Re: How do you compare published abilities without numbers?

From: Ian Cooper <ian_hammond_cooper_at_...>
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:25:02 -0000


Another example of where HQ1 makes life difficult is breaking through to the other side. This was listed as a 10W3 resistance in HQ1.

This was well beyond the capacity of most groups and generally required community support. Now the point may have been to imply that breaking through to the other side required a ceremony with community support but this could also have been expressed textually.

In play we almost always ignored this because it got in the way of MGF, which was allowing the heroes to travel to the world of myth. Failure was rarely interesting and provided a barrier to adventure.

HQ 2 has too good solutions here. First the notion of a 'costly success'. Story logic demands you go on the heroquest, the question is how much it costs you to get there. Second the resistance is appropriate to the narrative. Do the heroes need to easily achieve thier objective to avoid the 'whiff factor' (the implication that they are buffoons instead of heroes), or do they need a struggle to get there.

Again the 10W3 number in HQ1 is a distration not an aid

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