New pavis big rubble books

[JonL]

1 hour ago, Steve said:

You make an excellent point. Reading the RQG core rulebook and bestiary, I'm learning a huge amount of things about how various magical effects and monster attacks are supposed to actually work. For one example, I finally understood what a thunderstone is supposed to do. Sometimes in HQG supplements I've been baffled about what a keyword really means.

When I first got in to all this, the times when HQ books would seem to presume context that an old RQ hand takes for granted but which I did not have were a real frustration.
 

1 hour ago, Steve said:

I haven't yet gotten around to reading The Coming Storm and The Eleven Lights to see how this is handled there.

Much better overall. Ian takes advantage of the ample page count and focused scope to give you plenty of useful information without drowning you in it.

Edited August 10, 2018 by JonL

[The Hooded Claw]

I know that it is highly unlikely but personally, given how easy it is to convert to HQ and my total preference for RQ, I would prefer The Coming Storm books to be repackaged as RQ books when the print run runs out.

[Steve]

50 minutes ago, Addison said:

I know that it is highly unlikely but personally, given how easy it is to convert to HQ and my total preference for RQ, I would prefer The Coming Storm books to be repackaged as RQ books when the print run runs out.

Would that work, though, given the higher abstraction levels of HQ and how much more you can "get done" in terms of storytelling compared to the much grittier RQG?

[Ian Cooper]

16 hours ago, Steve said:

Would that work, though, given the higher abstraction levels of HQ and how much more you can "get done" in terms of storytelling compared to the much grittier RQG?

From my point of view it is very unlikely that we would re-package as RQG. I think it is much better to fan source the NPC stats, which is really all you need to run it with RQG, as many are already.

[Ian Cooper]

On 8/7/2018 at 3:05 AM, g33k said:

There is also the issue of HQ's simpler system being more amenable to being "eyeballed on the fly" from published-as-RQ rules, than vice versa...

I'd still like to see them try a dual-stat supplement...

 

My current thinking is that if a significant product comes out for RQG that needs HQG 'help' we will essentially do a 'HQ genre pack' for playing it.

[Ian Cooper]

23 hours ago, simonh said:

Coming Storm/Eleven Lights were pretty good in this regard IIRC.

Thanks. I think any book benefits from color on who the opposition is etc.

[Ian Cooper]

20 hours ago, JonL said:

The area where I feel it doesn't quite hold would be new cults. The Lay-Member/Initiate/(RuneLevel/Devotee) breakpoints don't quite map the same way between the two games. The "special rune spells" in RQ cults are often good signposts, but it's not always obvious to someone only casually familiar with RQ which ones are a Big Deal vs merely something they're good at.

Agreed, magic is different in character, and I would not want to fall into the trap of HQG players deciding that they could only have rune magic that matched RQG rune spells. The ability to improvise rune magic around the god's runes is one of the strengths of the game for me, and with no 'game balance' concerns a strong area of creativity for players. It is the kind of material that any HQG genre pack focused on a 'conversion' for a supplement or region might have to cover. My very woolly thinking is that at some point we might do a 1627+ HQG genre pack for Dragon Pass that lets you use RQG material set in that area easily by giving you cult write-ups etc.

It's unlikely though that we want to retcon HQG cults for differences that appear in RQG cults. I think that would be maddening for HQG players not to have their own sources, but have to get RQG sources and convert. Campaign packs and the such would probably never end up converted, and so a book showing you how to use those would work, but I would want the HQG line to be stand-alone for those that wanted that. Hence why we will probably focus on 1625-.

In addition, RQG and HQG can work in both games, but some don't translate so well. RQG scenarios that are essentially 'one big fight' don't really play to HQG's strengths, and 'skill challenges' don't play out at all well. Whilst Borderlands is a great setup for an HQG game, the scenarios would play out a little dull in an HQG game, as they are essentially just one fight after another. Or climbing a mountain. That setup would work better for HQG with different scenarios, that often relate to the matter 'in the background' for RQG such as Jezra, the mayor and Dain. The same is doubtless true the other way around, where some HQG scenarios don't play so nice for RQG players, because the 'creative' solutions that HQG PCs have are harder to allow for in RQG.

Of course, part of the problem with Big Rubble for HQG was always understanding how to play out an old-school mega-dungeon like the Big Rubble in HQG. Mega-dungeon's depend a little bit on 'resource management' for the thrill of their exploration, and HQG is not a resource management game. I loved running Sandy's Puzzle Canal for RQ2, with miniatures and floor tiles, but I struggle to see how I would capture that in HQG. The Big Rubble can be part of HQG stories, such as the salt mines trip in P:GtA, but I think it is not the story in itself. So the text describing the rubble is useful, the adventures less so.

For me, a principle advantage of multiple game systems is to be able to pick and choose the game that best suits the kind of campaign you want to play. (I am sure that RQ or HQ grognards will pop and say 'but you can do anything in my favorite system' but that belies the fact that different mechanics create different play experiences).

[Steve]

4 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

In addition, RQG and HQG can work in both games, but some don't translate so well. RQG scenarios that are essentially 'one big fight' don't really play to HQG's strengths, and 'skill challenges' don't play out at all well. Whilst Borderlands is a great setup for an HQG game, the scenarios would play out a little dull in an HQG game, as they are essentially just one fight after another. Or climbing a mountain. That setup would work better for HQG with different scenarios, that often relate to the matter 'in the background' for RQG such as Jezra, the mayor and Dain. The same is doubtless true the other way around, where some HQG scenarios don't play so nice for RQG players, because the 'creative' solutions that HQG PCs have are harder to allow for in RQG.

