Feng Shui -> Heroquest Conversion

[Jabberwocky]

I'm currently in the midst of running a campaign of Feng Shui, and am toying with the idea of converting to the Heroquest rules.  So far, I've decided to treat Sorcery basically as Theurgy, with each schtick being roughly equal to an affinity.

The problem I have (albeit one not insurmountable) is that of converting numbers.  I've decided that abilities would count mainly either if you have a specific skill, or a rather high stat, but am at a bit of a loss as to what numbers to put down... though simple conversion from the max values might get me there (i.e. max Martial Arts of 13 for most of the group might double to about 5W).

Can anyone see any horrible flaws in this plan?

          -Jabberwocky

[Mike Holmes]

First, let me say that I think the conversion is an inspired idea in some ways. When I read this I thought, "Hey, going to other timeframes and the underworld would be just like Hero Questing." And it occurs to me that the rules for the actual Feng Shui for capturing sites is very HQ as well. I see loads of potential here.

The thing that doesn't make sense to me is the conversion rate. Feng Shui characters aren't "starting characters". They definitely should be purchased as though they had lots of experience, IMO. I'd be more inclined to tripple values or so. If a PC has 8w2 (from a trippled 16 FS score), I think that will make them able to take out Mooks at the appropriate rate, and ability to do the crazy stunts that FS characters should be capable of. I might even go a little higher. Three masteries or more aren't out of the question.

Also I'd think about not using a multiplier so much as trying to discover ways to rebuild the characters from scratch using a more HQ sort of system. What keywords do they have? Where do their main abilities come from? Combined with the suggestions in the narrator's section of HQ on how to build experienced characteres, that ought to give you some ideas.

Good luck with it.

Mike

[dunlaing]

I think that if you want to keep the default values in HeroQuest (for typical fighting ability, for resistance to leaping over things, etc.) you probably want your Feng Shui characters to have at least 2 masteries in the stuff they're good at, if not more.

A clan champion is listed as 10W2, which I would think would equate to reasonably tough named NPCs. Famous Heroes are listed as 10W3+ and I might consider putting the PCs in around here.

Leap to top of 10' tree is 10W3. Do you want your PCs to be able to do that? I think (haven't looked at it in over a year) that a Feng Shui PC should be able to do that.

Basically, I think you need to either:

1. Give the PCs scores in the 2-3 mastery range for stuff they're good at; or
2. Not use the default charts for resistances and just let the PCs do cool stuff that Feng Shui PCs should be able to do.


As for the Sorcery schticks, Affinities sound about right for them.

You might consider handling other schticks as if they were magic. So the default resistance is 14 unless opposed by another schtick or named character. It gives the schticks a bit more Oomph. (It's what I was planning for my Adventure!Quest game)

  Ex: Tom (Martial Arts 10W2) tries to jump to the top of a tree.
        He rolls 10W2 vs 10W3 and probably fails. Vlad (Prodigious
        Leap 10W) tries to jump to the top of the same tree. He rolls
        10W vs 14 and probably succeeds.

[Scripty]

Kudos to all involved. I think this is a great idea. Feng Shui is one of my favorite RPGs, at least until the Hit Points show up.

I second the notion that Gun Schticks, Fu Schticks and Creature Powers should be treated as magic. The various Fu Schtick trees could, themselves, be Affinities/Feats and the Gun Schticks could be treated as Common Magic, perhaps adding auto augments to various gun-related skills.

As far as Creature Powers, I think talents really embody them well (reference the Puma People). Personally, I like the notion of 3 x the AV total as the HQ rating.

This would put most mooks (at a 5-8 AV rating) in between 15 and 4W, while most heroes (between 10 and 15 AV) would fall into the 10W - 5W2 category. It's also a quick and easy way to do conversions between difficulties and the FS printed materials. Regarding weapons, you may not even have to do a conversion at all. IIRC, the weapon bonuses should stand up in a similar fashion to those in HQ. Although this approach may make guns a tadbit more lethal, it may make up for Gun Schticks serving only as auto-augments. Guns will be more lethal but Gun Schticks won't be active magical abilities...

Imagine a FS site that's guarded by Durulz! Better yet, Durulz Shaolin Monks!

I'm filing this thread under the "Wish I'd have thought of it" folder.

[Mike Holmes]

I second the notion that Gun Schticks, Fu Schticks and Creature Powers should be treated as magic. The various Fu Schtick trees could, themselves, be Affinities/Feats and the Gun Schticks could be treated as Common Magic, perhaps adding auto augments to various gun-related skills.

