Hero Wars playtest

From: Theo Posselt <tposselt_at_dttus.com>
Date: 14 Feb 2000 15:00:39 -0600

     Hello again,
     
     My apologies to BJM et al who don't have HW access yet, but I just 
     thought I would give you all the results of my initial playtest.  
     Since I'm running the same scenario at a con this weekend, any 
     comments or suggestions would be helpful.  If you're not familiar with 
     the system or not interested in my feeble comments, please skip over 
     this message.
     
     I ran a modified version of the 'Food Thief' scenario.  I adapted it 
     from a pure Heortling village to a Lunar colony/Lunarized Heortling 
     town in Tarsh, with attached military outpost.  I did this mostly 
     because all my players are more familiar with Lunar society than 
     Heortling.
     
     As a first point, the system seems to encourage much more interesting 
     character creation.  The characters were much more fleshed out than 
     starting RQ characters, and the players invested very little energy in 
     trying to maximize power (see below for the character descriptions).  
     So right off the bat things seemed better.
     
     The second positive would be that roleplaying was actually slightly 
     better than normal.  I'm not sure if this is an effect of game 
     mechanics, or because the characters were better, but in any case 
     there was more focus on staying in character than normal, and almost 
     no rules debates.
     
     On the other hand, the final confrontation was flat and fairly 
     disappointing.  Part of the problem was that the character managed to 
     summon up a 15-person Char-Un cavalry contingent, which meant that I 
     had to beef up the opposing forces, which led to more of a group 
     combat than I necessarily wanted.  But even aside from that the bid 
     system, etc, lacked a certain level of flavor.
     
     In sum I'd say: roleplaying good, combat bad.  Currently my group is 
     contemplating grafting RQ combat and HW character creation & 
     non-combat together; whether this unholy merger would work is another 
     question.
     
     As said, if anyone has any suggestions on how to improve the flavor of 
     combat, I'd appreciate it.  Perhaps messages could be sent to me 
     directly to avoid the righteous anger of the RQ-grognards...
     
     Regards,
     Theo
     
     PS - brief character descriptions (they were interesting enough to 
     warrant repitition)
     
     Character A - Military attache to proconsular representative in tower 
     - an ambitious, politically inclined Yanafali Dara Happan working his 
     way up the ranks.  Diplomatic, persuasive but unfortunately rather 
     condescending towards Heortlings.
     
     Character B - Quartermaster for the outpost - a greedy arch-scrounger, 
     a supreme manipulater of the army system, ambitious for further 
     opportunities.
     
     Character C - A ruthless Char-un horseman, 2nd in command of the 
     Char-un troop at the outpost.  Member of a secret cult that maintains 
     that Sheng Seleris was the last Yelmic emperor.
     
     Character D - A heavily lunarized Tarshite trader from Furthest.  
     Member of an extensive grain-trading family with contracts to supply 
     the lunar forces in Tarsh; the richest man in town, with all of the 
     slipperiness that this implies.

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