Subject: RQ Discussions 19 First Distribution: July 3, 1991 ====================================================================== From: Subject: more comments on alternate sorcery rules Comments on part two of your magic system: If your players want a flash-bang sorcery system, give it to them. If that's not what your players want, or if it detracts from some players' enjoyment (i.e., those who aren't sorcerers), then you'll have to rethink. There's nothing inherently wrong in a juiced-up sorcery system. It doesn't violate GM integrity, the preservation of which is the most important thing in an RPG. If it pleases your players, then you've accomplished the second most important thing. If it doesn't, you've made a bad investment. Every GM does that. We can learn from our mistakes, and from others', or we can choose not to. I am impressed by the amount of work you have done. If you have put as much energy and time and thought into your campaign background, you must have a top-notch game. It does not seem to me, however, that the Staffordian world-view, which I knock in the last paragraph of this message, includes wizards creating rings of fire, beasts out of thin air, etc., except at very high levels of personal power. Orathorn. Arolanit Zzaburi. Mistress Race Arkati. You know the type. I agree with Andrew's comments about Illusion. I think the other runes can achieve equally flashy and powerful effects without creating things. For example: Disorder can confuse and distract beings, weaken things, and destroy information. How about a powerful Disorder spell at a cross-roads, making travellers take the wrong way? As for summoning things quickly, one can either summon and bind them, or craft some sort of specialist who trades off flexibility for quick response. Shamans can summon easily in an Axis Mundi, so it's not ridiculous. What you need is a player with imagination and a good working knowledge of the runes and their inner meanings. Info on Ethilrist: the only info available, aside from the minimum in Dragon Pass, is a five-page excerpt from "A History of My Black Horse Troop" in the RQ Companion. He would appear to be insanely powerful and pedantic. The intro to the "History" says that he is a native of the West Jungle, but I know of no jungle in the western part of Glorantha. The westernmost jungle is Laskal, in Pamaltela, which would be a possible origin. However, the intro to the "History" also says that the West Jungle is near the Rockwood Mountains. Short answer: another Staffordian inconsistency. Long answer: the High Pools and the West Jungle are somewhere across the Rockwoods from the Arrolian Properties. If Arolanit equals "the Arrolian Properties," then the High Pools would be in Fronela. Then the West Jungle would seem to be Erontree, a mixed green and brown elf forest. Oh, well. Poetic license, anyone? ====================================================================== From: malcolm.smith@alcatel.no (Malcolm Smith) Subject: Alternate Earth stuff As far as I'm concerned material such as Vikings and the 'RQ in Japan' are RQGURPS. I only bought the former because I live just outside Oslo and I thought it'd be fun to see how my favourite FRP dealt with the Vikings; but apart from browsing through the books (and realising how accurate the research was!) I have no time for it. Although I am a total novice at RQ (heck, I only really ever get to play solo games as I don't have much spare time at the moment) I feel that such material is but a poor shadow of RQ; I was drawn into Gloranthia by the sheer majesty, romance and power of Gloranthia. Having four foot tall midgets dressed in black coming through the paper dining room wall seems more than a little incongruous to me. As I say, I'm only a novice and when I get more spare time (it'll have to wait for that sporting injury to come first!!!) then I hope to get to play more RQ - and perhaps with other people as I'm sick of trying to pretend that I don't know what's around the next corner. Can I bore you chaps with a few thoughts on playing postal Dragon Pass sometime? ====================================================================== From: malcolm.smith@alcatel.no (Malcolm Smith) Subject: Re: Ken McKinney's excellent Rune-Based Sorcery I'm afraid I'm a bit of a Gulper when it comes to trying to fathom out rules 'n' things (it 'only' took me the best part of nine years to fathom out the quagmire of the Dragon Pass rules!) and I've come to a bit of a cropper with a few of the fundamentals of Ken's system. First, can someone explain where a sorcerer gets his Law and Chaos percentages from, and how do they increase? Secondly, for spells such as Create Basilisk and Create Man there is a reference to a number of Chaos and Law Points. Exactly what is this reference? Thirdly, would I be correct in assuming that if one casts a spell correctly then the caster can make an experience roll on the Runes associated? Fourthly, with the Forever step on the timescale, would this make Immortality a possibility, or would only be immortal within 10 metres of the casting site unless one spends more Points on widening the radius of the spell/area? Re: Monty Haul (as seen in almost every issue...) Er, what is this? [I can answer that -- he was an American game show host. In the role-playing context, it is meant as a derogatory term to describe "giveaway" campaigns, where the characters are immensely powerful and great treasures are just waiting to be won with little struggle. --ACB] ====================================================================== From: Andrew Bell (bell@cs.unc.edu) Subject: Conditions on enchantments I have couple of open questions about enchantments and conditions. I'm interested to see how you folks deal with them -- one day I'll write to Greg Stafford with all these questions, but in the meantime, here's the first one: User/Target conditions: The description says that a target condition requires that the target be in a clearly defined group. It seems to me that this makes it fairly easy to create the ultimate inquisition device -- say, have a condition of "casts a light on any worshiper of a Chaos cult" or "anyone who would like the Red Moon Goddess and the Lunar armies defeated" or something of that nature, so you just go around touching people with the object or have an area-effect they have to pass through. What do you think the limits on the detective power of enchantments to determine such things should be? ====================================================================== The RuneQuest(tm) mailing list is a courtesy of Andrew Bell. All opinions and material above are the responsibility of the originator, and copyrights are held by them. Unless specified in the specific article, all RQ Digest material is freely redistributable on a not-for-profit basis as long as author credit is included. RuneQuest is a trademark of Chaosium, Inc. 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