Ratings and Masteries

[Der_Renegat]

I´ve created this new topic because it somehow connects all the other threads, like ,,HeroScale2", ,,HQ for Cyberpunk and strength ratings of cyborgs" and especially ,,HQandLOTR".

Assumption one: a rating measures the usefulness of an ability. It is an abstract value that lets you compare similar abilities.

Assumption two: in HQ there are no racial modifiers for abilities per se. And there is not really a rule that restricts ratings for any race.

BUT: Masteries one to four have an added meaning, at least for humans:
layman, master, hero, demigod.
And we get to know rough values for divine or other supernatural creatures. (saint, minor god, greater god, etc.)

SO: it seems there is a hidden rule for the maximum of human ability ratings, that is:
no more than 2-3 masteries can be gained through spending HP, as gained experience/training for humans. Everything beyond that is magical.

QUESTION: if a potential human has an ability JUMP15M6, what does that mean?
Is it the usefulness of the ability only? Or does it mean, that human can jump longer than a human with only JUMP17 ? Is it magical because it is higher than 3 masteries???

Is there physical limit on how much you can raise an ability for a specific race?

My answer so far is:
-a rating is an abstract value
-the explanation of masteries is just an aid for creating humans, how to imagine powerlevels, but not a limit. A cow with Mooing10W4 is not a hero.

What do the others say?

all the best

Christian

[soru]

Remember the rule numbers, then description.

A being with the ability jump 15M6 can, per http://www.glorantha.com/support/GameAids.pdf, pretty reliably jump to the top of a average city walls (say 10 M vertically). Consequently, they are not an earth-standard human, and saying they are is a contradiction.

By the rules, players are free to claim characters are any race they feel like, from trollkin to true dragons. Perhaps there should be a paragraph in the rules on 'pompous races', to go along with 'pompous magic'.

your character is under the delusion he is an elf. Other elves are far to polite to ever laugh at him.

The thing is, the key to HQ is flexibiity. Everything is allowed, including things that don't make sense. If you care, it's your job, and noone else's, to avoid them.

soru

[RaconteurX]

Is there a physical limit on how much you can raise an ability for a specific race?

In theory, no. In practice, however, acquiring an extremely high ability rating would require the hero in question to neglect his or her duties (in terms of the fraction of Hero Points which must be expended) to his or her community and religion.

If a potential human has an ability JUMP15M6, what does that mean? Is it magical because it is higher than 3 masteries?

During playtest, it was Robin Laws' intent that a sufficiently high ability rating be indistinguishable from magic. Greg does not agree, however, and that is reflected in the separation between magical and mundane resistances which exists in HeroQuest.

[Scripty]

QUESTION: if a potential human has an ability JUMP15M6, what does that mean?
Is it the usefulness of the ability only? Or does it mean, that human can jump longer than a human with only JUMP17 ? Is it magical because it is higher than 3 masteries???

Is there physical limit on how much you can raise an ability for a specific race?

My answer so far is:
-a rating is an abstract value
-the explanation of masteries is just an aid for creating humans, how to imagine powerlevels, but not a limit. A cow with Mooing10W4 is not a hero.

What do the others say?

Well, I'll throw in my two cents...

A character with Jump 15w6 is someone who can vertically jump to the top of a 10' tree pretty much without having to make a roll in vanilla HeroQuest. A difference of 3 masteries in any contest where the opposition does not have Hero Points at their disposal is pretty much a done deal, IMO.

In Bruce Ferrie's HQ-Supers, we have a much more giving scale and you would see a character with Jump 15w6 able to jump 100 yds. in the air with no problem and even jump several miles in the air with some concerted effort. His is a "Supers" conversion, of course. And someone with a 15w6 in Jump would only be a couple of masteries short of the Hulk in Jump.

Taken in context, the ratings aren't abstract. Certainly on their own they are abstractions, but no more or less than a 17 STR of 18 CHA. Or having 111 Hit Points. I think the context here is important. Once you grasp that, you have the scaling pretty much down, IMO.

And, regarding racial limits to abilities, I'm not sure I'm certain why you're looking for this. IME, it takes a while for players to "up" their abilities. If you wanted to slow down a player's increase of their mundane strength or speed or size, just tell them to not put points in it or to justify why they would be growing/strengthening/speeding up at such an alarming rate. To date, I haven't had any problems in this regard and one of my players was an absolute twink.

And to the third portion of the snip, I think power levels are only limits *if you and your group want them to be.* HeroQuest is designed so that above average joes can become demi-gods. If that's not the kind of game you want, state it up front and say "No average human athletic abilities beyond 15w, thank you very much." or "Humans can be more than 15 size." (And that would be a pretty big human)

And regarding the cow. A cow with Mooing 10w4 *could* be a hero. It depends on the game your running and, subsequently, the context that these abstract numbers will exist within. If you're running "Super-Furries", the cow could knock down reinforced concrete with that moo (again using Bruce Ferrie's Supers charts) or be heard clearly over a 100 yards away. Further, that moo is a +9 augment to any Intimidation ability. Tack that onto Flying at 10w3 and I think you have a pretty super-heroic cow.

