Hi,

I'm looking into running a Midnight game with the HQ system. Midnight is your typical MERP-like fantasy setting, with one plot twist The Evil One, after being beaten up, was exiled on the world  which was then sealed off by the Veil, effectively cutting the world off other planes (the Other Side?). Oh yeah, Midnight is originally a d20 setting. (Probably everyone reading this thread knows about Midnight, still, just in case, this was an intro.)

Converting the races and classes into homelands and professions should be a no brainer.

Two things seem tricky to me:

1) Magic. Magic is rare in Midnight, its usage is scarce and taxing for the body. Only the evil priests have divine magic. Heroes have some innate magic (also elves, hallings and magical beings). The last form of magic is channeling (using the energies from the world) which has three ways: charismatic, spiritual and hermetic.

2) Health. It seems survival is an important aspect of the setting and the rarity of healing magic make it hard to recover (especially when running for your life.) Also using to much magic can tax your body.

In HQ magic is fairly unlimited and health seem to be a non issue given how easy it is to heal mundane wounds (resistance 14 for magic healing.)

Suggestions / comments / ideas are welcome.

Janus

Oh yeah, this thread is a follow up on some PMs with Kerstin which allow me to reproduce some of our conversion, so here it is:

"Kersti wrote: Don't worry about HQ magic being "unlimited". It's not. Just apply the rules stringently: penalties for inherently difficult magic, consequences on a defeat when using a magic ability, limits on the number of magical augments you can use at one time without a ritual, etc. It works beautifully well without introducing any "per day" limitation. There are lots of ways to let casters "tax" their bodies: using physical consequences for defeats in contests with magic is one; using HQ tapping rules is another.

Consider using all three religion/magic systems. It's not just about having a variety of fun magic rules to play with. it's about the cultural implications of each one. To  bring across the loss of religion for everyone but Izrador's followers, have the Other Sides inaccessibly beyond the Veil. Means that most people will have access only to common magic (except animists might still have some ancient fetishes with spirits in them that have never been released - of course once you do release the spirit it's lost because it can't return to the Spirit World and can't be called back).
Note that this makes Legates very, very powerful because they will be teh only ones with a readily accessible "full" range of magic.

Janus wrote:

a) What are the HQ tapping rules?

b) What would you map channeling to? common magic, sorcery or animism?

It seems survival is an important aspect of the setting

The Tapping rules were in HeroWars, but not HQ. However, we get the following useful info from the website:

Tapping

Some creatures have abilities similar to Tapping, which is not in HeroQuest. Such creatures can use their tapping ability to drain points from entries on the character sheet that match the description of the tap ability. Generally, the highest ability is targeted. If the tapping creature wins the contest, the target permanently loses an amount from its ability based on the level of defeat. The tapping creature adds these points to its abilities as defined in the creature's description, distributing them as evenly as possible. For example, if a memovore attacks Hogar's Know Local Area ability and drives him to -14 AP in the extended contest, Hogar suffers a minor defeat and loses 10% of his Know Local Area 10W ability, and so loses 3 points. The memovore adds 1 each to its Aura of Confusion, Detect Intruder, and Induce Amnesia abilities. This loss is permanent, but Hogar can spend hero points to increase his rating. If the tapping creature loses the contest, losses from the Consequences Table are applied to its Tap ability. Thus, if the memovore is driven to -14 AP, it suffers a minor defeat and loses 10% from its Tap Memories. If this brings the Tap ability of a memovore, hellion, or kon-kon below zero, the creature ceases to exist. Others suffer the concequences of the Results Table.

First, a reference to some previous threads where we talked much of this to death:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=13570.0
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=14467.0

Some points:

1. I think there's a very simple way to do tapping, without any special rules. When somebody taps somebody else, if the contest is won, then the loser takes the appropriate penalty to represent being tapped (can be pretty broadly applied, IMO, or only to that ability which is tapped), and the winner of the contest gets to essentially force the character to augment him with one of his abilities. The tapped essence is a representation of the ability drained.

