You are about half right here. We (the list) should not be
proscriptive, and there is no "right" or "wrong" way to play HQ (or
indded any RPG), at least as long as the participants are having fun.
But On the other hand, If you said "I want to play soccer, with less
kicking and more emphasis on picking the ball up and running with it"
then a suggestion that you consider playing Rugby instead may actually
be the more helpful suggestion...
>
> As for opponents being weaker, no they dont have to be, but a
> trollkin is a trollkin... are you suggesting I beef up my trollkin
> progressively as my players develop? That doesnt sound right.
>
You don't need to beef up the trollkin as the players develop, you just stop using Trollkin as the challenge. To use a D&D analogy, you wouldn't put a room containing half a dozen kobolds in a dungeon designed for 10th level characters*
>
> I disagree entirely. The game models reality,
Heroquest doesn't model "real" reality though, it models "adventure serial" reality, in which heroes are not phased by a lone archer (unless they are phenomenally good), or even a small group.
> reality is the norm
> and the basis on how we play. Without reality you dont have a basis
> from which to push into unreal moments. Any game system HAS to start
> with reality because that is what we all know and understand, then
> we bend and abuse it to accomplish our ends.
>
Heroquest also models "Narrative" reality not "simulation" reality, so a loss of AP's in an archery contest means that your opponent is closer to achieving his aim than he was before you lost them, and being reduced to 0AP means you can no longer take any meaningful part in the contest, not necessarily that you have "run out of arrows" or "broken your bow"
> > >But a single (player) archer seems to have serious problems within
> > >the game. Duplicating Legolas is very hard in HQ..
> >
> > Depicting Legolas would be very easy. He's probably about a 10W4
> archer
> > attacking 5W orcs. He's going to mow them down in droves. I can't
> imagine
> > what the problem would be.
>
>
> Yes he would be good at shooting 5w orcs, but he would get
> splattered against the 5w4 cave troll. Selectively diassembling my
> posts (as I am here...) is a good way to miss the overall point I
> was making.
>
A 10w4 character will not necessarily get splattered by a 5W4 opponenent - he has a slight edge, in fact. But as Legolas vs the Mumakil showed, the trick is not to "just" use your one combat skill when facing a superior target, but to use the narrative, and your other skills to gain an advantage (by using his "climb" augmented by his agility vs the Mumakil's "Large", Legolas avoids it being able to use it's "Trample" augmented by it's Size 7 Strength against his "Toughness")
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