How difficult is it to use HQ in other settings?

[Matt Snyder]

It just occured to me that the HQ system is just what Fading Suns needs.

Mike

Brilliant! It hadn't ocurred to me, Mike, but that is a fantastic observation. This may be just the ticket for introducing HQ to my group later this year or early next year. Thanks for posting the suggestion.

[RaconteurX]

Ooh, imagine working up all the Tekumel Keywords. Have you actually done that? Do you have notes? That would be really neat, IMO.

I have yet to do more than mull over keyword lists for Tekumel, but they should not be overly difficult to create. Many of the existing HeroQuest occupations could be used with little modifcation, but I would prefer to tweak character creation to fit the setting a bit more and give people clan status, homeland, occupation and religious keywords. Magic being quite a bit less universal, "sorceror" would need be an occupation rather than a function of any religious keyword. Most  nonhumans would require "wild" keywords, as the "civilzed" ones can just use the appropriate homeland. Might even be fun to create regional keywords within Tsolyanu, so there are differences between heroes from Fasiltum, Jakalla, Khirgar, Bey Su and Penom. This gets trickier with others of the Five Empires, but could be rewarding regardless. Most other homelands are small enough that a single keyword should do.

I'd also love to see a write up for Jorune if anyone has such notes. Talislanta would be cool to see written up too, as long as we're at it. Harn (wouldn't that be ironic)?

I am not terribly familiar with Talislanta, although it would be quite fun to work up keywords for all those funky species. Jorune would, I think, be the challenge. There is not really much detail to go on in terms of human homeland keywords, as we really only know a lot about Ardoth and very little about other regions. As for Harn, it is generic enough in its medievalism that I imagine needing to do very little work except on religious keywords and, for those, my model would likely be the Aeolian Church. The Shek-Pvar schools would be easy to convert as high orders.

[RaconteurX]

Might even be fun to create regional keywords within Tsolyanu...

An interesting way to handle hero provenience might be to use regional descriptors like those found in the second edition of Behind Enemy Lines. There are three pairings in BEL... Urban/Rural, Inland/Coastal (Coastal means on any significant body of water, including major rivers) and Mountainous/Plains... and choosing one from each pair gives you your regional descriptor. Thus, you might have Urban/Coastal/Plains which in BEL could mean your hero comes from Chicago, Detroit, or New York. In Tsolyanu, it could mean your hero comes from Jakalla or Bey Su. We would then just require keywords for each combination, or even each component. Hm...

[simon_hibbs]

A friend of mine has run several Dune games using the Hero Wars mechanics and it worked very well. He sets his games before the first novel, when Dune is under Harkonen rule and Keyns is first sent there. The players are usualy fremen who rescue/are rescued by/befriend Keynes and are instrumental in his adoption into Fremen culture. Loads of fun!

*Warning* What follows is fan fiction. I hate fan fiction, but every now and then I write some anyway. Sue me. Molack was my character.


Molack at the Wind Trap:

Molack crouched in silence on a rock ledge inside the cavern. Through his stillsuit he could feel the coolness of the rock underneath him, and the warmth of the sun-baked air drifting in through the cave mouth before him. He knew that this temperature difference was crucial to the magic of this place. A gust of wind blew into the cave mouth and the rasping sound of wind on stone echoed through the cavern behind him for a moment, then subsided. Though he could not see it from here, he could smell the desert out there, arid and forbiding. Yet all of these things were familiar to him and he paid them little attention, but only watched the slim figure sitting in the cave mouth, wrapped only in a thin garment of plain cotton.

If it had been any other man sitting there, his stillsuit carelessly piled beside him, he would have forfeited his life. As a Water Master, it would have been a duty and an honour for Molack to punish such a blatant transgression of the law. Yet it was unthinkable.

The figure turned his head sudddenly, and saw Molack sitting there for the first time.
"How long have you been there?"
Molack stirred uneasily. "One third of an hour, Lord... Should I go?"
"No, Molack. I will return now, and I shall be glad of the company on the way back to the Sietch." The man got up, and Molack moved forward to help him don his stillsuit.