In HeroQuest terms, the Mooing would be slightly less valuable. It would certainly help the cow to direct its followers. It would also give the cow a really great chance to garner total support from almost any other tribe of cows which the cow encountered. It might even allow the cow to gain support from members of other species. It's not Super-Beef, but, in the end, it's a cow at least on par with "Babe".

[simon_hibbs]

BUT: Masteries one to four have an added meaning, at least for humans:
layman, master, hero, demigod.
And we get to know rough values for divine or other supernatural creatures. (saint, minor god, greater god, etc.)

Sure, but this is a rule of thumb and not a game mechanical rule.

SO: it seems there is a hidden rule for the maximum of human ability ratings, that is:
no more than 2-3 masteries can be gained through spending HP, as gained experience/training for humans. Everything beyond that is magical.

Not at all, you can go as high as you like just by spending HPs. Mundane abilities match against the mundane resistance (difficulty) of a task, but magical abilities can take a shortcut through an apropriate otherworld and so usualy only face the default magic resistance of 14 (or the rating of a resisting magical ability).

QUESTION: if a potential human has an ability JUMP15M6, what does that mean?
Is it the usefulness of the ability only? Or does it mean, that human can jump longer than a human with only JUMP17 ?

Jumping higher than a human with Jump 17 is certainly very usefull, so I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. Yes, characetrs with higher Jump abilities can jump further.

Is it magical because it is higher than 3 masteries???

No, not according to the definition of magic in Glorantha, and there is no limit to how high you can raise ther abilities of a character due to their race.

Glorantha is not the real world we live in, and things don't work the same way there. Indeed the very deffinition of what it is to be human is somewhat more elastic in Glorantha. For example Hsunchen are human, but have animal souls - the Telmori consider themselves to be wolves as well as humans. Certain behaviour can even cause (or help cause) your race to change, such as cannibalism causing people to turn into Ogres.

You might reasonably argue that such things are magical, and you'd have a point. Can a human in the real world have an ability rating of over 5 or 6 masteries? Probably not, but in Glorantha they can. Is that magic? Of a sort I suppose since it's 'supernatural' from a real world perspective, but the HeroQuest rules define magic differently.

The HeroQuest rules are just one book of game rules, not a definitive treatise on the metaphysics of Glorantha. As such they are an approximation. For the purposes of the rules high mundane ability ratings are not magical, although they may allow characetrs to do things not possible for people in the real world.


Simon Hibbs

[Spooky Fanboy]

Not to derail, but could you post the location of a few HeroQuest-Superhero games, for those of us who want to see how it's done?

[Der_Renegat]

Bruce Ferrie has a website with some Superhero stuff:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/bferrie/resources/index.htm

all the best

Christian

[RaconteurX]

The quick and dirty Aberrant-to-HeroQuest conversion I wrote up handled superpowers the same way as magic... the resistance was 14 due to the quantum-level manipulation going on. Thus, a super-leaper did not need an incredibly high ability rating to accomplish stupendous leaps. Hero creation was not all that different from that presented in HQ.

[Paul Watson]

BUT: Masteries one to four have an added meaning, at least for humans:
layman, master, hero, demigod.

I'm one of those who regard these numbers as rules of thumb, rather than rules.

SO: it seems there is a hidden rule for the maximum of human ability ratings, that is:
no more than 2-3 masteries can be gained through spending HP, as gained experience/training for humans. Everything beyond that is magical.

This I disagree with. For example, consider the Icelandic hero, Grettir. I once saw a picture of a rock called Grettir's Lift, so-called because he is said to have once lifted it. Its roughly the size of a small house. He is not described as being magical in any way, the son of a god or anything like that; just really, really strong. Mythically strong, and the law of physics be-damned.

Which brings me to what is for me the ultimate in mythic settings, Glorantha. As it states in one of those books in my HQ pile, Glorantha is not governed by the predictable laws of science, but by the maleable laws of mythology. Rivers flow downhill not because of gravity, but because of Magata's actions during the Greater Darkness. The seasons change not because of axial tilt, but because of the Great Compromise.

Likewise, Glorantha's living beings gleefully ignore the laws of nature, including physics, that would apply to Earth creatures. And I'm glad they do, otherwise giant insects would be impossible, and they add so much character to trolls.

With this in mind, I have no problem with heroic "humans" gaining 4 or even more masteries in their abilities without the use of magic.

