DnD Midnight to HeroQuest: The Big Leap

[Mike Holmes]

You're referring to your Sneaking up on Mode thread that you linked above, yes? Again, very useful to me.  I agree with you that sneaking up on players isn't a good idea - being upfront is much better.  

I wasn't, but I didn't actually intentionally sneak up on my players;  it was more that mode was sneaking up on me.  

Well, yeah, you can't be blamed. Not knowing what the full on techniques supporting the mode look like, what else could you do but edge towards it.

All I'm saying now is don't let your player's prior proclivities make you hedge. Going all the way will work better than trying to adapt for their previous play style.

I'd had some satisfying play experience with this new group in the other GM's high-level DnD game - pure Gamist challenge.  When I started the Midnight game, I tried to imitate that.  It worked fine for a while, only for me something was lacking.  Without knowing what I was doing, I dropped occasional "roleplaying" opportunities in, some players jumped at them, others didn't.  

Classic. Both modes have similarities in terms of metagame. So it's not really surprising to me that you had success with Gamism, but then tried to add "roleplaying" moments. Even calling them roleplaying moments is classic. What you were really trying to insert were moments where narrativism was supported.

It's all "roleplaying." :-)

You never have to kill in HQ. Only do so when it's dramatically sensible. In fact, my rule is that I would never do it without asking the player if he thought it was cool explicitly.

If I do that it'll be a breakaway from some pretty deeply established traditions in our game - ones that I haven't necessarily made.  The players have created them as much as I did, if not more:  by always expecting the enemy to slaughter everyone, and by slaughtering everyone in their turn.  I've seen them take a prisoner only once, and then only because they knew he was dangerous and could likely kill another PC before they could take him out, so they got him to surrender.  

See, you're still stuck in the Matrix. And it's hard to get out. Yes, if you set up a situation in which death is on the line, then death is what's appropriate. Just stop putting death on the line. What's interesting is that the threat of death is still there in the narrative. It just never becomes a reality for the players. More on this below.

You can't go wrong.

Not unless the GM creates the bad results, anyway.  I'm not clear yet about how I'll make decisions and how much (and how) to involve players in the decision about Consequences of defeat - no big deal when the Consequences are small, but scary (to me currently) when we're talking a Night King's Mark from your example.

You'll do as good as you'll do. I mean, I wish all my results were awesome, but I'm glad if only 50% are "pretty cool." I'm betting that you won't ever create a really bad result at this point.

Yes, exactly.  Of course.  How could I not see this... If we also manage to narrate any unusual and cool use of augments, this might do the trick.

Yep. The key, generally, is to make it "too easy." That is, if you make it a challenge, then they'll assume that it's there to "game." If you don't make it a challenge in this way, then they'll discover that this is just not something that's important to play.

D&D largely supports Gamism by making it the only fun thing to do in play. I mean, some GMs give rewards only for "roleplaying" and not for "winning" (meaning tactical victories). But it doesn't matter, because the only thing EXP can be spent on are powerups for your character to make them better at winning.

In HQ, the powerups are all relative. They just indicate what's important to the player to come out in play. And the same currency can be spent on victories instead. Meaning that victory is largely a player choice.

To give an example from my game last night, Julie's character Solani was ambushed by some men intent on using a ritual to make her unborn progeny emerge as a sort of messianic individual. She lost the contest, but had like ten HP to spend. But instead of deciding to win the contest, she let Solani get captured, because it was more interesting for her and her unborn child to be in jeopardy. Later, then, as the ritual was being performed, she got a divine intervention roll to work, and converted all the cultists into thinking that she was something akin to a saint. Then she spent the HP on giving Solani a relationship with the NPCs. So in the end, the character ended up much more interesting because of Julie's decision not to spend HP.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

I can follow you here for FTF games at least ("face-to-face", yes?).  I've found that I need to explain stuff expressly mostly when I'm first trying to build trust, to show players how I think and that I try to be fair.  The same is probably true for our change to HQ. It's not a new group, I'm not a new GM to them anymore, but it's a new system and to some extent a new style.  

Yeah, but assuming you make the correct decision, there's no question of trust. That is, all we're talking about is deciding whether or not to go with extended contests or the like. My point is that just as you'll get quick at making these assessments subtly, so too will the players discern what you're doing. At least by the fact that play is matching their expectations, and for the more discerning players, they'll even see how you're making the assessments.

I do hope so!  The strong themes were what first inspired me about Midnight.  I think that as a group we've done a pretty good job of bringing out a theme in our game - considering we were playing DnD, a system that actively gets in the way of theme I feel.

Sounds like it. Again that's evidence that you're ready for a full mode shift and shouldn't be tentative at all.

Player #2's PC has a few relationships gained in play, but zero background and no goals that would link him to his homeland.  This is something the player always does:  he'll play a race different from everyone else, but then does everything he can in play to pretend his race isn't different at all.  He appears to hate for play to happen in his PCs' homeland.  This PC's goal is to "assist a human leader to grow into her or his power because he believes that humans are worth it and realises elves are a dying race anyway".  

That's perfect fodder in HQ, IMO. So he should have some relationship to the human leader like "Respects Dude," if he's not abstract, or something like "Drive to Find Human Leader" if not. He should also have "Sees Own Race as Dying" or somesuch. The player then gets bonuses when playing to this, and you can then challenge his assumptions. Have an Elf come along from the homeland who's there to prove to him that the Elves still have something to give and that he should come home. Whatever the player's response, you get theme.

Player #3's PC is new (played one session I think) and as yet has relationships only to NPCs in an earlier (dream-)Age of the world (player's idea).  I don't know yet what his motivation is to operate in the Fourth Age, if any.

Too cool. Just frame occasional short scenes in the dreamworld. Have those NPCs put pressure on the PC. Then it's all about whether or not it makes sense for the character's beliefs to lie in a dream or not.

There's some logic glitch there.  Hm, maybe we've more often been able to make PC deaths mean something than turn other defeats into cool outcomes?  Nope, not true either.  Nevertheless, it's about meaningfulness.  There's a big determination on payers' part to sacrifice PCs for a good reason.  They still fear failure as such though.

Well, because failure in D&D is player failure. Death is acceptable if the plan worked. If they survive and fail, then they didn't put forth the ultimate effort, right? So there is a logic to it for D&D. But for HQ, that's not true, since character failure is not player failure.

Most would. In fact, it's like this; the player thinks, "well, I did it to myself, I can't complain." And then they smile.

Yes, isn't it.  And it's not even something you did "to" yourself, it's more that _you_ introduced a cool element into the scene by having Fear Spiders on the char sheet.  Because (in the kind of game I'm dreaming of) spiders likely wouldn't put in an appearance unless someone had a Fear Spiders trait.

Well, we often call this Self-Hosing. Basically the player can get just as much joy from hosing characters as the GM can. As long as it's fun for the player in the system used when the character gets hosed.

I'd read the first half of that bit of advice from you in some other thread and liked it a lot.  I wasn't aware that you also let them choose how high they want to go. That's very nifty indeed - and yet another bit chipped away from that Gamist rock of players-want-power-GM-denies-power.

