[Heroquest] Serenityquest

[screen_monkey]

Hi Jeff,

The issue isn't abut 'enforcing character actions via abilities' - it's about making interesting contests that just happen to be occuring entirely within a character's head.

So with Kip not taking the money, it wasn't me moralising or saying 'taking money is wrong, 'mokay?' it was actually me saying, 'Hey, there's a conflict here, guys - let's play it out.'

As far as I see it, this sort of internal conflict is no different, in Heroquest, than an external one.  I want to do something, there is something trying to stop me doing it, I enter a contest to overcome it.  If I succeed, I get to do what I want.  If I don't succeed I don't get to do some or all of my intended action.

As for labels regarding Narrativism and Sim - well, I don't know what I want to do in reards to these labels.  I'm interested in Narritivist ideas, but I see no reason to follow dogma in order to fit a game entirely into a single category. 

My intention with the game is to throw up interesting dramatic conflicts for the players to resolve, with no predetermined idea of what the outcome of the conflict will be, and with no predetermined narrative path that the players must follow.  Does that have a name?

[droog]

Okay, perhaps I expressed it badly and that's why it comes across as dogmatic. I'll try to get a little more concrete.

If the GM initiates these sorts of contests, he's removing the ability to make a choice in a moral issue--address premise. You're locking the player into a statistical pattern of behaviour. That works in Pendragon because the aim is to evoke Arthurian legend and make the character act like one of Malory's. But it takes this elaborate infrastructure to maintain the dream: numerous sub-systems (hunting and falconry, land management etc), solo scenarios, lots of adventures and adventure seeds, complete campaign, etc.

HQ isn't that sort of game and doesn't have that sort of support for simulationism, especially when you're using much skimpier resource material than Glorantha. I think that's why J is asking about tighter definition of abilities. You want to know how your character might be forced to act (in PD this is already obvious from the standardised Traits and Passions). It's worth asking why C didn't seem to mind the Traits/Passions in PD, yet isn't happy about this development.

I think that the crucial difference between what you called external and interpersonal conflicts on one hand, and intrapersonal on the other, is that those intrapersonal conflicts are the heart of this form of play. You were quite right to emphasise their importance. But it's right there that the player ought to be creating story by his decision. The other sorts of conflicts help determine the outcomes of the decisions made.

[screen_monkey]

Okay, perhaps I expressed it badly and that's why it comes across as dogmatic. I'll try to get a little more concrete.

If the GM initiates these sorts of contests, he's removing the ability to make a choice in a moral issue--address premise. You're locking the player into a statistical pattern of behaviour. That works in Pendragon because the aim is to evoke Arthurian legend and make the character act like one of Malory's. But it takes this elaborate infrastructure to maintain the dream: numerous sub-systems (hunting and falconry, land management etc), solo scenarios, lots of adventures and adventure seeds, complete campaign, etc.

HQ isn't that sort of game and doesn't have that sort of support for simulationism, especially when you're using much skimpier resource material than Glorantha. I think that's why J is asking about tighter definition of abilities. You want to know how your character might be forced to act (in PD this is already obvious from the standardised Traits and Passions). It's worth asking why C didn't seem to mind the Traits/Passions in PD, yet isn't happy about this development.

I think that the crucial difference between what you called external and interpersonal conflicts on one hand, and intrapersonal on the other, is that those intrapersonal conflicts are the heart of this form of play. You were quite right to emphasise their importance. But it's right there that the player ought to be creating story by his decision. The other sorts of conflicts help determine the outcomes of the decisions made.

In order to make the intrapersonal conflict important, it has to be dramatised.  to dramatise something in Heroquest, it has to be a contest.

As I said in my earlier post, the player does make decisions about what his character wants to do.  And in all cases he or she may not be able to do them.  But this is true also of External and Interpersonal conflicts.

Is there any real difference between...
"I wanted to kill the dragon but my sword skill wasn't good enough", or
"I wanted to kill the dragon but I was too afraid"?

In both cases the character had attempted an action and failed.

[Mike Holmes]

In order to make the intrapersonal conflict important, it has to be dramatised.  to dramatise something in Heroquest, it has to be a contest.

No, I don't think that's true. To make something have suspense mechanically, you need to use contests. But they aren't there to make things more dramatic. It is, in fact, the decisions that players make that lead to contests that are the most dramatic parts.

Is there any real difference between...
"I wanted to kill the dragon but my sword skill wasn't good enough", or
"I wanted to kill the dragon but I was too afraid"?

In both cases the character had attempted an action and failed.

Holy cats, huge difference. Well, depends on how the question is answered, really. That is, if you roll for both, they are the same. But if you allow the player to decide to run of fight with the dragon, then it's an entirely different thing. Surely that's easy to see. In gamism play this is so different it's called cheating.

The way that I play HQ, at least, I read it as the player basically controls the character no matter what. Why bother with the ability ratings like "Moral Compass?" Well, different than systems that force you to follow such tags (will rolls to avoid in GURPs or Hero), what HQ does is to provide you with an incentive to act with your abilities. That is, you can either use them as primary abilites or augment with them. That is, the "penalty" for acting outside one's moral compass is not getting the augment. That's where you as GM step in and say no way, if he asks for it as an augment.

