All,
Here are some pearls of wisdom I've learnt from narrating a Hero Wars
campaign. I hope some of you find them useful, or at least find them
useful for prompting discussion on this list. In essence, my tips are:
1. Relax
2. Learn to say 'Yes'
3. Extended contests are about decisions
- Relax
It's very easy to get involved in debates over 'The One True Way' to
play
Hero Wars. Don't. Remember, Hero Wars is just a game, and a Hero Wars
session is about you and a bunch of mates getting together to have fun.
Don't worry too much about whether you're doing things according to the
letter of the rulebook, or whether some obscure offering from Greg's
wastebasket contrdicts what someone's just said. If people are having
fun, it's a good game.
- Learn to say 'Yes'
Hero Wars is a game of improvisation. There are no defined skill lists,
feat lists, or whatever. PCs will improvise their abilities as they go
along. You should allow, nay, encourage this. It can take some getting
used to (it did for me), particularly if you're used to the more
traditional games with fully defined abilities.
Practice saying 'yes.' Next time a player asks you if a PCs an use
ability X to do Y, say 'yes' first, then worry about whether it makes
sense. How much sense it makes determines the improvisational
modifier.
Only if no-one can see how it makes any sense at all should you change
your answer to 'no.'
To rehash an old debate: do the Orlanthi have magical slingstones that
explode on impact? Yes. Do they have monoliths at which they pray to
summon storms? Yes. Do they call both of these things
'Thunderstones'?
Yes.
Easy, isn't it?
3. Extended contests are about decisions
I think extended contests are wonderful. The AP bidding mechanism can
turn a boring set of dice rolls into an exciting, involved bit of
roleplaying. It does this by allowing the player to make a decision
each
round, and for this decision to have a real game-mechanical effect.
After seeing extended contests, does anyone really want to go back to
the
bad old days of having fights being endless repetitions of 'I attack,'
'I
parry,' 'I attack,' 'I parry'?
But it's the decision that's important, and this requires a bit of care
in using extended contests. In particular:
Describe the action, then determine the AP bid
Each round in an extended contest, get the player to make a decision
about how their character will act in that exchange. Once they've made
that decision, they can then describe how the character will act. Once
you've got that far, you can then fix the size of the AP bid. IME,
doing
things this way around keeps the contest interesting for all concerned.
If there aren't any decisions, don't use an extended contest
The corollary of the above is that extended contests shouldn't be used
when there are no meaningful decisions to be made. I wouldn't use
extended contests for things like arm wrestling or staring matches, no
matter how climatic they are, simply because I can't envisage what
different AP bids will look like. What's the real difference between 'I
stare at her: 2AP bid' and 'I stare at her: 15AP bid'? Without
decisions, extended contests degenerate into pure dice-rolling
exercises;
in those cases, use the simple contest mechanic and get it out of the
way*.
As a half-way position, the symmetric nature of the results table means
that extended contests work if only one party is bidding. If a PC is
climbing a cliff, the cliff shouldn't make AP bids -- what decisions can
it make?
I hope you find these tips useful. Any comments?
- I still feel there's a half-way house mechanic using simple contests
and carryover trying to get out. But I haven't worked out any details
yet.
Neil.