[Calithena]

That was my reaction wrt Glorantha too, Paul, which is why I was somewhat surprised to register Greg's reaction that Michael mentioned above. I would have thought that Robin Laws' interpretation was closer to that mythic Glorantha feel, but...

[Spooky Fanboy]

The quick and dirty Aberrant-to-HeroQuest conversion I wrote up handled superpowers the same way as magic... the resistance was 14 due to the quantum-level manipulation going on. Thus, a super-leaper did not need an incredibly high ability rating to accomplish stupendous leaps. Hero creation was not all that different from that presented in HQ.

Do you have notes you can send me on that? I'm ordering the HQ main book and am interested in any notes to convert it over to a superhuman setting.

[simon_hibbs]

That was my reaction wrt Glorantha too, Paul, which is why I was somewhat surprised to register Greg's reaction that Michael mentioned above. I would have thought that Robin Laws' interpretation was closer to that mythic Glorantha feel, but...

Mythic doesn't always mean vaguely defined and fuzzy. Sometimes mythic necessity can require very sharp distinctions.


Simon Hibbs

[Mike Holmes]

I'm with Simon on all of this.

There's a consideration that's being missed. Which is that, sure a player can spend HP on whatever in theory. But if he's putting tons of HP into an Ability, and pushing it to superheroic levels, then I'm going to ask for an explanation. And I'll probably buy anything that works with the genre (including Simon's "fuzzy" rationale), but I do want something said.

This is no different than any other purchase which should have an in-game rationale. Even if it's purchased with the double cost (did not relate to play), I still require a BS explanation. "Oh, I was training in my off time."

Note that I wouldn't buy "training in my off time" as a rationale for getting a superheroic ability. I would buy, "It's in the bloodline; my father could leap towers - just something that our family has always had" however, or something of that nature. As Simon said, that seems to fly in Glorantha where "normal humans" can have strengths, etc. that seem superhuman to us. If I was playing in the "real world" setting, I might disallow it completely. But even in an X-Files universe we can come up with a reason why your character can leap walls.

As long as you link the "superhuman" ability back to the setting in some way that works for the genre in question I think there's no problem. If you can't do that reasonably, then say no. In fact, as players start reaching peak human performances, make them slow down in their expenditures to represent the difficulty involved in proceeding.

The point is that I don't allow purchases completely on player impulse. They must make a modicum of sense. In requiring this, you make the character more interesting, not less.

Mike

[Calithena]

I agree 100% with Simon's one liner as a general point about myth, that it has its own kind of logic and necessity.

It's just that the idea that magic is always clearly defined and visible and separate from normal ability functioning doesn't seem particularly 'Gloranthan' to me. I mean, look at the various hunting and housewife gods - the operation of these feats, etc. is supposed to be clearly delimited from ordinary work and life?

I had thought that part of the point of integrating magic into life and culture in the way that Glorantha has was precisely to make that particular boundary, which is the one I thought we were talking about, somewhat fuzzy.

Obviously if GREG STAFFORD feels differently, my impression is wrong. But a person could be forgiven for thinking about it in the way suggested above and incorporated into Robin Laws' original design - it's not as though this particular fuzzy boundary isn't suggested by some of the Gloranthan source material.

-----------

As to Mike's point about requiring a rationale, I agree that that's generally a good way to go. It's a way to let players grow their characters 'backwards' as well as forwards as play goes on. But I wouldn't talk about it in terms of 'not letting people buy completely on impulse'; I'd say rather that if they want to fulfill their impulses they should come up with some good story to go with it. (But I'd also say that neither position here is an absolute: if you have people who are prioritized on realism or plausibility in their stories, then you don't get to add three years spent sailing about the oceans that didn't come up at all in the first five adventures; if you have people who are prioritized on what a story needs with the current characters to make it work, then they'll look at things more in terms of the story's needs. Both are workable models. The validity of the latter really came up in running for a good friend's character who was rather a lady's man: we just added new ex-lovers whenever we needed a certain kind of plot hook in an adventure. They weren't mentioned before? Hey, guy gets around.)

[Mike Holmes]

I'd hazzard that the reason that Greg requires a difference is to make magic seem, well, magical. That is, to a Gloranthan, leaping a wall with a high score isn't magical, and will seem part of everyday life. No, that's wrong, it might seem spectacular. But it isn't magical, which implies a relationship with the otherworld. Which is to say that if I do it myself, it's just an event. But if I do it with magic, and we'll all know because there'll be sparks and glowy things, etc, in Glorantha, if I do it with magic, then I'm displaying the results of faith in some religious or philosophical ideal.

The importance of such an act in cultural terms is underlined by the fact that it's magic. That's not to say that a superhuman effort by another character not using magic isn't impressive, it is. Just in a completely different way.

Mike