Going Heroquesting

[Alex]

On 10/2/2021 at 8:06 AM, Shiningbrow said:

IIRC, Mongoose had rules for getting it wrong... you drop out of the HQ. (or, possibly, drawn into something you didn't anticipate).

Neither are terrible options, and would encourage the players to try again... after a bit more research.

I do hope that's not a still-more-damning guilt by association than the Hero Wars one! 🙂  But yes, I think there's been a few descriptions that work a lot like that.  For example, the KoDP one, where you can be either Lost in the God Time, or you can be dumped back out on yer arse.

For a "stationary" or "vertical" heroquest other-side quest, I think that works logically enough.  You're back in the ritual circle, which in a sense was the same place as the Hero Plane for the duration of the quest, and where you were all along.

For a "mundane world" or "practice" quest, it checks out too.  The Hero Light in your eyes dims...  for now!  You take off your myth-goggles, and go back to perceiving things again as having their normal appearance and significance, rather than everything being hugely freighted with mythic meaning.  Materially, nothing dramatically changes -- you're still in the physical place you were anyway.

Now if you've gone Full Lightbringer, bodily locked behind the Gates of Dusk and that whole palaver, and you're Alone in Hell when the ritual goes irretrievably wrong...  Oops.  Wait until the rescue squad show up, with an even bigger and -- necessarily! -- better one?

[French Desperate WindChild]

I hope there will be official rules one day , explaining some points :

 

if you do exactly as your god, why could you failed ? it seems to me you roll something and fail but what skill/rune ?(devotion ? cult  lore  ? skill used ? rune of your god / spell ?)

 

If you don't do what your god did (a ZZ negotiating with YO for example, or a YO destroying Orlanth and ZZ), why could you succeed ? again a skill ? but which one ? the same (mmm I am not sure you can use devotion to negotiate with YO..) a specific one ? (= explore-heroquest-skill, base 0% ...)

Until few months I was focused on the stats of the opponent (should the god in front of me have 2500 POW when I m only 13 ?) and was "blocked" by that. But now I am more on a approach like "the god you meet is in fact another hero, like the pc, so the stats are like any others npc, of course not a weak npc" but even this, it is just my view and no idea if it's fit with a potential rule.

 

Heroquesting is very important in runequest, and now, with pc who start their adventure with so much power (compared with previous version) I hope there will be a clarification and some offical rules for poor people like me lost in the otherworld darkness

 

Edited October 5, 2021 by French Desperate WindChild

[Kloster]

Agreed.

My main point is more: 'What is exactly, in game terms, a Heroquest?' Exploring or recreating a myth is a good 'in world' answer, but what does it means in game terms?

[StephenMcG]

I have been playing an RQ2 game that used HeroQuest versions of the PCs when they hit the HERO Plane.  It is all based in the Big Rubble and so there are plenty of spots where the players transition quite easily, sometimes unexpectedly.  I tend to do the RQ game until I narrate something unusual, a fish talking to them, a cloud taking the form of a rune or simply walking through a portal where they notice shadowy figures around each of them.

It is then that I hand out the HeroQuest character sheets, they know the game has changed and their play style needs to as well.  They had a free-flowing dip into a Zorak Zoran heroquest where they were supplemented by their Grey Company predecessors and it got wild, riding the statue to Robcradle and kicking Kygor Litor in the belly.  Their ability to interact with trolls has plummeted.  They had a much smaller HeroQuest,  trying to find the identity of a Lunar Agent which was more puzzle-y and very stage focused that they failed at, with little consequence.

I use the Heroquests to change the pace of the game, introduce new elements, get round obstacles that would be near impossible in skill focused RuneQuest.

I miss having a huge library of heroquests to riff through for particular purposes but have gotten a but better at simply making stuff up.  I do buy everything that says it contains heroquesrs in it though (are you listening Chaosium?  It us an open door to my wallet).

Stephen

[soltakss]

On 10/5/2021 at 10:08 AM, StephenMcG said:

I miss having a huge library of heroquests to riff through for particular purposes but have gotten a but better at simply making stuff up.  I do buy everything that says it contains heroquesrs in it though (are you listening Chaosium?  It us an open door to my wallet).

