Methodology Of Incorporating New Skill Mechanics

[mitchiemasha]

Equipped daggers can be thrown for free (I know it was only an example) is far to powerful and could get silly, they only cost 25gp each.

A hero only has 2 hands. That's 2 free throws.

Which bring in the Bandolier 'Daggers equipped off hand max 4'. A piece of equipment that can be bought by anyone but only deadly if bought buy an Assassin. It keeps everything super simple. A player may discover these things for themselves instead of it being dictated to them on a huge character print out. Bringing about another level to the game.

[Gold Bearer]

Equipped daggers can be thrown for free (I know it was only an example) is far to powerful and could get silly, they only cost 25gp each.

A hero only has 2 hands. That's 2 free throws.

Oh okay, gotcha.

Which bring in the Bandolier 'Daggers equipped off hand max 4'. A piece of equipment that can be bought by anyone but only deadly if bought buy an Assassin. It keeps everything super simple. A player may discover these things for themselves instead of it being dictated to them on a huge character print out. Bringing about another level to the game.

I still see that as less simple though because to see what a hero can do they'd have to check all the equipment cards. That could work nicely if you gradually introduce new equipment cards though but then you haven't got the option to show them all the skills first without them having to sort through a load of cards. I do see where you're coming from and I'm not trying to argue but for me they're definitely staying on the heroes where I think they belong. If you want to use any of them for items then feel free.

[mitchiemasha]

There's no sorting through cards. You know what you can do at the start. As the game progresses, the hero may notice different things and try them out. They learn through the game. More experienced players will try and make more complex characters using the character creation, some might work, some won't. What is being introduced is more creativity for the players themselves, which is 1 of the reasons we love this game, so i believe it will be what will bring others to love it too.

As for the 'less simple' point, you've connected to that not quite as i'm expressing. Anything more than 1 line of text at 1 given moment is more complex.

[Gold Bearer]

But in your example "Which bring in the Bandolier 'Daggers equipped off hand max 4'." you have to know about that equipment card to know what the assassin can do. One line at a given moment is more complex and hard to keep track of if it's lots of one lines, all on different cards. That's why I prefer to keep them with the hero's rules where they can be easily referenced and that way you get to upgrade specific rules as the heroes progress.

Skills for heroes who have advanced can be kept secret if you want to keep the rules simple to start with and they're all in one place when they are needed. Advancement rules are obviously just an optional extra anyway, they work fine without them. I just think it's something that's needed in HQ and it helps to make the heroes more unique and fleshed out. If you want to do it differently that's fine but that's why they're staying on my heroes.

[mitchiemasha]

But in your example "Which bring in the Bandolier 'Daggers equipped off hand max 4'." you have to know about that equipment card to know what the assassin can do.

We go round in circles, lol! I could tell you missed my point on a few thing. You don't have to know what the Assassin can do. It's not supposed to be known. It's something you figure out as a player. You know what your start skills are, then when it comes to buying things, "wait a min, if i buy this that means i can..." See the beauty in that now? It's all about discovery, which is HeroQuest at it's very core! rather than being dictated to (as i wrote earlier) at the start. Overwhelmed with complexity. The game grows as you grow, which is the truest character progression.

It's not 1 lines on various different cards either.

You get to choose your progression.

[*]You can throw two knives if you move no more than half rate.

And, you know i was going to say it. Why not make it sacrifice/discard 1 Move d6, instead of half rate.

[Gold Bearer]

But in your example "Which bring in the Bandolier 'Daggers equipped off hand max 4'." you have to know about that equipment card to know what the assassin can do.

We go round in circles, lol! I could tell you missed my point on a few thing. You don't have to know that. It's not supposed to be known. It's something you figure out as a player. You know what your start skills are, then when it comes to buying things, "wait a min, if i buy this that means i can..." See the beauty in that now? It's all about discover, which is HeroQuest at it's very core! rather than being dictated to (as i wrote earlier) at the start.

I didn't miss your point. That only works if you have 'secret' equipment cards that get introduced later on, otherwise you need to sort through the equipment to see what each hero can really do. So you still have all the hero skills spread across different cards once they have been introduced instead of one place and you lose the option to show the later skills from the start if they want to see them.

