A Case Against Leveling Systems

[Ethica]

Thrawn is right, in my experience groups disband and people who aren't fanatics like us will get bored. You find yourself starting new people on heroquest at the beginning (where the most fun is).

I'm not sure how I'm trying to argue my point here. It's just that heroquest unlike most boardgames is supposed to be epic. I don't think it can be epic without an ending (which is obviously the slaying of morcar/zargon himself).

[Big Bene]

Well, slaying the evil one himself would be truly epic. Ever thought of his stats?
Problem is, this would really put an end to the story arc. Once and forever. You may feel excited by archieving it, but the group has to live with the fact that they will never ever can play again. Even starting with new heroes will be stale with the memory of having overcome Morcar once.
It's the same problem as with every epic story. How many books, films and series had a "real" ending, summing up all storylines in a great finale, and after that, for fans' demand, there were more sequels, and they had to come up with really lame explantations why the story wasn't really over. This kind of sequels makes not only for pretty weak stories themselfes (even more so than other sequels), but also spoil the original, making it -well, less original.
Many fans complain such sequels should have never been done, but on the other hand, of course many fans also want to have more of the stories they love.
Same with Heroquest campains (and every other form of roleplaying, too).
So if you really plan to have a given end, a final goal, you must be absolutley sure this group will be happy with never playing HQ again. And I don't think you can be. So for me, such a fixed end is a nice idea, but in reality a no-go. I like to play big story arcs. I like to have a goal and a determination, a desteny for the heroes that unfolds over many quest, and that of course will have a final end. But there must still be room for more, still be open story trails to follow. An "absolute" final goal (such as killing Morcar) is a dead end. A glorious death, but a death (of the story). And this I don't want.

[torilen]

Well, if you wanted to pit the heroes against the ultimate evil, and they actually win...
Sure, there would be a problem for a while. But then, perhaps, one of the heroes becomes
corrupted by the left over energies of chaos and evil, and become the new evil one.

Have the player who played that hero offer ideas as to what that now chaotic hero
would want to do in the world...would it be any different from the ultimate evil they
just killed?

Or say that the void of chaos and evil allows an even more evil, more powerful deity
to come into the world. That could really throw a wrench into the celebration plans.

Just remember, there will always be a balance. If there isn't a balance, forces will find
a way to balance things out.

[Thrawn]

Not to get off on a tangent, but normally, when I would DM for a D&D group, I simply created a fantasy
world, offered a few beginning plot rumors, and just let the players run their characters around the
world looking for stuff to do. Very open-ended, very "sand-box" style of play. It did require a lot on my
part, creating the world and all. But...that was my main hobby for a long while - fantasy world creation.
The only problem was creating all the NPC's for the characters to meet. I started creating a not-so-real
world, where villages only had 10 people, towns only had 20 or so, and cities only had 30 people or so.
Allowed me to create very real people for the characters to encounter, while keeping things limited.

In my personal game system, I've actually encouraged this style of creation for the GM's. I explain that the
game world is a world, and should be some-what real...but we are, in fact, still playing a game. I explain that
creating only a limited number of people allows the GM to focus on creating real personalities without having
to work themselves to death. As long as you make proportions the same across the board, it doesn't really matter.

So...a village would have maybe 10 people...a town 15-20...cities maybe 20-30. There would still be orcs and
goblins running around, but ogres and giants and such would be limited in number. Instead of lots of dragons,
there would only be maybe 2 or 3 of each type throughout the whole world. Instead of lots of bad guys, there would
be maybe 10 or 15 throughout the whole world.

I have a whole system set up to make proportions correct. BUT...I'll stop there, as I've rambled enough for now.

Early in my gaming days, I used to DM the same way. I found I enjoyed it more (which usually translated into my players enjoying it more) when we created more structured games.

[el_flesh]

I think without leveling, most players might get bored too?

[Darkforce44]

Well, slaying the evil one himself would be truly epic. Ever thought of his stats?
Problem is, this would really put an end to the story arc. Once and forever. You may feel excited by archieving it, but the group has to live with the fact that they will never ever can play again. Even starting with new heroes will be stale with the memory of having overcome Morcar once.

I have to disagree. I think about how many times I've slain Ganon in the Legend of Zelda and it never grows stale. I'm sure most people have a few NES games they play repeatedly even though they've beaten them a million times.

[TMU]

Well, slaying the evil one himself would be truly epic. Ever thought of his stats?
Problem is, this would really put an end to the story arc. Once and forever. You may feel excited by archieving it, but the group has to live with the fact that they will never ever can play again. Even starting with new heroes will be stale with the memory of having overcome Morcar once.

