HeroQuest - Testosterone-filled Imperial goodness

[Jason Morningstar]

Hey, we played again on Monday and it was fun.  I felt like I had some traction and could affect change.  The main thing we learned is that we absolutely shouldn't roll the dice for minor conflicts where everybody more or less wants the same thing.  I had an early conflict where my guy's sergeant, Hafni (who I have a 6M relationship with) was distrusting and disrespecting me in front of our platoon.  We had a conflict in which I wanted to speak with him alone, which would have been great, and I critically failed, which was a little anticlimactic. 

I'm really pleased with the way things have gone for my character - he's straddling the fence between two worlds, with a wife and family in each, and the center cannot hold.  He went to extraordinry lengths to stay in balance but that just can't last.  He's going to have to make a really awful choice next session.  Good stuff.  Also, after three weeks of cooperative play, Remi and I are going to be at each other's throats next session, which is the usual default.  We'll settle into it like a pair of broken-in shoes. 

[Frank Tarcikowski]

In the introduction, of course, the rebel barbarians tried to kill him as he was out whoring, because that's how we roll.

I gotta play with you guys some day.

- Frank

[Ian Cooper]

I'll try to offer some help where I can

Power levels of opposition on HeroQuests
Remember that you can heroquest at a number of levels.
The 'practice heroquest' is great for beginning games. It is a 'mobile ritual' in that in takes place in the real world. So you dress up as Orlanth and re-enact what he did in this world. So if Orlanth raided the nieghbours and stole their magic cow, you dress up as Orlanth and go do the same thing. Because these are real world opponents the numbers can be more manageable for beginning characters (but of course you can get suprised by what the real world summons up for you). The real advantage to me often is that the opponents can be drawn into the quest or identified by the quester. Want to go up against Harvar, perhaps you identify him as the Emperor in your practice quest and challenge him to the contests of music and war. (Of course the twist is that Harvar may resist the pull and you end up with someone else but that all grist for the GM's mill)

An otherworld heroquest has a number of levels too. Think of taking part as a 'communal' member as being an extra in a movie. You don't get any starring moments but get to fight against the evil horde etc. Effectively you are playing as a supporter or companion. I tend to play these as one-moment heroquests - cut to the part that the hero gets their moment to act in the myth and play that out.

Finally there are quests that center around stories of heroes. These will have much lower numbers. My players did an early quest based around a tale of a boy who outwits and drives off some wolves to give them Telmori killing magic. Many of these tales echo the tales of the gods.

[Ian Cooper]

We had a conflict in which I wanted to speak with him alone, which would have been great, and I critically failed, which was a little anticlimactic.

Mike Holmes has a couple of great articles on running HeroQuest that are worth reading. One is Failure is Always an Option (http://www.glorantha.com/support/na_defeat.html) and the other is Not Heresies (http://www.glorantha.com/support/na_heresies.html)

With the de-commisioning of the Forge forum for HeroQuest a lot of the old Forve HeroQuesters now hang at Master's of Luck and Death (http://molad.org/forum/), which was put together as a new home for them. It can be worth asking questions there.