Clinton Does Glorantha

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'm very excited that I've finally found a group that wants to play HeroQuest. After we finished up our excellent game of Dogs in the Vineyard, we shuffled the group around a bit and have just done character creation for HeroQuest.

There's not a one of us that have role-played in Glorantha before. I've got several of the Hero Wars/HeroQuest books, mainly focusing on Heortling culture.

I put a constraint on the game by specifying the area in which we would play. It's the Alone region, west of Alda-Chur, in northern Sartar. If that didn't make sense, or you want to know more, you can find all the game info at:

http://random.average-bear.com/TheAloneWar/Alone

Character creation
So, we haven't played yet. Character creation has happened, though, and was very different than I expected.

My group of players is an interesting one. I'm bringing in two players from my Dogs in the Vineyard game. One is pretty happy with anything he hasn't played. The other likes new stuff, too, but is pretty non-plussed by fantasy. Upon further questioning, I found he doesn't like it because it's too black-and-white with its morality. I'm hoping HeroQuest cures this for him. The other players are recommended by the first two. They are both acquaintances of mine, but no one I've played with before.

The characters we ended up with are great! They definitely aren't your regular characters, though. I may have focused on the rules before the setting when trying to sell the game, giving them the want to see how far the rules stretch.

Good news: the rules stretch a lot.

Bad news: well, not bad news, but, man... weird characters.

Starting with the most normal, we've got a Heortling war engineer. He went to Alda-Chur as a youth, apprenticed under a clockmaker, didn't like it, hated the Lunars because they were wealthy, moved home, and makes siege engines with his clock-building knowledge. This player, I considered "the heart" in my Dogs game, and he's totally taking the lead in this game in being the connection between the oddballs and the culture. He's a lay leader in his temple (Orlanth, the storm god, Destor-flavor) and quite wealthy.

We've got an "aphid herder" from the Vale of Flowers, a human-seeming insectoid hermaphrodite that is travelling and now worships Ernalda (goddess of the earth). Seriously. You might think, this isn't Glorantha. It seems to fit really well to me, though. It's the perfect campaign for it: Alone was been so ravaged that they'll let anybody in as long as they're down with Orlanth. I'm actually putting my money on this character being the primary motivator later. I'll discuss where I'm taking this, and it'll be clear.

Next, a Humakti (god of death) assassin from an ancient subcult with only a few members. Each takes a name from a part of the body. He's the Left Hand of Humakt. They go out in society as sleepers, and will show their true selves when orders come to enact Humakt's will. I'm pretty down with this, especially because it screams, "Hey, GM! What's up with the Right Hand? What if we get different orders?"

Lastly, a worshipper of Maran Gor (goddess of battle, earthquakes, and "quakebeasts"), a powerful priestess - the only devotee - who rides a tremendous war beast. (I'm thinking something like a rhino. This is the one character we didn't finish writing up, although her narrative is done.) She has two hearts.

So, you can see my Glorantha freak-show on parade here. I'm super-excited, though. By Being a total outside force, they've shaped what I want to do with the game completely.

Bait-and-switch Glorantha
Armed with these characters, I've planned a campaign. My original thoughts were something like this:

Trapped between trolls to the east, one type of sun-worshippers to the north, and a tribe converted to foreign sun-worship and Lunar-ism to the east, what will the survivors of Alone do? How will they survive? And will they fight back?

Sounds pretty good to me.

But, these characters demand something closer to them. Reading a crazy thread (Syncretism in HQ) in the HeroQuest forum helped me out. You see, all of these characters except the Orlanthi worship gods and goddesses found in multiple pantheons. And each of the outside forces worship some of the same gods and goddesses. The ones they differ on are usually different approaches to the same idea. (Orlanth/Doburden, Yelmalio/Elmal.) The only big guys around that stick out are the Red Goddess and Argar Argan, the Son of Night. And the only real obstructionist is Orlanth. The foreigners are down with most gods, but Orlanth won't join up.

Ernalda is common to each tribe or clan involved here. This is really interesting.

Basically, someone's got to give. Someone's got to say, "Ok, maybe I'm wrong, and the right way to worship is like this." There's four major forces - Lunars, a rebel tribe, the Elmal-ites, and the Darkness guys - all around, and any two could join together with nothing more than a little different viewpoint. With a fairly major change, three could join together. And that would change everything - a shift in power means one side basically wins.

So, I'm going to show them the enemy. And the enemy will be nice. They'll help them out, and give them food, and mention, "Hey, have you heard about this god? He's pretty great."

I think the outcome will be awesome. Me, I'm kind of rooting for the Lunars.