There are a few supplements with HeroQuests on the Jonstown Compendium:

• Humakt, Raven and Wolf 
• How Humakt Learned to Grieve
• Six Seasons in Sartar
• The Company of the Dragon (I think)
• Black Spear
• Secrets of HeroQuesting
• Holiday Dorastor: The Temple of Heads
• Holiday Dorastor: Spider Woods

There are probably more, but I am generally banned from reading scenarios that our RQG GM is likely to run.

[Alex]

On 10/5/2021 at 10:04 AM, Kloster said:

Agreed.

My main point is more: 'What is exactly, in game terms, a Heroquest?' Exploring or recreating a myth is a good 'in world' answer, but what does it means in game terms?

I'd first slightly tweak the in-world answer:  the key part is to (re)conform the world to the myth.  The Lightbringers' Quest is to make the sun rise in the morning.  If the sun was -- hopefully -- gonna do that anyway, then recreating that myth is essentially just an act of worship.  I say "just" -- it's critical to the culture and to religious life, and if anyone fumbled their Devotion Passion and didn't trouble themselves to take part, then maybe it actually wouldn't rise at all!  Yelm might be more of a sun and less of a god than in the good old days, but he's still enough of a god that he might need the magic points to get out of bed in the morning.

So what makes it a hq is having a material-world problem you need to fix.  Probably a slightly smaller one than the sun not rising -- I hope!  Maybe the "super-resurrection" application for the LBQ, or some form of bringing order and consensus-reality to the world.

I think it's easier to apply for "practice" hqs, and -- contrary to the HW model -- I think it makes sense to do those first in gameplay.  Hopefully they in turn make more sense of the otherside, "full" versions.  And what I think a practice hq looks like is a self-conscious mashup of the "mundane" actions you'd need to take to solve the particular problem, and the actions you'd need to take to reenact the myth.  Hopefully there's a decent overlap between the two, or otherwise you've maybe chosen the wrong myth to apply!  There might be "stages" that make less intuitive sense in the current context, and that you have to do almost purely for sake of the ritual.  Then you're in the "We Hate Darjiin Usurpers" situation -- what you did seems pretty dumb, but it's mythically correct!  So for example if you're doing the Hill of Gold hq in order to fight Chaos, you'll likely have to pick several other fights first (or other encounters with a particular slant according to the exact version of the myth at each stage), with people or groups you Identify as taking the Orlanth, Zorak Zoran, and Inora roles.  OTOH, this is Glorantha, so it's not like that'll be hard!

[StephenMcG]

22 hours ago, soltakss said:

There are a few supplements with HeroQuests on the Jonstown Compendium:

• Humakt, Raven and Wolf 
• How Humakt Learned to Grieve
• Six Seasons in Sartar
• The Company of the Dragon (I think)
• Black Spear
• Secrets of HeroQuesting
• Holiday Dorastor: The Temple of Heads
• Holiday Dorastor: Spider Woods

There are probably more, but I am generally banned from reading scenarios that our RQG GM is likely to run.

I have six of those, may have to invest in more.  🙂  When I read that there are heroquests inside - I find it difficult to keep my credit card in my pocket...

[Alex]

On 10/6/2021 at 6:01 PM, soltakss said:

Secrets of HeroQuesting

Ooooooooooooooo.  Just looked at the preview of this, seems very good!

[Lordabdul]

Thanks everybody for their answers!

I get the impression that getting into the heroquest is generally a rather automatic thing in your games. Doing the heroquest (successfully or not) is more interesting than whether you can start it in the first place. So it looks to me like most of you are OK with adventurers getting at least into some kind of heroquest with two sticks and a bit of rope. Everything else is gravy on top.

I would still probably make a roll or two because not rolling at least once before doing something important in RQG seems weird, but it wouldn't be a pass/fail roll, it would likely be to see how well the PCs get into the heroquest (and, conversely, how bad I can mess with them with more or less surprises). I have some ideas here but we'll see how it goes in play first... I'd like to encourage the players to do more preparations than the strict minimum, and take some risks like, say, doing a short adventure to recover a piece of regalia to use in the ritual. I know that half my players would do it just for fun, but the other half would not unless there's some benefit, either narrative (maybe) or mechanical (best).