Well, two things. First, not really as high as they want. The limitation is scale. That is, don't allow them to take things described as one thing at the wrong point on the scale. If its a "Consuming Passion" or something, that's likely not more than in the 2 masteries range for normal humans. I mean, if they have "Slave to Alira 10W4" that's a legendary flaw. Meaning that, literally, the character is so devoted that it would turn up in legends passed down from then on. So usually you want something lower than that. Often flaws should match the heroes other ability levels, being as they've had about the same amount of time to develop.

But, yeah, with a good enough explanation, the sky is the limit in theory. What it really means is that they don't have to build it up from 13 or something. You can start at a level that's got a pretty high augment (which is the most common use).

Second, presumably it's going to get used against them, so even the gamism channeled players will see that it's not neccessarily a tactically sound idea to take a large Flaw. Like the passion and slave flaws above, it means that the NPC in question will be able to lead the hero around without much chance for the player to resist.

Yes, this is all good news to a player who likes to hose their character. But since flaws are such good ways to make the story go, that's why they're free. IMO.

Ah ok. I'm getting the hang of this slowly.  So you're saying that in HQ I can throw in stuff that completely overpowers the PCs without disempowering the players.  That as long as the players trust me I can go a lot farther than I could before - always provided that the outcome leads over into some new dramatic coolness and makes the game deeper and more fun than before.  

Correct. That's very astute. As long as they can still spend their HP, and have cool choices to make, it's all good.

I follow you on the bit about Hit Points and I much prefer Action Point bids already, even though my first attempt at running an Extended Contest wasn't so brilliant;  but what do mean by saying Action Points give plot immunity? By avoiding accidental PC death?

Sorta. Basically both AP an HP serve to make sure that the character doesn't experience bad effects before getting to do some interesting stuff. They're immune to stoppage while they still have points. Compare other, less dramatic systems where you often can be killed with one lucky shot. Even 3E has some rules that are trending that way (and here you see the gamism/simulationism incoherence in that system).

Actually if you just look at HP as though they are like AP it sorta works out fine. The problem is that HP are then assumed after the fact to represent damage. That is, the system tells us that if I do 8 HP damage to one character with 8HP, and the same damage to another with 80HP, that the latter actually took less damage from the blow - he's not actually able to take ten times the punishment. But then why does a cleric's 8HP of healing heal the same amount on each? Put another way, why does the same plot immunity that prevents PCs from being injured work in inverse proportion to prevent PCs from healing up?

As soon as you stop looking at them as a measurement for damage, but just dramatic plot immunity, it all makes sense.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

Oh, right! Narrating a defeat is about what happens to the goal the PCs were fighting for at the time, not so much to the PCs and their opponents in the fight.  What happens to the PCs and their opponents us expressed as a Consequence.  Yes? Or sorta?

Yes, definitely. Read the rules. They say that the player has goal, and the roll determines whether or not they achieve that goal or not.

Your clarity here makes me wonder why you don't see the solutions below.

Can you do it in a game in which the PCs always kill everyone they can?

Yes, I can, because again, you assume that there are some sort of equal consequences for each side of the conflict. There is no rule that says that if the PCs are fighting to the death, that the only reasonable outcome of failure is their own death. I mean, you admit that capture is another possibility and only don't like it because it might get overused. Well, all this means is that you're only seeing two outcomes as potential results of such a contests when there are infinite potential results.

Let's see. Didn't kill all the orcs? Well, then aliens came down and sucked up the PCs into a UFO before they were able to finish.

I use a dumb example, to show you that anything is possible. Again, look to what the actual goal of the fight is, see the big picture, and suddenly all sorts of other interesting and dramatic failure conditions become possible. So, in the gatehouse contest example, if the defending orcs lose the contest, they die.

Yeah, even if it's not a complete victory. Because the goal wasn't really to kill the orcs, but to get inside. So killing them is just narration that follows accomplishing the goal. This is important, ignore the names of the penalties that are given out by the system. This is not voiding the rules but playing by them carefully - read close and you'll see that I'm correct.

Yes this means that if your only goal is to kill somebody that it's a lot harder to do so. Feature, not bug. For more explanation see the thread on deer hunting.

I realise that and I'm trying.  I'm glad you suggested that mutilating PCs might be acceptable - it has made me realise how many perceived "limits" on players' parts I respect.  I still think respecting limits is a very important thing, but maybe I can start pushing my own limits a bit here.  

The player's limits are you disempowering them.

In D&D, if as the result of a failure, I slap you with having to bear a cursed item that gives you a -5, is that disempowering? I mean even HP loss falls into this category. In HQ, losing an arm or a leg is only as disempowering, theoretically, as the given flaw. But it's even less disempowering than that. Because all abilities can be used "positively" or "negatively" as needed.

So, for example, I have my now armless dude come into a tavern. He wants to seduce the pretty wench serving drinks. So I augment with my Missing Arm 10W2 to play on her sympaties thus giving me a +5 to the roll. Nice, eh? So in some ways, I've actually made the character more powerful by giving them the flaw.

Josh? Arm off for Bevik Soo. Next time we play him. Please? He's not a fighter anyhow, what does he need the arm for?

Flaws are as empowering, as they are disempowering. Moreso in some cases - Solani gets so much use out of her "Histrionic" ability, and I activate it against her so little, that I'm thinking I'm going to have to charge her for it.

And if that isn't highly tactical, I don't know what is.

Right. It's like Brand says, HQ doesn't make real world tactics useless. It just makes "gaming" tactics useless. Which in the end just encourages creativity in play. Instead of relying on your biggest ability all the time, sometimes you're forced to look at another ability.

This is important in establishing scale in the world. Players will get the idea that their character with a 12W is a mighty swordsman. Well, he's not, he's just heroic. Have the Count come by with his 12W3, and school the player on what the scale is. About half the time the hero will still win. But the player will be informed that it's because of their hero status (HP), and fighting for what they care about that makes them tough. Not because they're the best out there.

Ooh, and if the hero loses the duel with a Complete Defeat, then give him "Cruel Face Scar 10W." C'mon, you have to admit that's cool as hell, no? Josh, one face scar, too, please? Ooh, I got it, I'll have Bevik attack Julie's character. That ought to do it. :-)

Oh cool.  So I can basically stop worrying?  You know, one thing DnD has done is make me slightly paranoid about doing things to characters, for fear of spoiling players' fun.  

As long as you're trying to do a conscientious job, I'm not seeing how it can go wrong. Oh, there's probably a way. But the system works as designed, and fabulously well.

They were between 6th and 8th level, i.e. low mid-levels in DnD.  

I'm not sure how much Advanced Experience I should give them.  I'm thinking maybe I'll give them a total of 3 points to spend on keywords (AE by the book), and maybe 30 points to spend on abilities but without the "no more than 10 per ability" cap from the book.  Does that look like it'll make characters who are distinctly heroic and better than most people in their larger area? The PCs I generated for our playtest had 30 points and no keyword increases and they were scary monsters...

