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Corvantir

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Corvantir last won the day on March 29 2018

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  • RPG Biography
    Started RPGs in 1982 though we really started role playing the following year when we dropped D&D in favor of RQ2. RQ3 detracted me from Glorantha and I am now getting back to this wonderful setting thanks to HeroQuest 2. It seems I am bound with second editions as far as Glorantha is concerned.
  • Current games
    I am currently running a few one shots from time to time using a house ruled version of Free Universal (FU) or a home made compact version of FATE.
    I currently have two projects, a Solomon Kane campaign (using my home made compact FATE) and after that I would like to run a HeroQuest: Glorantha campaign.
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    Toulouse (France)
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    I am 48 years old and I am lucky enough to live with the most extraodinary woman in the universe.
    I like hiking, jazz music, reading and... guess what!

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  1. Each PC and each NPC has his Stress Resistance (SR) pool. The SR pool of a character is equal to the score of his Ability (+ Augment, if any) ; while the score of a NPC's pool is equal to the Difficulty of the contest. Hordes of NPCs are assigned a single pool. Several groups of NPCs can each have their own pool if you want. The single most important change is indeed that you only have a single pool by character, not one by pair of opponents as in the HQG rules.
  2. Five months later, I imagine that my reply is far less useful. 😞 Unfortunately, my gaming aids are in french. Which may or may not be a problem according to your fluency in french. But your name is suggesting me that you may know this language very well. For those of you who are speaking french you can PM me and I will send you the .pdf and .doc or .odt files. For those of you who are not speaking french, you can PM me also, of course. I think that the french gaming aids can be of some use. I am sure you can figure out most of the tables with the HQG book near you. With the .odt and .doc files it could be easy to rewrite the gaming aids in your home language. Be warned that the layout of the .odt and .doc files will get wonky if you open them with the "wrong" word processing software. For the rules themselves, you will have to wait for a translation. I am considering it at the moment but I am currently running two campaigns that must remain my priority. May be will I post them here as a serie.
  3. Hi, Thank you for your interest in my HQG "mod". I must admit I am less and less lurking on the Internet these days, this is why I am coming back so lately. I didn't know there were some replies to my previous post. 😳
  4. Hi, I hope you are all doing well in these strange times. It's time for an update. I have been through a "Hollow Earth Expedition" campaign in which I started some experiences and tests. I am currently running two HQG campaigns (Borderlands & Beyond, two different groups) with a stable version of the hybrid system. I have reworked my gaming aids, mostly designing a new table with directly readable results for all the contest subsystems (simple tests, group simple tests and extended tests). As far as my needs are concerned, the tests are now successfull. The results are easy to read and apply. The Stress points attrition introduces a tension strengthening the narration. As Stress points are not hit points, I have to describe a situation expressing a danger, a relief, something getting worse or better, in a given place. This pushes me to narrate the result of an exchange instead of calling the next character right after the Stress points have been dealt with. The bland result (you lose 5 Stress points) is followed by a description, a come back to the fiction. That works for me. The results are also far more easier to track for everyone at the table and it helps a lot. Thanks to the narrative bits, it seems to me that the players don't see the Stress points as hit points anymore. Stress seems to be the appropriate term. This is now my YHQGWV. 🙂
  5. It seems to me that going east was a good strategical move : - A territory that can be conquered quickly with limited resources; - Allies that will help conquering and holding the said territory, allowing most of the invading army to come back to Dragon Pass without too much delay; - A city controlling the access to ruins known to hide artefacts from the second age; - Access to the sea through Corflu... The colonization of the Bordelands has more to do with opportunity rather than something planned from the start, in my opinion.
  6. The following options are available to the players, they are taken from HQ2: Defensive Responses -> Suffer -5 SP if defeated; Inflict -10 SP if victorious Risky Gambits -> Victory earns +5SP; Suffer +10 SP if defeated
  7. A late report ! We ended our Hollow Earth Expedition campaign in july and tested the hybrid system through the climactic session. It proved to be far easier to manage from my perspective and the players found it better and more "natural" than the RP and AP systems. The terms Stress Points flowed rather naturally into the conversation, better than Resolution Points and Advantage Points. Maybe because we instinctly know what stress is and because we strongly react to stress in general. For me, the feel of the extended contest was clearly a cross between HQ1 and HQ2. No apparent flaw for the moment. The players found shortcuts that allowed them to avoid the physical opposition though to the exception of a single extended contest. Moreover, the first contest was planned to be relatively easy in order to get the hold on the system. The session still felt heroic and risky but allowed only a basic experimentation. I would say that this hybrid system works for us but that it needs to be confirmed in the long run.