Only as Augments until the character concentrated in it. "Killers" and that sort would be able to use them as full powers. Ooh, that's cool....

Regarding weapons, you may not even have to do a conversion at all. IIRC, the weapon bonuses should stand up in a similar fashion to those in HQ. Although this approach may make guns a tadbit more lethal, it may make up for Gun Schticks serving only as auto-augments. Guns will be more lethal but Gun Schticks won't be active magical abilities...

I'd just adjust guns to have the same sort of bonuses as other equipment. Remember, in the Feng Shui universe guns and Kung Fu stand side-by-side as farily equivalent stuff. In fact, given this, it means that you have to have reasonable gun bonuses so that well armed mooks aren't too much of a threat to non-gun-wielding PCs.

I'd put mooks at Fighting 17 from a Mook Keyword and work from there. If they don't have the Mook Keyword (or another combat appropriate keyword), then they start from 13 like anyone else. Which means that even mooks are dangerous to non-combatant PC dependents - who are so important to the genre.

Mike

[Scripty]

I'd put mooks at Fighting 17 from a Mook Keyword and work from there. If they don't have the Mook Keyword (or another combat appropriate keyword), then they start from 13 like anyone else. Which means that even mooks are dangerous to non-combatant PC dependents - who are so important to the genre.
Mike

Great ideas, Mike. Especially the one about the "Killers." Hadn't thought of that...

Regarding Mooks, though, I like the idea of sticking to the straight conversion mentioned earlier. I think 15 is reasonable for Mooks. There's not much chance (at all) that a Mook will hurt a Hero in Feng Shui. In fact, most Mooks have to explode a 6 on their positive die just to qualify to hurt a PC. And, with this in mind, why give Mooks bonuses for equipment anyway? A Mook with a Shotgun is at 15. A Mook with a Pellet Gun is at 15. Personally, I don't see the need to differentiate them all that much. They're pretty much set props that allow players to act cool in Feng Shui.

What do you think?

[Mike Holmes]

I think that Feng Shui needs a mook rule because of it's design. The interesting thing is that I don't think that Hero Quest needs a mook rule for two reasons. First the mastery system allows a character to be so much better than mooks that the result is the same behavior. Second, if you really do want to handle mooks like this, there are already rules in HQ to allow you to do it. I refer specifically to the idea of handling mooks as a mass object, and simple conflicts.

Even in extended conflicts, mooks are mostly going to end up as extra AP for the named opponents. In that way, I think the system already deals with mooks without any additional rules.

I love HQ.

Oooh, it occurs to me that if Theists are Fu users and the like, and Killers specialize in common magic, that the Geomancers are animists. Attuning to the Feng Shui is the same as getting to know the spirit of the place. Between the animism rules, and the Guardian rules (also applies to groups like The Dragons - how are they not a Hero Band?), you should be able to account for the feng shui in Feng Shui.

Does that make Arcanowave equal to wizardry? Hmmm.....

Mike

P.S. yes this means that starting HQ characters, while not incompetent are only slightly better than mooks. Deal with it! ;-)

[dunlaing]

I think the HQ rules work fine with respect to Mooks as long as the PCs are really good.

But just as a thought, what if you took a page from Wushu in how to handle Mooks?

Set up a situation (toughs on motorcycles with pistols terrorize a farmer's market) and give it a high Special Effects score (say 10W3). The scene starts off with some cool special effect (the toughs burst through a banner crashing into a vegetable stand sending veggies flying in all directions in slow motion) which sets the mooks' AP total at the Special Effects score (70). Then let the PCs declare whatever kick-ass actions they want in the Group Extended Contest. On their turns, they'll probably be going up against low resistances (the Mooks' Shoot Heroes or Dodge Goodguy) and then on the situation's turn, you narrate some big special effect using the situation's score.

I haven't thought it all the way through, but it should lead to lots of players' turns where the PCs mop up mooks and then your turn where stuff blows up.

[RaconteurX]

Keep in mind that a hero with a full Mastery over his or her foes can fight five of them at a time and retain roughly equal footing, whereas a hero with two full Masteries over his or her foes can fight twenty at a time. The level at which you start your heroes should take this into account. Mooks work like retainers... give them a single keyword at 17, and allow them to augment or lend their advantage points to the Big Villain or get the spit kicked out of them either one-by-one or as a horde.

