Re: Costly victories

From: Dave Bell <bellplace_at_...>
Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2001 17:53:14 -0000

> One quibble I have with the HW rules... when one party wants to to
engage
> in hit and run tactics.
>
> 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.

Is this the main event or just the prologue?

I'd be inclined to describe the night from the heroes point of view, lying awake much of the time staring out into the darkness beyond the campfire, becoming increasinly tired, never knowing when the next attack is going to come (etc., etc.).

In mechanical terms I'd be running each of the hit-and-run attacks as one round of an extended contest continuing through the night. Heroes would roll close combat abilities, magic etc. modified by fatigue and perhaps augmented by tactical skills or previous experience.

Ultimately the success or otherwise of the hit-and-run tactics would benefit or disadvantage one or other of the sides in the climactic pre-dawn battle (or whatever you have in mind).

In this way the heroes can be involved in (and influence) the events of the night, and can feel the tangible effects of a running fight without playing out each attack as a seperate melee. The night attacks can be part of a building up of tension and more game time can be used for the main event.

IMHO this is one of HW strengths over RQ in that previously each seperate attack (perhaps four or five in total) would be played out taking an awful lot of time and leading to dice fatigue (Hit? Damage? Another trollkin down. Hit? Damage? Another...) For me personally this becomes very very mechanistic and rather than promoting a sense of reality, tends to leave me feeling less engaged in the events. I much prefer to be part of a flowing story. As I said, all IMHO.

Anyway I hope the suggestion's interesting.

Dave Bell