I'm very excited that I've finally found a group that wants to play HeroQuest. After we finished up our excellent game of Dogs in the Vineyard, we shuffled the group around a bit and have just done character creation for HeroQuest.

There's not a one of us that have role-played in Glorantha before. I've got several of the Hero Wars/HeroQuest books, mainly focusing on Heortling culture.

I put a constraint on the game by specifying the area in which we would play. It's the Alone region, west of Alda-Chur, in northern Sartar. If that didn't make sense, or you want to know more, you can find all the game info at:

http://random.average-bear.com/TheAloneWar/Alone

Character creation
So, we haven't played yet. Character creation has happened, though, and was very different than I expected.

My group of players is an interesting one. I'm bringing in two players from my Dogs in the Vineyard game. One is pretty happy with anything he hasn't played. The other likes new stuff, too, but is pretty non-plussed by fantasy. Upon further questioning, I found he doesn't like it because it's too black-and-white with its morality. I'm hoping HeroQuest cures this for him. The other players are recommended by the first two. They are both acquaintances of mine, but no one I've played with before.

The characters we ended up with are great! They definitely aren't your regular characters, though. I may have focused on the rules before the setting when trying to sell the game, giving them the want to see how far the rules stretch.

Good news: the rules stretch a lot.

Bad news: well, not bad news, but, man... weird characters.

Starting with the most normal, we've got a Heortling war engineer. He went to Alda-Chur as a youth, apprenticed under a clockmaker, didn't like it, hated the Lunars because they were wealthy, moved home, and makes siege engines with his clock-building knowledge. This player, I considered "the heart" in my Dogs game, and he's totally taking the lead in this game in being the connection between the oddballs and the culture. He's a lay leader in his temple (Orlanth, the storm god, Destor-flavor) and quite wealthy.

We've got an "aphid herder" from the Vale of Flowers, a human-seeming insectoid hermaphrodite that is travelling and now worships Ernalda (goddess of the earth). Seriously. You might think, this isn't Glorantha. It seems to fit really well to me, though. It's the perfect campaign for it: Alone was been so ravaged that they'll let anybody in as long as they're down with Orlanth. I'm actually putting my money on this character being the primary motivator later. I'll discuss where I'm taking this, and it'll be clear.

Next, a Humakti (god of death) assassin from an ancient subcult with only a few members. Each takes a name from a part of the body. He's the Left Hand of Humakt. They go out in society as sleepers, and will show their true selves when orders come to enact Humakt's will. I'm pretty down with this, especially because it screams, "Hey, GM! What's up with the Right Hand? What if we get different orders?"

Lastly, a worshipper of Maran Gor (goddess of battle, earthquakes, and "quakebeasts"), a powerful priestess - the only devotee - who rides a tremendous war beast. (I'm thinking something like a rhino. This is the one character we didn't finish writing up, although her narrative is done.) She has two hearts.

So, you can see my Glorantha freak-show on parade here. I'm super-excited, though. By Being a total outside force, they've shaped what I want to do with the game completely.

Bait-and-switch Glorantha
Armed with these characters, I've planned a campaign. My original thoughts were something like this:

Trapped between trolls to the east, one type of sun-worshippers to the north, and a tribe converted to foreign sun-worship and Lunar-ism to the east, what will the survivors of Alone do? How will they survive? And will they fight back?

Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
I think the outcome will be awesome. Me, I'm kind of rooting for the Lunars.

Hiya,

Just so you can feel linked up with Gloranthan role-playing, that is a classic assortment of Dragon Pass characters to start with.

And yeah, there are lots of Lunar sympathizers out there, even if most Gloranthan textual material has historically tended to favor Sartarite rebels. In fact, I suggest you include a very reasonable and helpful Seven Mothers NPC who is absolutely up to no bad things at all.

And who therefore would obviously have a huge bullseye painted on him or her as far as every single other person in the area is concerned.

Best,
Ron

Me, I'm kind of rooting for the Lunars.