"I know I am breaking your laws Molack" The man spoke the Fremen language fluently, but still his offworld accent was unmistakable.
"You are not of our people, Lord. Your ways are offworld ways."
"But you disaprove!" The man looked Molack in the eyes, but Molack looked down at the shoulder strap he was tying. At length, he answerred "You bring new ways Lord, and these new ways demand new laws."
"That is no answer Molack, to change Arrakis we need water. As a Water Master you know the importance of the water laws."
"You sit at the entrance lord, the mousture from your body enters the cave and is caught by the wind traps."
"Yet some may be lost, and even so the law is the law."

"Would you have me report you to the Naib?" Molack looked up and faced the man that had changed his life. This time it was Keynes who looked away.
"No Molack. I only want you to understand why I come here like this. I have taught you about air moisture content, nitrogen cycles and the greenhouse effect, but this is not enough. I was not born here, and to know Arrakis I must touch it. I must feel the wind and sun of Arakis against my skin. Despite everything I say in my lectures, Arrakis is not a diagram on a board but a thing to touch and taste and smell."

Not for the first time, Molack's thought to himself 'I would die for this man.'

[Nick Brooke]

You might have Urban/Coastal/Plains which in BEL could mean your hero comes from Chicago, Detroit, or New York. In Tsolyanu, it could mean your hero comes from Jakalla or Bey Su. We would then just require keywords for each combination, or even each component. Hm...

I think the differences between the Tsolyani cities are fairly well defined, and that you wouldn't get to them from a "generic" model like this. Also, I don't think that you'd want to rely on just (say) the Temple/Religion keyword to cover all the distinctive local flavour of citizens of Jakalla, Purdimal, Fasiltum and/or Penom, not all of whom follow the local majority religion but all of whom will have had their outlook on life shaped by it (I'd imagine).

So, having a generic 'Tsolyani' homeland keyword, then applying local 'spin' (rather like the way the Imperial Lunar Handbook treated Pelandan cities or Provincial kingdoms) might be the way to go... and this could be more than a single extra ability, depending on how keen you were to develop these differences.

Homeland (and specific City), Lineage (Very High/High/Middle/Low etc.), Temple (god or cohort) and Occupation (cf. HeroQuest; customised for individual Legions, Palaces of the Realm, etc.) ... that might make a nice set of four keywords to start out with. (The Temple keyword would, of course, omit magic: the sorcerers and priests of Tekumel would get it from somewhere else, an advanced occupation keyword or whatever works best).

Cheers, Nick

[Mike Holmes]

Wow, Nick, great analysis.

I think that perhaps magic would come with appropriate Occupations, or merely have to be purchased with extra slots. It's the ubiquitousness of the magic in Glorantha that means that you have to have a Magic Keyword, and hence it's exclusion from the occupations, IMO. For other settings, it seems to me that magic Abilities would make sense as part of Occupations.

Think of it this way - either you get an Occupation, or you get a Magic Keyword representing yout occupation.

Make sense?

Mike

[Mac Logo]

I have to admit be being very intrigued by the mix of HQ, Solaris and Star Wars. I would love more details. It sounds totally evil from a Narrator POV.

Graeme

[RaconteurX]

I have to admit be being very intrigued by the mix of HQ, Solaris and Star Wars. I would love more details. It sounds totally evil from a Narrator POV.

Evil does not even begin to describe it, Graeme. The heroes were carefully crafted to have numerous vulnerabilities through which the Dark Side could sink its hooks into them. My chief inspiration was Unknown Armies. Its Passions and Madness Meter are easily tweaked to fit the inner turmoil which accompanies temptation by the Dark Side. Grafting this onto HeroQuest was a little ad hoc, but I was satisfied with the result and the players did not seem to realize it was anything but part of the existing HQ mechanics until I reveal that it was not at game's end.

[RaconteurX]

Having a generic 'Tsolyani' homeland keyword, then applying local 'spin' might be the way to go... and this could be more than a single extra ability, depending on how keen you were to develop these differences.

A splendid idea, Nick, although I am not certain how well-documented the regional differences are in empires other than Tsolyanu. I for one would like to encompass as much of the Five Empires (and beyond) as possible. Also, I am not certain that the regional differences within Tsolyanu are as great as those between Pelorian cultures as outlined in Imperial Lunar Handbook. Had I my copy of it to hand I would comment with greater specificity, but alas it sits in storage awaiting the final stage of my move.

