mikyra

As far as I understood it, the pass/fail cycle is a helpful tool to auto adjust the difficulty of contests to the current capabilities of the group. Preventing the story from: getting too boring because every contest is an easy win getting too frustrating because every contest is an almost sure fail. IMHO countering the effect of accumulated penalties in a series of defeats by lowering the difficulty level of future contests is one of the desired effects of the pass/fail cycle to break the vicious cycle of ever winning / ever loosing contests. I guess especially for players new to HeroQuest Glorantha like our group, lacking experience with the system, the auto adjust property of the pass/fail cycle may make it a valuable tool to prevent both of the problems mentioned above.

It seems I am in trouble again. This time I am trying to figure out how to treat the "losers" add 1 to the Resolution Points scored against them rule in case of Disengagement during a Climactic Action. QUESTION 1: In an Extended Contest does a disengaged participant suffer the additional RP, because he loses the contest instantly? QUESTION 2: In a Group Extended Contest does the last participant standing suffer the additional RP if he disengages, because he makes his team lose instantly? QUESTION 3: In a Group Extended Contest, does a participant, whos team loses the contest a couple of rounds after his disengagement suffer the additional RP, because he belongs to the losing side?

Thanks a lot. Things seem to make perfect sense now. It was exactly this mistake I made, missing the fact that the only idea of determining consequences as soon as a hero disengages is to make him suffer a (possibly lower than the final) penalty early.

OK guys, so here is another oddity. This time it is about Disengagement in a Group Extended Contest. source 1: The box "Disengagement in Group Extended Contests" (page 81) reads: Original scores remain intact if you renter a group extended contest after having disengaged from it [...] source 2: The text of the section "Disengaging" (page82) reads: In a climactic scene, however Resolution Points scored during contests you disengaged from are still taken into account when determining consequences. In the case of a group contest, consequences against you are determined as soon as you disengage [...] Putting the information of both sources together the following scenario seems to look rather strange to me. Scenario: Hero A and his teammates are fighting a group of Dark Trolls in a Group Extended Contest. in round 2: Things seem to turn out bad for Hero A, so he decides to disengage. Hero A Dark Troll |||| || According to source 2 Hero A immediately suffers SoA Impaired in round 5: Things seem to turn out even worse for Hero A's teammates, so he decides to rejoin the contest, trying to take out the Dark Troll once again. According to source 1 Hero A's score remains intact. Hero A Dark Troll |||| || in round 7: Hero A manages to remove his opponent from the contest without taking a further scratch. Hero A Dark Troll |||| |||| | in round 8: The last opponent of Hero A and his teammates is eliminated from the contest. Ouch! Hero A suffers another SoA Impaired from the score that stayed intact. QUESTION: Is disengaging from and rejoining a Group Extended Contest really meant to be handled this way?

It may seem odd to answer ones own questions, but just in case someone else stumbles across the same problem, I decided to do it nonetheless. Reading the box on page 82 again, I found the following piece of information. So the correct answer is option (a): During a Rising Action the hero would suffer the SoA Hurt twice.

And yet another problem I stumbled across, trying to summarize the Pass/Fail Cycle. It seems that either the table given on page 117 is broken, or I am to stupid to understand how to read it. Starting on page 116 it says I guess both "Major Defeat" and "Major Victory" are meant to be read as: (1) each Major Defeat or worse (i.e. or Complete Defeat) (2) each Major Victory or better (i.e. or Complete Victory) But even using this interpretation it is impossible to read the table in corner cases. To make explaining the problem a bit easier, I will use the following conventions (1) I will call BOTH Marginal and Minor Victory a small Victory. (2) I will call BOTH Major and Complete Victory a big Victory. (3) I will call BOTH Marginal and Minor Defeat a small Defeat. (4) I will call BOTH Major and Complete Defeat a big Defeat. So where is the problem? Using the naming convention given above take a look at the following two cases Case 1: The last two contests were: a small Defeat (=1 defeat) and a big Victory (=2 victories) Let's check to see which entry applies.: "3-4 Defeats" – no we have 1 defeat "2 Defeats" – no we still have only 1 defeat "2 Ties" – no we even don't have a single tie "1 Defeat + 1 Victory or Tie" – no, we have 1 defeat for sure, but our big Victory (=2 victories) neither counts as 1 victory nor as a tie "2 Victories, 0 Defeats" – no, we have 1 defeat "3-4 Victories, 0 Defeats" – no, we still have 1 defeat Alas there isn't a any entry that applies. Case 2: This time let's assume the last two contests were: a tie and a small Victory (=1 victory) Let's see how checking the table turns out this time: "3-4 Defeats" – no, we don't have any defeat "2 Defeats" – no, we still don't have any defeat "2 Ties" – no, we only have a single tie "1 Defeat + 1 Victory or Tie" – no, we don't have any defeat "2 Victories, 0 Defeats" – no, we only have a single victory. "3-4 Victories, 0 Defeats" – no, we still only have a single victory. Same problem again! QUESTION 1: Have I missed something or misunderstood how to correctly read the table? In case the table is broken, even more important: QUESTION 2: How would you fix the table in your group? Maybe some of you already have a nice houserule to suggest?

