I am moving this more general idea from out of the Species keywords--a kludge? thread, to avoid hijacking the keyword debate.

I have discussed there, that it may be an idea to get rid of the problematic issue of attributes in HQ by purely defining them as bonuses. The issue most clearly arises with Monsters, Exotic NPCs and other "big things". But is an issue that arises in normal play also.

To recite my example in the forementioned thread:

John has Tall +2 and Towering Presence 2W.
Its more specific, potentially more varied between players, more in line with the rules on Broadly Defined Abilities, an easier flag to deal with for narrators, and an easier handle for players to grasp

So, to clarify, I suggest that any aspects of a player or NPC strongly associated with attributes, such as Large, Strong, Tall, Intelligent, Dexterous, Tough etc. should be classified in the same way as armor, and just presented as a bonus.

If a player wishes to emphasise an attribute, then they should do so with a more narrowly defined skill, such as Muscular, or Acrobatic.

An issue that has arisen is the question of straight attribute v attribute tests. I would argue that such tests are not ideally suited for HQ, as it's rules mechanics are better suited to the why than the how.

So, again taking an example from the other thread:

It is better to decide on your goal and the skill that is appropriate, than to get down to the grit of attribute v attribute. So, instead of stating "I want to pitch my strength against its weight", you might say "I use my show-off skill augmented with my +2 strength to lift the rock, in an attempt to impress the ladies of the court".

That could work.

It would bear playtesting, though, I think.

I see no problem with this method in general. On the other hand, is it necessary? Why not keep it flexible and just make it an improv bonus or penalty, if you don't like attributes? But if I understand you correctly, you have nothing against attributes as traits, but just want them more specific. Like 'towering presence'. Next to these traits, there still is the attribute expressed as a bonus. I submit that your idea is already in the rules. Let me clarify. The rules offer many ways to deal with broad abilities (p. 19 of the rulebook). One is taking the ability as an extra keyword. And keywords cannot be raised (not counting advanced experience). But the traits included by a keyword can. These traits are necessarily more specific than the keyword. Also, if you haven't identified a special trait, but the keyword fits, than you can simply augment with the keyword rating. One ability will be under it, though it can't be named, yet. This is exactly like your bonus for the attribute. So I think, your idea is already covered by the rules.

On the other hand, if you don't like additional keywords, go with the bonus. It'll definitely work.

Sebastian.

Hm, what would a "strong" keyword look like?

Lift heavy objects, Deliver powerful blows, Perform impressive feats...  what else?

Shatter door (or other object), impressive handshake, carry the lady's bag.

Also, not every attribute keyword needs to be the same. So 'strong' could be different than 'strong', according to player emphasis. As an example, one may have Build like a bodybuilder while another just is strong, but does not look like it.

Sebastian.

I put "perform impressive feats" in there to cover the handshakes, but your point is well taken.

Then again, aren't keywords supposed to cover a wide variety?

sebastianz wrote:
I submit that your idea is already in the rules.

I have an issue with both this and the thread that spawned it, in that Large, as a rating, is essentially a guide to comparative sizes, or put simply, how big something is (taking Humans as the norm).

That aside, a bonus based attribute system fits quite well with something I have been mulling over the last week or so, which is in itself a plagarism of one of Ian Thompson's house rules.

Under the rules I am currently considering, characters would have a limit of 2 or 3 "attributes" that would be capped, requiring magic to raise them higher (either temporarily or permenantly)
which would include things like strong, clever, dexterous etc.

Whether these would need to come from the 100words/list or would be freebies I haven't yet decided, using a bonus method rather than a rating method requires a slightly approach. Perhaps an attribute pool that characters allocate at startup (5 points?), with a limit of +2 or +3 (for large, or something used as large, +2 would be the limit, roughly equivalent to troll sized). I would say that some of these skills could be trained to a maximum of +3, others would be untrainable, and any further increases would require some kind of magical intervention.