Another, even cooler, way to handle this, is to make tapping a very small heroquest. Basically you have to cross the 10W3 barrier to get at the subjects essence, and once there, you simply do a heroquest challenge between the two characters gambling the appropriate abilities as normal. BTW, this, of course, explains how vampirism works, too.

Lots of ways to work it.

2. I really have to read channeling to get it. But I can make arguments for any of the modes for it - and all of them. Including theism. The "God" in the case of theism is Aryth. That said, I think this really argues more for a monotheist religion with Aryth being the source of the magic that they all use. Hermetic is, of course, definitely this way (Wizardry). If the setting says that there are no spellbooks that you cast from (though we know there are books), then simply have all schools teach individual spells.

Common magic should also cover this. Basically if a character in Midnight would not have magecraft indicating which sort of channeling he has, then he has it as common magic.

Animism may be problematic if you identify the spirit magic included in the setting as, in fact, animism. That defies the "druidic" version is animist in nature, which seems likely. Ayrth then as Great Spirit, with lesser spirits providing powers.

So, to clarify:
Charismatic = Theist
Hermetic = Wizardry
Spiritual = Animism

That's probably how I'd do it. Turns out that Midnight has everything for the players! I probably wouldn't even make any of them Misapplied Worship, but you could do that if you wanted to make one of these the "right" way to channel Ayrth (or to simulate something from the setting that says that one or more of these is particularly hard to do).

3. On the subject of the "cost" of magic: Kerstin is right. What often happens in such circumstances, however, is that the contest becomes something like "Do I hurt him, or does he hurt me?" If that's the case, then most often a defeat will end up getting described in terms of the other guy hurting you. So there seems to be no risk of getting hurt from casting the spell itself. In practice nobody cares - the fact that there was one potential downside to a conflict is enough. But what you can do to keep in the element of potential damage is to occasionally frame a contest biased towards the character alone. This is cool, because you can make it seem like magic has an advantage (when in actuality it's still balanced).

For instance, you can have a character shoot a lightning bolt at another who is running away. Normally in such a contest, say with an archer, the only downside of losing is that the other guy gets away. But when this sort of thing happens with magic, the downside should be the health ramifications.

Now, what's true about this is that what never happens is that the character never gets his way, and the spell damages him. Every once in a while, when it's dramatically appropriate, when a caster has been using a lot of magic, have him make a separate contest with a TN based on how much magic he's slinging about. If he loses, he's hurt by the expense of using the magic.

You could make this de rigeur with each roll. I fully intended to do that with my game (more for fatigue than for health per se). But know what? I forgot to do it. And nobody noticed. Basically if nobody cares, it's not a conflict worth playing out.

Think of it this way - fighting causes you to be fatigued. One could, after every fight, require a character to make a roll to see if they got tired in a long-term fashion. But one never does. This is a great strength of HQ. If you've ever forgotten to record END loss in a game of Champions, then you know exactly what I mean. Sure, the END rules are cool, and give you a reason why characters just don't go around using their powers all the time. It's just that in HQ, the "threat" of such contests is enough to keep players from doing it. That is, players don't have their characters cast spells all day long for the same sort of reason that they don't have their characters try to dig holes all day long. We all know it would kill them. As long as the narrator could call for a contest of this nature, that's all we need to know.

So simply inform players that they might get bad things happening to them if/when they use magic, but then only have them roll for it, if/when it's fun. I actually had a character in a game recently who I wanted to roll for an endurance contest, because she'd had a very, very long day, and still had a potentially long way to go. The contest punctuated that.

So throw in a contest to see if somebody is injured by their magic when they're doing some casting before a fight or something. Basically where it would have some really interesting effect in the original system, or just strikes you as the right time to do it. But don't make it systemic.

