Heroquest 2: what does the system add?
Alexander Julian:
Callan, I appreciate the input but you are responding to my questions with questions. I can’t continue writing blocks of text in response.
Erik Weissengruber:
1) Conflict Resolution Mechanic
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Player states prize
Player chooses states means/tactics of getting prize
Player chooses ability he’s using
GM sets resistance using pass/fail or by assigning number
Fortune is employed
GM narrates outcome
OK. HQ2 is making formal the steps of resolution that were laid out in HQ2.
- What HQ2 does is add prescribed levels of resistance based on what kind of successes or failures have taken place earlier in the story. A party that has had high levels of success earlier will have to face stiffer opposition on a test than a party which has been scraping along and doing poorly. Was there any evidence your Narrator was following these rules (note: Laws gives Narrators the power to set whatever resistances they wish. But that, to me, is a little like saying "from time to time ignore these rules if you wish to surprise your players." He likes illusionism -- it's not my cup of tea. But the rules add simple to follow steps for setting resistances and for determining numerical consequences. When I playtested the rules my players didn't mind me setting resistances by making open and explicit reference to Laws rules for setting resistances.)
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Player chooses states means/tactics of getting prize
- True. One auxiliary augment is possible too. So a description of the tactics that does not take into account the one main ability being used and the associated augment would go against the spirit of the laws. Here, HQ2 avoidsthe problems of interminable description of all the possible augments being brought in. HQ2 has added a rule that penalizes players for using the same ability+augment combos again and again. This is a good addition. It extends a rule over the Shared Imaginary Space, one that makes sure every player can contribute his/her share and prevent monopolization. And it speeds up establishment of the SIS and the resolution of the conflict. Doubleplus good.
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GM sets resistance using pass/fail or by assigning number
It is in this area that HQ2 has a number of additions to the HQ1 basic mechanic. There are now RULES for establishing resistance rather than assuming that common sense or reference to published material or even pre-planned ability ratings for the NPCs will establish the resistance numbers. The numbers and the consequences of die rolls have stayed pretty much the same. But the rolling mechanic has been incorporated into a system for co-ordinating player-declared actions and Narrator-set challenges and resistances with prior higher-order decisions about what kind of stories will be gamed by a particular group in a particular campaign. Sorcerer's setting-creation mechanics and the diagram on the back of the character sheet do come to mind. In both cases, many players seem to regard them as "fluff" or Colour surrounding the real mechanics. Wrong. They are qualitative/content-laden mechanics that set the quantitative values that are then subjected to Fortune (die rolls) or Drama (the Hero Points of HQ1 and 2).
- New Narrative Rules: True, but you as the player should be aware of the process by which that number is derived. The Premise/Setting/Genre decisions made during Character Creation -- which should also be called Setting creation -- dictate what counts as a standard use of an ability or a Stretch. These framing devices have been added to HQ2 and are a triple-good thing. Now, there is no more saying "we a playing in Glorantha," with the attendant assumption that a 12 year veteran of of the Lunar Army in Sartar will in all likelihood ferret out a hiding 12 year old peasant girl. In a "Pseudo-Historical Chronicle" the resistances and abilities will probably result in the girl getting caught. In "Pre-adolescent Kids save the Village" taking place in the "Young Adult Fantasy Fiction" Genre, the girl will likely escape. It took me multiple readings and playings to get the significance of this hammered into my head. But these added rules now make the game an engine for gaming out kinds of stories, not a mechanism for gaming Glorantha. I don't know if the Glorantha-focused materials are bringing these framing devices apparent to players and Narrators, but they should. These rules are the most dramatic and radical addition that Laws has made to the HQ1 engine and they should be embraced. Playing Prime Time Adventures would be the best practice for HQ2 gaming, not playing HQ1 or Runequest.
- New Resistance-Setting Rules: So the setting is Glorantha. But if the Genre is "Swashbuckling," using a "Dashing Hero" to swing across the room on a chandelier is not a Stretch whereas in "Mitchner-esque Historical Epic" it would be: in such a situation the player has a limited chance to accomplish something spectacular. The addition of "Stretch" rules make the setting of rules a subject for rational communication between players and Narrators.
