creativehum

Is it coming out timezone by timezone? NVM... just got the email.

Weird question maybe: But have the errata listed above been incorporated into the current PDF of the QuickStart? With RQG finally being released, I was thinking of running my Monday Night group through the QuickStart to see how they responded!

The quality of the image isn't the thing (I don't remember anyone thinking it was Glorantha to them.) But some friends of mine were talking about the cover and we realized we didn't know exactly what it was supposed to portray.

David, do you know who is portrayed on the Hero Wars/HeroQuest covers?

That's the question I'm most interested in -- the gods themselves? Or a Priest and Priestess? I'll go see if I can find that gallery!

Who are the two figures portrayed on the cover? Thanks!

Jeff, I wasn't accusing you of failing to put it in the QS. It makes perfect sense it isn't in the QS. I was wondering how it will work in the full game. (I now know it is the full game!) You might not want to tell me that, I suppose. But I was curious.

Hi Jeff, In the complete rules is the method for dropping Rune or Passion formalized? In Pendragon there is the check method for Traits where you make a roll during the Winter Phase to see if Traits shift, and for Passions if you blow off a passion you drop a point in the Passion's value. For RQG does the Passion or Rune automatically drop 5% or something?

Two of the RuneQuest Classics seem to be only available in PDF. (Griffin Mountain, Pavis & Big Rubble) Are there plans to reprint them?

Another question: In Extended Contests, do Assists replace the method that one Hero can help another, or are both Assists and Augments available in Extended Contests? If Assists do replace Augment in Extended contests, can a Hero still Augment himself? Thanks!

When you say "Implied Package" does that mean you don't list all the Abilities you listed in the Package and everyone at the table knows what is implied by the Package? Or do you list out the Abilities? Because I'm not sure everyone would have the same list of Abilities if you gave them the Keyword Hunter.

Thanks!

Hi David, Thanks so much for the reply. (And I'm sure many of the questions I'm asking have been covered elsewhere. I asked on another thread if a comprehensive list of corrections is posted anywhere and haven't been pointed to it yet.) Could you tell me which phrasing is incorrect? Each phrasing is the text of the rules themselves. So are the rules about each side trying to accumulate the RPs? Or scoring RPs against the other side?

On page 74 discussing Extended Contests the rules state the the winner of an exchange accumulates Resolution Points and that the first side to reach 5 RPs wins. However, on page 78 onward, the rules for Group Extended Contests state RPs won by a character are scored against his opponent, and that first person in a conflict to accumulate 5 RPs loses. Clearly, it's a mistake and one need only pick one way or the other. So I'm hear asking if it matters which method one picks. (It's late and I'm tired and I assume either method will work just fine. But if one falls apart because people can switch opponents in a Group Extended Contest or something, I'd love to hear it.)

Thanks so much for the response!

True, and good points, and something I have been thinking about. But the point of reworking the table is to: Make it clear who has won a victory and who has suffered a defeat (because, seriously, what is what the layouts with the tables in this book?) Have the penalties and benefits right there, on hand for the Referee instead of having to look them up later. Even if the Referee is selective about when to apply them, there's no reason not to put them exactly where they'll be when triggered. But your points is really well taken. What I like about offering the penalties and benefits is it gives the success and failures some mechanical teeth. But they should, as you say, offer those teeth only when if makes sense in the context of future situations and contests.

I'm pulling together a booklet of the HeroQuest rules in an attempt to clean up the rules, typos, and needed clarifications and get the mechanics presented in as simple and straightforward manner as possible. It dawns on me I'm going to probably have many questions as I go, so rather than keep adding new threads I'll start one thread and keep adding the questions. First Question: The Resolution Point Table (p. 70) On an errata thread Oracle wrote: I had the same confusion, but I do believe that this is the Resolution Point Table. However, I have a new confusion. The rules state that "winning side" gets the point value listed in the table. But what if the Target value for each side side is the same and there is a tie? Do no points get given out? Is there a tie breaking method for the table. I apologize if these rules are already in the text. I have looked and cannot find them.

Given the discussion above, it makes sense to me to rebuild the Results Tables from the point-of-view of the players. The means I get to see -- immediately -- the possible damage and benefits the players might receive.

