Author: Robin Laws and others
Category: game
Company/Publisher: Issaries, Inc.
Line: Hero Wars
Cost: $19.95
Page count: 256
ISBN: 1-929052-01-04
SKU: IS1101
Capsule Review by Sergio Mascarenhas on 08/17/00.
Genre tags: Fantasy

Here's my review of 'Hero Wars, Roleplaying in Glorantha' (HW:RiG). Before I move on into the review, I have to call your attention to a couple of points:

I got HW:RiG with the boxed set 'Hero Wars, Deluxe'. But, since some of the books included in the box are sold on their own, I decided to review them independently. So, my project is to review today HW:RiG, next to review in the future the HW 'Narrator Book', and finally to review the boxed set that includes these two books. What you're reading is the first part of a three part review.

Second, you've better know that I'm a Glorantha Trading Association member. GTA is a support group that's helping Issaries, Inc. finance and develop its products. I became a member because I loved Glorantha since I discovered this gaming world in 1983. I decided to support its comeback after the demise of RuneQuest. Yet, Glorantha as evolved in the past two decades, and I can't say that I'm a dedicated supported of that evolution. In other words, even if I'm a supporter of what Issaries, Inc. is doing to bring back Glorantha into the market, I'm not a fanatic supporter of the way they're doing it, or where they're taking this world. I take my distances, and hope to be able present an unbiased view of the game line, or, at least, to make clear which are mi bias.

Given that, let's go to the review:

- GENERAL OVERVIEW -

Hero Wars is the fifth game set in Glorantha, the fantasy setting created by Greg Stafford, and greatly expanded by the contributions of the many fans it gathered along the last three decades. It comes after two board games, both produced in the 70's (White Bear and Red Moon, latter called Dragon Pass; and Nomad Gods), and a computer game (King of Dragon Pass, that got into the market last year). But, above all, HW is the roleplaying successor to the excellent RuneQuest [1], first published in 1977.

With the slow death of RuneQuest about 10 years ago, Glorantha roleplaying fans were left without official support for their game [2]. But, even before that (actually, since the 70's), Greg Stafford was dissatisfied with the way RQ handled Glorantha role playing. You see, there was a huge gap between the power level of the board games and RQ. In the board games, the players controlled the major heroes in the hero wars of late Third Age Glorantha. These were the selected few that commanded armies and empires, individuals that were as powerful as an army. On the other hand, RQ's power level was the one of the common man, woman, or creature. The result was that one could wargame the major heroes, or role play the common folks. There was no way to role play the major heroes, neither to wargame the common folks. But, above all – and that's what Greg was dissatisfied with – there was no way to role play the common heroes [3]. Because, you see, there was a power level in between common folks and major heroes: the power level of the local heroes, people that stand above from the crowd, but that are not among the few predestined to change Glorantha forever [4]. RQ rules just couldn't handle these in a satisfying way, so it soon became apparent to Greg that he needed another game to play the heroes of Glorantha. There were talks about this since the 70's, but they went to nowhere. When the painful divorce between Chaosium and AH came to an end by the middle of the 90's Chaosium was no longer in condition to invest in a new game. Eventually, Greg was able to start a new company (Issaries, Inc.), and to realize his dream of a role playing game set in Glorantha where players play heroes. In other words, Hero Wars.

As I just said, players in HW impersonate local heroes, the outstanding individuals of small communities. They're decisively above the crowd, but they are far less powerful than the handful major heroes (or villains). HW is set in a time of change, the end of third age. This is a period of battle, raging magic, and worldwide spanning events. In fact, Glorantha's history is marked by such as this. Each of the past ages finished in a cataclystic way, but those endings (and beginnings, since the end of an age is the start of a new age) always turn out in a different guise. The end of the third age is called the hero wars, precisely because heroes play a major role in its development.