I guess it's similar to getting to Count Evil Vampyski's manor -- the locals will point to it and say "don't go there, Count Evil Vampyski lives there and he eats children", so going there isn't exactly the problem. It's surviving in there. And that's why you want to spend a few days recruiting farmers with pitchforks and torches to help you on the way. That is, unless you're suicidal, stupid, or super powerful. In which case you can waltz in there unprepared.

[jajagappa]

13 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

I get the impression that getting into the heroquest is generally a rather automatic thing in your games. Doing the heroquest (successfully or not) is more interesting than whether you can start it in the first place. So it looks to me like most of you are OK with adventurers getting at least into some kind of heroquest with two sticks and a bit of rope. Everything else is gravy on top.

It's not much fun if you get your players all psyched up for a heroquest and then you slam the door in their faces.  It would be like starting CS Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and the kids get into the wardrobe, and it doesn't go anywhere - it's just a wardrobe full of coats.  There should always be opportunity to get in so you can tell the story.

Now, where you end up when you arrive is a whole different question.  Did you land your house on the evil Witch of the East?  Meet the kindly White Witch who gave you lots of sweets?  Land face down in the mud?  End up in the Underworld or the Trickster's Madhouse?  That's where your preparations come into play.

A roll is certainly possible, but should not be a barrier.  Instead, take the opportunity to see how closely they align themselves to the quest/story.

[soltakss]

25 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

I get the impression that getting into the heroquest is generally a rather automatic thing in your games. Doing the heroquest (successfully or not) is more interesting than whether you can start it in the first place. So it looks to me like most of you are OK with adventurers getting at least into some kind of heroquest with two sticks and a bit of rope. Everything else is gravy on top.

Yes, there is not much point starting a HeroQuest and not getting anywhere.

Just go on the HeroQuest.

What happens on the HeroQuest is important, what you do on the HeroQuest is more important.

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, Alex said:

Ooooooooooooooo.  Just looked at the preview of this, seems very good!

I think so, but I am biased. 

[Lordabdul]

14 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

It's not much fun if you get your players all psyched up for a heroquest and then you slam the door in their faces.

 

11 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Yes, there is not much point starting a HeroQuest and not getting anywhere.

 

You two seem to think that PCs can only try something once and in one way. If my players wanted to get invited to Count Evil Vampyski's Masquerade Ball by posing as Russian nobles guests, even though that sounds awesome, I would still have them roll for it. If they fail just a little, they get refused entry and have to get in through another way -- possibly by infiltrating the catering staff, which is even more awesome because they get to see what's going on in the kitchen... and if they fail bad, they... well, they get to see the kitchen but from another perspective, if you get my drift. Which is also awesome (they escape and rally the victims to storm the party and set the drapes on fire, for instance). Either way, there was no "slamming the door", or at least not in a definitive way.

So similarly, I was wondering if anybody would have played a failure to invoke the God Plane as a "sign", somehow, which leads to... well I don't know, but hopefully it leads to other ways to get into the heroquest (or even leads to doing a different heroquest?  I don't know). I'm not sure yet what would be the equivalents to my Vampiric Masquerade heist scene example here... which is in part why I asked. But I guess nobody else knows either since nobody seems to do it 😉 

Edited October 7, 2021 by lordabdul

[jajagappa]

16 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

You two seem to think that PCs can only try something once and in one way. If my players wanted to get invited to Count Evil Vampyski's Masquerade Ball by posing as Russian nobles guests, even though that sounds awesome, I would still have them roll for it. If they fail just a little, they get refused entry and have to get in through another way

It's a timing thing.  I want to get PC's interested in and invested in the Otherworld - to know the realm of the possible. 

Once they've been that first time, and they know there's a door, then sure, the familiar door is closed and now they need to find a different way.  But give them that first nudge in.

[Lordabdul]

Fair enough! I guess this is more about campaign pacing, gameplay styles, and so on at this point. But good to keep in mind.

[soltakss]

18 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

You two seem to think that PCs can only try something once and in one way.

Not at all.

We are talking about kicking the HeroQuest off in the first place.

19 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

If my players wanted to get invited to Count Evil Vampyski's Masquerade Ball by posing as Russian nobles guests, even though that sounds awesome, I would still have them roll for it.

Then they are already on the HeroQuest. This is the Getting to the Ball station.

