Re: Conflicts, contests and heroquests

From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...>
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:29:18 +0100 (BST)

> I've been thinking about heroquests and inner and
> outer conflicts.
> Most of the stories have some outer conflict going
> on against enemy
> gods or something. There usually is also some inner
> conflict going on
> that tells us something about the gods and society
> in question.

The god/hero learns something, or grows in some way, I think. The "reward" can be internal rather than an item.

> I
> suspect that Ernalda has myths where it's all inner
> conflict without too may outside actors.

Or at least, where the outside "actors" are less personified, perhaps? I suspect Ernalda would encounter drought, rather than Daga or a dragon.

> Now, with HQ I can model inner and outer conflicts
> with ease, but it
> seems to me that it will be more fruitful to leave
> the dice out of some of the conflicts.

(nods) Often is.

> For example, I could roll dice on the inner
> conflict and have that resolve the outer conflict
> too

I quite like this idea myself. The hero gains a new perception, and then sees an easy way of solving the external problem: so easy that no roll is needed.

> or I could have
> the player decide what revelation the character has
> and give some
> sorts of bonuses to different kind of contests based
> on that revelation.

Could you give an example of this? I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.

> So I guess the question really is, what kinds of
> conflicts should I
> resolve as contests in heroquests and in what kind
> of myths. Or
> something... I know it varies based on the quest,
> but if anyone has any thoughts, I'd appreciate
them.

I tend to decide to what extent something is a contest based on what results the group are prepared to accept. If failure is acceptable, and will lead on to futher interesting story, then fine, it's a contest - well, as long as we can work out how to turn it into one! If not, if failure would mean the effective end of the campaign, then we're more interested in *how* the heroes win than in *whether* they win. And in that case, we may as well just role-play rather than roll, unless we need the dice results for inspiration.

It's turning internal conflict into contests that I find hard. So often, the personality traits the conflict is between were never properly defined on the character sheet anyway.                                   



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