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Quote from: LozAlso, having played more sessions, I believe it to be a very versatile system and I've been seduced into producing key word conversion for gaming in Moorcock's Young Kingdoms.  Folk on The Forge who know me know I'm a BRP/d100 die-hard, but I think HQ is terrific, to be honest, and it suits my GMing and playing style.

And the HQ book is also the best intro to Glorantha I've seen.

Top marks, Issaries.

This thread is a continuation of a question that occured to me on this thread http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=82155#82155. I have seen some mention of using HeroQuest rules for other settings and even a couple of examples here http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/bferrie/resources/index.htm. But a question of mine, which does not seem to be yet addressed on this forum, is how much work is needed to go into using HeroQuest for another setting? What exactly is necessary to do so and, from those with experience running/playing the game, how difficult is it to change various elements (i.e. magic) within the context of the system? Is it a system where things are fairly mutable, like Sorcerer or Donjon, or is it a system that breaks down quite easily if tinkered with too much like D&D? And by "breaks down", I mean that rules are so interdependent that changing one thing can affect so many other aspects of the game system that altering the system is an unpredictable and uncertain enterprise. Thus, adding something like a Defense Bonus in D&D3e or changing the way spells/magic work, can offset any number of other aspects of the game, either overpowering, underpowering, or contradicting them and, thus, effectively "break" the game.

I only know what I have read here, on rpg.net, in reviews and on the Issaries site. In some lights, the system seems very versatile. In others, it seems very tied to its setting, and thus a difficult enterprise to apply it to other settings. Which is it?

Thanks in advance for any answers that you might provide.

EDIT: fixed a couple of grammatical errors

Hi S,

I'm actually currently writing up my own alternate setting, and I believe the answer is:  It's as much work as you want to put into it.   Seriously.

In another thread here, I said, "HQ is to Narrativism, as GURPS is to Sim", which is to say, highly flexible and capable of taking on a lot of varied settings without much trouble.

The Occupations list covers pretty much everything before the steam age, and after that, it shouldn't be too hard to create new occupations, as we're personally MORE familiar with occupations of the last 100-200 years than say, the bronze age.

The Homelands and cultures can be popped out pretty quick, especially if you don't produce 20-odd cults and religions.  Strip those out and you'll see that most of the Homelands actually take up only 1 column, or a few paragraphs on a page.

For additional speed, fun, and creativity, put homeland/culture creation into your players hands("So, you want to be a Nemidian?  Tell me abou them!"), with the usual GM review.

If you want to save yourself EVEN more time, treat the abilities like Over the Edge traits, which is to say, make them broad, such as only using Keywords and unique descriptions, kick out the individual skills.  At that point, you can probably do almost any kind of creation on the fly.  The only major change you'll get from that is that character advancement will speed up by about 4-5 times.

Chris
(edited for clarity)

I've got some substantive experience on this subject. In fact, you can find some posts on this forum, and on the Actual Play forum that deal with my foray into using Hew Wars to run the old Rolemaster standard fantasy world called Shadow World. Many of the other threads speak to just this issue.

First, I have to admit that I'm not sure how successful it was. That is, I had loads of fun playing it, but we (seem to) have abandoned the game to play with another GM (Josh Neff) using Glorantha. That said, I think it may have been my attempt to make the game sorta "campaigny", or something, and we only abandoned it to try more exciting things. So I think that nothing can be blamed on the system, and it wasn't really a failure. But I do thiink that there were some potential issues. None of which were breakers in any way, though.

In fact, I wanted to use the system for exactly the sort of play that it produced in the setting. The characters had strong links to the setting, the action was ineresting and intense. It was all very cool to me.

What Chris says is sorta true from my experience. Which is to say that it does take some effort. Obviously the core resolution works just fine. There are two things that have to happen.

First, you have to decide what you want to do for chargen in terms of Keywords. Given that the Keywords in the HQ book are just samples anyhow, however, and that you'd have to make your own for characters from other places, you can see that it's no big deal to make up more Homeland Keywords. It does take a little effort, but there's an easy way around that. Let the players make up the keywords. Give them an article on the Homeland, or just your impressions of it as GM. Then, like the Narrative method of chargen, just have them pick out the things that seem to make sense as Abilities to go along. Make them like other Homeland Keywords in that you should remember to include the appropriate relationships and such that make a well rounded Keyword.

