Any. What we are talking about here is not the knocks, cuts and bruises that the hero can shrug off after an extended contest (ie no penalty - classic example, Aragorn after battling Lurtz in FotR). What I am talking about is being horribly wounded (injured in Heroquest).
>
> > David Dunham
> > Sure, but HeroQuest is bad at portraying fights
> > where the winner
> > doesn't emerge unscathed. (I think I've quoted a
> > Viking fight like that before.)
>
> And, dragging us away from combat and back to contests
> again, how about the guy who ran the first marathon?
> Delivered his message in time, then dropped dead of
> exhaustion. Complete victory: and the protagonist ends
> up "dying".
well, here is a thought, maybe he suffered a complete defeat, which is why he died. Not all failures on die rolls have to mean 'failure to complete a task'. Its like the classic 'Library Use Roll'. The character has to find the right reference in the library to progress the story, so failing is not a dramatic option. Thus when he fails his roll something bad (ie interesting) happens, like they get attacked by cultists, get trapped by fire, etc etc.
And given how common failure is Heroquest, having interesting consequences at hand but allowing the task to succeed will mean that players will not always groan collectively when they see yet another key roll fail....I've beeen there, believe me. Recently played a game where we as a group failed 5 or 6 contests straight. Just bad die rolling on our part.
Regards
Rob
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