Narrativism in HQ

[motherlessgoose]

I recently got the HQ rulebook, along with intro to Glorantha and Gloranthan Visions.   So far I think the setting is awesome.  It is what I have been looking for in an RPG for a LONG time.  I wish I knew about Glorantha before now.

I've seen posts in this forum indicating that Hero Quest is a Narrativist type game.   From reading the rulebook, I do not see any indication of that.  There are no mentions of Bangs or Kickers.  It does state that the narrator may have a fully prepared adventure or may "just wing it."  But just winging it is not neccesarily narrativism, from my understanding.

Is the interpretation of HQ as a narrativist game just a "Forge thing?"  Or is it also buried somewhere in the rules?

[Peter Nordstrand]

Hi motherlessgoose,

There seems to be some agreement around here that HeroQuest is well suited for both narrativist and simulationist play, but that it doesn't support gamism at all.

Narrativism need not include Kickers or Bangs. Kickers and Bangs are not part of the definition of the term Narrativism. Kickers in particular are associated with Ron Edward's game Sorcerer, and not Narrativism in general. Narrativism does most certainly not mean "the way Ron plays".

There are people more eloquent and better suited than me to answer the most important question that arises from your post:

Why is HeroQuest suited for nar play?
Why is HeroQuest suited for sim play?[/list:u]Meanwhile, read the section entitled The Hero Wars, on page 11 in the rulesbook. Note the big question: The old world is ending. What will you do about it?


All the best,

/Peter N

[Bankuei]

Hi mg,

Although the Forge may be the only place you'll hear folks use the term Narrativist, there's folks out there playing in this fashion right now. There are several quotes from the game that point towards techniques and goals that add up to Narrativist play throughout the book...

"The First Rule: Play the Story, not the Rules"
HQ pg. 10

"All heroes are extraordinary and destined for some fame in the world of Glorantha.  This is guaranteed since they are individually guided by a higher power: you, the player."
HQ pg. 11

"...the players will have more fun (and your job will be easier) if you let them help with presenting and even creating the world.  Let the players provide story elements, create minor bits of scenery or bystanders, reinterpret backstory to suit the current plot, and so on....After all, it's their Glorantha, too."  HQ pg. 181

Drama in Glorantha often comes from the conflict between what is and what ought to be. ... The intensity of the plot comes from the hero trying to fulfill these expectations while living with everyday temptations and complications of life....the heroes will have to make difficult choices about what to do and who to aid.  HQ pg. 189

Bangs, Kickers, Relationship Maps, are all techniques, specifically lifted from Sorcerer, which work well in many Nar games.  They, by themselves, are not necessary to have Narrativism, though.

The key things that point to Nar play is that the goals are not about simulating anything, in the sense of reality or being forced to canon of metaplot or setting.  The focus of play is really the conflict of values(moral thematic statement anyone?).

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

It's Nar trends come from the idea that characters are, in generation inextricably linked to issue producing stuff. That is, mechanically you have as much potential coming from your relationships with people and your culture, and your occupation that play "about" these things becomes very likely. Further, in taking a particular sort of magic, your character adopts a belief system, which means that using his magic is often a statement itself.

It's probably possible to avoid narrativism, but it would be hard.

Now, that said, HQ has an interesting take on the Sim side of things. One of the things that actually swings people to the narratvivist side playing it is that the Sim itself is in some ways reversed from other sim games. That is, it's hard for some people to think of Conflcit Resolution (as opposed to Task Resolution) as being simulationist, because as a Simulation, it doesn't address minute detail in the output production. That is, it gives you an interesting mechanical result, but doesn't tell you what it looks like precisely, allowing you to describe the outcome instead. This can be heavily simulationist if you personally make the output reflect the input. But since you don't have to, some people don't see it.

For instance, if I have a character using his Jump augmented by strength and agility and make a jump the Narrator can say: "You make the jump by the will of the gods." That works in HQ, but doesn't link back to the inputs. If he says, instead: "You run to the wall with characteristic speed, and use your tremendous legs to propell you up in your typically well trained fashion, and get over the wall with ease." If he says this, then you've kept things less metagame, more sim.

What's neat about this is that HQ doesn't tell you which way to do it. Now, theory would tell us that this is potentially problematic, and indeed I think this is where you get the diversity of play that occurs. But fortunately (and I may be biased here), it seems that for individual groups, the way it's presented ends up with groups deciding on their own how sim to go in a way that doesn't seem to cause conflicts too often.