Thanks for reminding me of this fact. While the general idea is really nice and simplifies a lot of things – e.g. order in a Group Extended Contest and application of Multi Opponent Penalties to name just a few – I guess it will still take some time for me to get used to it. Coming from other systems, I still find myself caught in a trap looking for symmetry that isn't meant to be there, from time to time.

Reading the rules on, again I stumbled across a number of questions. Augments Using the Quick Augments (page 104) option it says I should use the augmenting ability divided by 5 rounded up. QUESTION: Does this mean I convert masteries to score points first? So for example an ability rating of "1 W 2" would grant an augment of +9 ? Healing QUESTION: May I make a healing attempt only once? It seems there is no limit on the number of tries - well besides killing the patient by accident of course. Is it meant to be that way, as a failed healing attempt may as well make things worse? Or is it meant to be an attempt made only once per suffered SoA? Pyrrhic Victories Using the Pyrrhic Victories (page 109) option, a table is given linking Level of Victory to State of Adversity. Now I am not sure how to interpret that, as it seems to make problems in either Simple Contests and Extended Contests. (Group) Simple Contests In a (Group) Simple Contest a tie is always a possible outcome. But a corresponding entry is not given. It seems the "not getting the prize may be penalty enough" idea doesn't fit so well, as even the consequence of a marginal victory would have been inevitable death! (Group) Extended Contests In a (Group) Extended Contest SoA is already determined by the RP points opponents scored against the hero. So I am not sure, if using the Pyrrhic Victory option ... (1) .. the SoA resulting from RP scored against a hero would be ignored? (2) .. the hero would suffer BOTH SoA resulting from RP scored against him AND SoA according to outcome? (3) .. is not a valid option, as it is meant to be used in (Group) Simple Contests only?

Of course it is a Trollkin ! "Trolling" is the German name translators of works like "Einführung in Glorantha" (Introduction to Glorantha) came up with. Just like a German "Drachenmolch" in fact is a Dragonewt. Unfortunately writing up the example I forgot to translate the German "Trolling" back to an original "Trollkin".