Whilst a diversion from the standard HQ rules (not the only one I am considering) it does serve to make Heroes and NPCs a little different from the standard human (or elder race)template, something that they just are, rather than something learned (skills) or formed (relationships and personalities)

Where I believe it breaks down is for some creatures. Whereas a (N)PC can be generally be defined by his skills, a creature may be defined purely by the fact that it is big & strong & tough. If all those become bonuses, what to they become bonuses too?

Mandrake wrote:
...Large, as a rating, is essentially a guide to comparative sizes, or put simply, how big something is (taking Humans as the norm).

Two points:

1. The rating of any NPC in gameplay is dictated by the needs of the story !

2. This rules doesnt apply to PC´s who can spend HP´s on their character any way they like. The rating of an ability means how useful it is in a contest. So a human could have Large 10M3 and still be humansized.

I think you cancel a great feature of HQ if you really want to apply a scale to certain abilities, like tall.....

Oh, man, this has gotten all messed up.

While I don't think that Strong should be used against Large to determine if you can lift an opponent, I do think that Large and Strong can be used in a contest to, say, push each other back. Just as I wouldn't allow run to be used vs fly to see who can get to the top of a cliff first, but I would allow them to be tested against each other to see who completed a race first. It's not a question of the abilities in question being special...there are cases where all abilities can't go up against others in specific circumstances. The question is only whether or not the contest makes sense given the in-game circumstances.

So if any of this is leaning on anything I've said, it doesn't have my support.

There is no "attribute" problem. Not that I can see. And "fixing" said problem by making more standard bonuses is, to me, the complete opposite of what should be done. That is, I don't like standard modifiers at all, I'd rather just use the regular system. That is, I'd prefer if players had "Sword 5W" rather than +3 for a sword. Why? Because it makes you take each ability into account on each contest. Having any ability that you can just say, "I get a +3"...that's not a detail I want in my game.

And how is two rating systems easier to grasp than one? Because it's like D&D?

I don't see how this is more "specific" or varied between players...you seem to be allowing precisely the same descriptions for abilities. Large is not a broad ability - it's actually useful in rather few situations. Tall is actually a very narrow ability.

As for Intelligent, quick, etc. yes, these are broad. I'm not sure what the problem with the normal rule for broad abilities is, and I'm not sure how a variation to the broad ability rule is supposed to be more like the broad ability rule than...well, the broad ability rule.In any case, I usually just ask the player to narrow. In which case we have the same solution. Allowing them to keep some broad bonus doesn't seem to help the situation that I can see.

As far as it being "an easier flag to deal with for narrators," well, I dunno, it might stand out this way, but then you're de-emphasizing all of the cool little abilities that don't get such treatment. I don't see how a normal ability is at all a difficult flag to deal with to start.

Ask Fred how many times in 60 sessions of play he got to use his character's "Strong 10W2" ability. Sure, looks like it's out of hand on paper, but in play, I actually used it against him once (making small shell necklace). The issue of how often abilities come up in play, and the "problem" of broad abilities when they do get into play are overstated.

I'm not seeing any problem here, and I'm seeing a solution that would produce lots of problems, IMO, as well.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Your reaction seems to be based on a presumption that I have somehow misunderstood something that you have said or attempted to patch a problem that you have hinted at. Let me reassure you this is not the case. I only mentioned you to refer to the mismatch of resistances issue. I am well aware you are happy with said mismatch.

I come to this issue from a perspective of someone who does perceive a problem with attributes. If you don't that is fine.

I have been dissatisfied with large creatures using their "large skill" to resist just about everything for years. I believe that the creatures section of the rules runs against the general feeling of HQ, and subverts what I see as a clear agenda elsewhere in the rules.

let me start form my feelings in general. This is not new stuff, just the ground work.

At the heart of HQ is the Simple Contest, it IS the core mechanic for all intensive purposes. By focusing on "what your hero is trying to do", the system encourages active, dynamic play based on aims and goals. It de-emphasises the "I hit it with my sword" style of play.