- STYLE ( 2/5 ) -

FORMAT ( 4/5 )

When I was told that the HW line would use a trade paperback format, I thought this was a bad idea, so used I was to larger formats. Now that I have the game in my hands, I must say that this was a pleasant surprise! Yes, it looses in the aesthetic league, but it gains a lot from the practical point of view. Let's face-it, a game book is, above all, an instrument, a tool. We read it to learn the setting and the rules, and come back at it for referencing. A player doesn't buy an RPG book to look at it, or see how well it looks on the shelf. As anybody that likes to read novels knows, trade paperback has a lot of advantages: It makes books easier to pack and transport; it brings flexibility on the situations, positions, and ways we can read; and it's cheaper. When we think in terms of RPG books, it has the added advantage that it calls for less space in the tabletop, so we can have the book right there, and still have plenty of space for all the other things we need to play comfortably.

STRUCTURE ( 2/5 )

The game is divided into ten chapters: Getting Started (5 pages not counting the drawings); 2 chapters on character creation (together have 90 pages); the rule system (39 pages); and 6 chapters on magic (88 pages on the overall). The general structure is serviceable. The problem is the way information is spread within the chapters. Most of the time, the book tries to address several concepts concurrently, instead of exploring them sequentially. The result is that the reader is always jumping forth and back to keep track of sequence of each concept. This makes understanding and learning the game much harder than it needed to.

LAYOUT AND EDITING ( 2/5 )

Just as with format, the layout follows the conventions of trade paperback books, using a single, justified column to fill as much space with text as possible. Once more, this is not a bad thing by itself. In fact, this means that this book is organized like of those larger books that have one-column text, large margins filled with notes, graphics, or empty space. Issaries, Inc. just cut out the paper to be filler with those marginal art, space, and notes, which is not critical when we consider art and space. The problem is that they decided to have a structured approach to notes, differentiating four types of notes: for Narrator (game master), for the players, for "staging" epic role playing, and for examples [5] Since these couldn't be put in margins, they had to be inserted in the main text.

Unfortunately, they took their austere approach too far: there's almost no space between different sections of the text (just one line); the font used is rather small; the book is black and white (using grey to highlight text); headings are not numbered, so they are differentiated through font size, capitals, bold, and italics; they just don't use borders; etc. Notes (see above) are differentiated by a small icon in the beginning of the first line, and through the usage of bold and italics. The result is that it's rather hard to differentiate among the different structural levels of this complex text, which makes reading hard.

What's more, there are tables broken between different pages (forex, pgs. 130-1), tables that are not in their right place (the table in page 119-20 should be with the text in page 124), failed cross references, and other editing problems.

REFERENCING ( 1/5 )

As I said before, I approach this book as a tool for roleplaying in Glorantha. I intend to use it as an 'instruction manual', since this is how I think books like this should be used. And I may be need to do it while in play. The consequence is that I must be able to be referenced to the exact point I want to refresh easily and unambiguously. There are several ways to do this. Let's look how HW:RiG performs in this field (the ratings are personal, reflecting the indexing instruments I favour):

· Table of contents: Coupled with Headings, and Headers, this is the referencing instrument I use more often. The table of contents indicates in which page starts each of the ten chapters. That's all. This is just not enough.

· Headers and footers: The header references the chapter, while the footer contains the page. They fulfil their roles.

· Headings: As I said before, the headings are not numbered, and are not contrasting enough among themselves, which means that is not easy to differentiate a level from the level above or below.

· Indexes: Simply put there are no indexes. From my point of view, this is not a bad thing, since I usually don't use indexes. To me, they're wasted space. Yet, there's a special case that I would like to have in a book like HW:RiG: an index of the pictures. You see, the art in this book is supposed to reflect represent Gloranthan creatures and things. So, I would like to be able to find easily a particular piece of art when I need it.

· Clear, intuitive structure: I talked about this before, but it's useful to stress how a good structure actually helps the player in getting where he wants to go without needing to resort to the resources I've just listed.

Squalid table of contents, unnumbered, confusing headers, no indexes, pour structure? On the overall, I must say that this book is worst than mediocre when we look at referencing, which is unforgivable in a… reference book.

ART ( 4/5 )

The art is attributed to two artists: one was in charge of the coloured, rather mediocre cover (according to my subjective tastes); the other was in charge of around 20, one page black-and-white drawings of a creature, personality, or scene. I like most of the drawings, even if they're not exceptional.

OVERALL ( 2/5 )

I rate the different aspects just described the next way: Format and Art = 1; Referencing = 2; Structure and Layout = 3.

