Babyl Options: Append:1 Version:5 Reformat-Headers-P Summary-Window-Format: Use Default  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA10311; Mon, 2 Aug 93 08:45:39 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA26909; Mon, 2 Aug 93 09:44:48 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketest.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 2 Aug 93 9:45:09 EDT From: JOVANOVIC@CUCCFA.CCC.COLUMBIA.EDU To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: RE: Running Skill and Sprinting Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 9:43:41 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <628C9177717@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu> Another option might be to simply say that you can double your movement rate in noncombat conditions. In rough terrain, with people fighting all around you, hitting top sprint speed would probably be a bit rough. Oliver  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA11274; Mon, 2 Aug 93 09:09:10 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA27917; Mon, 2 Aug 93 10:08:39 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketest.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 2 Aug 93 10:08:42 EDT From: JOVANOVIC@CUCCFA.CCC.COLUMBIA.EDU To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Rumors Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 10:07:45 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <6292E607737@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu> If I hear something definite, I'll let people know. As of now, I haven't. Oliver  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA12827; Mon, 2 Aug 93 09:52:08 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA29935; Mon, 2 Aug 93 10:51:27 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketest.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 2 Aug 93 10:51:32 EDT From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Rumors Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 10:47:27 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <629E497233C@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu> While rumors are flying, any rumor when the next draft will be let out? :) -- Burton  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA14204; Mon, 2 Aug 93 10:23:45 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA01372; Mon, 2 Aug 93 11:23:11 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketest.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 2 Aug 93 11:23:14 EDT From: Anthony Ragan To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: more rumors...... Date: Mon, 02 Aug 93 08:23 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <62A6D0B32E4@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu> Loren is a God Learner! --Anthony  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA17518; Mon, 2 Aug 93 11:16:34 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA03762; Mon, 2 Aug 93 12:16:02 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketest.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 2 Aug 93 12:16:04 EDT From: curtiss@netcom.com (Curtis Shenton) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: more rumors...... Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 9:16:40 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <62B4E246EFC@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu> > > > Loren is a God Learner! > > --Anthony > > If you think I'm a godlearner now just wait until the Mythopoet's > Manual comes out: How to create and use original and lifelike > organized religions for roleplaying games and other fiction. We'll all > be godlearners together. Ha ha, I've seen bits of it so I KNOW you're a godlearner. This is going to be THE handbook for aspiring godlearners for years to come. Loren's done a very good job with this. > > whoah, > +++++++++++++++++++++++23 > Loren Miller internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu > "Science" does not remove the terror of the gods. > -- Curtis Shenton curtiss@netcom.com internet & 4@3091 WWIVnet Currently designing a fantasy setting for WotC. If you are interested in baroque steampunk technology in a fantasy setting and want to playtest email me and I'll give you the info on joining the mailing list.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA16252; Mon, 2 Aug 93 10:50:00 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA02458; Mon, 2 Aug 93 11:48:12 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketest.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 2 Aug 93 11:48:20 EDT From: "Loren J. Miller" To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: more rumors...... Date: 02 Aug 1993 11:49:45 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <62AD74507E8@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu> > Loren is a God Learner! > --Anthony If you think I'm a godlearner now just wait until the Mythopoet's Manual comes out: How to create and use original and lifelike organized religions for roleplaying games and other fiction. We'll all be godlearners together. whoah, +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu "Science" does not remove the terror of the gods.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA25682; Mon, 2 Aug 93 14:10:33 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA10665; Mon, 2 Aug 93 15:09:51 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketest.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 2 Aug 93 15:10:03 EDT From: Carl Fink To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Rumors Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 15:09:30 -0400 Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <62E342B13C1@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu> Burton writes: B>While rumors are flying, any rumor when the next draft will be let out? :) When we hear something definite. Oliver does a tremendous amount of work making these drafts, you know. We don't want to make him do all that work to find that it's unnecessary. --Carl  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA06248; Mon, 2 Aug 93 17:56:46 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA18298; Mon, 2 Aug 93 18:55:00 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketest.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 2 Aug 93 18:54:56 EDT From: Tim Posney To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Rumors Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 08:54:30 +1000 Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <631F43A151A@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu> Just supposing AH decides to shelve RQIV and the renaissance of Runequest turns into a still birth (sorry I could not resist) why not publish the RQIV rules as a fanzine type thing. I am currently working on an integrated set of rules (i.e. rqiv draft merged with rq3 rules where appropriate) for my own use. Assuming we can get AH to allow it (or pay them some sort of royalty) I would be prepared to publish this on a non-profit basis. And to those who ask, no I'm sorry I can't distribute this to anyone since it contains copyright material. At the moment it is just for my own use. I am also working of a great big book of cults, to include Cults of Prax, Cults of Terror,net cults, published stuff from wyrms footnotes etc. Again if I someone can get chaosium or AH approval this could be published as a fanzine thing, or they could publish it themselves. regards tim  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA23595; Tue, 3 Aug 93 08:33:03 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA05973; Tue, 3 Aug 93 09:32:04 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketest.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 3 Aug 93 9:32:16 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RE: Running Skill and Sprinting Date: Tue, 03 Aug 93 04:46:39 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <64093263D59@marketest.wharton.upenn.edu> JOVANOVIC@CUCCFA.CCC.COLUMBIA.EDU writes: > Another option might be to simply say that you can double your movement > rate in noncombat conditions. In rough terrain, with people fighting all > around you, hitting top sprint speed would probably be a bit rough. That didn't really deal with the issue of what the Running skill was used for. And as far as it went, I've seen combat situations were some of the participants were approaching the scene, not under fire, and essentially, just interested in going from A to B. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA29259; Wed, 11 Aug 93 09:50:17 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA00705; Wed, 11 Aug 93 10:48:54 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 11 Aug 93 10:49:43 EDT From: "Loren Miller" To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: We're alive? Date: 11 Aug 93 10:48:35 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <701E0FE6BFB@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Did that invasion of exploding gorp let up? Are we alive again? -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller LOREN@wmkt.wharton.upenn.edu Into the flood again, same old trip it was back when  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA29797; Wed, 11 Aug 93 10:03:32 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA01313; Wed, 11 Aug 93 11:02:56 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 11 Aug 93 11:02:57 EDT From: Anthony Ragan To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: (COPY) We're alive? Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 07:56 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7021CDB7F6E@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Did that invasion of exploding gorp let up? Are we alive again? -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller LOREN@wmkt.wharton.upenn.edu Into the flood again, same old trip it was back when {Anthony here} What gorp? That was my Jello casserole you just sunspeared! :) Does Ken's announcement on the Daily mean that AH no longer likes roleplay games? Seems to me that, without an RQ4, the RQ Renaissance won't get very far......  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA29771; Wed, 11 Aug 93 10:02:59 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA01300; Wed, 11 Aug 93 11:02:22 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 11 Aug 93 11:02:25 EDT From: pvanheus@cs.uct.ac.za (Peter van Heusden) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Life + Glorantha Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 17:02:02 +0200 (SAT) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7021AB6284A@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > Did that invasion of exploding gorp let up? Are we alive again? I'm alive. Don't know about the RQ4 project. Now, I just recently took time to look through the RQ3 Gloranthan book, and what a mess it was, what with apologists and editors having a field day. Now, everyone says RQ4 is going to have Glorantha as a primary world, so ok, how should the intro be run? RQII really didn't do it for me... that gloop of timeline and abbreviated history, which largely made rereference to facts not in evidence, that utter garbage of a map, REALLY put me of Glorantha, and RQII. So, where and how should Glorantha be introduced and detailed in RQ4? Peter ******************************************************************************* Peter van Heusden One man one newsfeed CS3, UCT, Cape Town, RSA "but I love the setting. and the hippies pvanheus@cs.uct.ac.za will be back in the fall" Red_Guest on MediaMOO  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA09483; Wed, 11 Aug 93 13:23:07 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA09429; Wed, 11 Aug 93 14:22:29 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 11 Aug 93 14:22:30 EDT From: curtiss@netcom.com (Curtis Shenton) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: (COPY) We're alive? Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 11:22:52 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <70570A15283@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > Actually, I think that the RQ Rules Companion might provide an even > better alternative to updating the rules wholesale, since it lets people > use their RQ3 scenarii if they want without the hassle of changing every > character's fatigue and skills over to the new rules, unless they want > to. That wasn't very clear was it? Blame it on the new ergonomic keyboard > I'm trying out. Anyway, I think that the RQ Rules Companion is *a good thing* > in fact a better thing than RQ4 would be. I'll be sending in my version > of RQ Lite before too long. > > -- Loren > Actually I still think we need a brand new rules set rather than just an add on companion of optional rules. We need to appeal to new gamers, not just RQ fanatics. It's going to be hard to sell new gamers on RQIII+companion, "All you need for RQ is this rules set, and since no one likes these rules you'll also want to buy this companion set of optional rules and stuff. " -- Curtis Shenton curtiss@netcom.com internet & 4@3091 WWIVnet Currently designing a fantasy setting for WotC. If you are interested in baroque steampunk technology in a fantasy setting and want to playtest email me and I'll give you the info on joining the mailing list.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA07632; Wed, 11 Aug 93 12:36:56 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA07722; Wed, 11 Aug 93 13:36:16 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 11 Aug 93 13:36:21 EDT From: "Loren J. Miller" To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: (COPY) We're alive? Date: 11 Aug 1993 13:37:49 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <704ABAE226C@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Actually, I think that the RQ Rules Companion might provide an even better alternative to updating the rules wholesale, since it lets people use their RQ3 scenarii if they want without the hassle of changing every character's fatigue and skills over to the new rules, unless they want to. That wasn't very clear was it? Blame it on the new ergonomic keyboard I'm trying out. Anyway, I think that the RQ Rules Companion is *a good thing* in fact a better thing than RQ4 would be. I'll be sending in my version of RQ Lite before too long. -- Loren  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA10761; Wed, 11 Aug 93 13:49:13 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA10226; Wed, 11 Aug 93 14:48:33 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 11 Aug 93 14:48:39 EDT From: Anthony Ragan To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: (COPY) Re: (COPY) We're alive? Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 11:45 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <705DFC84CFF@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Anyway, I think that the RQ Rules Companion is *a good thing* in fact a better thing than RQ4 would be. I'll be sending in my version of RQ Lite before too long. -- Loren {Anthony here.....} I dunno, Loren. I can't see attracting too many new gamers by saying that they need to buy a cruddy base set of rules and *then* buy this neato companion book so they can play the game the way it's really played. (Of course, GDW may be doing just that with DJ.....:) IMHO, a fourth edition is essential to a real RQ Renaissance. Something simple and elegant. It needn't be much more complex than Call of Cthulhu 5th. --Anthony Rune Chia Pet of Ernalda  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA02230; Thu, 12 Aug 93 02:28:01 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA26262; Thu, 12 Aug 93 03:27:15 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 12 Aug 93 3:27:27 EDT From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Rules Companion? Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 15:25:01 WST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <712856161F8@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> If RQ4 is to be a companion rather than a full second edition, what does this mean about the rules? Most importantly, it means that the amount of change to existing stats should definately be minimised, so that people who do not have it can still play. Things that are additions to the game system rather than changes are obviously things that are fine to add. Into this category come Combat Special Options, New Skills that don't supersed old ones, the character creation system, and a few other things. These things go against the seemingly very popular RQ Lite movement, but hey, I like 'em all. It is probably fine to include changes to the core rules that change gameplay significantly, but that don't change characteristics. This makes RQ4 into a hefty change to the rules - we get new combat actions rules, changes to damage and healing, Easy/Medium/Hard skills. and then there are rules changes that will require changes to existing characters, but only small number of them - this includes some of the new skills, but mostly means Magic, shamanism and sorcery. Then there are changes which change a few things on each character - basically maneouver, and Spirit Combat. I like these as well (especially Spirit Combat) but they might be problematic, as the decision will have to be made as to wether new supplements will support these changes. Lastly, comes major changes which change the characteristics of everything, in several places. The only thing that I can think of is the new damage bonus/ armour system. It is unreasonable to suggest a new system if new supplements wil not support it, it is impossible to make it the standard system if it is only in a supplement, not a new edition of the rules, and it is very ugly to give two versions of statistics. SO the question of the 'status' of the new version makes quite a bit of difference. Can we still make the RQ4 changes to the magic system if they will be unsupported? Can we produce a 'magic companion' and from then on expect people to have it? (plausible, FASA expect you to have their Grimoire supplement, for example). What changes can we have in the new format? Cheers Dave Cake  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA05571; Thu, 12 Aug 93 07:32:44 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA03304; Thu, 12 Aug 93 08:32:01 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 12 Aug 93 8:32:10 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: (COPY) We're alive? Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 03:53:24 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7179A4761DB@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> "Loren J. Miller" writes: > Actually, I think that the RQ Rules Companion might provide an even > better alternative to updating the rules wholesale, since it lets people > use their RQ3 scenarii if they want without the hassle of changing every > character's fatigue and skills over to the new rules, unless they want > to. That wasn't very clear was it? Blame it on the new ergonomic keyboard > I'm trying out. Anyway, I think that the RQ Rules Companion is *a good thing* > in fact a better thing than RQ4 would be. I'll be sending in my version > of RQ Lite before too long. > I can see it. Among other things, it will let people pick and choose between chunks of new mechanics without sort of sticking them with an "eat it or leave it" situation. I still think that RQ4 would have been viable, but even getting the new previous experience, experience and spirit rules out would be a good contribution to the game, not to mention the simplified fatigue rules. I'm happy to have that stuff even as RQ3 houserules; the previous experience and fatigue patch two of the biggest RQ3 holes by themselves, and if we can get a cleaned up sorcery that doesn't overswing in the other direction, that'll patch the third. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA05577; Thu, 12 Aug 93 07:32:48 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA03306; Thu, 12 Aug 93 08:32:10 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 12 Aug 93 8:32:13 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: (COPY) We're alive? Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 03:57:56 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7179A502A96@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> curtiss@netcom.netcom.com (Curtis Shenton) writes: > Actually I still think we need a brand new rules set rather than just an > add on companion of optional rules. We need to appeal to new gamers, not > just RQ fanatics. It's going to be hard to sell new gamers on > RQIII+companion, "All you need for RQ is this rules set, and since no > one likes these rules you'll also want to buy this companion set of > optional rules and stuff. " > I dunno, Curtis: it's worked for various other people's products over the years. The biggest problem I see is that RQ is still too pricey, even by modern standards. Making people by the pricey rules AND an additional booklet may be too much. I'm not sure RQ4 would have necessarily gotten more RQ players than this anyhow; I suspect that in all honesty, it's too late in the day to win back many of the people who've gone to other systems. Just properly supporting the game instead of letting it stagnate will do more for it than anything else, at least if the situation with the Hero system is a good comparison. The biggest problem with RQIII, for all my bitches with the rules, was that nothing came out for it. This didn't matter much to me, but it did to some people. Most of the stuff before the newer Gloranthan material was really substandard. While I wish that someone would do support material for it of some quality outside a Gloranthan setting, I think good Gloranthan material is a better draw for the game than the cruddy non-Gloranthan material that was coming out before. Not, mind you, that on a certain level I'm not a bit unhappy with the backing away from RQIV; if nothing else, if it didn't change too much from the current approach, it would have been useful to ME. But that's a basically selfish motivation. Wayne. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA05583; Thu, 12 Aug 93 07:32:53 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA03310; Thu, 12 Aug 93 08:32:13 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 12 Aug 93 8:32:17 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: We're alive? Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 04:06:33 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7179A573990@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) writes: > > One thing I've realized from this mailing list is not only does > no-one seem to play the standard RQIII rules, but there doesn't > seem to be very much of a consensus as to what people don't like, > outside of a general dislike of the fatigue rules: some people > even like the sorcery rules (bizarre!). A collection of optional > rules might be a fairly useful way of collecting the best of the > house rules that the many players use. I'm not advocating that > RQIV be abandoned, but I think it needs a longer gestation period, Kind of the reason I'm somewhat behind Loren on this. I'd rather get SOMETHING out than spend the next two years determining what we even want to do. (By the way, if I was the reference to liking the sorcery rules...not really, I just don't consider the current ones an altogether acceptable fix). Has anyone actually heard anything OFFICIAL on the status of the project, by the way? I haven't seen any mail in two weeks, and get the feeling I've missed something. Wayne ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA05589; Thu, 12 Aug 93 07:32:56 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA03313; Thu, 12 Aug 93 08:32:17 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 12 Aug 93 8:32:21 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Rules Companion? Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 04:11:31 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7179B166C36@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) writes: > Things that are additions to the game system rather than changes > are obviously things that are fine to add. Into this category come Combat > Special Options, New Skills that don't supersed old ones, the character > creation system, and a few other things. > These things go against the seemingly very popular RQ Lite > movement, but hey, I like 'em all. Me too. The character creation system in particular was what got me into this project. The excessive randomness of RQIII was probably the SINGLE most irking feature about it to me and the people I play with. > It is probably fine to include changes to the core rules that change > gameplay significantly, but that don't change characteristics. This makes > RQ4 into a hefty change to the rules - we get new combat actions rules, > changes to damage and healing, Easy/Medium/Hard skills. Though I think we still need to officially address the issue of death by locational damage. A lot of people have been treating triple damage to a critical location (head, chest, abdomen) as an instant kill, but I think it ought to be formalized. > and then there are rules changes that will require changes to > existing characters, but only small number of them - this includes some > of the new skills, but mostly means Magic, shamanism and sorcery. Which means, among other things that the finished work on the basic sorcery modification needs to be made. Even just going to the percentage limited spells rather than free intelligence would help, as it makes it a lot harder to generate the huge manipulations that used to be possible. I realize I'm not in the majority in wanting something a bit more reasonable in terms of ritual duration and (particularly) range extension, but under the current rules, it's pretty unlikely that mages will be travelling around with constant high Intensity, long Duration spells on them, even if we went back to the old system other than using skill as the limiter; especially if the old Intensity etc foci are punted and the new skill increasers are used. > Then there are changes which change a few things on each character - > basically maneouver, and Spirit Combat. I like these as well (especially > Spirit Combat) but they might be problematic, as the decision will have to > be made as to wether new supplements will support these changes. Though I'd tend to fight for it; it's fairly revolutionary as far as RQ goes, but I think it was a good progression. > Lastly, comes major changes which change the characteristics of > everything, in several places. The only thing that I can think of is the > new damage bonus/ armour system. It is unreasonable to suggest a new system > if new supplements wil not support it, it is impossible to make it the > standard system if it is only in a supplement, not a new edition of the > rules, and it is very ugly to give two versions of statistics. I'm not sure the new version works right anyway; it seems to miss the point of why some weapons had base adds in the first place, and really looks to me like it might break as much as it fixes. > SO the question of the 'status' of the new version makes quite a > bit of difference. Can we still make the RQ4 changes to the magic system if > they will be unsupported? Can we produce a 'magic companion' and from then > on expect people to have it? (plausible, FASA expect you to have their > Grimoire supplement, for example). > What changes can we have in the new format? All important questions that I'd like to hear answered. > ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA25376; Wed, 11 Aug 93 20:05:42 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA20863; Wed, 11 Aug 93 21:05:00 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 11 Aug 93 21:05:07 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: We're alive? Date: Thu, 12 Aug 93 11:04:38 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <70C26A13ACC@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > Did that invasion of exploding gorp let up? Are we alive again? Yep, but how do I get these bloody marks off my hand? (Please, no more refs to River of Cradles: if that's the RQ Renaissance, I'll stay in the Dark Ages thanks!) As for the Companion doing more harm than good, I don't think lots of rules supplements have harmed Vampire, GURPS, AD&D, Rollmaster etc. Most of the more successful games seem to have lots of rules packs. In fact only Hero seems to be an exception, but I think that's because the designers don't accept that their base rules aren't universally applicable. One thing I've realized from this mailing list is not only does no-one seem to play the standard RQIII rules, but there doesn't seem to be very much of a consensus as to what people don't like, outside of a general dislike of the fatigue rules: some people even like the sorcery rules (bizarre!). A collection of optional rules might be a fairly useful way of collecting the best of the house rules that the many players use. I'm not advocating that RQIV be abandoned, but I think it needs a longer gestation period, and it may need more optional rules than RQIII had or the house rules will start spawning again. Of course, if and when the latest draft returns from AH I may change my mind. > +++++++++++++++++++++++23 > Loren Miller LOREN@wmkt.wharton.upenn.edu > Into the flood again, same old trip it was back when Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA09474; Fri, 13 Aug 93 00:11:44 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA03494; Fri, 13 Aug 93 01:11:06 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 13 Aug 93 1:11:11 EDT From: Carl Fink To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: We're alive? Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 01:10:43 -0400 Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <72840D9003C@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Graeme Lindsell writes in part: G>> >> Has anyone actually heard anything OFFICIAL on the status of the project, >> by the way? I haven't seen any mail in two weeks, and get the feeling >> I've missed something. >> G> All I saw was Ken's letter: I can't recall anything from Oliver or Carl >recently. It's still very much up in the air. When something definite is decided, I promise it'll be announced.