Re: [HeroQuest-Rules] Re: Augments and arithmetic are irritating...

From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...>
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2012 16:10:46 +0100 (BST)

> This sounds perfectly fine, and (I suspect) how HQ1 was intended to work. (In
> HQ2, I think you would probably not even bother with the combat skill of 6,
> probably leading with something like "stubborn" or "Proud" -
> The reason she is putting herself between the Humakti and her husband being far
> more important than the fact she barely knows which end of the sword to hold...)

If I'd been GMing, that's what I'd have done, yes. The question isn't whether the Humakti is physically capable of killing her, it's whether or not he decides to do so, and that's based on personality traits.

> Problems could potentially arise in a couple of situations
>
> 1) "All the augments, all the time" - In the Climactic scene, it might
> make sense to pull in lots of augments, but if every dice roll is preceeded by
> players scouring their character sheets and trying to justify every ability as
> an augment the game will slow down and the "narrative flow" will be
> disrupted

Well, don't do that, then. Have a social agreement about how many augments are reasonable when.

> 2) "Challenge Setting" It becomes harder to calculate what level a
> Challenge should be set at if players can use unlimited augments - If you've
> designed a challenge to be tough assuming players will be getting around +6 from
> augments and they end up getting +6W, then the contests become a lot easier

Only relevant if you want to tie down every detail in advance.

What I do is tell my players that they're welcome to use as many augments as they like, but the opposition will use the same number. Stick to one or two, so will the opposition. Use 20+, so will the opposition. That removes the numeric advantage in being good at scouring the character sheet, and brings it back to what the players find to be fun at any given time.

> Of course neither of these are insurmountable, even if they do occur, but I
> think part of the intention of HQ2 was to ensure they didn't.

Exactly - another case of it solving a problem I haven't got, so I don't bother using it.

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