[HQ] Thoughts from my first test session

[Doyce]

Well, it was a slow weekend around the casa, so when one of my friends called up to see what we were doing yesterday, I proposed getting together to playtest HQ.  He agreed, my wife agree, and we called another gamer who had been discussing HQ vs. d20 with me for the last couple weeks and had voiced an interest in trying out the system.

Now, I have a really bad habit of running games like this: call everyone, rush over on a Sunday afternoon around 3pm, start making characters... finish that by six, six-thirty, then run about half a scenario before everyone has to get home and crash, because tomorrow's Monday.

That's... basically exactly how this started... except, for a wonder, we actually finished the scenario.

Now, to preface all of this, I should explain that I'm getting ready to run a 'real' HQ game on Friday for the group that normally plays d20.  For *that* game, I prepped up the Well of Souls scenario, sent out a briefing to everyone on the NPCs, and have be working out PCs with each player in private emails for about the last ten days.

Far be it from me to waste prep-time.  For this down-and-dirty one-shot, I simply printed out my player-information on Spring Fountain and handed it out with the same instructions that I'd given the 'main' group, excepting only that the Baron wasn't in a coma for the session we were going to play.  The player's consisted of:

- My wife, who played the character she'd already made up for the coming Friday game.
- My kid (14), who played the character he'd already made up for the coming Friday game.
- Randy, who had browsed the main rules at one point and owned the Hero's book.
- Stan, who had never seen HQ before, but had discussed it in broad terms with me in the past couple weeks.

We had one rulebook and two Hero guides.  It took about three hours to (a) build the two new characters (including building a Wizardry school from scratch --my second in a week!) (b) finish up the last bits of the characters who were basically done

Unfortunately, this gave me no time to actually prep the game.  

Therefore, I hopped over to the Glorantha site and printed out "Sheepless Nights".

Yes, this is a Heortling adventure.  No, it's not a deep or remotely narr scenario.  Do not judge me, for I had zero prep time :)

I tweaked things around a bit and had the head shepherd come down to ask Eustef for help with the missing sheep, and Eustef in turn send the PCs back to with the shepherd to investigate the disappearances.  The bandits were from a neighboring, unfriendly Barony.

Anyway, the results:

The character's were (in order of the players listed above):

-Emelie, a young female squire (who'd gotten accepted as a noble page on a technicality and had simply worked too hard to be drummed out... yet).  She been assigned by Serge as the squire for Guilbert (the idea being that he would eventually screw up badly and she could be blamed for it).

-Lucas, the third son of Eustef.  Lucas had been sponsored by Father Rance to attend the wizardry Academy of the Church, but, unknown to most, had fallen in with a very unsavory 'school within the school' while he was away at University.  (Unfortunately, couldn't play through the whole scenario.)

-Nellisante, the bastard daughter of Eustef who, though certainly not officially acknowledged, had been allowed certain leniencies to the typical female roles and works in the King's stables as a horsewoman (using the Herder keyword I worked up) and sometimes-courier.

-Guy DeGex: Guilbert's "Jeeves", the yin to Etienne's yang, Guy is a young journeyman adept from the Academy of Lordly Advisory (or something like that) who's made it into Guilberts entourage -- we had great fun working up the Grimoires for this School.

Tying the PCs into the NPC relationship map, even with such a simple scenario, totally paid off great at the beginning of play, because it really let us hit the ground running.  All I had to do was start off with Guilbert too hungover (and still drunk) to answer his father's summons and Emelie and Guy were suddenly deeply involved and invested -- we opened with a scene of Emelie intercepting Alfan (the Baron's right hand man) while he was looking for Guilbert, and her being sent to find him, cut to Guy waking up in the Hen's Lips tavern down in Wells and looking around at the ''nobility'' passed out on the hearth, then back to Emelie riding up, stalking in, picking up Guilbert, and dumping him in the water trough outside... those two just locked everything in tight right off the bat.  Fun stuff.

Okay, fast forwarding: The four are sent off to the shepherd's, poke around a bit, start to get a whiff of something wrong with the head shepherd guy.  Nellisante and Emilie are riding patrols around the herd of sheep and Guy is basically welded to the head shepherd's hip so he can't go off and do anything 'unnatural'.  The sheep thieves make off with a clump of sheep and it breaks down into three conflicts:

1. Emilie running down the thieves on her horribly ill-tempered but very battle-trained mount.

2. Nellisante chasing the 'distraction' down through the trees -- him on foot and her mounted.

3. Guy, trying to keep the head shepherd from escaping.

I ran them as three concurrent Extended Contests.  We'd had some simple contests prior to this point, but since this session had been established from the get-go as a way to play through the HQ system and get our feet wet, I decided to go for this -- the players were GREAT about allowing for the vagaries of test-play, and we had a great time.  The first couple rounds of the Contests were a bit bumpy, but once I got the flow down (ask for actions, THEN bid, THEN roll) it smoothed out considerably and led to some really fun moments.  We started to really see the ebb and flow of the advantage point pools.  It was quite excellent.

