When I was asking about "narrative characteristics", I did not only want to better understand HQ2, I also wish to use it to play in the Planescape setting. I don't know if it's the right place to discuss about a "conversion" of Planescape to HQ2, but if it's the case I would like to have your opinion.
HeroWars, HeroQuest & HeroQuest2 are very good games to play in the Planescape setting as they have rules for community (factions !), different styles of magic and as they take seriously the idea that beliefs are important and that there are other worlds which you can visit and where mythical beings dwell.
In thinking about this conversion, the first thing I thought about was character building. Hence, my questions about "narrative characteristics"". I really like the 3 kinds of magic in the gloranthan part of the HQ2 book (and in the Sartar one as well). So, for "my Planescape", I wanted to have affinities describe both what is important for characters and what they're made of. In this view, each mortal being is the fusion of two substances : matter & spirit, each of those being itself a peculiar combination of, respectively, elements (air, earth, fire, water, life & entropy) and "morality bricks/basics" (law, chaos, good, evil & neutrality). Each player would then build a character with 3 affinities : one material and two spiritual for instance. These affinities would come in play as personality traits, relationship to the various planes and magic, goals to promote, etc. Their score would be 13 at start and would increase during play or character creation as the player wish.
There are many more questions awaiting answers : how to modelize faction belief (affinity again?) ? What would cultural keywords be ? What would they embody (plane of origin, beliefs as well, etc) ? …
You might say you would have done otherwise or not begin with character building first. You're welcome ! I just wish to share my thoughts and hope you'll enrich them by sharing yours (or, better, that you'll care enough to try and build such a conversion for yourself).
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