- Niche Protection is an addition: Player choice of wording, with reference to higher-order decisions about Premise/Genre, is a decisive factor in setting resistances. Let me address your actual play example:
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In character me and Orkarl chat a bit, he starts talking about the bad influence of the Lunars. I state my prize ‘convince Orkarl that Humakt has a plan for the Lunars and they are not the enemy.’ I pick an ability ‘initiate of Humakt 1W.’
You did the right thing. But what about Augments? More importantly, did the issue of specificity come up? A new rule has been added: if another player character has an ability that could be used in your conflict and is MORE specific to the issue at hand, you are penalized -6 for using a General ability. The character could be in another continent but it does not matter: the words that character's player have set down on his/her page have carved out a portion of the SIS for himself/herself. You set up a pretty specific ability to use in this situation. But if someone had "Knows Secret Prophecies of Humakt" then you would have been at -6. And don't look to the words in the Sartar setting book to determine what is General or specific. The first place you should look is at other players' character sheets.
I have read some commentators treating this rule as saying "any character with a more specific ability" and then proceeding to penalize a PC if an NPC in the scene has a more specific ability.
But that is 100% NOT what the General/Specific rule is intended for. It is not a simulation of a world in which the more specific ability will tend to be more effective than that of a broad generalist, but a rule for making sure that players who have carved out a portion of the SIS for their characters will tend to have more spectacular results for their characters than those players who tread on that turf.
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But I don't know what resistance the Narrator set
- This is a big problem. And I don't know if your Narrator is really to blame. There are parts of the text where Laws assumes that Narrators are setting resistances according to the rules (most of the time) but are keeping those resistances secret and keeping the die rolls hidden (especially those parts of the text where he is talking about faking contests to build up suspense without really jeopardizing the PCs)
- Reading your AP makes be believe that you have not been introduced to the rules added to HQ2 that make it an interesting game. HQ2 has newly added explicit processes for running conflicts and, behind those, has a system for linking those conflicts to the SIS (a system entirely lacking in HQ1). There is nothing in your post that makes be believe your Narrator was using those rules.
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How the GM sets the difficulty in the game is problematic in my opinion but I’m more focussed on how the combination of prize, ability and means/tactics work.
- The "you cant use the same ability to solve a problem you have failed to solve before" rule was in HQ1. In HQ2 the "dull repeats of ability/augment combinations will be penalized is an addition." There is, in HQ2 NO consistent way to combine particular abilities/means/tactics to achieve certain prizes. None. The game is not set up that way. Going for a prize with the ability "Armoured Knight 1W" will mean one thing if the contest is a Climactic one at the end of a story or an ordinary contest earlier in that story. It will me one thing if the player has been rolling well in the previous 2 fights or poorly. It will meet different resistances and, because of game-mechanical and purely statistical factors, have different consequences if the prize or the conflict is more suited to the abilities apportioned to another player's character.
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So if the above happened in cyberpunk for instance, I’d use persuade or empathy or fast talk to get Orlkarl to agree with me. The GM can’t veto my use of these, it’s pretty explicit what they do and how they are used. What is it that abilities do except add an extra unnecessary layer?
You are absolutely right on this score. Burning Empires is that way too. There are very specific rules about what abilities can be used to help (or Augment) other abilities. HQ1 and HQ2 are entirely different animals. HQ2 may have evolved out of HQ1 but it is now its own species, one that won't even produce infertile offspring from being bred back
with HQ1. HQ1 would resolve these issues by GM fiat or by an assumed reference to "what Glorantha is like," which then takes you to the realm of published setting material, online discussions, and people trying to prove they know more about the world than someone who disagrees with them. Don't go looking at HQ1 to give you the kind of consistency you seek. HQ2 will allow you to establish a kind of consistency and give you the procedures for making decisions within your particular playgroup. Abilities are not a "layer" in HQ2: describing one's abilities and using them for certain kinds of play is what the game is all about. And that kind of play is irreducibly Narrativist.