4. For the healing problem, solve this simply by not having any place where magic provides "just healing." Yes, the D20 system probably has "Cure Light Wounds" or the like, and HQ seems to have generic healing abilities. Just chuck all of that. It doesn't match any fantasy world that I know of. Have some healing abilities, but make them very specific. That is, you should have "Close Bleeding Wound" and "Mend Bone" and "Restore Feeling" or whatever. Just don't have any magic that's "Heal Wound." Basically you can expand healers a lot by doing this, and give characters all sorts of little interesting first aid abilities without allowing them to all be the equivalent of surgeons. When you give a wound, just give it some character, and you'll know whether the magic in question applies.

If you then make few to no cults that provide wide ranges of healing magic, then you'll never have a group that's proof against being hurt.

Mike

Thanks a lot for all the suggestions, pointers and food for thought. I will probably look into it in more detail this week end since it seems this week will be hell at work :(

Kerstin wrote:
Tapping into other creatures' essences is mentioned on p. 155 (right column), but I can't find actual rules for it. Which is odd because I'm almost certain I was talking about tapping mechanics with people at a rainy bus stop only the other day. I'll try to find out the specifics and post them.  Or maybe others can point you to where those rules exist, if they are official.

Kerstin wrote:
I'd make Channeler an occupation. Basically like spirit talkers, priests or wizards. Maybe even use those occupations, depending on what sort of magic/religion the individual channeler follows. Wizards make for almost perfect hermetic channelers, for instance.

Kerstin wrote:
Defeinietly something you need to decide (agree with your players) before you start play: wether to focus on survival (how to elude capture/starvation from day to day) or on the heroism (i.e. player choices on the many tricky and difficult choices presented in the setting).

Mike wrote:
2. I really have to read channeling to get it. But I can make arguments for any of the modes for it - and all of them. Including theism. The "God" in the case of theism is Aryth. That said, I think this really argues more for a monotheist religion with Aryth being the source of the magic that they all use. Hermetic is, of course, definitely this way (Wizardry). If the setting says that there are no spellbooks that you cast from (though we know there are books), then simply have all schools teach individual spells.

Mike wrote:
So, to clarify:
Charismatic = Theist
Hermetic = Wizardry
Spiritual = Animism

Mike wrote:
I probably wouldn't even make any of them Misapplied Worship, but you could do that if you wanted to make one of these the "right" way to channel Ayrth (or to simulate something from the setting that says that one or more of these is particularly hard to do).

Mike wrote:
So simply inform players that they might get bad things happening to them if/when they use magic, but then only have them roll for it, if/when it's fun.

Mike wrote:
4. For the healing problem, solve this simply by not having any place where magic provides "just healing." Yes, the D20 system probably has "Cure Light Wounds" or the like, and HQ seems to have generic healing abilities. Just chuck all of that. It doesn't match any fantasy world that I know of. Have some healing abilities, but make them very specific.

Janus wrote:
I will probably look into it in more detail this week end

Reading the old post it seems you were against using Animism and Wizardry, pretty much for the same reason as me (they seem needlessly complicated). What made you change your mind?

I think I will start with a focus on survival because I'm interested in the interaction with the common folks and it should give the players a feeling about what state the world of Midnight is in and how it differs from other fantasy settings. As the novelty wear off and survival is not an issue anymore (e.g. if the PCs join a faction that can support them or if they built their own faction), I will switch toward a more heroic game.

Janus wrote:
BTW, what would tapping relate to in Midnight?

Reading the old post it seems you were against using Animism and Wizardry, pretty much for the same reason as me (they seem needlessly complicated). What made you change your mind?

I guess that's why I like the theism system best: it's simple and straighforward, just affinities and feats (which may or may not be improvised).

For the charismatic I will use the affinity/feat system but it won't be of theist nature,

As you said, for Hermetic and Spiritual traditions, Sorcery and Animism are right on the money (tho all the otherworld stuff goes away.)

Actually, I will make the three traditions of channeling misapplied worships for several reasons:
1) I don't want players to be able to concentrate them so they are more expensive to raise. Magic is rare and hard to come by in Midnight for the good guys. (The evil priests are using proper theist magic from their god and not channeling.)
2) As mentioned above, I think of channeling as a form of misapplied worship of innate magic, taking by force what was not freely given to you.