Overwhelmed with complexity. The game grows as you grow, which is the truest character progression.

Of course it isn't, the truest character progression is actual character progression, not item progression which probably would 'overwhelm them with complexity'. This...

Assassin
Race: Human. Class: Assassin. Equipment: Five Knives, Hidden Blade.
Move - Uses the highest two.
Attack *
Defense *
Body
Mind

• When you're attacked in melee roll a dice for every skull the attacker rolled before you defend, if any of them are white shields you Evade the attack.
  
  
• You land a Deathstrike that kills the target outright if all the attacking dice were skulls and you wound the target.
  
  
• You can attack a directly adjacent target with the Hidden Blade using one attack dice and counting a black shield as a hit but not as a skull.
  
  
• You fail a jump on a black shield instead of a skull and you successfully make a long jump on either shield instead of just a black shield.
  
  
• You are unable to use two handed melee weapons or any type of shield or helmet and can only wear light armour.

Witcher
Race: Human. Class: Witch Hunter. Equipment: Sword, Padded Armour.
Move
Attack
Defense
Body
Mind

• You are a level 1 Magician and choose one spell set after the Elf and after the Wizard chooses their second set but before they choose their third.
  
  
• The EWP must tell the player whenever the Witcher is in the same room or corridor as a door that leads to a room or corridor containing an enemy Magician.
  
  
• You can reroll one dice at the cost of 1MP whenever you're attacking or defending against an Undead enemy and without cost if you're attacking or defending against an enemy Magician or rolling because of a hostile spell, only one dice on any roll can be rerolled.
  
  
• Roll a combat dice whenever you drink a Potion, on a white shield you regain your choice of 1BP or 1MP but this can't take you above your maximum of either and on a black shield you gain your choice of 1BP or 1MP that can take you above your normal maximum.
  
  
• You are unable to use two handed melee weapons or any type of Shield or Helmet or wear Heavy Armour.

... is not overwhelmingly complex. If they want to see what would be available to them later it's all in one place.

[*]You can throw two knives if you move no more than half rate.

And, you know i was going to say it. Why not make it sacrifice/discard 1 Move d6, instead of half rate.

For fixed movement, I like my rules to be as modular as possible. I much prefer half movement rate anyway so you know what you're sacrificing.

[mitchiemasha]

I didn't miss your point. That only works if you have 'secret' equipment cards that get introduced later on,

There is no 'secret' equipment cards, there isn't any equipment cards, well apart from the original equipment deck that is used for the weapon rack search. There is only the Armoury... 1 place. A player can study it as much as they like, just as much as we study into the game or not! They aren't skills, they're functions of the equipment.

For instance... Jumping the pit on all but black is already in the game. Rabbit Boots! Anyone can choose to buy these. The player chooses their own progression. However some start skills offer benefits over artifacts and items purchased later on, that is all that is hinted at the start. Those who look into it more, think about it more will likely progress with better characters, which is another reflection of perfection!

The conclusions you jump to in your replies is how i can tell you missed the point. This is hard to put in words. You don't know what the point being missed is if you're still missing it. When people imply they didn't they usually still are!

The point is... the system is complex, but it doesn't appear that way. The complexity is hidden in the design, underneath, unlike being presented with "do this when that but only if" multiple times on 1 character on each character. Which ends up looking more complex than it is.

I'm going to add Evade as a potion... Dancer!

Overwhelmed with complexity. The game grows as you grow, which is the truest character progression.

Of course it isn't, the truest character progression is actual character progression, not item progression which probably would 'overwhelm them with complexity'.

You did it again, jumped to the wrong conclusion of my words. Although my progression does it the HQ way, with weapons, my words "The game grows as you grow" has nothing to do with if it's weapons or skills progression tree.

"the game grows as you grow" comment is purely to reference that the level of complexity you have to learn about the game, grows as you play it. The rules expand as you play it, they get deeper and more involving. This could be done with either skills and/or weapons. Usually new Quest bring about the new ideas as heroes would find an item in a search and use it or the Quest notes require a new action. Again though, i don't want to add too much here to throw from my point.

