Designing new Keywords

[Tom B]

Mike, thanks for your detailed reply.  I need to think on it a bit.

True, the characters are quite experienced.  In game time, they've been active for about 15 years or so, with a couple of ~5 year breaks where their activities were bluebooked.  Darkurthe characters begin as fairly butch characters as well.

Since I'm new to using HeroQuest, my initial thought was to create their characters as they were in the beginning...and then to bring them up to current by providing proper abilities and additional Keywords if necessary to reflect their current abilities.  

My first question is:  what is the tradeoff for bumping or adding individual abilities vs. providing bonuses to the actual Keywords or adding new Keywords?

If I were starting a new campaign, I would probably Gloranthify the setting enough for common magic.  However, since that isn't how the initial characters were designed, I'm inclined not to.  So, I'm left with two characters who actively use magic and one who doesn't.  (BTW, the Magent was based on the concept of the same name from Rolemaster.  Kulthea has also played a fairly significant role in my campaign...gateways are wonderful things...)

My second question is:  what is fair for the non-magic user?  It sounds like I should go ahead and allow an extra Keyword of some type to reflect what's special about the character.  The player makes this difficult, as he's not the most imaginative, and tends not to get real involved except for fights.  In the campaign itself, the current character is 'compensated' and has advantages putting him on par with the others.  I can handle that in the 'catch-up' phase...but am left with trying to balance the beginning characters.  I want to do this more to understand how for future reference than because I think it will strongly impact his character.

Just to compound matters slightly, the non-magic user is also the only pure human of the party, so the others get some racial abilities as well (not full racial keywords, since they were raised more in human culture than their own).

So...I want to do something for the poor fighter...

The other approach I've considered is simply working spells and affinities into their occupational keywords.  Magent-type spells for the Magent and appropriate Affinities/Feats for the Priest.  I'm not real happy with this, though, because it limits their non-magical abilities or overly inflates their occupational keyword.

So, I think the best solution is to come up with an appropriate compensating keyword for the fighter.  What do you think?

(Sorry if I rambled a bit there...point out anything that's unclear and I'll try to be a bit more coherent...)

Tom B.

[Mike Holmes]

True, the characters are quite experienced.  In game time, they've been active for about 15 years or so, with a couple of ~5 year breaks where their activities were bluebooked.  Darkurthe characters begin as fairly butch characters as well.

See the "Saga System" on the page following "Advanced Experience." It suggests +1 to keyword levels for every year that the character has been around between adventures. Basically it's a development system to cover things like those five year gaps. And a well thought out one in that raising keywords only makes characters more powerful in a very broad sense, rather than making them specifically good at any one thing.

To become good at specifics requires Hero Points to stack on top of the keywords. Give the characters from 5 to 10 per adventure that they played through. Yeah, if that's 30 full adventures, then give them 200 HP to add. Raise the maximum expenditure limit, too, to, say, 20 or even 25. That makes the maximum "stack" (with keyword advances) 12W2 to 17W2, or mid-to-high master range. Not even Master's master yet in anything, and still far short of legendary heroes (which starts at about 4 masteries).

Since I'm new to using HeroQuest, my initial thought was to create their characters as they were in the beginning...and then to bring them up to current by providing proper abilities and additional Keywords if necessary to reflect their current abilities.  

This is exactly what I'd suggest. In fact, if the player wants to add a keyword, just charge him one of the Saga System points to start it at 13.

My first question is:  what is the tradeoff for bumping or adding individual abilities vs. providing bonuses to the actual Keywords or adding new Keywords?

Generally, adding new keywords doesn't add a lot of power, it just broadens the character's ability to respond to situations. Which, from one POV, doesn't mean anything, really. Depends on how you frame contests.

I'm all for adding keywords. I think it fleshes out characters in a very interesting way. Even if you were to "balance" out the characters without magic by adding a keyword, it wouldn't be a bad thing from that POV. It's just unneccessary.

If I were starting a new campaign, I would probably Gloranthify the setting enough for common magic.  However, since that isn't how the initial characters were designed, I'm inclined not to.  So, I'm left with two characters who actively use magic and one who doesn't.  (BTW, the Magent was based on the concept of the same name from Rolemaster.  Kulthea has also played a fairly significant role in my campaign...gateways are wonderful things...)

Ahhh. :-)

Anyhow, your characters don't utter things like "Thor Protect Us!" before running into battle? They don't have lucky charms that they've picked up along the way (+1 to Save) and the like? They don't have "cantrips" (ala D&D)? They don't know little magic remedies for colds? They don't chant something their brother taught them while sharpening their blade?

Here's the thing. Common magic is the "small" magic that makes a fantasy world magical on the ground level. Even if the world in question doesn't spell this stuff out explicitly (and I bet it does in some way if you look for it), even then it does a world good to add this stuff to it. Nowhere in the Kulthea stuff does it mention "charms" specifically as a form of magic item. But characters all over have +5 RR vs Cold Broach, and the like. Well, why shouldn't this be common magic? Why not handle it that way?

