> "steve lieb" <styop-_at_...> wrote:
>
> > Here's the context I thought about (let's use a very common example):
> > The players are the carls of a village, and are tasked with it's
> > protection (sort of a HW+KoDP setting).
>
> I have been trying to run (with varying levels of success) a "carls of
> the village" game for several years now. I am hopeing that HW will
> make this easier, but I am unsure of how to set the level of detail.
> Hero Wars is flexible enough to cover a wide range of contests, but at
> some point I am going to have to sit down and figure out exactly how
> this is going to play.
You set the level of detail depending on what type of campaign you and players want. Is the villiage just a home base where the players want thier characters to wander off having adventures elsewhere? In this case the the level of detail about the villiage low. Or do they want to concentrate on how to protect and grow the villiage? Then the level of detail would be large. Do the players like to micromanage all the details of villiage life, or do they find this boring, or something in between? Answer that question and then scale the level of detail accordingly.
> An extended contest against "manage stead"? A series of contests
> involving farming, animal husbandry, villiage trade, politics, hunting,
> ect? I get the feeling that folks are going to try a wide range of
> things - most of which will not work that well, until they hit on what
> works for them.
Once you know the level of detail that the group wants, then you can pick how to handle it with contests. For a low level of detail a single extended, or even one simple, contest could be made against "manage stead" once per season, or even year. For a bit more detail you could have the single contest to determine in general how well then manage things with contests, either simple or extended, in areas then you want to emphasize. Say the players don't care much about framing, so the crop results would depend on the seasonal "manage stead" contest, but they are somewhat interested in the villiage's relationship to nearby villiages handled by a seperate simple contest for each nearby villiage, and are really hung up on the politics within the villiage handled by many contests, may be simple or extended or a combination.
Hero Wars gives up great flexibility in that the type and number of contests can be used to provide more or less detail to any area of interest.
>
> What is my point? I think Hero Wars, while very cool, involves a good
> bit more tweaking by the GM than most games I have played.
Maybe. I think it provides more options, which provides more control. One needs to decide what to concentrate on and use the game to reflect that area. Other areas can be made very simple, or even ignored as is done in many other games.
> Pendragon
> Pass had a reasonable set of "stead management" rules, and perhaps Hero
> Wars will come with something like this out of the box. I doubt it
> though... Looks like we will have to put on our thinking caps and
> reinvent the wheel.
Nope, just do like all good GM's do. Borrow and steal ideas whereever you find them. Take the "stead management" rules from Pendragon Pass and use them either as is, or convert them into Hero Wars style contests. Don't reinvent the wheel just adapt it. How many games have good "stead management" rules? Pendragon Pass does, Harn might (I have not looked at it), Pendragon does depending on what you mean by "stead", AD&D doesn't, RuneQuest didn't, and most games don't. A single game can't cover everything.
Enjoy,
Tom Granvold <thomas.granvold_at_...>
Powered by hypermail