Heroquest 2: what does the system add?

[Alexander Julian]

[epweissengruber]

What Genre/Setting/Style decisions did you make prior to play?

Can you give any examples of the GM deciding what a "Stretch" was in the particular context?

What about setting Target Numbers based on dramatic logic and prior successes by players?

Did the GM track the success curve of the group or were Target Numbers tailored to each character?

If you can give some specific application of the new rules it would help further the discussion of HQ2's merits or faults.

I can't see any mention of these new rules so we can't discuss if the new edition helps or not.

[Callan S.]

Hi Alexander, just not sure what you mean here

Now this is a pretty cool outcome. The important point to remember here...

Do you mean more

Now this is a pretty cool outcome. But despite that, it's important point to remember here...

I'm not sure whether you like it and want to describe whats underneath that, or you liked the result but don't like what potential lurks underneath?

[Alexander Julian]

[Callan S.]

Don't vampire and cyberpunk have the 'golden' rule in their text somewhere? The GM's just as capable of veto in those, invoking the golden rule, isn't he? I wouldn't say your any more empowered in those games. Not that I'm advocating the golden rule or vetoing as part of a design.

[Alexander Julian]

[epweissengruber]

1) Conflict Resolution Mechanic

OK.  HQ2 is making formal the steps of resolution that were laid out in HQ2.

- What HQ2 does is add prescribed levels of resistance based on what kind of successes or failures have taken place earlier in the story.  A party that has had high levels of success earlier will have to face stiffer opposition on a test than a party which has been scraping along and doing poorly.  Was there any evidence your Narrator was following these rules (note: Laws gives Narrators the power to set whatever resistances they wish.  But that, to me, is a little like saying "from time to time ignore these rules if you wish to surprise your players."  He likes illusionism -- it's not my cup of tea.  But the rules add simple to follow steps for setting resistances and for determining numerical consequences.  When I playtested the rules my players didn't mind me setting resistances by making open and explicit reference to Laws rules for setting resistances.)

Player chooses states means/tactics of getting prize

- True.  One auxiliary augment is possible too.  So a description of the tactics that does not take into account the one main ability being used and the associated augment would go against the spirit of the laws.  Here, HQ2 avoidsthe problems of interminable description of all the possible augments being brought in.  HQ2 has added a rule that penalizes players for using the same ability+augment combos again and again.  This is a good addition.  It extends a rule over the Shared Imaginary Space, one that makes sure every player can contribute his/her share and prevent monopolization.  And it speeds up establishment of the SIS and the resolution of the conflict.  Doubleplus good.

GM sets resistance using pass/fail or by assigning number

It is in this area that HQ2 has a number of additions to the HQ1 basic mechanic.  There are now RULES for establishing resistance rather than assuming that common sense or reference to published material or even pre-planned ability ratings for the NPCs will establish the resistance numbers.  The numbers and the consequences of die rolls have stayed pretty much the same.  But the rolling mechanic has been incorporated into a system for co-ordinating player-declared actions and Narrator-set challenges and resistances with prior higher-order decisions about what kind of stories will be gamed by a particular group in a particular campaign.  Sorcerer's setting-creation mechanics and the diagram on the back of the character sheet do come to mind.  In both cases, many players seem to regard them as "fluff" or Colour surrounding the real mechanics.  Wrong.  They are qualitative/content-laden mechanics that set the quantitative values that are then subjected to Fortune (die rolls) or Drama (the Hero Points of HQ1 and 2).