The point is that you'll find that adding this, generally, makes things a lot more interesting. Even if the characters in question don't seem to have common magic now, does that mean that nobody does? The question is not whether the characters have common magic, neccessarily, but can they have it. Can they pick it up? It's very fun for players to be able to cement abilities like that sword sharpening chant. They see some soldier somewhere doing it, and pick it up. Now, suddenly, the character is linked to the setting in yet another way.

Anyhow, I only recently realized this myself, and so have been playing mostly without this, too. But I'm very excited to get it into play more going forward.

My second question is:  what is fair for the non-magic user?  It sounds like I should go ahead and allow an extra Keyword of some type to reflect what's special about the character.  The player makes this difficult, as he's not the most imaginative, and tends not to get real involved except for fights.  In the campaign itself, the current character is 'compensated' and has advantages putting him on par with the others.  I can handle that in the 'catch-up' phase...but am left with trying to balance the beginning characters.  I want to do this more to understand how for future reference than because I think it will strongly impact his character.

First, I put balance in quotes quite a lot, because in HQ, balance is somewhat different than in other games. That is, you can pretty much ignore it, in terms of power. Because of the nature of how contest are framed, and how they resolve, you can have Pippen and Boromir in the same story, and they're both equally protagonists. The quality of a character as a protagonist is based on how well the player links the character to the setting.

This is a trememendous advantage over other systems.

The "special" reasoning comes from the conversion of Shadowrun that we did where we had to find some way of accomodating things like Cybernetics. The point is that it's not just "something special" but "something special that relates to the genre of the game in question." For a fantasy game, that means, mostly, magic. And, again, the choice not to have magic is a consicous one.

Let me ask a very deep question about the game. What do you see as the underlying question asked by the Darkurthe setting? What, as a whole, makes it interesting?

I've never looked at it closely, but what I know is that it's "dark" (doesn't take much to get that from the title), and that it's "Gothic." How did this come about? That is, what makes it dark? I'm assuming that there's some ascendant force of some sort, either magical or physical (or both) that's come to power, and which is generally a nemisis for characters to deal with. Either in terms of actively fighting against this force, or in terms of dealing with it's temptations?

Am I close? In Ravenloft, you have the gothic tale of the curse of a vampire settled over a land. Which gives the characters an obvious goal. Is it something like this?

The point is that, what HQ does well, is to bring out this sort of setting-based conflict. In Shadow World (see how close the names of these two games are?) the overall conflict is the current ascendancy of the Unlife, as I see it. The questions it asks are how a culturally diverse world deals with an impinging universal evil. As the cultures are secluded from each other, they are each individually easier to pick off by the forces of evil. The Loremasters have their imperative to help, but also their "prime directive." So it's up to individuals to decide which is more important - their own culture's uniqueness, or banding together to fight something more potent.

Rolemaster promotes looking at these questions about as well as cancer promotes good health. With HQ, however, the characters become linked to the setting intrinsically. And the question can't help but get asked.

Now, how does this relate to "special powers"? Well, the unlife is anti-essence. Basically, the character's choice of magic says something really important about where they stand in relation to the nemisis in question. The foe is a magical one. Do you deal with that with "good magic"? From the gods who seem to have abandoned the world, though they saved it once from the Unlife? Or do you counter it with good essence? The power of the mind? Do you fight fire with fire, and use the anti-essence yourself, and risk falling into the trap of it's addiction (I have several characters who deal with this issue)?

For Shadow World, that third keyword is "What special ability I have that says what I believe about how to deal with the magical problems of the world." Being allowed to say, "I avoid magic" is a pretty important option. Or even, "I haven't decided yet." Because with that latter answer, the big question of "how" can be a decision made by the character in play.

See what I'm saying? If I give the character something in compensation for not taking a keyword, then I'm saying that this "gap" is thematically unimportant, and that I have to fill it with something to keep the character relevant in some other way. All the rules about gaining a religion in play in the HQ rules are intended to point out how much theme a player can generate by making a decision about his character's outward beliefs.

Now, if in fact, Darkurthe is not about troubles with magic and evil, then it might do to have the "special ability" be broader. But given that you don't seem to be able to identify it, I'm guessing that, in fact it is magic. In which case, it's the same as SW and Glorantha, meaning that the character is as good, or even better, to play without the replacement keyword.

Keep that in mind, this is a deliberate design feature. In Glorantha, too, characters can start without magic, with the same "gap" on their character sheet. This is not an omission, it's quite intentional.

Just to compound matters slightly, the non-magic user is also the only pure human of the party, so the others get some racial abilities as well (not full racial keywords, since they were raised more in human culture than their own).

So...I want to do something for the poor fighter...

Well, this is a different issue. HQ "solves" this problem by recommending playing only humans, so I agree that it's problematic where you want to have more species.

My solution to this problem was, in fact, to rule that every single "hero" that the characters generate, get something special for free. This includes species. So, yeah, basically I agree here, that you should give something to compensate.

But that's a broad statement. To large degree this is only the case if the species in question really make the character thematically more interesting. For example, I have several human races that vary slightly. One might have Tall 10, Hardy 10 as the sum total of their "species" (Race, actually, in this case) keyword. I don't charge the "extra ability" for these. For elves, who are immortal in Kulthea, and have all manner of abilities that make them racially superior to humans, yeah, I charge the special ability.

