HQ and LotR

[Mike Holmes]

I agree with Jeff that the system is important here, and you can't ignore how it'll affect play. I also like his armor idea (I have much more extensive notes on the HQ-Rules list, actually). Further, I was the one to sorta bring up balance in the first place.

But what I really meant was to ask Simon if he thought that balance was important for his game. To be really precise, I personally think that you don't need it with this rule set, and the right players. Why? Well as Ian mentioned it's about protagonism. Where does protagonism come from? I'd argue it's not at all from success. It's from participating in conflcits.

Now, does that mean that I'd be throwing hobbits up against balrogs undefended? Nope. But there are ways around this "problem".

First, HQ allows for weak characters to participate even when outclassed? How? By augmenting. If I'm playing a hobbit helping Gimili hack orcs, I'm not going to take them on by myself, but instead use what little ability I have to augment the combat leader. In play, as GM, every time I have one character augment another, I count this as a "Round" for that character, in that they get as much narrative as the leader does. So, despite it being Gimli who is mostly responsible for winning the round, my character gets to look good in helping out with the success.

HQ makes this more possible than in any other system I've seen.

Second, I'll split the party up at times. What this means is that, when I've got two hobbits off by themselves I can throw smaller stuff at them than when the party is whole. Contests appropriate to their Abilities.

This means we can play like the LotR narrative, splitting up, and we can have small folks with chances to shine all on their own. And when the group is all together, the small folks shine as being bold enough to help out the strong.

So, for me, it all works in the end. Now, for a group of players who compete PVP for coolest characters, this isn't going to work. But for lots of groups I think it works out just fine.

For those who've seen the movie, think about Gimli's wry comment to Legolas on the Pelenor fields. Every character's accomplishments are proportionate to their ability, and therefore each character is a protagonist in their own right. No prob.

Mike

[HMT]

I'd like to make a tangential comment about the following quote.

Gimli is no Legolas in terms of power and ability, but at least he's competant enough to participate alongside him ...

At Helm's Deep, Gimli killed more opponents in hand to hand combat than Legolas killed using both melee & missile combat. In my opinion, Gimli is a superior melee skirmisher.

[Mike Holmes]

I think that is tangential except that it brings up a sorta important point. While I think that Peter Jackson's rendition was about as faithful as a movie would be, all things considered, it obviously varies from the books in many ways. Is this to be an adaptation of the books or the movies? Just so that we have a clear baseline reference.

Mike

[simon_hibbs]

Hi! I hope everyone had as good a holiday as I did.

Wow, what a film!

Regarding Mike's question about source material, the books will always be the primary source for me, but any games set in ME must be able to jive with the film to have any credibility. The books and film are close enough that I don't think this is a problem.

Going back to the question about balance, this is a difficult question. I think it's important that each character should have the potential to be distinctive, to have something about them that is unique to them. I think I've already answered this question though. Clearly a bhobbit character won't have innate abilities as high as an experienced elf character, but you can compensate for that in exactly the same way Tolkien does. Frodo is no match for Boromir or Legolas on his own, but he's the Ring Bearer and has a Mithril shirt. Several of the hobbbits have named swords forged in Gondolin with magical properties. Sam doesn't have an impressive close combat or what-have-you, but his Loyalty is stratospheric. All these were essentialy determined in Character Generation.

I believe balance is possible with a bit of imagination, in such a way that the players know that their characters matter and can make a difference.

For example in the alternate timeline campaign I described previously if one of the characters was a hobbit, I'd arrange it so that he'd be the one that saved Isildur's life. It doesn't matter how low that character's abilities would otherwise be, he's now absolutely central to the plot.


Simon Hibbs