20 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

If they fail just a little, they get refused entry and have to get in through another way -- possibly by infiltrating the catering staff, which is even more awesome because they get to see what's going on in the kitchen... and if they fail bad, they... well, they get to see the kitchen but from another perspective, if you get my drift.

Which are the results of actions on the HeroQuest, not trying desperately to start the HeroQuest in the first place.

21 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Which is also awesome (they escape and rally the victims to storm the party and set the drapes on fire, for instance). Either way, there was no "slamming the door", or at least not in a definitive way.

Which is the best way to run a HeroQuest. You might end up with something different than you expected, but you should end up with something.

21 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

So similarly, I was wondering if anybody would have played a failure to invoke the God Plane as a "sign", somehow, which leads to... well I don't know, but hopefully it leads to other ways to get into the heroquest (or even leads to doing a different heroquest?  I don't know). I'm not sure yet what would be the equivalents to my Vampiric Masquerade heist scene example here... which is in part why I asked. But I guess nobody else knows either since nobody seems to do it 😉 

There is a writeup of an attempt to do a Magic Road from Cragspider's Castle to somewhere in the Holy Country. The PCs attempted Divine Intervention to go on the Magic road, but nothing was happening, so someone came down from the Castle and basically said that they were rattling the windows so hard they might break, so go back down your own end and stop with the Magic Roading.

So, it does happen and, in that example, meant that they had to go by normal means, thus opening up another potential set of encounters/scenario.

But, it does sound a bit dickish to me, to be honest.

[jajagappa]

19 minutes ago, soltakss said:

There is a writeup of an attempt to do a Magic Road from Cragspider's Castle to somewhere in the Holy Country.

Part of Greg's Sartar Campaign writeup in Wyrms Footnotes IIRC.  It's a good example of a case where you've used a path before, you know it's there, but that way is closed (e.g. you've lost the key, misplaced your invitation, had the carriage turn back into a pumpkin, etc.).

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Then they are already on the HeroQuest. This is the Getting to the Ball station.

Ah 😮 interesting point of view.... thanks! I'll have to re-think about this... 😅

Thanks for the pointer to the Magic Road/Cragspider reference too. I'll follow Jajagappa's hunch and search through the WF PDFs but if anybody has an exact reference that would be nice!

(edit: I think it might be WF 13 p21)

Edited October 7, 2021 by lordabdul

[jajagappa]

56 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

(edit: I think it might be WF 13 p21

Yes, that is it.  And interestingly looking back on it, it's their attempt to get Divine Intervention (which one might interpret as getting a divine wind to carry them to the Holy Country) that fails, and they are forced to take the Magic Road instead.

[Alex]

2 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Fair enough! I guess this is more about campaign pacing, gameplay styles, and so on at this point. But good to keep in mind.

I think so, yes.  If you're playing a "crunchy" sort of game like RQ you have to at least throw some illusionism to make it seem like you're 'simulating' it in a consistent way, but only to a point.  So either way, I think it's important to first ask, would failure at this point be an interesting option, or is it just making the game resistant to its own plot?  And it might be, but if not, maybe better played as a "lesser" or dare I say a "costly" success.

 

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Once they've been that first time, and they know there's a door, then sure, the familiar door is closed and now they need to find a different way.  But give them that first nudge in.

Ah, the 'heroquest dealer' approach!  The first hit's free, then the cost ramps up to triple! 😄

 

3 hours ago, lordabdul said:

So similarly, I was wondering if anybody would have played a failure to invoke the God Plane as a "sign", somehow, which leads to... well I don't know, but hopefully it leads to other ways to get into the heroquest (or even leads to doing a different heroquest?  I don't know).

I think that works.  There's any number of things the PCs (and the players and the GM in collaboration) might do.

• Try again with more community support, at a different time (either in the short term or the longer term), with some additional ritual object, etc, etc;
• Try again but with a different Quest, or as you suggest 'transpose' to that immediately as a result of the failed roll;
• Fake it until you make it:  just because you didn't do the ritual 'successfully' and spark the hero light as intended, you can still carry out the intended actions, and 're-ritualise' on the hoof.

[Alex]

On 10/5/2021 at 8:51 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

if you do exactly as your god, why could you failed ? it seems to me you roll something and fail but what skill/rune ?(devotion ? cult  lore  ? skill used ? rune of your god / spell ?)

