For instance, in RQ, magical effects (usually) lasted no more than 15 minutes, and people could only cast them a limited number of times a day. Trolls, who like to attack by ambush and stealth, used this limitation to great effect. If they wanted to attack a camp of humans, they'd sneak up on it at night on use some trollkin to fling slingstones at them. The humans would wake up, cast their spells, and retaliate. The trolls and trollkin would quickly sneak away. 20 minutes later, the humans' spells had expired, they were going back to bed, and the trolls would reappear and start another annoyance attack. After an hour or two of these, knowing that the humans' spells had all been cast, and the humans were tired, the trolls would attack in force.
My problem is how to represent these kind of tactics in HW. The humans win each of the earlier fights, as a combat contest, so the penalties of defeat should be applied to the trolls. However, trolls expect to loose these contests, as they are merely part of a larger contest of tactics. But if I, as a narrator, ask for player rolls against a 'tactics' ability, I give the game away. Also, I don't want to embed one extended contest within another.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to handle this?
Neil.
Powered by hypermail