Extended Contest Question

[Caynreth]

Hi all,

finally I managed to play my first session of HQ (different setting than Glorantha). We tried some Simple Contests (hunting, fortune-telling and such) and one Extended Contest (a fight).

Situation setup for the Extended Contest:
A carriage is attacked by Evil Giant Rats and Big Wood Spiders. The heroes want to help and get into the fight.
One of the actions stated by a player was to go through the wood avoiding the fight, and help some prisoned fairies escape. Now on the other hand the Rats and Spiders were determined to catch and fight everything around.
I didn't really know how to "translate" this action into the HQ-Extended-Contest.

How would you deal with someone who doesn't want to take an active part in the Contest (she wanted to do some acrobatics to jump over the trees) but wants to do something besides the Contest and whom the opponents want to find and catch anyway?

Thanks in advance

Cay

[Minx]

How would you deal with someone who doesn't want to take an active part in the Contest (she wanted to do some acrobatics to jump over the trees) but wants to do something besides the Contest and whom the opponents want to find and catch anyway?

Servus! :D

Just becuse they don´t want to fight doesn´t mean that they aren´t taking part in the contest. Let them, as their action, roll their "Run Away" or whatever against the Woodspiders "Catch pray". When the players earn enough AP (or the spiders loose enough), I´d rule that the Fairies escaped. On the other hand, if the Characters loose too many AP, then I´d rule that they didn´t escape and now have no chance but to fight.

Otherwise, you can also do it as an "Unrelated Action", as a simple contest. *shrug*

Und überhaupt, warum stellst du diese Frage denn nicht im Grofafo? HQ kann dort ein bißchen mehr Präsenz gebrauchen, IMO... :D

M

[Brand_Robins]

How would you deal with someone who doesn't want to take an active part in the Contest (she wanted to do some acrobatics to jump over the trees) but wants to do something besides the Contest and whom the opponents want to find and catch anyway?

As Minx pointed out, there are multiple ways to handle this. However, I'd default to her being part of the contest.

When I played HeroQuest with Mike Holmes he'd repeatedly yell at the players, "THERE ARE NO COMBATS IN HQ!" This was because a lot of us would assume, the minute a sword came out, that we either had to fight or flee, because the combat was the contest. It wasn't.

In this case the contest is about beating the Spiders of Evil. Most of the PCs want to do this by killing them, but one wants to do it by freeing their prisoners and depriving them of food. The spiders are going to resist both, and try to eat her same as they're trying to eat everyone else, so I'd say everyone is part of the same contest despite not being part of the same combat.

The only question I'd have is if she's part of the team with the other PCs or if she's her own side in the contest, and that would depend on if the other PCs did things to support her, and she them. If so, then not only are they in the same contest, they're part of the same team. If not, then she may simply be forming her own side.

[Caynreth]

When I played HeroQuest with Mike Holmes he'd repeatedly yell at the players, "THERE ARE NO COMBATS IN HQ!" This was because a lot of us would assume, the minute a sword came out, that we either had to fight or flee, because the combat was the contest. It wasn't.

This might be part of my problem: thinking in old patterns by habit.
Now both answers (Minx' and Brands) make perfect sense and I wonder why I didn't come up with that myself. ;)

The only question I'd have is if she's part of the team with the other PCs or if she's her own side in the contest, and that would depend on if the other PCs did things to support her, and she them. If so, then not only are they in the same contest, they're part of the same team. If not, then she may simply be forming her own side.

This one is tricky. She didn't care for the rats and spiders up to the moment when they attacked her. She was only concerned with the faries. After the rescue she decided to help another player who was in trouble.

[Brand_Robins]

This one is tricky. She didn't care for the rats and spiders up to the moment when they attacked her. She was only concerned with the faries. After the rescue she decided to help another player who was in trouble.

Hrm, it's close -- but it doesn't really matter too much anyway. I'd say she was part of the PC group as (I assume) her going for the faeries distracted at least some of the predators from the PCs.

[soru]

[The only question I'd have is if she's part of the team with the other PCs or if she's her own side in the contest, and that would depend on if the other PCs did things to support her, and she them. If so, then not only are they in the same contest, they're part of the same team. If not, then she may simply be forming her own side.

Personally, I'd make it one group extended contest, but her doing something not directly related to defeating the attackers counts as a new pseudo-opponent, 'free the fairies'.

so the contest would be something like:

[PC1 40 AP] [PC2 35 AP] [PC3 42 AP] [PC4 51 AP]
vs
[SPIDERS 60 AP] [GIANT RATS 80 AP] [FREE THE FAIRIES XX AP]

where XX = some number you just made up depending on how smart you think the plan of freeing the fairies is, could be high if you think it is dumb, low if its the 'right way' to win.

In a group extended contest, the way I run them, there is no 'overall victory', there is just defeating individual opponents. So you could defeat all the rats, but still be attacked by spiders and not have freed the fairies yet, or vice versa. And the spiders or rats defeat you, then you are not in a position to free the fairies, or do anything else until the contest is over.

The PCs could lend AP, augment, etc, as normal, depending on your description of the situation (so not easily if the fairy-freer just snuck quietly off without telling anyone).

But this is basically the same answer as I gave in the 'run samurai run' thread, and noone liked it there, so I suspect there is something I'm not quite explaining properly about how or why to do this.

soru

[Minx]

But this is basically the same answer as I gave in the 'run samurai run' thread, and noone liked it there, so I suspect there is something I'm not quite explaining properly about how or why to do this.

Well, sure, thats may be the reason. Or it may be something that works better for you than for other people...

M

[soru]

Apologies, the 'run, samurai, run' thread was on rpgnet, http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=151088&highlight=samurai, I misrembered it as being here.

Still essentially the same issue, and about half the same posters, though.

soru

[Gelasma]

Ich hab dir ja bereits im GroFaFo geantwortet, aber ich werds hier nochmals wiederholen - einerseits um mein englisch zu üben, andererseits damit auch die ForgeQuestler über meinen Beitrag herfallen können...

In my opinion there are clearly two contests. In HQ the targets of the contrahents are more important than their actions. As far as I understood we have these targets:

[*]rats and spiders wants to attack the carriage[*]the heroband wants to save the carriage[*]one hero wants to free the fairies[*]rats and spiders want to fight each one in reach[/list:u]So with have two conflicts with three parties:

[*]"carriage conflict" with heroband versus rats and spiders [*]"fairies conflict" with rats and spiders again versus the sole hero[/list:u]Since you want to get deeper into that scene you decieded to run it as extended contest. Or more precisely as two parallel extended contests: one with the heroband and one with the hero. That sould be no problem and can easily be done by just switching back and forth between the two contests. Mingle all into one contest would not be a clean solution, since the hero band and the hero pursue different targets.