HeroQuest Extended Contests

[Darren Hill]

Thanks to everyone who responded (and my apologies for the delay in responding) - you've done a good job of shaking my convictions on this matter :)

I had missed that 7 AP = 1 hurt result (tho' it seems vaguely familiar), which does help, definitely. Those other suggestions from dunlaing are worth looking into as well.

It doesn't have to have no effect on the battle. As the Narrator, you're well within your rights to say "You hit him in the head, knocking off his helmet. Ok, so his armor goes down to just +3 instead of +5, so he's a 3W instead of a 5W" as opposed to "You hit him in the head, knocking off his helmet. Cool. Of course, this has no effect on combat."

You can also apply a penalty to him instead of worrying about his armor. You can say that fighting without his helmet gives him a -2.

Likewise if someone uses a "Diarm foe" ability (or their swordfighting with an improv penalty) and succeeds, you can say "Ok, you lose 8 AP as your sword goes flying out of your hand" Then make the person either use an unrelated action to pick up their sword or use another weapon.

I'd feel more comfortabe with such an approach if the rule mentioned by Michael Schwartz was in effect, that for every 7 AP, you take a Hurt as well as the AP loss. Then, you could swap the Hurt for some other comparable situational effect, and maybe scale it up, as Brand suggests - so bigger losses result in bigger penalties.

[Darren Hill]

Or let's say that the character is engaged in a heated debate with the Devi Yasmina who is clocking him with her Debate 5w2. The PC, desperate for an edge, steps in and grabs her, laying a kiss on her that curls her toes and makes her lose track of all her arguments. This is a really desperate move, and so will require a vast AP bid (I'd say either 40+ or everything the PC has). However it could allow the PC to use his Seduce Nubile Maiden 2w2 against the Devi's Resist Manly Barbarians of 17. If the PC loses the Devi slaps him and publicly spurns him, but if he wins he'll gain a huge advantage and possibly move the rest of the "debate" from debate skills to bodice ripper skills.

I want to play in that game :)

[Darren Hill]

With contest you have to remember that you aren't limited to using the same skill each round. When the contest is initiated the starting APs of each side are calculated from the skills used in the first exchange.

This, I have to admit, is something else that makes me uneasy.
I could easily imagine (for the sake of example, anyway) a contest in which the first round starts out using one set of skills, and thus, sets the AP totals, and the rest of the contest ends up using other skills - possibly leading to someone getting seriously short-changed.
This "first round sets AP totals" seems very arbitrary.
I did consider replacing a big initial AP total with a kind of AP replenishment rule which was based on the skills currently in use, but never got around to designing it.

In practice it works pretty well although I do find that wounds are not penalty enough at -1 per 7 AP. I'd more likely go for -1 per 2AP!

Maybe you could try that 1 penalty per 7 AP in addition to AP loss, which would probably accelerate the rate of wounds?

[Mike Holmes]

I could easily imagine (for the sake of example, anyway) a contest in which the first round starts out using one set of skills, and thus, sets the AP totals, and the rest of the contest ends up using other skills - possibly leading to someone getting seriously short-changed.

Short changed how? I can't see it.

I mean, one of the prime "tactics" in Hero Quest is choosing the best arena for conflict. That is, if your highest Ability is Sword, but you know your opponent is much better than you are at that, you might then be better off trying to attack them socially. Where you might have an ability that is higher than the opponent's.

OTOH, sometimes that guy with the great sword Ability will attack you when your best Ability is Ridicule. In that case, you have no choice but to defend with your sword possibily, but you can, during the conflict, change over to using your Ridicule Ability. Which may turn the tides for you.

In any case, it's the player's choice to change, so I'm not seeing where there's a problem for anyone. Just an interesting option that mixes stuff up well.


Another thing to consider that I was going to get to last week is the nature of the definition of an Extended Conflict. That is, basically all ECs should be thought of, IMO, as "Maneuvering for the Kill". That is, if you say that you are killing your opponent, that means that you are maneuvering about in an attempt to kill them if you're doing an EC. Just as interesting, IMO, is to not do an EC, and claim that you're just outright trying to kill them with one short burst. Basically, you resolve the conflcit in a single roll per a normal Conflict. In fact, from a tactical POV, if you're the underdog, this is your best option. So, see if you can get the GM to agree to do it that way.

Meanwhile, when "Maneuvering for the Kill", if you want to wound your opponent, that's an Unrelated Action. Meaning that you can stop at any time with the rolling for maneuvers in the Extended Conflict, and just try to put a wound on the opponent with a standard conflict roll again. The neat thing about this is that, as long as it's in the EC, the resolution doesn't resolve the subject about Death (unless your wound is that good, of course). So you continue fighting.

Do you see what I'm saying? From another perspective, in an EC, you can maneuver for position in some way, gaining or losing AP, or you can make a decisive attack, which will result in some level of wound. In this case, the 7AP for a hurt rule is just an option that allows you to trade some gain in position for a wound when you think it's appropriate.

Does that make it seem like it does what you want it to do? I sure hope so, because FATE works the same way, essentially*. :-)

Mike

* for those Unaware, Darren is playing in a game of FATE that I'm running as of this posting.

[simon_hibbs]

This, I have to admit, is something else that makes me uneasy.
I could easily imagine (for the sake of example, anyway) a contest in which the first round starts out using one set of skills, and thus, sets the AP totals, and the rest of the contest ends up using other skills - possibly leading to someone getting seriously short-changed.
This "first round sets AP totals" seems very arbitrary.

The initial situation in any contest is bound to be arbitrary. When you consider that APs represent how well the characters are doing in the contest, you have to have some way to figure that out for the start of any contest. You can't then arbitrarily change the AP totals just because a characetr is using a different ability. To change the APs, they need to actualy use that ability to do something that changes the situation, and that means making a roll.

Simon Hibbs