Re: HQ Opinions

From: BEThexton <bethexton_at_...>
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2003 01:05:52 -0000

I've had a chance to read through HQ pretty thoroughly now. Overall, I'm really impressed. Any quibbles I mention below should be viewed just as that, quibbles.
>
> 1. What do people think of the Homelands approach? Is there enough
> of a basis there to start you off?

I like the concept, the layout was nice, and I found they gave a good feel for the cultures, and for the common religions in them. The specialized religions for various occupations ended up being awfully skimpy, however. Perhaps a couple of lines of text could have been squeezed out, and a little white space squeezed, enough to give a third line to each specialized religion. It could have been notes, skills taught, virtues, or almost anything else. Perhaps most useful for getting a feel for the religion would have been virtues, but as a player I'd probably most want the additional skills they teach. For example, it is much easier to make a Vingan hero when you know that Vinga teaches spear and shied combat and javelin throwing—without that it is hard to make a competent female heortling warrior.

>
> 2. Do the changes in animism and wizardry make these characters
more
> interesting and playable? Are they clear and comprehensible?

It is hard to say if they are playable without trying to do so, but at first glance it would seem so. I have a concern however that in most cases, in munchkin terms, westerners would be better off specializing in common magic. No needing to re-charge, and if you choose and define talents etc appropriately at hero creation you may end up being more flexible. Of course, there is the in-game problem of dealing with the church, but putting rules-motivations and gamemotivations  in conflict isn't good.
>
> 3. The original sample adventures in HW came in for a degree of
> criticism -- what do you think of the ones in HQ?

I like them generally. High Pressure front had some nice twists for a combat scenario. Fish Rain is cool, although I get the feeling it was originally written to be light or tongue or cheek adventure, but re-written or editted to a more serious tone? The visuals when you thing about it all are consistently hilarious. Chasing Kites I can't judge because I was involved in its creation. Heavy Earth was a nice simple heroquest to show what the genre could be like, which I think was a good choice for this book. Something more substantial or, uh, well I was going to say weighty, but maybe some other word would be better, would have made a less useful than this one.
>
> 4. Treat the current book size as a constant: who else would you
> have wanted to have seen included, and what would ou have
sacrificed
> to make way for it? The answer 'nothing, it's great as is' is an
> acceptable one, BTW!

I'm sure the book is far better than I could have made it. So I've written some speculations or quibbles, but it is all just "I've got the kid to bed, babble on the laptop is easier than making my lunch for work tomorrow" type stuff.

There was about six pages of introductory material before character generation, and I thought it could have been squeezed down a bit more. A lot of it is repeated later on, so in places less could have been said without losing coherence, I think. The very first page, with the example combat, was great and dramatic, but totally weird in that it sure looked a lot like Jane and some of her friends, but with all different names. Perhaps it was based on an earlier draft of sample heroes? Anyway, I think it would have been better if it had either been changed to use the example heroes, or to look nothing like them (I'd probably have suggested the former).

I thought the magic chapters were really strong, but a bit confusing at first read. There was a real structure to them, but it wasn't a structure that I at least grokked at first read. Perhaps I missed something, but it seemed to me as if a some more framing could have been given up front, or something. Not that it was awful or anything, but there is just so much in each chapter.

I'm sure there are good reason why the three magic systems aren't symmetrical with regard to "landscape" interactions, but it sure would have made it a lot easier to understand (and shorter for the book), if they'd all been the same, so it could have been described just once. Even as is, it might have made understanding a little easier to bring all three into one "magical landscape" chapter, that could have described the similarities and the differences between them?

If the above could have saved a few pages overall, I would have dedicated most of them to more sample cults, practices, etc. Another thing that would have been nice was some slightly larger "adventure seeds." Two to three lines each, along the lines of "There are only a few passes between Tarsh and Sartar, so all of the substantial lunar traffic south into Sartar is prey to rebels, bandits, or chaos creatures. Heroes could be hired to escort caravans, or to raid one." "There are many ancient magical sites in the Prax, and not even the nomads know all of their history. Lunar scholars are studying some, adventurers are plundering others, and the nomads are waiting for the ancestors to take revenge for this sacrilege." Not that there aren't a lot of adventure ideas in the various nonofficial  publications, but some people new to the game won't even have heard of those, so giving some ideas that could be used to fuel multiple episodes could help a lot of new narrators who just aren't sure of what to do with this whole Glorantha thing. Alternately, one or two adventure/campaign seeds could have been planted in each homeland section (although there is lots of ideas there in the general background already).

To say it one more time, the game is great. Changing anything would probably have been more apt to hurt than help.

--Bryan

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