HQ2 Keyword House Rules

[Jeff Richard]

For what it is worth David, this has never proved a problem in my long-running campaigns. Some players enjoy being one-trick ponies – frex, when an obstacle can be overcome by Kerrik the Black’s super-specialized skill of Death by Sniper (a breakout of his Assassin keyword), well then Kerrik gets his chance to shine. But you’d be amazed how few obstacles can be overcome that way.

[David Cake]

The issue happens for me in my long running Colymar game where my Humakti player (partly because the Humakti rules practically force him to keep putting points into abilities that ‘stack’ this way, though there are other game specific factors) is now almost a whole level of mastery ahead of the other players in hand to hand combat, so anything that is an appropriate threat for him is deadly for anyone else. And I’m sure you’d be quite unsurprised to discover how many obstacles can be overcome by hand to hand combat (violence is, of course, always an option).
Of course, shifting the game focus so melee combat is less important is possible – but it is difficult when it is so culturally central to both Orlanthi culture, and gamer culture. Not to mention scenario design in most published scenarios.
The Humakti are a special case (in that the rules specifically encourage them to have both a high sword combat and a high Death which explicitly can be used to augment it), but of course the same problem could occur with any ability that is broadly useful in almost every combat (lightning bolts etc).

[Jeff Richard]

The first question of course is, what’s the harm? If the character tries solve every problem with his Death+Sword skill, as a GM you get lots of abilities to play with that. First, what are the consequences? Second, ok he’s the best swordsman in the land – that means the ruler wants to appoint him to be a bodyguard – forcing the players to deal with court politics, or subtle magical plots, or even diplomacy and trade. And hey, that Death Rune is a two-edged sword! Treat it like an obstacle from time to time – so the Humakti came too close to the pregnant woman/sewn field, orchard, livestock, etc. Overcome his Death Rune with something or else he brings Death where there should be Life.
And third, throw him an obstacle than can’t be overcome by sword skill. Send him to the Underworld, where the dead just re-forge themselves. Give him an enemy that can’t just be killed (“I’m a demigod. Did you really expect that sticking a sword through my heart would end me?”). And so on.

[David Cake]

The harm, of course, is that any scene centred around a group hand to hand combat (and extremely common situation in many games) requires ‘stage management’ if it is to be challenging for both the Humakti and the other players without being overwhelming for everyone else. And I can’t even use the easy trick of loading him up with multiple opponents, due to to sidekicks.

And of course all of the ideas you suggest are helpful – but the point is they are all mitigation strategies that require changing the focus of the campaign in response somewhat away from the natural focus (having set the game up to be very much about the rebellion). And some of them have their own issues – if a player wants to play a Sword of Humakt, he has cast a strong vote for his character getting to fight things with swords a lot, switching it to a diplomatic focus might solve my game balance issue at the expense of frustrating that players desires for play, going against the narrativist ideal.

I’m not saying it is a huge insurmountable problem, but it was one issue in play that was a problem, in that I did begin adjusting the way I would normally play in response. And I thought it was interesting that my experience in actual play was almost the exact opposite of the issue that started this thread.

FWIW, it interrelates to the my other problem with HW in play, which is that the lack of tactical options in group fight scenes renders them a bit dull after a while. Luckily, soon I will be able to play campaigns with more fight scenes in 13th Age or RuneQuest and keep HW for other styles of game.

[Harald Smith]

There’s a few strategies that I might use with a Humakti character like that.
The first is that it is also a flaw or obstacle, as Jeff noted. He is Death. Do rulers seek him out to serve them? Do normal folk shun him? Does Death follow in his wake? There’s also the possibility that he acquires a Death sickness – Death has so overcome him that he finds it hard to even act (what we might term ‘depressed’) – think Achilles withdrawing his support from the Achaeans and refusing to fight.
The second is that he attracts those who wish to fight HIM. They seek him out to fight. His allies and sidekicks are targets. From a standpoint of fights, I’d just have a leader that is equally hard for him to fight and a group of followers that are the right level for others. Hector goes to fight Achilles while other lesser figures fight your Humakti’s allies.
And tied into that there would be foes that can magically handle or deflect the sword. The Mace of Shargash might shatter it. The Shields of the Moon might reflect the power back against him, etc.
The third is that he loses the power. Trickster stole the Sword of Humakt. Trickster can steal his power, too, or some part of it. Suddenly, that single-minded focus has become a big weakness.

[Phil Nicholls]

Hi David,

“The harm, of course, is that any scene centred around a group hand to hand combat (and extremely common situation in many games) requires ‘stage management’ if it is to be challenging for both the Humakti and the other players without being overwhelming for everyone else. And I can’t even use the easy trick of loading him up with multiple opponents, due to to sidekicks.”

I encountered exactly this problem, too.

Yes, there are plenty of ways to dance around the issue with the story, but the management required to challenge all the Heroband in a single contest was hard work. I think there was also a degree of jealousy between some Players regarding such a high rating on a focused ability.

My solution is to cap ALL Hero abilities, to prevent them raising above a certain level. I chose Base +5 as my cap, but I guess Base +6 makes better sense in the style of HQ resistances. My current Players understand the need for this, and are happy with it.

Obviously, this cap would be hard to implement in an on-going game, but not impossible. House Rules are very much a personal matter, but this one has worked for us.

