Re: [HeroQuest-Rules] So, has anyone experimented with the HQ rules lately? from Ashley Munday on 2012-09-16 (HeroQuest-Rules)

From: Ashley Munday <aescleal_at_...>
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:43:14 +0100 (BST)

Scene Aspects in FATE and Scene Distinctions in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying [1] are similar to but have a completely different emphasis than situational modifiers in HQ. Situational modifiers are something the GM says apply to your target number while Scene Aspects and Distinctions are things the GM offers the players to create a modifier but they don't have to be exploited.

So taking the example of "it's dark." With a HQ style situational modifier the GM says "It's dark, Mr. Troll you can have a +10 situational modifier for evading those Hoomanz." With a scene aspect or distinction the GM tells the players what the aspects or distinctions are for the scene - "It's dark," "the place is on fire", "the sounds of screaming children." The players may or may not exploit these aspects or distinctions to get a game mechanical benefit - the only role the GM has is to supply the aspect or distinction in the first place.

I suppose the whole thrust of this is that as I play HQ more I can't see the point of situational modifiers (just change the difficulty), specific ability modifiers (just change the difficulty again), stretches (just change the difficulty - there's a theme developing here) and augments (or rather why augments are differentiated from consequences of victory). And loads of the other rules (pyrrhic victory, 3 way contests) can all be chucked out by reframing the contest. All versions of the game seems to have taken very simple mechanics and buried them under piles of complications that aren't needed.

Rant over - still trying to work out a way of using something like scene abilities though :-)

[1] As played by sad old farts that wanted to be Spider Man as a kid but couldn't get bitten by a radioactive spider to save our lives. And we tried. At least I did. Er, anyone else?

From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...> Sent: Sunday, 16 September 2012, 20:10
Subject: Re: [HeroQuest-Rules] So, has anyone experimented with the HQ rules lately?

>>  Twisting things back the other way, has anyone ever experimented with scene

> augments? This is where you give a part of a scene a description and score that
> can be used as an augment - similar to scene aspects in FATE or scene
> distinctions in MHR.

I'm not familiar with FATE or MHR (what's that stand for?) but that sounds like situational modifiers to me. That could be physical ("it's dark", "you're all on a 45 degree slope", "underwater" or magical ("all air magic works better here", "go with the heroquest plot, get a +10 bonus") or maybe something else entirely. Some people will find these to be positive augments, some negative.

Or was that not what you were thinking of?

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