Historical HeroQuest actual play

Hi,

I posted this originally on rpg.net in response to a query there but thought that it would be of interest to folk here as well.

Rather than go into a who did what account, which I think is fairly dull, I'll summarise what the game was about in broad terms and if there's any interest I'm happy to expand.

I took Mithras' Warlords of Alexandria game for setting, the city of Trapezus in the post Alexandrian Seleucid empire. Homeland and Occupation keywords I adapted from his rules for races and occupations in his game (it ports very easily).

The characters, a hoplite mercenary and roguish technitos (actor/musician) recently were discharged following a successful mercenary expedition to the North and are finding themselves embroiled in local politics and gang wars resulting from a power struggle between the governor (strategos) of the city and the priest of Apollo (a purchased and highly lucrative post).

Characters have traits which include things like Tenth share in a ship, Estranged son of a noble father, Egyptian Body Slave retainer, as well as the more usual adventuringy type things.

HQ works well, the big conflict last week ocurred after the Technitos at an audition scored a critical success. The place arranged for him to perform that night and were so impressed by him they ensured the governor and head of the local mercenary militia attended, all the bigwigs as it were. The opposing faction sent a man to disrupt proceedings and embarass everyone involved.

So, a grand duel took place in which the Technitos attempted to tell an entertaining and subtly bawdy tale while his opponent attempted to yawn, fart, shuffle noisly and do whatever he could to kill the mood and spoil the performance. The Technitos ultimately bested him and in a turnabout worked the disruption into the tale so clearly triumphing while embarassing his enemy at the same time.

Great stuff, a wonderful system which makes the above contest as interesting and important as a combat. Afterward the hoplite engaged the strategos in conversation and spent a hero point cementing a friendly relationship with him. The first time in a long time I have seen an XP go on something other than getting better ability-wise.

And not a bit of magic or cool powers in the whole thing :-)

A follow up query asked how gritty HQ was for historical gaming, my answer was as follows:

It's plenty gritty without magical healing as Cap [Captain Spaulding] says. Another important point though is that Simple Contests can end without death but with the contest over. At one point a PC walked into an ally ambush misjudging the situation and figuring he could handle it. One simple contest later he had lost the fight but with a minor defeat, interpreted as a nasty blow to the shin. As the fight was lost he now had to find another means to succeed in the situation, achieved by his companion augmenting an intimidation attempt with his bow skill.

That increases grit more than you'd guess. In real life most fights are not to the death, seeing a PC backing off injured because he had realised he wasn't going to win was a real result for me, far more credible than the usual rpg outcome of continuing until someone lies dead in the gutter.