We wrapped up with victory stories around the campfire, I awarded HPs to folks it (some would be playing again, after all), and we wrapped after about 3 hours of (IMO) very satisfying play -- albeit bumpy from the 'new rules' adjusting.  Randy and Stan stayed and talked about the game til nearly midnight (my fault), both about the setting we were using (I could easily run an all-Seshnela campaign... love the politics and religious nastiness) as well as the system, which went through very well-received.  Folks could really see the strengths of the conflict resolution, but commented that the main rulebook itself should be separated into 'this is rules, this is Glorantha' to make it... you know, readable.

(I, personally, cannot WAIT to see the 'generic' Heroquest rulebook.)

Today, Stan (who'd been discussing the relative strengths of HQ vs. d20 earlier and doing his job as devil's advocate) emailed to ask if he could sit in on the game this Friday.  

Nice. :)

-----

Thoughts:

Wow.  I've been playing in Mike's online game and seen the system in action, but this was my first shot at remembering all the stuff as we played -- I'm pleased that there isn't much to remember once you get the basic system down.  I forgot insignificant bits here and there (bonuses from equipment... bonuses for multiple attackers on a single foe... things like that), but everything basically worked as advertised and led to some really excellent moments during the extended contests and some great roleplaying from the very beginning, thanks to tying people into that nice R-map in Well of Souls.

Some things that cropped up:

- Let's say I'm in a sword fight, using "dueling" and (passively) augmenting with 'agile' and my 'harm other' spell.  The second opportunity for me to go on the offense in the extended contest comes up, and I want to continue as I have been, but (passively) augment with another Spell in addition to Harm Other -- is this possible, or can you only augment with one Spell at a time in such a circumstance?  Assume that the first and second spells are coming from different talismans, if that matters.

- Let's say I'm switching from the sword attack to use "Assert Authority", (passively) augmented with "noble bearing", and (passively) augmented further with my "Convince Stranger" spell.  Possible?  No problem with mixing the (normally active-use) spell in with the mundane primary action?  I didn't think so, but fully admit I could be wrong.

- I remembered later that HQ has a rule (I think) about metal objects that provide a bonus (like 'Sword (+3)) also providing an identical penalty to spellcasting.  

-- Am I imagining this?  I couldn't find it this morning.

-- Does it apply to all magic practices?  Seems like a screw-job for knight orderlies of Saint Gerlant, trying to cast their Flaming Sword with a net -7 or 8 penalty because of their armor and weapons.

(And yeah, I know some folks don't encourage the use of HQ's inherent bonus of an object for an object's sake... like a sword giving a +3 bonus just for being a sword -- but the NPCs I'm using factor such things in, and I don't want to screw the players by not giving them the same bonuses that the NPCs have calculated, and I don't want to recalc the NPCs, so for now I'm leaving it in.)

(edit: formatting)

[Brand_Robins]

Sounds like a great first time out! You certainly sound to have done it better than I did...

- Let's say I'm in a sword fight, using "dueling" and (passively) augmenting with 'agile' and my 'harm other' spell.  The second opportunity for me to go on the offense in the extended contest comes up, and I want to continue as I have been, but (passively) augment with another Spell in addition to Harm Other -- is this possible, or can you only augment with one Spell at a time in such a circumstance?

Shouldn't be a problem. However, if you're adding a spell based augment durring the contest you have to take an unrelated action to do so -- in otherwords it takes a turn to up your new augments/spells/etc.

- Let's say I'm switching from the sword attack to use "Assert Authority", (passively) augmented with "noble bearing", and (passively) augmented further with my "Convince Stranger" spell.  Possible?  No problem with mixing the (normally active-use) spell in with the mundane primary action?

No problem at all. Even normally active abilities can be used as augments in HQ. My character in Mike's ICQ game was infamous for getting all of his magic into almost every contest he faced. The one thing is that, as above, you may have to take an unrelated action to use a new spell as an augment.

I remembered later that HQ has a rule (I think) about metal objects that provide a bonus (like 'Sword (+3)) also providing an identical penalty to spellcasting.

It is Iron items. What you're looking for is on page 78. This only works for Iron, however, which is fairly rare in the setting. (Bronze is the norm, even in Seshnela.)