I am all for this goals then abilities style of play. So much so, that in my game I seek to streamline the way the game works to always emphasise this element, and if a rule works against this agenda I am dissatisfied with it. This includes large creatures, I am bored with using attributes to resist or oppose characters, it doesent say anything about the resistance, and makes every large creature very similar. It also works against my agenda by giving a bad example:

GM: "A dinosaur comes stomping out of the bushes and charges you"
Player: "I hit it with my sword"
GM: "Could you state your aim first to give us something to narrate?"
Player: "OK, I aim to decapacitate it quickly by jumping to one side and slashing at its leg as it goes past me"
GM "That's better, so... It resists with it's Tough augmented with its skin armour"

This kind of exchange is common in HQ in my experience. At its heart is the fact that the Simple Contest Sequence only asks the narrator to select a resistance. The goals and aims are all one way, there is no example of the principle being demonstrated by the narrator. I would rather see the GM responding thus:

GM: "That's better, so... It was charging, so its aim is to gore you, its resistance is its charge skill augmented with its Tough instead of its Size."

He is still selecting the resistance but in a manner more similar to the player's choice of ability.

I am happy to see creatures use skills like charge but find it very frustrating when they are encouraged by their stats to use their size, tough or even strength as their primary ability. If I was pushing an elephant up the stairs I could be opposed with its size, but I would be happier if the elephant was resisting with something more narrative focused like stubborn with a large augment of size. It is only a slight difference, it is still resisting with its size just not using it as its primary narrative stance.

The best way I can see to de-emphasize the attributes and emphasise the goals then skills agenda is to demonstrate this as the GM and only use attributes as augments.

Mike wrote:
Ask Fred how many times in 60 sessions of play he got to use his character's "Strong 10W2" ability. Sure, looks like it's out of hand on paper, but in play, I actually used it against him once (making small shell necklace). The issue of how often abilities come up in play, and the "problem" of broad abilities when they do get into play are overstated.

Mandrake wrote:

Mike wrote:
Ask Fred how many times in 60 sessions of play he got to use his character's "Strong 10W2" ability. Sure, looks like it's out of hand on paper, but in play, I actually used it against him once (making small shell necklace). The issue of how often abilities come up in play, and the "problem" of broad abilities when they do get into play are overstated.

Welcome Mandrake,
Good to see someone form our group chipping in here.

My response to the over use of augments regardless of situation is pretty much contained in my post on your edges thread. But, I also think this kind of play is best alleviated by the "Failure Means Conflict" examples found expoused here strongly by Mike and others, as some players automatically throw in augments in a desire to win every contest.

But this is a tangential point to the attribute issue. My main concern would be the use of Strength as a primary skill, I believe there are more dynamic and goal oriented skills that could be applied in every situation where such a skill could be used. And, using Strength in this manner can lead to a slip back into rolling for actions rather than goals. As I have stated, it describes How one is acting without reference to Why one is acting in the first place.

A wider goal with clear objectives leads to a more descriptive narrative outcome once the dice have landed. A wider goal with specific reasons outside of the ability used provides a broader canvas for the narrator and players to describe the action.

Jamie,

I don't get it. What actual play are you refering to? Are you in some game where what you describe happening happens? Where you are a player, and the Narrator is playing like this? Or are you the Narrator?

First, if you're doing it yourself, then you have only yourself to blame. Presented with two abilities like Charge and Large, the Narrator can choose whichever he likes as primary. In the case of a charge, I'd find it hard to justify, personally, using Large as primary, but...Anyhow, you can set the resistance any way you want (you don't even technically have to refer to any ability at all). So, ummm, just don't do that.

Anyhow, if it's other narrators, well, you're going to have to convince them to use your rule. Why not just convince them to use the other abilities as primary? Seems easier to me.

That is, there's nothing in the rules that's making people play the way you claim they are. They can already play just the way you want them to, and still be in the regular rules. In any case, I fail to see how a Narrator is "encouraged" to use Large in the examples you give. Are you telling me that the Narrator's you play with are actively trying to make the opposition win conflicts? If so, then you've got larger problems with agenda than a small rules fix like this can address.

All this said, I think that using Large this way is fine. Actually I disagree that narrators should have to use the same logic as players in coming up with how abilities relate to action. That is, the players have heroes, the center of the action. They need to have this sort of focus. But if there's a charging dinosaur, and the Narrator only wants to emphasize that it's Large...well, that seems fine to me. It's not a hero, and really doesn't deserve the same treatment.

