> This is my first post to the forum, so I hope I can beg your
> indulgence with a HQ newbie. I think I have at least two
questions
> in what follows, the first broad, the second specific. Perhaps
I'm
> getting old (well, no perhaps about it) but I find the HQ rules
> rather scattered in their structure, so it's taken me a while to
get
> to grips with things so I'm looking for help.
No problem. They are a departure from most traditional rules systems such as Gurps, Runequest and the like. It can take a bit of getting used to. Start small and then build is my advice!
>
> I am preparing a campaign for a group of hardened gamers who love
> their roleplaying, but they also like testing the boundaries of
> games systems. They're not hard core mini-max addicts, but they
do
> enjoy the intellectual persuit of finding combinatons of skills
and
> game mechanics that work in their favour.
Cool! Its great when you have such enthusiastic players. Question for you, where are you thinking of setting your campaign? Are you going to be using published material like Men of the Sea, Sartar Rising? Or are you going to run a homebrew game based in or out of Glorantha?
> Question one - I'm
> wondering what minimax practices to watch out for in character
> creation and progression and how to put solid boundaries in place
> early, rather than having to back track on anything after we've
> kicked off.
Just follow the rules and you should have few problems. Begining characters per the HQ rules as they stand are dweebs, so you may wish to start at that level or give some previous experience, its your call.
> In this regard I've been reading the posts on 'what to do when
your
> PCs are so tought they can armwrestle Harrek without breaking into
a
> sweat' with some interest. Not that those posts are about
> powergaming, but they do demonstrate the benefits of forethought
> about the overall powerlevel in a game.
Keep an eye on how your players are spending Hero Points, in terms of where they put them in experience or using for bumps. I never let player increase abilities except in between scenarios'. If you follow the character advancementrules then you shouldn't find players going up by more than 1 or 2 in a given ability. Also, if in your scenario's you emphasise different abilities then you will find that the players increase the ones that they rely on most and those that they find most important to their character.
>
> Question two relates to augment-only abilities (or rather,
magic).
> If I'm sat looking where to spend my Hero Points as a player, I
> wouldn't want to spend on things that are 'augment only', because
> you appear to get more bang for your buck going for direct-impact
> skills (e.g. sword and shield fighting) or skills that have both a
> direct and indirect use (e.g. strong as an ox) rather
than 'augment
> only' abilities.
Its a good theoretical point, but this would bemost likely to occur in a game where there was not a broad range of contests. A good thing to do in any game is to occassionaly challenge characters with what they are crap at.
> Do folk have experience of this mentality, where,
> e.g., no one wants common magic because it is relatively speaking
> uncosteffective? HQ Common magic feels in principle like old RQ
> battle or baseline spirit magic, which was common, fun, and
usable,
> but I can't see my prospective HQ players making use of it.
Well, I can't comment here. My game centered around Heortlings and the players always chose concentrated theist magic so bar one Donandari we had no common magic. But the Donandari did have breath fire, which was kind of cool and exotic for that character!
> Thanks and regards
No problem, keep em coming!
Regards
Rob
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