Help With Hero's Banner
Tzuriel27:
Hey, all. I'm actually the GM who ran this particular game. Sorry, I'm late to the party, but Lorthyne informed me of this thread a couple days back and those couple days have been my personal foray into hell. So, I've been rather busy.
But, back to the game. The problem we'd been having here was not building to a conflict - every scene except the pivotal one described, when Ioan confronts Dorin, had built quite naturally to a conflict, and ended satisfactorily. The trick of the matter was, at this point, Ioan had not raised his passion score at all, due to his player choosing not to push after initial failures, as she felt he wouldn't push these things. He also succeeded straight out a couple times, if I remember correctly. Then comes the confrontation.
To get fully what's happening in this scene, I'll start from the very beginning. Ioan is at home, doing homey things, when his sister approaches him and literally breaks down before him, confessing to her indiscretion. Without rolling for conflict, as no external one had presented itself, Ioan immediately effectively abandons his sister for the time being, declaring that he can't even look at her and no longer cares for her. Obviously he does, but you can already see here a major shift in influences, without a requisite passion check to reflect that in the numbers. Ioan then goes to Dorin's home and confronts him, verbally. He informs Dorin of the deep hatred he bears him, and just cuts him to pieces. All of this, phenomenal roleplaying. Dorin then, very quietly, apologizes for killing Ioan's brother and goes on to explain the circumstances surrounding the brother's death, which Dorin takes responsibility for. At the end of the scene, Ioan declares his sister effectively disowned and that he no longer cares what happens to either of them. This scene was, to me, the highlight of the session, if not the game.
However, of course, there was no conflict. We resolved the obvious fact that both Dorin and Ioan had changed their influences by, in game terms, assuming they both failed, pushed, and failed again at whatever they wanted, as the scene was ultimately unsatisfactory to either character, and had them roll passion checks accordingly. The reason why I never pushed for a conflict, though there were several that presented themselves (can Dorin secure Ioan's forgiveness? can Ioan learn the circumstances regarding his brothers death? can Dorin use this as leverage to actually gain favor in receiving Irina's hand? etc), was simply because it was two PCs, making these decisions themselves. They were doing everything Hero's Banner is about, but just without dice rolls. Were one of them an NPC, a conflict certainly would've been called. But I let the scene play out because it was brilliant without needing dice, and I didn't want to interrupt the flow of the roleplaying with annoying rules. I'm sure you understand. I really can't see how calling for a conflict, in this instance, would have made for a better storytelling experience.
Let me say real fast that in no way am I criticizing your game, Tim. It's an excellent system, and highlights what I think is most compelling about roleplaying games at all. In fact, though the next game I plan on running does not use your system, I will incorporate having the players pick out three ultimately contradictory goals for the characters, and play through the decisions they make in light of that. As Lorthyne said, your game gave us three new players who all enjoyed themselves immensely, and Lorthyne and I obviously did too.
So, praise finished, here comes some criticism. I'm sure I won't offend, as nothing here is offensive, but if I do, I apologize. I agree entirely with Ron, that not every scene needs to have a conflict. I think most should have a conflict, and definitely did my best to drive to that point in my game, but that not all need have one. I found it an unnecessary burden, actually. There were times I wanted to just play out a quite scene, letting a player sit with his character. Think about classics in TV and film, where there's a scene in which nothing happens, but the character is open to you as the viewer and you see into his/her soul. Those moments are immensely satisfying to me, both in a roleplaying game and in other art. So there were times I felt compelled to not have such a scene because of the driving need for a conflict, which I think made it just a little bit less of a satisfying experience for me, and perhaps for the players as well. That being said, it could be I'm just not being creative enough, and not seeing a quiet conflict where there is one. But I think it's important not to drive that conflict too much. Even the most crazy, fast-paced thriller needs a quiet moment.
I think a possible way to improve Hero's Banner, already an excellent game, would be to allow a mechanic to raise passion scores in light of the character simply making a decision, instead of failing initially in a conflict and deciding to push. It might be a good idea to insert a paragraph that simply says when a character chooses one influence over another in light of what's going on in the game, the player automatically rolls a passion check and adjusts his scores accordingly. Obviously, the breakdown rule would not apply here. I'm sure you have some ideas along these lines, but that's a suggestion based on how we did it.
