Guy Hoyle writes:
> I'm in the unique position of just having received the
> HeroQuest rules, AND being associated with a local gaming
> day. I'd love to do a HeroQuest demo of some sort or another,
> but my personal creative fund is at an all-time low. Make me
> some suggestions about how I can introduce the folks of
> Arlington, TX, USA ( midway between Dallas and Ft. Worth) to
> the glories of HeroQuest on Saturday, Sept. 6th.
Do you know these people, or is this a come-one-come-all demo?
The most effective way I've found to get people started is the same way that Greg used at Gloranthacon this year.
i Pick a clan, any clan: provide them with the Heortling keyword
ii Start with the first person on your left, and ask them if
they have any idea about the kind of character they'd like to play; if they do, great, as them to tell you a little bit about him/her; if not, don't push it, move to the next person.
iii Once you have someone who's willing to get the ball rolling
even a bit, dive in. Ask them questions to draw out more information, but don't try to direct them; pretend you're trying to find a "friend in common" and ask those manner of questions. Only ask a few of them.
iv Then (and here's the genius bit) quickly move to the next
person in the group and as *them* how their character knows the PC just described (brother? sister? wife? husband? etc, etc).
In other words, spend your "character creation time" *not* with an emphasis on the characters that people want to play, but with the emphasis on *how the characters all know each other and what their social context is*. Use the social context that the people are revealing to feedback into the character design.
I think this is a stroke of genius. Both time I've seen this in action, it works wonders. People are, for some reason, willing to contribute to the social context web without even having any clear notion of who their characters are. And the more detail that gets provided by the group, the more character detail is implied and can be fleshed out.
Spin this out for as long as the players seem to be having fun. At our first night with my group, we spent the whole night doing nothing more than figuring out who the characters were and how they knew one another. Lots of roleplaying from a narrativist sense, but no rules, and no real "story" at all. But, it was invigorating and quite fun.
The key is, keep it low pressure by keeping it fast moving, fire the questions, move from one person to the other, seize ideas, but don't run with it very far. In a sense you're brain storming, and the fast pace and the constant switching from player to player doesn't put great pressure on anyone to "be creative".
As it progresses, you'll likely notice that you focus for more time on each successive "round" of questions spending more time and more time with each person (from a few seconds, up to a few minutes) drawing out details and adding to the family you're drawing on your scratchpad.
Then, once you have a web connecting all the PCs, and the players have at least a preliminary idea about who the PCs are and what their rough goals are (i.e. have an Occupation Keyword ready), you can start.
The PCs have to deliver something to someplace. What the something is and what the someplace is you make up on the spot; but it shouldn't be hard, especially after the brainstorming you've just been doing to construct their starting social context. At Gloranthacon, we delivered Turnips to Boldhome.
In my group, they delivered some cloth to a neighbouring clan.
When you think of a reasonable obstacle that could present itself, throw it in the players way.
The key is: don't try and direct the plot yourself. Rather, present the players with choices and then make them live with (and explore) the choices they make.
Oh, and ignore magic, unless some of these people are already familiar with HQ/HW's magic system. I wouldn't even bring common magic into it in too much detail, unless you have a player who's already familiar with how Glorantha handles magic from a narrative perspective (i.e. you have a player who says right off the bat, "my character is going to be a brewer and initiate of Minlister" or some such). Make sure you have copies of Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe to refer to as well as HQ.
--
Viktor Haag : Software & Information Design : Research In Motion
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