HQ maps

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 97 13:42 MET DST


Michael Cule:
>>The point about maps is very good. A heroquest map would be more about
>>relations between events than geography or geometry. ("This event-node
>>leads to this one or that one. This marker leads to here or to there.")

This keeps reminding me of a time-travel boardgame where various parties kept undoing key events in their history which had been assigned some point value. Almost impossible to follow through on the gameboard, even though the set values of the events cut the complexity of each node to a binary result (happened/did not happen). I think this is what Greg alluded to when he said that HeroQuest could be done as a computer game (somewhere in Tales 7, IIRC) - - only a computer would be able to handle the landslide of thought-of consequences in a gameable time.

I'm afraid this is a nasty backslash to the sobjectivist stuff, but if we want heroquests which alter anything beyond the quester himself and maybe the object of his quest (a rescuee, the enemy), we need to define the scope of the quest. Who and what is to be affected by the quester? And does the quest really stop where the quester intends it to do?

Usually Orlanthi quests are straightforward, go for the power quests, followed up by a command of men-in-blue-swirls to clean up whatever side effects came out of it (classic case: get Talor to clean up after Arkat...). Almost all of Orlanth's myths are about achieving one goal and opening at least one new can of worms. This is only redeemed by the LBQ which does the ultimate clean-up job for his actions, though only successful because of the simultaneous I Fought We Won quest, and still leaving large holes through which quests like the God Project, the God Learners, the Red Goddess Quest, Arkat's Crusade and especially repeats of the LBQ can poke and turn events upside down.

I really liked the Orlanthi heroquesters' dilemma in Rise of Ralios: in reaction to an unnatural darkness (caused by the trolls for quite mundane reasons) they assembled a Lightbringers' circle and went to Hell. They got what Hell can reasonably be expected to give: an Arkat. (Sidenote: the Orlanthi in RoR held Arkat to be the next worst thing after Wakboth, and thought that the destruction of Nysalor was a Bad Thing. To give them an Arkat was only slightly less bad than to give them the Crimson Bat...) After observing and dreading the results of this quest, they assembled again, made another LBQ, and went to Hell. (After all, that's what Harmast did, and didn't it mitigate the Arkat failure?) Upon arrival in Hell, they realized that this wasn't quite the place they'd like to find an ally... so they went to places even worse than that.

It did help them to deal with the situation, but not in the way anyone would have expected.

David Cake:
> I'm glad you like the idea. A myth is a heroquest map, or at least
>a heroquest mud map (showing how to get there, but not necessarily the
>surrounding territory). And yes, mostly it is more about events than
>geography, though geography will play a part, especially for those brave
>enough to do a little experimentation along the way (ie whats along the
>river Styx?).

Usually, a myth is a linear heroquest map, a list of stations to be passed. A few quests follow a cyclical way, like the Red Goddess Quest, which explores both binary results of the first three stations by "losing" the first three episodes to win the knowledge to win them on the way back, after receiving the elixir.

"Early creative HQing" consisted of questions like "can I get into Hell without passing Humakt's Guardian #1, by finding another entrance with another guardian I can deal with better?" This seems to be what Harmast did when faced with the Triolini, and called upon the Vadrudi ancestors of these races.

This makes this myth's map a bit like a two-dimensional map, but such a map would contain nodes where a quester would be put on a different myth's map, at least for a certain distance.

If this was a boardgame, the questers would be taken from say the HoG board to walk a certain distance on the LBQ board, by whatever path they choose. Such paths could be well trodden paths or explorative ones through grey area, which could create new maps during the game by means of some random generator (either a "wandering monsters/myths table", or a set of generic quests combined with a choice of not quite as generic, more localized allies and opponents, Mythos-cardgame wise). Such a gameboard would afterwards contain the information "use gameboard XXN for one way through this", or might be expanded to include this new way in part of its grey areas.

Assuming that it might be possible to produce such a game, and that somebody did, then this would have to be integrated some way into the roleplaying of the questers during the quest. This might work as a "react to the boardgame result" scenario for the referee" if the boardgame part doesn't take too much time and effort to handle, and if the roleplaying results can easily be applied as boardgame results.

Changes to the myths through one quest: there might be some cascading effect rule required, reminiscent of the way damage spreads in the "BattleTech" or "Renegade Legion: Interceptor" games. Ordinarily this would take effect outside of the regular roleplaying, and might well be a bit more complicated and time consuming. Effectively, you take an existing mythmap and edit it by drawing onto it, or you replace it with a quite different mythmap. A ("WILL"-) point system of how to effect such changes might be required...

Mike:
>>But.... HeroPlane Space in n-dimensional and Mundane World people can
>>only perceive 4-dimensional space.

Would my model above solve the n-dimensional nature of the HeroPlane Space by reducing the currently observed space to a two- to three-dimensional model? (Three-dimensional in allowing connections between two points of a two-dimensional map without actually traversing any of the points between these points - in the simplest case, two roads crossing by means of a bridge, or two electric conductors crossing on a platine by putting in a bridge.) There would be transition nodes where the viewed dimensions would switch to other selections. Of course, nodes might be inserted, or might allow a selection of other maps to be chosen rather than one alternative...

David:
> Yes. I have some ideas of how it would work, but vague ones only.
>Basically, the extra dimension is something like degree of abstraction, or
>'deepness'. The further you go, the harder things get for humans to
>understand, until eventually you become one with the Creator. But at an
>intermediate degree, you are in a landscape laden with symbolism, with
>different degrees of symbolism depending on depth of the quest. Initially,
>the heroplane starts out looking just like where you are, except more
>magical (you see the nymphs and spirits of trees and plants and rocks and
>so on). But if you travel in a way that takes you 'deeper' (which may be by
>performing some act, not walking) you get to progressively more abstract
>areas.

This sounds quite similar to the (hypothetical) basic gameboard for the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death version of the Holy Country.

(In Wyrm's Footnotes #5 page 5 got three mentions in the MiG column "What Never Was", and seems to hold the record for this... The MoLaD announcement even refers to the planned HeroQuest game. It does, however, give a (very) basic idea how the boardgame part of a HQ game might be handled in a DP/NG environment.)

The other source we have on TotMoLaD is Genertela Book, p46:

: In 1336 the Pharaoh "used up" his body the first time and the first of 
: the Tournaments of Luck and Death was held. In this event, certain 
: individuals, chosen by a means known only to the Pharaoh, awake 
: between dawn and day in a thoroughly magical Holy Country and compete 
: upon the magical plane.

At least the description of this multi-players quest IMO states clearly that David is right with his assessment of the Heroplane. The way I see the "magical map" of the Holy Country in MoLaD is that it includes all landmarks and important sites but leaves out most of the boring landscape in between. Then add all the natural and ancestral spirits to what remains, and get the participants going. (IMO at being themselves...)

>So you could travel to Orlanths stead or the place of wolves. Very
>magical places are also symbolic places in various myths (ie Kero Fin) so
>its a lot easier to get to the deeper parts of the heroplane from there. Or
>you could use magic to push your way deeper.

These would be the nodes where the quester can choose different maps to continue.

With the TotMoLaD example, the map of the Holy Country might be a meta-map just showing the connections between the nodes if you go to the roleplaying part of the questing.

Mike
>>And referees are only 4 dimensional too. Can
>>a referee without an Insight into transcendent reality run a game that
>>is set in transcendent reality.

Only as limited as he perceives it. In other words, usually the referee can only try and relay his own perceptions to the players. Unless the "heroquest magic" works (translates into the game session) and the players put in their perceptions, giving the referee a share of their (characters') experiences.


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