Augments and arithmetic are irritating...

From: Ashley Munday <aescleal_at_...>
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2012 11:01:30 +0100 (BST)


... honest.

Ran a nice long session of Gloranthan Heroquest yesterday, yay! However, we were slowed down significantly by augments and arithmetic, boo!

Here's some background... I've been playing and GMing Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (MHR) a lot recently. When want to act in MHR you frame the action ("He's charging me with his useless gun? I'll grab it and do a sacrifice throw to lob him off the building, looping my legs around on of those crenelations so I don't follow him down..."), assemble the traits you want to use ("I'm stuck in a team - still - but I never give up, I've got enhanced reflexes so I can time it to perfection and (throws in a plot point) and I'm strong enough to give him a really hard punt off the building. I'm not at all worried about the impact - my stealth suit will take all that and I'm an acrobatic master so if anyone can piss about on the edge of building it's me") roll dice and interpret the results mechanically ("D12 stepped up physical stress, thank christ for that") and narratively ("He crashes through the stone slabs at the bottom of the wall."). There's very little addition  and, unless you've got certain super-powers only 1 dice roll per player action or reaction.

In Heroquest I you could do the same sort of thing as MHR ("I've got lightning reflexes so I can time it to perfection, I never give up (auto augment), I'm strong enough to give him a really hard punt off the building (auto augment). I'm not at all worried about the impact - my stealth suit will take all that (auto augment) - and I'm an acrobatic master (auto augment) so if anyone can piss about on the edge of buildings it's me.").

Yesterday with HeroQuest II augments and arithmetic made the narrative very fractured . Streaming the selection of augments into the narrative was harder. Even the equivalent of spending Hero Points is easier, I very rarely mention I'm one. I just skate it across the table to the narrator, narrate how the trait helps me achieve my objective and grab the die for it. In Heroquest II I have to explicit call out the augment so the narrator can do his bit. Also If the augmenting contest fails it's a real "what was that all about then?" as nothing interesting happens mechanically. And you can only use one at a time, even if you have loads of abilities that'd flow into the narrative [2].

Including lingering benefits and penalties on one level is a lot easier ("I'm a demagogue, it's what I do. I got Harvar on side earlier but Korol made me look like a complete tit") as they flow from reading and framing what's on your character sheet. Well written lingering penalties and benefits slide into the narrative so smoothly they're positively feline. However, this brings me onto arithmetic...

There are three of us that overlap between the HQ Glorantha group and the MHR group. While playing HQ one of my players has to rely on someone else doing the adding up for him or he has to write the sum down. Seeing the note in the HQ rules that says Mr. Laws uses a calculator when adding stuff up doesn't fill me with much confidence. However when we're playing MHR the same player has no more handling time than the rest of us [3].

Both these things I find really annoying as they're getting in the way of the narrative. A fast paced, mostly in character, talking game suddenly hits a wall of die rolls (a fair chunk of them not giving you any benefit), arithmetic and table look-ups [4].

So has anyone got any suggestions? How can I remove arithmetic and multiple (potentially uninteresting die rolls) but avoid things becoming a D20 rolling version of the Pool (i.e. you roll against an ability, not bonuses or penalties)?

Ash

[1] Which I can remember perfectly as it's the first time my character really showed what she could do in a skin tight stealth suit fighting on top of the Tower of London. Oh no! He's talking about his character! Yes, this is how much I like this game.

[2] Yes, I know, it was narrativist power gamers like me that caused this as we developed the art of fitting loads of abilities into a one or two sentence description of how we wanted to get through a conflict.

[3] This isn't to say MHR is perfect, it has it's own handling issues - there can be a fair amount of arithmetic and optimising a dice pool after you've rolled it. And the rule-book's a great example of how not to write one.

[4] Bugger, forget the number of times you have to look at a table to branch the narrative is mind-boggling.

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