Re: The Sword That Is Death Heroquest

From: Tim Ellis <tim_at_...>
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 15:17:22 -0000

Thanks Bruce - It looks interesting. I like the Idea of being able to "succeed" in the quest in the "wrong" way giving a reduced carryover,  and therefore a reduced benefit to the questor. Of course a really evil GM would also say that taking the sword too early will deprive the questor of the chance to give Humakt a new position in his tribe, which might cause problems for the questor later (and certainly might cause problems for the Tribe/Clan who supported them who find that their Humakti Weaponthanes no longer feel they have a place here...

On the subject of "writing Heroquests" it seems to me that there are three broad approaches

  1. Start with the Story. Break down a story (wither an "original" or one you have adapted or borrowed from elsewhere) into stations, think up a suitable reward and add opponents to suit your Questors
  2. Start with the Benefit. Either you know what power/bonus/maguffin you want to give to the characters to fit your overall campaign arc, or they tell you that they want to HeroQuest to achieve "X". You write up an adventure to allow them to achieve this, generating a Myth from the stations they will go through
  3. Start with the Opponents. Your Characters have become involved with suitably powerful, mythically resonant NPC's, or you wish them to do so to suit your planned campaign arc. You write a Quest to bring these NPC's into contact with the characters (either as friends or foes), and a suitable lure to get the PC's involved (either as active questors or unwilling participants.

The best quests are probably a mixture of all three approaches..

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