Well, if you allow all 30 points to go on one ability, and you allow this to stack with the other points, too, then you get a max ability of 17W2. Which is pretty high, but not out of hand. With the keyword bumps you have, that'd be 20W3. Almost a master's master, but not quite.

I'd do two things instead. The problem with this is that the incentive to stack really high is very strong. And the characters will not have much breadth. Instead add 10 Levels of Advanced Experience at least. Maybe as much as 15 (or even 20 if you only allow 15 on any one keyword). Then give them 80 total points to add, no more than 20 in any one ability. Using the 15 figure above for keywords, this gives a max keyword of 12W, and no more than 12W2 in any one ability.

That sounds to me more like "mid-level".

The slight problem with DnD players is, if they are made too powerful they will likely feel cheated.  

Please. Too powerful? Night King 10W6, remember? Heck, try this. Write up a character as I suggest, and then put him against a big giant. Giants can have abilities like 10W3 Large augmented by 10W Strong, etc. By the time you're done, the giant has 10W4 or more. In fact, it's with Giants that I get the term "stomp" from. Giants stomping heroes just sounds too cool to me. I'm seeing heroes going down with broken femurs as the giant continues on his merry rampage of the village.

Actually this makes the giant and character not too disparate in power. The player might be able to muster 10W4, too, all said. Does that match your D&D game? Characters about on par with Giants?

Next time the player faces the "stomper" they will try their character's "Clever 5W" rating, augmented by the giant's Stupid 15, going against his 6 default resistance to avoid being tricked. It's a much better gamble.

Moreover, have them fight the equivalent of an 8th level orc. Who will have pretty much the same stats as the heroes do, since they're generated in precisely the same way.

Yes, I'm seeing it now I think.  I can get rid of that "gulf of power" mindset DnD fosters.  In DnD, a character's power pretty much explodes with advancement through the levels, so having Night Kings ride through the woods on their own would completely shatter disbelief.  In HQ, power disparities are much less pronounced, or at least the chances of winning anyway (with cool and creative tactics) are a lot better.  

Nope, you're still not seeing it.

Yeah, Brand has a point that you can still win out occasionally. The real way to win is how I outlined it above. Find the target's weakness and go after that. But that's not even the real consideration. Winning and losing in contests is just not important from a player satisfaction POV. So it doesn't matter what the opponent's rating is.

The only thing you have to watch out for is making sure that the PCs have a choice at some point. That could be wether or not to attack something way out of their league. If they do, and get stomped, it's all good.

Only -5 for losing an arm? Wow, that _is_ cool.

What's the penalty in D&D? Can't wear a shield or use two handed weapons? What did you think the penalty would be.

In any case, the penalty is precisely whatever you set it at. I suggested 10W2, because it's substantial. But if you want, you can make it 10 or 10w5 for a -1 to a -11 or even higher. It's whatever level you like to set the flaw at. But don't give them a No Left Arm 10w8, because think of the jeopardy you'll be putting all of those barmaids in. I use 10W2 as a typical life changing injury or the like. A "masterful" wound.

Will the loss of a leg really hamper him?

Seeing that running away and riding very fast are core to the group's current standard tactics, yes.  Although again, if I make it only -5 to riding...  Heh, it might even jolt the group out of their entrenched tactics into trying something new.  

Exactly. Instead of running, now we do a lot of hiding. Infinite abilities, infinite options.

Up to now no one has wanted to make up any kind of character that had any perceivable ties to the Shadow, not even previously or potentially.  They all claim they don't want to have to deal with possible mistrust from the other PCs.  While this argument in itself is pretty lame, I'm thinking that if they all agree, there must be some theme in it they want in the game.  

Well, you went all tangential on me. My point was, again, just not to give the worng flaw to the wrong character. That is, if the character's main ability is running, and you eliminate the leg, and strip him of that ability, that's harsh. So just don't. Save the lost leg for the merchant who doesn't use them for much anyhow (in mechanical terms).

Second, my point about the merchant is that your likely to have far more character "types" with HQ than with D&D. Because all approaches to problem solving become equal, there's no reason to avoid any character concept. Even hobbit dilletants.

Hm, they've trusted me with creating "NPC hosts" for them for the dream/time travel scenarios, and most of the players even took it in their stride when I threw them into the first of them without explanation and simply had them play the NPCs ... until one PC's true memories were stirred by something emotionally difficult and she "awoke" to who she really was. Of course none of that was permanent, or "suitably permanent"...

Again, neither is it in HQ. That is, there's always some way out of a flaw. But it's moot, because the players will love their flaws.

Dude, I so have to get an arm cut off in play. Josh?

You know what this makes me think?  Your game sounds cool.  :-)

Well, Josh's game in this case. At the end of the last session we played (a while back now), Ryan had a choice of whether or not to accept a complete defeat at the hands of my character or to spend a HP, and reduce it to a Major Defeat. He chose the Complete Defeat, because he felt it was a suitable place to end the character's story.

It was a very cool game.

Let's see, in my game, I've never had a complete defeat that I can think of. So it's never become an issue. Complete Defeats are rare man, especially if the player has a HP to spend. All of the above are just examples of what I'd do if it came up.

Btw, I haven't quite got yet why people around here say that it's the players who are "on the losing side of Gamism".

People around here say that? Hmmm. I dunno.

In HQ, I only have to make sure I set up the environment so that they can find satisfying stuff, and throw satisfying stuff at them.  

Now you're getting it.

Both points taken, about the timing (which I'm not going to take literally, no fear - I think I'll know how to time it) and about the stomping.  

Just to follow up - when you do it, it won't seem like a stomping. That is, you'll know why you've introduced the dragon, but the players will just see it as a really big adversary, and react accordingly. Also, let them know some of what the creature's statistics are (or all of them), so that they can calculate their odds of different tactics. For example, when they ask how big the giant is, say, 10W3 big. Watch their eyes go real round in response. :-)

That's pretty much what I was thinking I'd do (and did for our playtest session, on a small scale - no Izzy in that one, I'm afraid).  

The big bad definitely has to be statted out - it's critical. Why? I'm not sure on the precise details, but he can project power in many ways, right? It's not just his minions, but he has magic power up the wazoo, right? Well, he uses it, right?

Let's see. Two hobbits cross Mordor, and Sauron's looking for them. That's his "Magic Eye 10W6" minus some for the range penalty for half way across the plain of Gorgoroth. Goes against the Hobbits Hide and Small.

Oh, yeah, the heroes should feel the personal reach of the evil one at times. Or how are they going to hate him?

Trust issue totally. Show them the mechanics behind it. Yes, there are resistances to "healing" "Death" which is actually any result of a Complete Defeat.

Correct. Now you're getting it.

[slaps forehead many times] I'm such an idiot.  One of the major local NPCs (the guy who some players won't trust because his intel wasn't always perfectly accurate) has a mithril leg!  One with a working knee joint.  (Yes, it has entered play.)  D'oh.

LOL. And you don't think that the player won't be thanking you profusely for cutting off his leg once he has a cool mithril leg?

