Johnny Heroquest
Jul. 27th, 2009 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
So I picked up the new Heroquest rulebook last week and while I haven't given it a super in-depth read-through, I've skimmed it pretty heavily and I feel comfortable talking about it in general.
Right, so Heroquest is the Robin Laws system that was originally built for Greg Stafford's Glorantha setting. In its latest incarnation, it'ss being touted as a generic system for whatever you want. There's a section at the back that briefly covers the Gloranthian setting, but that's it. It's pretty much all mechanics all the time.
And the basic mechanic remains the same from previous versions: Roll a d20 and try to get below your value in the skill you're applying to solve the problem. Low numbers are better with a 1 being a critical and a 20 being a fumble. So if you've got a 15 in "Shove sharp metal through fools" and you are, in fact, trying to get past a fool by shoving a piece of sharp metal into him, then roll a 15 or less and you're good to go.
If your score goes above a 20, then you gain a Mastery for every full muliple of 20 and the remainder is leftover as your "value" in the skill. So a 25 becomes a 5-M-1. The M-1 means you get an automatic success and if you roll 5 or less you get more success. This leads to some wonkiness where a guy with 5-M-1 vs. a guy with a basic 15 will often tie (becuase the 5-M-1 guy gets an auto-success but usually fails the roll, while the guy with a 18 will often get a success on the roll so you both wind up with a success each and a tie). The whole "Mastery" thing doesn't quite feel right, although I believe the math actually works out like you expect it to. If you can get past the cognitive dissonance on this one bit, the rest of the rules are real slick.
There are simple contests and extended contests. For those of you familiar with the old system, the extended contests have been streamlined and simplified. Under the old system, there was this crazy bidding system designed to simulate a narrative ebb and flow, but now it's down to the side to reach 5 success first is the winner. The consequences/effects of the contest are figured out afterward based on comparing total successes. In a neat touch, if you win/fail a contest, the skill you used gets a bonus/penalty for a few scenes. So winning makes you better and losing means try something else.
This version of the ruleset very clearly states that it operates in the Narrative Mode (for you RPG theory wonks out there). The rulebook is actually pretty great about sweeping up a lot of Narrative gaming theory that's cropped up over the past few years and really converted it to concrete mechanics, advice and examples.
The most clear example of this is that setting difficulty is strictly a narrative decision. In essence -- the GM decides how hard it's going to be and sets the difficulty appropriately. The book offers a lot of help and rules of thumb on how to do this (have the characters been sucking a lot lately? make it easier. have they been riding high? up the difficulty). It may seem kinda GM fiat-y, but if you follow the 1st rule of all RPGs ("Don't game with assholes"), you'll probably do all right.
In fact, because of the whole "it's as difficult as it needs to be for the story to be fun" set-up, Heroquest would probably be a great engine for Amber. Yeah, yeah, every game system is a great engine for Amber and I actually like the DRPG, but I think Heroquest would map more closely to the way the books work. There's lots of stuff in the books that obviously happens only because it's dramatically appropriate...well, I guess in a book everything happens because it's dramatically appropriate, but Amber has a few pronounced moments where things that don't normally happen do. The DRPG tries to get at that with the whole "imagine playing chess against a grandmaster, how do you beat him? Answer: you cheat", but the DRPG system never really takes those modifiers (i.e. your cheating) into its calculation of victory/defeat so it's hard to gauge what will be effective. In Heroquest, the numerical quantification is much better and only when people are relatively close in power will the random die roll determine who wins (which is also more satisfying to me somehow, when two people are closely matched, it's a toss-up who will win).
Anyway, if you liked the old version at all, I think the new version is a much better deal. If you're not sure, I'm almost certain to take the system for a spin next Gaming Weekend or so.
later
Tom
So I picked up the new Heroquest rulebook last week and while I haven't given it a super in-depth read-through, I've skimmed it pretty heavily and I feel comfortable talking about it in general.
Right, so Heroquest is the Robin Laws system that was originally built for Greg Stafford's Glorantha setting. In its latest incarnation, it'ss being touted as a generic system for whatever you want. There's a section at the back that briefly covers the Gloranthian setting, but that's it. It's pretty much all mechanics all the time.
And the basic mechanic remains the same from previous versions: Roll a d20 and try to get below your value in the skill you're applying to solve the problem. Low numbers are better with a 1 being a critical and a 20 being a fumble. So if you've got a 15 in "Shove sharp metal through fools" and you are, in fact, trying to get past a fool by shoving a piece of sharp metal into him, then roll a 15 or less and you're good to go.
If your score goes above a 20, then you gain a Mastery for every full muliple of 20 and the remainder is leftover as your "value" in the skill. So a 25 becomes a 5-M-1. The M-1 means you get an automatic success and if you roll 5 or less you get more success. This leads to some wonkiness where a guy with 5-M-1 vs. a guy with a basic 15 will often tie (becuase the 5-M-1 guy gets an auto-success but usually fails the roll, while the guy with a 18 will often get a success on the roll so you both wind up with a success each and a tie). The whole "Mastery" thing doesn't quite feel right, although I believe the math actually works out like you expect it to. If you can get past the cognitive dissonance on this one bit, the rest of the rules are real slick.
There are simple contests and extended contests. For those of you familiar with the old system, the extended contests have been streamlined and simplified. Under the old system, there was this crazy bidding system designed to simulate a narrative ebb and flow, but now it's down to the side to reach 5 success first is the winner. The consequences/effects of the contest are figured out afterward based on comparing total successes. In a neat touch, if you win/fail a contest, the skill you used gets a bonus/penalty for a few scenes. So winning makes you better and losing means try something else.
This version of the ruleset very clearly states that it operates in the Narrative Mode (for you RPG theory wonks out there). The rulebook is actually pretty great about sweeping up a lot of Narrative gaming theory that's cropped up over the past few years and really converted it to concrete mechanics, advice and examples.
The most clear example of this is that setting difficulty is strictly a narrative decision. In essence -- the GM decides how hard it's going to be and sets the difficulty appropriately. The book offers a lot of help and rules of thumb on how to do this (have the characters been sucking a lot lately? make it easier. have they been riding high? up the difficulty). It may seem kinda GM fiat-y, but if you follow the 1st rule of all RPGs ("Don't game with assholes"), you'll probably do all right.
In fact, because of the whole "it's as difficult as it needs to be for the story to be fun" set-up, Heroquest would probably be a great engine for Amber. Yeah, yeah, every game system is a great engine for Amber and I actually like the DRPG, but I think Heroquest would map more closely to the way the books work. There's lots of stuff in the books that obviously happens only because it's dramatically appropriate...well, I guess in a book everything happens because it's dramatically appropriate, but Amber has a few pronounced moments where things that don't normally happen do. The DRPG tries to get at that with the whole "imagine playing chess against a grandmaster, how do you beat him? Answer: you cheat", but the DRPG system never really takes those modifiers (i.e. your cheating) into its calculation of victory/defeat so it's hard to gauge what will be effective. In Heroquest, the numerical quantification is much better and only when people are relatively close in power will the random die roll determine who wins (which is also more satisfying to me somehow, when two people are closely matched, it's a toss-up who will win).
Anyway, if you liked the old version at all, I think the new version is a much better deal. If you're not sure, I'm almost certain to take the system for a spin next Gaming Weekend or so.
later
Tom
