Using old RQ material in HeroQuest/Hero Wars

[nylle]

Hi,

I used to play RQ quite a long time ago, but unfortunately haven't played it for many years. However, this weekend I picked up Hero Wars on an auction (on the LinCon Convention), and was thinking of picking up Glorantha again. After doing some research I realised that HeroQuest would be released soon.

Now, my question is how much of my older RQ/Glorantha material can I use for HeroWars/HeroQuest? I have a ton of old RQ stuff, like the Glorantha, Elder Secrets, Troll Gods, Trollpak, Gods of Glorantha boxes, plus a number of other sourcebooks and adventures. How easy is this to use with HeroWars/HeroQuest? Are there rules to convert stats of from RQ (3rd ed) to HeroWars/HeroQuest?

/Andreas Lundin

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Nylle,

It's hard to answer your question until I have a little better idea of what you mean by "easy" or "hard."

I'll say this - you definitely don't need any sort of 1:1 conversion rules. Making up NPCs and abilities and skills for Hero Quest is so simple that it's almost impossible to explain to someone who's thinking in terms of Rolemaster, RuneQuest, or Warhammer. Basically, if you understand the Rune ability (or monster, or whatever), then making it up for Hero Quest literally takes less than 10 minutes.

I played Hero Wars for many, many months, and I used nearly all of my old RuneQuest material. I also bought lots and lots of it in order to use more. By "used," I mean I was inspired by it, applied much of its content, and got a good idea of how tough a given opponent might be. But I never had to say anything like, "OK, this guy is 75% with Broadword Attack and 80% with Broadsword Parry, so that means his Broadsword in Hero Quest is ..."

Best,
Ron

[simon_hibbs]

Now, my question is how much of my older RQ/Glorantha material can I use for HeroWars/HeroQuest? I have a ton of old RQ stuff, like the Glorantha, Elder Secrets, Troll Gods, Trollpak, Gods of Glorantha boxes, plus a number of other sourcebooks and adventures. How easy is this to use with HeroWars/HeroQuest? Are there rules to convert stats of from RQ (3rd ed) to HeroWars/HeroQuest?

Glorantha & Elder Secrets are realy setting books with only a few rules and stats sections, so these are usefull whatever rules you are using.

Troll Gods is better than Gods of Glorantha because it has more myth and background material which is always going to be valid, but the troll cult abilities will need to be translated over. Fortunately there is a fan produced Hero Wars troll book - UZ. It has game writeups of a stack of troll cults, but is a slim book and doesn't go into the mythic detail of Troll Gods. Still it has lots of flavour to it, and the two complement each other very well.

Gods of Glorantha is of little practical use, it's only realy of any value as a reference. Pretty much all of the usefull material here is repeated on the Glorantha website in the Research Library.

Trollpak still has loads of great background material, myths and history about trolls, so it's still the number one place to go to find out about them for any game system. I've run a heavily customised version of the Munchrooms scenario using Hero Wars (the players were visiting trollkin caught up in the revolt - it was a convention game) and I found it pretty easy to convert.

I hope this is helpful.


Simon Hibbs

[Tim Ellis]

There are a number of RQ->Hero Wars translations on the Issaries site which might give you some help in seeing how scenarios can be translated - or alternately the problems in doing so!

The "rules" for translating this material was that the text should not be altered, just replace RQ Stats and Rules with HW equivalents, which, of course would ot be the case for anything you were doing for your own use (The Garhound Contest avoided this problem by being adapted and expanded by the original authors...)

[Ian Cooper]

Hi Nylle,
 Basically, if you understand the Rune ability (or monster, or whatever), then making it up for Hero Quest literally takes less than 10 minutes.

Gotta agree with Ron here. One of the points about Heroquest is that it is easy to take any narrative description and turn it into stats for a character or NPC (big, tough, turns into mist etc.) The two tricks are:

 - Remember to convert the 'feel' not the old attributes, try and describe the character to yourself verbally and then use the highlights for the skills and abilities.
- Setting the ratings. This just takes practice. IN absolute terms look to the
< 1W Apprentice
>1W <1W2 Journeyman
>1W2 <1W3 Master
>1W3 Hero

breakpoints and remember that someone with a mastery advantage tends to win, someone with a two mastery oughtto win but hero points can have a stab at cancelling out a mastery advantage in a contest.

[nylle]

Thanks for the info, and link to conversions.

What I was most worried about was if there was larger changes to Glorantha, but if it's only the rules that have changed it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Of course, having already converted scenarios is nice as it relieves my burden.

However, after looking through the Hero Wars rule books, I think I'll wait for HeroQuest. I find the layout and typesetting of the books to be horrible.

Thanks,
Andreas

[simon_hibbs]

Thanks for the info, and link to conversions.

What I was most worried about was if there was larger changes to Glorantha, but if it's only the rules that have changed it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

You may notice some changes. There are a lot more Heortling gods for example, but this is realy just adding detail. Many of these gods and cults were referenced in RQ era myths but now have writeups for their cults, while others are new. However these changes, or new discoveries rather, don't have to have any great impact on your games. Chalana Arroy is still the most important healing god of the Heortlings for example, and if you aren't interested in the cult of Davilda the Bandage Roller, you don't need to pay it any attention.

Of course, having already converted scenarios is nice as it relieves my burden.

However, after looking through the Hero Wars rule books, I think I'll wait for HeroQuest. I find the layout and typesetting of the books to be horrible.

A sensible idea. Apparently it's at the printers as we speak.


Simon Hibbs

[nylle]

Apparently it's at the printers as we speak.

That's nice. However, what is not so nice is that they decided to keep the terrible cover design of Hero Wars. IMHO it looks really awful.