I finally got to play Heroquest. This game was billed as a short in store demo to illustrate the rules. The participants were David (the GM), my wife Bridget, and myself. The characters were pre-generated. They were

Torvald. Played by myself. He was a Heortling carl who is attempting to return his clan to the practice of herding and restore its lost glory.

Farnane. Played by Bridget. Torvald’s wife, good with healing magic, and originally from another tribe. Her brideprice included a small herd of cattle.

The situation was that wife of the clan’s leader, Ellisife, had forbidden the herding of cattle because too many of her sons and brothers had been killed in cattle raids. Our clan had therefore lost status and wealth. Recently, Torvald had married a woman from outside the clan, and brought her cattle to live here.

THE EVENTS

The game opened with a bull escaping from its pen and trampling one of Ellisife’s grandchildren. Torvald investigated and found that the bull had been angered by someone throwing rocks at it. Farnane healed the injured boy.

Next we chased the escaped bull out to pasture, calmed him with magic, and put him in an impromptu coral.

Later, back at the longhouse, a herder came running into the longhouse with news that cattle raiders were attacking our herd. Ellisife forbade anyone from helping, as it would only risk death. Farnane publicly confronted her, and defeated her soundly in debate.

We tracked down the raiders, and Torvald challenged their leader to single combat, defeated him, and saved the herd.

WHAT I LIKED

The situation was pretty front loaded with cool conflict. The two bangs (boy hurt by bull, cattle raid) were both engaging. The debate between Farnane and Ellisife was excellently handled. It illustrated Heroquest’s strength dealing with non-combat conflict. At one point, Ellisife made a high stakes bid, and the GM narrated her demanding that Farnane and Torvald (and their followers) leave the clan. She lost the roll and it backfired; the clan felt she’d gone too far and had invited kinstrife into the house. Farnane used a "finish her off" action at the end of the conflict. The brought Ellisife to a "dying" level. The GM decided there her position in the clan had been irrevocably damaged. I guess the Heortling pride in owning cattle finally won out over her cowardice (at least that is how Torvald sees it). Anyhow, the debate was at least as vivid and exciting as the combat that followed.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE

Two things. I felt rather blocked as a player in the scene following the injured child. I was attempting, right then and there, to "turn up to 11" the conflict between Torvald and Ellisife. Torvald openly accused the boy of having baited the bull, which he probably did. This was terribly undiplomatic, however. I was prepared to go as far as him being banished from the clan – a cool start for a hero, methinks. The GM deflected these conflicts, though, and concentrated on Farnane’s healing, and then had the clan leader (Ellisife’s husband) pull Torvald aside and ask him to tone it down. I took this as a GM request. I suspect he was blocking me because he planned the cattle raid, and this would have upset that. A minor bit of railroading, but bothersome nevertheless.

Secondly, there was very little scene framing. For instance, after Farnane defeated Ellisife in debate, the clan agreed to send warriors to fight the raiders. We played out marching out to the pasture land and scouting around and all that. Mostly wasted time. I would have just cut the scene after the debate and said, “Torvald, Farnane, and 30 member of the fyrd have come across the raiders. Their leader approaches you to parley.”

CONCLUSION

It was good fun. We’ll definitely play again, but this time with our own characters, probably of a more heroic adventurer stripe. Heroquest is quite an extraordinary system.

I suspect the railroading probably dealt with the "Demo" status of the scenario.
Anytime I'm teaching folks almost any of my games, I tend to keep things very constrained to make sure folks get put through the paces as opposed to giving them free reign and run into them wanting to do something, but needing to cover something else FIRST.
Running demos, minor bit of railroading helps as opposed to hurts by making sure folks know the procedures actually playing the game so that when they DO want to do something in an open game its less confusing, they already know everything leading up to and after.
Course too, I make sure that folks know I'll be doing some heavy guiding during play. Keeps reactions such as yours from being too intrusive on play when you know "Oh, okay, something is happening with the system here that'd be good for me to pay attention to"

I must admit I did not get a lot of time to prepare this Demo. I have been keeping a Demo prepared, but decide that it was not suitable for two players. So I put something together that would demonstrate the Extended Contest system in and out of Combat.

Added to the limited prep time was a four hour public transport nightmare. This did not leave me in much of a mindset for ad libing. I was trying not to rail road but I was trying to keep both players active in the game. Jeffery is highly experienced in practice and the theory of Role playing, where Bridget is still relatively new to it.

Just to add, I hope I didn't come across as super critical or anything. The scenario was cool fun.

dcboatright wrote: So I put something together that would demonstrate the Extended Contest system in and out of Combat.

dcboatright wrote: Added to the limited prep time was a four hour public transport nightmare.

>That said, is this demo avaliable anywhere? You got a website? Etc? >I'd .love to get a look at the text.

If I get it into a presentable format I will send it to you.

dcboatright wrote: If I get it into a presentable format I will send it to you.

{Whoops, double posted. The other one is better.}

Mike

Scott has a point. Likely David hasn't been through the pattented Mike Holmes school of running HQ yet, nor played Sorcerer or anything. IOW, he's running it like most people probably do.

Consider it a testament to the strength of the system that Jeff still found it satisfactory to his narrativism urge in many ways. That is, David did good enough without knowing any of the fancy-schmancy Bang/Scene Framing technique that are mostly a product of some very local Forge preferences. And despite a lack of prep time, and other problems. Good for both David and for HQ!

Mike