Hero Points are used to: 1. Raise Abilities and Keywords 2. Spend during conflicts to improve results of said conflict. 3. “Cement” people, objects, relationships with groups to your Hero. I understand each of these on their own. And II really love the Cementing rule… one of my favorite HQ rules. And it is a kissing cousin to improving an ability, since cementing something is essentially adding it to your sheet as a new Ability, so 2 and 3 aren't that different. But the difference between 1 and 1 & 2 is to be big and complex. There's no way to know how fast PCs will advance, since it is dependent on how many HPs they use during a session. Moreover, Laws' solution in HQ2 to build the Resistance Treadmill where the advancements come so fast you simply keep making the game harder isn't really my thing. But maybe I'm missing something! How have the HPs worked out for people? How has advancement pacing worked out? How many HPs do Players tend to spend in a session? Have people built house rules to separate out HP spending during a session from an XP method? Have people built house rules in regard to advancement and pacing?

Absolutely. But even with this distinction... issues. For example, in the HQ2 rules, Laws seems to believe that as long as the Referee sets a "genre" everyone at the table will have a clear idea of what "Pulp" is. Or "Horror." Or whatever. What I have observed, however, is that people don't always share the same concept of a given genre-label. And even more flummoxing, some people don't even know what certain labels mean. (I know what a "Planetary Romance" is... a lot of people don't.) If the Referee builds the list of Occupation Packages for Players to choose from in certain game he goes a long way to establishing the the tone, feel, and the reality he wants for the setting. And then we move to the next degree of complexity... something like Glorantha, where new players might have a frame of reference because of earth-culture analogues, and some people might not even know those. (And some people who know Glorantha might even have completely different ideas of what it means to be a Heortling!) The more I think on it the more I think Packages are the way to go. Or, at the least, to have people people pick the Keywords and come up with two Breakouts for each so that a conversation of sorts is created at the table for everyone to get a sense of the tone and feel of the world, the characters, and the genre (per your Monster High thread.)

Absolutely.

Is Using Ian's definitions, is there a solid list of errata at this point so I can mark up my book of HQ: G? If not, can anyone point me to the (probably very involved) threads so I can dig them out? Thanks!

Thanks! While I can appreciate the value and ease of the Umbrella-style (a lot less work, for one thing!) I have to say that there is a solid value for the Package-style. With the package style anyone new to a unique setting can get a grasp of the setting though the defining of (for example) Homeland, Profession through the quick-sketch details found under the Keyword. When I read Hero Wars years ago (my first foray into Glorantha) I read the Keywords for the Heortlings and thought, "Okay. Got it" from scanning down the lists under the Keywords. Whereas when I read the descriptions of Heortling Keywords in HeroQuest: Glorantha I'm pretty much left on my own to read a lot of material as potential player of a Heortling to nail down the concept of that kind of character. And the same with Occupation Keywords (though obviously with more to go on than Heortlings.) If I hand players a list of Package-style Keywords to work from, by the time they've made their selections they already have more of an understanding of the unique and alien world than they would if I set there read pages of text at them to get them to understand it. (At least in my experience.)

Thank you so much for the reply. I'm aware what I'm discussing is similar to a Group Simple Contest. But in the example above I'm Not using totaling efforts by the group (which you discuss above) Not using or totaling Resolution Points. At all. Instead, the focus of the Players is on the results of the rolls and the effort to gain modifiers through victory, assists, and situational modifiers... all of which focus on the concrete details of the world and the actions of the PCs. I'm not saying that's a problem. But I'm looking at the rules to see how they might be stretched to use HeroQuest's very quick and flexible system to produce results that are less-abstracted and feel more like traditional play: The Players state intentions and actions. We resolved. We move on to the next beats of action from the results of the just resolved action. Bonuses and Penalties are applied to the next actions as appropriate. In the example above, a Mage might want to fireball the Lone Star guards since their silent operation has gone loud. If she succeeds the gang gets lingering benefits and the penalty the Street Samurai is carrying is removed because he's no longer pinned down by the guards. We're staying focused on the moment-to-moment details in the fiction, and pushing forward from them. Notice, however, I'm not talking about a blow-by-blow resolution. Broad agendas and grouped actions ("He jumps at you with a fury of blows!" "I'm going to get the control of the trigger on his bomb vest!") is still very much part of what I want to keep from the overall HeroQuest rules. And in humility: What I just described might be exactly how a Group Simple Contest is supposed to play out. But the moment (per the rules) where everyone rolls first, gets a total, and then the Referee starts describing what happened... I begin to feel abstracted from those specifics. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm simply looking to tweak the system closer to what I'm looking for.

Thanks! Again, an ingenious element of HQ that reduces the Referee's bookkeeping.