In fact, I suggest you include a very reasonable and helpful Seven Mothers NPC who is absolutely up to no bad things at all.

And Paul, Trolls eating the insect hermaphrodite? You mean worshiping, surely...

This cult allows the domestication of insects and flourishes among trolls ... Among other things, the cult promises worshipers that they will have insect food after death.

We had our first real session of HeroQuest last night, and, man, awesome.

First up, the game was short. We tightened up the characters and added a new one, a sort of Heortling atheist courier lady. (Seriously! And I said there were no atheists in Sartar. Guess I was wrong.) If you'd like to see our troupe of oddities, check out http://random.average-bear.com/TheAloneWar/CharacterSheets. I'm highly recommending you look at them if you're at all interested in HeroQuest. They'll give you a good idea of what you can do in the game. Many keywords were made up on the spot.

Cows Are Not Fond of Rhinos
I committed a serious GMing sin - I kind of used a pre-written adventure. "High Pressure Front" from the HeroQuest rulebook just seemed to fit so well for our area, though. I did vastly change the motivations in the scenario.

The Black Oak Clan (boo! hiss!) has used a cattle raid to hide their capture of the Alone Clan chieftain's son, Derik. They have hired an outside messenger (see above new character) to relay their ransom demands - either pay 10 cattle to the Black Oaks, or renounce Orlanth.

The setup scenes for this were really fun. I've never run HQ before, so my first simple contest - a group one - was a little poorly run, but we did have a great little bit. Si-Naak was storming down toward the cattle raiders on her granite rhino, and I had her roll to see if she got their first. She fumbles, I critical. Ouch. But, how to narrate that? I can't make her look stupid in the first scene. My Sorcerer and Sword GMing tools came back to me and the rhino launches itself down the hill, going too far and landing right in the middle of the cattle, scattering them in every direction, with four raiders surrounding Si-Naak. That was an awesome scene, and got better when she summoned a wave of earth to knock everyone around ass-over-teakettle.

Anyway, the PCs get roped into delivering these 10 cattle. No one's going to stop worshipping Orlanth. Also, somehow, the Alone Clan came off as a bunch of buffoons. I have a hard time playing multiple NPCs at once, and an entire hall of angry Orlanthi - well, I kept making jokes at their expense, in their voices.

The PCs decide early on - with the exception of the neutral messenger - that they'll deliver the cattle, but then they're going to raid the Black Oaks back, as to bring more glory to themselves. Only one of these people is actually a member of the Alone Clan, but the clan has been real friendly to them.

Meet the Peoples
So, the characters took a little overland journey. It's about a 25 mile trek to Ironspike, the home of the Black Oak Clan, from Alone. The first day, all I did was introduce some real Lunars. Not Lunarized Heortlings - these guys were the real thing, a tax collector and his four bodyguards. The characters decided not to screw around with him and were nice as he passed.

The second day of the trip was more exciting: an unnatural thunderstorm rolled in from the northeast - the Great Storm's direction - attempting to batter the holy crap out of our fearless travelers. The one true Orlanthi recognized the storm as unnatural and found a big nice cave to hole up in. The Black Lightning Gang, a group of rebel raiders, surrounded them. After some futile dialogue, ("Give us the wealth!" "This stuff is just paste, really!" "You are a liar!") the Black Lightning started whipping down literally-arcing spears. Our messenger whipped out some karate, snuck behind them, and cut down the leader while the rest of the heroes either smacked around raiders or ate mud, depending.

This kind of took the piss out of everyone, and they decided to actually talk. The raiders are Orlanthi, these guys are kind of Orlanthi, and they both don't like Black Oaks. So, our heroes earned their passageway, with a promise that they'll make it easy for the Bluefoot (the raiders) to get in Ironspike's hill fort and raid the crap out of the Black Oaks.

And that was the game for one night. Next week, they'll find the Black Oaks are decent folk that just happen to not worship Orlanth and really want Alone to get on the bandwagon.

