HEROQUEST?

[troy812]

Just wondering...
there are a lot of references to HeroQuesting.. but ... no rules on it.

I get the general idea... there just seems to be more to it. In fact there more I read on the internet, the more confused I get.

Since most of the stuff on Stafford's sites seems to reference the 3rd age...
Is Mongoose going to release new rules for HeroQuesting?

Is there...
a product we should buy ?
or
playtesting opportunities?
a good download? (wink wink ...nod nod).

One thing that would help Glorantha in general would be a book of the various myths of the different gods. I think one reason I feel so ... separated from the gods of the land is I really don't know that much about them. Any chance we could get a book of myths?

T

 

[andyl]

Have you read Cults? There is stuff on Heroquesting in there.

Some myths as well.

 

[Loz]

Just wondering...
there are a lot of references to HeroQuesting.. but ... no rules on it.

I get the general idea... there just seems to be more to it. In fact there more I read on the internet, the more confused I get.

Since most of the stuff on Stafford's sites seems to reference the 3rd age...
Is Mongoose going to release new rules for HeroQuesting?

Is there...
a product we should buy ?
or
playtesting opportunities?
a good download? (wink wink ...nod nod).

One thing that would help Glorantha in general would be a book of the various myths of the different gods. I think one reason I feel so ... separated from the gods of the land is I really don't know that much about them. Any chance we could get a book of myths?

T

Yes, 'Cults of Glorantha' has HeroQuesting rules for RQII.

I'd also recommend 'Arcane Lore' from the Stafford Library (available through Moon Design) which has a ton of stuff on HeroQuesting plus some Third Age myths.

 

[troy812]

I'm glad to hear it.
Are there many... "sample myths" to run the characters through?

 

[andyl]

Many 'sample myths'. Well not that many. Usually just one per cult (so Orlanth gets 4 in total).

I would expect that "The Book of Heortling Mythology" would be of great use for the Storm Tribe.

Oliver Bernuetz is trying to collect links to all Gloranthan stories and myths on the web on his http://mythinglinks.blog.ca/ site. However not all of them will be appropriate for the second age

 

[richaje]

Many 'sample myths'. Well not that many. Usually just one per cult (so Orlanth gets 4 in total).

I would expect that "The Book of Heortling Mythology" would be of great use for the Storm Tribe.

Oliver Bernuetz is trying to collect links to all Gloranthan stories and myths on the web on his http://mythinglinks.blog.ca/ site. However not all of them will be appropriate for the second age

Book of Heortling Mythology has over two hundred pages of Orlanthi myths, making their mythology cycles more complete than RW Norse mythology.

FWIW, the key published texts on Heroquesting are in the "Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes" chapter on heroquesting (which uses bits of Greg's unfinished Harmast book as well as snippets from King of Sartar to illustrate heroquests). The Colymar Campaign in the same book probably has the best playable example of a heroquest (a 20 page heroquest into the Underworld) in publication (although Sartar Companion will be featuring the Lawstaff Quest of the Orlanthi).

Granted these books use the HeroQuest rules and not MRQII (then again the HeroQuest rules were initially developed precisely to handle heroquests - hence the name of the system). However, because they use HQ2 they are largely stat-free.

Of the MRQ materials, I think Loz's "Dara Happa Stirs" has without a doubt the best heroquest materials using the RQ rules.

Jeff

 

[PhilHibbs]

All the character needs to do is make a standard test against Culture (Own); if his success is lower than the myth’s Resonance, then he gains insight in one of the following ways:

It then goes on to describe the results for Crit, Success, Fail, and Fumble.

First, the text is confusing, it implies that you only consult the results on a success, yet there are consequences for fumbles. Not a major problem. However, what's the "lower than the myth's Resonance" all about? Does the GM roll on the myth's Resonance in an opposed contest?

 

[Loz]

No, there's no opposed roll needed. If a myth's well-known and common then there's a higher chance insight and lessons will be ingrained, hence the mechanic. If a myth's quite obscure it will have a lower resonance, so the chance of deriving insight or other benefits will, conversely, be lower (but not impossible).

Also, in the text you're quoting, you're looking for the level of success of your roll. You might successfully roll under your Culture but higher than the myth's resonance; which means you won't derive anything from it. You might fumble your roll and completely misinterpret it. You might crit and be blinded by dazzling, mythic insight.

Its not really that complicated. It also works well in practice; I use this a lot with my own Glorantha group and their behaviour has been modified as a result of mythic resonance and how they've rolled against it.

 

[PhilHibbs]

No, there's no opposed roll needed. If a myth's well-known and common then there's a higher chance insight and lessons will be ingrained, hence the mechanic. If a myth's quite obscure it will have a lower resonance, so the chance of deriving insight or other benefits will, conversely, be lower (but not impossible).

OK, I see - the "tougher myths are easier" seemed a little counter-intuitive to me.

 

[Loz]

Precisely. Although its not necessarily that they're 'tougher' just less well known or very specific in application. Orlanth Adventurous would have some myths that don't form part of Orlanth Rex, for example, and vice versa; so you may even get common myths that have a different resonance for separate sects within the same faith.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Precisely. Although its not necessarily that they're 'tougher' just less well known or very specific in application.

I was thinking higher resonance meant tougher, but being easier to invoke I guess makes sense.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Also, I was surprised that the random encounter types table in Cults didn't include "trade" as an option. Lots of heroquest stages involve trading abilities or magic with an encountered entity. For instance, when either Yelmalo, Zorak Zoran, or Orlanth encounters Inora at the Hill of Gold, they can fight or they can agree to trade abilities.