Now, if it's the T-Rex from Lost World... sure. But then that's a judgment call, and, again, completely allowed by the rules.

Anyhow, your objections here and that of Mandrake above indicate a further problem, that you guys have "combat" in your games. Don't do that. Oh, have fights when they're appropriate. Have brawls, if it sounds fun. Allow contests to murder people. Assassinations are good, too. But it sounds to me like largely the problem comes down to not really having embraced the same idea that you say you want to embrace, which is that of character goals driving contests. A dinosaur is charging? The player's goal for his character is? Run away to get to high ground where the dino can't charge? OK, how's that combat? How will large help it? Maybe as an augment to it's charge, I suppose. But it won't be primary.

Large is only a problem if you see it as useful in every combat situation, and you see every confrontation with a "monster" as a "combat." Just don't do that. Frame all contests individually and you'll find that all abilities come into play, not just the seemingly broad ones.

Again, have trouble with Narrators who don't get that? Then small rules fixes like this aren't going to help.

Let's see, I had a Troll in the game with Large 15W (Shadow World Troll - 11 feet tall). He was involved in several contests, and I used his Large rating once - yes, a fight, but one against Okhfels, the guy with the Strong 10W2 (which I believe got used as an augment here). There were some chasing contests with it, some negotiation contests...in the end it ended up helping Okhfels and gang in a heroquest, augmenting with it's shaman abilities (did I mention it was a troll shaman?). I think that having Large come up once for an 11 foot troll is about right, no?

Okhfel's strong ended up being an augment in many cases, but was only primary once or twice that I recall. And in those cases the goals were like "Restrain Character X" or something where, in fact, use of it as primary made it more goal oriented, not less.

I think you're attacking symptoms of a larger problem. I don't have that larger problem, so, of course, I don't have the symptoms that your system might deal with.

Mike

Mike wrote:
I don't like standard modifiers at all, I'd rather just use the regular system. That is, I'd prefer if players had "Sword 5W" rather than +3 for a sword. Why? Because it makes you take each ability into account on each contest. Having any ability that you can just say, "I get a +3"...that's not a detail I want in my game.

And how is two rating systems easier to grasp than one? Because it's like D&D?

I don't see how this is more "specific" or varied between players...you seem to be allowing precisely the same descriptions for abilities. Large is not a broad ability - it's actually useful in rather few situations. Tall is actually a very narrow ability.

As for Intelligent, quick, etc. yes, these are broad. I'm not sure what the problem with the normal rule for broad abilities is, and I'm not sure how a variation to the broad ability rule is supposed to be more like the broad ability rule than...well, the broad ability rule.In any case, I usually just ask the player to narrow. In which case we have the same solution. Allowing them to keep some broad bonus doesn't seem to help the situation that I can see.

As far as it being "an easier flag to deal with for narrators," well, I dunno, it might stand out this way, but then you're de-emphasizing all of the cool little abilities that don't get such treatment. I don't see how a normal ability is at all a difficult flag to deal with to start.

I'm not seeing any problem here, and I'm seeing a solution that would produce lots of problems, IMO, as well.

Mike,

Sorry crossposted there, but in our games we have multiple GMs with multiple agendas so it gets very murky. (Possibly best left to individual GMs to post if they want to address those issues as different issues arise in different games due to those differing agendas.

I don't do combat, so I agree with you on most of your points. Mandrake uses combat in a very gritty RQ style and makes it work very well, HQ can be used this way effectively but HW was better suited to it in some respects. Different game, different agenda so no problem, best to keep the issues separate.

As I posted in my crosspost, I think you may have believed I was making a bigger change to the rules than I am suggesting, and I am addressing the way I have observed play and narration as well as issues I have with the way that the rules encourage different interpretations.

The attribute problem is most clearly expressed in the whole issue of size on page 206 of HQ.

