Radical Authority
04-24-2005, 04:36 PM
This is a description of a one-shot game of HeroQuest I ran for my regular D&D group. I hope this will inspire other GMs toying with the idea of running HQ, but who maybe feel intimidated by Glorantha or by the rules themselves. I went into this game with almost no prep, with players who had no knowledge of Glorantha and it went swimmingly.
I had arrived ready to play our normal D&D game and was told that the DM had just rung up and would be an hour or so late. To while away the time, two of us played Carcassonne while the other two leafed through some D20 books. When we were about a quarter of the way through the game, the DM called again to say he wouldn’t be making it after all and he’d have to bail out. The two players who had been reading D20 books looked at Carcasson unenthusiastically and we pondered what to do with the rest of the afternoon.
I suggested, out of the blue that we could play HeroQuest. There was a copy of the rules at Jon’s place (the venue), I was familiar enough with them to run it (I felt) and I’d read the first sample adventure (Pressure Front) enough times to have a general idea of what it was about. The guys agreed, so we got to work!
I asked them if, for the sake of speed, they’d like to use pre-gen characters, (I had the Heroes’ Book with me) and they said no, they’d rather generate their own. I explained that because of the nature of the adventure, it would be best if they decided to be Heortlings, but player one – who had played HQ at a convention once and read the main rules – already had an idea of what he wanted. He elected to be Black Hawk, a grazer warrior, a proficient rider and horse back fighter, with horse side kick called Red Wind. He had been travelling far and wide since leaving his clan to seek the secret of Riding the Wind.
Player two had never played HQ before but I had rambled on about it to him extensively, so he had some ideas of what he wanted to do. He decided to be Halfric, a Heortling smithy who carried a big hammer he used for work and combat (Salamander) and wore a leather apron (that counted like leather armour). We had to make a new profession – Crafter – for this guy, but he seemed happy to make it up as we went along.
Player three had virtually no knowledge of HQ. I explained the Heortlings (celtic, Viking, barbarian types) and he decided to be Gilder the hunter, follower of the Bear. He specifically said he wanted to have a bear motif, and– in a moment of inspiration – I remembered the Odayla the Bear sub-cult for bear hunters. He perused this and announced that it was exactly what he was after. Gilder’s quest is to cleave and to cleave-to the bear, to hunt the bear and to become the bear, which all fit the cult really well.
I’m sure we made a lot of mistakes in char gen and my explanations weren’t all that clear. A little preparation would have helped, but I was winging it so I did the best I could. It all made sense at the time, and everyone got a character they were happy with, so it I think it all worked out even in the end.
The adventure began with the PCs gathered around Halfric’s forge, with Halfric trading arrows for some of their furs, when the alarm was raised at the edge of the village. The players all raced over to find out what was up – raiders from the nearby Black Oak Clan had attacked the stead of Olmar Bigcheeks and were making off with bronze and cows! Every brave man in the stead strapped on his sword and ran over.
The PCs cornered some raiders and we began our first extended combat. The book said to allow for one or two raiders per PC, and then gave advice on beefing them up if they were too weak to provide a sufficient challenge. Taking the hint, I put five in and kept an eye on making them tougher, expecting to be able to teach the intricacy of the extended contest while they easily beat the raiders. Not so! The bandits slew the PCs in their tracks. I’m not sure what went wrong there – maybe we were reading the rules wrong? – but those bandits were lethal.
So, at the end of the encounter, all the PCs were down and the raiders were eventually ran off with their booty. Every one assembled at the chief’s stead to hear what he had to say about it, and the PCs did some healing while the clan circle consulted. Before a decision could be reached, the cry went out “Where’s Gulvik?” The chief’s son was missing! Before a search could be organised, a messenger arrived from the Black Oak Clan – they had Gulvick and demanded ransom.
The PCs, still feeling sheepish from their failure during the raid, stood by while the two parties negotiated the ransom – twelve cows or the equivalent in goods to be delivered by tomorrow. The chief began organising the goods, and then asked the assembled warriors who would be brave enough to take on the dangerous mission of escorting these goods back into Black Oak territory.