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA10053; Fri, 13 Aug 93 00:40:30 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA03816; Fri, 13 Aug 93 01:39:55 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 13 Aug 93 1:39:57 EDT From: Carl Fink To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: We're alive? Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 01:39:34 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <728BBF65BAF@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Graeme writes: > > One question has been puzzling me: where does Avalon Hill think it's > going with RQ? What type of market niche does it want RQ to occupy? > > I suppose thats two questions actually. :-) > > Graeme > > That's what's up in the air. -- "Ignorant?! Ha! I don't even know the meaning of the word!" "Fight-Man", Evan Dorkin Carl Fink carlf@panix.com  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA13965; Fri, 13 Aug 93 06:00:48 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA06715; Fri, 13 Aug 93 06:58:18 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 13 Aug 93 7:00:14 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: Rules Companion? Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 03:40:23 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <72E0B23187F@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) writes: > Here's another vote for the new character creation rules: if a rules > companion includes just one new character creation system it'd be worth > buying. I think it has to have new fatigue rules as well, but I don't > see anything else as absolutely necessary. Well...I'd say SOME kind of patch on sorcery would be a Really Good Idea. And the Easy/Medium/Hard thing would be nice. Past that... > > > extension, but under the current rules, it's pretty unlikely that mages > > will be travelling around with constant high Intensity, long Duration > > spells on them, > > In fact none of them will if we use the current RQIV sorcery draft, > successfully making sorcerers as dull as possible. > I'm not sure what you mean by "Dull" in this context. My bitch with the current draft is that the ritual Duration/Range extension might as well not be there, since the POW based version is still too good, and the time based version is useless. > > I seem to be alone in loathing the new spirit combat rules: I think they > are very complex and add nothing to the enjoyment of the game. They are > valid as optional rules though. I don't find them any more complex than regular combat, and think they make a nice distinction between someone who is skilled in fighting spirits and someone who just has a high POW. But I'll give you that they're a low priority item. > I liked the idea of the new system, but I don't think that it went far > enough. If there is going to be something that changes all the stats then > it could just as well be completely different ie weapon damage based on > str+size, hit points = con + siz and death at 0 HP rather than HP = > (con + siz)/2 and death at negative HP. I just generally thought it was a mess, personally. While I understand some of the problems with the current version, I didn't like a number of features about it, including what seemed like some irrational values for some weapons, loss of distinction between armor types, and a reduction in the already low chance of actually ever killing someone in the game. > I wouldn't stay up late to hear the answers: KR only seemed to float > the idea a few days ago. > Which, like I said, I never even saw. I LOVE getting internet stuff through a BBS...it's SO much fun... Wayne ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA03617; Thu, 12 Aug 93 19:36:14 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA29704; Thu, 12 Aug 93 20:35:20 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 12 Aug 93 20:35:39 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: We're alive? Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 10:34:58 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <723A86C40CB@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) writes: > > outside of a general dislike of the fatigue rules: some people > > even like the sorcery rules (bizarre!). A collection of optional > > Kind of the reason I'm somewhat behind Loren on this. I'd rather get > SOMETHING out than spend the next two years determining what we even want > to do. (By the way, if I was the reference to liking the sorcery > rules...not really, I just don't consider the current ones an altogether > acceptable fix). No, it wasn't you: there was a poster a couple of months ago who liked the current RQIII rules just fine. (Strange but True Tales of FRP!!) I'm no fan of the RQIV Draft 2.0 sorcery rules either: I (like many other people I believe) prefer Pauls presence/twin concept. This won't be in any companion though, since you need to re-write the character sheet. This leads to an interesting point (at least to me): the original requirement for RQIV was that you wouldn't have to change the published character sheets, so that published adventures could still be used; if this condition is met, then people could still play the scenarios using the RQIII rules, they don't need RQIV. It doesn't matter whether AH publish those rules as a Rules Companion or as RQIV: using those rules is entirely optional. A Companion would be cheaper, since it wouldn't need to be as big, but RQIV would probably likely to attract more new players, just because it looks new. My $6.37 (2 cents corrected for inflation): if it doesn't need to change the character sheets/published scenarios, I'd publish it as a Companion. If it does need to, and many of the rules this list has favoured need to, then I think it is worth producing it as RQIV, and republishing the best of the RQIII scenario packs. Chaosium has repackaged many of its early CoC adventures for later editions without much trouble. The publication of RQIV might be the time to break out of the Prax ghetto, too. All of this IMHO, of course. > > Has anyone actually heard anything OFFICIAL on the status of the project, > by the way? I haven't seen any mail in two weeks, and get the feeling > I've missed something. > All I saw was Ken's letter: I can't recall anything from Oliver or Carl recently. > Wayne Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA05564; Thu, 12 Aug 93 20:58:53 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA00901; Thu, 12 Aug 93 21:58:14 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 12 Aug 93 21:58:17 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Rules Companion? Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 11:15:27 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7250AD92D95@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) writes: > > are obviously things that are fine to add. Into this category come Combat > > Special Options, New Skills that don't supersed old ones, the character > > creation system, and a few other things. [Wayne:] > Me too. The character creation system in particular was what got me into > this project. The excessive randomness of RQIII was probably the SINGLE > most irking feature about it to me and the people I play with. > Here's another vote for the new character creation rules: if a rules companion includes just one new character creation system it'd be worth buying. I think it has to have new fatigue rules as well, but I don't see anything else as absolutely necessary. > > It is probably fine to include changes to the core rules that change > > gameplay significantly, but that don't change characteristics. This makes > > RQ4 into a hefty change to the rules - we get new combat actions rules, > > changes to damage and healing, Easy/Medium/Hard skills. These are all fine as optional rules, since most GM's can take them or leave them without changing how the scenarios play. > > of the new skills, but mostly means Magic, shamanism and sorcery. > > Which means, among other things that the finished work on the basic > sorcery modification needs to be made. Even just going to the percentage [some deleted] > extension, but under the current rules, it's pretty unlikely that mages > will be travelling around with constant high Intensity, long Duration > spells on them, In fact none of them will if we use the current RQIV sorcery draft, successfully making sorcerers as dull as possible. > > Then there are changes which change a few things on each character - > > basically maneouver, and Spirit Combat. I like these as well (especially > > Spirit Combat) but they might be problematic, as the decision will have to > > be made as to wether new supplements will support these changes. > I seem to be alone in loathing the new spirit combat rules: I think they are very complex and add nothing to the enjoyment of the game. They are valid as optional rules though. > > Lastly, comes major changes which change the characteristics of > > everything, in several places. The only thing that I can think of is the > > new damage bonus/ armour system. It is unreasonable to suggest a new system > > I'm not sure the new version works right anyway; it seems to miss the > point of why some weapons had base adds in the first place, and really > looks to me like it might break as much as it fixes. I liked the idea of the new system, but I don't think that it went far enough. If there is going to be something that changes all the stats then it could just as well be completely different ie weapon damage based on str+size, hit points = con + siz and death at 0 HP rather than HP = (con + siz)/2 and death at negative HP. > > > SO the question of the 'status' of the new version makes quite a > > bit of difference. Can we still make the RQ4 changes to the magic system if > > they will be unsupported? Can we produce a 'magic companion' and from then > > on expect people to have it? (plausible, FASA expect you to have their > > Grimoire supplement, for example). > > What changes can we have in the new format? It depends on the kind of changes: the new effects of Befuddle won't affect many published scenarios, but the new sorcery rules would probably affect all new publications. Annual re-usable rune magic for initiates (one of my optional rules proposals) wouldn't change the character sheets much but would change the effectiveness of parties quite a lot. > All important questions that I'd like to hear answered. I wouldn't stay up late to hear the answers: KR only seemed to float the idea a few days ago. > shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow > The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327 Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA09958; Fri, 13 Aug 93 00:34:16 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA03798; Fri, 13 Aug 93 01:33:41 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 13 Aug 93 1:33:45 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: We're alive? Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 15:33:24 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <728A1E9504B@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Carl writes: > It's still very much up in the air. When something definite is > decided, I promise it'll be announced. > > Much appreciated. One question has been puzzling me: where does Avalon Hill think it's going with RQ? What type of market niche does it want RQ to occupy? I suppose thats two questions actually. :-) Graeme  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA20015; Sat, 14 Aug 93 03:04:15 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA14863; Sat, 14 Aug 93 04:03:12 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sat, 14 Aug 93 4:03:41 EDT From: The Stars Are Right To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: We're alive? Date: Sat, 14 Aug 93 10:02:26 GMT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <74320F52E4B@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Re: rules companion: I would like to see the new combat options as optionals. A new character genera tion system , the draft version is good as a starting point but is too slow. Eas y/medium/hard skills would be nice too. And of course we need some variety on sp irit combat, maybe a simpler version of the draft spirit combat. We also need to make the healing less effective and dying with one stroke possible even without a critical hit as discussed earlier on this mailing list. -- hannu  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA17328; Sun, 15 Aug 93 05:05:42 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA16368; Sun, 15 Aug 93 06:05:03 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sun, 15 Aug 93 6:05:05 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: Re: We're alive? Date: Sun, 15 Aug 93 02:39:58 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <75D27EC0A58@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> The Stars Are Right writes: > Re: rules companion: > > I would like to see the new combat options as optionals. A new character > genera > tion system , the draft version is good as a starting point but is too slow. Too slow? Other than the basic calculations necessary to do modifiers, I can put together a character with that stuff in something like five minutes. How much faster can you want? ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA06625; Sun, 15 Aug 93 20:09:34 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA28832; Sun, 15 Aug 93 21:08:29 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sun, 15 Aug 93 21:08:53 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: Rules Companion? Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 11:07:59 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <76C37ED65FC@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) writes: Wayne writes: > Well...I'd say SOME kind of patch on sorcery would be a Really Good Idea. > And the Easy/Medium/Hard thing would be nice. Past that... > I'm more interested in a completely re-written sorcery system than a patch, ie something like Paul's presence system. Your point is well taken though: if the Companion is meant to provide patches to broken rules without needing to change the character sheet, then sorcery is an obvious candidate for fixing. The Easy/Medium/Hard is interesting, but I don't see it as essential, and I'm worried about the way it's implemented: almost all of the cults judge progression by skill level, and cults with Easy cult skills will suddenly become much easier to advance in. > > > > > extension, but under the current rules, it's pretty unlikely that mages > > > will be travelling around with constant high Intensity, long Duration > > > spells on them, > > > > In fact none of them will if we use the current RQIV sorcery draft, > > successfully making sorcerers as dull as possible. > > > > I'm not sure what you mean by "Dull" in this context. My bitch with the > current draft is that the ritual Duration/Range extension might as well > not be there, since the POW based version is still too good, and the time > based version is useless. I think both versions are useless: I can't see a sorcerer ever blowing power to get a temporary spell. This is why I called it dull: the interesting thing about RQII sorcerers was the long duration spells (OK, the grossly overpowered thing as well). The draft RQIV sorcerers just seem to have a different variety of spirit magic. There's nothing unique about them. > > I just generally thought it was a mess, personally. While I understand > some of the problems with the current version, I didn't like a number of > features about it, including what seemed like some irrational values for > some weapons, loss of distinction between armor types, and a reduction in > the already low chance of actually ever killing someone in the game. Yes, but I think that the low death rate is more due to the new death at neagtive max HP rule and the prevalence of Heal spells, rather than the lethality of the weapons. I think Heal is the real culprit: there are very few wounds that kill you instantly in reality. I think most combat fatalities are the result of shock. > > > I wouldn't stay up late to hear the answers: KR only seemed to float > > the idea a few days ago. > > > > Which, like I said, I never even saw. I LOVE getting internet stuff > through a BBS...it's SO much fun... > Really? I saw it three times. > Wayne > > > ------------------------------ > shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow > The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327 > Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA09769; Mon, 16 Aug 93 14:23:25 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA26709; Mon, 16 Aug 93 15:22:18 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 16 Aug 93 15:22:40 EDT From: jjm@zycor.lgc.com (johnjmedway) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: character generation Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 14:21:31 CDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <77E74212759@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >> From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) >> Date: Sun, 15 Aug 93 02:39:58 PDT >> >> The Stars Are Right writes: >> > I would like to see the new combat options as optionals. A new character >> > genera >> > tion system , the draft version is good as a starting point but is too slow. >> >> Too slow? Other than the basic calculations necessary to do modifiers, I >> can put together a character with that stuff in something like five >> minutes. How much faster can you want? But what level of detail or experience does the character have? I think that it's WAY too slow, and have been saying that all along. I could probably crank some out _fairly_ quickly, but my players have taken about 2 hours or more _each_ for their first attempts with this system. I'll admit we used some time talking a few things over while building the characters, but the organization, and the package designs are a bit more tortured than they need be. ( BTW: all characters 60 - 85 points, with 3-4 templates used ). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | john_medway@zycor.lgc.com | Landmark Graphics Corp | 512.292.2325 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA02421; Fri, 20 Aug 93 02:30:50 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA12671; Fri, 20 Aug 93 03:30:01 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 20 Aug 93 3:30:11 EDT From: rq4@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Rules Companion? Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 23:09:12 MEZ Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7D297E34B49@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> In <76C37ED65FC@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu>, Graeme Lindsell writes: > Wayne writes: >> Well...I'd say SOME kind of patch on sorcery would be a Really Good Idea. >> And the Easy/Medium/Hard thing would be nice. Past that... > I'm more interested in a completely re-written sorcery system than a > patch, ie something like Paul's presence system. Your point is well > taken though: if the Companion is meant to provide patches to broken > rules without needing to change the character sheet, then sorcery > is an obvious candidate for fixing. Not even the PRE-system is a complete rewrite; it keeps most of the spells we know from the current version and thus keeps up compatibility. > The Easy/Medium/Hard is interesting, but I don't see it as essential, > and I'm worried about the way it's implemented: almost all of the > cults judge progression by skill level, and cults with Easy cult > skills will suddenly become much easier to advance in. I have to disagree: Without the difficulty system, there is no need for a point system, and that's no need for the templates as offered. Most of the sense the current draft makes would be cancelled. >>>> extension, but under the current rules, it's pretty unlikely that mages >>>> will be travelling around with constant high Intensity, long Duration >>>> spells on them, >>> In fact none of them will if we use the current RQIV sorcery draft, >>> successfully making sorcerers as dull as possible. >> I'm not sure what you mean by "Dull" in this context. My bitch with the >> current draft is that the ritual Duration/Range extension might as well >> not be there, since the POW based version is still too good, and the time >> based version is useless. > I think both versions are useless: I can't see a sorcerer ever blowing > power to get a temporary spell. This is why I called it dull: the interesting > thing about RQII sorcerers was the long duration spells (OK, the grossly ^^ Nice typo. RQ2 (why the roman numerals?) did know long-time spells; anything stacked with Extension 3 would last a week. For runetypes with reusable Extension no problem, just power yourself up before the adventure, and have a quasi-permanent Bladesharp 4, protection 4 (or was 6 the limit?), etc. What's the difference between a week or a year in adventuring? > overpowered thing as well). The draft RQIV sorcerers just seem to have a > different variety of spirit magic. There's nothing unique about them. And a less reliable, to top it. Compare protection with damage resistance, and you'll find that a Protection 3 will cancel out more damage from a swordfighter with 1D4 damage bonus than a 3-point Damage Resistance, and probably (I didn't calculate that) more than a 6-point Damage Resistance. One way I have come up with to handle long- or medium-time Duration is to make the use of a progressive table (not necessarily the current 2^X table) dependent on ritual casting, i.e. long-time casting. My idea was to use the ceremony-time-to-skill table with casting time one step (one D6 in the table) per extra point of Duration. Opinions? >> I just generally thought it was a mess, personally. While I understand >> some of the problems with the current version, I didn't like a number of >> features about it, including what seemed like some irrational values for >> some weapons, loss of distinction between armor types, and a reduction in >> the already low chance of actually ever killing someone in the game. > Yes, but I think that the low death rate is more due to the new > death at neagtive max HP rule and the prevalence of Heal spells, rather > than the lethality of the weapons. I think Heal is the real culprit: > there are very few wounds that kill you instantly in reality. I think > most combat fatalities are the result of shock. Lethality is always a problem. I'd like to see a system that allows wounds which cannot be healed at once, maybe only stilled - something like False Healing in Troll Gods. Only a low percentage actually died within five minutes from a lethal blow, other than having their throats slit. Healing magic and First Aid skill ought to be able to stop immediate death, but there are enough examples of people slowly dying from a wound, allowing them even to act heroically in the meantime - at least in fiction. To really heal a lethal wound, I'd expect some ritual healing magic as so nicely depicted in the Conan movie. This would also go nicely with Greg Staffords statement that distribution of healing magic is about ten times overrated among RQ-PCs, or in RQ in general. I like the sorcerous Treat Wounds, by the way: no immediate effect except stopping the bleeding. If one plays the variant as used by the German translation (I think taken from the RQ3 Errata), only apprentices or higher sorcerous ranks could do more than that because noone else may know Duration, which has to be one hour per point to be healed. Finally a note about the future of this list: I don't know the copyright situation for the draft and our thoughts upon it, but I advocate to continue our discussions to a point of producing new drafts. Some day there will be the need for a new edition of RQ, if it survives, and whosoever will hold the rights by then will have to take an existing, playtested version into account. So keep on producing ideas and presenting them here. -- Joerg Baumgartner rq4@sartar.toppoint.de  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA05459; Tue, 17 Aug 93 01:57:19 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA11978; Tue, 17 Aug 93 02:56:34 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 17 Aug 93 2:56:42 EDT From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: character generation Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 14:54:49 WST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <78A068B3456@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > >> From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) > >> Date: Sun, 15 Aug 93 02:39:58 PDT > >> > >> > >> Too slow? Other than the basic calculations necessary to do modifiers, I > >> can put together a character with that stuff in something like five > >> minutes. How much faster can you want? > > But what level of detail or experience does the character have? > I think that it's WAY too slow, and have been saying that all along. > I think that levels of detail is what is causing your characters to take a long time, and I don't know if there is really that much that can be done about it. I have known character creation to take hours using systems like Amber (which is the closest thing to rulesless in many ways). Detailed characters take time, and that is quite possibly insurmountable. > I could probably crank some out _fairly_ quickly, but my players have taken > about 2 hours or more _each_ for their first attempts with this system. I have been finding that it takes about 2hrs for a first attempt using quite complicated characters (including multiple templates, the optional cultural skills, and cult skills and spirit magic). I found that the second time was a lot quicker, about 1hr. It could easily have been faster except for the normal mundane problems - only one copy of the rules, only a finite amount of GM ' attention, etc. I'll admit that organisation, etc. could be a little improved, but they inevitably will in a production version. Organisation can only be improved so much (for example, acess to cult information about cult special skills and magic can be a problem - I don't see the new character creation system helping a whole lot) What I like about the system is the immense burden that it removes from the gamesmaster, by having simple templates immediately available (eg what's his Scan? Well, hes an average warrior so - is preferable to me just ad hoccing it all the time). I also like the fact that the inbuilt flexibility means that I have to spend less time fiddling the rules - Hmm,, Issaries merchant - Master trader, plus master initiate, maybe add in a little missionary if appropriate: Sword of Humakt, Master Soldier, Officer option, master initiate: Storm Khan, Master Barbarian mounted warrior, master initiate,(including the possibility of 90%sense chaos as a cult skill), and a lower level of Noble. This sort of thing is very useful, as it means that a few scribbled notes are almost entirely sufficent to define an NPC. This enables me to concentrate GM work were it matters. I like the new system! I spend more time using it and less time fighting it. > I'll admit we used some time talking a few things over while building the > characters, but the organization, and the package designs are a bit more > tortured than they need be. ( BTW: all characters 60 - 85 points, with 3-4 > templates used ). Complex characters like this will take time in any game system. I can't see there being a way of making it easier without giving you a whole lot less flexibility - and the flexibility is one of the things that I value the most. Personally, I am in favour of complicating it even more by adding a few seldom used options - like skills over 90%, buying items, etc. Just add them, mark them as optional, and let people decide if they want to use them. I would use them enough to appreciate there existence. One thing that I do find irritating is the overload of weapon skills. Some professions should have weapons as optional skills, and I do not understand why they are made compulsory. In my mind the special exception made for CA healers is pretty silly - it implies that non-CA healers are never total pacifists, which is unlikely, I'm sure that there are Xemela nuns just as pacifist as CAs. > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > | john_medway@zycor.lgc.com | Landmark Graphics Corp | 512.292.2325 | > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA13006; Tue, 17 Aug 93 05:33:29 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA14375; Tue, 17 Aug 93 06:32:45 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 17 Aug 93 6:32:51 EDT From: Malcolm Cohen To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: character generation Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 11:24:10 MET Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <78DA1162271@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > But what level of detail or experience does the character have? > I think that it's WAY too slow, and have been saying that all along. > > I could probably crank some out _fairly_ quickly, but my players have taken > about 2 hours or more _each_ for their first attempts with this system. But how does this compare with your RQ3 experience? My experience is that RQ3 takes almost that long for characters in the 50% skill max range, and without producing decent characters at the end. Certainly, when a new player joined my game a fortnight ago it took that long; admittedly that was using my "patched" version of RQ3 chargen, but the real time-use was in deciding what to do, changing occupations, etc. The number crunching bit only took about an extra 10 mins (and then only because I did not have my tables with me). Time used (24 y.o. character, so 9 years previous experience): - rolling characteristics, determining bonuses, rolling background, base experience + writing it up = approx 1 hour [same as RQ3] - deciding on occupation changes, working through past history, etc. = approx 30-40 minutes [maybe 5-10 mins slower than RQ3] - selecting optional skills and number crunching them = approx 20-30 minutes [RQ3 does not have these, could have chopped this by 5-10 minutes with tables] i.e. for someone who does not have the RQ3 rules memorised and fully understood (i.e. my player), we have (i) for a simple character (just rolled up, stick with rolled occupation, no interaction with historical/cultural events) - about 1 hour [This is a completely unacceptable option: my player would not have been chuffed ending up with 9 years farming!] (ii) for a minimally tailored character, about 1.5 hours. (iii) for a well-tailored charcter, about 2 hours. And in case you are thinking that it is my patched chargen system slowing this down too much, I will say that this is for a character with NO MAGIC AT ALL (my campaign has severe magic restrictions - only 25% of characters are even theoretically capable of magic use). -- ...........................Malcolm Cohen, NAG Ltd., Oxford, U.K. (malcolm@nag.co.uk)  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA26436; Tue, 17 Aug 93 11:36:02 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA29057; Tue, 17 Aug 93 12:35:11 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 17 Aug 93 12:35:21 EDT From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: COMMENTS Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 12:31:44 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <793AB951E27@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Graeme A Lindsell Notes: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- %% I'm more interested in a completely re-written sorcery system than a %% patch, ie something like Paul's presence system. Your point is well %% taken though: if the Companion is meant to provide patches to broken %% rules without needing to change the character sheet, then sorcery %% is an obvious candidate for fixing. This would be great, but if AH is wanting to maintain compatability with RQ3, I doubt it will fly. *sigh* %% The Easy/Medium/Hard is interesting, but I don't see it as essential, %% and I'm worried about the way it's implemented: almost all of the %% cults judge progression by skill level, and cults with Easy cult %% skills will suddenly become much easier to advance in. Well, I like the idea, and yes it will make some cult skills tougher. Perhaps cults know special techniques to make all their cult skills at least "medium" difficulty? %% > I'm not sure what you mean by "Dull" in this context. My bitch with the %% > current draft is that the ritual Duration/Range extension might as well %% > not be there, since the POW based version is still too good, and the time %% > based version is useless. %% %% I think both versions are useless: I can't see a sorcerer ever blowing %% power to get a temporary spell. This is why I called it dull: the %% interesting thing about RQII sorcerers was the long duration spells (OK, %% the grossly overpowered thing as well). The draft RQIV sorcerers just seem %% to have a different variety of spirit magic. There's nothing unique about %% them. Well, I think Sorcery only needs a bit of tweaking to make it useful myself. 