Darran Sims

A couple of years ago, after much convincing and demonstration, I got my wife Jenny to play in one of my role-playing games. She had expressed her displeasure about role-playing games before but on seeing that my friends from my hobby were more reliable and were ‘better’ friends than other acquaintances I have she relented. I did write this report at the time but didn’t post it anywhere as I didn’t have my blog up and running at the time.
Unfortunately the group at the time finished due to illness so that was the last session. When I restarted the campaign with a new group, Jenny was a little bit reluctant to join in from the start but for the last session she has now rejoined.

 

From September 2007

I had planned that HeroQuest session at the time, to take place with my home group, to be a skirmish-type game based on the Battle Of Dwarf Ford. However, my wife Jenny expressed an interest in taking part, something she had normally refused to do in the past. On the few occasions I had asked her to play or even if she was interested in learning what it was all about, she had said no. I hadn’t really pushed the issue; she had come with me to a few RPG conventions but looked on them as a trip away rather than joining in with the hobby itself. I had a smaller group for this session so Jenny did feel a little more comfortable with that for her first time. Jenny joined the other two players, my brother Russell and our friend Mick, people that she knew very well.

 

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Jenny did seem to play well though did need some prompting to contribute to the story. She later told me she wasn't sure whether she could interrupt me or the others while they were talking. She was happy to play her role and was content to take part in the decision-making parts of the story.

With the change of the campaign and the restart of it she wasn't confident in joining the game. But now I have my kid sister, Amy join in on the new campaign my wife Jenny has also joined in the game again. 

So I ran the next instalment of my Air & Motion campaign yesterday using the new HeroQuest 2.0 rules.

Most of my regular players were unable to attend this time due to Real Life getting in the way, which is a shame, but fortunately my brother Russell was able to attend still and I got two brand new players to corrupt!
The first new player is Rob, who knows the setting of Glorantha well having played RuneQuest in the past, attended past Convulsions/Continuum conventions as well as having GMed Hero Wars back when it first came out. He read all my background notes I have posted up on the internet and wrote out his 100 words for my in advance for his character. Marvellous!
The second new player is my baby sister Amy [not that much of a baby as she has a child of her own], and she hasn’t even played a role-playing game before, never mind HeroQuest.
So all three of my players are new to the latest system, though two have some experience of Glorantha.



The players Rob, Amy and Russell.


I had updated Russell’s character sheet by removing all abilities associated with keywords out so he was just left with keywords as direct abilities [occupation, homeland, clan, and religion], abilities derived from his 100 words and any abilities he brought or spent points on during play. Magic wise, he still had his three Rune Affinities derived from his Yinkin religion keyword as I removed all listed feats. The character was a devotee at the start of the campaign but has now been demoted to an initiate [barely as well!].

Making Rob’s character was a little bit easier as he had a good solid 100 words written. Again I gave him his keywords as direct abilities so he had his homeland, clan, occupation, and religion down. I managed to pull quite a few abilities out of his 100 words so he had plenty to draw on. His character wanted to become a Devotee of Orlanth; it was part of his 100 words and a good clear goal as well as being a direct ability. Note this is to worship Orlanth directly, no minor sub-cults getting in the way. I gave him the Runes of Storm, Mobility and Hunting; Storm because he is an Orlanthi male and they get that automatically, Mobility due to him wanting to worship Orlanth at a higher level and Hunting as his occupation is a hunter anyway. Rob was happy with them even though I did give him the choice of changing them.

I was toying with the idea of giving Amy a pre-generated character but I decided against it with it being her first role-play experience. Instead I went for ‘As-You-Go’ character generation, as that would allow Amy to have her own character as well as keeping it simple for her without piling on all the information at once. It would also allow us all to start the game without having to wait to do all the character generation first.

First I wanted her to think of a character concept, something simple but with enough to build on with more detail later. I gave her a few examples and then got Russell and Rob to introduce their characters to give Amy an idea what she could do. Amy wanted to have her character to be a witch, to be a magic user. I asked if she wanted to evoke spirits or to emulate the acts of a goddess directly? “Oh emulating the goddess directly please!”
So I tried to think of an Earth Goddess that would be suitable. “Could I make earthquakes and throw rocks about?” asked Amy. Maran Gor it is then!
I was a little bit shocked as Amy didn’t know anything about Glorantha at all and yet picked quite a dark goddess, one that isn’t normally one worshipped by player characters. I thought, hell lets run with it as that might be fun and would certainly be something different, a Maran Gor worshipping player character would be fun.
I gave Amy a list of runes with descriptions; I said her first rune would have to an Earth Rune anyway as the character was a female from Orlanthi society and they always have the Earth Rune. However she could pick her other two runes. With a little help from the others she picked the Disorder Rune and the Magic Rune.
With that we came up with her character’s name, Platonia Earthshaker based on the plate tectonics of earthquakes. Good eh?
Everything else about her character would be added later.

With that we were good to go and start the game.


Me in action!



I started slowly to ease the new players into it and started with a murder mystery. After that it changed genre and moved to a CSI investigation, then a black comedy, a soap opera, a farce, a tactical battle, a gritty horror and then back again! A nice spread and a good game.

One of the better aspects of the game was the quicker augments. No bean counting and shopping lists of augments now that slow down the game. Also the new extended contest work well. They are a lot quicker and there is not that strange shift into a gambling system that brings the game to a halt that the old system had.

All the players had a great time, it’s good that the new player enjoyed the game, Amy even sent me a text this morning to say what a fun game and “when are we playing again?”
A new convert me thinks?

What scares me though is that me and my brother have been role-playing for over twenty-seven years, longer than my sister has been around.



I hope to get the podcast up soon so you’ll be able to hear how it went.

The third part is now up on the site!

Air & Motion HeroQuest Campaign Part 3

The second part is now uploaded to my website at One Man and his Dice HeroQuest: Air & Motion Campaign

I have recorded my HeroQuest Air & Motion game from Sunday 27th April 2008.

The first part of that session is up on my website in the form of a podcast.

HeroQuest: Air & Motion Session 1 part 1

Worth having a listen?

Part 2 will be posted up about this time next week.

Here are the links to a Podcast of an Actual Play that took place at Tentacles 2008.

The game is HeroQuest 2.0, the yet unreleased new edition of HeroQuest. The setting is Pavis in Glorantha.
There were eleven players, some of the big movers and shakers of the Glorantha publishing and gaming.
It does get a little noisy especially when all the beer bottles are opened!

Jeff's Huge Gloranthan HeroQuest Game part 1

Jeff's Huge Gloranthan HeroQuest Game part 2

Jeff's Huge Gloranthan HeroQuest Game part 3

Character Sheets