Consequences of failure

[lightcastle]

So a sudden thought occured to me, which is probably old hat to you HQ/HW veterans.

One of the great advantages of HQ is the whole way you can augment with all sorts of abilites, especially how you can bring your relationships and histories and such into play.

When you fail at something, you take penalties to the appropriate abilities in the future, according to the result.  It suddenly occured to me that this doesn't just have to mean things like losing physical abilites after a fight, or certain social abilities after a debate,  this can mean everything you used to augment!

If I brought in my Loves clan and Strong and Indominatble Will and got a minor defeat, then I could lose 10% to all.  Because know I doubt that my love of clan is enough, I am unsure of my strength, or if my will is as indomintable as I thought.  I tapped all these resources in my heart and soul and it wasn't enough...  

Does this make sense or have I just had one glass of wine too many?

[Mike Holmes]

Does this make sense or have I just had one glass of wine too many?

Actually you're reading too little into it. The ramifications are much larger. I'm going to be writing an article about this in the near future, but here's the short story. The rule is that the penalty recieved works against anything that makes sense, not just to the abilities used. So, let's say that you have that contest involving your clan. The opposition is using "Berate Foe" to insult you. The resulting -10% then the GM defines as you being embarassed. Now, in any future contest in which the embarassment might apply, it does.

When you get wounded in swordplay, and the GM says that it's a leg wound, that applies to running, or anything else to do with the leg, right? Same with any other contest. The nature of the "injury" tells you what sort of abilities in what sort of contests will be affected. There's no sure rule here. For instance, if you used Loves Clan, and got the embarrasment result, and then you were trying to leap a chasm to get something important for your clan, then embarrasment probably doesn't come in, despite using that ability to help with the leap. But if you were trying to woo a girl who'd seen the event, then it definitely would, despite using totally different abilities in this contest.

Any clearer?

What I do, is to write these down as though they were sorta "augment only" Flaws. Embarrased -10%, Leg Wound -10%, whatever. Then I apply the penalties as I see fit (and just as you would Flaws).

Mike

[lightcastle]

The rule is that the penalty recieved works against anything that makes sense, not just to the abilities used.

Oh, I get that. I would never limit the result to the abilities being used. As you point out with your leg example, there's all kinds of things that would drop 10% that probably weren't bid. It was more an epiphany that it works both ways, "what makes sense" isn't as limited as the outcome of physical attacks only limitng physical abilities.

As I said, probably old hat to the people who have been playing this a long time, but each time I discover some new (to me) neat aspect of this system, I get giddy as a schoolgirl. :)

What I do, is to write these down as though they were sorta "augment only" Flaws. Embarrased -10%, Leg Wound -10%, whatever. Then I apply the penalties as I see fit (and just as you would Flaws).

That's a neat way to keep track of it.  Useful.  I suspect no matter what you have to note down more than just "hurt" or "impaired" to make sure you know what it relates to.

Thanks.

[buserian]

What I do, is to write these down as though they were sorta "augment only" Flaws. Embarrased -10%, Leg Wound -10%, whatever. Then I apply the penalties as I see fit (and just as you would Flaws).

That's a neat way to keep track of it.  Useful.  I suspect no matter what you have to note down more than just "hurt" or "impaired" to make sure you know what it relates to.

Makes you wish they had included a "Wounds and Injuries" section of the character sheet for this.

buserian

[Mike Holmes]

I like to have a list of these all available as narrator - I jot them down on a page just for this purpose. Not only can I then refer to it to see what should apply, but I actually look at the consequences that people have taken for inspiration on how to go after PCs. That is, a wound isn't interesting unless it's getting emphasized by use. So, basically, I tend to grind a lot of salt in wounds.

Just too much fun. Unlike other games where players might see this as unfair, in HQ it seems to produce the Mel Gibson (some call it the Harrison Ford) effect, where the character just gets cooler the more hurt they get. I mean it's always tre cool when the player manages to find a way to win despite all those problems. (As opposed to other games where I find players low on health or whatever scrambling away from any interesting conflict).

Mike