The point to the 'growth' comment wasn't just the growth of your character, which happens in your system as equal as any. The 'growth' comment is, when you start the game you have very little to learn, you simply play, then as you come to realise certain things, like standard HQ, always searching for traps first etc, more is realised. With out being told it as such!

On your character the complete progression is there in stone, at the start, although your character will grow as you play, there's no learning through the game, discovery and again, i don't mean as in hidden. It wasn't hidden in the original HQ to always search for traps first but as a child, you soon discover to do that. You learn how to play the game well, playing it!

It's really hard to paint the picture i'm trying to describe.

[knightkrawler]

Overwhelmed with complexity. The game grows as you grow, which is the truest character progression.

Of course it isn't, the truest character progression is actual character progression, not item progression which probably would 'overwhelm them with complexity'.

You did it again, jumped to the wrong conclusion of my words. Although my progression does it the HQ way, with weapons, my words "The game grows as you grow" has nothing to do with if it's weapons or skills progression tree.

"the game grows as you grow" comment is purely to reference that the level of complexity you have to learn about the game, grows as you play it. The rules expand as you play it, they get deeper and more involving. This could be done with either skills and/or weapons. Usually new Quest bring about the new ideas as heroes would find an item in a search and use it or the Quest notes require a new action. Again though, i don't want to add too much here to throw from my point.

The point to the 'growth' comment wasn't just the growth of your character, which happens in your system as equal as any. The 'growth' comment is, when you start the game you have very little to learn, you simply play, then as you come to realise certain things, like standard HQ, always searching for traps first etc, more is realised. With out being told it as such!

On your character the complete progression is there in stone, at the start, although your character will grow as you play, there's no learning through the game, discovery and again, i don't mean as in hidden. It wasn't hidden in the original HQ to always search for traps first but as a child, you soon discover to do that. You learn how to play the game well, playing it!

It's really hard to paint the picture i'm trying to describe.

I'll go ahead and claim I understand what you mean. I recently got rid of my 12 starting characters and 5 spell decks and offer just the four basics with one spell deck. Heroes can now buy skills along with equipment as they earn money and develop in whatever direction they want. It's still an advncement system that doesn't allow the Wizard to attack with two weapons, but it's open. You learn, you develop, you advance. Both the Barbarian and the Elf can become Ninja-like characters...
It opens up the game for what it is.

[Gold Bearer]

There is no 'secret' equipment cards, there isn't any equipment cards, well apart from the original equipment deck that is used for the weapon rack search. There is only the Armoury... 1 place. A player can study it as much as they like, just as much as we study into the game or not! They aren't skills, they're functions of the equipment.

I don't want them having to check the equipment rules to see how each hero works.

For instance... Jumping the pit on all but black is already in the game. Rabbit Boots! Anyone can choose to buy these. The player chooses their own progression. However some start skills offer benefits over artifacts and items purchased later on, that is all that is hinted at the start. Those who look into it more, think about it more will likely progress with better characters, which is another reflection of perfection!

If you say so. And so what if there's an item in one of the quest packs that lets a hero do what the assassin gets as standard?

The conclusions you jump to in your replies is how i can tell you missed the point. This is hard to put in words. You don't know what the point being missed is if you're still missing it. When people imply they didn't they usually still are!

The point is... the system is complex, but it doesn't appear that way. The complexity is hidden in the design, underneath, unlike being presented with "do this when that but only if" multiple times on 1 character on each character. Which ends up looking more complex than it is.

If it's likely to seem too complex for the players then advancement skills aren't known until they actually advance, simple. I don't want hidden complexity, I want unique and characterful heroes with their abilities clearly laid out on the hero cards.

I'm going to add Evade as a potion... Dancer!

So the dwarf or anyone else can evade. No thank you.

You did it again, jumped to the wrong conclusion of my words. Although my progression does it the HQ way, with weapons, my words "The game grows as you grow" has nothing to do with if it's weapons or skills progression tree.