This is really rewarding as a process, because the player then has an investment in the are that he's helping to mechanically flesh out. Occupatonal Keywords are likely no different from Glorantha to your world and can be ported intact. In any case, these need to be fabricated often enopugh that there's really no difference playing with the system in Glorantha or other worlds as fara s Occupational Keywords go.

The second thing that needs real work, and by far the more difficult, is coming up with how magic works in the world in question, and how to handle these keywords. Assuming that you already have some idea of how it works in the world that you're interested in playing in, the easiest thing is to tailor the various magic systems in the game to the mechanics for similar Gloranthan types. For instance if you have clerical magic, it can work like Themism most likely, or perhaps Sorcery if that seems more appropriate to the religions of your setting. Some magic tradiitons will be more like HQ Animism.

For magic that has less religious ties like you often see standard in many fantasy settings, you have to make a decision to either go more religious, or to stick with the atheistic magic. If you go with religious magic then it's easy enough to use HQ Sorcery to represent that sort of magic. If not, then you have to figure out a replacement for things like veneration of saints, etc, or just drop it. Bascially what I did for SW Essence users, is to treat it like worship of the Essence in a way. Which worked just fine.

In any case, you'll have to do some thinking about how to get things to line up, and how to mechanically handle different types of magic. Once you do, however, you'll be pleased by the result I think.

Actually, if you don't have a well established magic system in place, it's easier to do, as you can just adopt the HQ model more intact. Which I think would work very well.

All in all, I can only recommend trying it. I think that the effort that you put into it will, as Chris says, pay off in the end big time. So go for it.

To contradict Chris, however, I'd highly suggest going with the fully detailed version. I haven't found the detail to be all that much trouble in any way, and it has, in fact, provided a lot of fun in making characters really come alive. I'm strongly against movements to broaden Abilites like this. It's a good idea for other systems that don't have interstice coverage like HQ does. But given that the Keywords provide that broad coverage already, you don't need to broaden the other abilites. Leaving them to make for more fully realized characters.

If you don't want to put all the effort in right away, that doesn't mean you can't ump right in either. You can use the "create on the fly" rules to flesh things out as you go. In fact, I'm intrigues by the idea of starting off a game with no detail about the world or characters at all, and just making it all up as you go. That would be neat.

Mike

Thanks for the heads up, Mike and Chris. I appreciate you taking the time to share your ideas and experiences. My copy of HeroQuest should be arriving tomorrow.

Quote from: ScriptyBut a question of mine, which does not seem to be yet addressed on this forum, is how much work is needed to go into using HeroQuest for another setting? What exactly is necessary to do so and, from those with experience running/playing the game, how difficult is it to change various elements (i.e. magic) within the context of the system?

The fact that HeroQuest presents three verry different kinds of magic answers that question to some extent, though of course they all use many core rules for magic in common. nevertheless integrating spirits (Animism) and using affinities (Theism) are clearly very different.

QuoteIs it a system where things are fairly mutable, like Sorcerer or Donjon, or is it a system that breaks down quite easily if tinkered with too much like D&D? And by "breaks down", I mean that rules are so interdependent that changing one thing can affect so many other aspects of the game system that altering the system is an unpredictable and uncertain enterprise.

HeroQuest doesn't realy have all that many game mechanical rules. There are a few basic mechanics for simple contests, extended contests, augmentation and such. After that, everything uses these common mechanics. None of these core mechanics are setting specific, so adapting the system to a setting shouldn't break anything.

As for tinkering wiht the core system, sure you could break it if you weren't carefull, but that's true of any game system. Less so of HeroQuest than many because it doesn't have all that many game mechanics, so you're much less likely to get unexpected interactions between disparate parts of the game engine.

For example, in HeroQuest you wouldn't use a Defense Bonus. You'd just have  defence Ability that you can either use on it's own like any other combat ability, or use to get an augment. Abilities just like this already exist, so there shouldn't be any problem.

The only problem might occur if you introduce abilities that don't obey the normal rules. In fact this also already occurs in HeroQuest under carefully controlled circumstances, since the secret powers of a religion don't follow the normal rules. Since in Glorantha these are world-shattering magics that have changed the face of Glorantha in the past, and are only available to major heroes, this makes sense for the setting. It may not make sense in another setting, but something else might.