3) Astiraxes can detect channeled magic but not innate magic nor divine (theist) magic... so what if the in-game explanation was that they can detect misapplied worship effects? I think it fits nicely.

Excellent point, I will do exactly that. Also not having written number of points/usage per day might in fact make players use less magic (rather than 'oh I can use it two more time today, let's not waste it by not using it!').

Interesting suggestion, though I'm not sure I want fragment things too much. I might just do some wound trait for wounded characters and replace the default 14 resistance with that (and given your level of victory you heal more or less... with risk of backlash if you fail... not to mention the risk of being detected.)

Some Tapping rules are in the back of the Midnight-HeroQuest conversion. The answer I got from the Yahoo HQ-rules group was that HQ rules hadn't covered Tapping yet (at least not in a post-Hero Wars fashion) but would in an upcoming release.

So, some of the participants on that forum shared how they use Tapping and what rules have worked for them. Those posts made it into the conversion, albeit in an appendix.

Kerstin's right about the Survival vs. Heroism thing. It's possible to be heroic in the face of survival and it's possible to do the survival thing for a while in an heroic game, but one of them will eventually have to become the dominant theme.

As far as handling channeling, the implementation I have in Midnight-HQ is functional but complex as hell (Primary Magic?! What was I thinking?). In the revision of Midnight-HQ, magic is a lot simpler. I learned a great deal from running some games and playing in Mike's ShadowWorld game. Much of that is reflected in the revision.

QuestWorlds will also have a major influence on whatever form the revision of Midnight-HQ takes.

Scott

Regarding the "Is this Animism, Theism or Wizardry?" and the question of misapplied worship in Midnight...

I'm not a big fan of trying to apply Gloranthan cosmology onto the world of Midnight. I think Mike and Kerstin have had very insightful discussions on the matter in the past and have successfully found a middle ground where Glorantha's Otherworlds meet Midnight's setting.

But it's not a route I would choose to go. I view it as a kind of metaphysical rabbit hole. Take that for what it's worth.

If you're going to run Midnight in HQ, my suggestion would be to not worry about misapplied worship, concentrating magic, otherworlds, etc. etc. If those questions come up in play, it's possible to address them at that time if you so choose.

I know that runs completely counter to what's in the conversion, but...

I hate to keep pointing to a revision that no one has access to. It's a total cop-out and I know that. So I found a portion of a post between myself, Bruce Ferrie and Bankuei on a zip drive that served as the foundation for what I've cobbled together in the revision. I don't have a copy of the revision on this computer and, to be honest, it's nowhere near complete. But hopefully, this can be enough to get your thoughts swirling on the matter...

Me:
One of the things I have in my Midnight-HQ conversion was a Spell Drain mechanic, that might help out with what you're talking about.

Basically, the negative consequences of a failed spell attempt were applied to the spellcaster's ability to cast future spells. This "damage" to spellcasting ability worked like any other type of damage and was healed normally too.

To mirror the atypical D&D wizard, you might give him something like a "Cast Arcane Spells 17" ability. Make the spells themselves have ratings too, based on their level. Pick whatever multiplier or rating makes sense to you for a particular level but I'd say the spells themselves should only augment the "Cast Arcane Spells" ability when cast on the fly. You could make some sort of rule where a Wizard with the appropriate components and enough time to cast a full-blown ritual could use the rating of the spell actively. That could be neat.

Spell Drain works like this. If the spell attempt is successful, then the damage or whatnot is applied from the results on the chart as per vanilla HQ. If the spell attempt is a failure, then the consequences come out of the "Cast Arcane Spells" ability. So if our Wizard got a Marginal Failure on an attempt to cast magic missile, his "Cast Arcane Spells" ability would drop to 16. If he got a minor failure, it would drop to 15.

Wizards could "heal" their spellcasting ability through study/meditation/whatever but there'd be no first aid for them or magical healing (unless you want that kind of thing). They'd have to heal through the appropriate ability and the passage of time. A spellcaster that suffered a complete defeat would be pretty ganked for a while.

