Olympic Competions and other Sports

[AnotherSkip]

I was in a friends 75+75+XP FH campaign and we had several good sessions with a collection of competitions at an annual fair.

 

They incuded Strength feats

Hanging from a quadrangle of poles over a pool of water

Stone hurling

Tug of War

 

 

Races

a long distance foot race and a short distance sprinting races.

as well as a Horse race through town and over a wide variety of obstacles

 

Professional competitions

A hunting Competition

tests of lore, history, and knowledge

a test of healing the day after the martial competitions

 

Since HERO is not just about laying the smackdown on Orcs and other nastys what sort of competitions would you come up with to challenge the players outside of combat?

 

And do you have mechanics for typical Fair or Olympic style competitions?

[Herolover]

Funny thing, I have a new Fantasy campaign I am starting up and the players are going to be going to a huge festival where I hope they take part in some of the competitions.

 

So far I have planned:

Jousting

This is simple and has rules written up in the old and new Fantasy Hero. The only problem with this contest is that the players should be nobles or knights and need a lot of equipment. I figure though that maybe if the characters are well known they might be allowed into the contest.

 

Archery Contest.

Contestants fire 3 arrows each at targets placed 50 feet (8 hexes), 150 feet (23 hexes), and 250 feet (38 hexes) apart. This gives Range modifiers of -2, -6, and -7 respectively. The contestants score points based upon where they hit the target.

Bullseye (-8 OCV) gives 5 points, Inner ring (-5 OCV) gives 3 points, Outer ring (-3 OCV) gives 1 points. As I figure it this means that the closest target has DCV's of 13, 10, and 8. Have the players make a single attack roll and for each arrow and figure where their arrow hit based upon what DCV they hit. Ties can go to a "shoot out."

 

Wrestling contest

Two contestants are placed in a ring (2 hexes in diameter). No weapons, no armors. First one knocked out of the ring looses. I figure a lot of shoves, move bys, and move throughs.

 

Martial Contest (Group and Individual)

Basic one on one and group combat with no magic allowed. The contestants must use wooden weapons provided by the festival. Contestants battle and a person is ruled out by judges after three solid hits, or one "critical hit" as ruled by the judges. Contestants are expected to be honest and "call out" when hit. I figure this can be very interesting in dealing with contestants that are not honest, judges that have been "bought." and just the fickle nature of did the judges see that "hit."

 

Bard Contest (I am not sure what to call this)

This is a contest I am taking from oriental gaming. The contestants are given a subject, such as faith, and have ten minutes to come up with a song, poem, prose, or story that exemplifies the idea of the subject. Judges rule the winner.

 

Horse Race

Contestants enter the race with any horse they want and go across a long distance course that contains many obstacles which require the contestant to maneuver around. I plan on letting the riders make a riding roll to add +1 or +2†to the movement of the horse. That and the obstacles mean that the winner will be the best horse ride and not necessarily the fastest horse.

[AnotherSkip]

Well call the bard competiotion a Bardic competition, after all that is what the SCAer's do!

 

 

Other things you could have are Riddling contests, Chess, Drinking contests and other games.

 

Essentially every skill a person has can be translated into a competition.

 

For example the Tracking competition : trackers have three minutes to identify 10 different sets of tracks drawn on a waxboard.

 

Others typically would be dancing, juggling, etc...

And keep in mind that typically a festival goer would attend non competitions also. And if there is a cute guy who does well at the sports competitions he may just find himself 'kidnapped" off to a dance by several attractive ladies....

 

 

I'm working on a Three legged race

wherein you either use the lower of the two team members teamwork skill to have a shot at using full movement, or a kind of chart of Str and Dex roll possibilities.

 

My campaign has a midsummer festival around a crown competition for the fastest Racing Ship, from there, the whole country has gone mad and engages in every kind of sport or competition possible that they can think of. They also bet on it too.....

 

Log rolling definately need stats for log rolling. just the sort of crasy stunt people would do at that fair.

[Nightshade]

I have a culture on my world that is heavy into javelins. They have many different javelin contests. One emphasized javelin accuracy, where they throw at a large horizontal target (javelin darts anyone?). Another is more like the olympic javelin throw, emphasizing distance of the throw. There is also a speed throwing contest where they measure how many javelins can be thrown into a vertical target in a certain time period. Another is basically javelin skeet - moving targets must be hit by the thrower. Great fun all around!

 

Another culture I have solves all of its internal disputes with a set of games similar to the Olympics. One of the favored contests for this set of games is a form of jousting. The two participants must ride male bison, who butt heads. He who stays on longer, wins. They also have wrestling, log throwing, and a marathon-style race. They definately glorify strength in this culture.

 

Nightshade

[Vanguard00]

I've used a lot of the competitions already mentioned (jousts, wrestling, bardic, etc), and I've also stolen liberally from Scottish Highland games, lumberjack contests, ancient and modern olympics, etc.

 

When you see the same barbarian hacking down a tree faster than anyone, splitting a stump at twenty paces with an axe, then trying to catch a pig with both man and animal greased up but GOOD...man, that's comedy.

 

The suggestion for basing competition on skills is one I'll use next time, too (I like the tracking example).