1) Some guidelines on creating new spells...the existing list seems too limited. Sorcerers, while having to blow lots of MP for effect, have the ultimate flexibility. This should extend to a MUCH larger spell list, OR an easy way for the GM or players to make new spells. 2) Some spells need to be tweaked to make them less worthless or less gross. Tap, for one, shoul be a ritual spell in my mind. Fly shouldn't use quite so much power, IMHO. In the case of Fly, I'm using what I have always called a "pseudo-log" (don't know the real name). In this, 1 point allows for 1 intenisty, 2 points allows for 2-3 intensity; 3 points allows for 4-6 intensity (1+2+3); 4 points allows for up to 10 (1+2+3+4) and so on. So my sorcerer can afford to levitate himself with a resonable power expenditure. 3) I use a square table for duration and range, not a doubling one. So Duration 10 gets you 100x base duration, not 1024x. This, combined with the use of ceremony to increase actual duration and range (the dice rolled add to the range or duration factors before squaring) balances out the grossness of spells lasting forever. David Cake notes (on RQ4 char-gen) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- %% What I like about the system is the immense burden that it removes %% from the gamesmaster, by having simple templates immediately available (eg %% what's his Scan? Well, hes an average warrior so - is preferable to me %% just ad hoccing it all the time). I also like the fact that the inbuilt %% flexibility means that I have to spend less time fiddling the rules - Hmm,, I, and my players, like the new system. But, if AH wants compatibility, examine the following: * HUNTER (Primitive) Novice Trained Expert Master Cost 11 27 54 108 BASIC SKILLS Novice Trained Expert Master 30% 45% 60 75% 30% 45% 60 75% -- 30% 45 60% -- 30% 45 60% -- 30% 45 60% Craft -- 30% 45% 60% Craft -- 30% 45% 60% Hide 30% 45% 60% 75% Hunter Lore 30% 45% 60% 75% Listen 30% 45% 60% 75% Lore 30% 45% 60% 75% Scan 30% 45% 60% 75% Sneak 45% 60% 75% 90% Throw 30% 45% 60% 75% Tracking 30% 45% 60% 75% OPTIONAL SKILLS Novice Trained Expert Master Climb -- -- 60% 75% Jump 30% 45% 60% 75% Mimic 30% 45% 60% 75% Run 30% 45% 60% 75% Search -- 30% 45% 60% Trapping 45% 60% 75% 90% Wound Binding 30% 45% 60% 75% EQUIPMENT Cultural weapons, knife, gourds or water skins, firemaker, pack, fur and hide clothing, pelts worth 50L. Trained hunters have 100L worth of pelts. Expert hunters have 200L worth of pelts and 50m of rope. Master hunters have 400L worth of pelts, leather armor and a fine cultural weapon. I took the guidelines for converting existing templates and converted over the Primative hunter (I made some mistakes, I have to do it again, but I provided this as an idea). As a simplification, all 30% skills cost 1 background point, 45% costs 2, 60% costs 4, 75% costs 8 and 90% costs 16. (extra costs for the occupation not figured in yet). I figured that having easy vs. hard for cost modification was unneded baggage. Now, you'll notice 4 attack skills. The benefit of this system is that you can take 2 equal skills of equal level and combine them to get the next level. A player, with an expert hunter, could take 75% in sword and 75% in bow, or merge the two categories and get 90% in sword (75% costs 8, 16 points of attack = 90%). Likewise he could concentrate his craft skills. I renamed First Aid to Wound Binding 'cuz that sounds better to me for the world. This optional metheod may be used, as it keeps RQ3 categories and allows all special ones (in the Glorantha Players book) to have the same basic level. Skills of x4 and x5 will top out at x3, with the excess being put into another copy of the same skill. Comments? -- Burton  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA00931; Tue, 17 Aug 93 13:18:44 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA03127; Tue, 17 Aug 93 14:18:00 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 17 Aug 93 14:18:03 EDT From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: COMMENTS Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 14:17:36 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <79561FC038E@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Burt asks about: 4 points allows for up to 10 (1+2+3+4) These are the 'triangular numbers'. (=#points in a triangle of n points on a side: * 1 * * + 2 * * * + 3 * * * * + 4 = 10) More another time, paul  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA28972; Tue, 17 Aug 93 12:34:10 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA01370; Tue, 17 Aug 93 13:33:31 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 17 Aug 93 13:33:33 EDT From: The Stars Are Right To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: character generation Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 19:30:42 MET Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <794A4B52B02@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> We need better AND faster char gen systems. 2 hours is WAY too high. One hour  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA29368; Tue, 17 Aug 93 12:45:53 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA01879; Tue, 17 Aug 93 13:45:12 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 17 Aug 93 13:45:16 EDT From: The Stars Are Right To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: character generation Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 19:44:24 MET Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <794D6B74CB4@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> We need better AND faster char gen systems. 2 hours is WAY too high. One hour is WAY too high. Half an hour is ok. Not all of us gamers enjoy making chartacters or have the extra time to make the characters, it is a problem for neophytes wh o should be gotten into the meat of the game: gaming, fast and also for us who h ave other concerns and can only get one evening a week for gaming if that. Yes, I love the possibilities inherent in the new char gen system and I also hate the randomness and ultimate sameness of the characters produced with the old method but to be a better game device char generation needs to be faster. -- hannu  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA00635; Wed, 18 Aug 93 07:18:17 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA28338; Wed, 18 Aug 93 08:17:31 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 18 Aug 93 8:17:40 EDT From: Mystic Musk Ox To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: RE: COMMENTS Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 13:16 BST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7A7612F152F@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Burton Choinski writes... > 3) I use a square table for duration and range, not a doubling one. So > Duration 10 gets you 100x base duration, not 1024x. This, combined with > the use of ceremony to increase actual duration and range (the dice rolled > add to the range or duration factors before squaring) balances out the > grossness of spells lasting forever. This I quite like. I assume that with this system, you don't bother with Free Int, since the mp cost for long duration (>1 day) spells becomes huge. (Incidentally, this would mean that lots of people, all combining mp's in some way, would be needed to cast *really* long duration spells - which somehow feels better. There is something like this in Call of Cthulhu - the caster uses his/her mp's, and anyone else knowing the spell may contribute mp's, others may only contribute 1 mp) For the use of ceremony, I take it you mean that the points obtained from the ceremony table can be divided up to row shifts on the Duration, Range etc table as the caster sees fit? Would it be worth using the squaring system for Range etc also? That has never seemed to cause the problems that Duration did, although for consistency it might be useful to always use the same system....(I haven't thought out the effects of doing so...) A (possible) tweak on Ceremony that just occurred to me: The points obtained on each die rolled must be used as a group ie all applied to Range,or Duration or whatever i.e. each die must be applied individually to one of the attributes of the spells. Thus longer Ceremonies (= more dice rolled) will give more flexibility to distribution of points to attributes, whereas shorter ones may well over or under achieve effects required. Mark Buckley...  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA11561; Wed, 18 Aug 93 12:26:56 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA10558; Wed, 18 Aug 93 13:26:01 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 18 Aug 93 13:26:17 EDT From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: COMMENTS Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 13:22:28 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7AC8503037B@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Mark Buckley, on my comments %%> 3) I use a square table for duration and range, not a doubling one. So %%> Duration 10 gets you 100x base duration, not 1024x. This, combined with %%> the use of ceremony to increase actual duration and range (the dice rolled %%> add to the range or duration factors before squaring) balances out the %%> grossness of spells lasting forever. %% %%This I quite like. I assume that with this system, you don't bother with %%Free Int, since the mp cost for long duration (>1 day) spells becomes %%huge. Correct. INT as a limiter on spirit spells, but since the sorcery spells are more skill then just "umph" and away, I never bothered. This prevents the lack of free int from getting out of hand. %%For the use of ceremony, I take it you mean that the points obtained %%from the ceremony table can be divided up to row shifts on the Duration, %%Range etc table as the caster sees fit? Actually, you would need a ceremony session for each aspect. If you spent 89 rounds each on Range and duration, each would get 10d6 added to the value before squaring. %%Would it be worth using the squaring system for Range etc also? That has never %%seemed to cause the problems that Duration did, although for consistency it %%might be useful to always use the same system....(I haven't thought out the %%effects of doing so...) I figured the same for consistancy. If you have no other means of targeting, continent-spanning spell usage seems extreme. :) This metheod allows you to sacrifice time to gain great effect, rather then try and burn all your power. You could spend 1 round each on ceremony for range and duration and get a R-4 and D-4 (on average) effect at about 7 less points of magic. But it means that spell is fired once every 3 rounds instead of once a round. Your call. :) -- Burton  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA13120; Thu, 19 Aug 93 04:02:43 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA02948; Thu, 19 Aug 93 05:01:41 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 19 Aug 93 5:02:05 EDT From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: character generation Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 16:58:53 WST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7BC1E4A7C3A@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > >We need better AND faster char gen systems. 2 hours is WAY too high. One hour > is > WAY too high. Half an hour is ok. Not all of us gamers enjoy making > chartacters > or have the extra time to make the characters, it is a problem for neophytes > who > should be gotten into the meat of the game: gaming, fast and also for us who >have other concerns and can only get one evening a week for gaming if that. Yes > I love the possibilities inherent in the new char gen system and I also hate >randomness and ultimate sameness of the characters produced with the old method > but to be a better game device char generation needs to be faster. -- hannu > Well, some might argue that 1 hr is way too long - I find that people don't make up characters that often, and I like them to give a lot of thought to them. I find that the reason that the new system takes a while is that it gives you a lot of choice. If you want to make an uninteresting character, and you know exactly what you want, it is really quick - a definite boom for GMs, who are often in exactly that situation. Even moderately interesting characters can be done quickly - providing you have a good idea what you want to do. Character creation can only be so quick when you spend time on many decisions. Personally I find that this is so with just about all games - the character creation systems that take a long time (like Champions and Space Opera for example) take a long time because you have flexibilty and have to make a lot of decisions, the really easy ones (like A D&D) are easy because there are very few decisions to make. The thing to avoid is excess arithmetic and looking up things on tables, etc. I find that the templates approach is an excellent compromise. I have two suggestions. One - make sure that you learn the system, some things that appear complex (like lots of sub-templates, and increasing attributes, and cult skills) are much simpler if you know what you are doing. I mention this because the difference in time between creating first and second characters was really substantial for my players. Two - how much of your time in character creation is spent making decisions, and how much is spent actually working out skills and abilities? Realise which decisions make it take longer, and think about it beforehand. Try making a simple character ie a typical Orlanthi expert warrior, with average experience as a crafter, for example. If you are clear about what you want, I find it takes me half to a quater of an hour (providing there are no argements with the GM, and I don't have to share one set of bound rules between 8 :-)). I find that even complex characters (7 mothers priest-officials from noble houses, for example) take me only slightly longer. I add fast:-). Anyway, enough proselytising. I like the system, and I think that there should only be minor changes unless someone comes up with a system that has the same advantages (ie can be easily used for generic or highly individual characters) and is even easier to use, which doesn't seem to be happening in a hurry. I would actually like further complexity, to be used for things that I would only use for ocassional customisation of exceptional characters. Cheers Dave Cake PS Burton, I think your example of the RQ4 system adapted to RQ3 shows that it works, certainly better than the old system. But I think allowing people to add weapon skills together is asking for trouble, I would leave them as is for skills within a template (ie not allow primitive hunter to add missile attack to hand weapon attack) but maybe allow it between templates (allow sailors sword skill to add to soldier sword skill), because I fear that most players would choose to be too good at too few weapons. If I start a campaign at low level, then weapon skill is the thing that is most important to be low.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA28496; Thu, 19 Aug 93 10:38:45 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA17168; Thu, 19 Aug 93 11:37:40 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 19 Aug 93 11:37:59 EDT From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Comments Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 11:34:18 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7C2B80F54FF@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> David Cake replies... %% PS Burton, I think your example of the RQ4 system adapted to RQ3 shows that %% it works, certainly better than the old system. But I think allowing people %% to add weapon skills together is asking for trouble, I would leave them as %% is for skills within a template (ie not allow primitive hunter to add %% missile attack to hand weapon attack) but maybe allow it between templates %% (allow sailors sword skill to add to soldier sword skill), because I fear %% that most players would choose to be too good at too few weapons. If I %% start a campaign at low level, then weapon skill is the thing that is most %% important to be low. Hmm. You are right on that. I'll go with that. But when taking a new template, Adding two equal levels bumps it up to the next higher (i.e. learning 1H Sword 30% when you already have 1H Sword at 30% bumps you to 1H Sword 45%. If a skill is duplicated in a future template, and the gained skill is less, you get no benefit. If it is greater, you take the higher value. There is no adding of skills...that only applies to equal increases. This rule should make it quick and fast. The "forgetting" of easy/medium/hard skills upon generation streamlines it without really losing anything, IMHO. After all, we are talking YEARS of "off-camera" time. I suggest also that age start at 14-16 (d3+13). Each level of a template details the aging, at 1d6+3 per level. For example, Joe starts off with his raw PC at 15 years. He decides to take Initiate (level 1, 1d6+3 years), then spends some time to become an Expert Merchant (level 3, 3d6+9 years). If he makes average rolls, Joe will start the game at 41 years of age. Now, the actual age rolls could be tweaked. I based it on Master level, subtracting base age and dividing by 4. Perhaps initiate could be just 1d3 per level (since it is so lacking in skills). Perhaps it could be 1d6 for normal occupations. -- Burton  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA19908; Thu, 19 Aug 93 19:18:21 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA05697; Thu, 19 Aug 93 20:17:26 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 19 Aug 93 20:17:39 EDT From: JOVANOVIC@CUCCFA.CCC.COLUMBIA.EDU To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Character generation Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 20:16:44 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7CB62100004@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Burton, I think we have something very similar to what you're talking about in the works for the next generation of character generation . It was specifically meant to speed up the calculations for characters that take more than one profession as part of their background. Let's say the GM is running a game with Expert (75%) level characters. You can opt to run a Hunter with primary skills around 75%. If you opt to run a character with more than one professional background, say Hunter and Foot Warrior, he (or she) would aquire all the Hunter and Foot Warrior primary skills at 60% (i.e Hunter and Foot Warrior at the Average level), but in the few cases that skills overlapped (i.e. Weapon skills, possibly First Aid or Stealth skills, etc.) the skill would go up one level. In other words the character would have any primary skills shared by the two professions at 75%. This eliminates a lot of the calculation otherwise required, with very little loss in accurac  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA29968; Fri, 20 Aug 93 14:45:56 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA05873; Fri, 20 Aug 93 15:44:50 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 20 Aug 93 15:45:15 EDT From: jjm@zycor.lgc.com (johnjmedway) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: difficulty & healing Date: Fri, 20 Aug 93 14:43:54 CDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7DED6FA65A7@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >> From: rq4@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) >> I have to disagree: Without the difficulty system, there is no need for >> a point system, and that's no need for the templates as offered. Most >> of the sense the current draft makes would be cancelled. I agree completely with Joerg. Dropping the admittedly weak difficulty system between RQ2 and RQ3 was a mistake. This is the sort of improvement which should have been made then. Dropping it back out will probably imply that the skills and background tables would be of little use to me ( as our group had already added difficulty ratings back in ), and thus make RQ4/ Companion/whatever of little use as well. And so what if it's easier/harder to become RuneLord in some cults as a result of easy/difficult skills. It's never been exactly even before. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> From: rq4@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) >> Lethality is always a problem. I'd like to see a system that allows >> wounds which cannot be healed at once, maybe only stilled - something >> ... >> least in fiction. To really heal a lethal wound, I'd expect some ritual >> healing magic as so nicely depicted in the Conan movie. >> >> This would also go nicely with Greg Staffords statement that >> distribution of healing magic is about ten times overrated among >> RQ-PCs, or in RQ in general. This Conan scene seems to be Stafford's favorite example. He brought it up twice ( at least ) at Origins. I'd say you have hit close to what Greg seemed to have in mind. Lingering and suffering are part of the world, even if there is magic in the world. >> I like the sorcerous Treat Wounds, by the way: no immediate effect >> except stopping the bleeding. If one plays the variant as used by the This, or some simpler version of yesterday's proposition by Rob Mace (in the Daily) would be a great improvement to the current "poof, you're better" style of healing. Here's another idea: only allow a healing spell to heal 2/3 of the damage from a particular wound. Force all else to heal with time. This is simpler than Rob's suggestion, but quite a bit less miraculous, obviously. I'd allow Divine Magic healing to be able to fully heal wounds, though I might drag out the return of points to 1 per turn after the end of the ceremony/ prayer. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | john_medway@zycor.lgc.com | Landmark Graphics Corp | 512.292.2325 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA00517; Fri, 20 Aug 93 14:52:40 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA06194; Fri, 20 Aug 93 15:51:58 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 20 Aug 93 15:52:01 EDT From: jjm@zycor.lgc.com (johnjmedway) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: character generation: off-camera time Date: Fri, 20 Aug 93 14:50:59 CDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7DEF5402EC5@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >> From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) >> Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 11:34:18 EDT >> >> I suggest also that age start at 14-16 (d3+13). Each level of a template >> details the aging, at 1d6+3 per level. >> ... >> Now, the actual age rolls could be tweaked. I based it on Master level, >> subtracting base age and dividing by 4. Perhaps initiate could be >> just 1d3 per level (since it is so lacking in skills). Perhaps it could >> be 1d6 for normal occupations. Something like this should be explicit in the final version of the system, though I'd say, since the packages are unequal, so should the time required be. It seems a bit severe for zero->Trained ( as in barely trained ) to require the same number of years as does Expert->Master, in any template. In some cases it may be necessary to pro-rate the time spent in a template, such as when determining when a character is eligible for initiation. This crops up in a messier fashion when there are already two templates whose times overlap ( often an Official will be a Noble at the same time, Soldier+ Initiate, etc. ). In these cases the ref should make a determination of what percentage of the time was package A, and what was B, etc. