Fatigue?

[Jaif]

Are there any fatigue rules in Heroquest?  I've looked, but I haven't seen anything.

In case that's not clear; Imagine a scene from Master & Commander - a particularily bad blow, 9-days of near gale-force winds and rough seas, and at the end of it the ship is still standing and out of danger.  At this point, Captain Aubrey comes to his cabin and sleeps like a dead man for 8 full hours.

Is there a mechanic for this?

-Jeff

[doubtofbuddha]

Well, in general that is accounted for in the AP pool rules. APs represent a character's mental and physical state in a contest as well as how close they are to victory.  So by losing AP it represents actual fatigue in addition to all the other environmental factors involved in it. In fact in some contests, like an endurance race, it might represent the primary cause of a loss of AP.

As for the exact situation you describe, I would have to say that I would see that as being represented as the result of a contest between the Captain and the Storm. The result was a victory by the Storm but with a number of Hurt's taken to whatever the Captain's relevant ability was. This can be decided to be represented by great fatigue and the sleep is his way to get rid of them.

[Scripty]

Are there any fatigue rules in Heroquest?  I've looked, but I haven't seen anything.

Is there a mechanic for this?

-Jeff

It depends on how closely you stick to the Contest Consequences chart. According to what's written, a character with a minor defeat is at -10% for a week or so. If you had characters that were climbing a mountain, you could gauge their failure in terms of "fatigue" rather than falling. Such that, they make it halfway up the mountain and get fatigued or even that they make it to the top of the mountain but are still fatigued.

I've handled everything from fear to madness to fatigue to hallucinations using the Contest Consequences chart. I guess it's all in how you want to interpret the consequences of a given contest.

I hope that helps.

Scott