[Eero Tuovinen]

I think the outcome will be awesome. Me, I'm kind of rooting for the Lunars.

How could you! They're imperialistic synchretists who fail to appreciate indigenous cultures for their own sake! They're eeeeeviiiilll!!!

That seems like a great campaign. I bought the Hero Wars Orlanthi source books for dirt cheap at Conklaavi a couple of weeks ago, and have been thinking how this exact cultural question is the thing I'm really interested in in the Gloranthan setting. It's Monoculture against the world in no uncertain terms, if you know what I mean (and you do if you've been reading the Push forum...).

It's a shame that getting a leisurely exploration-derived game going seems so difficult these days. I'd really like to play a basic, Kings of Dragonpass -inspired Orlanthi game with some deep people, but what to do? Seems pretty impossible with the society we have nowadays.

Do keep us apprised of how you manage with the game.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Just so you can feel linked up with Gloranthan role-playing, that is a classic assortment of Dragon Pass characters to start with.

And yeah, there are lots of Lunar sympathizers out there, even if most Gloranthan textual material has historically tended to favor Sartarite rebels. In fact, I suggest you include a very reasonable and helpful Seven Mothers NPC who is absolutely up to no bad things at all.

And who therefore would obviously have a huge bullseye painted on him or her as far as every single other person in the area is concerned.

Best,
Ron

[paulkdad]

Me, I'm kind of rooting for the Lunars.

Bah! Trolls and darkness all the way... that is, if they don't eat the insectoid hermaphrodite first! ;^)

I have done a lot of playing in Glorantha (but none with the HQ rules), and your setting sounds great. I'd also second Ron's suggestion for a sympathetic Seven Mothers cultist, but I'd look at someone with Death Rune associations (which would connect with three of your PCs), like a Yanafal Tarnils member (or group). And I have to say, that is the most interesting Ernalda character I have ever seen.

Plus, I would suggest getting one of these t-shirts for your Orlanthi player:
http://www.cafepress.com/orlanthi.11966832

Obstructionist, indeed!

[Mike Holmes]

In fact, I suggest you include a very reasonable and helpful Seven Mothers NPC who is absolutely up to no bad things at all.

I have to say that you only hear phrases like this in Hero Quest prep. The possible courses of action are just sooo...

Clubbing an innocent nun over the head with your warclub? Priceless.

And Paul, Trolls eating the insect hermaphrodite? You mean worshiping, surely...  http://www.glorantha.com/library/religions/cult-gorakiki.html

OHMIGOD somebody stop me, I'm making Glorantha references!

Mike

[paulkdad]

And Paul, Trolls eating the insect hermaphrodite? You mean worshiping, surely...

Not actually. I spent too many sessions with Trollpak to forget why Trolls have an insect god. From the Gorakiki description:

This cult allows the domestication of insects and flourishes among trolls ... Among other things, the cult promises worshipers that they will have insect food after death.

Pets and food. I dunno... would the insectoid PC consent to being a lapdog? Or better yet, how does it respond when the other PCs are screaming, "Feed them the aphids! Feed them the aphids!" ;^)

Gloranthan Trolls... gotta love 'em. Much more unlikely heroes than the silly old Lunars.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

We had our first real session of HeroQuest last night, and, man, awesome.

First up, the game was short. We tightened up the characters and added a new one, a sort of Heortling atheist courier lady. (Seriously! And I said there were no atheists in Sartar. Guess I was wrong.) If you'd like to see our troupe of oddities, check out http://random.average-bear.com/TheAloneWar/CharacterSheets. I'm highly recommending you look at them if you're at all interested in HeroQuest. They'll give you a good idea of what you can do in the game. Many keywords were made up on the spot.

Cows Are Not Fond of Rhinos
I committed a serious GMing sin - I kind of used a pre-written adventure. "High Pressure Front" from the HeroQuest rulebook just seemed to fit so well for our area, though. I did vastly change the motivations in the scenario.

The Black Oak Clan (boo! hiss!) has used a cattle raid to hide their capture of the Alone Clan chieftain's son, Derik. They have hired an outside messenger (see above new character) to relay their ransom demands - either pay 10 cattle to the Black Oaks, or renounce Orlanth.

The setup scenes for this were really fun. I've never run HQ before, so my first simple contest - a group one - was a little poorly run, but we did have a great little bit. Si-Naak was storming down toward the cattle raiders on her granite rhino, and I had her roll to see if she got their first. She fumbles, I critical. Ouch. But, how to narrate that? I can't make her look stupid in the first scene. My Sorcerer and Sword GMing tools came back to me and the rhino launches itself down the hill, going too far and landing right in the middle of the cattle, scattering them in every direction, with four raiders surrounding Si-Naak. That was an awesome scene, and got better when she summoned a wave of earth to knock everyone around ass-over-teakettle.

