Single-Word Abilities

[Phil Nicholls]

Hi HeroQuesters,

Here is another issue we stumbled upon in an earlier cycle of tales.

Essentially, a Player insisted on using the ability Tough in just about every circumstance. The problem, as I saw it, was that the ability was just too broad.

My solution was to ban single-word abilities, and keep a lid on broad abilities at the same time. HeroQuest is so flexible that some very cool abilities can be taken. There is no need to rely upon a bland ability, when the Hero can just as easily take an interesting option instead.

I discuss this topic in greater length on my blog, Tales of a GM:

It’s Too Tough: Banning single-word Abilities in HeroQuest

Have you encountered this problem? How did you solve it?

All the best
Phil

[Simon Phipp]

If the player tries to use it in all situations, say no, then when he complains, just reply “Tough”!.

I have no problem with one-word abilities. However, I would ask the player to justify why the ability is relevant. For combat, fine, but I cannot see how it would be useful when flower arranging, or using the Harmony rune.

[Jeff Richard]

To deal with overly-broad abilities, I suggest the following:
Remember to impose that Specific Ability Bonus. One player is using Tough to fight a single combat, when another player has Master Duelist? That’s -6 to Tough!
Is this a Stretch? If it seems like a Stretch than it probably is. -6 to Tough!

[Roko Joko]

It’s hard to make all abilities equally broad. It’s easier to apply a modifier for how applicable an ability is to each contest. The rules give you options for that, but they might not be enough. Instead of -X you might try x3/4, x1/2, or x1/4.

The rules instruct the players to describe their tactics in every contest. That can be pretty important. It should clarify what’s happening in the contest and how applicable the ability is.

[Phil Nicholls]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for sharing your experiences with single-word abilities.

Yes, there are answers in the rules to the problems raised by broad abilities, but so many of these rely on GM interpretation during play. For me, this adds an unnecessary burden during the game. I have enough to think about as GM keeping the game moving, and improvising the plot. I prefer not to have to make regular rulings to an ability when I can simply require the ability to be altered on the character sheet, and thus “fixed”.

I also have an issue with the rules for penalizing broad abilities. This is more philosophical, rather than mechanical. However, this is starting to make me look very negative about HQ, when the opposite is true.

Perhaps that should be something for another article.

Thank you all again for sharing
Phil

[Duncan]

Coming a little late to this thread but I’ve run into a similar problem when running FATE games. Sometimes, when creating a character, someone would come up with an Aspect like “Tough” which is fine when you’re working on your concept but before play began any single word adjective had to be changed to a multi-word descriptor. So “Tough” might become “Rugged as the Mountains” or “Laughs at the Elements”. I do the same thing in HQ2.

[Clay]

This question interested me because it touched on something tangentially that I was pondering earlier today.

So, here I am, reading and gearing up for a HQ2 game and of course I have questions. I’ve read all through HQ2 and I am working my way through Sartar. I’m sitting in the character creation examples and the umbrella keywords, and this thought crosses my mind:

“Why would my players invest any points at creation in sub-abilities under an umbrella keyword?”

For example, Mercenary. Why would a player not just max-out Mercenary (at 7W) and spend creation points elsewhere (pushing another keyword up, for example).

I thought about this for a while, then it sort of dawned on me that Mercenary was a Broad skill. This wouldn’t matter much in a contest of equally Broad skills (say, Al the Angry Mercenary 7W gets in a tussle with Bob the Bored Mercenary 7W), but it *would* matter if Al the Angry Mercenary 7W also has Spear Fighting +1 under the Mercenary umbrella. It wouldn’t just be 8W vs 7W: because Spear Fighting is clearly more specific than Mercenary, Al would get a +3 specific bonus, probably making the contest 11W v 7W.

Mercenary is, after all, a single-word keyword (as are most of the occupational keyword umbrellas is S:KoH iirc).

I would apply the exact same logic to your Tough example. Al the Mercenary (Mercenary 7W/Spear +1) is now fighting Tough-Guy Carl (Tough 7W). If Al uses his Spear in the fight, I’d give him the full +6 specific bonus over Carl, for a 14W v 7W fight. I figure Al’s training is going to make short-work of Tough-guy Carl.

Am I on the right track with this?

[Harald Smith]

Clay – yes, you are on the right track. The specific bonus can really make the difference in an otherwise close/equal contest.

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