GM vs Overpowered Heroes

[Patroclus]

After several quests the Heroes have gathered weapons and magical items, and you don’t want to make them lose their weapons or something like that. You just want to put tough monsters so the encounters stay challenging, and avoid scenes with Heroes killing monsters with one blow.

We are talking about heroes with Attack 4 not something extreme. But even with that attack they can clean a room in seconds when they are fighting against goblins and orcs. Of course the solution is to put very tough monsters, or custom monsters. A monster of A5/D5/B5 is always difficult to be killed and need a lot of rounds to fall.
The problem is that sometimes you need to put Orcs and Goblins based on your scenario, and you don’t want to use only and always Ogres and Chaos Warriors.

I want to hear your opinion on that.

For me, there are two main options.

1. High level Heroes needs high level monsters. Stop using orcs in your adventures.

2. You can upgrade your orcs making “elite” and “special” orcs in your scenario, so you can boost up their stats. For example “+2 Body to all the orcs in this quest”. (The good about changing only the Body is that you don’t mess with the balance of the enemies or confuse the players. So the orcs can stay alive after the first strike and can attack in the next 1 or 2 rounds)

[chaoticprime]

My solution has always been to just don't let the Heroes get powerful. Heroes should never continue past death without the use of the artifact. Once they die, they're dead--new hero. If the Hero died in a room containing any monster, the other Heroes have to kill them all before reclaiming all the dead Heroes' dropped stuff. If all of the surviving Heroes leave it alone in a room with a monster, its gone for good. You have to be evil to play the Evil Wizard--if you can't tell your players their stuff is gone, you're just playing a referee. I have ran through the original 14 quests many times. I almost always kill at least one Hero per Quest.

[Goblin-King]

you don’t want to make them lose their weapons or something like that.

Yes I do! Don't you?

Frankly I agree with chaotic... Heroes need to die! Kept down... Like weeds...
Chaos Spells, Rolling boulder traps, whatever... It's all good. There's a reason it's called the EVIL wizard player.

Of course it's a bit of a moral dilemma when you are both the designer of a quest and the opponent player.
Are you an *Play-Doh factory* if you design a quest so hard you know heroes are gonna die? If you put rust spells in just to strip them of their equipment.
But really, the way to go is to don't let them get too powerful in the first place.

[GimmeYerGold]

you don’t want to make them lose their weapons or something like that.

Yes I do! Don't you?

Frankly I agree with chaotic... Heroes need to die! Kept down... Like weeds...
Chaos Spells, Rolling boulder traps, whatever... It's all good. There's a reason it's called the EVIL wizard player.

Of course it's a bit of a moral dilemma when you are both the designer of a quest and the opponent player.
Are you an *Play-Doh factory* if you design a quest so hard you know heroes are gonna die? If you put rust spells in just to strip them of their equipment.
But really, the way to go is to don't let them get too powerful in the first place.

I made that mistake last time. Starting a new quest pack, and this is the "new" Barbarian:



All other Heroes had only 1 defend die starting out, and only daggers. It was nice to see them fear for their lives for a change.

[knightkrawler]

I agree with chaoticprime and Goblin-King.

Also self-written quests are not good when you know someone's gonna die. They are good when they are a challenge to the heroes in any way. They may all live but give them a run for it.
I#ve found that restricting hero classes to using weapons and not using others is a very easy way to limit their maxed-out stats. I went about that in a very intuitive way and went with fantasy clichè. To make it short.
Including game system artefacts but leaving out plate armor, for AD/DD the Barbarian would have 5/4 (cannot make ranged attacks), the Dwarf 4/4 (plus crossbow), the Elf 3/5 (plus shortbow and skills), the Wizard 2/5 (plus spells).
This not every hero reaching 5 Defend shifts the heroes' gameplay tactically and I can explore that.

[torilen]

As far as killing heroes or making them lose things (weapons/armor/etc)...I like to try and go with the formula
that Wizard's uses for D&D adventures. A good adventure should take up 2/3 to 3/4 of the resources...BP, spells,
healing potions, etc.

I love the idea of upgrading monsters. Orcs and goblins might be smarter, they might fight better, and they might
have armor and/or magic.

You can also implement changes to AD or DD for multiple attackers. Maybe a group of goblins has been specially
trained and cause a drop in DD for each goblin that attacks...that way it is not ALWAYS something that is used,
and you have a depth of story to add into the game now.

[Goblin-King]

As far as killing heroes or making them lose things (weapons/armor/etc)...I like to try and go with the formula
that Wizard's uses for D&D adventures. A good adventure should take up 2/3 to 3/4 of the resources...BP, spells,
healing potions, etc.

That would be my ideal aim in designing a quest as well.
But it needs to be open enough that with a little luck it's only 1/2 of resources and with a little bad luck it ends with a dead hero.
It's a huge part of the fun that the heroes are actually able to die.

But of course there are basically two schools of game mastering in HQ.
There is the one where Morcar is the opponent player and ideally should do his best to kill the heroes. It's a game. The object is to win.

And then we have the more RP oriented Morcar who aims more to give the players a good time. This could be the case if the quests are very story based.
His excitement comes from seeing the players' faces when they discover the next twist or puzzle.

I've done both and both are fun

[knightkrawler]

I always try to be three things when Morcaring:

- The referee: the legislative (I'm wrote the rules), the executive (I play thereafter and stick to them) & the judicative (I interpret if something comes up and have the only voice therein)
- The fifth player: I have the right to as much fun as the heroes do; I know my part and I use my strenghts, trying to explore the players' weaknesseseseses
- The enemy: I am evil, the players are good, I'm khaos, the players imperial, I am legion, the players are four, I am alone, the players cooperate

These three roles I play give me right and yet also the duty to play fair, but as evil as I can, exploring the 'may's' and 'cannots' of the game.
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By the way, I always want to puke when I read or hear people talk about dungeon mastering in HeroQuest. It happens a lot, especially among the Germans ('Spielleiter').
There is no dungeon master in HQ. I've never played an RPG, much less DM'ed one, but there's a world of difference between setting up an entire world from start to finish with eventualities you have to think of beforehand and putting plastic things into places drawn out for you. Don't get me wrong, but the term Dungeon Master should be reserved for a specific kind of gamer with specific skills and talents, not for us boardgamers.

[Goblin-King]

I think that's a great way to describe Morcar's role
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Just because HQ is much much simpler than D&D doesn't mean that the Evil Wizard player isn't a DM/GM.
He (sometimes) writes the quest, he reads the story/intro, controls the game world, describes what happens (The zombie in the room is actually Karlen...).
Heck some EW-players sometimes change things on the fly; are in fact the god of the game world!

It may be light DM'ing, but like it or not it's still DM'ing.

[knightkrawler]

I think that's a great way to describe Morcar's role
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Just because HQ is much much simpler than D&D doesn't mean that the Evil Wizard player isn't a DM/GM.
He (sometimes) writes the quest, he reads the story/intro, controls the game world, describes what happens (The zombie in the room is actually Karlen...).
Heck some EW-players sometimes change things on the fly; are in fact the god of the game world!

It may be light DM'ing, but like it or not it's still DM'ing.

Sometimes, yeah. But it's overused in the sense that people talk about the role of Morcar as DM'ing always and in general. As if you're a DM just because you're the Evil Wizard.
That's just a wrong assumption. Now a Morcar as you just described him - that's a part of DM'ing having its influence on a boardgame in the right spots. But it's not in the job description. That's talent and skill.