Anyway, the PCs get roped into delivering these 10 cattle. No one's going to stop worshipping Orlanth. Also, somehow, the Alone Clan came off as a bunch of buffoons. I have a hard time playing multiple NPCs at once, and an entire hall of angry Orlanthi - well, I kept making jokes at their expense, in their voices.

The PCs decide early on - with the exception of the neutral messenger - that they'll deliver the cattle, but then they're going to raid the Black Oaks back, as to bring more glory to themselves. Only one of these people is actually a member of the Alone Clan, but the clan has been real friendly to them.

Meet the Peoples
So, the characters took a little overland journey. It's about a 25 mile trek to Ironspike, the home of the Black Oak Clan, from Alone. The first day, all I did was introduce some real Lunars. Not Lunarized Heortlings - these guys were the real thing, a tax collector and his four bodyguards. The characters decided not to screw around with him and were nice as he passed.

The second day of the trip was more exciting: an unnatural thunderstorm rolled in from the northeast - the Great Storm's direction - attempting to batter the holy crap out of our fearless travelers. The one true Orlanthi recognized the storm as unnatural and found a big nice cave to hole up in. The Black Lightning Gang, a group of rebel raiders, surrounded them. After some futile dialogue, ("Give us the wealth!" "This stuff is just paste, really!" "You are a liar!") the Black Lightning started whipping down literally-arcing spears. Our messenger whipped out some karate, snuck behind them, and cut down the leader while the rest of the heroes either smacked around raiders or ate mud, depending.

This kind of took the piss out of everyone, and they decided to actually talk. The raiders are Orlanthi, these guys are kind of Orlanthi, and they both don't like Black Oaks. So, our heroes earned their passageway, with a promise that they'll make it easy for the Bluefoot (the raiders) to get in Ironspike's hill fort and raid the crap out of the Black Oaks.

And that was the game for one night. Next week, they'll find the Black Oaks are decent folk that just happen to not worship Orlanth and really want Alone to get on the bandwagon.

What we did right
The story and dialogue were good. The players surprised me often with their tactics (the earthquake god-talker was great at this) and their ideas for the story.

I think as an introduction to HQ, this went great. Each contest, I introduced something new. I showed improvisation with the first one, augments with the second, and hammered home augments throughout the rest of the game. By the end, everyone was figuring out their own augments.

What we did wrong
I felt like there were pacing issues. In some ways, it felt like I rushed from set-piece to set-piece. This can be attributed to us starting late, and the inevitable "beginning-a-new-campaign" awkwardness.

The first group simple contest was awful: I kept letting people go again without real resolution. ("The raider is knocked back, but is getting up. What do you do now?") I did get it about 5 minutes in, though, and made each roll definitive.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Clinton,

Any augmenting? This is a big deal.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Cool!

Looking at the character sheets, I note that your template says "Choose Two of the Above" in the section for keywords. Is this just a balancing mechanism you threw in?

I'm wondering what you mean about the first Group Simple Contest. You're saying that Clinton "Master of Conflict Resolution" Nixon wasn't resolving conflicts but doing task resolution? Really? How did that end up happening? Or am I misreading the problem?

How many augments were they using in the contests near the end? What was the most anyone used?

The Complete Defeat for the Rhino Rider should have had a permenant effect. Well, you don't have to inflict such, but I find that it really is best if you do so. Otherwise the events don't have mechanical teeth. Complete defeats seem less interesting, otherwise. So did you alter the character somehow after the defeat? Like giving them a "Reputation as a Crazy Rider" ability trait or something like that?

In general, did you apply the penalties from contests? How did you assign them?

Mike

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Hi Clinton,

Any augmenting? This is a big deal.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

As I wrote above:

I think as an introduction to HQ, this went great. Each contest, I introduced something new. I showed improvisation with the first one, augments with the second, and hammered home augments throughout the rest of the game. By the end, everyone was figuring out their own augments.

There was plenty o' augmentin'. Feats (from different affinities) augmenting each other works well, especially Raise Earth augmenting Earth Tremor. Another good one was the aphid-herder using Leap Like A Flea with Daggerlike Spines. A favorite, because it showed the players really getting the system, was the aphid-herder again augmenting her attack with her beetle's Run Fast, as she was mounted on it.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Cool!

Looking at the character sheets, I note that your template says "Choose Two of the Above" in the section for keywords. Is this just a balancing mechanism you threw in?