Now, if that seems like scant penalty, that's intended. That is, it's actually quite a feature of the game that characters can go against type whenever the player feels that it's dramatic to do so. This actually makes a statemenet about the character. That is, in the case in question, the player is saying that there was some draw about the situation that made it so that the character could void his moral compass (or at least that he felt that moral compass meant something that wasn't voided by his actions). The player constantly gets to define his character this way.

Note that if the player finds himself messing around with things that seem to go against a moral compass, that he never gets to use it, and may eventually replace it with something else. Only in HQ can a character so easily go to the dark side as by changing one ability like Moral Compass to something like "Good at Rationalizing." (Changing ability names like this is part of the system, but hard to find in the rules). So the character develops over time, instead of the player having to play to the same personality traits forever. His relationship "Loves Isabel" becomes "Hates Isabel" when he finds she's thrown him over for another.

The "automatic success" rule has a clause that says, "any action that a self-respecting hero wouldn't fail at." Well, who decides what such actions are? Yes, you could reserve that right as narrator - there's nothing saying that's an incorrect interpretation. But I choose to make it a group choice, and, in fact, never force any contest on any player that they don't want. That is, if they want to say, "I just get away from the ogre without a fight" I allow it (usually I make them explain how, however). Because it's really only an interesting contest if the player is into it.

This is the part that's sometimes hard to get people to understand about HQ and games like it. The player is not playing to get the character to win contests. He's playing to "display" the character in contests. Augmenting is not about making sure you have the highest TN possible, but about making sure that we know precisely how this character interacts with this contest. This is also why players should feel free to not bump - the choice of whether or not to win a contest should be about drama alone. As the character is a protagonist, sure the player will often want them to win. But it's interesting how often players allow their characters to lose.

The game does not punish losing contests. In fact, to my mind, it rewards it, by giving the player some new problem to contend with (often some mechanical penalty to be eliminated). Key to this is that PCs cannot lose their characters via contests, unless they want to see them go. Oh, sure you can be a mean narrator and make all sorts of contests where the opponent's goal is to actually kill the PC, and then you can interpret the rare complete defeat as dying, and then you can interpret that as nobody being able to help, and you can interpret actual death as the player leaving the game, but it's not good policy to do all of this. Generally come up with more interesting goals for the character's opponents than killing them.

With nothing to worry about in terms of character loss, the player can see character failure as part of the dramatic cycle. Meaning that he'll want to have contests, in fact, he'll want contests that are tough. That's a neat thing about HQ, you can throw foes at your characters who are very likely to win and know that the outcome is only likely to be the cooler for it (instead of depressing character loss). Anyhow, once players are used to regularly losing contests, and enjoy it, then they'll start accepting more contests that might go against character concept too.

All of which is to say that I often propose contests like the one in question between something like Moral Compass, and something else. Heck, with some players (Brand Robbins for one), I don't even have to call for contests. I see the player rolling the dice, looking at their character sheet, and coming up with their decision about what the character does from a quick contest on their own. Because sometimes it is fun to have the suspense of such a contest.

The key is that the player has to want both the possible results of victory and success. Players in my game never run from ogres, because it's way more fun to get mangled by the ogre, and to get to wreak vengeance on it later. In fact, far from asking to avoid the contest, they're more likely to ask for some additional complication:

Player: Hey, Mike, can we make it two ogres?
Narrator Mike: Oh, sure, take advantage of the fact that it's only a -3 for multiple opponents to make your character look real good. Fine, but he's going to augment.
Player: Cool, maybe when they beat my character up, they'll take him back to the secret lair.
Mike: Uh, damn, you beat em. After a furious fight, the pair lie dead at your feet.
Player: Damnit, now how is Ragnar going to find the lair! Hmmm. Can we do a contest to see if Ragnar can keep his spirits up with the search or has to return to the village?
Mike: Cool, what abilities?

Getting a sense?

Mike

[screen_monkey]

I hear what you're saying, and I agree with all of it but the internal contests stuff - I think it's roleplaying gold, and I still regard there being no fundamental difference between the two - the player still decides what they want to do.  There is an obstacle to that action.  What difference does it make what the obstacle is?

[droog]

Exactly--it's roleplaying gold, and that's why it should be in the hands of the players.

The distinction between player and character is crucial. When my character takes an action I am authoring him. When he comes up against obstacles, I, the player, am given further opportunities to author the character (whether he succeeds in his goals or fails).

When I, the player, am balked in my attempt to express my own thematic judgement, my authorial decisons are not obstructed, they are negated. I have been deprived of an opportunity to author my character. I have been deprotagonised.

[Mike Holmes]

If the player decides to run away from the dragon, he's added something to the game. He's made a statement that has meaning. If the dice say that the character runs away from the dragon, then they've made that statement. If the player says, "I want to roll for it" he's saying that he's more interested in the suspense of the roll and would rather have the system decide for him. But in that case, he's made that decision to add that suspense and added that to the game. If you make the player roll, then what has he added? Where was his part of the interaction?