The thing that strongly supports sim, however, is that anything can be an input to the system. This is really neat, because the resolution works as a little engine into which you can put anything, and out of which you can get anything. So, no longer do you have a sim where the only reasonable inputs are "Strike, Martial Strike, Defensive Strike". I can, like Menolaeus, grab my opponent by his horsehair crested helm, and drag him about until the chinstrap breaks. Or, like Beowulf, pull off Grendel's arm. Stuff you see in stories, but don't see in other sim supporting RPGs. In HQ, if I pulled the arm of a demon, I'd know exactly why I was able to do it.

Mike

[Bankuei]

Hi Mike,

Agreed.  The flexibility of the core resolution mechanic allows play to be either Sim or Nar, the rest comes in based on the techniques used in play above that single resolution mechanic.  

Stuff like
-"Where does story come from?"(GM/group as a whole?)
-"Is it more important to stick to canon, or to make statements through the affirmation/violation of it?"

etc.

Chris

[Sean]

Here's something I wrote on this issue on rpg.net a while back:

As to Heroquest - I suppose I would agree with those at the Forge who classify this game as having mechanics that best facilitate Narrativist play. I also agree with you that the game has certain elements which support Simulationist play too, though.

Emotional and cultural issues can be at the center of Narrativist or Simulationist-leaning play. If you're using Heroquest primarily to explore Glorantha, and your characters as Gloranthans, and trying to really get into Heortling or Grazer psychology, and "what would a person like my character really do if...", even while you're also adventuring and getting into fights and weaving out your character's skein and all the rest - it's not like you do one without the others in any RPG, it's where the focus of your interests lie, where the play decisions you make tend to take you more often - why, then, you're playing the game with a Simulationist focus. No problems there.

If, on the other hand, your primary focus is on creating stories which grow out of the conflicts e.g. between individuals and their communities - how do I be my own person and stay part of this community at the same time? - then you may be playing the game with a Narrativist focus. Someone brought up the movie Whale Rider in this connection as a good example of what a Heroquest story might be - a character transforms the cultural myths as a way of reconciling their individual nature with the way that nature relates to the community as a whole.

You could get that story out of Sim- or Nar-leaning play, of course; it's only useful as an example if you think of the story as starting out from 'here's a character, in this culture, with this conflict: how does she work it out?' and then the answer is that she transforms the cultural myths through Heroquesting in play so that she fits. The player makes the story in play.

A group with a more Simulationist bent might well say "that couldn't really happen in this culture, she has to become a housewife or leave and become a warrior". And that might be more 'realistic' to the culture in question. On the other hand, there's no reason that a Sim-leaning group couldn't come up with the same story by fiat or even just an in-play decision. But the way it worked out and the questions they explored about the situation in play might be different. (This one time, things turn out differently: let's explore the consequences of that and see what would really happen if a girl became the leader of the tribe).

Why would I classify the way Heroquest deals with emotional and cultural issues as better facilitating Nar than Sim? Despite what I was saying in my earlier posts, I think the player empowerment makes the difference for this game at least. Because the game lets you do what you want, lets you use all the aspects of your character to get improvements on your die rolls, and gives you Hero Points to bump things on top of that, it basically puts a lot of responsibility for story-creation on characters, and gives you lots of latitude to 'win' situations using your cultural and emotional identity as a springboard. This makes it downright bad for gamist play. If it were really meant to Simulate what it's like to be a Heortling, though, I imagine it would have more restrictive rules about your traits and how they effect your behavior - 'make a roll if you want to do that, you're a Heortling and they don't normally treat women that way. Come on, man, play your character!'

I don't know how good a response that was - maybe someone will come by and do better. But anyway I think HQ does support both Nar and Sim play pretty well, but that if you have some members of your play group who want one and some who want the other, you may get into trouble because of incoherent desires in the group. And I think it supports Nar better, but mostly that's just because of the high degree of player empowerment and the flexibility in changing the nature of conflicts in play. These things are better IMO for figuring out what would make the coolest story and giving the players a real chance to author it than for asking 'what would really happen in Glorantha if...'. But you can use the game to address either. And the bare fact that you're exploring emotional and cultural issues doesn't tell you anything about what mode you're playing in - these things can come up in Gamist play too. It's a matter of how the players address those issues and whether and in what way they are a focus of play.

[Deacon Blues]

Conflict Resolution (as opposed to Task Resolution)

Hi.  What does this mean?

[Peter Nordstrand]

Hi,

Conflict Resolution (as opposed to Task Resolution)

Hi.  What does this mean?

See the section entitled "System - 'it does matter' all over again" in Ron's narrativism essay: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html

Cheers,

/Peter N

[Bankuei]

Hi DB,

Also, in short terms, its the fact that in HQ, you're not rolling for each action, but the overall goal.  Consider that in most rpgs,  combat breaks down into each attack being its own roll.  In HQ, you might have a single simple contest which sums up all the nifty moves, attacks, parries, dodges, etc into a single roll.