Hmm. Now I need Bevik to lose a leg, too. This might take several shots at Julie's character...

Mike

[Kerstin Schmidt]

The reason I keep hammering it in this thread isn't even so much because it's D&D as it is because the "D&D mindset" encapsulates something about the way that RPGs are traditionally seen as inherently being that isn't true at all.  People who've played one RPG for most of their RPing history get ideas about what RPGs are that come out of that game. For D&D players there are a pretty solid set of assumptions that get made, and reinforced, through years of play.

Yes, and as all these threads I've been starting here show, I'm having a hard time finding a way out of the DnD mindset even though I'm aware that it's not what I want for the game I want to run here - and even though I've run enough games for roleplaying newbies to at least remember what a different mindset a non-DnD-veteran would have.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

All I'm saying now is don't let your player's prior proclivities make you hedge. Going all the way will work better than trying to adapt for their previous play style.

I'll do my best.  Currently my main problem is that their previous playstyle has affected my style for the past months, sometimes more than I'm aware.  So, it's great for me to be able to pick your brains here.

Classic. Both modes have similarities in terms of metagame. So it's not really surprising to me that you had success with Gamism, but then tried to add "roleplaying" moments. Even calling them roleplaying moments is classic. What you were really trying to insert were moments where narrativism was supported.

It's all "roleplaying." :-)

Heh, I'm aware of that now - but when I started doing it, that's the way I thought about it.  It's still the accepted terminology for the rest of the group.

See, you're still stuck in the Matrix. And it's hard to get out.

Yes. :)

The key, generally, is to make it "too easy." That is, if you make it a challenge, then they'll assume that it's there to "game." If you don't make it a challenge in this way, then they'll discover that this is just not something that's important to play.

Thanks for spelling it out. It is the Matrix. (sigh)

But I see what you mean.  A local group has been kind enough to invite me in and play a few sessions of HQ with them.  In that group, as far as I can see after three sessions or so it looks like pretty much all HPs are spent on bumping.  I've started out doing the same because in that game, winning felt important for some reason.  But last session I decided to use no HPs, and didn't.  I want to find out what happens if I buy out of the winning and let the dice fall where they may.  

She lost the contest, but had like ten HP to spend.

You can't spend more than one HP in a single contest, or can you?

So in the end, the character ended up much more interesting because of Julie's decision not to spend HP.

Well, looking at it from a clueless-but-learning GM's point of view, it was both her decision not to spend HPs to avoid "failure", and you presenting a good alternative to "winning" with lots of opportunities to shape the game and character afterwards.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

That's perfect fodder in HQ, IMO. So he should have some relationship to the human leader like "Respects Dude," if he's not abstract, or something like "Drive to Find Human Leader" if not. He should also have "Sees Own Race as Dying" or somesuch. The player then gets bonuses when playing to this, and you can then challenge his assumptions. Have an Elf come along from the homeland who's there to prove to him that the Elves still have something to give and that he should come home. Whatever the player's response, you get theme.

I think you're right.  That may be one reason why this particular player keeps saying he enjoys the game even though it has too much "roleplaying" in it for his taste.  It's not a normal DnD game really, so his character-with-strong-but-cloudy-themes works better than he's used to from other games.  And now it'll be getting better.  Cool.  

Well, because failure in D&D is player failure. Death is acceptable if the plan worked. If they survive and fail, then they didn't put forth the ultimate effort, right? So there is a logic to it for D&D.

You're right. What a rail-track game DnD is. In a way "Success no matter what the price" is the only theme it supports. Other than "Kill Things and Take Their Stuff" that is, which can be fun and exciting at one level IMO but isn't much of a theme at all.  

Well, two things. First, not really as high as they want. The limitation is scale. That is, don't allow them to take things described as one thing at the wrong point on the scale...

Yep, that makes eminent sense. Thanks for the examples.

Sorta. Basically both AP an HP serve to make sure that the character doesn't experience bad effects before getting to do some interesting stuff. They're immune to stoppage while they still have points.

Plot Immunity in DnD. Who would have thought it.  

(And yeah, I've tried explaining Hit Points to newbies and they never "get it" at first because it's so inconsistent.  The instant you get to the healing rules, it all breaks down.)

Compare other, less dramatic systems where you often can be killed with one lucky shot.

The interesting thing here is that you say "less dramatic".  I completely agree, but some people would defend the option of one-shot kills as highly dramatic. I find it restricting and frustrating because, as you've said, early death prevents you from doing enough cool stuff to make it worthwhile.

[Mike Holmes]

A local group has been kind enough to invite me in and play a few sessions of HQ with them.  In that group, as far as I can see after three sessions or so it looks like pretty much all HPs are spent on bumping.  I've started out doing the same because in that game, winning felt important for some reason.  But last session I decided to use no HPs, and didn't.  I want to find out what happens if I buy out of the winning and let the dice fall where they may.  

See, what's interesting to me here, is that there are no failures. What you've implied by this is that the narrator has set things up where the resistances are just so, and the HP enough, that the heroes only fail (what 95% of the time) if they do not spend HP. Is that accurate?

This is a way to play HQ that seems common. Here's the question. On those 5% of failures so far, how has the narrator responded? Were the failures interesting at all? Or have there been absolutely no failures?

How has play with this group been so far in terms of your satisfaction?

She lost the contest, but had like ten HP to spend.

You can't spend more than one HP in a single contest, or can you?

My point was that it wasn't like she was short on HP. Spending the one she needed to win the contest wouldn't have put her out at all. IOW, she didn't chose to fail because she was worried that she would fail someting more important, or that she wouldn't be able to buy something she wanted, but simply because failing was more interesting in this case.

Well, looking at it from a clueless-but-learning GM's point of view, it was both her decision not to spend HPs to avoid "failure", and you presenting a good alternative to "winning" with lots of opportunities to shape the game and character afterwards.

I didn't tell her what would happen if she failed. But she trusts me, and knows that I'm not going to make the game duller with a failure. She knew that things would only get more interesting.

Josh got so extreme about this for one session that he spent all of his HP just so he wouldn't even be tempted to succeed when he rolled a failure that would have been salvageable with a HP. He's since retreated from that position, because, yeah, sometimes it is more fun to win. And you can always refrain from spending. So it's always best to leave yourself with the choice.

But that's what it ought to be, a choice. Not a case of, "Better spend that HP, or horrible things will happen that you the player will not like." Simply a player input on what sort of pacing is best in the particular circumstances.

Note that some people have the opposite experience, and their players never bump, wanting to use the points to power up. These players, too, haven't gotten it yet. They don't see that powering up isn't an indication of how cool they are as players, or that their characters will be any more successful in the future. It just indicates to the narrator where they want their character to be cool.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

I think you're right.  That may be one reason why this particular player keeps saying he enjoys the game even though it has too much "roleplaying" in it for his taste.  It's not a normal DnD game really, so his character-with-strong-but-cloudy-themes works better than he's used to from other games.  And now it'll be getting better.  Cool.