- New Narrative Rules: True, but you as the player should be aware of the process by which that number is derived.  The Premise/Setting/Genre decisions made during Character Creation -- which should also be called Setting creation -- dictate what counts as a standard use of an ability or a Stretch.  These framing devices have been added to HQ2 and are a triple-good thing.  Now, there is no more saying "we a playing in Glorantha," with the attendant assumption that a 12 year veteran of of the Lunar Army in Sartar will in all likelihood ferret out a hiding 12 year old peasant girl.  In a "Pseudo-Historical Chronicle" the resistances and abilities will probably result in the girl getting caught.  In "Pre-adolescent Kids save the Village" taking place in the "Young Adult Fantasy Fiction" Genre, the girl will likely escape.  It took me multiple readings and playings to get the significance of this hammered into my head.  But these added rules now make the game an engine for gaming out kinds of stories, not a mechanism for gaming Glorantha.  I don't know if the Glorantha-focused materials are bringing these framing devices apparent to players and Narrators, but they should.  These rules are the most dramatic and radical addition that Laws has made to the HQ1 engine and they should be embraced.  Playing Prime Time Adventures would be the best practice for HQ2 gaming, not playing HQ1 or Runequest.

- New Resistance-Setting Rules: So the setting is Glorantha.  But if the Genre is "Swashbuckling," using a "Dashing Hero" to swing across the room on a chandelier is not a Stretch whereas in "Mitchner-esque Historical Epic" it would be: in such a situation the player has a limited chance to accomplish something spectacular. The addition of "Stretch" rules make the setting of rules a subject for rational communication between players and Narrators.

- Niche Protection is an addition: Player choice of wording, with reference to higher-order decisions about Premise/Genre, is a decisive factor in setting resistances.  Let me address your actual play example:

You did the right thing.  But what about Augments?  More importantly, did the issue of specificity come up?  A new rule has been added: if another player character has an ability that could be used in your conflict and is MORE specific to the issue at hand, you are penalized -6 for using a General ability.  The character could be in another continent but it does not matter: the words that character's player have set down on his/her page have carved out a portion of the SIS for himself/herself.  You set up a pretty specific ability to use in this situation.  But if someone had "Knows Secret Prophecies of Humakt" then you would have been at -6.  And don't look to the words in the Sartar setting book to determine what is General or specific.  The first place you should look is at other players' character sheets.

I have read some commentators treating this rule as saying "any character with a more specific ability" and then proceeding to penalize a PC if an NPC in the scene has a more specific ability. 

But that is 100% NOT what the General/Specific rule is intended for.  It is not a simulation of a world in which the more specific ability will tend to be more effective than that of a broad generalist, but a rule for making sure that players who have carved out a portion of the SIS for their characters will tend to have more spectacular results for their characters than those players who tread on that turf.

But I don't know what resistance the Narrator set

- This is a big problem.  And I don't know if your Narrator is really to blame.  There are parts of the text where Laws assumes that Narrators are setting resistances according to the rules (most of the time) but are keeping those resistances secret and keeping the die rolls hidden (especially those parts of the text where he is talking about faking contests to build up suspense without really jeopardizing the PCs)

- Reading your AP makes be believe that you have not been introduced to the rules added to HQ2 that make it an interesting game.  HQ2 has newly added explicit processes for running conflicts and, behind those, has a system for linking those conflicts to the SIS (a system entirely lacking in HQ1).  There is nothing in your post that makes be believe your Narrator was using those rules.

- The "you cant use the same ability to solve a problem you have failed to solve before" rule was in HQ1.  In HQ2 the "dull repeats of ability/augment combinations will be penalized is an addition."  There is, in HQ2 NO consistent way to combine particular abilities/means/tactics to achieve certain prizes.  None.  The game is not set up that way.  Going for a prize with the ability "Armoured Knight 1W" will mean one thing if the contest is a Climactic one at the end of a story or an ordinary contest earlier in that story.  It will me one thing if the player has been rolling well in the previous 2 fights or poorly.  It will meet different resistances and, because of game-mechanical and purely statistical factors,  have different consequences if the prize or the conflict is more suited to the abilities apportioned to another player's character.   