Halfric stood up and said that since he had performed so poorly during the raid, he would be honoured if he could be given the opportunity to redeem himself. Black Hawk stood and said he felt it was his duty as a guest to assist his host in times of crisis. Finally the taciturn Gilder stepped forward from the crowd and volunteered in a few simple words, keeping his reasons to himself.
The party set off the next morning with two horses loaded with goods and three young warriors from the village in tow, just to provide a little back up, if required. They hunted goose along the way to get fine feathers for fletching arrows, then stopped for lunch, all of which suggested to me that they weren’t perhaps keeping their minds completely on the job.
The adventure suggested a few encounters along the road, including crossing paths with a Lunar patrol, and so as they kicked over their fire and repacked their bags after their break, a young Lunar officer, accompanied by a dozen or so legionaries demanded to know what they were doing. Halfric explained that they were on a trading mission, taking goods in trade to the Black Oak clan. I arbitrarily decided to make the Lunar officer a bit of a swine, and he demanded “trade tax” of a tenth of the goods on the cart. Halfric used a few skill rolls and some convincing lines to talk him into accepting work in kind instead, and so they spent a couple of hours parked up while he fixed their pots and repaired their shoes etc etc.
Back on their way, they encountered a mysterious storm, summoned unbeknownst to them, by their next opponent. As an extended contest I asked the characters to fight against the magical storm, power 1W, three players against one storm with no bonuses or penalties for multiple opponents. One of them gets a little low but they all come out unscathed and proceed straight into the pit trap, which Gilder falls into. As He climbed out, Frithorth Wildwind and his bandits attacked. Having learned my lesson, Frithorth had just two allies, anonymous bandits.
The combat proceeded and we attempted once again to get our heads around the extended contest rules. The three PCs ended up fighting Frithorth, while the back-up warriors took on the bandits. The players really struggled against Frithorth and so we stopped halfway through the combat and talked through the rules again to be certain that we all knew what we were doing, and looked at the PCs abilities to ensure everyone was using everything they had. One thing that was noted was that two had only spent ten points on upgrading skills at char gen (of the allowed 20) and one hadn’t put any down at all. The latter (player one, who’d reads the rules, damn it!) had clean forgotten, but the others claimed to be holding them back until they needed them, as we’d sort of agreed on (and my explanations during char gen may not have been all that clear and rules understanding not all that astute).
So, I suggested that perhaps this was the time to spend them, and combat abilities were increased all round. After this they began to make progress against Frithor, whether due to the extra skill points or improvement in dice rolls I cannot say. Before long, Frithor was restrained and the warriors had taken care of the other bandits. (A quick scan of the scenario at this point revealed that I had left out a major NPC, and so he became the second defeated bandit.) While the warriors guarded the bandits, the PCs tried to tie Frithor up, but he started using his wind singing feat to try and terrify the PCs into letting him go. He failed to scare them away, but they couldn’t shut him up and so had to kill him.
They interrogated the bandits and one spilt the beans pretty quickly. He’d joined Frithor a few weeks back and had only just met the second bandit, who’d turned up full of information about the ransom. He had masterminded the plan while Frithor provided the muscle. The other bandit uses this moment to try and melt into the forest. He failed dismally and the scenario said that he’d rather die than be taken alive and so the players ended up killing him too.
It was a pretty bloody afternoon, all up. Almost remorsefully, they lettthe other bandit go when they’d gotten all the information they could from him. This turned out to be a big mistake.
They decided that there was something fishy about the whole situation but, after much discussion, elected to ride on to the Black Oak tula. At the outskirts they were met by a band of Black Oak warriors who seemed rather surprised to see them, and kept the PCs waiting while they assembled for a ceremonial greeting. Even the chief, Engthor, seemed a trifle flustered, but greeted them with great courtesy. In the chief’s stead they were able to ascertain that Gulvir – a hot-headed youth of about fifteen – was in good spirits. Gulvir, humiliated at having been kidnapped by the clan enemies swore vengance with the PCs as witnesses, but Engthor laughed the challenges off. Not unkindly, more in the way of an indulgent uncle than a sworn enemy.