 

[PhilHibbs]

And another thing - Common Magic doesn't work on HeroQuests, I'm not sure I like that. The idea of Common Magic arising from the mundane world is new to MRQ, prior to that it was Spirit Magic. As a result, you have Heroquest writeups in the Arcane Lore book that refer to Befuddle, Demoralize, Coordination, etc. and how they can or can't be used in various HeroQuest encounters. So the spells that clearly used to be usable (or even in cases a virtual necessity) are now not usable because of some newfangled classification.

Also, is there any concept of Will in MRQ heroquesting? This has always been an important factor in Heroquesting.

 

[Loz]

Phil, if you want Common Magic to work in your HeroQuests, go for it. You don't have to play by the RAW.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Phil, if you want Common Magic to work in your HeroQuests, go for it. You don't have to play by the RAW.

Well, of course, but not having run Heroquests before in any system, I'm open to thoughts from anyone who has tried out various ideas and opinions on what works and what doesn't. Maybe Common Magic should be restricted to spells gained from the cult of the role that the questor is playing, so an Odaylan could use Mobility, but a Humakti could not. And if a member of Orlanth Adventurous is performing a role that is more suited to Orlanth Rex, he can't use his Bladesharp.

Anyone got any thoughts on how to handle Will? I get the impression that it's something that you build up over time until you are ready to start using it, but at that point it gets capped and can only ever go down from then on - or is that just one of the many systems that I might have read about some years ago? Sandy's take on magic in Glorantha is that as you build up your magical power, your free will inevitably goes down in proportion to your power going up - his Sorcery system had vows as an integral part of the progression curve, so maybe Will is something that you start out with and only ever goes down, rather than building up along with your skills and magic.

 

[troy812]

Hmm
Well this is where Runequest starts to hurt my brain. :?
Perhaps I need to run an actual Heroquest or two before I chime in.

 

[Loz]

I haven't come across Will before.

Phil, I"m sure, can explain more about it.

 

[PhilHibbs]

I haven't come across Will before.

Phil, I"m sure, can explain more about it.

Maybe it's an outdated concept, but it features prominently in Acane Lore, which is a fantastic source of HQ myth ideas. The game mechanics in the quests are a mishmash of RQ, Hero Wars, and unpublished Heroquesting rules, and I guess Will is one of those unpublished rules. Various people have written their own rules for questing in RQ, Simon's web site is a good place to find some of them, and I'm hoping he will chime on with his opinion of Will mechanics.

 

[soltakss]

I haven't come across Will before.

Phil, I"m sure, can explain more about it.

Maybe it's an outdated concept, but it features prominently in Acane Lore, which is a fantastic source of HQ myth ideas. The game mechanics in the quests are a mishmash of RQ, Hero Wars, and unpublished Heroquesting rules, and I guess Will is one of those unpublished rules. Various people have written their own rules for questing in RQ, Simon's web site is a good place to find some of them, and I'm hoping he will chime on with his opinion of Will mechanics.

Funnily enough, I was going to comment on the earlier Will post ...

From what I remember, there were some old HeroQuesting rules, possibly by Steve Marsh, that included the concept of Will. Basically, Will allowed you to impose your thoughts on a mutable HeroPlane. This was done via the idea of a Will characteristic with Will Points that are used to cause changes.

However, this doesn't really work on Gloranthan HeroQuests. A Gloranthan canon is that the Gods have no Free Will and the more that a character becomes enmeshed in the GodPlane, the less Free Will that character has, eventually becoming part of the Great Compromise once Apotheosis has been achieved.

So, using Will means that a starting character has a lot of Will and loses it as he becomes a more experienced HeroQuester. This can be balanced by saying that a more experienced HeroQuestor can affect things more easily, so doesn't need so much Will. This doesn't really appeal to me at all.

It makes more sense to me that an experienced HeroQuestor can do things for several reasons:
1. He has access to many different myths and myth fragments (E.g. Harmast and Arkat).
2. He has been on many different HeroQuests
3. He has some skill or magical ability that allows him to manipulate HeroQuests (E.g. Godlearners)
4. He is a powerful immortal (Red Emperor, Only Old One, Pharoah, many other Heroes)

Mongoose RuneQuest has a lot of good ideas on HeroQuesting and is probably the best place to find HeroQuesting rules for Glorantha. In my opinion, it beats the rules in the HeroQuest game hands-down.

 

[soltakss]

Hmm
Well this is where Runequest starts to hurt my brain. :?
Perhaps I need to run an actual Heroquest or two before I chime in.

The best way to learn about HeroQuesting is to run or play in some HeroQuests.

What a lot of people fail to realise is that HeroQuests are not about world-changing rituals. They can be, but they are incredibly rare and have only been done by a few people.

HeroQuesting is about achieving the impossible and anyone can do that.

All you need to do is to overlay a myth on top of the world and you have a HeroQuest.

Want to kidnap a bride from a neighbouring clan? There's a HeroQuest for that.
Want to kill your Overlord? There's a HeroQuest for that.
Want to rescue someone kidnapped by trolls? There's a HeroQuest for that.
Want to get a shiny new sword? There's a HeroQuest for that.
Want to cure someone of an incurable disease? There's a HeroQuest for that.
Want to bring peace between your two sons-in-law? There's a HeroQuest for that.

In my games, HeroQuesting is a common occurrence. Lay Members do it, Initiates do it, RuneLevels do it and even non-cultists do it, although not always when they want to.

The main thing is to remember that these are not stuffy, formal rituals. They are dynamic, ever-changing, fluid things that interact with the real world in many different ways, leaving a trail of karma behind that will spawn a dozen scenarios.