Species keywords aren't well defined in the main rulebook, in my opinion. Do you get one in addition to homeland? Or in addition to occupation? I dunno. I noticed in everyone's narrative that they tended to use two, so I went with that. You can be an aphid-herder from the Vale of Flowers, or an Ijanji god-talker. Or a Heortling war-engineer.

I'm wondering what you mean about the first Group Simple Contest. You're saying that Clinton "Master of Conflict Resolution" Nixon wasn't resolving conflicts but doing task resolution? Really? How did that end up happening? Or am I misreading the problem?

See, that's a misconception, the whole "master of conflict resolution" thing. So, yeah, I did use task resolution for a while. I got out of it as soon as I saw what I was doing.

How many augments were they using in the contests near the end? What was the most anyone used?

Always at least one. I think I saw three abilities augmenting a fourth once. They did use a lot, including personality traits ("Brave" to attack a raider in the midst of softball-sized hail.)

The Complete Defeat for the Rhino Rider should have had a permenant effect. Well, you don't have to inflict such, but I find that it really is best if you do so. Otherwise the events don't have mechanical teeth. Complete defeats seem less interesting, otherwise. So did you alter the character somehow after the defeat? Like giving them a "Reputation as a Crazy Rider" ability trait or something like that?

In general, did you apply the penalties from contests? How did you assign them?

I know, I know. It was her first roll ever in HeroQuest, five minutes in. I didn't think of giving her a new trait, but that would have worked. The penalties, I did apply, but they didn't come up too much, because people backed down when they got penalties. The war-engineer got a hefty one in the final fight, and as soon as he realized continuing to fight would mean he blew at it, he backed off.

First game, there'll be some mistakes. Like when I'm playing a new song on the uke, though - you can't really noticed the flubbed chord when I'm singing loud and you're having a good time. It felt exactly like that: I noticed that I missed a chord, but they didn't.

[Mike Holmes]

Species keywords aren't well defined in the main rulebook, in my opinion. Do you get one in addition to homeland? Or in addition to occupation? I dunno.

Basically, if you don't have a species keyword it's built into your homeland. You'll note that a few homelands have physical characteristics in the homeland package. To paraphrase Rory on the subject, "If there's an Heortling Warrior of Humakt, and he has a brother who is a Duck Heortling Warrior of Humakt, yes, the duck has one more keyword than his brother."

Always at least one. I think I saw three abilities augmenting a fourth once. They did use a lot, including personality traits ("Brave" to attack a raider in the midst of softball-sized hail.)

Cool. Didn't have any with like ten augments tho, huh? It happens, and it's a good sign, IMO, when it does.

The war-engineer got a hefty one in the final fight, and as soon as he realized continuing to fight would mean he blew at it, he backed off.

Did you look to use earlier ones later? My advice is to list them like abilities (you'll note that some of my character templates actually have a section on the character sheet for them now on the wiki - those under Kaitaine). Give them names to indentify the sort of problem like "Totally Embarrased" or "Broken Leg". This gives you a better idea of when they can be used and when not.

Because it's great when the effects of one contest come into play in an unexpected way later. Given the conflict resolution system, actually, rarely should penalties come into play right away. They almost always take a while to find a place to express themselves.

First game, there'll be some mistakes.

Hell, of course there will be. Sounds a lot better than my first stab at these rules, truth be told. You're doing great, and, knowing you, will be a master I bet about some time in the second session. :-)

Mike

[Ian Cooper]

I'm very excited that I've finally found a group that wants to play HeroQuest.

Hey welcome aboard.

Basically, someone's got to give. Someone's got to say, "Ok, maybe I'm wrong, and the right way to worship is like this."

There is one other avenue open here - they could forge a new path. A 'hero band' can be just a community with a guardian being. However an aspect of the Hero Wars is that it is the end of the age, when the old certainities fail and are replaced. New ways of thinking and acting come to the fore. The disparate nature of your band make them the very kind of people who might establish something new. 'The old world failed us, we want a new world'. The Hero Wars are when the marginalized, the outsiders, the rejects, the freaks step up and say 'see your world is broken, so you better listen to us, we have a new and better way of living.'

And one of the ideas here is that the winners decide the fate of the next age the memes that thrive and the memes that die.

But, hell just have fun.

[Christopher Weeks]

Clinton, Have you guys set any kind of duration to your game?  Has that colored what you or the other players have done?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Clinton, Have you guys set any kind of duration to your game?  Has that colored what you or the other players have done?

No, although at the beginning, when some people had reservations, since they hadn't seen the game before, we said we'd play three sessions and then see how we liked it.

If it's up to me, this will be a fairly long game (for me, again) - probably 20-30 sessions.