The end result for Form is ( 4*1 + 2*3 + 2*3 + 1*2 + 4*1 ) / 10 = a final rating of 2.2

- SUBSTANCE ( 3/5 ) -

SETTING ( 2/5 )

HW:RiG is the book new players are supposed to buy. This is the book that should allow them to get a grasp on the setting: Glorantha. A key aspect of Glorantha is that it's a magic-heavy game world. Everybody can use magic, and magic can be used at all power levels, going from the most mundane applications to world spanning magical effects. More than that, magic is divided among different systems based on different principles and worldviews. A second major aspect of Glorantha is the multitude of peoples / races and cultures in it. As you can see, Glorantha is a complex world. The first two incarnations of RQ only attempted to cover a small part of the diverse cultures and magic systems existing in that universe. Avalon Hill's 3rd edition broadened that coverage, but the HW line is going to attempt to cover the whole. Since it's directed at players, it does not need to provide them with a complete understanding of the setting. After all, that's the realm of the GM, not of the players. But it should allow them to get enough info so that they can understand in broad lines their characters and the environment where these are going to get a go. Let's see how HW:RiG performs in this field.

HW:RiG does not provide a capable introduction to the game world. We cannot consider one page (pp. 13-14) describing the Hero Wars as a capable presentation of the setting.

The character creation rules in chapter three include keywords to four cultures of Dragon Pass, central Genertela, the northern continent of Glorantha. It makes sense to present info about the cultures of that region, since Dragon Pass is described as the focal point of the Hero Wars. What's disputable was the choice of cultures that were chosen to be included in the book, and the level of detail at which they are described, specially on what concerns the magic keywords. You see, most of the time each culture has several alternative magic keywords relating to any given field of action. For instance, there are five keywords of war gods in the Heortling culture; three healer keywords; two hunting-related keywords. This was an unfortunate choice. It would have been better to be less detailed about those four cultures, and provide more general info about Glorantha, or to have a more diverse set of Dragon Pass cultures, including some non-human ones.

One of the best ways to convey information is through maps and timelines. In fact, one of the most attractive things in RQ2 was the timeline, and the maps of Dragon Pass and Prax. Given HW:RiG's focus on Dragon Pass, one would expect to have at least the first of these two maps in HW:RiG. Unfortunately, that's not the case. There's no way for a player to get a clue on the whereabouts of his hero. This is particularly odd when we consider that there are so many one-page drawings in the book. Leaving out a drawing, and including a map would be a sensible move. Alas, Issaries, Inc. didn't think so.

This is not to say that there's no info about Glorantha in this book. There is. In fact there's a lot of info about it. I mentioned the info present in the character creation and keywords chapter, but we can get more info in the examples in the other chapters, and specialy in the four chapters describing the magic system. The problem is that this info is not organized, and is not complete, so it does not provide a broad vision of Glorantha, while it requires a lot of effort on the part of the player to make sense of what he can get here and there.

SYSTEM ( 4/5 )

The HW system is based on a particular understanding of roleplaying, a view that's coupled with a set of core ideas on how to translate it into the core system concepts. All of this was developed while keeping a close watch into the setting diversity, and the required power level mentioned before. We need to see this in detail if we want to understand HW:

The authors of the game understand roleplaying as a social activity directed at impersonating characters, instead of individuals. The difference is that anything that can be separated from its surroundings is an individual. To define an individual all we need are taxonomies. It's an exercise in categorization. For instance, a rock is an individual. On the other hand, a character is more than an individual. A character is unique. It escapes categorization – or else we may see him as a category in itself.

As I said before, this understanding of role playing is translated into a set of core ideas about how to design the system. The first idea is that, if we want to play characters, we should not bother to look at them as individuals. In HW we want to play more than characters, we want to play heroes, and what turns a hero into a hero is precisely that something that's unique in him, that sets him out of the crowd. In other words, we can downplay all the pre-defined categorization stuff. Instead, we should concentrate on what makes a hero unique.

