"What if I need to lift a rock?"

[Fredrik S]

At the beginning of my second ShadowQuest session on of the players commented on the lack of common stats in the system, remarking that it might be difficult to deal  with some tasks not adequately covered by keywords or other abilites. Lifting stuff or breaking free ropes were the examples he used. Now, I don't miss these stats at all, and he didn't really have a problem with their absence either. The problem was that I was hard pressed to explain why this was a feature, and not a bug. Things got a bit joky after that, with jokes about tossing enemies around because 'strength doesn't matter' or putting up St, Ag, Wis etc as abilities. Again, this didn't affect play in any significant way once the jokes died down, but the question was left hanging.
Any tips on how to respond to it?

[Der_Renegat]

I maybe not the best person to answer this, but here are my 2 cents:

all the abilities a character has, are the things in which he is exceptional. Every other ability has a rating of 6, but whats really important is:  whatever a character is trying to accomplish has to be dramatically significant.
If theres no drama, no challenge - no need for a contest and no need for an ability.

But lets assume a character is buried under a boulder and someone tries to rescue him without having "Strength" on his charactersheet:
other abilities might be used, like for instance a relationship with an improvisational modifier, which is way cooler i think. Or a strength with the default of 6 augmented by that relationship.

all the best

Christian

[Fredrik S]

Nod nod. I'm right with you. The important question isn't as much "how do I break down the door" as "why do you need to".
I tried to use the same line of reasoning, but I didn't manage to explain it properly, so I got a response along the lines of; "yes yes, the system is a bit odd in that respect, but I'm sure it'll work fine anyway and we won't let it bother us." So we're all cool with the system, I'm just wondering, if it should come up again, how to explain that it's not a flaw.
Hmm.. using the most relevant ability with an improv penalty, eh? Yes, that does sound like a good workable solution.

[Der_Renegat]

Well the system isnt odd at all, it makes perfectly sense, but its sometimes a bit hard to wrap your head around it and at the same time let go of old habits, we are used to have from "traditonal" rpg´s.
I think the problem starts with talking about flaws, where no flaw is and admitting that its odd where its not odd at all. :-)

I think HQ is really an esoteric rpg in the meaning of:
you need a very deep understanding of the philosophy behind the kind of minimalistic rules and how to apply that to your individual game.
HeroWars was published in germany in 2000. I´ve been a member of the yahoo group list, but my real understanding of the game has happened on this forum and it was hard work.
I think you can barely play the game without digging that deep. This is the real flaw if you want to see it like that.

best

Christian

[Mike Holmes]

To follow up on Christian's good answer, I'll put it this way... is it a contest, or isn't it? That is, with lifting a rock, it's probably something that the character either can do or can't. Just pick one, depending on what makes sense.

Rather, how did this rock come to be? It's a far more complex question than you might think. Did the narrator put it in the characters' way as an obstacle? Well, then maybe it should be a contest...basically it's just large enough that we're not sure if they can push it, but not so large that it's not impossible. How much is that? Well, I don't know how many Kilograms that comes down to, nor do I care. Whats important is that everyone be visualizing said rock. So if you put it in terms of what people can do with it, that'll put the same effective vision into their head about the rock.

If you at any time state the precise weight of the rock, then the next time you have a rock show up, you'll get a question as to how much it weighs, and, therefore, whether it can be lifted...after all, one assumes, if I can lift Rock A that weights X, then I can lift any lighter rock. Which is actually bullshit, BTW, it's just how other games inaccurately handle lifting. Ask any weightlifter, and he'll tell you that, when it comes down to a certain range of weight, the question of whether or not you can lift that weight has to do with several factors like motivation, mood, willingness to get hurt, etc. HQ is actually a closer model of reality than all of those other RPGs that fail to take any of this into account.

But I digress.

Another way that a rock can come into being is that the player says, "I pick up a rock." Well, in that case, I think we can assume that the rock he's selecting is of a size he can lift. Rather, he might ask if there is one he could lift, or he might be expecting you to veto such narration saying that no such rock exists. But either way, said rock will not require a contest.

We invoke these rocks as we need them as players, whether that's because we need one for dramatic reasons, or just because it would follow that there might be a rock in a certain place. When wondering if you can lift a particular rock, consider how it got there, and why you put it there in the first place. Is it meant to be one that's small enough to carry? Is it meant to be too large? Is it meant to be at a challenging weight?

