> What I can see are two sides to this argument.
>
> One side is arguing for the linear system ensuring that characters
> arrive at a significant level by the end of the putative campaign.
> Meaning that the characters go through various stages of the world
> and fight a variety of different foes (from weaklings to thanes to
> heroes).
>
> The other side says that we enjoy gaming at a particular level.
How
> can I, as a Narrator, ensure that my campaign remains within the
> levels of that campaign without overtly constraining the game and
the
> players.
I think you've missed out the single major objection to the gradualist approach to gaining power. Hero Wars should be about characetrs heroquesting to gain heroic levels of power and using the magical secrets gained from those quests to change the world. instead, the gradualist approach to eventual super-power that HW currently allows is distinctly unheroic, eliminating the need or reason for heroquesting entirely.
> What about making all masteries subject to some quest or test.
> Obviously the first mastery test might not seem all that difficult
> (gather feathers of the Thunder Bird nesting at the top of yonder
> rise) but a W2 test might be difficult, requiring some kind of
> Heroquest and it should just get harder as time goes on.
There are several problems with this. Firsly instead of using heroquests as opportunities for characters to gain in power, you are using them as barriers to prevent characters from gaining power. Hardly inspiring, or heroic.
Secondly, as has been pointed out already, this means potentialy having to come up with dozens of quests and running many of them pretty-much concurrently.
Finaly, successful heroquests should surely give significant boosts in power, not just allow further gradual improvements.
I'm not totaly opposed to the idea of requiring quests in order to go past significant milestones in the character's development. the transition to w3 seems to me to be particularly significant, and I can see a strong argument for making the characters sweat it out at 19w2 for a while, and require a quest to pass this threshold. Pass the quest moderately well and you can raise any of your abilities past w3, do very well and get a bump in the revelent primary ability streight to 5w3, do spectacularly well and uncover deep spiritual truths and go streight up to 10w3, or even 15w3.
Once the quest has been completed for a primary ability, the character is a proven hero, and may raise other abilities beyond w3 without further questing.
Idealy I imagine a group of characters, worshiping gods from the same pantheon, advancing to 19w2. They are on the threshold of advancing beyond the span of mortal knowledge, and ambark on a group heroquest known to their pantheon to prove their worthiness to heroic stature. If some get to 19w brofer the others, they'll just have to wait. The next Holy Season, instead of communing with the gods through the normal religious rituals, they must instead go on their own quest, and make their own way through the otherworld, to earn the right to stand before their gods on their own terms. |Of course to do so, they must overcome all sorts of obstacles and enemies in the otherworld. I don't imagine such a quest would have a very formulaic format. The obstructions and difficulties they must overcome will perhaps foreshadow events in their personal destiny, or echo unresolved traumas and problems from their past.
This isn't a complete solution by any means. Wulf makes a strong case for ramping up the costs for raising higher abilities. I just feel that heroquesting should be a necessery step on the road to power, but not an overly tiresome and repetitive one.
Simon Hibbs
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