This idea suits well the setting. As I said before, the players play heroes that are in a scale of power where there are both much powerful and much weaker entities. When one is able to interact with a god, why bother with details? After all, the only reason why a mortal is able to interact with a god is because he has something unique that justifies the possibility of that interaction. Everything else is irrelevant. What's more, heroes are memorable. They're the subject of myths, stories, songs, tales. Now, in these we seldom find details. They present the core events that people remember about past events. The idea is that when designing characters for HW we don't need to record or bother with a detailed description of all its aspects. We should concentrate instead in the few traits that make him an outstanding, unique individual.

The second core idea, something that results logically from the first idea mentioned above, is that we don't need lengthy technical specifications of the traits of the character. These are to be presented as keywords, and are to be left undefined. After all, it's not the function of the system to explain every possible situation, and to present all the alternatives. What the character is able to achieve – what makes him a hero – is something that can only be sorted out in actual play.

The third core idea is that there's no need to a complex system. All we need is a core set of concepts that we can apply to all game situations that require formal handling. Now, this is not new. What's interesting is the way HW attempted to have an highly abstract core resolution principle [6] and to use that same abstract system to deal with all types of situations.

The ideas just presented model the game's concepts and rules. Everything in the game can be described by a set of keywords. Keywords are the key concepts that describe a thing, creature, character, god, culture, etc. They are the outstanding aspects of the entity or thing to which they're applied, what makes it unique. Each keyword is both a descriptor, a device to fuel imagination, and an ability.

As a descriptor, the keyword is just that: something we can say about the thing or entity to which it relates. This concept models the character creation rules. Character creation is directed at identifying the key concepts that describe a character, the ones that make him unique. These are its keywords. The way it's done is by allowing the player to write a short 100 words description of the character. The analysis of that description allows the player to sort out the keywords that describe the character (there are guidelines to help the player in the actual writing of the description, and to explain how to sort out the keywords from it) [7]. If the player does not want to write a description, he can still resort to two other approaches: choosing the keywords from a list of cultural, predefined keywords (as I mentioned before, there are list for four cultures); leave it to a future moment, and pick keywords as he plays, instead of making his mind before starting to play. All in all, this offers a great degree of flexibility, and provides solutions for all types of gamers.

Keywords are also a device to fuel imagination. That's why they are not described. They are open to interpretation by players and GM. (What exactly means 'run on tree top', a Vinga keyword? The book does not say. It's up to the players, based on their knowledge of the setting, and the way they interpret and game it, to make up their minds.) That's also why players and GMs are encouraged to make up their own keywords, and why the narrative method is presented as the basic method for character creation.

Finally, keywords are also abilities. The game assigns to keywords an ability rating, so basically anything in HW leads to action (either actively or passively), and action is always handled according to a common set of rules, no matter what the keyword is about. This applies to character creation. After choosing the character's keywords, the player defines their "power level", defining in which keywords the character performs outstandingly, where he performs well, etc., within the limits defined in the rules.

As I said before, the game has a single resolution system that's universally applied. There's a qualitative scale of possible outcomes of actions or events. Keywords have an ability rating that defines their "power level" defined in terms of "Masteries". The Mastery scale is an open scale that starts at no mastery and has no upper limit: Common people's abilities are at the no mastery or 1 mastery levels, masters of a craft are at 2 masteries, heroes are at 3 masteries, and so on. (Starting characters have only three keywords with 1 mastery, all other keywords have no masteries.)

As I said before, higher mastery levels can achieve better outcomes in qualitative terms. The exact outcome of an action is determined by rolling 1d20. So, besides masteries, keywords are also assigned an ability rating called 'target number' against which to roll the die (lower rolls means better results).

For any action there may be a counter-action. This may be a resistance, or it may be the action of another entity. HW handles these "contests" in two ways: simple contests and extended contests. Simple contests require the active party to succeed in his ability roll, and to roll better than the resistance of the passive party (which may be either a set value or the result of a roll). In this case, by combining the roll of 1d20 against the target number of the active party with the resistance of the passive party we get the exact qualitative outcome of the action.

Extended contests introduce another concept: action points (AP). A keyword has APs equal to its masteries * 20 plus the target number. In an extended contest each party decides how many APs he puts at stake in each round; according to the result of the die roll (that's handled like in simple contests), the party may gain or loose APs. If the APs are down to 0, the character is out of contest. Anyway, the players must explain what the character is doing, since this description is what the APs stake stands for. The exact reasons and consequences of being put out of contest are sorted out after the end of the contest. (For instance, in a combat the players exchange APs round after round until one if driven to 0 APs. Whether this means that the looser died, was badly damaged, or whatever is only sorted out at this moment, based on the line of action of the winner, as described by the player during the contest.)