Here a human size in expressed as 6 (large and small). Large and Small are considered inappropriate abilities, Big or Slender are not to be raised, outside of "racial norms" (no idea what that means). All size stats given in the creatures section are as compared to this base of 6. It expressly states that size can be used in contests.

In my view its just a cut & paste job from Anaxil's Roster with little regard for how the system works and only a slight nod towards the changes from HW to HQ (i.e. it stops worrying about specific trample rules).

This does not work for me at all, everytime size is used you need to keep in mind relative sizes of creatures and how this effects things. (At least that's how my mind works). I would prefer to just sweep this issue away. It doesn't help me arrive at suitable resistances but instead confuses me.

The line from AR is what led to my inital assertion that Large is essential a rating of comparative size (RQ's Size if you will).

Jamie and I have different approaches to narration but we "suffer" the same group of players. Trying to find a consistent approach that works with both gamist narration and narrative narration can get a little trying.

I gave up on consistancy long ago :-)

You do have me confused now. I was under the assumption that your notion was to take a Large 5W and convert it into a Large +3 (potentially along with adding some ability like "Bulky" as well that's more specific). A standard bonus, I don't see how this creates relative size references, instead it just makes the demarcation between sizes more fuzzy. I don't have a specific problem with that, but I don't see how it accomplishes your goal, other than that it means that the ability can't be used as primary. The complaint seeming to be that otherwise they're overused (forget about the term broad for a moment, which I think means the same thing).

Let's try this from a different standpoint...how do I know an ability is an "attribute?" I mean, if I think it might be a broad ability, I can ask for it to be narrowed - we all agree that this works. But let's say that there's something on the borderline. When do I know that it deserves this special treatment?

Anyhow, again looking at the last two posts, I think I'm seeing where the problem lies right there.

Mike

As two narrators in the same gaming group have conflicting ideas on one concept (Large) I'm not surprised you are confused.

I see Large as described in Anaxial's, a measure of comparative size. Jamie does not. I think it's the use of Large as a predominant example of an attribute throughout this thread that's perhaps causing the confusion.

Yes, 3 narrators with different agendas does cause problems in and of itself but recent session of the 3rd campaign (the one we both play in) have led both of us to examine certain aspects of the game. At some point, we will have to document campaign specfic house rules I think just to show how different they are (and to prevent "those weren't the rules last week arguments" when we switch campaign)

Jamie's issue, as I understand it, is "monsters" using one significant "attribute", be it large, tough, strong as a generic resist all. Of course for his campaign, as narrator, he can simply choose not to do it, but each of us has historically tried to influence the other two or at least find some degree of middle ground on a concept. Without wanting to cite specfic examples, we have both disagreed with the ways that they have been used in the 3rd campaign which is perhaps what started Jamie on this topic in the first place

It's looking to me, that has the 3 playstyles (narration styles?) we have evolve, we will end up using increasingly disparate house rules to suit our specific needs and agendas.

The whole comparative/relative thing and Anaxial's Roster are, I think, missing the point entirely. Frankly I don't think that HW was all that different than HQ in this regard, and so I don't see how these creatures have some problematic "hold-over" problem with Large.

Large is an ability just like "Dragon Pass Geography." I've heard some people complain about the ratings that creatures have been given before (mostly that they're too small somehow). But never have I heard that these abilities were somehow any different than any other abililty.

All abilities are "6-based." That's the default level. Every being has a 6 in everything that's not on the character sheet. If a creature isn't "average" in something, if it's worth noting that they're different, then you mark down the ability on the sheet with some rating larger than 6.

These abilities are used to figure out who wins contests. In addition most people prefer to say that they describe the character in-game as well, but even that's not neccessary. But, if you do, then I can see no reason why a larger creature shouldn't have a larger rating, and why those ratings can't be compared. And why those abilities can't be used in contests.

The only objection that sounds sane to me is that the ability is too broad, so it gets used too much. That I might buy. But that's a matter of contest framing style, or of not using the rule for broad abilites to force the ability to get narrowed down. Dinosaur says Large? Change it to, I dunno, Titanic or whatever you think is narrower. But in any case, there are still goign to be legitimat cases where you can use that ability.

Mike