I hope this helps
Phil

[Harald Smith]

Reminds me of the old RQ2/RQ3 solution for skill development where you had to roll higher than your skill level to earn an increase. As you reached 95 or higher, it was extremely hard to increase.
Perhaps a similar approach could be used with HQ where instead of an auto-increase based on a Hero Point expenditure, anything that is above Base+6 requires a roll as well against a Hard or Very Hard resistance.

[Jeff Richard]

David – I don’t actually see that as a harm. In genres where the hero can “fight anything” we typically get suspense in one of the two ways:
1. Hero has to confront stuff that can’t be fought with swords (e.g., Conan getting into political intrigue or dealing with “strange magic”). Hero fails with this, and then the helpful GM gives him a chance to smack something with a sword to get out of the bad situation. Rinse and repeat. Good examples: R.E.H.’s Conan, Boromir, Cu Culainn, most comic book superheroes, etc.
A variant of this is to occasionally throw an Unstoppable Fighter at the hero, someone who is Nearly Impossible to stand against. Like Harrek or Jar-eel.
Another variant of this is to hit them consistently with the consequences of their violent approach to everything. Or to remind them that a big part of the purpose of Humakti is to die so that others might live.
2. Hero just confronts stuff that can be fought. Although it is not my kettle of tea (I’m more of a coffee drinker), there’s a lot of people who like genres like the Destroyer. If your players have fun being Remo Williams, then go for it.

[Phil Nicholls]

Hi Harald,

That is an interesting solution, and certainly less confrontational than an outright cap on ability level.

It is a little crunchy, but worth a look. You might rule that Base +5 was Hard, Base +6 was Very Hard, Base +7 was Nearly Impossible, etc. I shall give this some thought, but it would allow progression into these higher areas which cause problems.

All the best
Phil

[David Cake]

Jeff, just the way you phrase your reply makes it clear that you don’t really understand the problem I am describing – you keep referring to ‘the hero’ (singular) and then discussing ways I can force him to use other abilities. The problem is not that he is good at fighting and wants to solve problems by fighting (that is an easy issue to deal with, in the various ways you’ve discussed). The problem is that this character is much better than his fellow characters, at an ability that they also want to be good at and to be use in the game (the Orlanthi warrior may be nowhere near as dangerous in game terms, but he is still a warrior and would like to be in a fight now and then). The issue is not absolute ability, but relative.

So most of your suggestions are either beside the point, or even directly not useful. I want the Sword of Humakt to see both negative and positive sides to that focus, but it is irrelevant to my problem – I also want the Wind Lord to see the negative and positive sides of being Stormy, and I don’t want one of those dynamics to dominate the game just because it has bigger numbers attached. And of course I want them to have to deal with problems that can’t be solved with Death and swords alone, but I also want them to deal with problems that can be solved that way so they get a chance to shine.

But the issue is that a character who is very focussed at something that other characters also want their characters to do requires constant stage management. If I have an opponent my Sword can take on in an even fight, that opponent would slaughter all the other characters easily – or if my Sword ends up fighting opponents meant to be challenging for the other PCs, it is just a matter of how quickly they go down. This is going to be most common with combat – clearly, many PCs are going to want to be warriors of some kind, and clearly combat is a staple of both a lot of Gloranthan cultural concerns and most adventure fiction. And its highlighted in HeroQuest because combat is so simple, always coming down to a single number just like other contests (other games deal with the issue by having a variety of different factors to competence in combat, so the tough guy, the fast guy, and the berserker guy all feel qualitatively different to play, and feel like they have significant roles, even if one obviously doles out more actual damage).

About the only quick fix I can think of is but barriers (either hard limits, or ‘price signals’ in the form of costing extra) on raising a skill that is higher than anyone else in the game by some amount (eg if your ability is more than, say, 5 above anyother ability anyone has, costs to increase it double).

(and of course

[Jeff Richard]

I understand the situation, but look at it as if it were a television show by Joss Whedon. The Humakti is the SWORD GUY. That’s his idiom. He’s Jane with Vera. Or a Jedi Knight amongst smugglers and princesses. If other players want to do the same, they aren’t going to shine the same way. If you’ve been playing the game long enough for one character to get to be nearly a full mastery better than the others, then that player has made it clear that is what they want as their defining schtick.
But also look at this as if it were a television show by Joss Whedon. Yes, most episodes have a short gun-fight, during which half the characters have little to do. But sword fighting works only against a limited number of foes who are in your face – lightning bolts go further! Or the job of the Sword is to fight the Boss and try to defeat him before the minions do the real damage. Or whatever – yes, this is stage management, but no more or no less than any other game I’ve played or run requires (just of a different nature).
And that’s just one scene. Presumably, there are other characters with other useful abilities. So when the characters heroquest, the Humakti is a one-trick pony. Or when the characters deal with clan, tribal, or city stuff, the Humakti is sitting on his hands and letting other characters shine.
If the genre of your game is Destroyer! where combat is the primary arena on which the characters strut, then each player should pick out the “combat specialty” so that sometimes you get the Chaos Monster only the berserker can really fight, sometimes you fight against ambushing guerrillas only the ambushing guerrilla can really handle, etc, leaving the single-combat monster to be the Sword’s foe. But if combat is your primary arena, then maybe 13th Age or RuneQuest is a better system for your needs.

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