The key to all RPG play, is finding out what it is that players find interesting in terms of input into the game, and then allowing them to add that input. If the system does it for them, it's not interesting.

Mike

[screen_monkey]

If the player decides to run away from the dragon, he's added something to the game. He's made a statement that has meaning. If the dice say that the character runs away from the dragon, then they've made that statement. If the player says, "I want to roll for it" he's saying that he's more interested in the suspense of the roll and would rather have the system decide for him. But in that case, he's made that decision to add that suspense and added that to the game. If you make the player roll, then what has he added? Where was his part of the interaction?

The key to all RPG play, is finding out what it is that players find interesting in terms of input into the game, and then allowing them to add that input. If the system does it for them, it's not interesting.

Mike

Annnyway - i don't think we're going to agree.  Interesting discussion, though.  I must admit I like the idea of allowing the player to choose whether to roll or not.

As an aside Mike, you mentioned the 'changing abilities' rules that were hard to find but worth the search - I hunted through my book last nght but couldn't find it.  Care to give a short sighted kiwi a steer on where to find it?

[Mike Holmes]

The rule in question is implied in several places. Under contest consequences, for instance (though that can be read a number of ways). Further, this is actually standard with relationships per that sections rule on changing the nature of relationships. There's a couple of other places, too.

Then in the narrator advice section it says at one point that the narrator can simply just give players abilities when he thinks it makes sense to do this. Or take them away. Well, changing an ability is just taking one away and giving another.

Now, actually I have a problem with this in that it gives no real good guidlines on how to use this power, and seems to disrupt the otherwise pretty simple cost structures of the game. If a player has to pay to get an ability in one case, why should it be free in another? I could go on (and have in the past) about this particular problem. I think that it's a case of MGF being interpreted as the "golden rule" that the narrator can do anything with the rules he likes as long as it makes the game better. Which I think is bad policy.

But it's pretty clear that the rules on what you can do here are pretty unclear. That is, if you want to alter the name of an ability, you can justify it through the rules. Better yet, I'd recommend simply putting in a flat rule that a player may rename any ability for one HP with narrator approval.

In fact, I actually have a somewhat radical interpretation of the character generation rules. Basically I use all three forms at once with every character. That is, I allow people to write as much as they like, but make the limit on abilities from the narrative the same as for players using the list method, 10 abilities in addition to keyword abilities. I don't require these all to be enumerated before play - most players start in some part "As You Go" therefore. Further, anything that's on the character sheet, I consider tentative until I see it in play. So if you've put down an ability, but we haven't seen the character to possess it yet, then you can change it to something else at any point prior to it's being established in play.

In this way, everyone gets the advantages and limitations of all three methods. And it means that players are free to redesign their characters somewhat into the story in case it turns out that they find themselves having more fun playing the character in a different way than they had previously written them up. And by having the tentative ideas about the character written down in some measure for most characters, the narrator has something to work with on the character sheet (something that doesn't happen when you do As You Go with a blank sheet).

So in my game, I'd see "Moral Compass" on the player's sheet, note that probably means he's interested in moral dilemmas, set up some of these, and then on the first of them the player might decide, "Know what? How about we make that 'Moralistic' instead?"

Again, these are very different forms of play. That is, the form where the character sheet is a contract about how best to portray the character from the start, and the form where the character sheet is a living document that changes over time to represent where the character interests are going. Both are fun ways to play, but you have to choose one of the two ways to play. Either the player has creative control of how the character develops, or the player is under system constraint to play the character as concieved.

BTW, this is not some weird radical notion overall that I'm expounding, but generally considered by a lot of the posters here at The Forge to be a tenet of good play. That is, recognizing which of these sorts of methods of play you prefer, and playing to that preference. Instead of thinking it's all the same.

Mike

[screen_monkey]

The 'as you go' method appeas to me also, since it kind of reflects the experience we have in films and TV - you see a person, know very little about them, and only learn about them through their actions.

[Mike Holmes]

Exactly. It also means that the participants in the game can adjust to things in order to make sure that the character is interesting in the situations that are engineered.

About the time you have all of the abilities down on the paper that are allowed in chargen, then the player starts spending HP to continue this development. That is, keep in mind that players can add new abilities at any time under the "had em all along" clause (costs double by the rules unless you do some finegling in interpretation). Just make sure you're not skimping on the HP.

Mike

[screen_monkey]

Exactly. It also means that the participants in the game can adjust to things in order to make sure that the character is interesting in the situations that are engineered.

About the time you have all of the abilities down on the paper that are allowed in chargen, then the player starts spending HP to continue this development. That is, keep in mind that players can add new abilities at any time under the "had em all along" clause (costs double by the rules unless you do some finegling in interpretation). Just make sure you're not skimping on the HP.

Mike

Verry Nice - I'll use this I think.  I might use the basic '1 HP for in-game changes to abilities, 2 HP for out of game changes to abilities' option.  I'll throw out more HP's to be sure - this will be a good thing for my players, I think, who already are evolving their characters. This game is going really well.  I must post up our latest session to give you an idea of what's been going on.