Keep this in mind. Allow this player to...how to say this...dodge around with his themes. Allow him a lot of leeway in altering his ability scores such that he can keep his cloud, cloudy. Don't hammer that out of him by pointing out how the numbers on the page make certain things hard-coded into the character.

This is a dificult point. But too much support might be just as much of a problem for the character as no support at all.

Plot Immunity in DnD. Who would have thought it.

There are substantive similarities between D&D and HQ. I think HQ just takes a different (and more coherent) angle, and hits it very well.

The interesting thing here is that you say "less dramatic".  I completely agree, but some people would defend the option of one-shot kills as highly dramatic. I find it restricting and frustrating because, as you've said, early death prevents you from doing enough cool stuff to make it worthwhile.

They conflate drama and suspense. That is, knowing you could die at any moment is suspenseful - even a realistic feeling in some ways (though, interestingly these systems are never truely realistic). But that's not the same as dramatic. Suspense lasts only until the bomb goes off, and then you have to deal with the outcome.

Here's the thing, you can have both drama and suspense. We know that Indiana Jones isn't going to get squashed by the big rolling boulder, but it's suspensful anyhow, isn't it? In HQ you could spring a PC death on somebody. Just as we're not absolutely sure that the Spielberg won't kill Indy in the next scene, we don't know that we won't roll that complete defeat, and that the narrator won't kill off our character. It can happen in the game, in theory. So suspense happens anyhow.

When I say that "death can't happen unless it's appropriate, I mean that it can't happen in HQ without the narrator saying it should happen then and there. So, death being just another negative result for the character, as always the player can count on the narrator doing the right thing. Since we're not sure what that is, there's always suspense. Just not a fear of failure.

Mike

[Kerstin Schmidt]

In HQ, losing an arm or a leg is only as disempowering, theoretically, as the given flaw. But it's even less disempowering than that. Because all abilities can be used "positively" or "negatively" as needed.

Thanks for the Armless Dude example. Nice.

Thinking about it this way, flaws aren't disempowering, they simply force the player into developing new creative ideas with their character. And that's all good with me.  After all, in stories the stars (whether villain or hero) always come back with a vengeance after suffering horrible setbacks, and usually with a strength that has grown out specifically of their defeat.  HQ makes that possible, too.  

Right. It's like Brand says, HQ doesn't make real world tactics useless. It just makes "gaming" tactics useless.

I've been trying to discuss this with my self-labelled "rollplaying" player, but he doesn't see the difference. Yet.  Maybe he's kinesthetic (like me) and just has to experience it for it to click with him.  

About half the time the hero will still win. But the player will be informed that it's because of their hero status (HP), and fighting for what they care about that makes them tough. Not because they're the best out there.

Major paradigm shift ahead for some players. :-)

I'd do two things instead. The problem with this is that the incentive to stack really high is very strong. And the characters will not have much breadth.

Very good point, especially since the players, being used to DnD, might decide to stack high in abilities that will make the characters "powerful" as for DnD, rather than powerful (meaning strong in star and story potential) for HQ.  

...That sounds to me more like "mid-level".

Thanks, I like your suggestion a lot, I'll use it.  

In fact, it's with Giants that I get the term "stomp" from. Giants stomping heroes just sounds too cool to me. I'm seeing heroes going down with broken femurs as the giant continues on his merry rampage of the village.

LOL.  That's about how ordinary orc troopers experience the PCs charging through.  
As to being on par with Giants - in DnD it all depends on the type of Giant, but very broadly speaking, yes.  

Moreover, have them fight the equivalent of an 8th level orc. Who will have pretty much the same stats as the heroes do, since they're generated in precisely the same way.

More powerful in melee, but yeah. Orcs in Midnight are borm shock infantry.

Yes, I'm seeing it now I think.  I can get rid of that "gulf of power" mindset DnD fosters.  

Nope, you're still not seeing it.

Yes I am.  I'm aware that Brand was saying something different from you, but it is something important for me to realise.  

Winning isn't, as you put it, the "real way to win" in HQ, I've bought into that.  Yet, there is the "gulf of power" dimension also, at least to me.  

Traditionally in a DnD game you'd keep distances artificially wide so as to keep power strata in a world reasonably separate, which enables the players to have their PCs move comparatively freely.  You learn to avoid certain areas or actions, which leaves you with a reasonably "safe territory" to play in.  You keep pushing your limits by taking on challenges and winning or losing them.  Sometimes you're overmatched, but a fair GM will let you get away.  

IMO this is one of the reasons why DnD game worlds tend to be made so staggeringly large and empty (Eredane being a particularly rampant example):  The players need the breathing room for their PCs, without running too much of a risk of brushing with powers that would automatically squash them.  

In HQ I don't need to have those gaping distances.  I can close the gulfs.  Because the players may decide to take on the almost-impossible challenge (which with the power gulfs in DnD would have been ultra-impossible, hence ridiculously dumb and unfun to even try).
So (1.), the characters just might win - which is possible by HQ mechanics, but not in DnD.
And (2.), the players will also win even if the characters lose because HQ supports much more varied and cooler Consequences.  That's the core of what you said I think.  Am I getting you?  If so, I agree; you have convinced me.  You had already convinced me in your earlier posts.  My only point here was that without (1.) there wouldn't be as much room for the players trying as there is if there's a tiny chance to win a legendary victory.  Running headlong into a wall can make for a meaningful ending.  But running into a wall with that tiny sliver of a chance that you might break through (rather than smash your own skull) makes for a lot more incentive.  

The only thing you have to watch out for is making sure that the PCs have a choice at some point. That could be wether or not to attack something way out of their league. If they do, and get stomped, it's all good.

I wouldn't have a problem stomping them without something without giving the PCs a choice first, as long as the players had some chance to choose - for example by asking them beforehand to trust me, or giving them an inkling of what I wanted to have happen.  This would be a big exception obviously, and I'd consider it only as the beginning of a scenario, almost like a prelude to a film, with very brief shots of the PCs in mid-being-stomped.  Quite likely without even rolling any contest.  We've been using "preludes" as lead-ins to scenarios for a while and it works well.  In one I even put them in the middle of an inescapable fight the PCs were losing, and we used only narrative, no dice.  Even though it was DnD.  And no one so much as frowned.

(It turned out the enemy they fought had been an long-lasting illusion, so they ended up exhausted but not actually wounded.  I'd still put them in a dangerous trap, besieged by orcs and with an offer of temporary alliance from a bunch of Fell.)

Only -5 for losing an arm? Wow, that _is_ cool.

What's the penalty in D&D? Can't wear a shield or use two handed weapons? What did you think the penalty would be.

The way the sytem works, as a Fighter you survive by your Feats, which means you are pretty much forced to specialise on either ranged or melee and on a single weapon. In 3.5 two-handed (and especially the greatsword) beats everything and sword-and-board beats sword-no-board. Make any changes to that and you invalidate the character's one and only strength.  

In DnD, you have to be better than everyone else at one thing.  If you lose that, you're toast.  As long as you don't lose that, you shrug.  