To power up the magic to your typical D&D fire-and-fawhoom levels, have the default resistance to magic (14) apply to everything except contests resisted by another magical ability, a personality trait or a relationship. Basically, make it so that mundane abilities can't be used to resist magic. So the Half-Orc with "Tough 1w" under his race would be out of luck unless his Toughness was magical in nature. Better yet, make it so that the default resistance applies to everything except contests resisted by another magical ability or a relationship.

That would be quite a tweak. You might also want to increase Spell Drain, such that every casting takes 1 off Spell Drain in addition to any negative consequences of a failed contest. That sort of gives the feel of a fire-and-forget system.

Yeah, on the survival matters, what I'd do is intersperse contests in there. Basically do it for tone. That is, don't worry about the in-game logic of "Well today is just like yesterday when we rolled, so we must have to roll again." Instead just be arbitrary about it, "Hey, let's have a check to see how well you guys are doing food-wise! We haven't done something like that in a while."

And...I have to protest. I have not, nor have I ever said that one should project Gloranthan metaphysics on the Midnight setting. I completely agree. Where we disagree is in that you see thesim, animism and wizardry as somehow being Glorantha-only structures, whereas I see them in every setting. I can point to very specific things in Midnight that match these things. Starting grossly with the fact that even some of the terms match up. I'm really not extrapolating as far as you apparently think I am.

Further, I've gone to great lengths to talk about how even these particular structures are unneccessary, and how to replace them. So please don't paint me as the guy who wants to make Glorantha out of everything. It's not remotely accurate.

Mike

Mike wrote: And...I have to protest. I have not, nor have I ever said that one should project Gloranthan metaphysics on the Midnight setting. I completely agree. Where we disagree is in that you see thesim, animism and wizardry as somehow being Glorantha-only structures, whereas I see them in every setting. I can point to very specific things in Midnight that match these things. Starting grossly with the fact that even some of the terms match up. I'm really not extrapolating as far as you apparently think I am.

Scripty wrote: I'm not a big fan of trying to apply Gloranthan cosmology onto the world of Midnight. I think Mike and Kerstin have had very insightful discussions on the matter in the past and have successfully found a middle ground where Glorantha's Otherworlds meet Midnight's setting.

Scott, you're putting me in a tough position. Is it possible for you to try to ignore any emotional content that you might percieve in the next section? And just focus on what I'm saying?

What I object to, very specifically, is, in fact:

I tend to call the division of magic into Theism, Animism and Wizardry and the concept of power being granted through these means from some Otherworld (and all the related bits like misapplied worship) by the term, Gloranthan Cosmology.

Mike:

I think that whether or not brainstorming on how the magic systems in HeroQuest might apply to a setting constitutes applying Gloranthan Cosmology to a given setting is a bit out of scope for this topic. Also, whether using the term, "Glorantha", when referring to such a process is a good or a bad thing is really a value judgement that far exceeds the intent and wording of either of my posts.

I use the term, "Gloranthan Cosmology", to describe exactly what I said. Nowhere do I imply, much less actually state, that using this framework makes a setting more or less "Gloranthan" anymore than eating Italian food makes me more or less Italian.

What I do see happening here, though, is that you're setting me up as a Straw Man. Basically, you're implying, assuming or outright saying that I'm of a certain opinion based on your desire to have a dissenting opinion to strike down.

For example, where I say "apply", you say I meant "impose". Where I say "apply Gloranthan cosmology onto the world of Midnight", you further assume I'm painting you as a person who applies "Gloranthan cosmology" to all settings. Even though I specifically mention only one setting. And making such a statement about you would be so patently and obviously false that my nose would grow an inch for every letter I typed trying to make it.

While I'm not in agreement with everything you're saying in your last post, I can state that your opinions are valid enough without having to resort to this sort of argumentative prestidigitation. I would be upset about you casting your inferences, assumptions and opinions about what I'm saying as my actual position if the whole thing wasn't so ludicrous.