Simon Hibbs

Quote from: simon_hibbs

Quote from: Scripty
The fact that HeroQuest presents three verry different kinds of magic answers that question to some extent, though of course they all use many core rules for magic in common. nevertheless integrating spirits (Animism) and using affinities (Theism) are clearly very different.

<snip>

As for tinkering wiht the core system, sure you could break it if you weren't carefull, but that's true of any game system. Less so of HeroQuest than many because it doesn't have all that many game mechanics, so you're much less likely to get unexpected interactions between disparate parts of the game engine.

<snip>

The only problem might occur if you introduce abilities that don't obey the normal rules. In fact this also already occurs in HeroQuest under carefully controlled circumstances, since the secret powers of a religion don't follow the normal rules. Since in Glorantha these are world-shattering magics that have changed the face of Glorantha in the past, and are only available to major heroes, this makes sense for the setting. It may not make sense in another setting, but something else might.

Simon Hibbs

I'm intrigued that HeroQuest has so many magic systems. It's my hope that they will be versatile enough that I can port them over to another setting with as few changes as possible. Primarily, I just want to use the HeroQuest rules (from what I know about them) in a different setting. I've read examples of play and discussions/reviews of the system. From what I've read it sounds like a system that would really gel with the Narrativist style of play that I'm currently pursuing. It also seems like a system that heavily protagonizes the players, which I also like.

I'm not really interested in tinkering with the rules of HeroQuest, just taking them as whole-hog as possible and plopping them into Middle Earth, Hyborea, Midnight, Freedom City, or the Galactic Empire. I want to do as few rule adjustments as humanly possible. I'm lazy like that. But I have yet to find my "Holy Grail". That is a versatile rules-set that clicks with what I'm trying to do (i.e. Narrativism, Protagonism), which is STILL  a rules-set. I like short and simple rules. IMO, Over the Edge is great, until you get to Hit Points and Firearms. I think Unknown Armies is also good, but, IME, it de-protagonizes the players in the same vein as D&D. I like the Pool/Puddle A LOT, but I feel it's almost TOO rules lite for some of the things I'm going for. I liked what I heard about HeroQuest because it seemed to have the Narrativist/Protagonist elements that drew me to the Pool and games such as Donjon, but it still seemed to be enough of a game to satisfy those old Gamist tendencies within me. If it's everything that has been said about it, it seems a near perfect fit. So, when I'm speaking of using HeroQuest in another setting, it's with the intent of NOT messing with it or having to shoehorn it into a campaign. I want to touch as little of it as possible, yet still have it function in a consistent manner.

Regarding your statement on the "abilities that don't obey normal rules", I had another random brainflash. Given abilities like those you mention, which I assume to be sort of like the "Sunset Leap" mentioned in another forum, could HeroQuest be the unrequited rules-set then...

for the Matrix??

If so, I think Greg and Issaries have a license that they could do serious justice to. I'm speculating that could be a good meeting of system/setting. Considering the Wachowski Bros. are (reportedly) gamers/ex-gamers themselves, maybe they could cut Stafford a deal. Him and Robin are sort of legends (as close as it gets, IMO) in the world of RPGs...

EDIT: Clarification of what drew me to HeroQuest.

In a word, Yes.

Hero Quest rules-set, as I've been saying for some time since playing Hero Wars, presents the single most important go-to action-adventure RPG rules-set ever written.

In other words, if you want to play superheroes, Star Wars, or any other flashy yet thematic kind of adventure, and if you're into Narrativist play without much weirdness (e.g. shared GMing or similar), then Hero Quest is the basic game.

I look forward to an upcoming decade when people's first experience with role-playing is with this game. That will be a different world.

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Ron Edwards
I look forward to an upcoming decade when people's first experience with role-playing is with this game. That will be a different world.

Best,
Ron

And perhaps it can also be a world where kids learn punk rock by listening to Iggy, MC5 and the Ramones...

:)

Then, I would know that I had helped leave the world a better place than it was...

Thanks for the words of wisdom and encouragement, Simon and Ron. This forum rocks beyond all words. And I mean that. I'm not being cheeky.

My own personal explorations with the HeroQuest mechanics have included an intensely satisfying but incomplete conversion of Nephilim, a convention scenario crossing Star Wars with Solaris in which Jedi Knights investigate a living planet tainted by the Dark Side, a thought-experiment based on an extremely oddball concept I had years ago called "Quark: The Roleplaying Game of Quantum Physics", and two grand swashbuckling one-shots based on The Three Musketeers and The Princess Bride respectively.