  8. Isn't it simply because Grandfather Mortal was tricked by Eurmal and then because Orlanth used Death to kill Yelm and others ? Eurmal and Orlanth are both members of the Air Tribe. There are thus many reasons to prefer the Lunar and Sun Tribes, victims like Daka Fal.
  9. Thanks for the replies. Extended contests in my campaign are few, almost all of the contests are resolved through Simple contests. The extended contests I have managed thus far took more than half an hour, and even more, at least two of them were too long for everybody. Two of the three groups I tested HQG with didn't want to know the precise number of RP scored against the contestants, including themselves. The system would have to fade behind the screen. But without a mean to "visualize" the situation (the RP scored), I guess that misunderstandings are more frequent. It puts a lot of weight on the GM's shoulders, everybody must understand the situation through the GM only. As the human brain is good at analysing simple graphical representations, seeing the RP balances while listening at the GM allows the player to quickly grasp the real extent of the situation. I think that this system really works if the players can see the RP tracks. Once the RP are inscribed on something that everybody can see, the GM can describe the situation without talking about numbers. Unfortunately, I don't have a whiteboard and my current campaign is online. So let's forget about this solution. IMO, the hybrid system gives the player an instant grasp of his situation by simply looking at the Stress Resistance balance of his character. From the player's side, there is only one score to manage. As far as I am concerned, I have some trouble to manage the various RP tracks of HQG's extended contests and it becomes harder and harder with each new pair of contestants. A single score of Stress Resistance per contestant greatly simplifies the managing process which is very important to me. The Stress Points losses were computed so that a total victory knocks out a contestant under 6W. Between 19 and 5W the hybrid system produces the same results as a single pool of RPs. This is normal as SP losses are just a multiple by 5 of the RP losses.I agree that higher scores will extend the length of the contest, but a single pool of Stress Resistance hastens the contest. The mock combats I have made while solo testing the hybrid system resolved the contest in about 15 to 20 mn whereas the extended contest they were based on took more than 1 hour, perhaps 1 hour and a half. I suppose it will be longer at the table but that it should not rise beyond half an hour. My future tests will show if the hybrid system and its options work. It will take some time to learn how it behaves in front of higher scores though.
  10. Warning: this post has been written with HeroQuest: Glorantha (HQG) in mind but can be used almost as is with QuestWorlds. I am over fourty or so sessions with HQG and there is something wrong with the extended contests system. It is not the system’s fault of course but rather my inability to use the scored contests rules properly and/or to manage them while playing. First problem: The goal/prize and the tactics constrain the action, the frame thus defined becomes some kind of shackles when the contests are resolved. I have seen a lot of extended contests becoming a bland exercise in dice throwing one exchange after the other until 5RP are scored. Second problem: The Resolution Points system (more precisely the fact that an opponent is only thrown out of the contest when a single contestant scores 5 RP against him whatever the number of RP scored by the other contestants) makes the contests longer. Starting at zero again when a new pair is created during a contest extends the length of the scene without adding something entertaining, in my opinion of course. Moreover, a lot of players are very disturbed by the fact that they have to score a whole lot of 5RP when several RP have already been scored by other contestants against the same opponent. Eager to find a solution, I tested the Advantage Points system from HeroQuest 1. The « transfer » mechanism proved it could be abused with Hero Points (in my games, Hero Points are disconnected from experience). While the AP gave the players a better idea of their status and of the status of their opponents while fighting, the players didn’t like the « metagame » introduced by the bidding system. After a new session through which a scored contest proved once again to be frustrating I imagined a solution combining what I think is the best of both worlds : Advantage Points with set amounts of AP losses according to victory levels. Advantage Points are renamed Stress Points (SP) The Advantage Points starting pool is called Stress Resistance (SR) The general process is the following : 1 – The players determine an overall goal and their tactics. 2 - The score of the capacity used at the start of the contest (after an Augment) gives the Stress Resistance of the contestant. 3 – The contestants act in the order of their starting score 4 – When a contestant earns a victory against his opponent, the loser reduces his Stress Resistance by the following amount: MARGINAL VICTORY: 5 SP MINOR VICTORY : 10 SP MAJOR VICTORY : 15 SP COMPLETE VICTORY : 25 SP 4 – Once the single pool of SR of a contestant is reduced to 0 or less, the contestant is ousted of the contest. 5 – The consequence inflicted to the loser is determined by the following table: SR balance (Consequence) (Victory level) 0 to -3 (Hurt) (Marginal) -4 to -6 (Impaired) (Minor) -7 to -10 (Injured) (Major) -11 or less (Dying) (Complete) There are more details based on the Wagered Contests rules of QuestWorlds and the rules of HQ1. I think that the players will have an easier time with something looking more familiar, something akin to Hit Points. With a better grip of the system I guess they will be better at playing with it. Which is also true for me. I will test this new system this autumn when I start again the Borderlands & Beyond campaign interrupted by the various lockdowns.