All of this is, of course, in the light that we had an excellent game, and everyone left satisfied with the ending. These are simply some minor troubles that I had, as GM, with an otherwise excellent system. I think many of the issues we had had more to do with our group and game than the system however. For instance, Bellaina's player wasn't planning on playing but decided to when listening to the other players describe their characters, which they had been working on for the last couple hours. In consequence, she existed really independently from the other characters, not concerned, for instance, with the religious conflict at all, nor as deeply tied to them as they were to each other. We also kind of threw her character together to get playing since it was getting late, and I think we had some trouble there. But I do think the suggestions above are valid, so do with them what you will. Anyway, I want to finish this missive by saying that your game gave us an excellent roleplaying experience, and I truly appreciate that. As said before, I will probably use your influence set up, sans mechanics, in almost all, if not all, of my future games, cause it makes for brilliant roleplaying.
Tim C Koppang:
Tzuriel27,
Thank you for your comments, both positive and critical. As I said above, I am very happy that everyone had such a great time with the game. It’s certainly no surprise to me that Hero’s Banner is less than perfect. Rest assured, I am not offended. In fact, I’m happy even to talk about the game’s faults.
Your description helps me to see exactly what the difficulty was. To paraphrase, it’s not that you were having trouble creating conflicts, but rather that Ioan’s player couldn’t seem to raise his passion score – even if it seemed appropriate in game. Does that sound like a fair summary?
This is an issue that I’ve run into myself in a few games. It most commonly comes up when the player keeps rolling successes. But that’s an easy fix. Just frame conflicts around the character’s lowest-rated influence score. If probability holds, failure will result eventually.
Your situation is a little different, though. I have some specific suggestions that I'd like to get into, but, unfortunately, I'm a bit short on time right now. I'll post again tomorrow.
- Tim
Tim C Koppang:
Now to address your specific situation.
First, as to the scene in question, given your description, I can see how not calling for a conflict could have been a fine choice. I’ve played in a few Hero’s Banner games, especially in time-constrained convention settings, where conflicts have seemed forced – where we were trying to get to any sort of conflict as quick as possible just to keep the game moving along. In a convention game, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does end up feeling unsatisfactory in regular play. I much prefer to let conflicts arise naturally out of intense moments of play. Not all conflicts need to be huge world-changing events (sometimes small-scale personal conflicts can be very poignant), but conflicts should at least feel important to the character as issue.
Ultimately, I wasn’t at your table. Whether or not there was a conflict worth rolling dice over was up to everyone present to decide. When in doubt, I usually lean towards rolling, but that’s my personal play style. Especially in Hero’s Banner, where the meat of the game is centered around conflict checks, you might consider letting the dice guide your play a bit more often, even for seemingly minor conflicts.
Second, calling for passion checks outside of a conflict isn’t something I’ve ever been satisfied with. I’ve done it myself, especially way back when I was play-testing the game. It can work, but I think when everyone knows that it’s an option, there is less of an incentive to push a failure or to frame up powerful potential conflicts. I can’t really recommend it as a general rule. The fact that you knew that both Dorin and Ioan had shifted their priorities is good, and certainly something that happens throughout Hero’s Banner play inside and outside of conflicts.
I agree that it is sometimes frustrating to not be able to raise your character’s passion score, especially when you keep rolling initial successes. This is probably a flaw in the game. What I might recommend as a sort of compromise is allowing players to rearrange their existing scores following any conflict or particularly powerful scene. This way you can represent shifting priorities even if overall passion doesn’t go up.
Third, I’m not really sure why Ioan’s player didn’t want to push her initial failures. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with not pushing. After all, not every conflict is that important to a player. But of course the game won’t move forward unless you push a good number of failures. In my personal experience, I’ve found that most player want to push because they really want to see their passion scores go up. If this is a problem in future games, you might try changing up the type of conflicts to encourage pushing as a more obvious choice. When players aren’t pushing, it’s usually an indication that the conflicts need to be a bit more intense or focused on their specific goals.
Finally, I like playing Hero’s Banner with lots of conflicts, even if those conflicts are minor from time to time. The game, as originally designed, was really focused on moving through a new set of characters each session. Requiring a conflict each scene was a way of ensuring a quick pace. All that said, if you have the time or simply want to slow things down, then, yes, by all means don’t worry about putting a conflict into each scene. As you can tell from my original post above, I’ve been relaxing this requirement in my own play. Artificial or forced conflicts are no fun, and it is desirable to have quiet moments in between all of the intensity.
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