Interestingly I don't see players having the same problem with Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World or Cortex + even though they have a lot of addition [2]. From what I've seen at the gaming table it's because HQ has more subtraction and it's got the whole "if the target number of over 20 subtract 20 and add a mastery" or the far worse "If your target number is less than 1 add 20 and subtract a mastery."
As a narrator it's less of a problem as you're dealing with difficulty levels and only turn them into numbers just before you need to roll the dice. You can have them scrawled down already for that particular session's base difficulty.
So yes, while I'm not the correspondent you're replying to, I mean seriously or I wouldn't have started this thread.
[1] When I play I use the fact that most bonuses/penalties are multiples of three or are complete masteries so cancel I bonuses and penalties out as far as possible so you'll be left with fewer numbers to add or subtract
[2] Cortex + can require subtraction and then division by 5 and when that happens the game slows down as well, as far as I can tell for the same reasons.
> I'm in a similar boat - it's been years since I've run HQ1/2, but I enjoyed
> it alot. Eventually though it became rather math heavy.
How on earth has HQ2 become math-heavy? I mean seriously? I've GMs as varied in style as Ian Cooper, Herve Carteau, and Mikko Tormala run HQ2 games, and never was "math heavy" a term I'd use to describe any of them.
HQ1 was potentially very math heavy, with augment rules that easy could degenerate into half hour long "can't we get another mastery worth of augments here?" quests that broke up pacing as badly as RQ3's combat rules (not to mention lots of other problems Robin, David, and I could go into in great detail). The only thing I can imagine is a GM going nuts on lingering benefits and penalties (in which the GM really ought to pull back on them or decide from time to time that they expire as per the rules options).
Jeff
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