What's more, there are rules for group contests (either simple or extended) where the values of several things or entities that belong to the same side of a confrontation are combined into a single roll. One of the interesting things about the system is that there's no set combination of keywords to use in contests. In other words, there are no defined boundaries between keywords usable in "combat", or in "social interaction", or in "magic", etc. One is free to use any given keyword in any context… as long as one is able to provide a rationale for its usage in the context. (For instance, one may oppose a physical attack – combat keyword – with a communication keyword, meaning that the victim attempts to convince the offender to stop the offensive action. On the other hand, one may stop the insistence of a haggler with a punch!) This is subject to the judgement of the GM, and it may lead to penalties, if the GM considers that the keyword is only marginally useful. [8]

The magic system deserves a special mention.

The way it works out conforms to the principles outlined above: magic is described in terms of keywords, each keyword has a mastery level and a target number, and so on.

In HW there are four types of magic: theistic, animist, sorcerous, and mystic [9]. The first two systems were covered in RQ2, the third was also covered in RQ3. Roleplaying "official" Glorantha mystics is an absolute novelty of HW. Even if those magic systems share the basic concepts with what could be found in RQ, they suffered major changes (they're now more different among each other than never before).

Theistic magic is based on the special relationship between a creature (thing or entity) and a god. In this case, the way to do magic is through the inspiration of the deeds of the god, deeds that the worshiper attempts to emulate. Sorcerous magic is based on the control of the energies and powers of the universe. It's the result of study and research. Animist magic is based on the interaction with spirits. The mystic is able to achieve magical events through outgoing the boundaries of reality – artificial boundaries, in fact, of an elusive reality.

The key thing is to understand the philosophy of each magic system, and how it understands and handles reality. So, magic in HW does not require long descriptions of concrete and discrete magical abilities, spells, etc. Instead, magic requires a good understanding of the mundane (the realm which boundaries magic allows to cross and change), and how, in the spirit of a certain magical system and culture, it can be undone / changed through non-mundane means. (Of course, to be able to play this one needs to have a good understanding of Glorantha, and of its magical systems and cultures, something that HW:RiG does not provide.)

What about character advancement? This is done through Hero Points (HP). HPs can be used to advance the character's abilities (the rating of the keywords), or to special effects during play. The game defines how many HPs must be spent either to raise an ability, or to learn a new ability (gaining a new keyword). The cost in HPs changes with the type of ability (magical abilities cost more), or whether the ability learned / increased was used in relation to the gaming session (unrelated cost more). Abilities are not raised past 20. Instead, raising an ability above 20 gives the character one more level of mastery in the ability, while the ability is set at the value it would be raised above 20 less 20 (for instance, if the character has an ability's target number at 19, and the player raises it for three levels, it does not go up to 22; instead he gets one more mastery, and the target number is set at 2).

The system is good, and it has a lot of potential. Yet, there's a downside: first, it is poorly explained and organized. This makes it hard to understand. Second, there are too many concepts, and some of those concepts are easy to mix. This makes it confusing and complex. Issaries must simplify the concepts, explain them better, and present them in a better order, in future editions of the game. Otherwise, it risks putting off prospective players.

OVERALL

Once more, I have different ratings for the aspects just mentioned. The key info in a Players Book is the system related data, since this is the book that's supposed to explain players how to play. Setting information is important, granted, and must be well integrated with the system info, but it's not required to be exhaustive, or comprehensive. After all, the setting is supposed to be developed in the books directed at the GM. So, I'll apply the next multipliers: System = 2; Setting = 1. This gives:

(2*4 + 1*2) / 3 = for a final ratting of 3.33

- ON THE OVERALL -

HW:RiG was an attempt to create a game that would present new concepts, designed to work seamlessly with its detailed setting. Unfortunately, the game designers were overwhelmed by their own effort. At '2' for Style, and '3' for Substance I just can't recommend this book.