As it was now quite late, Engthor invited the PCs for a feast and to stay the night and return to their own stead in the morning. The players agreed somewhat warily. While the feast was being prepared, the players attempted to gather what information they could. They all managed to learn something (from the list of clues suggested in the scenario) and pieced together that the senior members of the clan were somehow in league of the bandits. At the same time, they maintained silence over the fact they’d been attacked. When asked specifically about them they shrugged it off, saying that that yes there had been some bandits but they had let the party pass for the price of a few coppers.
Having figured all this out, the PCs didn’t really know how to proceed. A frontal assault was deemed too difficult and it was hard to see what could be gained by making accusations as they had no evidence. In the end, and after much deliberation, they decided to just not get too drunk and keep watch. Naturally they weren’t attacked in their sleep and were allowed to go on their way.
Still not satisfied, the players left Gulvir in the custody of the warriors and doubled back to snoop around the Black Oak tula some more and see what else they could find out. As they settled down to watch they sensed that there was someone crawling in the brush nearby. A few minutes later they spotted Gulvir crawling out of the scrub and heading up to the Black Oak stead with a dagger in his mouth. As Black Hawk headed out to on Red Wind to scoop the reckless youth up (which he did with ease) the three warriors stumbled on Halfric and Gilder and explain that the child gave them the sleep as soon as the PCs were out of earshot.
After this, they decided it was time to head home and leave the Black Oaks for another day. They were happy that they had returned the chief’s son, but they couldn’t kick the nagging feeling that they’ve been had by those crafty Black Oaks.
Bearing in mind that I was only very loosely prepared to run this game, I thought it went very well. The rules judgements followed general principles rather than specific directives as I didn’t really have the time to look things up. Most things could be interpreted as a marginal victory or defeat with a little thought. The players seemed to like it, and slipped easily into the idea of being Heortlings. They also accepted the appearance of the Lunar patrol, understanding the basic situation immediately.
They felt they didn’t have the skills for the job, at times, especially when they struggled in the combats. I’m not sure if they’re ratings were too low or if they didn’t have anything to add. We decided that the person with the highest skill total should go first each roun, rather than go on AP bids which struggled to keep track of a little. Additionally, they may not have expected the combat focus, although they did say afterward they felt there was plenty of non-combat investigation and figuring stuff out. I think they ended up a little disappointed that they didn’t defeat the Black Oak deception, but they killed or set free all their evidence. Everyone said they enjoyed it, however, and there is definite enthusiasm for more HeroQuest.
Cheers!
RA
I had arrived ready to play our normal D&D game and was told that the DM had just rung up and would be an hour or so late. To while away the time, two of us played Carcassonne while the other two leafed through some D20 books. When we were about a quarter of the way through the game, the DM called again to say he wouldn’t be making it after all and he’d have to bail out. The two players who had been reading D20 books looked at Carcasson unenthusiastically and we pondered what to do with the rest of the afternoon.
I suggested, out of the blue that we could play HeroQuest. There was a copy of the rules at Jon’s place (the venue), I was familiar enough with them to run it (I felt) and I’d read the first sample adventure (Pressure Front) enough times to have a general idea of what it was about. The guys agreed, so we got to work!
I asked them if, for the sake of speed, they’d like to use pre-gen characters, (I had the Heroes’ Book with me) and they said no, they’d rather generate their own. I explained that because of the nature of the adventure, it would be best if they decided to be Heortlings, but player one – who had played HQ at a convention once and read the main rules – already had an idea of what he wanted. He elected to be Black Hawk, a grazer warrior, a proficient rider and horse back fighter, with horse side kick called Red Wind. He had been travelling far and wide since leaving his clan to seek the secret of Riding the Wind.
Player two had never played HQ before but I had rambled on about it to him extensively, so he had some ideas of what he wanted to do. He decided to be Halfric, a Heortling smithy who carried a big hammer he used for work and combat (Salamander) and wore a leather apron (that counted like leather armour). We had to make a new profession – Crafter – for this guy, but he seemed happy to make it up as we went along.
Player three had virtually no knowledge of HQ. I explained the Heortlings (celtic, Viking, barbarian types) and he decided to be Gilder the hunter, follower of the Bear. He specifically said he wanted to have a bear motif, and– in a moment of inspiration – I remembered the Odayla the Bear sub-cult for bear hunters. He perused this and announced that it was exactly what he was after. Gilder’s quest is to cleave and to cleave-to the bear, to hunt the bear and to become the bear, which all fit the cult really well.