This is kinda what I was trying to say in my earlier response, except you've said it a million times better.

Thanks for confirming the direction, and it makes perfect sense to me - make the best of both worlds out of two game systems, and don't try to shoehorn one into another where it won't fit.

[soltakss]

If you want RQG-like magic in HeroQuest, just have a Common Magic ability with RQG Spirit Magic spells as breakouts, or have an ability for each cult and use RQG runespells as breakouts. It just means the HQ PCs get the RQG flavour without a lot of extra rules.

[Aprewett]

So some perspective from a noob to the whole setting/rules of this world, who's introduction was via HQG, who is also yet to play either.

Magic was the first big stumbling block. Comments in published books, that its everywhere and everyone can do it, the little covered in the HQG book, left me with little grasp of its potiential. From research and help this turns out to be a hurdle for others coming at the setting from HQ. So my plan changes to having to now play RQ to get a better understanding of the way it is supposed to work (if you accept that even RQ is just one interpretation of the setting).

Very interesting what Mr Cooper says about Borderlands. Buying lots of books and research, Borderlands was signposted as the go to starting spot for a campaign. I had now idea that it would not be a good fit for HQ (being new to both rules and setting). You really need to do a document to hightlight all this and make sure noobs like me get the best experience out of the box, to get them to stay. Still never played but my focus drifed to Sun County as our introduction to HQG, but maybe that is a bad fit also? My hold off on starting was recent threads where I got to post similar comments and got the impression that the devs where listening and soon, just around the corner we would get a intro HQG scenario/campaign. One where maybe some of my suggestions might work, from older posts, or others more skilled could give us that intro experience.

Anyway, I wait in the wings, dropping the name Glorantha at the gaming table every now and then. FYI, my gaming table is 1-2-1, both time poor gamers. My player definitely needs a easy intro as he does not read fiction, so I cant give him background homework to help get us started. That was my current stumbling block with Sun County,  playing a local and being able to explain the world and culture to him in digestable sizes across the gaming table.

[simonh]

8 hours ago, Aprewett said:

From research and help this turns out to be a hurdle for others coming at the setting from HQ. So my plan changes to having to now play RQ to get a better understanding of the way it is supposed to work (if you accept that even RQ is just one interpretation of the setting).

The best way to learn HQG and start runningunning it is using HQG supplements and scenarios, and there are plenty of excellent ones to choose from.

In my post suggesting RQ stats are easily adaptable to HQG I made sure to be clear that I was not advocating trying to run RQ using the HQ game system. That will give you the worst of both worlds.

Specifically I was referring to the detail provided in RQ stats. It’s pretty easy to translate RQ skills and spells into HQG abilities, keywords and breakouts but they need to be interpreted in HQG terms and I would advocate doing that without any reference to how they work in RQ itself. They are very different games.

Quote

Very interesting what Mr Cooper says about Borderlands. Buying lots of books and research, Borderlands was signposted as the go to starting spot for a campaign. I had now idea that it would not be a good fit for HQ (being new to both rules and setting).

In general I would never recommend a GM who has never run a game system, and is worried about how they should run it, to try to run it using a scenario for a completely different game system as a starting point. Once you’re familiar with your game system and have experience with how it plays, then sure you probably know it well enough to adapt stuff and that’s really what we’ve been talking about.

Edited August 12, 2018 by simonh

[Ian Cooper]

11 hours ago, Aprewett said:

So some perspective from a noob to the whole setting/rules of this world, who's introduction was via HQG, who is also yet to play either.

Very interesting what Mr Cooper says about Borderlands. Buying lots of books and research, Borderlands was signposted as the go to starting spot for a campaign.

For HQG, we would recommend starting with The Coming Storm and The Eleven Lights for your Dragon Pass campaign. Advice from RQ grognards on the scenarios they enjoyed 'back in the day' are not good sign posts for how to play HQG. Once you have played that material, you should be in a better position to assess how to use older material from the Hero Wars line, or even from RQG.

My summary would be that the 'setting' material from RQG supplements has value, but the scenarios have less utility. Certainly something like Apple Lane, or Snakepipe Hollow can't be played well with HQG, but you could use the concepts in a game.

But RQG and HQG are different games. It is akin to the difference between Dungeon World and D&D (with HQG the former) .

Edited August 12, 2018 by Ian Cooper

[Steve]

15 hours ago, Aprewett said:

Very interesting what Mr Cooper says about Borderlands. Buying lots of books and research, Borderlands was signposted as the go to starting spot for a campaign. I had now idea that it would not be a good fit for HQ (being new to both rules and setting). You really need to do a document to hightlight all this and make sure noobs like me get the best experience out of the box, to get them to stay. Still never played but my focus drifed to Sun County as our introduction to HQG, but maybe that is a bad fit also?

You seem to have been confused by RQ gaming discussions that go on. Which is understandable because there's so much Gloranthan crossover between game systems.

So I don't think anyone referring to Borderlands or Sun County to start off would have been talking about HQG. This would have been an RQ discussion. As I said, that's an easy mistake to make because often people start a discussion without saying which Gloranthan gaming systen they're referring to.

Ian has given you the steer on this above from the HQG perspective. Sorry that you've had so much confusion.