  11. I always thought that Temple of the Reaching Moon was a direct reference to the corresponding Lunar phase, a celebration of the rising power of the Lunar empire.
  12. I am running a Hollow Earth Expedition campaign with HeroQuest 2 and lastly tested the point bidding system, as I was not totally satisfied with scored contests. There was a fight and two NPCs were joining the party. I decided that their fate would follow the player's fate. I kept myself to describing what was happening to them by following the ebb and flow of the combat. This decision was the easier to make as I had not stated the NPCs abilities. Lesson learnt, the NPCs will be stated for the next session. These kind of NPCs are always managed by the players, I already have enough work managing the session. I use the HeroQuest 2 rules like this : Followers Can be used in four ways: - Support : the follower is unengaged, he does not directly engage the main hero’s opponents but may perform Assists, Augments and other Unrelated actions - Ressource : the hero uses an Ability of the follower as if it were his own - Full participant : the follower directly engage the hero's opponents with his own AP. If the follower is reduced to 0 AP or less, his Consequence of Defeat is increased by one rank (Impaired to Injured, for example). - Secondary participant : each follower cancels a Multiple opponent's penalty. When the hero loses AP, he can transfer the losses to the follower. If the follower is reduced to 0 PA or less, his Consequence of defeat is increased by one rank.
  13. I have just skimmed through the 0.71 SRD and I must admit the changes are intriguing. I am currently using a lightly modded version of HeroQuest: Glorantha (HQG) that is still very very close to the original rules and I can see how the new QuestWorlds rules can help to manage the rules while playing. The Degrees are a drastic change I felt "so so" about at first until I gave the idea a chance and imagined how it would work at the table. They are actually a great simplification that can greatly ease the flow of the game. I am yet to test the new rules but I am more inclined to do so now. My intent was to keep to HQG, I am more open to QuestWorlds now. Thanks for the good work.
  14. I have spotted something that seems to be a leftover from the "Game Formerly Known as HeroQuest". As Story Points are no more spent before a Group Simple Contest is resolved, the sentence in green is not needed anymore. 10.3.3.3 Boosting Outcomes Because they average together the outcomes of multiple participants, group simple contests tend to flatten outcomes, making victories more likely to be marginal or minor than major or complete. To overcome this flattening effect, if the outcome of a group simple contest is a tie or victory, you may spend one or more story points to purchase a boost; a boost assures a clearer victory. The cost varies by the number of PCs participating: • 1 story point for 1-3 PCs. • 2 story points for 4-6 PCs. • 3 story points for 7-9 PCs. • and so on… You may spend twice as many story points as required to gain a double boost. The points may be spent by any combination of players. They remain spent no matter how the contest resolves. You may continue to spend story points to bump your individual result. The boost increases the collective victory level by one step. A double boost increases it by two steps.
  15. It makes me sad, HeroQuest as a brand is tied to the world of Glorantha in a way QuestWorlds will never be. But I agree it would be confusing to have QuestWorlds as a generic set of rules and to name it HeroQuest when it is used for Glorantha. I am not sure we will ever see new products set in Glorantha from Chaosium with rules other than RuneQuest though. And it also makes me sad.
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