Quote from: RaconteurXMy own personal explorations with the HeroQuest mechanics have included an intensely satisfying but incomplete conversion of Nephilim, a convention scenario crossing Star Wars with Solaris in which Jedi Knights investigate a living planet tainted by the Dark Side, a thought-experiment based on an extremely oddball concept I had years ago called "Quark: The Roleplaying Game of Quantum Physics", and two grand swashbuckling one-shots based on The Three Musketeers and The Princess Bride respectively.

Swashbuckling, Star Wars and Nephilim. Sounds awesome.

Specifically, though, what kind of changes did you need to make to the rules or did you need to adopt to accomodate such a wide spectrum of genres? Also, how did the games turn out?

That Star Wars/Solaris idea sounds really cool. I bet that was a lot of fun.

Quote from: ScriptyWhat kind of changes did you need to make to the rules or did you need to adopt to accomodate such a wide spectrum of genres?

Surprisingly little, actually. I used theistic affinities and feats to simulate Jedi powers to quite good effect, with padawans equivalent to initiates in terms of their need to improvise off their affinities, knights equivalent to devotees, and masters vaguely equivalent to disciples (and I do mean vaguely). The swashbuckling fare was simple enough, I just adapted the feats and affinities concept to dueling. GURPS Swashbucklers proved an indispensible reference, as its copious selection of maneuvers and fencing styles dovetailed nicely with the existing mechanic. Of course, the chief trick was to continually switch styles in the hope that you discover one your foe cannot counter before he finds one you cannot. :)

Nephilim was the funkiest, although due more to the manner in which HeroQuest enhanced and expanded upon elements of the setting. For example, I kept the notion of integrated spirits from Hero Wars animism, but the setting tweak was that the nephilim were integrating past lives rather than individual spirits (discovering new past lives was an integral part of nephilim development in my "new and improved" setting... the Many becoming One again). Another very cool addition was to give nephilim a 50-word narrative for each past life (really fleshed out things in a cool way without getting too crazy. Wish I had a sample to give you, but I am mid-move and using my girlfriend's laptop).

QuoteAlso, how did the games turn out? That Star Wars/Solaris idea sounds really cool. I bet that was a lot of fun.

All turned out reasonably well, HeroQuest is incredibly versatile. My Jedi players were appropriately freaked by the sinister and insidious way in which they were tempted toward the Dark Side, playing on their heroes' secret fears, desires and passions. :)

Thanks for the quick reply, Michael. It was encouraging to hear that you didn't have to do reams and reams of house rules and conversion notes to bring HQ into those other settings. I'm saving your comments so that I can review them after I get a better handle on HQ magic (My book just got here yesterday).

Quote from: ScriptyIt was encouraging to hear that you didn't have to do reams and reams of house rules and conversion notes to bring HQ into those other settings.

Basic Role Playing was and is a marvelous system and was, for the initial two decades of my 25-year involvement in this hobby, the first one for which I would reach when seeking to render a milieu more faithfully than other games permitted. That role, for me, is now filled by HeroQuest. It allows me to expand upon, expound upon, explore, reinterpret, reimagine and recreate settings that I have adored for the entirety of my familiarity with them, from the aformentioned Nephilim and Star Wars to Heavy Gear, Underworld and Tekumel. All a narrator has to do to use HeroQuest for any setting is develop appropriate keywords and determine how to implement any setting- or genre-specific conventions using the existing mechanics.

Ooh, imagine working up all the Tekumel Keywords. Have you actually done that? Do you have notes? That would be really neat, IMO.

I'd also love to see a write up for Jorune if anyone has such notes. Would actually make that setting playable, I think. Jorune is OOP, IIRC. Has anyone thought of contacting them for a revival using HQ as the core rules?

Talislanta would be cool to see written up too, as long as we're at it. Harn (wouldn't that be ironic)?

I'm thinking just Homeland Keywords with the associated Abilites. I think I'll post what I have so far for Shadow World at some point. It's very limited so far, being as we only did Keywords for Homelands from which the character's came. But I could work some more out, I think. I'll post here, if/when.

Mike

It just occured to me that the HQ system is just what Fading Suns needs.

Mike