If it's a challenging weight, then characters have abilities that they can use to take care of the challenge. Consider this, something I've seen in terms of tests of strength: I've had players argue that their character was stronger than average, because he was a warrior. That weaklings didn't become warriors, and the training and life of a warrior would tend to strengthen one too. So I gave him the keyword level with an improvisational penalty that said that not all warriors were neccessarily strong (basically that if he wanted it for real that he should buy it). Which gave him an ability rating, however, that was higher than the default 6 (IIRC, he was a starting character with Warrior 17, and I gave a  -10, so that gave him a 7 instead of a 6).

(I almost got off on the whole "metagame abilities" rant there, but I'll restrain myself).

But if you want to get really dramatic, then allow the player to use Determined as the primary ability to push the rock (with an improv penalty if you don't want Determined to get used everywhere). This is the key point. For all of these characters, if there's a contest to move a rock, then they all might win or lose (if you've set up a contest that they can't win, then it's not really a contest, is it, it's creating a rock that you need not to move). If they can win or lose, then you have to be able to narrate that. Let's take an example with numbers. If you have a character with Strong 15W, and I have a character with, heck, Weak 15W, and the resistance of the rock to being moved is 15W, that gives you a 15W TN vs my TN 2 (default 6 minus 4 for my weak). You roll a 16 vs the narrator's 14, and get a minor defeat. I roll a 2 vs the narrator's 16, and I have a marginal victory.

I chose reasonable rolls to make the point. The chance of weakling man to win is 10.25%, and for the other guy 47.5%. Meaning that this sort of juxtaposition happens more than 5% of the time when rolling. And you have to be able to explain it. Less extreme examples happen all the time.

How does the weakling lift the rock when the strong guy can't? Well, you have two options in explaining. The first is that you can find the dramatic reason. In play the weakling is probably going to have more like a TN 6 as he augments with his relationship to whatever lies beyond the rock in question. Which means that it turns out that he cares more about what he's doing than the other guy does, perhaps.

Still not good enough? Is that result implausible for you? Then don't roll for the one or the other character. That's your second option. If the stone is small enough for the weak guy to be challenged by it, then roll his Determined vs. a TN set at his own Weak, or something like that, and for the strong guy, lifting this stone is simply something that "no self-respecting hero would fail at." It's not a challenge for that character. But it is for the weak guy. Because he's weak.

The example I use here is that of getting up to a flying friend fastest or something. Let's say your character has wings, and mine has no flying ability at all. The narrator rules that my attempt to use a default Fly 6 gets an improv penalty that makes it an automatic defeat. But your character, since he's competing against mine, gets an automatic victory. Would the game be improved if we had a "stat" for flying and allowed my character to compete in this case? No, just as the game is not improved by allowing any character to roll against something any other character rolls against because they have some stock ability.

The problem here is not that there are "missing" abilities, but that the players aren't getting what abilities are for, and the fact that there's nothing whatsoever missing from any HQ character. In fact, the level to which your character is linked to any particular contest is far higher in HQ than it is in almost any other RPG. Play a bit more, and y'all will see the light.

You want a way to shortcut the explanation? The best Zen-like answer I can think of is, "Dude, we're not playing D&D here."

I also posit that this is in no way, "Odd" but that, in fact, what people are used to in other RPGs is what's really "odd." Your players are just getting used to normalcy here, and finding that wierd after playing other RPGs for so long. Put another way, I've never seen any player new to RPGs have any problem grasping HQ at all (and I've had quite a few in demos).

Mike

[Web_Weaver]

Hi Fredrick,

My views on the whole "strength" thing are expressed elsewhere here, but I believe that the rules and advice in HQ do only a basic job of handling this issue. My best advice is that the rock is a story element, if players want their characters to interact with it they have to have a story based reason to do so. If you ask them why and keep asking until you get to a story driven answer you may find a better way of describing the character's goal and then selecting a skill.

But, I suspect you know that stuff so to confront the "but strength is important in roleplaying games" attitude you have to draw their focus towards the fact that HQ is not trying to model this type of thing. It is an attempt to model stories and focuses on the why rather than the how. The idea is to enrich all of the contests with some dramatic meaning, if it has no meaning then its not important. You can just pick up the rock if its appropriate but it does not follow that you can throw an enemy around as that is more story focused, has a dramatic context, and the enemy would have something to say about it.