Of course, you could make a quest that players think they defeated Morcar. It would be some other monster magically turned into look of Morcar/Zargon. And in the end they would get to know the truth. My

[Goblin-King]

Leveling system:
The only reason to ever implement a leveling system in hero quest would be because the heroes reach a stage when they are "done" e.g. being fully equipped.
But I don't think the game needs it. I think of it like two curves. One is hero advancement, the other is monster difficulty. If the two curves just follow each other it's really pointless to advance either.
What's the fun of adding a powerful dragon if it's basically just as hard as a chaos warrior used to be?
And obviously the game would suck if the heroes kept advancing and the monsters didn't.

Instead of keeping the game fun through leveling, I think it's the GMs responsibility to keep the game fun through exciting and immersive quests (Though this may prove easier said than done!).

Defeating Morcar:
I don't mind this at all. Even now, Morcar is very close to being that silly cartoon villan. NEXT TIME HEROES! NEXT TIME! How many evil schemes does the heroes have to foil?
Slaying Morcar in an epic battle while he still got his integrity would be better than that eternal struggle. This does not end HQ for the players! Lots of possibilities:
Morcar was himself just a pawn.
Corruption of a hero.
Morcar resurrects himself.
etc...

We've played lots of custom "find the treasure"/"rescue the princess" quests with nothing to do about Morcar, and enjoyed them just fine. I think only the really hardcore (OC) players would have a problem with slaying Morcar.

[Daedalus]

Leveling system:
The only reason to ever implement a leveling system in hero quest would be because the heroes reach a stage when they are "done" e.g. being fully equipped.

This basically rings true. I'd like to see leveling meshed in parallel with equipment upgrades, but it would be difficult to work out and might only serve to detract from the clean feel of the game, changing it in ways most wouldn't care to use. It's just something I've been musing on since Thrawn's recent posts on skill groups.

But I don't think the game needs it. I think of it like two curves. One is hero advancement, the other is monster difficulty. If the two curves just follow each other it's really pointless to advance either.
What's the fun of adding a powerful dragon if it's basically just as hard as a chaos warrior used to be?

I'd agree that the game doesn't need it as presented in the published form. Most seem to be satisfied with that experience and move on to another game. Furthermore, many enthusiasts are content to return to the beginning and start anew with homebrew Quests, as you better describe.

I'd disagree that the game doesn't need it...for everybody. I'm falling into the camp that Hero Quest can be a fun sandbox game that offers opportunity for customization. Advancement is a major path to that customization, and HQ's scope has lots of room to expand, if that's what you're group is after. From my own experience, Warhammerquest gave a taste of how leveling works with skills and other upgrades. Those bumps in power were set against new sets of monsters that also had new abilities and tougher stats. The new, unknown threat of Champions of Chaos riding Beasts of Khorne was quite a tense moment, and I credit that to the newness of the challenge, which required new thinking. We had to reach deep in our tactical bag of tricks to pull out the win. What I didn't enjoy so much was how combat grew more cumbersome with all the extra referencing and tracking. Warhammerquest degrades as more and more is added on without limits, in my opinion. Less would mean more for a Hero Quest leveling system, somewhere in between the two games. (I think I need to more carefully read up on Advanced Heroquest to see if some of that games balancing would apply better.)

Defeating Morcar:
I don't mind this at all. Even now, Morcar is very close to being that silly cartoon villan. NEXT TIME HEROES! NEXT TIME! How many evil schemes does the heroes have to foil?
Slaying Morcar in an epic battle while he still got his integrity would be better than that eternal struggle. This does not end HQ for the players! Lots of possibilities:
Morcar was himself just a pawn.
Corruption of a hero.
Morcar resurrects himself.
etc...

Morcar doesn't even have to be killed. Think Sauron here, where in the Second Age he was thwarted when the Ring was cut from his hand and he was reduced to a shadow for an age. Rogar, Ladril, Durgin, and Telor basically did the same to Morcar in the fluff at the beginning of the rulebook. The same struggle against a newly-strengthened Morcar can be attempted again many years later by a new set of Heroes, using the fluff backstory of the previous Heroes.

[torilen]

Well...as far as killing morcar - one can think of it as in Harry Potter. At the end, Voldemort is killed,
but does that really mean the end of evil?

I've noticed everyone talking about the "end goal" is talking only about getting rid of morcar, not the
over-arching, all powerful chaos and evil that is in the world. SO...there could always be a new evil guy.
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Now, to speak to what daedalus said, about liking thrawn's skill groups. This could still be done using only
magical items and artifacts. Start with one item, and if you add other items to it, you get better and better
skills. For example...if a hammer offers a special ability or skill, then add bracers to enhance that, and a ring
to enhance it further, etc.

This would lead to very specialized characters, VERY specialized artifacts and artifact sets (hmm...gives me an idea),
and would allow players to play very different roles throughout the game, instead of everyone becoming like all the others
through the use of deadpan, run-of-the-mill artifacts.