Thanks a lot! Things seem to get clearer now. Yes, of course I made the mistake to miss the distinction "per oponent vs overall" or "individual-by-individual vs total group" both of you mentioned. On page 84 it reads "the winning side’s victory level", so I guess the method explained there would only be used in the "overall" or "total group" case. Or in other words to determine the LoV, I would: (1) use the box on page 82 to assign "per opponent" aka "individual-by-individual" LoV (2) use the information on page 84 to assign "overall" aka "total group" LoV In this case information how to assig "total group" LoV during a Rising Action would still be missing. But I agree, it is the "individual-by-individual" LoV that is a lot more interesting. While I could follow the example given by @jajagappa, there still is another question, that due to broo 3 escaping from combat, I couldn't find out about. I will try to demonstrate it with an example. Example Our hero discovers a Dark Troll and a Trolling trying to steal supplies from the larder. Of course he wants to chase them away. Let's break the conflict down with two pairings: Hero 1 W Dark Troll 20 -3 MOP 18 Trolling 14 I understand that both SoA and BoV are resolved at the end of the contest. Yet I am not sure how to do this correctly. QUESTION 3: How to assign State of Adversity (SoA) in the following scenario? Let's imagine the contest ended like this: Hero |||| Dark Troll |||| Hero |||| Trolling |||| Resolution in a Climactic Action is quite easy here. I sum up the RP adding an additional RP on the losing side and cross reference with the table. Hero 4 + 4 -> dying Dark Troll 5 + 1 -> injured Trolling 5 + 1 -> injured But in a Rising Action a problem arises. This time I take into account the RP difference of all pairings in which one participant was eliminated from the contest. Hero vs Dark Troll = 1 -> Looser: Hurt Winner: Hurt Hero vs Trolling = 1 -> Looser: Hurt Winner: Hurt Cross referencing with the table it is quite easy to find out, that both the Dark Troll and the Trolling suffer an SoA Hurt. But what about the hero? Does he (a) suffer an SoA Hurt twice? (b) suffer an SoA Hurt once - because only the contest against the opponent with the highest target number is taken into account? QUESTION 4: How to assign Benefit of Victory (BoV) in the following scenario? This time let's imagine the contest ended like this: Hero || Dark Troll |||| Hero || Trolling |||| || I guess in this case the box on page 82 would apply. So I would only take the pairing with the Dark Troll into account? So in a Climactic Action I would follow the chain: loosers RP -> loosers SoA -> winners LoV -> BoV 5+1 -> injured -> major -> +6 And in a Rising Action just lookup the RP difference 5-2 -> minor -> +3

Hello together, it's the the stupid German again. This time I am stuck trying to figure out the details of (Group) Extended Contests. Trying to understand how things work here, there are still two questions, I didn't find an answer for. QUESTION 1: Is it possible to Augment an Assist? QUESTION 2: How to determine the Level of Victory in a Group Extended Contest? It seems there either is some information missing, or there is another contradiction in the rules given on page 84 and page 82. page 84 The section "Determining Climactic Consequences" here reads: The section "Determining Rising Action Consequences" on page 84 is missing any information how to resolve the LoV. Using this information to cross-reference, I would: (1) in a Climactic scene: (a) with more than one opponent: use the second-worst consequence among defeated opponents (b) otherwise: use the consequence of the only opponent present (2) in a Rising Action scene: * scratch my head as no information is given page 82 The box "Consequences and Group Extended Contests" reads: If you win more than one exchange in either Rising Action or Climactic contests, and then need to determine a final level of victory [..] use the victory level you attained against the hero who contested against you with the highest target number. Using this information, I would: (1) BOTH in a Climatic and a Rising Action scene: use the LoV won against the opponent with the highest target number

