[Heroquest 2] Pass/Fail and Setting-Heavy Story Now
Web_Weaver:
Quote from: Erik Weissengruber on February 02, 2012, 06:47:30 AM
Hero Points and Such
A number of characters a carrying penalties (reflecting failure to overcome the Fear of Dragons) and bonuses from individual victories. In addition to the 3 Hero Points given at character creation, and 3 Hero Points for completing a story arc, they will get 3 at the start of the next sessions. This means that next session that have 9 HP to spend on character improvements, getting out of tight situations, etc. In addition to the 10 to 15 character creation points they have sitting around.
How are you deciding when to apply penalties, and how often are you or the players framing conflicts aimed at reducing or removing those penalties?
This is an area I feel that the core rules are very vague on, perhaps correctly, but also lack advice on. This has resulted in very different play experiences, from my reading of the APs and from my experiences playing at conventions as opposed to my home group.
Erik Weissengruber:
"How are you deciding when to apply penalties, and how often are you or the players framing conflicts aimed at reducing or removing those penalties?"
Some are blanket: +3 to Fear of Dragons
The rules indicate: The bonus to an ability gained by using it in a contest lasts until such point as the character fails with that same ability.
I have yet to frame a contest to repair a penalty.
Erik Weissengruber:
Response to previous session:
"I felt like I was a participant in some ancient, long-lost story."
Parsing of this statement to follow.
Erik Weissengruber:
The player's statement about feeling as if he were a participant in a narrative gives some anecdotal support to the idea that conflict resolution mechanics, as opposed to task resolution, are conducive to subjective aesthetic impressions that one is in a story or that something like a story is unfolding around the participants.
The Actual Play example:
- The pass/fail cycle had wobbled back to Moderate resistance of 14
- The PCs have undertaken a pursuit of whatever it is that is messing with the clan's agriculture. It turns out to be a demon who has stolen the form of a dragon. The PCs and a band of NPC thanes charge it and it charges them.
- I classed the thing as "Hero" in rank, my shorthand for saying that, unless you are yourself of Heroic rank or using some special magic item you got on a heroquest, or are incarnating a god or hero (the "Heroforming" magic of the setting), you doing a Stretch.
- "Stretch" means characters are at -6 to an ability and will never score more than a Marginal Victory against the thing they are opposing. This is a rule that I have rarely seen discussed in reviews of the game. It, like Credibility tests, are ways in which Setting/Genre/Premise decisions become System, and provide constraints for framing and resolving conflicts.
- The beast, as a demon, had a Weakness: Vulnerable to Exorcisms. Just like the Stretch rule, Weaknesses or Flaws are consistent definitions of how entities in the setting may affect each other. They do not fluctuate with the Pass/Fail Cycle. Your Flaw is your Flaw is your Flaw just as the Demon's Weakness is its Weakness is its Weakness.
- At this moment, one of the players narrated holding forth a clan totem, rushing into battle, and drawing his blade across a mysterious birthmark. I have no idea how all of this color came together in his mind. But as he invoked one of his as-of-yet undefined special abilities, I saw a chance to give it some definition. I ruled that the "Comet Birthmark" was a source of exorcist magic of the type to which Demons are vulnerable. This PC's actions had an overwhelming effect on the beast, whereas other PCs' actions had been failed Stretches.
Erik Weissengruber:
These decisions were made by myself, following the rules as laid out in the most recent, genericized version of Heroquest. The Demon was written up as a prose myth, its Species Keyword defined, broad ratings relevant to the Pass/Fail cycle were indicated (Very High, High, etc.), specific aspects of Keywords notes, Extraordinary Abilities and limits thereto were set, and Weaknesses defined.
Handor's player, James, knew the basic conflict resolution mechanic through my explanation and 2 previous sessions of play. The other player knew the Glorantha-set Heroquest rules very well and is a Gloranthaphile. Both knew that vague abilities take on specific forms in the course of play, and that decisions about what Abilities can do become part of the setting and the unfolding story. But neither knew about Stretches. And they were presented with a being unlike any they had come across before. When ordinary and magical Abilities seemed to have little effect, James pushed Handor into making a dramatic move and I took that move as an opportunity to answer a question I had about something on his character sheet: what the hell is that "comet birthmark" ability all about?
I decided that it could serve in exorcisms and it will do so from this point foreward. The player made some bold fictional decisions which spurred me to answer questions about the setting and backstory (the omens of his birth and their relationship to the wider setting). But it was I who flipped the switch and fused that decision to the setting and to mechanics, reading his birthmark as a way to bypass the Stretch and overcome the static value of 14 for the "Vulnerable to Exorcism" Ability.
It all worked. But the moment of decision was a weird one. It was not like a Burning Wheel game where players are aware of how a test against a specific ability of a certain value will result in advancement, how expenditure of Artha will push a character closer to Arestia, etc. In this instance of play from my game, the setting has been changed, the player's Ability will be both constrained and enabled to do certain things at a certain level of probability in future contests. But the decision-making process, and the degrees of responsibility in it, and the varying levels of awareness of the factors involved, are one big pile of obscurity.
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