"the game grows as you grow" comment is purely to reference that the level of complexity you have to learn about the game, grows as you play it. The rules expand as you play it, they get deeper and more involving. This could be done with either skills and/or weapons. Usually new Quest bring about the new ideas as heroes would find an item in a search and use it or the Quest notes require a new action. Again though, i don't want to add too much here to throw from my point.

New artifacts can be added into quests to add that type of progression but I don't want them having crap loads of permanent items and I do want hero specific abilities.

The point to the 'growth' comment wasn't just the growth of your character, which happens in your system as equal as any. The 'growth' comment is, when you start the game you have very little to learn, you simply play, then as you come to realise certain things, like standard HQ, always searching for traps first etc, more is realised. With out being told it as such!

I prefer the rules to be clear.

On your character the complete progression is there in stone, at the start, although your character will grow as you play, there's no learning through the game, discovery and again, i don't mean as in hidden. It wasn't hidden in the original HQ to always search for traps first but as a child, you soon discover to do that. You learn how to play the game well, playing it!

Yes the skill progression is there in stone because that's exactly what I want. I don't want the ability to be every class rolled into one through items or even a progression tree because I want to keep it simple. It in no way restricts the learning experience of playing through the game, bringing in new skills as the heroes progress adds to it but in a controlled way that makes sure you don't end up with magical barbarians and ninja dwarves.

It's really hard to paint the picture i'm trying to describe.

I know what you're trying to describe and I'm not interested in doing that way for the reasons I've explained but you're of course free to do it however you want. I don't know how many times I tried to politely say thanks but no thanks and end the conversation but you're not taking the hint.

I'm the opposite, I prefer them as skills because it makes heroes a lot more distinctive and characterful. You could make 'skill' items hero specific of course and get a very similar result (feel free if you like them and want to do it that way) but I prefer to put them on the characters themselves, personal preference I suppose.

The only way I can see that method working is if equipment works differently for different heroes and again, I think that's better kept on the hero skills. But again, just personal preference.

I do see where you're coming from and I'm not trying to argue but for me they're definitely staying on the heroes where I think they belong. If you want to use any of them for items then feel free.

That's why I prefer to keep them with the hero's rules where they can be easily referenced and that way you get to upgrade specific rules as the heroes progress.

Skills for heroes who have advanced can be kept secret if you want to keep the rules simple to start with and they're all in one place when they are needed. Advancement rules are obviously just an optional extra anyway, they work fine without them. I just think it's something that's needed in HQ and it helps to make the heroes more unique and fleshed out. If you want to do it differently that's fine but that's why they're staying on my heroes.

Do it however works best for you but don't try coming in here and criticising what I consider a much cleaner and simpler method that also lets me have more distinctive and characterful heroes.

And please stop spamming the thread with double and sometimes even triple posts! This thread is now bogged down with *lemony goodness*, cheers.

I'll go ahead and claim I understand what you mean. I recently got rid of my 12 starting characters and 5 spell decks and offer just the four basics with one spell deck. Heroes can now buy skills along with equipment as they earn money and develop in whatever direction they want. It's still an advncement system that doesn't allow the Wizard to attack with two weapons, but it's open. You learn, you develop, you advance. Both the Barbarian and the Elf can become Ninja-like characters...
It opens up the game for what it is.

I prefer to actually have a ninja and the barbarian and elf to be what they were originally intended, but thanks for your input.

[mitchiemasha]

I'm going to add Evade as a potion... Dancer!

So the dwarf or anyone else can evade. No thank you.

Exactly... That's why just like the Frozen Horror and Mage of The mirror, some potions are only useful to certain types. In the original game Frost Skin is Barbarian only, which is easily modded to be Body 8. Vision is Elf only, Mod to B6 M4, now a Ranger type character could use it. like wise, Evade would be B5 M4. Now if you had a light footed Dwarf Assassin, No problem but the standard HQ Dwarf, not a chance. You made another assumption.

Sorry about all my replies, i'll limit myself to 1, I enjoy thinking about the game too much.

edit: although the difference my replies should be in 1 comment box like yours, instead of individual for each quote.