Yet, there's hope. It seems that this book is selling very well, according to the publisher expectations. Most probably it's selling to long time fans of Glorantha, people that were already addicted to the game world before the decision to design a new game based on that setting took form. Also, Issaries, Inc. licensed the game to a French publisher, and it seems that the French edition addressed many of the shortcomings I mentioned in my review. And it seems that Issaries, Inc. is going to publish a second edition that also addresses those shortcomings.

So, my suggestion is:

· If you can find a group of players that know how to play the game, and can introduce you to it, buy the book. It's not perfect, but it can be used if you already know how to play the game, and have a grasp on the setting.

· If you are not lucky enough to have access to such a group, wait for the 2nd edition.

Some final notes about the character sheet (final because this relates both to Style and Substance):

There's no character sheet in this players book. That's a mistake. (All we have is an example of a character with the corresponding character sheet in page 28.) This book is intended to be sold on its own. It should include a character sheet [10].

Second, The layout of the character sheet is very poor. If there's something that I think must look pretty, it's character sheets. This is the piece of paper that provides physical presence to the character, the one the player has under his eyes all the time. Publishers should at least put a lot of effort in the aspect of their character sheets. Issaries failed completely in this respect.

Finally, the character sheet breaks away from the basic premises of the game: it attempts to introduce categorization where the game tried to avoid it. It breaks keywords into categories like 'physical skills', 'mental skills', 'personality'. This is wrong on two accounts: first, it downplays one of the most interesting aspects of the game, the lack of boundaries that have no direct relationship to the setting. Second, it forces the player to make arbitrary choices when assigning the character's keywords to one or another category, like the example provided shows: 'craft weapon' is as much a physical ability as a mental ability; ditto for 'stay awake'; being 'boastful' is as much a mental ability as a personally trait.

Like many people (including John Wick…) I think that a character sheet says a lot about a game. HW character sheet suffers from the same defects than HW:RiG: there's potential, but it's marred by both under and over development.

- NOTES -

[1] Yes, I said excellent. You guessed it: there's a standard for Gloranthan role playing against which HW must measure itself. But I'll not address this issue here. I'll leave it to a future review of the HW deluxe box.

[2] By "official" I mean support by Chaosium (the original publisher of RQ) and by Avalon Hill (the company that bought the rights to RQ in the 80's). There was plenty of "unofficial" support by a generous and burgeoning market of fan-produced zines, books, and web sites.

[3] In a sense, HW is a fantasy-low-power-super-hero game. In fact, most super-hero games are set in contemporary / near future settings. HW takes super-hero roleplaying into pre-modern times. Characters in HW are at the power level of Batman, Spiderman, and their siblings. The major heroes of Glorantha are at the power level of Superman. A very interesting exercise would be to take HW system and adapting it to a super-hero setting, something that's really not hard to do. See note … below.

[4] Of course, these ones are not supposed to be player characters. In official Glorantha these are NPCs by excellence.

[5] At first sight this seems a good idea. Yet, when we look at the final product, we can easily notice that they should have been less expansive in this field. Instead of including these four types of notes, they could very well fuse the epic roleplaying and the examples notes into a single category, while the notes for the GM could have been placed in the Narrator book, and most of the player notes could just be part of the ongoing text.

[6] By "core resolution principle" I mean the way the system handles to deal with the possible alternative outcomes of a game situation.

[7] Of course, the description must relate to Glorantha, so the player has to know the setting in order to write it. On the other hand, it can introduce new elements (references to things, persons, creatures, etc.) to the setting, elements that are not part of the published materials, or of those developed by the GM. The HW designers believe that player creativity should take the lead from any idea of an official Glorantha.

[8] I'm skipping the details of the rule system in this description. I must also mention that the way it is written, and organized make it very hard to understand. It really needs to be completely rewritten in order to become clearer, easy to understand, and learn.

[9] The book also includes rules for advanced magic that really shouldn't be here: they belong in the GM book.

[10] In fact, I suppose the reason why there's no character sheet in this book is because the De Luxe box includes four alternative character sheets, one for each magical system. This is no reason why there should not be a fifth generic character sheet, independent of the discrete magical systems.

Sergio Mascarenhas

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 3 (Average)