Maybe you did the right thing at the wrong time.  You thought you were dealing with one "stage", but it was actually another, or a slight variation on it.  Variation is not just possible, it's inevitable, due to differences in the material circumstances:  you're doing the HQ because the world is a little out of line with the myth, so you have to whack it back in place.  And also because Trickster is gonna happen, with Illusion and Disorder in tow -- and if they're not, it'll turn out even worse.

Plus of course implementation problems.  You did the right thing, but not well enough runicly, devotionally, knowledgeably, or skillfully -- whatever's scripted or improvised for that 'stage'.

 

On 10/5/2021 at 8:51 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

If you don't do what your god did (a ZZ negotiating with YO for example, or a YO destroying Orlanth and ZZ), why could you succeed ? again a skill ? but which one ? the same (mmm I am not sure you can use devotion to negotiate with YO..) a specific one ? (= explore-heroquest-skill, base 0% ...)

I think one pattern here is to "cross the beams" -- splice in a stage of a different, but related heroquest, which permits a different resolution.  Telling a mashup of the two myths, essentially.  Of course we don't have every myth known to every Gloranthan, much less an Ordnance Survey map of the heroplane, so when those happens we generally have to wing it.  "Sure, sounds like it could be a thing, who knows?"  So IMO resolve much as before, but with an additional or tougher Lore check, and improvise a new set of applicable tests and mods.

 

On 10/5/2021 at 8:51 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

Until few months I was focused on the stats of the opponent (should the god in front of me have 2500 POW when I m only 13 ?) and was "blocked" by that. But now I am more on a approach like "the god you meet is in fact another hero, like the pc, so the stats are like any others npc, of course not a weak npc" but even this, it is just my view and no idea if it's fit with a potential rule.

I think so.  After all, every worshipper of a deity is a variable-sized mask or 'avatar' of that being.  Manifestations all the way down.

 

On 10/5/2021 at 8:51 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

Heroquesting is very important in runequest, and now, with pc who start their adventure with so much power (compared with previous version) I hope there will be a clarification and some offical rules for poor people like me lost in the otherworld darkness

I'm sure we'll get official rules at some point.  Neither those nor our own fanon attempts may completely solve the problem for everyone, in every case, but if we can continue to nibble around the edges of it...

[Shiningbrow]

Mentioned before, but...

With the amount of magic getting thrown around, something is going to happen. Rolling well (even basic success) should mean you're basically on your HQ. Failure may well mean you've been dragged into someone else's.

The only exception might be is if the GM wants the players elsewhere, and so tells them that a certain artifact will be needed to succeed.

[coffeemancer]

In my game, when the players did the heroquest for "I fought WE won" I just combined all the characters into one, so it was always the highest stat/ability among the three that was rolled. and they got 3 attacks with 3 different weapons each round.

 

dUnno if this ADDS anything to the conversation but

[French Desperate WindChild]

39 minutes ago, coffeemancer said:

dUnno if this ADDS anything to the conversation but

not sure but seems to me a very smart idea !

[Kloster]

13 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I would still probably make a roll or two because not rolling at least once before doing something important in RQG seems weird, but it wouldn't be a pass/fail roll, it would likely be to see how well the PCs get into the heroquest (and, conversely, how bad I can mess with them with more or less surprises).

 

12 hours ago, jajagappa said:

It's not much fun if you get your players all psyched up for a heroquest and then you slam the door in their faces.  It would be like starting CS Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and the kids get into the wardrobe, and it doesn't go anywhere - it's just a wardrobe full of coats.  There should always be opportunity to get in so you can tell the story.

Now, where you end up when you arrive is a whole different question.  Did you land your house on the evil Witch of the East?  Meet the kindly White Witch who gave you lots of sweets?  Land face down in the mud?  End up in the Underworld or the Trickster's Madhouse?  That's where your preparations come into play.

A roll is certainly possible, but should not be a barrier.  Instead, take the opportunity to see how closely they align themselves to the quest/story.

 

12 hours ago, soltakss said:

Yes, there is not much point starting a HeroQuest and not getting anywhere.

Just go on the HeroQuest.

What happens on the HeroQuest is important, what you do on the HeroQuest is more important.

Thanks.