I've been made into this sort of blow-up, debate punching doll. Assign me whatever opinion strikes your fancy.

My whole point, in it's abridged, blunt and truthful entirety was this...

"I don't agree with trying to figure out where the magic systems in HeroQuest (Gloranthan Cosmology, if you will) can or should fit into the Midnight setting. But Mike and Kerstin did a brainstorm on that a while back and had some great ideas on the topic."

The only value judgements I'm making are:

A) I don't agree with this approach
B) Others have good ideas about it

My agreement or disagreement is irrelevant to the merit of your opinions, insomuch as your opinions are valid and truthful (which they are).

My position on your last post is the same mixture of agreement and disagreement, as might be considered healthy between two lucid individuals capable of critical thought. But I think both topics exceed the purpose of this thread (a Midnight/Heroquest conversion). I'd be willing to join you on another thread, if you like. But I don't have much to say on either topic.

I don't see labelling a cosmology as "Gloranthan Cosmology" as slandering or somehow tainting either the cosmology or the magic system therein. And my disagreement on the topic of "find(ing) where the very cool general description of how magic works as described in the Hero Quest rules system applies to Midnight (or another setting)" is so minor as to be hardly worth posting.

Sorry for the let down but I can't be expected to take up every banner that's thrown into my hand.

Scott

Hi Mike:
Rereading my last post, I came to the conclusion that my choice of wording comes across a bit harsh. That's not my intent. I'm really not upset or anything and I don't want to get you in an emotional state either. But I do think that your correspondence with me has moved beyond the topic and content of my original post.

I think that the issues you raise in your post deserve their own threads. Perhaps three.

Scott

Greetings,

Sorry it took me so long, I had a lot of reading to do (and lot of work.) Thanks a lot for all the information as well as all the pointers. I've read through Kerstin's prep threads as well as the thread about magic. Good stuff.

I will go for an heroism based campaign, I think it has a greater story potential. Besides it's more my kind of stuff, it will just be way more low-key in term of power than our HQ/Exalted campaign, but I will try to make up for it in intensity :)

For magic, I decided to follow's Mike's advice: 'What makes magic "magical" is having some meaning behind the magic.' Also rather than trying to map the magic user classes from Midnight d20 to HQ, I decided to go on a case by case basis and introduce various kind of spellcasters as they serve the story.

Out of my four players, two decided to play spellcasters.
One seem to want to do a standard wizard, we still have to work out what kind of magic he is interested in, but initially it seemed to be the hermetic kind (with grimoires, spells, places of power, etc.) The spells would come from channeling the magical energies of the world and the power nexus; I think HQ Wizardry rules would work fine for this.

The other is playing a kind of northman spirit-talker, he wants to lay to rest the Lost (undeads without a body) and the Fell (undeads with a body) and his supported in his task by the spirits of his ancestors (the ones that rest in peace, amongst the Eternals). At first I thought of making him some kind of Shaman but his goal if for the spirits to rest in peace, so binding the spirits in his service seems kinda wrong... but I still want the spirits who approve of his work to grant him powers, so I might have him be able to channel the energies of the Eternals in the form of some feats / affinities. If he stray from the path his ancestors consider proper he might get haunted tho :) I could probably allow him some friendly spirit ally that decided to tag along to help him.

I'm not sure what I will do for the bad guys yet. I'm only sure their powers come from the evil God and is divine. I have to give some thoughts about the various kinds of legates that are around (there are some exemples in Midnight... but they need some extra work to become interesting, IMO.) It has not been my biggest priority tho as the first leg of the campaign is going to discover various cultures of the world; a more close and personal conflict with the Order of the Shadow will come later.

Sorry for all the uncertainity, it's pretty much a work in progress at this point. As usual with me it's going to end up being an adaptation more than a conversion, bent to the needs of my campaign :)

Again, thanks a lot for all the information / comments / suggestions; it's most helpful.

Regards,

Janus