What we did right
The story and dialogue were good. The players surprised me often with their tactics (the earthquake god-talker was great at this) and their ideas for the story.

I think as an introduction to HQ, this went great. Each contest, I introduced something new. I showed improvisation with the first one, augments with the second, and hammered home augments throughout the rest of the game. By the end, everyone was figuring out their own augments.

What we did wrong
I felt like there were pacing issues. In some ways, it felt like I rushed from set-piece to set-piece. This can be attributed to us starting late, and the inevitable "beginning-a-new-campaign" awkwardness.

The first group simple contest was awful: I kept letting people go again without real resolution. ("The raider is knocked back, but is getting up. What do you do now?") I did get it about 5 minutes in, though, and made each roll definitive.

Hi Clinton,

Any augmenting? This is a big deal.

Best,
Ron

Cool!

Looking at the character sheets, I note that your template says "Choose Two of the Above" in the section for keywords. Is this just a balancing mechanism you threw in?

I'm wondering what you mean about the first Group Simple Contest. You're saying that Clinton "Master of Conflict Resolution" Nixon wasn't resolving conflicts but doing task resolution? Really? How did that end up happening? Or am I misreading the problem?

How many augments were they using in the contests near the end? What was the most anyone used?

The Complete Defeat for the Rhino Rider should have had a permenant effect. Well, you don't have to inflict such, but I find that it really is best if you do so. Otherwise the events don't have mechanical teeth. Complete defeats seem less interesting, otherwise. So did you alter the character somehow after the defeat? Like giving them a "Reputation as a Crazy Rider" ability trait or something like that?

In general, did you apply the penalties from contests? How did you assign them?

Mike

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi Clinton,

Any augmenting? This is a big deal.

Best,
Ron

I think as an introduction to HQ, this went great. Each contest, I introduced something new. I showed improvisation with the first one, augments with the second, and hammered home augments throughout the rest of the game. By the end, everyone was figuring out their own augments.

Mike Holmes wrote: Cool!

Looking at the character sheets, I note that your template says "Choose Two of the Above" in the section for keywords. Is this just a balancing mechanism you threw in?

I'm wondering what you mean about the first Group Simple Contest. You're saying that Clinton "Master of Conflict Resolution" Nixon wasn't resolving conflicts but doing task resolution? Really? How did that end up happening? Or am I misreading the problem?

How many augments were they using in the contests near the end? What was the most anyone used?

The Complete Defeat for the Rhino Rider should have had a permenant effect. Well, you don't have to inflict such, but I find that it really is best if you do so. Otherwise the events don't have mechanical teeth. Complete defeats seem less interesting, otherwise. So did you alter the character somehow after the defeat? Like giving them a "Reputation as a Crazy Rider" ability trait or something like that?

In general, did you apply the penalties from contests? How did you assign them?

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: Species keywords aren't well defined in the main rulebook, in my opinion. Do you get one in addition to homeland? Or in addition to occupation? I dunno.

Always at least one. I think I saw three abilities augmenting a fourth once. They did use a lot, including personality traits ("Brave" to attack a raider in the midst of softball-sized hail.)

The war-engineer got a hefty one in the final fight, and as soon as he realized continuing to fight would mean he blew at it, he backed off.

First game, there'll be some mistakes.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: I'm very excited that I've finally found a group that wants to play HeroQuest.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
Basically, someone's got to give. Someone's got to say, "Ok, maybe I'm wrong, and the right way to worship is like this."

Clinton, Have you guys set any kind of duration to your game? Has that colored what you or the other players have done?

Christopher Weeks wrote: Clinton, Have you guys set any kind of duration to your game? Has that colored what you or the other players have done?

Forgot to mention: I find the extra species keyword to be a problem in some cases, as well as the idea that some people have the Common Magic keyword and a specialized magic keyword as well, etc. So what I do, is generally say no to these extras, but then I include this rule so that everyone can have something extra: http://random.average-bear.com/Heroquest/SpecialAbilities

Mike