. I alternated between hitting it and jumping onto its back but had no hope of success. I ended up with 1 AP and was very indecisive, so the gamemaster declared the contest failed.

He told us we should have tried something else. I felt this was like asking us to read his mind in however he had intended us to tame that damn spider. I was pretty unhappy about this failure but the rest of the session had been very enjoyable.

This was our first time with Hero Wars. The gamemaster said he didn't like the rules, finding them too abstract. He had limited augments to one additional ability/relationship/personality trait, except for common magic. I felt this was weird (can't remember the rules saying anything of the sort), but it keeps counting down to a minimum. I have a feeling I see the game closer to Exalted in potential power levels and the gamemaster sees it closer to RuneQuest. Me and the player with the Humakti loved the system, and the abstract resolution. We weren't too hot about the part where all rolls are opposed, and you can't Take 10 (an average result in situations without stress or threat), but it seems the system can't bend that way.

[Bankuei]

Hi S,

Glad to hear you had a good time.  It's unfortunate that your GM decided to limit to only a single augmentation, as it tends to make a BIG difference in gameplay.  In fact, by doing so, it pretty much limits players towards specializing their characters towards a few key abilities instead of going for a wider "web" of abilities to augment across the board.

Second, I don't know how much he utilized the modifer rules(giving bonuses and penalties according to conditions and tactics), but those make a big difference towards, "reality" vs. abstraction, depending on how you use them.  Using those, you could really nail down all the factors in play.  It's really not different than D20's Add/Subtract rules from any given roll in that regards.

Also, while there isn't a "take 10" option, most conflicts that look pretty much one sided should either simply be GM's Fiat(see Automatic Success), or else rolled against a pretty low score, such as 6 or 14, depending on the nature of the resistance.  Remember, anything that has no real resistance, is 6, and anything with SOME resistance is 14, and only competant or higher is going to rate 17 or above.

I ended up with 1 AP and was very indecisive, so the gamemaster declared the contest failed.

There is also the option to "bet more than you have" as a last ditch effort, which would have fit in perfectly here.  The contest isn't over until it's over, and its not really right to just "fail" folks before letting them get their last shots in.  Without the option to really augment, you'll find that your heroes end up really incompetant at everything, while open augmenting allows you a wide range of options.

Chris

[Skadedyr]

I ended up with 1 AP and was very indecisive, so the gamemaster declared the contest failed.

Well, the trolls were the ones to decide in-game we had failed. And we didn't contest the decision, knowing that whatever the gamemaster had in mind would require more APs than I had left. The conflict had taken something like an hour of real time and we weren't getting any closer to winning.

There is also the option to "bet more than you have" as a last ditch effort, which would have fit in perfectly here.  The contest isn't over until it's over, and its not really right to just "fail" folks before letting them get their last shots in.

I didn't really care at that point. And the session needed to be closed because it was getting late.

[Bankuei]

Hi S,

Ok, so you guys stopped for time reasons, that's fine.  My only concern then would be the limiting of augments, which is almost equiavalent of saying in D&D, "You can only use one Feat at a time!"

Chris

[Skadedyr]

Ok, so you guys stopped for time reasons, that's fine.

I didn't mind stopping either. I didn't want to get my ass kicked by that spider, and I was out of ideas. The trolls had imposed the condition for giving us the secret of purifying water as them learning our secrets from the challenges. The bard did some very impressive AP draining with his soothing song. Hopefully the trolls will have learned something.

I'm not sure the gamemaster agrees though. The post-game discussion seemed to indicate that he wanted us to be victorious in all three challenges.

Thinking back, I should have powered up on AP with the smaller spiders and tried to feed them to the big one.

My only concern then would be the limiting of augments, which is almost equiavalent of saying in D&D, "You can only use one Feat at a time!"

I'm not happy with it either. It can cut down on time when calculating augments, but once we're used to counting those I feel it should be a non-issue. But it does encourage much narrower character development, which is my main problem with it.

This rule seemed to come from the gamemaster's desire for resolution to be more concrete. There were also many instances of simple contests inside extended contests to do miscellaneous actions related to the conflict, instead of determining result based of AP flow. I'll talk to the gamemaster about it, try to keep the game closer to the rulebook (and my own vision of how play should go). I'm pretty sure he's not too hot about it. And I'm wondering if his dissatisfaction will grow with time and lead him try to patch things with burdensome house rules or another system. I certainly hope not. The third player doesn't seem to have much of an opinion for the moment.