[Bankuei]

Hi Doyce,

I'll be very interested to hear more about how Well of Souls runs for you.  While it works conceptually, looking back on it, there's probably an assload of simplification I would do, and cut down the various r-maps and sub conflicts more.  As it stands, it works with significant prep- you need to know which conflicts are going to be highlighted, and which ones to drop completely, plus the players need to figure out where they're going to "insert" into the various R-map options.  I'm glad to hear that even using some of the background ideas has served as a kickstarter for some good play.

The only advice I can give for "Speed Prep" is to use the option in the book where you build the character as you play.  Nail down something like 3-5 vital traits, and allow the players to add new ones that make sense for the first three sessions or so, then run with what you have.

I'm interested in hearing more about what you do with WoS.

Chris

[Doyce]

I'm interested in hearing more about what you do with WoS.

I'm definitely going to be posting actual play and questions about it before and after we play.

Character creation is allllllllmost done (we're doing it all via email, with communal character sheets up on a wiki) -- there's one more person that still has about half her stuff to finish (Serge, he was seduced by this dryad when he was young and stupid, see, and I was their daughter...), then I'll post up a bunch of stuff.

So far it's been great -- the players have shown a lot of willingness to step in and screw with the established r-map to get themselves tied in.

The part I love the best is that the first player to get me a character made up... well, an Inquisitor, basically... come to town to root out pagans and heresy.

After that, the next four characters were people that his guy would proudly BURN AT THE STAKE.

And then... poor Eustef get's sick... and apparently it's magic that did it...

There's a good chance it's going to be a bloodbath. :)

One of my regular players who isn't playing in the game is making bets on how long Lucas (Eustef's youngest son and student of Blackest Sorcery(tm)) will make it before he's burned on a pyre.

[Mike Holmes]

Another one I'd missed somehow. Hmmm.

- Let's say I'm switching from the sword attack to use "Assert Authority", (passively) augmented with "noble bearing", and (passively) augmented further with my "Convince Stranger" spell.  Possible?  No problem with mixing the (normally active-use) spell in with the mundane primary action?  I didn't think so, but fully admit I could be wrong.

Here's the way to think about this, Passive can only augment. Active can do either augment or be used as primary.

There is a limit, however, which is that the book says that you can't augment with more than three spells at a time. I usually play fast and lose with this - I believe that the idea is that spells fade over time and that you can't cast a fourth spell without the first fading under many circumstances. But given the right circumstances, I'll allow it.

Also, on the topic of "Unrelated Actions" this only applies to things that have to be activated. IOW, if you cast something before the contest so that it's still "running" when the contest starts it's still good for the whole contest likely. This is where that three limit usually pertains the most. Also, Charms are "Always On" as it were, meaning that they work without an unrelated action.

Generally this is the case - if an ability would seem to require the hero to take a moment to bring into action, then it requires a round spent to do it. Otherwise the augment occurs right away. This is true of mundane abilities as well. Let's say you had a mundane "Go Berzerk" ability (like was discussed recently). The narrator might rule that you can't just be normal one moment, and Berzerk the next. You might have to take an unrelated action to do so (or have wprked yourself up before the fight). Using any object that's not in hand almost certainly requires you to take an unrelated action to fetch it. In other words, you can't get an augment from an undrawn magic sword until you take the unrelated action to draw it. You might ask to allow your oratory skill to augment your next attack by inspiring your men to fight better. This almost certainly involves one of those moments where the character stops stock still in the middle of the fight, and makes some big speech (and I'd do it as a variable augment as well).

So it's not just spells, it's anything that makes sense.

(And yeah, I know some folks don't encourage the use of HQ's inherent bonus of an object for an object's sake... like a sword giving a +3 bonus just for being a sword -- but the NPCs I'm using factor such things in, and I don't want to screw the players by not giving them the same bonuses that the NPCs have calculated, and I don't want to recalc the NPCs, so for now I'm leaving it in.)

That'd be me that you're refering to. Given that you forgot the bonuses, can you see why I run the game like I do? That sort of detail just isn't interesting to me, either. Worse, it's just not portrayed in a balanced way, giving special focus to combat.

Mike

[Doyce]

(And yeah, I know some folks don't encourage the use of HQ's inherent bonus of an object for an object's sake... like a sword giving a +3 bonus just for being a sword -- but the NPCs I'm using factor such things in, and I don't want to screw the players by not giving them the same bonuses that the NPCs have calculated, and I don't want to recalc the NPCs, so for now I'm leaving it in.)

That'd be me that you're refering to. Given that you forgot the bonuses, can you see why I run the game like I do?

a) I don't know for sure that you're the only person who does it that way :)
b) I can totally understand why you do it.  TOtally.  I will definitely be doing the same in the future.