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | john_medway@zycor.lgc.com | Landmark Graphics Corp | 512.292.2325 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA25013; Sat, 21 Aug 93 01:15:07 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA18099; Sat, 21 Aug 93 02:14:23 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sat, 21 Aug 93 2:14:29 EDT From: Dustin Tranberg To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: SKILLS - Easy, Med., Hard Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1993 23:13:58 -0700 Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7E955CD683E@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Someone once posted a system which used the skill's base chance as a measure of its easy/hardness to learn. As I recall, it was basically to add the base chance to the skill modifier when attempting experience checks, practicing, etc. This notion may need tweaking, but it has a lot of elegance, and it is certainly true that the "easy" skills start high (Jump), and the tough ones start at 0% (sorcery). Best of all, it wouldn't add more stats to the game, yet allows for more of a continuum than the easy/../hard categories. Toodles, Dustin  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA23223; Fri, 20 Aug 93 23:39:37 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA16940; Sat, 21 Aug 93 00:38:48 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sat, 21 Aug 93 0:38:57 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Rules Companion? Date: Sat, 21 Aug 93 14:37:26 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7E7BD3E1AD9@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > This is Graeme replying to Joerg replying to Graeme replying to Wayne who was replying to ???? > In <76C37ED65FC@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu>, Graeme Lindsell writes: > > > Wayne writes: > >> Well...I'd say SOME kind of patch on sorcery would be a Really Good Idea. > >> And the Easy/Medium/Hard thing would be nice. Past that... > > > I'm more interested in a completely re-written sorcery system than a > > patch, ie something like Paul's presence system. Your point is well Joerg writes: > Not even the PRE-system is a complete rewrite; it keeps most of the > spells we know from the current version and thus keeps up > compatibility. Well I liked Burton's rewritten sorcery skill system as well: the spell plus knowledge system that was posted a couple of months ago > > > The Easy/Medium/Hard is interesting, but I don't see it as essential, > > and I'm worried about the way it's implemented: almost all of the > > cults judge progression by skill level, and cults with Easy cult > > skills will suddenly become much easier to advance in. > > I have to disagree: Without the difficulty system, there is no need for > a point system, and that's no need for the templates as offered. Most > of the sense the current draft makes would be cancelled. > I'd like to see your reasoning on this. The points system is useful for optional skills, and for skills that aren't primary to your career. I don't see removing easy/medium/hard as destroying the ectire draft. My complaint with the Easy/Medium/Hard is more the way it has been implemented than the idea: I can see easy skills racing away from all the other skills at a great rate. I think they could be implemented using the task difficulty system rather than the experience system. RQ does have modifiers for different levels of difficulty of tasks, though it is really only defined well for combat skills. All that has to be done is say that Easy skills are actually easy tasks ie you get +20% to your chance of success when attempting to use it. Instead of saying "2-H Spear is an easy skill: you get a +2d6 increase rather than +1d6" you can say "2-H Spear is an easy weapon to use: you get +20% to using it in most circumstances". The question is: is something easy because it is easy to learn, or because it is easy to do? > > > I think both versions are useless: I can't see a sorcerer ever blowing > > power to get a temporary spell. This is why I called it dull: the interesting > > thing about RQII sorcerers was the long duration spells (OK, the grossly > ^^ > Nice typo. RQ2 (why the roman numerals?) did know long-time spells; ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ just my notation: if it's confusing to people, I'll use digits instead. > anything stacked with Extension 3 would last a week. For runetypes with > reusable Extension no problem, just power yourself up before the > adventure, and have a quasi-permanent Bladesharp 4, protection 4 (or > was 6 the limit?), etc. What's the difference between a week or a year > in adventuring? Not much if you live next door to the local dungeon ie Pavis. In a journey/quest style adventure, the difference is greater. In fact it's in quests that sorcerers and shamans have a big advantage over priests, since they can get all their magic back in a day, or a few days if they need to fill storage or binding matrices. The priest is limited by his access to his temple. I think 4 was the limit for most spells apart from Heal. > > > overpowered thing as well). The draft RQIV sorcerers just seem to have a > > different variety of spirit magic. There's nothing unique about them. > > And a less reliable, to top it. Compare protection with damage > resistance, and you'll find that a Protection 3 will cancel out more > damage from a swordfighter with 1D4 damage bonus than a 3-point Damage > Resistance, and probably (I didn't calculate that) more than a 6-point > Damage Resistance. I once did a table that compared the average damage taken by a target with 10 point Damage Resistance to a target with 10 points of protection by twenty blows with damage from 1 to 20 (ie 1,2,3,4,5...20 point hits). The target with Damage Resistance would take (on average) 7.125 points of damage, the Protected target 2.75 (ignoring criticals, which would bypass both spells). Not being a statistician I doubt my methodology was correct, but I think the comparison was adequate. > > One way I have come up with to handle long- or medium-time Duration is > to make the use of a progressive table (not necessarily the current 2^X > table) dependent on ritual casting, i.e. long-time casting. My idea was > to use the ceremony-time-to-skill table with casting time one step (one > D6 in the table) per extra point of Duration. > > Opinions? > It has more flavour than the current draft system, but most long duration spells are cast back at base anyway: I think the table is more important to balancing the system. > > than the lethality of the weapons. I think Heal is the real culprit: > > there are very few wounds that kill you instantly in reality. I think > > most combat fatalities are the result of shock. > > Lethality is always a problem. I'd like to see a system that allows > wounds which cannot be healed at once, maybe only stilled - something > like False Healing in Troll Gods. Only a low percentage actually died > within five minutes from a lethal blow, other than having their throats > slit. Healing magic and First Aid skill ought to be able to stop Damage to the brain, neck (spine and arteries), heart, lungs and kidneys will kill in less than five minutes, I think. Gruesome topic :-( > immediate death, but there are enough examples of people slowly dying > from a wound, allowing them even to act heroically in the meantime - at > least in fiction. To really heal a lethal wound, I'd expect some ritual > healing magic as so nicely depicted in the Conan movie. > > This would also go nicely with Greg Staffords statement that > distribution of healing magic is about ten times overrated among > RQ-PCs, or in RQ in general. His other comment hasn't been addressed nearly as much: that the effect of most spells are not instantaneous. I haven't been able to think of an elegant way of implementing this; has anyone else had any bright ideas? From Greg's comments in the TOTRM interview, he seems to think magical powers should be rather more ambiguous than in the current RQ draft. > > I like the sorcerous Treat Wounds, by the way: no immediate effect > except stopping the bleeding. If one plays the variant as used by the There are a couple of other tricks you can do with heal to make it less effective. I think both of these have been discussed on the list before: i) "Healsharp": make Heal into a spell that boosts First Aid just like Bladesharp does Attack ie each point of Heal adds 5% to chance of succes and 1 extra point of damage healed. This combines the effect of two other proposals: Healing will take 5 rounds, since thats how long First Aid takes, and only one Heal per wound will work. ii) "Dispel Magic" style Heals: in order to heal a wound, a spell must equal or exceed the damage entirely. ie a 2 point heal doesn't effect a 3 point wound at all, but can heal 1 and 2 point wounds. You would need to keep track of individual wounds ie: a limb incapacitated by 3x2 point wounds could be healed using 3 Heal 2's; a limb incapacitated by 1x6point wound would need Heal 6 or better. This makes dedicated Healers with big Heal spells more important, as well as enhancing Divine and Sorcery spells. (Actually, did someone propose this recently?) Damage Notation in RQ: I find the way locational damage is written on character sheets to be a bit opaque. Take a typical arm for example Arm: 3 and damage is used to reduce this value. At zero HP the arm is useless, and at -3 it is crippled. Using the new rules, at -6 it can be permanently maimed or even chopped off. My complaint with the notation is that none of this is obvious from the sheet. I think a notation like: Arm: 3/6/9 would be more useful. As damage was taken, the player could note it down next to the location: when he takes 3 points of accumulated damage, it is useless, 6 crippled, 9 destroyed. Comments? One of Greg's other comments about RQ damage is that it doesn't address pain: everything either works or doesn't, there is no reduction in ability with wounds. Does anyone have any ideas about how this shoud be addressed? > > Finally a note about the future of this list: > > I don't know the copyright situation for the draft and our thoughts > upon it, but I advocate to continue our discussions to a point of > producing new drafts. Some day there will be the need for a new edition > of RQ, if it survives, and whosoever will hold the rights by then will > have to take an existing, playtested version into account. > > So keep on producing ideas and presenting them here. > Agreed: I think the discussions here have been very useful. > Joerg Baumgartner rq4@sartar.toppoint.de Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA03638; Sat, 21 Aug 93 16:07:43 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA00941; Sat, 21 Aug 93 17:05:46 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sat, 21 Aug 93 17:07:05 EDT From: "Loren J. Miller" To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: SKILLS - Easy, Med., Hard Date: 21 Aug 1993 17:07:01 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <7F831207096@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Dustin Tranberg writes: > Someone once posted a system which used the skill's base chance > as a measure of its easy/hardness to learn. > > As I recall, it was basically to add the base chance to the skill > modifier when attempting experience checks, practicing, etc. This was Jonathan Tweet's idea, and I posted it. I think it's the cleanest way to handle skill difficulty. It would need a tweak, as Dustin admits, for cultural skills and so on, but is basically sound. It takes less computation when advancing skills than the current (E/M/H/VH) system and doesn't require computation of skill chances during play like the performance difficulty systems would. Also, it would force us to rethink the skill base chances, which I think are currently troublesome. whoah, +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu "Science" does not remove the terror of the gods.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA16933; Sun, 22 Aug 93 11:59:32 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA15596; Sun, 22 Aug 93 12:58:44 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sun, 22 Aug 93 12:58:49 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: SKILLS - Easy Med. Hard Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1993 09:45:41 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <80C13F44CAC@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> I'm jumping into this discussion without having seen the first part, but, I thought the different dice was a fairly elegant idea, because it gives you a chart that's short enough to memorize (and each skill can be identified on the character sheet -- see my other message). I assume everyone's convinced we need the extra complexity? David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA14463; Sun, 22 Aug 93 07:34:00 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA13099; Sun, 22 Aug 93 08:32:57 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sun, 22 Aug 93 8:33:18 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: SKILLS - Easy, Med., Hard Date: Sun, 22 Aug 93 15:34:29 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <807A5B53B62@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > Dustin Tranberg writes: > > As I recall, it was basically to add the base chance to the skill > > modifier when attempting experience checks, practicing, etc. Loren Miller writes: > > This was Jonathan Tweet's idea, and I posted it. I think it's the > cleanest way to handle skill difficulty. It would need a tweak, as > Dustin admits, for cultural skills and so on, but is basically sound. It > takes less computation when advancing skills than the current (E/M/H/VH) > system and doesn't require computation of skill chances during play like > the performance difficulty systems would. Also, it would force us to > rethink the skill base chances, which I think are currently troublesome. This sounds good. The only problem I can see occurs when a skill reaches 100%: the chance of increase of a skill with a high base skill will be many times greater than that of a low base skill (Of course, this may be a feature, rather than a bug). For very difficult skills, there may even be skills with a negative base: you would need a high positive skill modifier to even learn them, and progress would be slow. A more coherent set of base skill limits would be welcome too. Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA25809; Sun, 22 Aug 93 22:10:06 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA24355; Sun, 22 Aug 93 23:07:19 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sun, 22 Aug 93 23:09:26 EDT From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Character generation Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 11:06:33 WST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <81638BC7678@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > Let's say the GM is running a game with Expert (75%) level characters. > You can opt to run a Hunter with primary skills around 75%. If you opt > to run a character with more than one professional background, say > Hunter and Foot Warrior, he (or she) would aquire all the Hunter and > Foot Warrior primary skills at 60% (i.e Hunter and Foot Warrior at the > Average level), but in the few cases that skills overlapped (i.e. > Weapon skills, possibly First Aid or Stealth skills, etc.) the skill > would go up one level. In other words the character would have any > primary skills shared by the two professions at 75%. This eliminates > a lot of the calculation otherwise required, with very little loss in > accuracy. If I read this correctly, I think that I like it a lot less than the current system. The problem is that it assumes that people with more than one professional background are equally proficient at all of them. This takes away a lot of the flexibility from the system. I like, for example, characters with a minimal fighting ability, but master craft abilities, or minimal abilities at second professions in other ways. Basically, this is a nice way of calculating characters with more than one primary profession, a profession in which they are fully competent. However, the current choosing multiple templates should quite definately be left in place, for people who want the maximum flexability. There is no reason to remove the previous options for character creation, just add a new system for people who find the old one too fiddly. By all means add the new mechanism, but don't remove the old one. I feel strongly on this - for me, if the above system was the only one, it would definately be a step backwards. > > > Oliver > > P.S. Sorry about the duplicate posting, my mailer misfired. > David Cake  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA26788; Sun, 22 Aug 93 23:18:17 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA25219; Mon, 23 Aug 93 00:15:41 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 23 Aug 93 0:17:34 EDT From: JOVANOVIC@CUCCFA.CCC.COLUMBIA.EDU To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Character generation Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 0:12:21 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8175C91766F@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> David, the idea would be that this would be the quick and easy way to do it. For people that don't mind spending the time, the old system will still be in place - it offers more flexibility, but at a cost in time. Take care, see you in two weeks or so. Oliver  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA00800; Mon, 23 Aug 93 04:20:31 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA28591; Mon, 23 Aug 93 05:17:57 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 23 Aug 93 5:19:50 EDT From: Mystic Musk Ox To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: effects of damage Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 10:17 BST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <81C66E719F1@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Re the question about effects of damage on skills (sorry I seem to have deleted the reference!), I've always thought of using something simple like -5% to all skills for each point of damage taken. Of course, this assumes that 2 x 1 points wounds are as debilitating as 1 x 2 point wound, but its a simple method. I'm assuming that this applies continually until the wound/s are healed. I seem to remember an odd rule from GURPS, where a wound subtracts from your next chance to hit (only!), which seems very strange. Healing: Like the idea of "Healsharp", as this actually gives an incentive for people to be good at First Aid, perhaps this could supplant the way that spirit heal spells work totally? I still feel that divine spells should do the cure immediately.. Mark Buckley.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA04833; Mon, 23 Aug 93 09:05:30 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA07775; Mon, 23 Aug 93 10:04:41 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 23 Aug 93 10:04:46 EDT From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: COMMENTS Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 10:00:58 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8212DB80429@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> John Medway replies... %%>> From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) %%>> Date: Thu, 19 Aug 93 11:34:18 EDT %%>> %%>> I suggest also that age start at 14-16 (d3+13). Each level of a template %%>> details the aging, at 1d6+3 per level. %%>> ... %%>> Now, the actual age rolls could be tweaked. I based it on Master level, %%>> subtracting base age and dividing by 4. Perhaps initiate could be %%>> just 1d3 per level (since it is so lacking in skills). Perhaps it could %%>> be 1d6 for normal occupations. %% %%Something like this should be explicit in the final version of the system, %%though I'd say, since the packages are unequal, so should the time required %%be. My Assuption was that Each career would be nearly the same. If you noticed the skill breakup in my example (many days back), it used the same skills listed in the RQ3 template (more or less). As such, each occupation would have ~the same number of basic skills. There would be variances in optional skills, which would tweak the ocupation costs a bit. %%It seems a bit severe for zero->Trained ( as in barely trained ) to %%require the same number of years as does Expert->Master, in any template. True. Perhaps it could go 1d4/1d6/2d4/2d6 for years? %%In some cases it may be necessary to pro-rate the time spent in a template, %%such as when determining when a character is eligible for initiation. This %%crops up in a messier fashion when there are already two templates whose %%times overlap ( often an Official will be a Noble at the same time, Soldier+ %%Initiate, etc. ). In these cases the ref should make a determination of what %%percentage of the time was package A, and what was B, etc. What do ya want, a complete solution? :) It's Runequest, not Burtquest. :) Seriously, That is an interesting problem I didn't think of. Anyone have any ideas around that? Graeme A Lindsell notes... %% Joerg writes: %% %%> Not even the PRE-system is a complete rewrite; it keeps most of the %%> spells we know from the current version and thus keeps up %%> compatibility. %% %% Well I liked Burton's rewritten sorcery skill system as well: the spell %%plus knowledge system that was posted a couple of months ago Thanks. Only problem is it's only a little (perhaps half) compatable with RQ3 sorcery, if that's where AH is trying to stay with. %% My complaint with the Easy/Medium/Hard is more the way it has %%been implemented than the idea: I can see easy skills racing away from %%all the other skills at a great rate. I think they could be implemented %%using the task difficulty system rather than the experience system. I disagree, sort of. The difficulties in the draft seem to emulate how hard it is to learn/master those skills. I can see Medicine being harder than leatherworking being harder that quarterstaff. Odds are, if I tried to take up all three I'd ramp up faster in quarterstaff. When they MAKE their rolls, the assumption is the task is "routine" difficulty. If it is "simple" task you give a bonus to their roll. If "difficult" they get a reduction. But the definition of "routine" will vary by the skill used. What might be a "routine" lockpicking is very different from a "routine" use of a combat skill -- there is a differance in time scales, details and the like. And (to go modern for a sec) a "routine" surgery is beyond my ability, though it may be just another days work for Joe doctor. %% His other comment hasn't been addressed nearly as much: that the %%effect of most spells are not instantaneous. I haven't been able %%to think of an elegant way of implementing this; has anyone else %%had any bright ideas? From Greg's comments in the TOTRM interview, %%he seems to think magical powers should be rather more ambiguous than %%in the current RQ draft. Depends on how you want to do it. Making Spirit magic more fickle (i.e. using Paul's Animalistic Shamans where you don't cast spirit spells, you bribe spirits to do the effects) can be as simple as rolling a d6 each round (including the round cast). If you get a 6, the spell finally activates. Bribing excess mana adds +1 to your roll. If you ask an INT 3 Heal spirit (i.e. does a Heal 3 spell) to heal you, and you bribe it with 2 extra mana (spending 5 total), that and each round thereafter you need to roll a 4+ on 1d6 for the healing to begin (as it dithers and ponders your request). Once it activates you no longer need to roll. If you REALLY need a spell, 5 mana ABOVE that needed will guarentee (sp?) that it goes off that round...it just gets expensive to do it that way all the time. Yes, it's a cheap mechanic, but it's fairly painless IMHO. %%ii) "Dispel Magic" style Heals: in order to heal a wound, a spell must %%equal or exceed the damage entirely. ie a 2 point heal doesn't effect %%a 3 point wound at all, but can heal 1 and 2 point wounds. You would %%need to keep track of individual wounds ie: a limb incapacitated by %%3x2 point wounds could be healed using 3 Heal 2's; a limb incapacitated %%by 1x6point wound would need Heal 6 or better. This makes dedicated %%Healers with big Heal spells more important, as well as enhancing %%Divine and Sorcery spells. (Actually, did someone propose this %%recently?) I like this. Much better visualization of Healing. To promote this idea it would be good to rename "Heal" to "Close Wounds". And anyone who can command a Big heal spirit would have good business. :) %% Arm: 3/6/9 %% %% would be more useful. As damage was taken, the player could note it %%down next to the location: when he takes 3 points of accumulated damage, %%it is useless, 6 crippled, 9 destroyed. %% %% Comments? Problem is arm and leg locations stop taking effective hits at DOUBLE damage. The triple damage rule is only on a single hit, and even then it still only takes up to double damage when applied to the overall hits. Still, the triple damage = maim/sever makes the concept of needing a Heal that can handle all that damage in a single go, rather then piddly little Heal 1's in series that much stronger. %% One of Greg's other comments about RQ damage is that it doesn't address %%pain: everything either works or doesn't, there is no reduction in ability %%with wounds. Does anyone have any ideas about how this shoud be addressed? Each point of damage reduces your abilities by 5%. The way I have been doing strike ranks, each person rolls 1d6 and adds their SR rating. Turn goes low->high. With this way of doing it, I'd also say each point of damage adds 1 to your SR as well. -- Burton  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA12232; Mon, 23 Aug 93 11:53:25 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA15500; Mon, 23 Aug 93 12:52:24 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 23 Aug 93 12:52:34 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: effects of damage Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 09:39:53 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <823F94F44A8@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >Re the question about effects of damage on skills (sorry I seem to have >deleted the reference!), I've always thought of using something simple >like -5% to all skills for each point of damage taken. Yeah, but this isn't very realistic for beings of large or small hit points. And I presume the reason for this complexity is realism... Besides, one could argue that not all skills are affected equally (would ability to speak a language go down 5% because I took a light wound?). As a GM, I'm against a proposal like this. It's bad enough running a melee with a dozen NPCs, without having to recalculate their percentages each round. David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA12857; Mon, 23 Aug 93 12:04:24 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA15990; Mon, 23 Aug 93 13:03:40 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 23 Aug 93 13:03:44 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: COMMENTS Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 09:51:08 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <824297F050F@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >%%ii) "Dispel Magic" style Heals: in order to heal a wound, a spell must >%%equal or exceed the damage entirely. ie a 2 point heal doesn't effect >%%a 3 point wound at all, but can heal 1 and 2 point wounds. You would >%%need to keep track of individual wounds ie: a limb incapacitated by >%%3x2 point wounds could be healed using 3 Heal 2's; a limb incapacitated >%%by 1x6point wound would need Heal 6 or better. This makes dedicated >%%Healers with big Heal spells more important, as well as enhancing >%%Divine and Sorcery spells. (Actually, did someone propose this >%%recently?) This would seem to make magic more, rather than less, important. Why? Because any use of magic always completely heals. I'm still convinced the easiest way to limit healing is once/wound -- this doesn't add any bookkeeping (you already have -3 -2 etc. next to a location) and it's compatible with previous stats. >%% One of Greg's other comments about RQ damage is that it doesn't address >%%pain: everything either works or doesn't, there is no reduction in ability >%%with wounds. Does anyone have any ideas about how this shoud be addressed? Greg sidesteps this in Pendragon by saying that mighty, trained knights can shrug off much damage... If we have to have a rule for this, it should be based on the number of *wounds*, _not_ the amount of damage. Why? Because even a non-life-threatening wound can be very painful. And it would allow someone to take a mortal wound but continue to fight. But I suspect anything is going to be a lot of trouble to implement. What happens when your allied spirit heals you? Does the pain go away and your ability return? David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA12677; Mon, 23 Aug 93 12:00:31 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA15796; Mon, 23 Aug 93 12:59:38 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 23 Aug 93 12:59:44 EDT From: "Roderick Robertson, SC1-5, x52936" To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: effects of damage Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 09:56 PST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <824182761B5@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> On the Pain debate: >Re the question about effects of damage on skills (sorry I seem to have >deleted the reference!), I've always thought of using something simple >like -5% to all skills for each point of damage taken. Of course, >this assumes that 2 x 1 points wounds are as debilitating as 1 x 2 point >wound, but its a simple method. I'm assuming that this applies continually >until the wound/s are healed. I seem to remember an odd rule from GURPS, >where a wound subtracts from your next chance to hit (only!), which seems >very strange. 'Way back when, I was thinking of this, then decided to ask some one who would know (a Doctor). She advised that in combat situations (or any time adrenalin is flooding your system), you won't notice the pain. Once the moment is over, you're going to feel it of course... So, I decided to leave it alone. But, now that it's come up... I'd assess the -5% per damage point if the character is not engaged in hand to hand combat. So if Joe Orlanthi gets hit by a crossbow bolt, he'll be at -Damx5% until healed. First Aid will relieve *some* of the pain, but not all, unless it was a scratch. This will stop the xD&D idea of running around with gaping wounds ("Well, I'm down 6 hp, but I can still function. Let me at that lock). This also means that wounds will "hurt" outside of combat. The Gurps idea of only assessing a penalty to the next attack seems more to re-create the idea of being staggered by a hit. I could see assessing a Strike Rank penalty for being hit. You can still defend normally, but you can only attack after SR+x Strike ranks (What x is I'm not sure, 1/2 damage taken maybe?). Of course, both of these suggestions lend complicatiopn to the combat... Roderick Robertson Robertson@delphi.intel.com  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA07327; Mon, 23 Aug 93 20:31:08 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA04234; Mon, 23 Aug 93 21:30:23 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 23 Aug 93 21:30:28 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: RQ4 Diet Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 18:17:48 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <82C9BE441F4@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> So far (in my limited time on this mailing list), almost everything's been devoted to what to add or change from RuneQuest. I haven't seen anyone talking about making the game simpler or faster to GM, which is what some of us would like. So for purposes of discussion, what could be dropped from RQ? (Note, I don't necessarily think these all should be, it's just a discussion starter) + Hit location rolls. PenDragon and Elric use the Major Wound to get a similar effect (where only the most serious wounds need an additional roll). + Strike Ranks. RQ4 already virtually gets rid of them with the "2 actions/round" rule, and it's debatable whether someone can really kill an enemy and prevent a blow from landing 1 SR later. + All rules for bleeding and additional damage (e.g. from impaled weapons). Who can keep track anyway? + Fatigue rules (adopt the Elric strategy that most combats aren't long enough for them to matter -- Elric does need some sort of ENC rules, however). + Fumble %s. Elric doesn't use a table, you fumble on 99 or 00. + Separate criticals and specials. For most practical purposes, Elric merges these. + RQ4's Maneuver skill. Elric uses Dodge in much the same way. + Skill modifiers. They tend to be small anyway, and it's a royal pain to recompute them when your POW changes. (Since stats would matter much less then, maybe they should go away too...) + Spell foci (and preparing of spells). Assume mnemonic runes are carved into swords, armor, or whatever, and any spirit magic you know you can cast as one of your two actions in a round. + Runes. (Oops, those are already gone with RQ3.)  