I’m sure we made a lot of mistakes in char gen and my explanations weren’t all that clear. A little preparation would have helped, but I was winging it so I did the best I could. It all made sense at the time, and everyone got a character they were happy with, so it I think it all worked out even in the end.
The adventure began with the PCs gathered around Halfric’s forge, with Halfric trading arrows for some of their furs, when the alarm was raised at the edge of the village. The players all raced over to find out what was up – raiders from the nearby Black Oak Clan had attacked the stead of Olmar Bigcheeks and were making off with bronze and cows! Every brave man in the stead strapped on his sword and ran over.
The PCs cornered some raiders and we began our first extended combat. The book said to allow for one or two raiders per PC, and then gave advice on beefing them up if they were too weak to provide a sufficient challenge. Taking the hint, I put five in and kept an eye on making them tougher, expecting to be able to teach the intricacy of the extended contest while they easily beat the raiders. Not so! The bandits slew the PCs in their tracks. I’m not sure what went wrong there – maybe we were reading the rules wrong? – but those bandits were lethal.
So, at the end of the encounter, all the PCs were down and the raiders were eventually ran off with their booty. Every one assembled at the chief’s stead to hear what he had to say about it, and the PCs did some healing while the clan circle consulted. Before a decision could be reached, the cry went out “Where’s Gulvik?” The chief’s son was missing! Before a search could be organised, a messenger arrived from the Black Oak Clan – they had Gulvick and demanded ransom.
The PCs, still feeling sheepish from their failure during the raid, stood by while the two parties negotiated the ransom – twelve cows or the equivalent in goods to be delivered by tomorrow. The chief began organising the goods, and then asked the assembled warriors who would be brave enough to take on the dangerous mission of escorting these goods back into Black Oak territory.
Halfric stood up and said that since he had performed so poorly during the raid, he would be honoured if he could be given the opportunity to redeem himself. Black Hawk stood and said he felt it was his duty as a guest to assist his host in times of crisis. Finally the taciturn Gilder stepped forward from the crowd and volunteered in a few simple words, keeping his reasons to himself.
The party set off the next morning with two horses loaded with goods and three young warriors from the village in tow, just to provide a little back up, if required. They hunted goose along the way to get fine feathers for fletching arrows, then stopped for lunch, all of which suggested to me that they weren’t perhaps keeping their minds completely on the job.
The adventure suggested a few encounters along the road, including crossing paths with a Lunar patrol, and so as they kicked over their fire and repacked their bags after their break, a young Lunar officer, accompanied by a dozen or so legionaries demanded to know what they were doing. Halfric explained that they were on a trading mission, taking goods in trade to the Black Oak clan. I arbitrarily decided to make the Lunar officer a bit of a swine, and he demanded “trade tax” of a tenth of the goods on the cart. Halfric used a few skill rolls and some convincing lines to talk him into accepting work in kind instead, and so they spent a couple of hours parked up while he fixed their pots and repaired their shoes etc etc.
Back on their way, they encountered a mysterious storm, summoned unbeknownst to them, by their next opponent. As an extended contest I asked the characters to fight against the magical storm, power 1W, three players against one storm with no bonuses or penalties for multiple opponents. One of them gets a little low but they all come out unscathed and proceed straight into the pit trap, which Gilder falls into. As He climbed out, Frithorth Wildwind and his bandits attacked. Having learned my lesson, Frithorth had just two allies, anonymous bandits.
The combat proceeded and we attempted once again to get our heads around the extended contest rules. The three PCs ended up fighting Frithorth, while the back-up warriors took on the bandits. The players really struggled against Frithorth and so we stopped halfway through the combat and talked through the rules again to be certain that we all knew what we were doing, and looked at the PCs abilities to ensure everyone was using everything they had. One thing that was noted was that two had only spent ten points on upgrading skills at char gen (of the allowed 20) and one hadn’t put any down at all. The latter (player one, who’d reads the rules, damn it!) had clean forgotten, but the others claimed to be holding them back until they needed them, as we’d sort of agreed on (and my explanations during char gen may not have been all that clear and rules understanding not all that astute).
