Ye Olde Inn

One of the trusted group of adventurers STOLE FROM THE KING. There will be no fair after this.
The prose tells you in storytelling words that a player who does such a thing with his hero cannot be in a group for the future or has to, at the very least, start with a new hero from scratch, without equipment or gold, and learning from mistakes.
I honestly don't see why that would have to be pre-chewed in even more boring and more technical rulespeak in Mentor's quest introduction.

The evil wizard player and the players can do whatever they like, if its in the rules.
And the rules are often vague. We are all here because we change rules that don't make sense or could be better, and we all do it routinely. We also change things to not to necessarily make them better but just for personal taste. Like you calling the Emperor "King", for example.
At the end of the day it's just a game. When we were kids we always had one player who decided to keep the gold. It was fun, and it was proto-roleplaying, with that kid adding to the interest of his character and the adventures in general. Once we ruled that the Emperor pardoned an outlaw because he was part of the team of saviours who busted him out of Kellars Keep. Even the harshest ruler wouldn't stay sour over a box of gold after his entire Kingdom, army, and royal ass was saved in such incredibly heroic circumstances.
Good times.

Of course you can play however you want.
But why then present it as a question? I merely refer to what the text says as a response to your original question because I think it is quite clear in its intents and purposes.
No harm done if you played it otherwise.

...and I called the Emperor king because I don't bother to look the text up every time I refer to it. I do not know all HQ text by heart.

knightkrawler wrote:Of course you can play however you want.
But why then present it as a question? I merely refer to what the text says as a response to your original question because I think it is quite clear in its intents and purposes.
No harm done if you played it otherwise.

...and I called the Emperor king because I don't bother to look the text up every time I refer to it. I do not know all HQ text by heart.

I still don't think the rules are very clear for this quest, not in the same way you do. If it was clearly intended that if a hero steals the gold then they don't ever get to play more quests as one of Mentors Heroes, they could have just written that. Instead, the UK rule just states that the Hero cannot become a champion. In HQ a "champion" is a defined thing, in that if a hero completes 3 quests (at least I think its 3) they become a champion of the realm and are gifted 300 gold by the Emperor. Its kind of like a knighthood I suppose. This suggests to me that a Hero can keep the gold in this quest (the rules actually state that they can keep it), but that there will be consequences for doing so. I think its more open ended that way, and actually adds interest to one of the more boring quests.

I saw that you renamed the Emperor "King" in your revised version of the official quest packs, so I thought it was a conscious decision on your part to do that. No biggy either way, I was just using it as an example as to how we all do things slightly differently and add our own flavour.

i can see the champion argument. i just see it stricter in that the original quests it is the whole point to "become" a champion. and that option is taken away by a thief.

i assumed you were referring to my post where i used king instead of emperor..i like that people do find and read my stuff, but i wish i got more feedback to better gauge its merits and failings. i'm revising the rules as we post.

In the EU rules it's just a choice of keeping or returning your chest. Any hero who keeps theirs doesn't become a champion so they actually loose 250gp instead of gaining 250gp. That's all it is, a punishment of loosing the amount that were trying to steal, then you just carry on as normal.

Gold Bearer wrote:In the EU rules it's just a choice of keeping or returning your chest. Any hero who keeps theirs doesn't become a champion so they actually loose 250gp instead of gaining 250gp. That's all it is, a punishment of loosing the amount that were trying to steal, then you just carry on as normal.

That's how I've always thought of it too.

I understand there are different views of HQ.

Some see it as an all vs all sort of game...the heroes help each other, but are free to do their own thing
to get ahead.

Some see it as a game where the heroes are heroes. They help each other. They act heroically. They do
what they are supposed to do, and save the lands and the peoples in them.

I follow this second point of view. I would expect the heroes to act like heroes. This is preclude the "choice"
of stealing the gold. NOW...whether they have to end up dropping the gold and fleeing to save themselves
is a different thing entirely...but could still cause the loss of the reward.

torilen wrote:I understand there are different views of HQ.

Some see it as an all vs all sort of game...the heroes help each other, but are free to do their own thing
to get ahead.

Some see it as a game where the heroes are heroes. They help each other. They act heroically. They do
what they are supposed to do, and save the lands and the peoples in them.

I follow this second point of view. I would expect the heroes to act like heroes. This is preclude the "choice"
of stealing the gold. NOW...whether they have to end up dropping the gold and fleeing to save themselves
is a different thing entirely...but could still cause the loss of the reward.

I see it as each player can develop his character as he wants to, within the scope of the game and without going down the path towards D&D territory.
You want to be a greedy adventurer who lags behind searching for treasure even though his companion is surrounded by orcs within in helping distance? Sure, go ahead.
You want to be a pure hero who is selfless in his actions and its all about bringing down Morcar? Sure, go ahead.
As Evil Wizard, I do not like to say "No" to my players, unless what they are asking is explicitly against the rules and/or would be game breaking.
My players are quite funny guys, always saying silly things. They all do what Mentor tells them to but some of them view him as a bit of a doddery old sod who needs to lighten up, and be ignored from time to time. "Didn't Mentor say we shouldn't open that cursed tomb?", "Nah, I think you imagined it..." LOL

What is really great to me is the possibility of a flawed roguish character redeeming himself at some point through an act of incredible heroism. That would be true character development in my eyes. And yet I am not interested in playing anything much more complicated than vanilla HQ. Go figure.