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA09733; Mon, 23 Aug 93 22:40:23 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA06301; Mon, 23 Aug 93 23:39:31 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 23 Aug 93 23:39:41 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 20:27:00 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <82EC33222AE@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >So for purposes of discussion, what could be dropped from RQ? (Note, I >don't necessarily think these all should be, it's just a discussion >starter) Here's a couple more: + Base chances. All skills start at either 0% (if you can't do it without training) or 10% (or maybe 5%). Or maybe they start at 0% or (for attack skills) STR+DEX% (each category would have a base chance determined by adding two stats -- if your POW increased, your base chance might go up, but this wouldn't be a modifier, so skills would not change). + Weapon hit points. They either break or don't, let's get rid of the bookkeeping. David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA13792; Tue, 24 Aug 93 01:54:32 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA09253; Tue, 24 Aug 93 02:53:45 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 2:53:50 EDT From: Dustin Tranberg To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: "Skinny" RQ Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 23:52:34 -0700 Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <832003B765B@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> If too much of RQ is "dropped" it starts to sound like Melee... I particularly have a problem with dropping skill modifiers. I find the difference in "learning curves" between characters to be one of the best mechanics of the game. My reading of the RQ3 rules suggests that when attributes change (like POW), skills do not change, only modifiers (and thus, future learning). If your characters change POW so often that altering 3 or 4 POW-related skill modifiers is a major chore, then you are in a pretty high-performance game... Cheers, Dustin  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA14049; Tue, 24 Aug 93 02:04:58 -0500 Return-Path: <100270.337@CompuServe.COM> Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA09331; Tue, 24 Aug 93 03:04:16 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 3:04:17 EDT From: Nick Brooke <100270.337@CompuServe.COM> To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Pain and Healing Date: 24 Aug 93 03:01:02 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8322C910F71@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> It's been a while... >>One of Greg's other comments about RQ damage is that it doesn't address >>pain: everything either works or doesn't, there is no reduction in ability >>with wounds. Does anyone have any ideas about how this shoud be addressed? >Greg sidesteps this in Pendragon by saying that mighty, trained knights can >shrug off much damage... Ah, but that was before he did his wrists in. Nope, I'll chuck my tuppence behind Roderick's proposal that adrenaline more than counters any pain felt from wounds *while still in combat*. I had thought of doing the same for basic fatigue, too: you don't get the whack for a brief fight until it's over, but it can be more severe with less bookkeeping as a result. But I never used fatigue anyway... Yeah, the Crimson Bat is going to be unfairly penalised by both these rules. Poor little Bat. I weep for it. On Heal spells, I'm another fan of "Healsharp" - Heal as a +5%/+1 modifier to First Aid skill. Find a good rename for "First Aid" and this'll be just fine for me. The methods which require a running check on how large the last Heal on each wound was don't go well with Heal as an "instant" spell (thus not possible to dispel on your foes, alas!). If "Healsharp" were made Active, too, you'd get more realism than the current "laying on of hands" -- no reason why it shouldn't still take time to treat wounds, even if you're doing it with magical help. Oh, and I liked Lewis Jardine's suggestion for cult-set upper limits to spirit spell points on the Daily (and the spin-off "overcome variable points plus modifier [all squared] to gain a new point of spell" method someone else followed it up with). Makes you think more about what your cult can and can't do: no more "Heal 6 Humakti" etc. And seems to fit in with the RQ3 philosophy of limiting Spirit Magic availability. ==== Nick ==== "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" -- attributed to Danfive Xaron  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA16822; Tue, 24 Aug 93 04:51:43 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA11206; Tue, 24 Aug 93 05:50:55 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 5:51:02 EDT From: "Peter A. van Heusden" To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 11:49:30 +0200 (SAT) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <834F42C11F6@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > + Hit location rolls. PenDragon and Elric use the Major Wound to get a > similar effect (where only the most serious wounds need an additional > roll). I LOVE Hit Locations. Come on, a d20 roll is no problem. It makes for much more interesting combat. > > + Strike Ranks. RQ4 already virtually gets rid of them with the "2 > actions/round" rule, and it's debatable whether someone can really kill an > enemy and prevent a blow from landing 1 SR later. Ok, sure, but the problem at the moment is merging misc. actions with these rules. Eg. running, etc. > > + All rules for bleeding and additional damage (e.g. from impaled weapons). > Who can keep track anyway? I can. I do. I like them. I DO NOT like the unconscious at 0, die at neg HP rule - it makes it much too easy on the players. Maybe give the 1/4 HP to play with, ie. unconc at 0, die at -1/4 HP. And impales are one of those lovely RQ concepts that adds flavour to what would be simple hack and slay. > > + Fatigue rules (adopt the Elric strategy that most combats aren't long > enough for them to matter -- Elric does need some sort of ENC rules, > however). Its the DM's judgement call. One of my scenarios had the players running away from Artos across Britain. FP would have been crucial as they got called on to act as they got more and more tired. The RQ4 fatigue looks good so far. Don't only think in terms of combat - FP stop players from running all over the place and then killing someone/climbing a cliff/etc before supper. > > + Fumble %s. Elric doesn't use a table, you fumble on 99 or 00. Maybe this is ok... but I don't think 1 table is too much to consult. > > + Separate criticals and specials. For most practical purposes, Elric > merges these. VERY useful to have these different successes. Adds detail. Consider that in fact all of RQ is a scale of successes. Crit = 3, Special =2, Hit = 1, Miss = 0, Fumble = -1. Lets you go to higher levels of action, eg. Heroquesting with ease. > + Skill modifiers. They tend to be small anyway, and it's a royal pain to > recompute them when your POW changes. (Since stats would matter much less > then, maybe they should go away too...) How often does your POW change? Maybe once in 3 months (playing time) if my campaign is a guide. Some of my players have mods of +10, that kind of thing. They are nice, give a bit of variety. Those points I didn't comment on, agreed with. Peter ******************************************************************************* Peter van Heusden One man one newsfeed CS3, UCT, Cape Town, RSA "but I love the setting. and the hippies pvanheus@cs.uct.ac.za will be back in the fall" Red_Guest on MediaMOO  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA01698; Tue, 24 Aug 93 12:52:13 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA00955; Tue, 24 Aug 93 13:51:15 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 13:51:29 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Pain and Healing Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 10:38:39 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <83CF564162C@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >I'll chuck my tuppence >behind Roderick's proposal that adrenaline more than counters any pain felt >from wounds *while still in combat*. I had thought of doing the same for >basic fatigue, too: you don't get the whack for a brief fight until it's >over, but it can be more severe with less bookkeeping as a result. But I >never used fatigue anyway... I like this idea, too. Especially because it means that pain and fatigue don't matter, and don't need rules. (I know, there are occasionally times after a battle where you need to do something in a hurry, but it's not all that often.) >On Heal spells, I'm another fan of "Healsharp" - Heal as a +5%/+1 modifier >to First Aid skill. Find a good rename for "First Aid" and this'll be just >fine for me. The methods which require a running check on how large the >last Heal on each wound was don't go well with Heal as an "instant" spell >(thus not possible to dispel on your foes, alas!). If "Healsharp" were made >Active, too, you'd get more realism than the current "laying on of hands" >-- no reason why it shouldn't still take time to treat wounds, even if >you're doing it with magical help. Ah, so that's what "Healsharp" was. An interesting idea, it'd certainly make rune magic mightier! (Elric calls First Aid "Physik," a name I'm not very fond of. RQ already has Treat Disease, it could have Treat Wound if you really don't like the name "First Aid.") Making it active would certainly require the Chalana Arroy player to practice triage! David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA01705; Tue, 24 Aug 93 12:52:18 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA00965; Tue, 24 Aug 93 13:51:31 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 13:51:36 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 10:39:02 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <83CF6D7655A@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >> + Hit location rolls. PenDragon and Elric use the Major Wound to get a >> similar effect (where only the most serious wounds need an additional >> roll). > >I LOVE Hit Locations. Come on, a d20 roll is no problem. It makes for much more >interesting combat. Actually, I like hit locations, too. But I don't like your attitude. A d20 roll IS a problem. A round of combat can have a player making 4 rolls (attack, defense, damage, location). Compare this to Pendragon's two (attack, damage). But the issue is not the player, it's the GM. The GM may be running a dozen or so NPCs, in which case it's nearly 50 rolls per round. And the GM is far more likely to have to look up some of those rolls on a chart (might be running different shaped opponents, or dealing with melee and missile fire). You could have hit location rolls only for major wounds. >Those points I didn't comment on, agreed with. Good, but surely you have more suggestions for simplifying and speeding up the game. My ideas weren't _that_ good...  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA01758; Tue, 24 Aug 93 12:52:44 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA00984; Tue, 24 Aug 93 13:51:55 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 13:52:00 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: "Skinny" RQ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 10:39:25 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <83CF84A5967@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >If too much of RQ is "dropped" it starts to sound like Melee... Melee had the advantage of being easy to learn and very quick to play. To me, those are good features. >My reading of the RQ3 rules suggests that when attributes change >(like POW), skills do not change, only modifiers (and thus, future >learning). If your characters change POW so often that altering >3 or 4 POW-related skill modifiers is a major chore, then you are >in a pretty high-performance game... Hmm, you may be right on that, I may be remembering something from RQ2. Anyway, if you don't like my ideas, how about some of your own? RuneQuest simply takes too long to play. It can take me hours to run a combat in RQ4; I could run the same combat in a quarter the time with PenDragon Pass rules. Remember, it's not that any one rule is bad or too slow, it's that the GM has to deal with ALL the rules, and any time the GM takes is time EVERYONE has to wait for. David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA03932; Tue, 24 Aug 93 13:33:06 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA02691; Tue, 24 Aug 93 14:32:23 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 14:32:25 EDT From: "Peter A. van Heusden" To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 20:31:27 +0200 (SAT) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <83DA5537DBB@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > >> + Hit location rolls. PenDragon and Elric use the Major Wound to get a > >> similar effect (where only the most serious wounds need an additional > >> roll). > > > >I LOVE Hit Locations. Come on, a d20 roll is no problem. It makes for much more > >interesting combat. > > Actually, I like hit locations, too. But I don't like your attitude. A d20 > roll IS a problem. A round of combat can have a player making 4 rolls > (attack, defense, damage, location). Compare this to Pendragon's two So? > (attack, damage). But the issue is not the player, it's the GM. The GM may > be running a dozen or so NPCs, in which case it's nearly 50 rolls per > round. And the GM is far more likely to have to look up some of those rolls > on a chart (might be running different shaped opponents, or dealing with > melee and missile fire). Um, you run 12 or so NPC's? I've never topped 5. I can't think that 12 NPC's is standard. > > You could have hit location rolls only for major wounds. Ok, so put a bit in the rules suggesting this. As I pointed out, < 12 NPC's is standard and works ok with hit locations. Rolling 1d20 takes less than 1 second. > > >Those points I didn't comment on, agreed with. > > Good, but surely you have more suggestions for simplifying and speeding up > the game. My ideas weren't _that_ good... Um, what we had discussed so far seemed to cover most of my problems. I don't like RQ3 sorcery, or fatigue, or char creation. The presence system seems ok for Sorcery, the RQ4 fatigue is ok, and we are working on char creation. Also, we need a better spell creation system. Anyway, my MAJOR problem is that it seems RQ4 isn't coming out in the near future. I might move to Ars Magica. Peter ******************************************************************************* Peter van Heusden One man one newsfeed CS3, UCT, Cape Town, RSA "but I love the setting. and the hippies pvanheus@cs.uct.ac.za will be back in the fall" Red_Guest on MediaMOO  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA06521; Tue, 24 Aug 93 14:21:31 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA04861; Tue, 24 Aug 93 15:20:41 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 15:20:47 EDT From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: COMMENTS, rq-skinny Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 15:16:57 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <83E72B35480@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> David Dunham's comments on a skinnier RQ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- %% So far (in my limited time on this mailing list), almost everything's been %% devoted to what to add or change from RuneQuest. I haven't seen anyone %% talking about making the game simpler or faster to GM, which is what some %% of us would like. Well, I proposed some amendments to this, but let's go over what you suggest. %% + Hit location rolls. PenDragon and Elric use the Major Wound to get a %% similar effect (where only the most serious wounds need an additional %% roll). I think this would be a great loss to the system. Location wounds adds flavor to the game. A nice add might be an optional table for each location where you add another random element and the damage done to get special effects: DAM/HITS Less 1/3 1/2 1/1 2/1 3/1 More Roll 1 2 3 Fill in a table for each location 4 5 6 Use this for those that want those arteries sliced on a hit or other gruesome details. %% + Strike Ranks. RQ4 already virtually gets rid of them with the "2 %% actions/round" rule, and it's debatable whether someone can really kill an %% enemy and prevent a blow from landing 1 SR later. I am siding with the "SR is a speed index" idea, where 1d6+SR denotes when you may first act, with each action thereafter taking 3 SR between (or more, like for spells). %% + All rules for bleeding and additional damage (e.g. from impaled weapons). %% Who can keep track anyway? Well, I haven't used bleeding myself yet. Got enough to worry about at combat time. I do have a suggestion for combat damages and skills, however (at end). %% + Fatigue rules (adopt the Elric strategy that most combats aren't long %% enough for them to matter -- Elric does need some sort of ENC rules, %% however). Haven't used it, in RQ3 or RQ4. More trouble then it's worth. Perhaps a column or sidebar with some rules of thumb that the GM can use to wing it with. Other than that, I'll probably ignore 'em. %% + Fumble %s. Elric doesn't use a table, you fumble on 99 or 00. I'll go with this. I'd even go with a dice rule: Any failed roll that is "doubles" is "double bad". This is about 9% of the failure chance, in general. Since this is about 2x the normal fumble ratio, it should be up to the GM to decide whether the "extra bad" roll is a muff, or really a fumble. It works okay as a mnemonic too. %% + Separate criticals and specials. For most practical purposes, Elric %% merges these. I like having "degrees" of success and failure. If you combine degrees of failure, then use the higher die roll if both dgrees are equal, I think it works quite well and fast. %% + RQ4's Maneuver skill. Elric uses Dodge in much the same way. I can go either way. I don't see maneuver as that much a millstone, but I'll go with DEX*5 or something. as well. %% + Skill modifiers. They tend to be small anyway, and it's a royal pain to %% recompute them when your POW changes. (Since stats would matter much less %% then, maybe they should go away too...) Heretic. :) They add a good variance to the characters. This should stay in. Anyways, if you go with the rule that they aid you only when checking for improvement or when learning a new skill, it's not so bad. %% + Base chances. All skills start at either 0% (if you can't do it without %% training) or 10% (or maybe 5%). Or maybe they start at 0% or (for attack %% skills) STR+DEX% (each category would have a base chance determined by %% adding two stats -- if your POW increased, your base chance might go up, %% but this wouldn't be a modifier, so skills would not change). This is tricky. Some skill bases should be high (climbing is a good example, for humans, swimming for ducks, perception skills, etc) because the skills cover natural actions that you should have gotten good at simply by being alive and active. The 0% if requires training thing is already there, more or less. I'm not sure WHICH skills need to have their bases tweaked. Perhaps the entire perception group of Listen, Scan, Taste, Smell, etc skills should be removed and placed into an attribute. %% + Weapon hit points. They either break or don't, let's get rid of the %% bookkeeping. I don't know. I like having the possiblility. Powers & Perils also had rules where your armor got beat through use, which I kind of liked. The 'binary weapons' idea doesn't sound like that great an idea to me. If you plan to go that way, may just as well not worry about breaking weapons at all. The all or nothing seems to arbitrary. At least with` the current system, you can see your weapon getting beat and you can react to that and change weapons, or continue on and hope the weakened state won't fail on you. =============================================================================== Weapons, skills and damages: I have been playing a bit with the damages. Once players get high skills, high damages become certain for little work (or decision making). 1) ASSUMPTION: Special and critical hits do NOT do extra damage, but allow you to do a special maneuver. 2) Swinging weapons may do better damage, but impaling ones have a better "special effects" table. At the start of his/her turn, the player decides if he is going to attack stright, go for a hard shot, or go for a heroic shot. Attacking stright means you succeed if you roll less than your skill. Special and Critical has no effect in determining damage, which is rolled normally, but allow you to use special maneuvers. Going for a hard strike means you get 1/3 your skill to determine success, and the target must also use 1/3 his/her skill when defending. However, if your attack goes through you may roll DOUBLE the normal dice for damage. A heroic strike uses 1/5 your skill (and the target uses 1/5 to defend) and if the attack gets through you may roll TRIPLE the normal dice used for damage. This system has the advantage of being faster when two high-skill characters are going at it. You must have at least a 15% skill to do hard strikes and at least a 25% skill to do heroic ones. Example: Joe Hero (Sword 250%) is jumped by a Master Assassin (Sword 95%/dodge 90%). Our hero, spars a few rounds with the assassin, and sees that he is pretty good and decides to try and end it quickly. A heroic strike for him gives a 50% chance of hitting, but the Assassin only a 18% chance to dodge it. One good hit will probably get the assassin out of Joe's hair. This idea was borne of watching two 100%+ characters play battle on and on... attack, parry, attack, parry, attack..... Comments?  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA07925; Tue, 24 Aug 93 14:47:36 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA05913; Tue, 24 Aug 93 15:46:51 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 15:46:53 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 12:34:30 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <83EE3497ABA@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >Um, you run 12 or so NPC's? I've never topped 5. I can't think that 12 NPC's >is standard. Sure. If there are 5 or 6 fairly powerful PCs, you might need a dozen trollkin to give them meaningful opposition. >> You could have hit location rolls only for major wounds. > >Ok, so put a bit in the rules suggesting this. As I pointed out, < 12 NPC's is >standard and works ok with hit locations. Rolling 1d20 takes less than 1 >second. I'll admit I haven't timed it, but I suspect if you did, you'd find it takes more than 1 second to pick up the dice, roll it, read the number, look up the location (or refer the chart next to the NPC, if you happen to be using RQ3 published scenarios), and record the damage in the proper place. This still isn't necessarily a long time -- it's certainly not a problem for players -- but it can add up. I'm not really against hit locations, I'm just looking for something to sacrifice on the altar of simplicity and playability. >Anyway, my MAJOR problem is that it seems RQ4 isn't coming out in the near >future. I might move to Ars Magica. Haven't tried it; one of my players has and apparently wasn't impressed. Still, it is (to my knowledge) a simpler system... Have you seen my PenDragon Pass summary in the daily digest? I find I can get much of the flavor of RuneQuest (e.g. great flexibility in character roles) with much simpler rules.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA17451; Tue, 24 Aug 93 18:04:05 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA13865; Tue, 24 Aug 93 19:03:20 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 19:03:22 EDT From: Lew Stead To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 19:03:00 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <84229005562@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > So far (in my limited time on this mailing list), almost > everything's been > devoted to what to add or change from RuneQuest. > I haven't seen anyone > talking about making the game simpler or > faster to GM, which is what some > of us would like. > > Sounds like you're in favor of the RQ Lite movement. Me too. Tastes > great. Less rules dirt. I agree with this sentiment. I would start with RQ2, tweak it as should have been done with RQ3 and leave it at that. Is there any way to get a copy of the RQ4 rules draft? -- !--------------------------------------------------------------------------! ! Lewis Stead -=- The Raven Kindred of Asatru Southern Hearth ! ! Internet:lstead@access.digex.net CI$:73777,2236 AoL:Moonrise1 ! ! Snailmail to 11160 Veirs Mill Rd L15-175; Wheaton MD 20902 ! !--------------------------------------------------------------------------!  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA18114; Tue, 24 Aug 93 18:12:49 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA14027; Tue, 24 Aug 93 19:12:03 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 19:12:09 EDT From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 19:08:23 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8424E532A52@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Just as a Chuckle, I have been taking the 2.0 draft I got and been beating on it, prettying it up, making a few tweaks, etc. I present the beginning basics to the list in general (and Oliver) for comment. NOTE: Many of the ideas in my version are palmed from suggestions here. DISCLAIM: This is NOT the official draft, and it is not approved, but is mainly to show how I am thinking of RQ-lite. ------------------------------------------------ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% I CREATING AN ADVENTURER %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% 01 -- Choose species and sex Human: [STR 3d6, CON 3d6, SIZ 2d6+6, INT 2d6+6, POW 3d6, DEX 3d6, CHA 3d6] Green Elf: Brown Elf: Dwarf: Dark Troll: Duck: 02 -- Choose culture and region of origin Depending on the region of play, some cultures may be unavailable. Each cultural type listed below contains a list of suggested regions of origin. * Primative * Nomadic * Barbaric * Civilized 02a -- Basic cultural skills 03 -- Roll basic characteristics All intelligent characters have seven characteristics which define their capacities and skills, and from which are derived specific attributes. These characteristics are: Strength (STR) Constitution (CON) Size (SIZ) Intelligence (INT) Power (POW) Dexterity (DEX) Charisma (CHA) Roll each attribute as stated for your character's species. You may optionally re-roll any one die, taking the new value if greater or retaining the old value if lesser. 04 -- Determining attributes * Magic Points * Fatigue Level * Agility STR + DEX - SIZ - 10 * Communication CHA + (INT+POW)/2 - 20 * Knowledge INT + INT - 20 * Magic POW + (DEX+INT)/2 - 20 * Manipulation DEX + (STR+CON)/2 - 20 * Perception CON + (INT+POW)/2 - 20 * Stealth DEX + (INT+CON)/2 - (SIZ+POW)/2 - 10 * Damage Modifier An adventurer (or creature's) damage modifier is equal to (STR+SIZ-25)/5, rounded to the higher (if positive) or lower (if negative) value. In melee combat this value is added to any rolled weapon damage. When using ranged weapons, only HALF this value (rounded down) is added. Optionally, for each +2 of value, 1d3 may be used instead. So an adventurer with a +4 damage modifier may add +4 to his damage roll, +1d3+2, or +2d3, at his option. * Hitpoints Total body HP equals SIZ+CON. In combat, the adventurer passes out from wound shock when he has been reduced to less than 1/4th his body HP and dies at 0 HP. Each major region of his body also has individual HP. For humanoids, these locations are: Arms -- HP/8 Head, Abdomen and Legs -- HP/6 Chest -- HP/5 Round up in all cases. * Initiative Values RANGED initiative is used if the adventurer is not immediately involved with an opponant and is casting spells or using a ranged weapon, or if that adventurer successfully gets under an opponant's guard. (see combat). RANGED initiative is based on DEX alone: 1+ (4) 11+ (3) 16+ (2) 21+ (1) CLOSE initiative ise used when fighting face to face with an opponant, when you must close with an oppenent to engage him, or when breaking off combat to flee. CLOSE initiative is based on SIZ+DEX (limited to the fist 21 points of either): 1+ (7) 16+ (6) 20+ (5) 26+ (4) 31+ (3) 36+ (2) 41+ (1) 05 -- Level of experience The process of creating a character starts when they are 14-16 years of age (13+1d3). The referee decides on the starting "level" of characters, which determines the number of background points (BP) available: * NOVICE 0-20 background points (10 recommended) * TRAINED 21-50 background points (35 recommended) * EXPERIENCED 51-100 background points (65 recommended) * VETERAN 101-200 background points (125 recommended) * ELITE 201-400 background points (265 recommended) 06 -- Purchase Cultural Skills The following skills are basic to most cultures, and can be purchased to the following basic levels of competency as optional skills by any character. * Custom, -- 45% or 60% * Custom, -- 30% or 45% * Dance -- 30% or 45% * Lore, -- 45% or 60% * Play -- 30% or 45% * Sing -- 30% or 45% * Speak -- 30% or 45% * Speak -- 60% (costs only 1BP) SKILL COSTS (in background points): 30% - 1 45% - 2 60% - 4 07 -- Using the Occupation Templates 07a -- Requirements Certain professions have requirements that must be met in order to join that occupation. Most advanced professions require one to have taken all lower degrees of that profession. 07b -- Initial Cost Each profession has a cost in background points that must be met. If you do not have enough points left over you may not join that profession. 