On a deeper level:

I think one of the fundamental problems underlying this actual play instance is the lack of a common language for how games work. This is obviously something that the Forge has been working on, but after you draw up models and abstract/categorise game mechanics you have to come back to the real world and put the theory into practice.

This is why the focus of the main Forge threads has turned to actual play, we have to bring this stuff back to the table in some kind of meaningful way.

So, that aside, how do you communicate to players with different views of roleplaying why a game differs and how it affects the actual play? Or, in the face of direct cynicism how do you put over the message. (My day job is training, so I do this everyday, but it is the main challenge of the job and never easy.)

I would suggest you post this into the actual play forum and see what response it gets there. You may get some interesting feedback. You may also get a bit of jargon but Ron and others are trying desperately to strip this away from the practical advice, so try asking for suggestions without jargon.

[droog]

I think your group is coming from the perspective that there are certain tasks to be accomplished in roleplaying games, and that there must be a means for them to be accomplished. What I've found, rather, is that players get into conflicts suitable to their abilities. There are no strongman characters in the game I'm currently running, so nobody has found the need to lift rocks. As GM, I have not found the need to throw situations involving lifting rocks at them. You play to the characters' abilities, and so do the players.

[Raedwald Bretwalda]

Rather, how did this rock come to be?... Did the narrator put it in the characters' way as an obstacle?

To which I'd add:

Why do you want your character to lift or push the rock? Why not go over it using Jump or Fly? Or use Local Area Knowledge to find an alternate route?

Is removing the rock the only current objective or problem to solve? Can some other characters (perhaps NPCs) move the rock while your character does something else? Why not treat those injured in the rock slide, using First Aid? Or convince them to push on regardless, using Inspiring Leadership.

[Fredrik S]

Thanks guys. Good answers; I really got all I asked for and more.

As web weaver implied, the problem was less with my understanding of the issue than with my ability to explain it (which implies an incomplete understanding, but that is why we have experience. Or Hero Points, as it may be). I have to repeat that the while the question of lifting rocks or gates was raised, it was raised as a hypothetical question before play began. In practice the problem will solve itself as long as challenges are set appropriately, emphasising the interesting kinds of questions. "Shut up and pay attention" isn't always the best way of answering questions though. :)

Mike: Nice demonstration of numbers. Important to keep in mind that even a default value of 6 can can give you a fair chance of success in many circumstances.

[Web_Weaver]

Hi Fredrik,

You are correct that demonstration is one of the best ways to put across your views and style. However, I do think that it is worth tackling any doubts that players express about either the way a game works or any negative comments about realism etc. Negativity (even in jest) can spread quickly and have serious knock-on effects.

If you are going down the demonstration route, it is worth pointing out after the game how any initial concerns were addressed by the system, or using reassurance when objections arise, and introducing scenes later that help clarify the techniques that you are using.

In other words, you need your players to buy-in to the rules or techniques that you have chosen, and any investment in time taken to ensure this will pay dividends in the long run.

[Ian Cooper]

I think your group is coming from the perspective that there are certain tasks to be accomplished in roleplaying games, and that there must be a means for them to be accomplished.

This is so true. When I first started writing Hero Wars adventures I fell back on the models I understood from other games: An adventure consists of a series of challenges to be overcome, each of which tests the kind of abilities adventurers ought to have like Move Quietly, Climb, Swim etc. My adventures were very linear. As time moved on I began to understand that this was not the best approach. Partially the understanding came from sites like the Forge, but partially it also came from the observation that the most fun we had with Hero Wars and HeroQuest came from the scenarios where we had a situation and setting instead of a linear set of tasks because then we could decide how to capitalize on our heroes' strengths - the things we put on our character sheets - to overcome the obstacle. So a locked door never barred the way to adventure, but if I had lock picking as an ability I might propose some plan where it would help us win through. Once you get that key distinction in how you write scenarios things move much more smoothly. Then you might want to ask about conflict vs. task resolution or read Chris Chinn's piece on Flag Framing: http://bankuei.blogspot.com/2006/02/flag-framing_03.html

So sure they can try and lift the heavy rock with 6, but you soon find the question drops away when you don't have characters who have not taken a strong man as their flags and don't solve their problems by lifting rocks.

It is a really interesting example of how learned expectations, set our view of how the universe works. It was a really big issue for a lot of early Hero Wars players, because they found it very hard to 'unlearn' those expectations.