> I'm wondering if HeroWars caters to this sort of play, or is it
> more specifically aimed at the actual Heroes in the aforementioned
> Wars.
Definitely; in my now-quiescent game, two of the PC were weaponthanes, though one was definitely the 'fresh-faced youth' of the warriors
Tim Ellis:
> I think this is the sort of level that Hero Wars is aimed at, with the
> "default level" PCs being the people the local clan looks to in order to
> solve problems.
I think that's certainly the most defining choice for the group: the clan becomes such an important, defining part of the background that it matters less what numbers you write down, than how you slot into the social fabric. (Well, I say 'becomes', perhaps I should say, 'is greatly faciliated to become', if you choose to pick up on that rather nifty aspect of the game.) If they really are the most able people in a clan of 1000-ish, that's no small matter!
Though they can still be 'important people' without starting as the entire clan ring, or whatever: an obvious fudge is to have a somewhat factionalised clan[*] along 'household' lines, and have your PCs be Important People/Problem Solvers among their own lineage, which is what we did. (We're the best two Inarsson weapnonthanes! OK, the _only_ two Inarsson weapnonthanes...) One could take this principle right down to the individual stead, if you want to 'start from the bottom', while still maintaining a pre-existing reason for ther PCs to adventure together, within a given social unit. ("Young women and men, I send you on an important quest against our family's most hated enemies: the third longhouse on the left!")
> Many moons ago, when Greg first started talking about resurrecting the
> HeroQuest game he suggested that it would be semi-compatible. You would
> be able to take your RQ Characters into HQ, but you might not be able to
> bring them back. I think that will still be the case with Hero Wars.
> The conversion process might not end up with mechanically identical
> characters, but they should be recognisably "the same". Going the other
> way might be trickier...
Depends how you look at it: the conversion in either direction is going to be pretty 'lossy'. (In an information-theoretic sense: how much you miss in one direction or the other is very much in de gustibus territory.) Granted, once you're a 12WWWW Hard Core Orlanthi Hero (TM), or Moon Unit Levitating Bald Chick (R), then you can _only_ go back at cost of entirely breaking the game system: or worse, using Steve Maurer's rules...
I'm sure plans are well-afoot for the Grand Unified Portmanteau Smorgasbord Game System combining PDP, RQ, HW, and MGF, though I suspect the Amethyst Dragon may be a hydra of less unruly proportions, or at least, several fewer heads.
Slán,
Alex.
[*] I suspect that was the most tautological phrase of this (and
many another) Digest, with hindsight.
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