GSC consequences Thanks a lot for the insight. The explanation "not getting the prize may be penalty enough" sounds a lot more convincing than the "for whatever reason" I posted above. Sidenote p. 63 Nice you found the sidenote on page 63. I completely missed it reading the GSC rules starting on page 70 over and over again. There is a reference to it on page 72, starting: "When singling out participants [...]" Which using my poor knowledge of the English language, I understood to mean the case, where I apply different "consequences" to the individual participants instead of a single overall "consequence" to all of them. In other words a process in which I look up the individual LoV of each participant and not the final LoV of the whole contest. In this context a Fumble vs. Fumble result would make sense. Catch Yet there still is a catch, as the text reads on: "[..] heroes who posted positive Resolution Points to their side’s result get the benefit corresponding to their level of victory, as seen on the Simple Contest Results table (page 63 [..]" If entries given as "1 RP" should read "1 / 0 RP (0 RP in case of a tie)" as suggested, the precondition "heroes who posted positive Resolution Points" isn't met, so using the table on page 63 wouldn't apply anyways. if-if The sidenote on page 63 may be a good candidate for @soltakss "If a rule is unclear or too difficult just drop it" rule of thumb. Especially as the "if-if complexity" if I use the "single out participants" method and if the individual LoV was a tie of a rule governing the special case of a special case doesn't seem to be in proportion to the simplicity of the rules striven for. And even worse: the effect already lies within an implied: "You MAY (within reasonable limits) divert from the rules (a bit), if doing so means more fun for you and the group.", that I read any pen & paper rule system with. Yet again: at the moment I am just trying to translate and summarize the rules - as given - for our German speaking group, I can't just drop it on my own. But I will sure remember the idea as a suggestion' Chained Contests Unfortunately I don't know any details about "chained contests" as they seem to have been dropped from HQ/2E and HQ/G, the only two HQ versions I have at hand. Teamwork Contests Of the tools present in HQ/2E and HQ/G personally I like Group Simple Contests a lot, as they are a straightforward way to perform what I would call "teamwork contests". In our group of six players and one GM we often face the situation, that there are many heroes collaborating to reach a common goal, which no other contest seems to support as well as a GSC. A Simple Contest more or less is a "solo contest", with a single active hero. Using Augments you may involve a second hero, but this still doesn't make them "feel" to be equal partners: (1) the second heroes contribution feels like any other modifier (2) only the active hero will be subject to consequences of the contest An Extended Contest effectively isn't more than a "prolonged solo contest" Using Augments you may involve a second hero and using Assits an arbitrary number of "defending" heroes. Yet contributions of heroes other than the active one still suffer the same problems and (3) limited number of exchanges per contest and rising difficulty for each additional Assist make it unlikely that every defender really will add an Assist. A Group Extended Contest may be an option if the common goal is dividable, like "Stop those five Lunars reaching X before Y are hidden." Which may be broken down in say five pairings (1) assigning one hero to one Lunar (2) having one defender ready to Assist But this method doesn't work well if the common goal isn't divisible that easily. Each pairing forming an independent Extended Contest of its own, the team-up effect if any is rather marginal. A Group Simple Contest on the other hand makes heroes feel like equal partners, every single one of them adding his (RP) contribution to the result. Hero Points The unpredictable nature of random elements like contests giving a story surprising and unforeseen turns is one of the aspects, that can add a lot to the fun and suspense of a pen & paper rpg. If you want to push the tension between unpredictability of results and knowing "no matter how things turn out - we will have to live with the consequences" to the maximum, giving the players no bump or boost option at may be one of the best choices. But IMHO whether this factor is the most important, really is a matter of a groups playing style and personal preferences. For my part, I really like the option to bump or boost results using HP a lot, even if it cancels out part of the randomness making the game so much more interesting. (1) On a tiny scale bumps can really save you from the frustrating moments I guess we all know: Your hero gets this one chance you have been waiting for so many sessions, to get the spotlight and show the expertise that makes him so heroically special, and then... ... your hero fails miserably because you rolled that one in 400 fumble versus critical result. (2) Hero Points are a a very limited (you only have 3 per session) and very precious (your hero will progress slower if you spend some) resource. So whether to spend or not spend HP really adds to the sum of interesting decisions, that makes a pen & paper rpg so much fun to play (3) On a large scale bumps and boosts add a nice for way for players to influence the story being told beyond merely describing their heroes intentions. HP here really give the group a chance to set their focus on the story by differentiating between those outcomes that are of utter importance to them and those of lesser priority. Of course setting priorities like that also adds to the tactical dimension mentioned above. Bump Drawback Talking so much about bumps and boosts, I guess I should not hide a major drawback IMHO the system suffers from. (1) strong heroes - without any need to bump results - will get even stronger very fast. (2) weak heroes - having to bump results - advance at a much slower speed or even worse keep as weak as before. Leading to a steady growth of the gap between strong an weak heroes. Possible Cure To circumvent the "growing gap effect" mentioned above, in our group we houseruled spending HP for bumps and boosts to use a common HP pool like this: (1) at the beginning of the session a HP pool is formed by adding 3 HP to the pool for each participating player (2) during the session with the consent of the whole group HP from the pool my be spent according to HQ/G rules, not spending more than 3 HP at a time. (3) at the end of the session HP remaining in the pool are evenly divided among the players, rounding down when necessary Rounding down in step (3) is meant to counter the bias in favor of the heroes resulting from raising the number of HP at a single players dispsositon from 3 HP to potentially the whole HP pool in step (2) Of course the balance is not perfect. But the rules are easy to apply and the "with the consent of the whole group" part even adds another nice game element, giving the players a chance to exchange views about the importance of the contest at hand and discuss common goals and focuses.