You are absolutely right on this score.  Burning Empires is that way too.  There are very specific rules about what abilities can be used to help (or Augment) other abilities.  HQ1 and HQ2 are entirely different animals.  HQ2 may have evolved out of HQ1 but it is now its own species, one that won't even produce infertile offspring from being bred back
with HQ1.  HQ1 would resolve these issues by GM fiat or by an assumed reference to "what Glorantha is like," which then takes you to the realm of published setting material, online discussions, and people trying to prove they know more about the world than someone who disagrees with them.  Don't go looking at HQ1 to give you the kind of consistency you seek.  HQ2 will allow you to establish a kind of consistency and give you the procedures for making decisions within your particular playgroup.  Abilities are not a "layer" in HQ2: describing one's abilities and using them for certain kinds of play is what the game is all about.  And that kind of play is irreducibly Narrativist.

[Alexander Julian]

Abilities are not a "layer" in HQ2: describing one's abilities and using them for certain kinds of play is what the game is all about.  And that kind of play is irreducibly Narrativist.

[Callan S.]

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Philosopher Gamer
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[epweissengruber]

Two very strong insights!

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[FredGarber]

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[Joel P. Shempert]

Fred's nailed it. I was trying to figure out how to express that, and coming up dry. In my limited but satisfying play experience (with HQ one, mind), what abilities feed a conflict make a statement, occasionally powerful, about who your character is. When this statement, through action, addresses Premise, all that Color says a great deal. there have always been Abilities that handle that particular heavy lifting better than others (Ruthless 3W vs Sword 3W, say), but overall the tools are there to build a narrative Story Now-fashion. And my understanding is that HQ2 has actually pared down the sheer number of abilities on a sheet to allow easier focus on the ones that are truly central to expressing that character.

It's also worth noting that HQ puts relationships right in the forefront of this system by making them Abilities. Sure, using Eloquent to persuade my brother is fairly value-neutral, but using Eloquent augmented by My Brother Respects Me is pregnant with meaning. I'm leveraging my brother's respect toward getting his assent in a contentious manner. Now the outcome of the conflict can't help but have a huge impact on that relationship, provided the players are attentive to that at ALL.

(And incidentally, I was trying to come up with a contrasting augment that was more neutral, and it was actually HARD. For instance, Eloquent plus Well-Liked. Well, damn but if "Well-liked" isn't a hell of a pregnant quality to leverage--"That's easy for you to say, bro; everyone likes you." or even, given success, "OK, you win. Everyone'll take your side anyway." Every ability used in a conflict can have moral or emotional value, given that you look for it. And playing HQ for Story Now means looking for it.)

Peace,
-Joel

[Alexander Julian]

[Joel P. Shempert]

Huh. I hadn't looked at it from that angle. With IaWA it's true that you roll your forms first, but it always strikes me as weak when players roll forms and then just have their actions be whatever, instead of stemming from the forms chosen. All rolling the forms beforehand means to me is that you're committing in advance to narrating that tactic as opposed another.

In the case of your "ruthless" example, I'd say you're exactly right: HQ will never tell you, from a roll result whether you were ruthless or not. It'll tell you what effect your ruthlessness has had. YOU make the choice to be ruthless, just like you make the choice of whether tu pull a gun on the Town Steward in Dogs in the Vineyard. Then, the choice made, you roll dice. that's the heart of Story now.

You seem kind of down on that possibility: a fail result means only that ruthlessness didn't work. I say, awesome! "ruthlessness didn't work" is a great outcome to work with. 'Cause it doesn't end there. Now someone (the Narrator in this case, I believe) gets to describe why and how ruthlessness didn't work. I could come up with a bunch of fun examples in an instant, like I did with the "persuade brother" example. Your target is defiant, your target is totally cowed and useless, your once-healthy relationship is broken, etc. etc. Awesome stuff.

"Choose what you do, then roll" is a pretty solid systemic framework for Story Now. "Roll, then find out what you do" is most assuredly not.

peace,
-Joel

[Danny_K]

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I believe in peace and science.