[Skadedyr]

Also, while there isn't a "take 10" option, most conflicts that look pretty much one sided should either simply be GM's Fiat(see Automatic Success), or else rolled against a pretty low score, such as 6 or 14, depending on the nature of the resistance.  Remember, anything that has no real resistance, is 6, and anything with SOME resistance is 14, and only competant or higher is going to rate 17 or above.

Both me and the Humakti player agree that the less dice rolled in situations of little tension (but still a chance of failure), the better. Taking 10 makes perfect sense in-game, which is also very statisfactory.

The rule can avoid ridiculous situations like jumping a chasm, where an incompetent character succeeds through luck, but a compentent character fails through a poor die roll (or in this system, a good roll by the gamemaster). I've found this leads to increased player dissatisfaction without any dramatic payback.

[Bankuei]

Hi S,

There are two points that usually overcome the "random luck" issue.  

First, the competent character will probably have a slew of abilities that augment the score in question.  Therefore, the warrior probably has a list of physical traits such as Athletic, Fast, etc. to augment "Jump", while a less competant character will have a different field of strength.  With multiple augments, I expect AT LEAST +6 to +10 to pop off, even for beginning characters in anything they're skilled in.

Second, "failure" can mean many things.  In the case of jumping the chasm, a marginal failure doesn't have to mean falling to your doom(and it shouldn't), but it could mean chickening out at the last minute, realizing you can't make it, getting a cramp before you get there, or jumping, and catching the ledge while slamming your body against the side(ow!).  

That is the strength of the abstraction.  "Why" you fail isn't necessarily defined, and the Narrator is free to embellish suitable reasons, whether cinematic or "realism" based.

Chris

[Skadedyr]

There are two points that usually overcome the "random luck" issue.

That's actually not the issue I have with it. Its really just a question of not having to throw a dice when I don't feel like it, and circumstances don't require me to. That's pretty much it.

[Janus]

I am player of "the Humakti" character Skadedyr keeps mentioning.

Since he first posted we had a second game, which was a lot of fun but still exacerbated some of the issues the narrator has with the system.

The problem is that he was using the Hero Wars rules, which I read a long time ago and they are all but clear on many points, in fact downright muddy sometimes. Fortunately the rules are quite clear in their HeroQuest incarnation. Skadedyr generously lent his copy to the GM at the end of second session.

One of the thing the GM is not gasping is the paradigm shift the extended contest represent. He keeps trying to make micro contests which, of course, ends disastrously for his NPCs.

We had to go kill some Troll princess in her lair. Alberic and some thane went head to head with 10 dark trolls and pretty much beat them to pulp without really even that much magic, the Humakti reeking of death magic went through about that number alone on his own on some other passageway. If instead of running lots of small extended contests his NPCs couldn't win the GM had played one big extended contest adding up all the NPCs and using a narrative instead of a wargaming approach, we would have been in much more trouble and it would have been much more challenging and rewarding, also the bard character would have had much more importance as his illusions, peace and charm magic could have been more important/decisive than our war magic.

Hopefully now that the GM has access to the HQ rules, things will improve. If not, maybe I will offer the GM to a run a mini scenario, like one extended contest just to show him how things could be run. A vision I believe I share with Skadedyr. A picture is worth a thousand words, eh?

Also I have changed my character to make it play better with the rest of the group, the loner with the geas "never participate in an ambush" was not much of a winner idea to have along a bard who is proving to be quite sneaky (if he can have his ways.) Fortunately the GM is reasonnably flexible in letting us fix the characters given we are all new to the game. (I'm new to HQ, but not to Glorantha).

Another thing that could use some fixing is either the character initial level or the advancement rate. We got 6-10 HPs / player total for two 7-8 hours sessions (one every two weeks). At this rate it will take 1.75 years for my devotee to learn his Cult Secret, if I spend the points on nothing else. Given the campaign will at best last 1 year... (the GM moves back to Europe within a year.) Also the goal of Alberic (our fearless leader) being to overthrow the Lunars, I'm not sure how we can achieve that in at best 20 sessions given we have one mastery at best in our skills (well, sure we can go try to convince all the nifty NPCs with three or four masteries to show up and do all the work, but if it's to have the backseat, I would rather read a novel than play rpgs.) But fixing starting experience or advancement is a minor issue that I'm fairly confident can be worked out with the GM. Or if he wants to do a low powered campaign, then reset our goals to something more modest.

[Andrew Norris]

The disconnect between the character's advancement and their goals seems to be a pretty common one in non-Narrativist RPGs, and it sounds to me like something the GM's carried over from past play.

I've been in so many games where the PCs had backstory-related goals that were pushed to the background in play that seeing it happen in something like HQ, where those goals are meant to be front and center, can be very frustrating. I hope you can resolve that issue.