As for your four keywords, I do not see that they differ from those I suggested save for vocabulary substitutions. Clans are a tough call... is it worth writing up individual keywords for each, or leave them generic? If the latter, why then should the regional differences not also be left generic? We also run into trouble, if we opt for specific clan keywords, where lands other than Tsolyanu are involved, and again I would like to see a broader focus.

[Nick Brooke]

I am not certain how well-documented the regional differences are in empires other than Tsolyanu.

Where we know them (for a city), we can implement them. Where we don't, we'd just stick with the generic Livyani/Salarvyani/Mook/whatever keyword.

I am not certain that the regional differences within Tsolyanu are as great as those between Pelorian cultures

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that the generic Tsolyani keyword can be 'tweaked' for each city, in the same way the generic Pelandan keyword is 'tweaked' for each city; not that the cultural differences between Avanthar and Butrus (two Tsolyani cities) are comparable to those between (say) Pelanda and Rinliddi!

Clans are a tough call... is it worth writing up individual keywords for each, or leave them generic?

My call would be to leave them generic -- I used the wrong term when I referred to a Lineage keyword. The social rank of your clan (low, lower, lowest...) should make some difference to starting abilities, but the precise clan is less important re: abilities than the home city and the religion, IMO. Note of course that these three are interrelated to some extent - some of the clans are centred in particular cities or regions, most clans have religious preferences, most cities have major local temples... and so it goes.

Again, because we have most detail about Tsolyanu, we can implement more choice and variety there. Broadening the focus until we fuzz out local detail where it exists seems wrong to me.

Like you, Michael, I want this to be clean and simple: let's just have one generic Tsolyani keyword, tweaked where advantageous (or known!) for home city peculiarities and clan ranks; not a separate keyword for every city and every clan, everywhere in the Five Empires, required before play can begin!

Cheers, Nick

[pete_darby]

Evil does not even begin to describe it, Graeme. The heroes were carefully crafted to have numerous vulnerabilities through which the Dark Side could sink its hooks into them. My chief inspiration was Unknown Armies. Its Passions and Madness Meter are easily tweaked to fit the inner turmoil which accompanies temptation by the Dark Side. Grafting this onto HeroQuest was a little ad hoc, but I was satisfied with the result and the players did not seem to realize it was anything but part of the existing HQ mechanics until I reveal that it was not at game's end.

As someone considering throwing Gloranthan characters into Dorastor, I need to see these mechanics.

In, like, a physical need kind of way.

[Mike Holmes]

I think we've wandered a bit. While these examples do highlight how you can use HQ for other settings, I think that each setting that needs to be discussed in more detail would do well to have it's own thread. If you really want to discuss any one of these in detail, I'd recommend starting a new topic up. There are at least two that I'd like to see get their own discrete discussions. :-)

Mike

[RaconteurX]

As someone considering throwing Gloranthan characters into Dorastor, I needto see these mechanics.

My "temptation meter" worked on a similar principle, but used the heroes' own personality traits and relationships (which function enough like Unknown Armies Passions to be suitable) to provide many of the difficulties for their attempts to avoid the Dark Side. Success meant the hero achieved a measure of calm (e.g. a check to one of his Serenity boxes) in the face of temptation, while failure meant the hero took one step further along the Dark Path by acting in a manner inappropriate for a Jedi (angry, fearful, aggressive, etc.) and got a check to one of his Seduced boxes. Unlike UA, a Jedi would turn to the Dark Side when he or she had five Seduced boxes of any type checked.

To adapt the Madness Meter more directly, you would simply have to set up a scale of stress challenges like that in UA and decide what abilities to accept as equivalents to UA's Mind stat (which could change from circumstance to circumstance).

[pete_darby]

Thanks - another tool for the box...

[Ian O'Rourke]

I might pick up the new, more clear, rules as I always thought Heroquest would be ideal for:

A Robin of Sherwood style game
A Pendragon Game (as in the game)
A Fading Suns Game (as someone mentioned)

When I was looking at this stuff before I never really worried about keywording all the profressions and cultures. Surely you can just use the characters write a 100 words or so and pick the keywords out approach?