In any case, the penalty is precisely whatever you set it at. I suggested 10W2, because it's substantial. But if you want, you can make it 10 or 10w5 for a -1 to a -11 or even higher. It's whatever level you like to set the flaw at. But don't give them a No Left Arm 10w8, because think of the jeopardy you'll be putting all of those barmaids in. I use 10W2 as a typical life changing injury or the like. A "masterful" wound.

Thanks for this.  This is almost as good as play experience for me. I can analyse and understand things abstractly, yet I really learn (in the sense of acquiring working knowledge) by experience and examples.

...there's always some way out of a flaw. But it's moot, because the players will love their flaws.

Dude, I so have to get an arm cut off in play. Josh?

You know what this makes me think?  Your game sounds cool.  :-)

Well, Josh's game in this case.

Ok, let me amend this. Josh's game sounds cool, and you sound like a cool player. Better? :-p

Btw, I haven't quite got yet why people around here say that it's the players who are "on the losing side of Gamism".

People around here say that? Hmmm. I dunno.

Not?  I thought that it was in threads on Actual Play that I've read it a number of times. Maybe I'm misremembering and it was somewhere else.

The big bad definitely has to be statted out - it's critical. Why? I'm not sure on the precise details, but he can project power in many ways, right? It's not just his minions, but he has magic power up the wazoo, right? Well, he uses it, right?

Oh, but you see? That's why I had to kick free of the DnD "Power Gulf" thinking.  In DnD it doesn't make sense to stat out the Big Baddies too early.  Average chances are the game won't live long enough to see Big Baddies in detail because the game world is three times as big as Asia with under a million people or so in it (Eredane), and the Big Bads are hidden safely away somewhere.  

Oh, yeah, the heroes should feel the personal reach of the evil one at times. Or how are they going to hate him?

Heh yeah.  I don't think any of the PCs in our game currently have reason to Hate Izrador.  I mean, not personally.  Power gulf again.  

Trust issue totally. Show them the mechanics behind it. Yes, there are resistances to "healing" "Death" which is actually any result of a Complete Defeat.

Oh yes, that's important.  Mustn't forget to explain that more clearly.  

Hmm. Now I need Bevik to lose a leg, too. This might take several shots at Julie's character...

The mithril leg in my game doesn't always work right either.  Especially in the morning the knee may sometimes bend the wrong way. Interested? :)



Mike[/quote]

[Kerstin Schmidt]

See, what's interesting to me here, is that there are no failures. What you've implied by this is that the narrator has set things up where the resistances are just so, and the HP enough, that the heroes only fail (what 95% of the time) if they do not spend HP. Is that accurate?

No, not quite.  The GM gave out 3 HP three sessions ago (when I first joined), that's it so far. Players will also use HPs to mitigate Defeat (turn Minor into Marginal, for example).  We haven't really had enough contests to deermine an average, but it feels more like maybe 30% failure.  Possibly more.  

Were the failures interesting at all?

Hm, let me think what they were. All bumps mentioned are from HPs.
Very briefly, it's a Heortling game with a strong Soap Opera slant and some political maneuvring.  

In the first session a character failed to convince the women's council to vote against war - bumped from Minor Defeat to Marginal, the GM ruled that the decision was put off until later.

In the second session we were on a cattle raid that my character was leading. Minor Defeat sneaking in, bumped to Marginal, the GM ruled we ran into a single shepherd boy in the darkness in the middle of nowhere.  With more contests, we managed to stop the shepherd running away and tied him up so he couldn't go and raise the alarm.
Marginal Defeat bumped to Marginal Victory when my character tried to calm and lead away the first bull.  The GM allowed me to narrate what I did and go crazy if I liked, so I (having no cattle-related skills but Riding...) decided I leapt on its back and rode it out of the barn.  The GM allowed some cows to follow.  
Complete Defeat (I think) trying to calm the second bull.  The player was playing a minor NPC and had no HPs.  The GM ruled that the bull caused a stampede, in which the rests of the cows ran away.  

In the third session Marginal Defeat (I think) when boasting of the cattle raid to the locals at our stead.  I spent no HP.  The GM ruled that people wandered away because the story wasn't gripping and had been going on for too long.  
Another Marginal or Minor Defeat retelling the story to the clan chief when offering the cattle.  Again, I didn't bump.  The chief expressed mild displeasure at the raid, saying it was politically unwise to have caused more trouble at the border in the current situation. Not sure what other consequences there were, it felt as if there might have been a reward for my character if I'd succeeded on the roll.  

Then two PCs went on Heroquests for One Day.  Each went through their Heroquest's stations. There were a number of Defeats, each of which gave penalties for the next station.  The players grumbled at the difficulty of the resistance.  One player wasn't allowed to go to the last station (Orlanth's taming the bull?  he's a herder) and took it in stride.  The other player went through everything (the wifely rug of peace thing) and learnt some new magic ability but seemed exasperated, not sure why.  

My point was that it wasn't like she was short on HP. Spending the one she needed to win the contest wouldn't have put her out at all. IOW, she didn't chose to fail because she was worried that she would fail someting more important, or that she wouldn't be able to buy something she wanted, but simply because failing was more interesting in this case.

Yes I see. Not a resource management decision, a dramatic decision.

... sometimes it is more fun to win. And you can always refrain from spending. So it's always best to leave yourself with the choice.

...Note that some people have the opposite experience, and their players never bump, wanting to use the points to power up. These players, too, haven't gotten it yet. They don't see that powering up isn't an indication of how cool they are as players, or that their characters will be any more successful in the future. It just indicates to the narrator where they want their character to be cool.

That's going to be learning process for my group, I expect.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Keep this in mind. Allow this player to...how to say this...dodge around with his themes. Allow him a lot of leeway in altering his ability scores such that he can keep his cloud, cloudy. Don't hammer that out of him by pointing out how the numbers on the page make certain things hard-coded into the character.

Good point, thanks.

Plot Immunity in DnD. Who would have thought it.

There are substantive similarities between D&D and HQ. I think HQ just takes a different (and more coherent) angle, and hits it very well.

If that is so, then we're making even less of a Big Leap than I still thought until now.  (It's already less big a leap than I believed at the time I started the first thread, because then I hadn't yet realised how far we had Drifted already.)

And your HP-AP comparison for one thing has convinced me.  More similarities?  

They conflate drama and suspense. That is, knowing you could die at any moment is suspenseful - even a realistic feeling in some ways (though, interestingly these systems are never truely realistic). But that's not the same as dramatic. Suspense lasts only until the bomb goes off, and then you have to deal with the outcome.

Constant suspense also wears out instead of being entertaining.  Who wants to be stressed all the time?  That's about as satisfying as being a bodyguard (and I mean in real life, and I know what I'm talking about - a horrible burn-out-quick job).

When I say that "death can't happen unless it's appropriate, I mean that it can't happen in HQ without the narrator saying it should happen then and there. So, death being just another negative result for the character, as always the player can count on the narrator doing the right thing. Since we're not sure what that is, there's always suspense. Just not a fear of failure.