Task resolution means that each action, success or failure, add up into whether you succeed overall or not(how many times did I hit?  How much did I get hit?), but also nails down "How it happened" exactly.  When you have conflict resolution, there's room to input why it happened a bit more, and allows you to customize the actual events a bit better towards your style of play.  Just as Mike pointed out.

This is a useful tool for Nar play, because success and failure do not solely depend on your character's ability.  An "appropriate" reason(based on Nar/Sim goals of your group)" can be produced after the roll, to justify what has occurred and why.  

Did your little hobbit escape the tower of orcs?  It was because he had a slightly overprotective and obsessive friend fighting to get him out.  Did your samurai warrior lose a fight?  The opponent didn't beat his sword skills, but crushed his spirit when he told him that his own lord rejected him.  Etc, etc.

You may also wish to look up Fortune in the Middle (FitM)on the forums here.

Chris

[simon_hibbs]

Why is HeroQuest suited for nar play?

I'd say it's because HeroQuest provides such rich,  explicit support for all the links between characters, situation and setting that are important to the narrative. Is your Narrative addressing issues to so with relationships? HeroQuest has rules for relationships and includes them in character generation. The same goes for religious convictions, ethical beliefs, etc. Heroquest is helpful for Narrativist play because it puts all these elements down there on the character sheet and makes them useful in actual game play, so that you're constantly reminded that your character Hates Orlevings, but also has a Reputation For Fairness and even provides game mechanics for how these traits can affect each other.

In Ron's Narrativism essay (linked to in a previous message) her presents the example Premise "Egotism leads to loss of friends." In HeroQuest both Egotism and Friendship can be character abilities with appropriate ability ratings. If your story turns out to be about a conflict between Egotism and Friendship, the game provides direct support for that if you want it. (Note thought that you don't _have_ to use the game mechanics in this way.)

Why is HeroQuest suited for sim play?

HeroQuest offers great support for what you might call 'Late Bound' simulation. Most traditional RPGs are 'Early Bound' simulations inthat the elements that they simulate are defined by the game author and exactly how they affect each other are defined in the written game mechanics. In RuneQuest 3 we know that a character with a knife (all other things being equal) will hit after a character with a spear, but that if he can close in past the longer weapon this can be reversed and gain the advantage. HeroQuest provides no explicit rules concerning weapon length, but if my character has a knife and is facing a spearman and I say "I use my Nimble Footed to spring past the spear point so I'm close up to him, preventing him effectively using his spear" the game provides all the mechanics the Narrator and I need to resolve that in a satisfactory way.

Pretty much any factor that might affect the outcome of a contest can be brought into play in HeroQuest, but the game presents a toolkit approach where you and the Narrator decide how these factors are brought into play in the game mechanics as needed.


Simon Hibbs

[Bankuei]

Hi folks,

For anyone still interested in the topic of Nar play in HQ, I've been doing some digging around in some of the older Gloranthan/RQ digest stuff, at this site here:

http://glorantha.temppeli.org

And, while randomly searching found some good quotes from the man, Greg Stafford himself:

What has more importance to the character at the moment? AS A SPECIES certain things provoke certain responses, AS A MEMBER OF A CULTURE, other things provoke certain responses, and AS AN INDIVIDUAL yet others responses are provoked.

SORTING THEM OUT IS THE STUFF OF STORY, and HQ is a STORY TELLING game.

The fact is that all of the deities' guidance breaks down at one point:
what will you do? It doesn't sanction or condone everything that it
depicts, it just says "Here's what happens, and what the gods did." But
your neighbors' opinions is where the "gods did" part is played out. Your
kin neighbors will ultimately determine "What it means" when your wife
sleeps with your best friend (Daniel Boon comes to mind here.) Just because the power of the god strikes the lovers does not mean there or no other social consequences.

My real point is this: make it into the story of your game. A bow shooting
troll band worshipping this obscure entity is a pretty interesting thing to
cause player heroes concern. That is exactly what Hero Wars is about:
making your story.

....And make it worse: some people perform evil actions and DON'T suffer the way other people might. They appear to get away with cosmic crimes. Whole societies seem to get away with crimes! What is that about? How does that happen? It's not fair! Damn right, and that is EXACTLY the kind of moral crisis that generates hot, dangerous and challenging adventures.

"Story" can mean a lot of things, but the common theme I'm picking up in a lot of Greg's comments is a high level of player input, authorship, and exploring the nasty questions of morality, religion and culture.   I'm sure there's tons more to be found in the archives as well.

Chris