Re: Scale Issues

From: Philippe Sigaud <sigaud_at_...>
Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 15:53:37 +0200


Mike:
> Ah, that explains things somewhat. That's a HQ every ten sessions. I did one
> in 80 sessions.
>

We love them. And we don't play them as per the rulebook, because they never did 'known' quests, with myths as guidelines. They almost always did the Arkat thing: cross to the Other Side, and then go with (or against) the flow. They know the mythic guidelines: watch for emblematic situations, think as your god '"What Would Dormal Do" was on of their mottoes), use symbolism and powerful, universal situations. And be afraid of consequences.

>> After a few sessions, I began to give them many HP, maybe 10 a session.
>> Then I augmented it again and they got between 10 and 20 HP per session
>> for 60 sessions I'd say. Make that 800-1000 HP all in all, so 40-50
>> abilities at +20.
>>
>
> Oh, OK. You'd quoted 5-7 somewhere else. Why the huge piles of HP? I've
> advocated giving relatively large amounts in that "per session" is actually
> more than what the book advocates (per "adventure"), and I like "per
> session. But that's far beyond anything I could imagine.
>
> What motivated you to give out so many?
first, it was to get them at a more heroic level, without just deciding to change the numbers on the sheet at the beginning of a session. We were still stucked into some strange worldview, considering that just getting the level you need for having a good story is cheating. We do not think like that anymore, thank the gods.

Then, we got used to it, they got used to having many abilities growing after each session. I guess you can have wonderful play with people for many years, without considering you drifted into ... strange patterns.

> I mean, let's say that an
> "adventure" is 3 sessions long for argument's sake. That means you're giving
> out around 10 times the amount of HP that the book suggests. Yeah, that's
> going to make for a meteoric rise, all right. Worse, I think that it's going
> to make bumping seem trivial. Why not bump every roll, when HP are in such
> high supply?
>

Ah, sorry: they got 'HP' which were really XP, just to grow. And they got one HP to bump at the beginning of eahc session. Their bumping pool was in the 3-10 range, most of the time. Th really was a resource to manage. Does someone do the same separation between bumps-HP and XP-HP ?

Do you advise us to go back to the HQ rules ?

(my, the more I post there, the more I see the many rules we changed, while still considering we were playing pretty much vintage HW/HQ). Do people here alos drift over months of play ?

> Heck, forget advancement, you could
> simply start with characters who have keywords at 15W2 or whatever. Then you
> have to hope that the system can accommodate. As I've said, I think it can
> just fine.
>

I think that's what we will do. I explained them that last light and they liked the idea.

> You know, if you just drop down to like 4 HP per session, it might curtail
> advancement to the point where it's still interesting, but not nearly so
> inflationary.
>

OK, good to have a benchmark.

Do you play with the equivalent of Affinitied, in your Shadow World game? I mean, with 3 HP/+1 abilities?
We conserved that, but I'm beginning to doubt the wisdom of it.

>> The first rule of RPGs: Talk to your Players.
>>
> Heh, sage advice. Sounds like you've got it covered.
>
>

We had a very good evening yesterday, describing the world and the HQ rules to newbies and they really were interested. The 'old' players were also quite excited to play again at HQ and to have new peoples in the group. [The way I say that, you'd believe we were getting inbred or something. Not so, but for HQ we were a bit

The new players were also extremely interested in having half-defined characters, with empty 'skill slots' to fill. A great way for them to feel free to create their characters in game.

   Philippe

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