Inspired use of a Simple Contest

From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...>
Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2003 20:11:41 -0000

This won't be news to many of the long-term readers here, but as an example of how to cut long stories short, it may help people new to the HW system.

Over in Guy's Swords campaign, we have just met a huge underground "dungeon". We have to explore it to find out What's Going On. In any other campaign I've ever been in, we'd have been in for weeks of mapping and Ten Foot Poles. But this is HW, and we've not really interested in the details of the caves.

So we did a Group Simple contest against Difficulty 15W (huge, hazardous & confusing environment). Some of the PCs supplied scouting/exploring skills (that was the lead ability), others augmented with magical feats, still others added "whatever comes out of the woodwork, I hit it" assistance (CC).

We got a Major Victory. One game day later, we know more or less what's on the top few levels, we know where the exits so far unexplored are, we know roughly how many undead are facing us, and one of the LM Allies has drawn a map. A quick HP spend, and we have a *complete* victory: the library of ancient documents we discovered included a map of the place. Comparing this with what we've found shows where there are differences, which may be a major clue to What's Going On.

I just love the way HW can be used to handle any *size* of situation in one simple roll!