So, when it all comes down to it, I agree that he should get something compensatory for the species consideration. And, yeah, one of the things that I allow is an additional keyword. I also allow several other things. Here's the list I give out:

[*]Shaman Keyword (or other) for Specialized Magic
[*]Additional "Traveler" Keyword (per Advanced Experience in the rules)
[*]Boost a Keyword to 4W (instead of the original 17) - represents about 7 to 10 extra years of experience in that field or so, or just a lot of natural talent
[*]Powerful Magic Item Keyword
[*]Special Species Keyword (Giant, Fey, Demon, Construct, etc.)
[*]An additional Keyword - Could be bi-cultural, dual occupation, dual magic, additional religion, etc.
[*]Extraordinary Ability - a single ability that starts around 10W2
[*]Extrememly Broad Ability - for example, Luck 17 (applicable augment to just about every roll)
[*]Anything else that makes a concept fit into the rules (limited in such a way as to not make the character out of scope with the other PCs in terms of ability). [/list:u]
So, after saying that I wouldn't give a compensation for magic, I'm saying that I would give one for species, yes. But this is because, for example, being human with the system says less about the character than having the weird species does. Again, not having magic says as much about a character as having magic does.

As I said above, many of the new characters in my game do not have magic, and get no compensation for it. Their "compensation" is that the game is going to be focused on them finding their magic, or continuing to deny it. For your player, all you have to do is offer him ways to do magic in play - religions that try to recruit him - and you've suddenly got important thematic stuff going on.

Leads me to another question - how are you doing religions in terms of cultures? You're not allowing any homelands to not have an associated religion keyword, are you? From one POV, every character with a homeland, does have a magic keyword, and this is it. For theists and wizardry worshippers, it's a matter of being able to call on their diety for divine aid. It doesn't hardly ever work, but that's the point, again.

Basically, no character should get created that doesn't have some stance on religion - even if it's "I don't go to church much."

The other approach I've considered is simply working spells and affinities into their occupational keywords.  Magent-type spells for the Magent and appropriate Affinities/Feats for the Priest.  I'm not real happy with this, though, because it limits their non-magical abilities or overly inflates their occupational keyword.

Yeah I quite agree. This only disguises the "problem" without allowing it to actually be a problem. It also makes magical progression harder to interperet. I'd definitely refrain from going this way.

Mike

[Tom B]

Wow, another great reply.  I think you've definitely helped me hammer out the basic issues I was trying to resolve.  The religion situation is a bit different from Glorantha, in that you have one primary light and one primary dark deities.  Beneath them are a plethora of deities which have their own individual religions and sets of worshippers, but there are two overarching deities.  The churches for them are paramount and widespread, and the only ones with wide organizations.  Many people will worship them while calling on 'lower' deities for specific areas of help.

The 'Dark' in 'Darkurthe' is primarily environmental, with supernatural consequences.  Darkurthe is in a figure-'8' orbit around two suns.  One is bright (the Harvest Sun) and one is dark (the Nether Sun).  Luckily, the dark half of the year is shorter, but extreme.  Beginning with Storm Season when Darkurthe passes between the two, the days become dimmer and temperatures drop.  There is an extreme period as the Nether Sun eclipses the Harvest Sun, and an extended very tough period as the world swings back toward the Harvest Sun again.  The Nether Sun does provide radiance, but it is normally visible only to creatures of evil and those who fight them.  Many gateways and supernatural threats become much more active during the dark half of the year.  Anyway, there's a lot more, but that's the gist.  It has made for a fascinating setting...very popular with my group.

Put in the terms you outlined, I can see a 'Common Magic' keyword working.  That takes care of the Keyword imbalance I was having.  To balance the lack of a racial keyword, I will be providing the human character with a 'well-traveled' keyword, as he is the only character originating from outside the known lands.

I think you've pretty much addressed my questions.  Now I just have to sit down and get it all written out in detail.

Mucho thanks!

Tom B.

[Mike Holmes]

Religions are religions, I've discovered. That is, I don't see the situation that you've enumerated as making it neccessary to make any changes to how HQ handles the religions in your game. From what I can see, you've got a single pantheon worshipped differently in different places (or maybe universally). There are two "great gods" and then all sorts of aspects, etc.

Not seeing any problem here at all.

Many gateways and supernatural threats become much more active during the dark half of the year.

There's that nemesis effect I was talking about. This sounds to me, in combination with the light and dark dieties, to be the premise of the setting. I'm seeing an implicit, "Where do you stand on the light/dark issue?" Which is essentially one of belief, etc. More or less like I was guessing. As such, I think the subject of religion seems central enough to allow for the "gap" to exist for those players who want to say that their characters don't have magic.

Remember that, with the HQ system, this means that said character can move into having a magic keyword. If it should become suitable to do so.


On common magic, keep in mind that it's the GM's prerogative to either allow or deny the Common Magic keyword to starting characters who have a specialized magic keyword.

Mike