Hm yes.  A "I can't wait to see what happens next" kind of suspense, more than a "Let's see whether or not I survive this one again".  Cool.

[Mike Holmes]

Thinking about it this way, flaws aren't disempowering, they simply force the player into developing new creative ideas with their character. And that's all good with me.  After all, in stories the stars (whether villain or hero) always come back with a vengeance after suffering horrible setbacks, and usually with a strength that has grown out specifically of their defeat.  HQ makes that possible, too.

Now you're seeing the big picture better.

Character failure is player empowerment. Only in the gamism mode, where character failure is player failure, or in simulationism where the player is to match their desires to the character's desires, is this problematic. In narrativism, we only sympathize with the character, we don't empathize with him. And that's freeing to do what we want to do.

Right. It's like Brand says, HQ doesn't make real world tactics useless. It just makes "gaming" tactics useless.

I've been trying to discuss this with my self-labelled "rollplaying" player, but he doesn't see the difference. Yet.  Maybe he's kinesthetic (like me) and just has to experience it for it to click with him.  

Hmm. Try this on him. In D&D, you take the longsword, because you know it does more damage. In real life, you take the sword that you feel you can wield best, and use it best you can. In HQ, they're all the same, so you can't use this sort of unrealistic "gaming" tactic. But in HQ, if you note that the target character is in armor, you can roll to knock him down first, and use the "half-swording" technique (see TROS) to punch through that armor like a can-opener. There's no rule in HQ that says you can do this, it's simply a real-world technique that we know works. As long as the narrator agrees, this should get you some bonus to deal with your opponent once you've accomplished it (might just end up as AP, but you get the point).

There's no way to do better in HQ, by finding loopholes or otherwise manipulating the rules. Even augments are entirely a narrator call. So there's no way that the player can "show off" how good he is that way. He can only do so by modifying the situation in-game. And even the results of that are subject to narrator whim, so there's no incentive for gamism there, really, either. Any bonus for creativity there, can be just as much for the narration sounding cool as it is for the tactic being particularly real-world valid.

About half the time the hero will still win. But the player will be informed that it's because of their hero status (HP), and fighting for what they care about that makes them tough. Not because they're the best out there.

Major paradigm shift ahead for some players. :-)

Well, I think this is an unrelated topic. But, basically, that's because in most D&D games, somehow there's never anyone besides the players and a handful of NPCs who are at the level that the characters are. Basically, after, what, sixth level or so, the D&D character is some sort of superhero capable of greater than human feats. Of death dealing, mostly.

In HQ, again, "normal" people should have abilities up to near the W3 range. Unless the hero in question can get up to a 10W4 or so, he's not really superheroic. Just an outstanding human being. If you don't keep that in mind, and base all NPC abilities on the PC abilities, then the world will be seriously skewed. You'll be making the D&D mistake of having the world "level up" right along side the characters. Instead of letting them become more and more heroic.

I'd do two things instead. The problem with this is that the incentive to stack really high is very strong. And the characters will not have much breadth.

Very good point, especially since the players, being used to DnD, might decide to stack high in abilities that will make the characters "powerful" as for DnD, rather than powerful (meaning strong in star and story potential) for HQ.  

Hell, a high stat is powerful in story potential in HQ. Even strongly narrativism oriented players will stack. So you have to limit it. Per the rules for starting characters where only 10 of the 20 points can be spent on any one ability.

Moreover, have them fight the equivalent of an 8th level orc. Who will have pretty much the same stats as the heroes do, since they're generated in precisely the same way.

More powerful in melee, but yeah. Orcs in Midnight are borm shock infantry.

Right. Watch the merchant win this one, when he says, "We're over here," in orcish, and lures them all into a deadfall pit.

And (2.), the players will also win even if the characters lose because HQ supports much more varied and cooler Consequences.

This is more it.

BTW, you can still control "pacing." Let's say that some player gets all hot and bothered to go kill Izrador, and heads straight there. Well, fine, is he going to make it all the way there without running into somebody else first? Course not, that wouldn't be dramatic.

And then again, maybe it would. I can see a game in which they fight Izrador first thing, and he lets them live inexplicably. Then the entire game becomes people avoiding them because they wonder why Izrador would have let them go. Must be some secret curse or something. Maybe he can see through their eyes now, and is using the PCs to see where his opponents lay. Or...who knows what? :-)

I'm reminded of the Thomas Covenant books in which on arrival he meets the most powerful being carrying the most powerful item, and then spends a lot of time trying to get back there.

Think of it this way, Izrador is just another character in the story. Use him as appropriate for a character of his type. Don't avoid him based on the fact that he's powerful, avoid him only if a meeting would be anti-climactic or something. Just stop thinking about the whole "power" and wining/losing thing, and just inject him like any other NPC.

Yes, even he exists only to pose bangs for the heroes. He has no more weight this way than does the cook who travels with the rest of he gang. To the extent that he represents a possible goal for the heroes, you keep him away just as long as you keep away the cook's daughter who is the goal for another hero.

I wouldn't have a problem stomping them without something without giving the PCs a choice first, as long as the players had some chance to choose - for example by asking them beforehand to trust me, or giving them an inkling of what I wanted to have happen.

Nope.

"Suddenly a Night King comes over the hill on his dark horse, and sees you around the fire. You see his face get a sorta suspicious look on it, and before you can even get to your feet, he starts casting a spell. Roll..."

Stomp them. If you don't do it this way, then, again, there's no point in the lesson. The idea is to teach them that no matter what you do as narrator it's going to come out cool for the players. If you give them an option to avoid, and they avoid the stomping, then they miss the lesson. If they fall into the trap then they learn that the game is about making the best tactical decisions.

If you just stomp them, then they learn that the game is about making sure that every character looks as cool as they need to look all of the time.

This would be a big exception obviously, and I'd consider it only as the beginning of a scenario, almost like a prelude to a film, with very brief shots of the PCs in mid-being-stomped. Quite likely without even rolling any contest.  

That works to get them to trust you, but then they don't learn to trust the system.

See, what stomping does is to say, "Look, you got the worst effect for the character that the system can possibly produce. And it was pretty cool, eh? So stop worrying about losing and go out there and kick some ass. Oh, and BTW, now you know what the scale is like."

We've been using "preludes" as lead-ins to scenarios for a while and it works well.  In one I even put them in the middle of an inescapable fight the PCs were losing, and we used only narrative, no dice.  Even though it was DnD.  And no one so much as frowned.

So, call it a prelude if you like, but then have them roll. See, what this does is it says to the players that HQ play is like playing constantly in a prelude. But interactively.

In DnD, you have to be better than everyone else at one thing.  If you lose that, you're toast.  As long as you don't lose that, you shrug.

Which is why there are no rules for losing arms in D&D. So thank goodness for HQ where you can lose an arm and become even more interesting as a character.

