how do I balance this game? and speed question

[sephnroth]

brilliant, thanks daedalus I knew it wasnt right that he was weilding that thing! thing is I think I read that part before, I just could never find it when I went to double check and prove it!

I have a related but different question now:

How can I encourage players to maybe role play and get into it a bit more? At the moment its very much 4 players at a table playing a board game and if I start reading say fluff from the manual to describe the dungeon we get chuckles and a few "ooo's" but it only really serves to PREVENT them getting immersed, I think they are a little embarassed by the idea or something (i'm a bit nervous too as GM to be fair!)

The best immersion we ever had was at the end of one of the shattered amulet quests in the room that rotates and the scout accidently set off the rotation trap, got stuck in a room filling up with skaven whilst the heavy hitters were stuck outside, the archer fumbled and shot a team mate in the rear and everyone got REALLY into it.

Are there any tips or tricks for encouraging people new to RP to engage with it gently? Our games are still very fun, I just feel theres another level to hit!

[torilen]

You may have to drag them into it kicking and screaming, if you REALLY want to get them to role play. More than
likely, you have a mix of issues:
1 - They are going to be embarrassed about it at first, and it will be hard to over come that. You could lead by
example, making sure to role play character monsters and enemies, giving better descriptions of what is going
on around them, of what things look like, etc. You can try teasing it out of them a little bit at a time...maybe
have a skaven or goblin character they HAVE to interact with instead of kill - it could even be the owner of a
store where they have to buy something - and it has a squeaky voice. When they talk to it, try to get them to
use a voice or accent, maybe just a different way of talking than they usually do.

2 - Some player just don't want to role play. These are considered hack-and-slash players. You'll have to feel
out what players you have. The group I used to play D&D with, about half were hack and slash, and half liked
role playing. It was hard to get a good balance, though, because if you don't have everyone role playing at least
a little bit, then the moments will be lost and it will be hard for the others to get immersed.

[JasonMCM]

Another way to immerse your players is to remove as many interruptions as possible. AHQ comes with interruptions built right in at every door and corner as you have to stop playing and roll off of some charts to see what new is placed on the table. You may want to consider pre-generating your dungeons. (I have barley played AHQ and never tried to role play it, so I don't know how well that would work.) But trying it may be fun. The party 'leader' may question why half of his responsibilities have vanished but I doubt any enjoyment will be lost.

[mitchiemasha]

oh man, the only bit i like from AHQ is The Dungeon generator.

[slev]

I have a thread here somewhere about my re-creation of AHQ. I basically kept the core rules 90% teh same, and mostly adjusted the tables, values, etc, and made new hero creation rules.

It is a LOT more balance.