Also, I feel compelled to address dunlaing's mistaken comment about the resistance for leaping a ten-foot tall tree... the 10W3 resistance governs mundane attempts to do so. Magical means (like most Fu schticks would be) only face the base magical resistance of 14 unless the tree in question is magically difficult to leap (if it contained a dryad which hates being leaped over, for example, the resistance may be the dryad's best magical ability or its Hate Tree-leapers personality trait).

[Scripty]

So, I was sitting down to ponder a Feng Shui-HeroQuest conversion and I glanced over the character templates. How would you handle those? The skills in Feng Shui are SO broad. I'm drawing a blank here. Would you treat each Feng Shui skill as a "Keyword" like mentioned in the Hero's Book? Or would you break each FS template down to an HQ career?

[Scripty]

Okay, so I was trying to just add this next part on as an edit, but I couldn't so...

Here are some of the answers I've come to for my own questions.

Regarding Feng Shui skills...

I was thinking of treating them as keywords as per M. Galeotti's suggestion for broad abilities in the Hero's Book. For this reason, a skill in FengShui/HQ would look like this:

Guns                10W
  - Use Pistols     12W
  - Use SMGs      15W
  - Repair SMG    13W

etc... As Galeotti points out, the keyword itself can never be improved but the abilities listed beneath it can be and more abilities can be added beneath it as well.

After looking through Feng Shui and troubling over a conversion, I think this would work well for a number of reasons:

1) It's easy. Taking this approach foregoes any need to break down "Intrusion" into Move Quietly, Hide in Shadows, etc. If the player wants their character to have Hide in Shadows at a rating higher than their Intrusion keyword then they can add it. No need to create a monster HeroQuest conversion ability list.

2) It seems to be more in keeping with Feng Shui itself. Essentially, it's an approach that is trying to play Feng Shui with the HeroQuest rules system rather than adapt the Feng Shui setting to the HeroQuest rules.

3) If used in conjunction with the aforementioned 3 x AV conversion (which seemed to work pretty well IMO), it allows for many of the character templates listed to be used almost straight out of the book. I did run into a couple of problems with template specific schticks like the Big Bruiser being more difficult to kill and the Everyman Hero being able to spend fortune points without it counting against his total (for skill tests). But many of those abilities can be adapted to other HeroQuest abilities like "Hard to Kill 12w3" for the Bruiser or "Luck 5w2" for the Everyman Hero.

I'm still working my way through the schticks, pretty much in brainstorming mode. I don't see the Schticks as being too difficult to model. Some, such as "Lightning Reload", seem to offer only a limited advantage in the HeroQuest system. Others, like "Abysmal Spines", need very little explanation or consideration at all.

One difficulty that I did have, however, is setting the ratings for the Schticks. I agree with earlier posts arguing for Schticks being modeled after Affinities, Talents and Common Magic. But a rating for most schticks is not readily apparent, at least to me. Given that a Sorcerer would get a Sorcery rating at 5w2, does that mean his magic schticks should all be listed at 5w2 as well? Or should we allow for differentiation? The same holds true for Killers and the Gun Fu, Monsters with their Creature Powers and even Martial Artists with their Fu Schticks.

I can understand the rationale for having them all set at the requisite skill's converted AP, especially considering that the skill would no longer really apply in a HeroQuest-FengShui (except for, of course, Guns and Martial Arts). That would certainly follow the easiest path, IMO.

The idea of running a Feng Shui campaign using the HeroQuest system is just great, IMO. I always felt that the Wound Point system was a real disconnect with the rest of the game's mechanics. It also seemed to me that the differences between AVs was really daunting. The underdogs really didn't have that great of a chance to pull through, IME, and often the PCs were the underdogs (even in published adventures).

HeroQuest, to me, solves a lot of those issues and would allow for some serious action of the "Kill Bill" variety. What other system would allow you to finish off 88 mooks with a single roll?

My first attempt was vanilla HQ with defining the junctures as "Homelands" and then defining the different templates as "Occupations". But, stepping back, I see that as an unnecessary amount of work. Other than a few notations on different schticks and resolving how to set the rating of schticks at character creation, I see very little need for an extended conversion document.

[dunlaing]

Also, I feel compelled to address dunlaing's mistaken comment about the resistance for leaping a ten-foot tall tree... the 10W3 resistance governs mundane attempts to do so. Magical means (like most Fu schticks would be) only face the base magical resistance of 14...

Feng Shui characters with no Fu schticks whatsoever would be able to leap over a ten-foot tall tree just by rolling highly enough on their Kung Fu roll. You can roll highly enough on your Kung Fu roll to leap across the Grand Canyon without having any schticks help you out.