BTW, giving out flaws is just one idea of how to represent a permenant loss the like of which is appropriate for a Complete Defeat. Um, the Night King could strike them dumb, which you could enumerate, but works just as well using it as a limitation on what sort of contests the player can partake in. In fact, generally this is what Complete Defeats do, they make it so that you can't win some sort of contest ever. If it's death, you can't win any contest ever (except, possibly, ones in the appropriate otherworld). So One Arm could come without a flaw, the narrator would just say that you can't do anything that requires that arm. Which he can feature by having situations where it becomes a limitation.

Yes, it's OK to make fun of cripples in RPGs. Rather, you can't make light of these things such that the character looks less interesting, but you can in such a way as when the character discovers an alternate solution, that the character looks very cool.

Player A: My character is unconscious. Can you pick me up C?
Player B: Wait, you can't carry Big Bill with one arm. Ha ha.
Player C: Damnit Kersten for giving me that! Fine, I kick Big Bill over and over to flip him down the hall.
Player A: Heyyy!
Player C: Whaddaya want? I only got one arm!

Ok, let me amend this. Josh's game sounds cool, and you sound like a cool player. Better? :-p

Yep. Credit where credit is due. I will try to lop somebody's arm off soon, however, as a practical. :-)

Not?  I thought that it was in threads on Actual Play that I've read it a number of times. Maybe I'm misremembering and it was somewhere else.

I dunno. Gamism is great if that's what you're up for. That's why I'll be playing 1870 this weekend...

Trust issue totally. Show them the mechanics behind it. Yes, there are resistances to "healing" "Death" which is actually any result of a Complete Defeat.

Oh yes, that's important.  Mustn't forget to explain that more clearly.  

Show, don't tell. Stomp them.

The mithril leg in my game doesn't always work right either.  Especially in the morning the knee may sometimes bend the wrong way. Interested? :)

Twice as much.

Julie, Bevik kicks your character's dog - I forget his name. Gonna do sometin aboudit?

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

Marginal Defeat bumped to Marginal Victory when my character tried to calm and lead away the first bull.

You mean Minor Victory. Just to be pendantic. :-)

In no case will bump change marginal defeat to marginal victory.

Sounds like the narrator's doing a pretty good job so far on failures.

In the third session Marginal Defeat (I think) when boasting of the cattle raid to the locals at our stead.  I spent no HP.  The GM ruled that people wandered away because the story wasn't gripping and had been going on for too long.

This isn't too bad. But did it lead to further conflict? Also the narrator could have been nicer, and made the problem the wind or something instead of you.

Sometimes a failure is OK as a simple failure, however. Once in a while.

I'd have had somebody in the crowd get insulted by some element yor character put in the story, and demand an apollogy in front of the crowd or something. But that's just me.

Another Marginal or Minor Defeat retelling the story to the clan chief when offering the cattle.  Again, I didn't bump.  The chief expressed mild displeasure at the raid, saying it was politically unwise to have caused more trouble at the border in the current situation. Not sure what other consequences there were, it felt as if there might have been a reward for my character if I'd succeeded on the roll.  

Hmm. Well one of the things I like about HQ is the mechanical penalty. Did the narrator mention one? Or do you assume that he assigned one? Even if not, I'd have assumed there was one, giving me something to "work out" between me and the chief.

Then two PCs went on Heroquests for One Day.  Each went through their Heroquest's stations. There were a number of Defeats, each of which gave penalties for the next station.  

Again, what's neat is that the penalties automatically mean something in the later context. Just makes things more challenging.

The players grumbled at the difficulty of the resistance.  One player wasn't allowed to go to the last station (Orlanth's taming the bull?  he's a herder) and took it in stride.  

Interesting. Allowed by who?

The other player went through everything (the wifely rug of peace thing) and learnt some new magic ability but seemed exasperated, not sure why.  

Interesting, too.


Anyhow, I wouldn't worry too much about HP expenditures - if you're playing the way I think you will, then they'll use the HP "right." Again, the stomping lesson is important, because it teaches them that even if they don't use HP in contests, it's OK.

Mike

[Doyce]

Yes, it's OK to make fun of cripples in RPGs. Rather, you can't make light of these things such that the character looks less interesting, but you can in such a way as when the character discovers an alternate solution, that the character looks very cool.

Player A: My character is unconscious. Can you pick me up C?
Player B: Wait, you can't carry Big Bill with one arm. Ha ha.
Player C: Damnit Kersten for giving me that! Fine, I kick Big Bill over and over to flip him down the hall.
Player A: Heyyy!
Player C: Whaddaya want? I only got one arm!

Again, I feel the need to provide an example (reading long-ass posts brings me to post myself, I guess).  Anyway.

Once upon a time, about ... hmm... three years ago, there was an RPGA tournament-style competition to design a DnD group in the 3.0 rules.  It was an RPGA club competition, and I was active in the club at the time, so I took part.  The idea was to make up a group of PCs with a kind of wicked interrelated story going on... sort of a built in r-map or something.  Whatever, I didn't have the language to explain it those terms then anyway.

So, in the process of doing this, the group I was working with came up with a mixed Human/Dwarven group that had basically been on a quest for about ten years or so to lift a curse from their respective villages -- both the dwarves and humans had been cursed, basically due to comutual racial ignorance and bigotry.  They hated each other -- they barely got along, and there was a ten-year litany of mistrust and bad choices that got brought up whenever anything at all went wrong.

One of those bad choices had, many years back, resulted in my character losing his right hand.

Now, I'll be honest.  I made up the one-handed guy (and grouchy old scottish-style skald in his mid-forties) simply because I had a good miniature for him -- a guy in a kilt with his bastard sword balanced on his shoulder and held with his left hand, and pointing forward with his right arm, the stump of his wrist wrapped in a tartan-patterned cloth.  It was badass.

I honestly never intended to play the guy.  Seriously.  We were supposed to make up the group, write up the history, submit it, and that was it.  (We won the national contest, btw... it was a pretty cool group.)

Thing is, everyone wanted to play these poor screwed up bastards after we got done, so we found a GM to run the group and played.

Which left me with a one-handed guy... in DnD... a system where there's no mechanical in game benefit at all to such a handicap.

* You can NOT quietly open a door and sneak into a room with your weapon drawn, if you only have one hand -- if you want to enter a room with a weapon out, you HAVE to kick it in -- that's the facts.

* Hugging your daughter when you're in a dangerous area is flat out of the question.

* Forget about playing instruments as a skald -- everything you do is acapella.

* Mounted combat is... well, better to be avoided.  Missile combat isn't even a thought in your head -- you charge.  That's it.

* Even clasping your companion's arm in a way that indicates you and the dwarven leader are finally coming to an understanding is different.

My point is -- there is almost no moment in the game where you are not forcibly reminded that you are missing that hand -- the fact that you continue on despite that is ... a huge statement about your character.  It changed the way I thought about playing handicaps in RPGs.

Imagine having the same handicap in a game that can support the story elements of it (not the Hero-system disads, but the story elements).  Just makes me hungry to dust that guy off and convert him.

[Doyce]

Now, for the record, I'm not volunteering Gennadi to lose a hand, Mike :)

Though if I get caught with that idol...  hmm.