I like the idea of both you (@jrutila) and @jajagappa to allow single bumps in GSC and just adjust the difficulty level. Yet I will have to check if a house rule like that also meets the consensus of our group. Right at the moment my only "job" is to translate and somehow summarize the rules given by the HeroQuest Glorantha rule book. But I guess I will have to leave this point open at the moment, because it is not clear what the rules are trying to say here. Maybe you can help me with two other questions that during this conquest turned up, while I was still studying GSC rules. QUESTION 1: Is this simplification right? To determine the (unboosted) final Level of Victory (LoV) of a GSC, it seems I can get away with one table: LoV RP ======== ==== complete 5 major 3 minor 2 marginal 1 tie 0 * in step 1 where the individual LoV of a participant are translated into RP: use the table to lookup from left to right: individual LoV -> RP * in step 2 where the RP difference is translated into the final LoV: use the table to lookup from right to left, treating the right column as reading "starting from x RP": final LoV <- RP difference Of course this would only be right, if the Table "EXTENDED CONTEST RESOLUTION POINTS" on page 70 is: (1) meant to be the same as the "Resolution Point table" mentioned, but missing in the rules. (2) wrong because it misses the fact that on a tie no side wins any resolution points Regarding (1) I found another thread here in the forum saying that this is the missing "Resolution Point table" Regarding (2) the rules for Extended Contests (see: page 74) say: So it seems neither side gains any RP on a tie. QUESTION 2: What are the possible Negative Consequences of a tie in a GSC? According to the table "GROUP SIMPLE CONTEST RESULTS" (see: page 70) on a marginal victory even the Winner may have to face negative consequences of the level Hurt. Unfortunately the table is missing an entry for a tie, so I am not sure how to interpret that. Does it mean I may: (a) suffer Hurt in this case also, as a tie sure is a worse result than a marginal victory ? (b) not suffer any negative consequences for whatever reason ? I hope this will be my last two questions regarding GSCs as I made it to the end of the chapter finally. But I can't promise.

Do you know if it is possible to reduce the number of players participating in a "Group Simple Contest" below all players? If this is possible, it could be a nice option to have a variable number of players instead of two (one augmenting and one making a simple contest) participate in a contest without having to involve the whole group. But I am not sure if this is allowed. In the rules it says (see: page 70) The part "all of the participating heroes" in (1) seems to make this an option. Yet I am not sure if the part "each player rolls" in (2) and "The Game Master has everyone roll" in (3) is meant to be read as "each [participating] player" and "everyone [participating in the contest]"

Thanks a lot for your reply. contradiction 2 This was extremely valuable information, and - as a special bonus - makes the rules feel to be a much rounder thing to me. Not for esthetic reasons only: As someone who is playing different systems and switching between them, lots of special cases, specific exceptions, etc. often feel very annoying making it so much harder to remember things correctly. Just having to remember the simple rule "You always invest Hero Points after the result" seems to make things so much easier here. contradiction 1 Unfortunately the same consistency and simplicity principle would not apply but be severely broken, if the general rule "You may (always) spend one Hero Point to bump your roll." would not apply to the special case Group Simple Contests. Investigating things further I tried to look up things in "HeroQuest Core Rules" which being first printing July 2009 vs. Summer 2015 for "HeroQuest Glorantha" is the older one of the two versions. Interestingly enough taking a look at the example here seems to give a strong indication the claim "You can't do that in a Group Simple Contest" in the HeroQuest Glorantha example might be a mistake. The example (see: page 33) here arrives at a point, where the group is 2-4 RP behind their opponent and it is Starkweather's turn to add his contribution to the contest. The next lines read: The Hero Point here was spent for a bump and not for a boost, as it modified the degree of success of Starkweathers roll not the level of victory of the entire group. On the other hand the example is older than the one given in HeroQuest Glorantha and the idea of how things should work in a Group Simple Contest might have been changed. Yet it would still seem strange to me, that neither the text in the rules section was changed, nor an explanation of changes between this and the older version were included. SRD Searching this forum after reading your reply, I found an announcement posted in June 2018. There it reads. (Sorry for just copying the text. I didn't find out how to cite other threads as nice as you did in your post) As July 2018 already lies way in the past, I wonder if the SRD idea was abandoned. Do you know if the SRD will still be coming?