So, I suggested that perhaps this was the time to spend them, and combat abilities were increased all round. After this they began to make progress against Frithor, whether due to the extra skill points or improvement in dice rolls I cannot say. Before long, Frithor was restrained and the warriors had taken care of the other bandits. (A quick scan of the scenario at this point revealed that I had left out a major NPC, and so he became the second defeated bandit.) While the warriors guarded the bandits, the PCs tried to tie Frithor up, but he started using his wind singing feat to try and terrify the PCs into letting him go. He failed to scare them away, but they couldn’t shut him up and so had to kill him.
They interrogated the bandits and one spilt the beans pretty quickly. He’d joined Frithor a few weeks back and had only just met the second bandit, who’d turned up full of information about the ransom. He had masterminded the plan while Frithor provided the muscle. The other bandit uses this moment to try and melt into the forest. He failed dismally and the scenario said that he’d rather die than be taken alive and so the players ended up killing him too.
It was a pretty bloody afternoon, all up. Almost remorsefully, they lettthe other bandit go when they’d gotten all the information they could from him. This turned out to be a big mistake.
They decided that there was something fishy about the whole situation but, after much discussion, elected to ride on to the Black Oak tula. At the outskirts they were met by a band of Black Oak warriors who seemed rather surprised to see them, and kept the PCs waiting while they assembled for a ceremonial greeting. Even the chief, Engthor, seemed a trifle flustered, but greeted them with great courtesy. In the chief’s stead they were able to ascertain that Gulvir – a hot-headed youth of about fifteen – was in good spirits. Gulvir, humiliated at having been kidnapped by the clan enemies swore vengance with the PCs as witnesses, but Engthor laughed the challenges off. Not unkindly, more in the way of an indulgent uncle than a sworn enemy.
As it was now quite late, Engthor invited the PCs for a feast and to stay the night and return to their own stead in the morning. The players agreed somewhat warily. While the feast was being prepared, the players attempted to gather what information they could. They all managed to learn something (from the list of clues suggested in the scenario) and pieced together that the senior members of the clan were somehow in league of the bandits. At the same time, they maintained silence over the fact they’d been attacked. When asked specifically about them they shrugged it off, saying that that yes there had been some bandits but they had let the party pass for the price of a few coppers.
Having figured all this out, the PCs didn’t really know how to proceed. A frontal assault was deemed too difficult and it was hard to see what could be gained by making accusations as they had no evidence. In the end, and after much deliberation, they decided to just not get too drunk and keep watch. Naturally they weren’t attacked in their sleep and were allowed to go on their way.
Still not satisfied, the players left Gulvir in the custody of the warriors and doubled back to snoop around the Black Oak tula some more and see what else they could find out. As they settled down to watch they sensed that there was someone crawling in the brush nearby. A few minutes later they spotted Gulvir crawling out of the scrub and heading up to the Black Oak stead with a dagger in his mouth. As Black Hawk headed out to on Red Wind to scoop the reckless youth up (which he did with ease) the three warriors stumbled on Halfric and Gilder and explain that the child gave them the sleep as soon as the PCs were out of earshot.
After this, they decided it was time to head home and leave the Black Oaks for another day. They were happy that they had returned the chief’s son, but they couldn’t kick the nagging feeling that they’ve been had by those crafty Black Oaks.
Bearing in mind that I was only very loosely prepared to run this game, I thought it went very well. The rules judgements followed general principles rather than specific directives as I didn’t really have the time to look things up. Most things could be interpreted as a marginal victory or defeat with a little thought. The players seemed to like it, and slipped easily into the idea of being Heortlings. They also accepted the appearance of the Lunar patrol, understanding the basic situation immediately.
They felt they didn’t have the skills for the job, at times, especially when they struggled in the combats. I’m not sure if they’re ratings were too low or if they didn’t have anything to add. We decided that the person with the highest skill total should go first each roun, rather than go on AP bids which struggled to keep track of a little. Additionally, they may not have expected the combat focus, although they did say afterward they felt there was plenty of non-combat investigation and figuring stuff out. I think they ended up a little disappointed that they didn’t defeat the Black Oak deception, but they killed or set free all their evidence. Everyone said they enjoyed it, however, and there is definite enthusiasm for more HeroQuest.
Cheers!
RA