Alexander Julian:
Quote from: epweissengruber on July 14, 2009, 11:11:25 AM
Abilities are not a "layer" in HQ2: describing one's abilities and using them for certain kinds of play is what the game is all about. And that kind of play is irreducibly Narrativist.
I just don’t see how it helps Story Now play. Consider my Humakt example from earlier. The system doesn’t add anything to the basic probability roll. The ability didn’t help express theme. It seems like any other system used for vanilla narrativism.
Lets consider it a small story.
Premise: Faith in your gods will help your brothers overcome their prejudice
In pure story terms:
I’m trying to get my mentor to overcome his prejudice and help me defend the Lunar converts.
Thematic question: what helps overcome prejudice?
I choose tactics. In this case I’m telling him about Humakt’s vision.
Thematic question then becomes: Does faith in your gods help your brothers overcome prejudice?
I then choose ability. This has no effect on my ability to address premise in a positive way. In fact all it does it limit it. Do I have the right ability for those tactics? Does the GM consider that ability acceptable (and I’m trying to address premise here, if he doesn’t consider it acceptable we have problems).
Really its game effect is just something to hang the numbers off.
We roll the dice and I succeed.
Yes. Faith in your gods does help your brother overcome his prejudice.
No. Faith in your gods will not help you overcome your brothers prejudice.
So to reiterate. The ability I chose had no effect on this mini conflict at all. I could just as easily have had the stats ‘will’ ‘body’ ‘soul’ and the same effect would have been achieved with far less potential for fiat and with a broader array of tactics open to me.
Or alternately I can go in the other direction and have a strict skill list like burning wheel and get the same effect only with more clearly delineated lines drawn about what it is possible to do.
HQ2 just seems to sit in the middle of these two extremes twiddling it’s thumbs. Am I missing some vital point about how ability usage actually enters play?
Callan S.:
Quote from: Alexander Julian on July 14, 2009, 04:03:59 AM
Callan, I appreciate the input but you are responding to my questions with questions. I can’t continue writing blocks of text in response.
There's something bogus about this? It's not that you can't respond, it's that you've decided more questions could not possibly help. Fair enough if you have decided this, but it bugs me to be told it's not your decision, but how reality is and so you can't respond as much as if your hands had fallen off.
Erik Weissengruber:
Two very strong insights!
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I just don’t see how it helps Story Now play. Consider my Humakt example from earlier. The system doesn’t add anything to the basic probability roll. The ability didn’t help express theme. It seems like any other system used for vanilla narrativism.
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HQ2 just seems to sit in the middle of ... two extremes twiddling it’s thumbs. Am I missing some vital point about how ability usage actually enters play?
You have just latched onto the most important aspect of the game and where future criticism should be focused.
Once common misunderstandings of the game (often on the part of its advocates) have been cleared, and the new assumptions behind the game are fully understood, the big question you just asked -- does this system do anything to really facilitate Story Now -- is staring players of the game right in the face.
And I can't answer it. I played HQ1 in a Glorantha setting for about a year and it worked. But all I was doing was fitting my Game into a game that had consistent rules for covering typical Glorantha activities.
When I took HQ1's engine and used it in 1-shot settings (a Samurai game, Space Opera, Fairy Tale) I found myself doing lots of task resolution, some conflict resolution, but not really doing Story Now. I was using a lot of techniques cobbled from the advice in Sorcerer & Sword and Sex & Sorcery, but not running the game as it COULD have been run. Even if I had been running the game to its full potential I would have come smack into your question.
HQ2 has forced me to do a lot of rethinking about how I ran that Game. And I haven't tried to run HQ2 in its final form.
So your question is an important one and your answer is a challenge to fans of the game and Gloranthaphiles (I am both).
I suggest borrowing the HQ2 rule book and trying to run your own game. But The Shadow of Yesterday, a PTA with a Glorantha setting, or a Sorcerer game set on Glorantha might give you the kind of Story Now that you want.
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