07c -- Basic Skills Each profession has a list of skills and the degree of training for each skill. Upon joining the career each basic skill presented is added to your character as background experience. In the case that you already have a skill that is listed, use the following rule: "Greater skill overrides, equal skills combine to next higher level" This means that if you have a 45% in a certain skill, and the level taught in the occupation is 60%, you take the 60%. If the level taught is 45%, the two 45% skills combine and become the next higher level, which is 60%. If the level taught happes to be lower, there is no change in the skill. To sum it up: Trained Skill Level 30% 45% 60% 75% 90% none 30% 45% 60% 75% 90% 30% 45% 45% 60% 75% 90% Current >> 45% 45% 60% 60% 75% 90% << Resulting Skill >> 60% 60% 60% 75% 75% 90% << Skill Level >> 75% 75% 75% 75% 90% 90% << Level 90% 90% 90% 90% 90% 95% 07d -- Optional Skills Background points may now be spent to learn skills not a part of the normal training of that profession, but are related or used only in certain areas. Each skill is presented with the maximum level at which it may be be trained to. The cost for said training is generally as follows: 30% = 1BP 45% = 2BP 60% = 4BP 75% = 8BP 90% = 16BP In cases where thge cost differs from the above it will be listed in [brackets] alongside the skill name. The effects of duplicate skills follow the same rules as stated for basic skills -- greater value overrides, equal values combine to become the next level. In the case it gets that far, 95% skills have a cost of 32BP and become 100% if combined. 07e -- Unrelated Skills If you desire skills not a part of your profession, there are two ways to go about getting them. You may either join another profession that has the skill you want, or you may purchase them from the optional skills section of another profession at DOUBLE cost. The profession used must have an equal or lower degree of achievement of any profession you have gone through. For example, if the highest level you have obtained is "EXPERT", you may only purchase optional skills from "BEGINNER", "ADVANCED" or "EXPERT" rated professions. The skills gained must be reasonable for your culture and region. Primatives cannot learn "Craft Iron". The GM will guide you on this and may make exceptions if the player can come up with a very good rational for having the skill. 07f -- Aging Each profession takes a certain amount of time to complete, as indicated in the title. In the case where two professions may reasonably take place at the same time span, use the average of the die rolls and add 50%. 07g -- Equipment Each profession provides possible equipment for the character. In the case of taking multiple professions, only the best quality or greatest value of any category (weapons, armor, coin, goods, etc) of all the professions entered is considered -- you do NOT add the amounts of the categories. 08 -- Characteristic Increases With the GM's permission, players can spend background points to buy characteristic increases. This simulates time the adventurer spent in improving characteristics instead of skills. A player can only buy characteristic increases with points left over after the purchase of professional skills and magic. A player can increase any characteristic to the normal limits of characteristic increase. Characteristics are limited to the racial maximum, which is generally "Min+Max". For example, a characteristic with a roll of 3d6 has a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 18. The racial maximum is thus 3+18, or 21. Besides this recial, you may not increase any characteristic beyond 1.5x the original rolled value. Thus a characteristic originally rolled to be 10 may not be improved beyond 15, even if the racial limit is much higher. The difference between the original value and the maximum value (racial or personal) is called the "maximum possible increase". * To increase STR, CON, INT, DEX or APP from the original value to 1/3 the maximum possible increase costs 8 background points per +1 improvement. each. To increase from 1/3 to 2/3 the maximum possible increase costs 16 background points per +1 improvement. Finally, to increase from 2/3 to the maximum possible increase costs 32 background points per +1 improvement. * To increase POW by one point costs the character's current POW/2 in background points. * To gain one point of positive or negative 'False SIZ' costs 2 background poins. As a guideline, Novice characters should generally not be allowed to use this option, Trained characters should generally be limited to using this option once, Experienced characters twice, Veteran characters four times, and Elite characters up to eight times. Note that although excellent characteristics can be obtained in this manner, a character's skills may suffer as a result. 09 -- Other Options Some GMs might allow background points to be converted into extra money or goods. 200 L per background point in cash or goods is reasonable. Background points might be converted into training for a skill, at a rate of 1 background point per week of training. If a GM wishes to allow people to begin a game with minor magic items, 8 background points could buy an enchanted item of 1 POW (see Magic). -- Burton  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA15287; Tue, 24 Aug 93 17:15:00 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA12174; Tue, 24 Aug 93 18:14:06 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 18:14:17 EDT From: "Loren J. Miller" To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: 24 Aug 1993 18:15:21 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <841576B6F76@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> David Dunham (via RadioMail) writes: > So far (in my limited time on this mailing list), almost everything's been > devoted to what to add or change from RuneQuest. I haven't seen anyone > talking about making the game simpler or faster to GM, which is what some > of us would like. Sounds like you're in favor of the RQ Lite movement. Me too. Tastes great. Less rules dirt. > So for purposes of discussion, what could be dropped from RQ? (Note, I > + Hit location rolls. PenDragon and Elric use the Major Wound to get a > similar effect (where only the most serious wounds need an additional > roll). Hit Locations are one of the two reasons I like the RQ system per se. They help me visualize combat, and that helps me roleplay it that much better. But that's the player's argument for hit locations. I can also see the GM side since I mostly GM RQ. When running hordes of things hit locations do take extra time for the GM. But, since hordes of things are generally humanoid in shape and I've internalized the humanoid hit location table by now (14 years of using it will do that to you) there's no extra time taken to look it up, just some extra time to note which limb was hurt by the last shot. Note this extra time is no problem when I'm awake and aware, but when the hour passes 10pm in the middle of a session after 8 hours at work and too little sleep the night before because of working on the scenario for tonight, "awake and aware" are not the words I would choose to describe myself. So, the hit location rules do end up taking a lot of time to GM. For this reason I'd be in favor of a tweak that let us poor overworked GMs ignore hit locations, as long as this tweak didn't wreck game balance. I've played one game (Pirates and Plunder) in which hit locations applied to PCs but NPCs didn't have them and it was a major flaw, since PCs were weaker in combat than run of the mill NPCs as a direct result of their being subject to the rather brutal hit location rules. > + Strike Ranks. RQ4 already virtually gets rid of them with the "2 > actions/round" rule, and it's debatable whether someone can really kill an > enemy and prevent a blow from landing 1 SR later. I'd go back to RQ2 strike ranks if I had my druthers. I don't care that 12 isn't divisible by 10, so what? I think that both RQ3 and RQ4 made combat *way* too complex, with the worst additions of each being respectively fatigue and maneuver. I also think that there are too many combat related skills. The proliferation of unique weapon skills forces you to have a huge section of the character sheet devoted to weapons and damage and weapon skills, and that encourages hack and slashing instead of roleplaying. > + All rules for bleeding and additional damage (e.g. from impaled weapons). > Who can keep track anyway? I agree. Boring. However, if we add a maiming/long-term injury rule it would be a good replacement. > + Fatigue rules (adopt the Elric strategy that most combats aren't long > enough for them to matter -- Elric does need some sort of ENC rules, > however). Only problem is how to adjudicate battles against the elements, such as crossing a desert without enough water and needing to find oases along the way. Long-term fatigue does a good job of that. So maybe we only need long-term fatigue? > + Fumble %s. Elric doesn't use a table, you fumble on 99 or 00. I don't mind fumbles so much. Also, they're pretty easy to compute. > + Separate criticals and specials. For most practical purposes, Elric > merges these. I'd like to go to a special option kind of rule, so that specials and crits gave respectively one and two choices on a special options table, but you'd have to choose which special effect you were shooting for before you rolled the dice. > + RQ4's Maneuver skill. Elric uses Dodge in much the same way. Maneuver is silly. You're telling me someone who is 150% with greatsword attack and parry won't have maneuver at the same level when fighting with a greatsword, and that he'll be equally as maneuverable when using a scimitar and a chair? Just use weapon skill for maneuver, and get rid of separate parry and dodge skills while you're at it. Just have one skill for every attack/defend combination. Sword and shield 76%, dagger and cape 28%, gladius and dodge 49%, and so on. If you don't have one of the two parts of the combination you're at half skill, if you don't have either you're at base. Thus someone with sword and shield 76% who loses his sword and has to use a spear would be at 38% with spear and shield. Someone has greatsword attack and parry 68% would be easier to disarm and render defenseless than someone who has two things to hit you with. How's that for a RQ Lite suggestion? > + Skill modifiers. They tend to be small anyway, and it's a royal pain to > recompute them when your POW changes. (Since stats would matter much less > then, maybe they should go away too...) I'd compute them differently, more like Harnmaster's base skills, by computing a weighted average of the relevant stats, and then multiplying by some value to get basic skills. Then it's clear that changes in skill bases do not affect current skills. > + Spell foci (and preparing of spells). Assume mnemonic runes are carved > into swords, armor, or whatever, and any spirit magic you know you can cast > as one of your two actions in a round. Agreed. The spell foci rules are aimed disproportionately at spirit magic users and they are as complex and unworkable as AD&D spell ingredients, which nobody ever uses anyway. Might as well get rid of the foci and just allow for special effects of spells. > + Runes. (Oops, those are already gone with RQ3.) Heh. :) Not that runes ever had an effect on the game in RQ2. (HERESY!) Here are some more heretical ideas... + Normal vs Dramatic Scenes (a Torgism) Maybe one way to speed things up for the GM would be to differentiate between two kinds of scene in the game? This is a Torgism, so bear with me. There could be two different kinds of encounter/scene in the game, normal ones and dramatic ones. Normal scenes are those encounters where you run into flunkies and nobodies, and where you shouldn't be surprised by the dice. Dramatic scenes are the climactic scenes where the good guys have to fight their main enemy, or where their lives depend on split-second timing and cooperation. During normal scenes you gloss over all the detailed stuff like hit locations, criticals and fumbles and specials, strike ranks, and so on. I.e. you run Basic Roleplaying during those scenes. During dramatic scenes you throw in the detailed rules for hit location, crits and fumbles and specials, strike ranks, fatigue, etc. + Many-on-one rules (another Torgism) Add rules so that the attack of 12 trollkin on a single character could be decided with only one attack roll, one damage roll, etc. The GM would only have to roll once for every unit, no matter how big it is, and this would make the GM's task much easier. Of course we want to cover the same range of results as actually playing it out would offer, or do we? Maybe this would be an option for normal scenes only, and thus easier on outnumbered heroes allowing us to skew the table a little. This is a statistical mess to figure out, but if it could be done it would be great. whoah, +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu "Science" does not remove the terror of the gods.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA27531; Wed, 25 Aug 93 19:15:34 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA26541; Wed, 25 Aug 93 20:14:50 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 25 Aug 93 20:14:53 EDT From: rq4@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Pain and Healing Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 00:22:16 MEZ Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <85B5B2A345B@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> In <8322C910F71@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu>, Nick Brooke writes: >>One of Greg's other comments about RQ damage is that it doesn't address >>pain: everything either works or doesn't, there is no reduction in > ability >>with wounds. Does anyone have any ideas about how this shoud be > addressed? > On Heal spells, I'm another fan of "Healsharp" - Heal as a +5%/+1 modifier > to First Aid skill. Find a good rename for "First Aid" and this'll be just > fine for me. The methods which require a running check on how large the > last Heal on each wound was don't go well with Heal as an "instant" spell > (thus not possible to dispel on your foes, alas!). If "Healsharp" were made > Active, too, you'd get more realism than the current "laying on of hands" > -- no reason why it shouldn't still take time to treat wounds, even if > you're doing it with magical help. First Aid implements that there is later help, which mostly isn't the case in RQ. Treat wounds is already occupied by the sorcery spell. Is there any English parallel for the German "Feldscher" (roughly battlefield physician)? "Healsharp" isn't quite the name I'd like either. How about "Bandage"? And while we're at it, why not more skill-enhancing magic of this mechanism? With regard to healing a "Fight disease" comes to mind for treat disease, and each craft could have one or several spells of this kind. I never liked the word combat magic, although up to now it fits the spirit spells only too well. Another idea for non-Healing wound-treating spell: Slow wound Stops bleeding or similar deterioration od the wound for the duration, including the 10 melee round limit for crippling blows, and gives the healer time to care for the wounded. While the wound hasn't been cared for, skills dependant on the wounded location are difficult or impossible to use. (No idea which magic system, or the exact magic point cost.) -- Joerg Baumgartner rq4@sartar.toppoint.de  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA21247; Tue, 24 Aug 93 19:08:39 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA15184; Tue, 24 Aug 93 20:07:47 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 20:07:52 EDT From: Newton Hughes To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: no wonder rq4 never got anywhere Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 18:55:09 CDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8433C0B2415@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> I've only subscribed to this mailing list one day, and reading all the correspondence my initial reaction was the one reflected in the header. This reaction is probably a little strong. Actually I did see the kernel of a potential good idea in one of the letters discussing SCMs. On the side in favor of SCMs you have the people who say, "I like that learning curve" and on the other side you have people saying,"Hell, they're awkward for beginners to compute and they multiply the number of addition operations performed during character creation." How about a compromise? Eliminate SCMs completely from the character creation process, and keep them (if at all) for the experience rolls and such. Is there any consensus within this group on rqiv or rqlite or anything? nh  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA23575; Tue, 24 Aug 93 20:52:59 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA17207; Tue, 24 Aug 93 21:52:13 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 21:52:16 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 18:39:44 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <844F9F41BD4@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) >Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet >DISCLAIM: This is NOT the official draft, and it is not approved, but is > mainly to show how I am thinking of RQ-lite. This does seem like a step towards simplicity. > * Fatigue Level Can't be RQ-Lite if it has fatigue :-) > * Agility > STR + DEX - SIZ - 10 > * Communication > CHA + (INT+POW)/2 - 20 > * Knowledge > INT + INT - 20 > * Magic > POW + (DEX+INT)/2 - 20 > * Manipulation > DEX + (STR+CON)/2 - 20 > * Perception > CON + (INT+POW)/2 - 20 > * Stealth > DEX + (INT+CON)/2 - (SIZ+POW)/2 - 10 I like this calculation much better than the RQ3 technique. (It's the formula though, isn't it?) > Total body HP equals SIZ+CON. Ooh, no longer RQ-compatible! Is this not a constraint? I thought they wanted to be able to use all the published scenarios. > * To increase STR, CON, INT, DEX or APP from the original value to 1/3 the > maximum possible increase costs 8 background points per +1 improvement. > each. To increase from 1/3 to 2/3 the maximum possible increase costs > 16 background points per +1 improvement. Finally, to increase from 2/3 to > the maximum possible increase costs 32 background points per +1 > improvement. I found this somewhat confusing/complex in the RQ4 draft, especially because there's almost always rounding involved (e.g. you can increase by 4 points). How about something simple like (I haven't tweaked the numbers) "The first increase takes 5 BP, the second takes 10, the third 20, etc." And the same for all stats. Character creation rules need to be simple because you only do it once, thus don't have much chance to learn and get better at using them. Here's my basic test for RQ-Lite: Assume your significant other doesn't game. Would you introduce her/him to gaming by having them create and run a RuneQuest character, or would you have a better chance of getting them interested in gaming by using a simpler game like Pendragon (or even something REALLY simple like Prince Valiant)? This is important because until we can grow the number of RQ players, we're not going to be getting a lot more interest from the hobby as a whole. We need more than one company producing RQ supplements...  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA23750; Tue, 24 Aug 93 21:01:28 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA17354; Tue, 24 Aug 93 22:00:42 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 22:00:44 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: "Skinny" RQ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 18:48:21 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8451E8F7BA3@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > What you're really saying is that RuneQuest _combat_ takes too long to >play: though there are other parts that are a bit irritating (like skill >modifiers and spell foci) most of your complaints are about the combat >system. I agree with you. One complaint I had with the RQIV 2.0 draft >was that combat had been made more complex; there had been no effort >to produce a Lite combat system at all. Thank you for seeing my real complaint is indeed with combat. I don't have complaints with magic (I've seen no evidence of Sorcery being broken -- spell foci relate to combat), and parts of the GM book are still unmatched by other games. > Idea re strike ranks: a system based directly on stats. Melee initiative >is Size + Dex, Missile/Spells Int + Dex. Higher number goes first, and the >round counts down from highest initiative to zero, as in Warhammer. >If making two attacks, the second takes place on Dex ie if siz 14 dex 12 >first attack at 26 initiative, second at 12. For greater complexity, >add/subtract values depending on weapon length and/or casting time. Or to cut down the numbers, SIZ + DEX - 10 and INT + DEX - 10. This is simpler, assuming we need to know who goes first (Pendragon manages to be simultaneous, and RQ attack and parry could be considered simultaneous, even with the same weapon [they're close enough in fencing]). > Re Pendragon Pass: as I understand it, Chaosium still holds all the rights >to Glorantha. Could Chaosium then publish "Pendragon Pass" officially as >a RQLite using the Pendragon system as a base? I know they are planning to do >"Glorantha: the Game" sometime in the distant future, but this is meant to >be more on the Heroquest scale. I don't know. I do send PenDragon Pass stuff to Greg from time to time; he seems amused by it. David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA25974; Tue, 24 Aug 93 22:09:41 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA18564; Tue, 24 Aug 93 23:08:44 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 23:09:00 EDT From: Carl Fink To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: WHAT!? was no wonder rq4 never got anywhere Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1993 23:08:20 -0400 Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <846404816EE@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Newton Hughes writes: Well, first of all, the subject line -- Newton, RQ4 isn't dead. It's not going to be out for Christmas, but neither is it gone, kaput. We should know something definite by September or so. C>This reaction is probably a little strong. Actually I did see the >kernel of a potential good idea in one of the letters discussing SCMs. >On the side in favor of SCMs you have the people who say, "I like that >learning curve" and on the other side you have people saying,"Hell, >they're awkward for beginners to compute and they multiply the number >of addition operations performed during character creation." C>How about a compromise? Eliminate SCMs completely from the character >creation process, and keep them (if at all) for the experience rolls >and such. What is an SCM? Do you mean "Special Combat Maneuver"? If so, please note that special combat maneuvers are *optional rules* and if you don't like them, don't use them. Certainly they wouldn't be in any RQ Lite. They're meant for experienced players who want to simulate differences in combat styles among people who use the same weapon.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA20324; Wed, 25 Aug 93 09:17:47 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA04319; Wed, 25 Aug 93 10:16:52 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 25 Aug 93 10:17:04 EDT From: Newton Hughes To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: abbreviation problem Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 09:10:17 CDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8516396484A@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> When I wrote SCM, I meant "skill category modifier." Sorry about that. They're complex for beginners to calculate, they increase the number of trivial boring arithmetic operations required to create a player, they're hopelessly biased in favor of manipulation/weapon skills and against agility skills, and they're usually chickens**t unless some humongous secondary characteristic is skewing things. As far as character creation goes they're a royal pain. I saw today another voice in favor of having changed skill category modifiers not affect current skill values, and my idea isn't far off from that. My idea was to keep skill category mods out of the char- acter generation process entirely, not be added into skill values at any point, and just use them when figuring skill increases. nh  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA27069; Wed, 25 Aug 93 11:11:25 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA09434; Wed, 25 Aug 93 12:10:40 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 25 Aug 93 12:10:43 EDT From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: COMMENTS Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 12:07:00 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <85348DF74E7@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Graeme A Lindsell on RQskinny... %% > >If too much of RQ is "dropped" it starts to sound like Melee... %% > %% > Melee had the advantage of being easy to learn and very quick to play. To %% > me, those are good features. %% %% I have fond memories of Melee too, but it was very easily minimaxed %% and got dull after a while. After all, it looks like we are gunning for RQlite, not RQ-Anorexic :) %% This is probably a good way to handle it, but there are published %% adventures (Griffin Island, I believe) where NPC's with spells like %% Strength 3 are listed with the effects on their skills when they %% cast it, ie +5 to Agility and Manipulation skills. The clear implication %% is that in RQIII increases in skill modifiers, even temporary ones, %% effect skill levels. %% %% That said, the idea above is a good one, and could be made part %% of RQIV or RQLite. You CAN have it both ways. While mundane STR, DEX, etc increases won't affect your current skils (but do affect your chance of improving and your initial level when learning new skills), Magical enhancement will affect current skill. I see no problem with doing it like this. %% There was a proposal a few months ago: -10% attack skill = +1 damage. I %% think allowing that and giving the option -10% to attack skill = -10% to %% parry or dodge would allow the player to have some input and speed up those %% 100% skill fights as well. Only problem with this is you might as well follow it to it's logical Conclusion -- Subtract defence from offense to get the basic roll. Thus you can knock it down so that you have >0% and they have 0% of success. At which point, why bother with seperate attack and defense rolls.? The use of divisors is almost self-balancing. Yes, the lower-skilled person doesn't get hurt as badly as the higher-skilled one, but you avoid the above problem. =============================================================================== David Dunham on my RQtweaked... %% > * Fatigue Level %% %% Can't be RQ-Lite if it has fatigue :-) *sound of 3 broos breaking into David's house to give him a sound beating* :) Wiseguy. :) At present I was trying to organize the draft a bit better. Pruning is the next step. Add not everything is filled in yet anyways. %% > * Agility %% > STR + DEX - SIZ - 10 ... %% > * Stealth %% > DEX + (INT+CON)/2 - (SIZ+POW)/2 - 10 %% %% I like this calculation much better than the RQ3 technique. (It's the %% formula though, isn't it?) I have felt that formula are easeir to explain to a new player then trying to go over the primary-secondary-negative business. %% > Total body HP equals SIZ+CON. %% %% Ooh, no longer RQ-compatible! Is this not a constraint? I thought they %% wanted to be able to use all the published scenarios. Actually, this was in response to the dislike of worrying about negative numbers here. Instead of going from -(SIZ+CON)/2 to (SIZ+CON)/2 why not just go from 0 to SIZ+CON, with effects taking place at low values of HP? %% > * To increase STR, CON, INT, DEX or APP from the original value to 1/3 %% > the maximum possible increase costs 8 background points per +1 %% > improvement. %% %% I found this somewhat confusing/complex in the RQ4 draft, especially %% because there's almost always rounding involved (e.g. you can increase by 4 %% points). How about something simple like (I haven't tweaked the numbers) I think the simplest way to do it is probably 2x the next attribute level in BP. So, going from 15 to 16 takes 32 BP. Each increase takes one of your allowed improvements for your level of character (novice, trained, etc). %% > Idea re strike ranks: a system based directly on stats. Melee initiative %% >is Size + Dex, Missile/Spells Int + Dex. Higher number goes first, and the %% %% Or to cut down the numbers, SIZ + DEX - 10 and INT + DEX - 10. This is %% simpler, assuming we need to know who goes first (Pendragon manages to be %% simultaneous, and RQ attack and parry could be considered simultaneous, %% even with the same weapon [they're close enough in fencing]). I don't see the problem with figuring SR numbers, rather then using stats. You don't recalculate them THAT much. -- Burton  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA23034; Tue, 24 Aug 93 20:31:17 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA16852; Tue, 24 Aug 93 21:29:41 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 21:30:36 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: "Skinny" RQ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 11:28:49 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8449A3E7B11@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Sorry, but the >> persons name has been dropped. > is David. > >If too much of RQ is "dropped" it starts to sound like Melee... > > Melee had the advantage of being easy to learn and very quick to play. To > me, those are good features. I have fond memories of Melee too, but it was very easily minimaxed and got dull after a while. > > >My reading of the RQ3 rules suggests that when attributes change > >(like POW), skills do not change, only modifiers (and thus, future > >learning). If your characters change POW so often that altering > > Hmm, you may be right on that, I may be remembering something from RQ2. > This is probably a good way to handle it, but there are published adventures (Griffin Island, I believe) where NPC's with spells like Strength 3 are listed with the effects on their skills when they cast it, ie +5 to Agility and Manipulation skills. The clear implication is that in RQIII increases in skill modifiers, even temporary ones, effect skill levels. That said, the idea above is a good one, and could be made part of RQIV or RQLite. > Anyway, if you don't like my ideas, how about some of your own? RuneQuest > simply takes too long to play. It can take me hours to run a combat in RQ4; > I could run the same combat in a quarter the time with PenDragon Pass > rules. Remember, it's not that any one rule is bad or too slow, it's that > the GM has to deal with ALL the rules, and any time the GM takes is time > EVERYONE has to wait for. > What you're really saying is that RuneQuest _combat_ takes too long to play: though there are other parts that are a bit irritating (like skill modifiers and spell foci) most of your complaints are about the combat system. I agree with you. One complaint I had with the RQIV 2.0 draft was that combat had been made more complex; there had been no effort to produce a Lite combat system at all. Idea re strike ranks: a system based directly on stats. Melee initiative is Size + Dex, Missile/Spells Int + Dex. Higher number goes first, and the round counts down from highest initiative to zero, as in Warhammer. If making two attacks, the second takes place on Dex ie if siz 14 dex 12 first attack at 26 initiative, second at 12. For greater complexity, add/subtract values depending on weapon length and/or casting time. Re Pendragon Pass: as I understand it, Chaosium still holds all the rights to Glorantha. Could Chaosium then publish "Pendragon Pass" officially as a RQLite using the Pendragon system as a base? I know they are planning to do "Glorantha: the Game" sometime in the distant future, but this is meant to be more on the Heroquest scale. > David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA23252; Tue, 24 Aug 93 20:42:27 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA17027; Tue, 24 Aug 93 21:41:44 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 21:41:48 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: COMMENTS, rq-skinny Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 11:40:38 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <844CCEA06C1@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > Going for a hard strike means you get 1/3 your skill to determine success, > and the target must also use 1/3 his/her skill when defending. However, > if your attack goes through you may roll DOUBLE the normal dice for damage. > > A heroic strike uses 1/5 your skill (and the target uses 1/5 to defend) > and if the attack gets through you may roll TRIPLE the normal dice used > for damage. I like the idea, but not the implementation. I dislike the use of skill divisors (ie x 1/5 skill) in general: I think they penalize people with high skills much more than they do low skills. I would prefer to replace them with straight postive/negative modifiers to the chance of success pretty much everywhere. There was a proposal a few months ago: -10% attack skill = +1 damage. I think allowing that and giving the option -10% to attack skill = -10% to parry dodge would allow the player to have some input and speed up those 100% skill fights as well. > This system has the advantage of being faster when two high-skill characters > are going at it. You must have at least a 15% skill to do hard strikes and > at least a 25% skill to do heroic ones. > > This idea was borne of watching two 100%+ characters play battle on and on... > attack, parry, attack, parry, attack..... > > Comments? Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA08335; Wed, 25 Aug 93 13:52:53 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA15713; Wed, 25 Aug 93 14:52:06 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 25 Aug 93 14:52:12 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: HP characteristic increase Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 11:39:47 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <855FA9B137C@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >%% > Total body HP equals SIZ+CON. >%% >%% Ooh, no longer RQ-compatible! Is this not a constraint? I thought they >%% wanted to be able to use all the published scenarios. > > Actually, this was in response to the dislike of worrying about negative > numbers here. Instead of going from -(SIZ+CON)/2 to (SIZ+CON)/2 why not > just go from 0 to SIZ+CON, with effects taking place at low values of HP? Zero is a very easy to remember effect place. (In fact, I can never remember RQ3's unconscious number, and simply make it zero.) > I think the simplest way to do it is probably 2x the next attribute level > in BP. So, going from 15 to 16 takes 32 BP. Each increase takes one of > your allowed improvements for your level of character (novice, trained, etc). I agree, this is simple to remember and use. 1x is simpler, but I haven't worked the numbers. I was thinking a little about character building last night. My favorite is Pendragon, simply because the same system works for experience as well. But I can't think of any way to do this in RQ without inordinate amounts of dice rolling during character creation. David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA27904; Tue, 24 Aug 93 22:50:57 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA19301; Tue, 24 Aug 93 23:48:19 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 24 Aug 93 23:50:16 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Pain and Healing Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 13:47:24 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <846E9CD61A5@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > It's been a while... It has indeed. > Ah, but that was before he did his wrists in. Nope, I'll chuck my tuppence > behind Roderick's proposal that adrenaline more than counters any pain felt > from wounds *while still in combat*. I had thought of doing the same for > basic fatigue, too: you don't get the whack for a brief fight until it's > over, but it can be more severe with less bookkeeping as a result. But I > never used fatigue anyway... That might be the best solution: only have some form of long term fatigue, for dealing with long marchs and deserts, and ignore combat fatigue entirely. > Yeah, the Crimson Bat is going to be unfairly penalised by both these > rules. Poor little Bat. I weep for it. Well you should, it gets a hard time from the media. All that bad press... > On Heal spells, I'm another fan of "Healsharp" - Heal as a +5%/+1 modifier > to First Aid skill. Find a good rename for "First Aid" and this'll be just > fine for me. The methods which require a running check on how large the > last Heal on each wound was don't go well with Heal as an "instant" spell > (thus not possible to dispel on your foes, alas!). If "Healsharp" were made > Active, too, you'd get more realism than the current "laying on of hands" > -- no reason why it shouldn't still take time to treat wounds, even if > you're doing it with magical help. Though I proposed the "Healsharp" idea, I'm tending towards the dispel magic style heals instead (I managed to track down the origin of the dispel magic style heals: an idea of Loren Miller's a few months ago, though he wanted it to apply to all damage on the location, not just from each wound). First Aid is limited to one application per wound, so you'll have to keep track of each wound. If that limitation is removed, then the only effects will be healing needs a skill and can't be done easily in combat: there still won't be any long term injury, since 5 minutes after a battle will close all the wounds. A possible combined solution: make First Aid "dispel magic" style as well. That is, you roll the skill, if you suceed then roll 1d3: if you roll greater than the amount of damage in the wound the wound is healed; if you roll less, nothing happens, though you do stop any bleeding. You can use spirit magic Heal in two ways: on its own, it is an instant spell and again dispel magic style: the points in the spell must equal or exceed the points of damage from the wound for it to have any effect at all, if it is less then nothing will happen You can also use Heal as a booster to First Aid as in "Healsharp": it is then an active temporal effect, aiding all attempts at first for its duration. The spell adds +5% to the chance of skill success per point, and adds 1 to the 1d3 roll per point, increasing the chance of successfully healing a wound. I think this might be the best way to combine the skills and spells: If someone is badly injured, then the party might have to spend a long time and a lot of MP standing around watching the healer trying to save the victim: casting her most powerful healing and then trying to critical First Aid to get +1d3+3 heal and overcome the wound. The party may even be incapable of healing someone, and have to find a better healer. There could be an associated problem with making Heal weaker, no matter what way is used: since healing is so important, players will be motivated to carry the most powerful heal spells they can get. This leads us to: > > Oh, and I liked Lewis Jardine's suggestion for cult-set upper limits to > spirit spell points on the Daily (and the spin-off "overcome variable > points plus modifier [all squared] to gain a new point of spell" method > someone else followed it up with). Makes you think more about what your > cult can and can't do: no more "Heal 6 Humakti" etc. And seems to fit in > with the RQ3 philosophy of limiting Spirit Magic availability. Yes, this seems a good idea. There is nothing limiting Humakti to having Heal 6 if they want right now. This would be a fairly simple modifier as well. > ==== > Nick > ==== > (Nick: did you see the postscript to my review of "Dorastor", that Arkat found the Unbreakable Sword during his Heroquests? I think Greg is definitely telling us something about the Arkat=Humakt theory) Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA12523; Wed, 25 Aug 93 15:01:22 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA18347; Wed, 25 Aug 93 16:00:32 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 25 Aug 93 16:00:38 EDT From: Simon Basham To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Healing Date: Wed, 25 Aug 93 20:40 BST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8571E9B658E@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Just a quick message. A few days ago it was suggested that a Heal (n) spell should only be able to Heal wounds of less than or equal to (n) points. Well I just tried it on my group last night and despite the fact that it meant that they didn't all walk away from a combat with all their wounds healed, everyone agreed that it was a good idea and that the additional book keeping was minimal. Also on the question of Fatigue, although RQIV is an improvement on RQIII's attempt it is still overly complex. We tried using it and kept forgetting it so often we dropped it as unnecesary. (IMHO). Otherwise RQIV is looking great. Alternative Realities Games Club (Jarec@CIX.Compulink.Co.UK)  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA15824; Wed, 25 Aug 93 15:54:37 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA20445; Wed, 25 Aug 93 16:53:42 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 25 Aug 93 16:53:49 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Healing Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 13:41:11 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <85800625672@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >A few days ago it was suggested that a Heal (n) spell should only be able >to Heal wounds of less than or equal to (n) points. Well I just tried it >on my group last night and despite the fact that it meant that they didn't >all walk away from a combat with all their wounds healed, everyone agreed >that it was a good idea and that the additional book keeping was minimal. Bravo for actually trying some of this, not just blathering about it like most of us do :-) Perhaps this rule would explain Gimpy's Tavern... While I do want healing magic to be weak, and wounds to be serious business, I'm not I like the idea that fixing a detached limb (8 or 10 point healing on one character I just picked up) would be impossible short of rune magic. Of course, if you want weak healing, just make the spirit magic spell work the same as the sorcerous Neutralize Damage spell (use resistance table for spell size vs wound size)... David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA21323; Wed, 25 Aug 93 17:22:11 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA23769; Wed, 25 Aug 93 18:21:23 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 25 Aug 93 18:21:29 EDT From: "Loren J. Miller" To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Healing Date: 25 Aug 1993 18:22:46 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <85977451CEB@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> We've tried both the dispell damage and healsharp versions of the healing spell and both worked nicely. I especially liked the healsharp version because it made the spell only useful to someone who already knew how to do first aid, well, unless you want to have one character slapping bandages on and the other casting the spell, which makes it twice as unlikely that you'll have a healer left after a combat. As for the dispell damage version characters always have all their wounds healed up after the battle anyway, so the fact that this encourages people to take big healing spells and cast them ...err... I'm getting confusing. Let's try again. There was a complaint that the dispell damage version of healing would encourage people to heal all the damage they take, but right now characters still heal all their damage and they can do it with little spells, hardly enough to heal a scratch. Also, the little spells let the whole party cast heals, so that everybody is only down a few MPs after a healing session. However, with the dispell damage version there is a single character, a healing specialist, who gets to cast all the healing, and this means that less total healing is available. It also makes the rest of the party treat the healer *very* nicely. Unlike in xD&D, a RQ character can get killed by a single stroke of unluck. Characters will encourage the healer to stay back, out of combat. I like that. It makes it easier to see Chalana Arroy style ethics at work. -- Loren  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA25766; Wed, 25 Aug 93 18:38:09 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA25744; Wed, 25 Aug 93 19:37:23 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Wed, 25 Aug 93 19:37:28 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: RQ4 char sheet available Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 16:24:57 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <85ABB7E453F@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> I found a copy of the Macintosh PageMaker document for my one-pag RQ4 character sheet (on a computer which hadn't lost a hard disk). The file is 100K, so there's a very slim chance I could compress it enough to email it. However, emailed binaries are very unreliable for me, so if anyone wants the file, send a SASE ($0.52 postage). If you just want the character sheet, send a SASE. David Dunham 532 N 71st St Seattle, WA 98103 (I suspect I will be revising the sheet to correspond to the upcoming rules draft, let me know if you want the current or the forthcoming sheet).  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA17400; Thu, 26 Aug 93 18:41:20 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA08868; Thu, 26 Aug 93 19:40:29 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 19:40:37 EDT From: rq4@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 02:11:34 MEZ Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <872C9966472@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> In <841576B6F76@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu>, Loren writes: > > + RQ4's Maneuver skill. Elric uses Dodge in much the same way. > Maneuver is silly. You're telling me someone who is 150% with greatsword > attack and parry won't have maneuver at the same level when fighting > with a greatsword, and that he'll be equally as maneuverable when using > a scimitar and a chair? Just use weapon skill for maneuver, and get rid > of separate parry and dodge skills while you're at it. Just have one > skill for every attack/defend combination. Sword and shield 76%, dagger > and cape 28%, gladius and dodge 49%, and so on. If you don't have one of > the two parts of the combination you're at half skill, if you don't have > either you're at base. Thus someone with sword and shield 76% who loses > his sword and has to use a spear would be at 38% with spear and shield. > Someone has greatsword attack and parry 68% would be easier to disarm > and render defenseless than someone who has two things to hit you with. > How's that for a RQ Lite suggestion? Messy. Imagine a character having say 75% in spear and shield, and 60% in rapier and main gauche, fighting now with rapier and shield. At which skill? Or someone having to spend time for shield each time when he wants to improve axe and shield, mace and shield and sword and shield. Not what I see as lite. -- Joerg Baumgartner rq4@sartar.toppoint.de  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA10028; Thu, 26 Aug 93 04:06:02 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA04922; Thu, 26 Aug 93 05:05:15 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 5:05:21 EDT From: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Pain and Healing Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 11:04:29 +0200 Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <86432C25CDF@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> [Joerg Baumgartner ] >And while we're at it, why not more skill-enhancing magic of this mechanism? >With regard to healing a "Fight disease" comes to mind for treat disease, and >each craft could have one or several spells of this kind. I never liked the >word combat magic, although up to now it fits the spirit spells only too >well. So you propose a generic "Enhance (Skill)" spirit magic spell.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA10711; Thu, 26 Aug 93 05:09:52 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA05537; Thu, 26 Aug 93 06:09:07 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 6:09:10 EDT From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: COMMENTS, rq-skinny Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 18:08:14 WST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <86542E87183@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > I like the idea, but not the implementation. I dislike the use of skill > divisors (ie x 1/5 skill) in general: I think they penalize people with high > skills much more than they do low skills. I would prefer to replace them > with straight postive/negative modifiers to the chance of success pretty > much everywhere. And this goes for alterations to DICE ROLL (as opposed to alterations to skill) as well (like the RQ4 Fatigue rules). They annoy me a lot. > > There was a proposal a few months ago: -10% attack skill = +1 damage. I think > allowing that and giving the option -10% to attack skill = -10% to parry > dodge would allow the player to have some input and speed up those 100% > skill fights as well. Not bad. > > > > This system has the advantage of being faster when two high-skill characters > > are going at it. You must have at least a 15% skill to do hard strikes and > > at least a 25% skill to do heroic ones. > > > > This idea was borne of watching two 100%+ characters play battle on and on... > > attack, parry, attack, parry, attack..... I believe that this is also the motivation for the RQ4 Combat special options, at least that is the main reason why I like them. > > Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au > Dave Cake  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA26989; Thu, 26 Aug 93 12:41:59 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA24864; Thu, 26 Aug 93 13:40:58 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 13:41:17 EDT From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Healing Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 13:40:47 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <86CCBD4420C@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Paul Reilly here. One point I'd like to make is that healing in RQ 2 didn't seem too excessive; it was expensive to learn (I think Heal 6 cost 10,500 Lunars to learn, had to be learned in six stages, and plate armor was in the hundreds.) No POW spirits either, you had to fight a real ghost to get a bound spirit, and only bound into special animals or Godtime crystals. We have tried various versions over the years. One was that for severely wounded locations (into negative hit points) you had to first succeed in a First Aid to line up the tissues properly, otherwise the spell would heal tissues into the wrong positions leading to partial loss of function and necessitating surgery from a real healer later. Another one we tried was only the best Heal applies to a wound, but we found this slightly cumbersome because wounds aren't actually recorded separately and you had to keep a scratch pad. In combats with armor, there are often several small wounds to the same hit location. Another approach we have used is for the 'common people' to have ritual Healing magic but no instant Heals. This allows for the highly survivable PCs that people have come to enjoy but you avoid the phenomenon of every peasant family having amazing magical healing. This approach actually works surprisingly well. It works best with the RQ 2 distinction between lay members and Initiates, with the 'normal' healing spell widely available and the 'instant' spell available to Initiates of appropriate gods. A totally different approach was used in one of our low magic campaigns, set on an alternate Earth. There was very little ostensible 'magic' but we used the magic rules to account for certain phenomena. Warriors who wanted to attack fanatically used Fanaticism without thinking of it as a spell, just an effort of will. Similarly with Bladesharp, you were just trying extra hard. Healing in this system consisted of getting knocked down with a wound that the CHARACTER thinks is pretty bad, but after checking he discovers that it is just a flesh wound or that he only had the wind knocked out of him. The Heal spell was totally hidden from the character - his player decided when to use it, however. Think of it as a kind of 'luck' that can run out when the character is out of MPs. Of course in this system there were no spells like Darkwall or Light available to the average character. Well, more another time, Paul  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA27262; Thu, 26 Aug 93 12:49:02 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA25150; Thu, 26 Aug 93 13:48:13 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 13:48:18 EDT From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ Lite NPC's Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 13:47:56 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <86CEAD21666@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Paul R. responds to Graeme's proposal: > In RQ most hit locations have hit points equal to 1/3 of general... I do this all the time. I count in armor also, and know that when my ,e.g., Tusk Riders are attacked, that 4-7 points is a light wound (little effect), 8-11 is disabling, and 12-15 is crippling. If we are actually using figures, they may get put face up or face down (when crippled) or replaced with one of hundreds of little plastic skeletons I won at an amusement park when they are killed. (It's fairly rare we actually do a combat with figures; when we do it is more of a little wargame than a roleplaying session.) More later, p-  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA04254; Wed, 25 Aug 93 23:13:10 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA01100; Thu, 26 Aug 93 00:12:12 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 0:12:27 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Pain and Healing Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 14:11:17 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <85F507C618D@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Joerg wrote: > First Aid implements that there is later help, which mostly isn't the case > RQ. Treat wounds is already occupied by the sorcery spell. Is there any > English parallel for the German "Feldscher" (roughly battlefield physician)? ^^^^^^^^^ "Medic" is the current military term I believe. Not quite right for a fantasy setting, but then neither is "First Aid" :-) > "Healsharp" isn't quite the name I'd like either. How about "Bandage"? I used Healsharp to compare the effects of the spell to Bladesharp, I didn't suggest it as a good permanent name for the spell. I'd just stick with "Heal" and change the rules mechanics. > And while we're at it, why not more skill-enhancing magic of this mechanism? > With regard to healing a "Fight disease" comes to mind for treat disease, and > each craft could have one or several spells of this kind. I never liked the > word combat magic, although up to now it fits the spirit spells only too > well. > Yes, I'd like most skill enhancing spirit magic to have a similar format ie Speedart as a stackable temporal spell that gives %5/+1 to your bow attack for 5 minutes. The idea here is that a spirit is helping you do something for a while. There are a lot of skills that could be enhanced: a spell to improve Climb would be much appreciated in our party! At the same time there are a few spirit spells that I would do away with: Multimissile, Lightwall and Darkwall. They seem to be more D&D style spells than things spirits could do. > Another idea for non-Healing wound-treating spell: > Slow wound > Stops bleeding or similar deterioration od the wound for the duration, > including the 10 melee round limit for crippling blows, and gives the healer > time to care for the wounded. While the wound hasn't been cared for, skills > dependant on the wounded location are difficult or impossible to use. > (No idea which magic system, or the exact magic point cost.) > How about as a spirit spell which lasts for 5 minutes per point of spell, and must be cast on each wound? A rune spell that lasts for days. If the Healsharp idea is adopted, then this could be the most common combat heal spell: something to keep people running for a while without healing them. (As an aside, this spell could also be dispelled by nasty enemies) Another spell would be "Hide Wounds": a spell that removes all effects of the wounds for the duration. 1 point for nondisabling wounds, 2 for disabling, 3 for crippling wounds. While the spell is running, the wound cannot be healed (since the spell is hiding the damage) but when the spell ends, all effects return. > Joerg Baumgartner rq4@sartar.toppoint.de Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA05356; Thu, 26 Aug 93 00:05:09 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA01974; Thu, 26 Aug 93 01:04:24 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 1:04:28 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: RQ Lite NPC's Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 15:03:11 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8602EB77ACC@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> In response to a few of the recent RQLite postings, here's an idea (similar to pendragon) for removing hit locations for NPC's. In RQ most hit locations have hit points equal to 1/3 of general HP. Sure, the arms are less and chest is slightly more, but 1/3 is typical. The response to damage for a location is i) if HP are equaled or exceeded the location is disabled and ii) if more than twice the locational damage is done then the location is effectively destroyed (if it isn't healed soon it will be gone for good) and the character is incapicated. To simulate this cheaply give an NPC two extra damage ratings: disabling damage = HP/3, and crippling damage = HP*2/3. If the NPC takes damage equal to his/her disabling damage in a single blow, then he/she takes a -25% modifier to all combat skills (to simulate the effect of fighting from the ground/without an arm etc), but can attempt to heal it. If the NPC takes more than crippling damage in a single blow, the effect is as if a location had been destroyed: no actions, and will die "soon" (ie if the GM wants the NPC to) unless rapidly healed. If the NPC takes 2 disabling wounds he/she is at -50%; 3 disabling wounds will of course kill him/her due to total HP loss. Does this seem OK to GM's out there? Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA22371; Thu, 26 Aug 93 20:46:55 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA11789; Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:46:09 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:46:12 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: Re: Rules Companion? Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 15:19:56 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <874E22E515D@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) writes: > > I'm more interested in a completely re-written sorcery system than a > patch, ie something like Paul's presence system. Your point is well > taken though: if the Companion is meant to provide patches to broken > rules without needing to change the character sheet, then sorcery > is an obvious candidate for fixing. The Presence idea is interesting, but I'd really prefer if we're going to go that route to go whole hog and convert to some version of the Spirit Twin idea with modification for all magic. > The Easy/Medium/Hard is interesting, but I don't see it as essential, > and I'm worried about the way it's implemented: almost all of the > cults judge progression by skill level, and cults with Easy cult > skills will suddenly become much easier to advance in. > But that was true for many skills back in RQ2 and 1 when training costs were different depending on the skill. I just don't see it as that big of a problem. Cults with easy to learn skills probably SHOULD be easier to get into. > I think both versions are useless: I can't see a sorcerer ever blowing > power to get a temporary spell. This is why I called it dull: the interesting > thing about RQII sorcerers was the long duration spells (OK, the grossly > overpowered thing as well). The draft RQIV sorcerers just seem to have a > different variety of spirit magic. There's nothing unique about them. I can't altogether agree on two points: first, an Adept level sorcerer can through up spells that will last for YEARS at the cost of that one power point; there are certainly uses for that, and I think it's too good. Secondly, even without range and duration, sorcery is skill based and allows the user to increase in his ability to make it more powerful with skill, both of which distinguish it from spirit magic in my mind. But I DO think it needs more work. > Yes, but I think that the low death rate is more due to the new > death at neagtive max HP rule and the prevalence of Heal spells, rather > than the lethality of the weapons. I think Heal is the real culprit: > there are very few wounds that kill you instantly in reality. I think > most combat fatalities are the result of shock. In general I agree with this; but there ARE always those cases of the spear-thrust through the heart or the arrow through the eye, or even many neck blows. The fact that there are no locational death results anymore causes as much problem as the doubled hit points. The reduced weapon damage just exaggerates the problem. However, I do think some though to the limitations of Healing should be addressed; as it's currently written, a Healing 2 spell and a pool of Magic Points to draw from, and anyone's as good as new in a few minutes. I've never been convinced that this was desireable. > Really? I saw it three times. > Like I said, FIDO sites can be so much fun. This one was down for a week, so I have something like 60 messages in here to plow through. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA22378; Thu, 26 Aug 93 20:47:13 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA11799; Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:46:29 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:46:31 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: character generation Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 15:34:29 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <874E2F1565E@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> jjm@zycor.lgc.com (johnjmedway) writes: > > But what level of detail or experience does the character have? > I think that it's WAY too slow, and have been saying that all along. > > I could probably crank some out _fairly_ quickly, but my players have taken > about 2 hours or more _each_ for their first attempts with this system. > I'll admit we used some time talking a few things over while building the > characters, but the organization, and the package designs are a bit more > tortured than they need be. ( BTW: all characters 60 - 85 points, with 3-4 > templates used ). In which case they've CHOSEN to do something complicated, in which case OF COURSE it's going to take a while. That's a consequence of the system giving you options, not any major problem with how it's set up; any time you have to do trade offs to get what you want, the process can take a while, but I still stand by the basic statement: if you base a character off of a single template, and only use his points for the base package, magic and optional skills, and don't try to go nuts with it, the process goes fast. The more specific a result you insist on, the slower it goes. That's true of any system I know that gives players significant options, and I don't see it desireable to cut out the options just to make the system build faster. And I doubt anything else, other than simplifying skill purchase in an undesireable fashion will speed it up much. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA22385; Thu, 26 Aug 93 20:47:17 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA11801; Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:46:32 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:46:34 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: character generation Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 15:40:42 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <874E2F92250@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) writes: > Complex characters like this will take time in any game system. I can't see > there being a way of making it easier without giving you a whole lot less > flexibility - and the flexibility is one of the things that I value the most. > Personally, I am in favour of complicating it even more by adding a few > seldom used options - like skills over 90%, buying items, etc. Just add them, > mark them as optional, and let people decide if they want to use them. I woul > use them enough to appreciate there existence. My feeling on the matter exactly. The only way I can see to reduce the time taken when building a complex character other than by reducing options is to make the skill purchase system more mindless--which is exactly a feature that this rules set got away from that I was glad to see. I can't think of a single character generation system that produces characters with a complex range of skills and options that DOESN'T take a while if used to it's fullest. The point with the RQ4 character gen is that you CAN use it quickly; all you have to do is stick to one template and buy only from that. Barring problems with look-ups from other parts of the rules (more a property of working with playtest documents than anything else) there's no reason that that sort of thing should take more than 20 minutes. And if that's too long, all I can say is "Go play D&D". ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA22395; Thu, 26 Aug 93 20:47:23 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA11807; Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:46:37 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:46:39 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: COMMENTS Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 15:56:26 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <874E3BC0DDE@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) writes: > I figured the same for consistancy. If you have no other means of targetin > continent-spanning spell usage seems extreme. :) > > This metheod allows you to sacrifice time to gain great effect, rather then > try and burn all your power. You could spend 1 round each on ceremony for > range and duration and get a R-4 and D-4 (on average) effect at about 7 > less points of magic. But it means that spell is fired once every 3 rounds > instead of once a round. Your call. :) Could you go over this again? I'm not sure I understood what you meant the first time, and it seems an interesting approach. Wayne ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA22402; Thu, 26 Aug 93 20:47:27 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA11813; Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:46:41 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:46:43 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: Rules Companion? Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 16:02:39 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <874E3C50FEE@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> rq4@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) writes: > One way I have come up with to handle long- or medium-time Duration is > to make the use of a progressive table (not necessarily the current 2^X > table) dependent on ritual casting, i.e. long-time casting. My idea was > to use the ceremony-time-to-skill table with casting time one step (one > D6 in the table) per extra point of Duration. > > Opinions? The question is, how LONG a ceremony? It's really a difficult are to handle effectively without either being back to a more restrained version of the original (which, with the skill limiter, might not be all bad; the real problem with the old system was that the ONLY limiter was Free Intellignece and magic points, both of which could be end runned easily) or making you wonder why anyone would ever bother. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA22413; Thu, 26 Aug 93 20:47:30 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA11819; Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:46:45 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:46:47 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: difficulty & healing Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 16:10:03 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <874E4857C4B@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> jjm@zycor.lgc.com (johnjmedway) writes: > Here's another idea: only allow a healing spell to heal 2/3 of the damage > from a particular wound. Force all else to heal with time. This is simpler > than Rob's suggestion, but quite a bit less miraculous, obviously. I'd > allow Divine Magic healing to be able to fully heal wounds, though I might > drag out the return of points to 1 per turn after the end of the ceremony/ > prayer. An old houserule we had that I'm thinking of reinstigating had it that only the LARGEST single healing done to a wound applied; so at least if you really wanted to be able to gaurentee healing up someone, you had to tie up a lot of resources in a Healing 6 spell or the like. Doesn't completely eliminate the problem, but does reduce it. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA24122; Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:52:06 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA13391; Thu, 26 Aug 93 22:51:20 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 22:51:23 EDT From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: REPLY - SORCERY Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 22:47:34 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <875F77D7395@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Wayne Shaw asks... %% > This metheod allows you to sacrifice time to gain great effect, rather %% > then try and burn all your power. You could spend 1 round each on %% > ceremony for range and duration and get a R-4 and D-4 (on average) %% > effect at about 7 less points of magic. But it means that spell is %% > fired once every 3 rounds instead of once a round. Your call. :) %% %% Could you go over this again? I'm not sure I understood what you meant %% the first time, and it seems an interesting approach. Gladly. The problem is durations and ranges that are way to long for too little effort. But you don't want to completely emasculate sorcerers either. WHat I have done is to replace the doubling tables for sorcery with a square table. Thus, a range 10 produces a value of 100 (10^2), not 1024 (2^10). To counterbalance this reduction, there is no such thing as "free-int" to worry about. So if you have the mana to pump a Duration 30 spell, go for it. Now, most sorcery has been "Wham-bang", do it in a round type stuff. What I have been trying is that you can use the ceremony rules in the back to simulate the trade-off of time for power. Take for example a Sorcerer who wants to inflict some nasty spell on some poor sod who pissed him off. He wants a good duration, to make it linger nice and long. He decides to invest 10 MP of his own into duration, and uses his ceremony to perform archane rites and add some more to it. Let us say he performs these rites for 89 rounds, which gains him 10d6 added to his 10 already in Duration. He rolls good, getting 40. So, by investing ~15 minutes of time (890 seconds) he gets a duration of 50, which when squared is 2500 x10 minutes, or 25000 minutes. The target is gonna be miserable for quite a while, about 17 days. Now, with the old table, Duration 10 is 1024 x10 minutes, or 10240. But in the old way, he could ignore studying up his ceremony. And Perhaps certain materials would be required by the GM for the ceremony. Another example: The same sorcerer is fighting for his life, and low on magic. He needs range, but can cover the mana. So he casts the spell, Mumbles archane rites (ceremony) for 3 rounds (all he can spare) and gets a ceremony 3d6 roll of 10. 10 gives him a value of 100, which is 1000m. Hopefully that's enough. What I have tried to show is that rather than Sorcerers being nearly worthless, blowing all their magic to get decent effects, they can be a little more useful. Granted, effects that last years are not very possible. But then, anything that needs more then a month should be ritualized with enchant and demand personal POW. Did that help? We have tried it, and my sorcerer likes the square table fine. At present he has not used the ceremony additions, since I came up with it after he left for the summer. I'm sure he'll like them too. :) -- Burton  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA24128; Thu, 26 Aug 93 21:52:25 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA13395; Thu, 26 Aug 93 22:51:40 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 22:51:42 EDT From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: COMMENTS Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 22:48:05 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <875F9A46672@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> David Dunham replies... %% Zero is a very easy to remember effect place. (In fact, I can never %% remember RQ3's unconscious number, and simply make it zero.) I like to think of 0 as being IT...that's all, folks. When we did Powers & Perils those many years ago, hit points were high, and at 0 you went unconscious. But you had something called "DTV" (Damage tolerance value) that was the amount beyond before you were wormfood. This DTV was generally low, based on CON. I thin in many cases, a character with 44 HP might have a DTV of -6 or something. It was not very much. I'll go either way. I was just looking at one less calulation (divide by 2). And it make you feel better to see more HP. :) %% > I think the simplest way to do it is probably 2x the next attribute level %% > in BP. So, going from 15 to 16 takes 32 BP. Each increase takes one of %% > your allowed improvements for your level of character (novice, trained, %% etc). %% %% I agree, this is simple to remember and use. 1x is simpler, but I haven't %% worked the numbers. I think I worked the numbers a bit. I may have been a bit sloppy in the figuring...you might be able to to 1x. Actually, that would be fairly nice. But I think I would redo it to be 2x current attribute. That way POW increase is 1/2 current POW, and others is 2x current attribute. Graeme A Lindsell %% "Medic" is the current military term I believe. Not quite right for a %% fantasy setting, but then neither is "First Aid" :-) I'm using "Wound Binding" in my re-typing of the draft. Sounds more like the purpose, and more "Archaic". %% At the same time there are a few spirit spells that I would do away %% with: Multimissile, Lightwall and Darkwall. They seem to be more %% D&D style spells than things spirits could do. Probably not a bad idea. Get rid of the things that one can't see a spirit doing. I think if you look at it along the lines of "If I had a little beastie to do tyhe job instead of me, what could he do?" Well, a heal spirit might guide your hands, a Strength beastie pushes along with you, etc. I am going with the Animistic idea of Spirit magic..much nicer way of handling it. Henk Langeveld (god o' the list :) suggests... %% So you propose a generic "Enhance (Skill)" spirit magic spell. That's probably a great addition. -- Burton  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA03703; Fri, 27 Aug 93 04:58:07 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA19673; Fri, 27 Aug 93 05:57:20 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 27 Aug 93 5:57:26 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: SKILLS - Easy Med. Hard Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 02:48:11 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <87D11351B8F@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> David Dunham (via RadioMail) writes: > I assume everyone's convinced we need the extra complexity? Need? Maybe not. Is it a good idea? Yes, I think it is. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA03713; Fri, 27 Aug 93 04:58:11 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA19679; Fri, 27 Aug 93 05:57:26 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 27 Aug 93 5:57:30 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: Character generation Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 02:50:29 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <87D113D27C2@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) writes: > If I read this correctly, I think that I like it a lot less than the current > system. The problem is that it assumes that people with more than one > professional background are equally proficient at all of them. This takes awa > a lot of the flexibility from the system. I like, for example, characters wit > a minimal fighting ability, but master craft abilities, or minimal abilities > second professions in other ways. On reconsideration, I think I agree. Among other things, the current system allows you to utilize multiple backgrounds at different levels to simulate more exotic backgrounds without customization. For example, when a player in my game was going to run an Imperial Eye agent (basically a sort of FBI/CIA combination type) I told him to combine a lower level of Official with either Scribe, Foot Soldier or a magical background, depending on what he was primarily oriented around. Symmetrical combination would not have really defined the typical one properly. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA07220; Fri, 27 Aug 93 07:46:54 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA26067; Fri, 27 Aug 93 08:46:04 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 27 Aug 93 8:46:10 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 03:02:19 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <87FE15074C2@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> David Dunham (via RadioMail) writes: > So far (in my limited time on this mailing list), almost everything's been > devoted to what to add or change from RuneQuest. I haven't seen anyone > talking about making the game simpler or faster to GM, which is what some > of us would like. Well, David, part of this assumes that the game is either A) more complex or B) slower than we like, which is not true for some of us. But I'll still address your suggestions. > + Hit location rolls. PenDragon and Elric use the Major Wound to get a > similar effect (where only the most serious wounds need an additional > roll). I don't find the location roll particularly onerous, though I do feel the current version downplays it more than it should in some areas. The elimiaation of hit locations almost mandates the simplification of armor, which I also don't consider particularly desireable. > + Strike Ranks. RQ4 already virtually gets rid of them with the "2 > actions/round" rule, and it's debatable whether someone can really kill an > enemy and prevent a blow from landing 1 SR later. While the strike rank situation may not be totally necessary, I have not liked any of the alternatives I've heard. Random die rolls tie up too much time with large numbers of characters involved; fixed values based on DEX give more benefit to high DEX characters than I prefer; and over a six second melee round, true simultaneity doesn't cut it for me. > > + All rules for bleeding and additional damage (e.g. from impaled weapons). > Who can keep track anyway? We do it all the time and have no trouble. And elimiating bleeding makes it even LESS meaningful to take a high value hit, and makes it harder to kill someone. > > + Fatigue rules (adopt the Elric strategy that most combats aren't long > enough for them to matter -- Elric does need some sort of ENC rules, > however). The answer here is that I think Elric's wrong. And it can be VERY wrong if you have to fight several fights in quick succession. I'd say the RQIV fatigue rules are simple enough for most people to handle. > > + Fumble %s. Elric doesn't use a table, you fumble on 99 or 00. > I don't see how there is that much extra work involved with the RQ method. It's not necessary, but I don't see the change being enough of an improvement to be justified. > + Separate criticals and specials. For most practical purposes, Elric > merges these. I could see it...but I'd want seperate tables for the three classes of weapons then. > + RQ4's Maneuver skill. Elric uses Dodge in much the same way. Piling up more value on one skill than I see as desireable. > > + Skill modifiers. They tend to be small anyway, and it's a royal pain to > recompute them when your POW changes. (Since stats would matter much less > then, maybe they should go away too...) Let's just say I don't think so, and leave it at that. > > into swords, armor, or whatever, and any spirit magic you know you can cast > as one of your two actions in a round. I don't think ignoring foci necessarily ignores prep. I can be argued that just focusing your mind on the spell involves prep. Frankly, we've never placed too much emphasis on foci, anyway. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA07226; Fri, 27 Aug 93 07:46:58 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA26069; Fri, 27 Aug 93 08:46:11 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 27 Aug 93 8:46:14 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 03:16:41 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <87FE1595FF7@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> David Dunham (via RadioMail) writes: > > + Base chances. All skills start at either 0% (if you can't do it without > training) or 10% (or maybe 5%). Or maybe they start at 0% or (for attack > skills) STR+DEX% (each category would have a base chance determined by > adding two stats -- if your POW increased, your base chance might go up, > but this wouldn't be a modifier, so skills would not change). I don't see how there's much to be gained from this one. The only time the base chance is an issue is when you are using a skill you don't have, and in those cases, the high base of some skills seems desireable to me. > > + Weapon hit points. They either break or don't, let's get rid of the > bookkeeping. > Again, I haven't seen it be that much of a problem. Most people only need to do the bookkeeping on their shield's or two-handed we Kmn!W$$9I2iLBLymVc^E\ ~xc.OLM}VeK}OX"1%wbIyWE?LiuGqVH[7IkS 86~R DL[hfeR4+[~2n>5qt(weapons, and I can't say as how that strikes me as a hideous bookkeeping load. My reaction to these is like mine to a lot of "keep it simple" suggestions: there are plenty of games out there that have effectively sold their souls for simplicity: I see no reason to add RQ to the pile. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA07232; Fri, 27 Aug 93 07:47:02 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA26072; Fri, 27 Aug 93 08:46:15 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 27 Aug 93 8:46:17 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 03:30:04 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <87FE1626E9A@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> David Dunham (via RadioMail) writes: > Actually, I like hit locations, too. But I don't like your attitude. A d20 > roll IS a problem. A round of combat can have a player making 4 rolls > (attack, defense, damage, location). Compare this to Pendragon's two > (attack, damage). But the issue is not the player, it's the GM. The GM may > be running a dozen or so NPCs, in which case it's nearly 50 rolls per > round. And the GM is far more likely to have to look up some of those rolls > on a chart (might be running different shaped opponents, or dealing with > melee and missile fire). > All I can say in defense of the fellow is that I think I've run more NPCs on the average than most people (because we used to often have parties anywhere from 10-16 strong) and I never found it that prohibitive. Usually the NPC take a disabling wound early enough that subsequent bookkeeping becomes moot. Even if they're laying there healing themselves, it rarely is the case that the actual fight goes on long enough that the precise bookkeeping of the NPCs becomes a problem. I just ran a rather decent sized battle involving six PC and 14 broos, and that was the case there. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA07238; Fri, 27 Aug 93 07:47:07 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA26078; Fri, 27 Aug 93 08:46:19 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 27 Aug 93 8:46:22 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: no wonder rq4 never got anywhere Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 03:38:03 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <87FE2200553@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Newton Hughes writes: > Is there any consensus within this group on rqiv or rqlite or anything? Given the variety of things people expect/want from a game, why in the world did you expect there to be? After all, as I understand it, Oliver and his crew were the people making actual decisions; we're just functioning as playtest sources and general kibbitzers and idea fountains for them. Given that there doesn't really have to BE a concesus among us. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA18533; Thu, 26 Aug 93 19:18:59 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA09707; Thu, 26 Aug 93 20:18:14 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Thu, 26 Aug 93 20:18:17 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Spirit Magic (was "Pain and Healing") Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 10:17:13 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8736AA57C28@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > >Henk replying to Joerg > > > So you propose a generic "Enhance (Skill)" spirit magic spell. > > Why not? Spirit magic is the most common type of magic in RQ, at least in the published scenarios. I think making it a bit more generic is a good idea: it is still very combat oriented. Each cult could have Enhance (Skill) for the primary cult skills as a start (as separate spells for each skill: I'm not advocating a single "Enhance all cult skills" spell). Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA21638; Fri, 27 Aug 93 12:12:25 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA08184; Fri, 27 Aug 93 13:11:38 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 27 Aug 93 13:11:41 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 09:59:10 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8844F1B34A1@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) >Subject: Re: Re: RQ4 Diet >Well, David, part of this assumes that the game is either A) more complex >or B) slower than we like, which is not true for some of us. But I'll >still address your suggestions. I realize there are smarter, more patient people than me playing RuneQuest. I think there are ways to do RQ-Lite that allow you to play the same game you are now. The approach in that message was to see what could be removed from RQ and leave it more or less RQ, more or less playable with existing scenarios. All that was removed could be added in a rules supplement. This approach is less radical than changing the combat system to opposed rolls. I'm not asking you to _play_ RQ-Lite, only to come up with ideas that result in a simpler game that keeps the same spirit. >My reaction to these is like mine to a lot of "keep it simple" >suggestions: there are plenty of games out there that have effectively >sold their souls for simplicity: I see no reason to add RQ to the pile. It's good to know that RuneQuest will die with its soul intact. How long is Avalon-Hill going to keep putting money into something that gets them such a small return? You may not think simplifying the rules is the best way to revitalize RQ, but it's one way, and probably cheaper than monthly scenarios. >> + Fumble %s. Elric doesn't use a table, you fumble on 99 or 00. > >I don't see how there is that much extra work involved with the RQ >method. It's not necessary, but I don't see the change being enough of >an improvement to be justified. The point isn't that the fumble chart is horrible and should be shot at dawn. The point is, it's just one more item to keep track of, one more thing to explain to beginning players. And it does slow play (not by a huge amount, and not all the time, but it's something I've noticed in our group). None of these many things is the culprit, but they add up. David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA22976; Fri, 27 Aug 93 12:44:27 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA09485; Fri, 27 Aug 93 13:43:38 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 27 Aug 93 13:43:44 EDT From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 13:43:14 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <884D79D64DC@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Loren writes: > Maneuver is silly. You're telling me someone who is 150% with greatsword > attack and parry won't have maneuver at the same level when fighting > with a greatsword, and that he'll be equally as maneuverable when using > a scimitar and a chair? Just use weapon skill for maneuver, and get rid Having fought (SCA) for 16 years, I'd have to say that there is a Maneuver skill independent of weapons form. Let me give a single example: an advanced Karate black belt holder joined our group. His weapon skills were only OK, but within one month (during which he adapted to armor) of starting his Maneuver skill was better than that of most ten-year veterans. There are a lot of tricks that apply to any weapons form. In RQ II I thought of the Defense skill as including what we now are calling Maneuver and Dodge. Seemed to work pretty well, and had some of the feel of real combat. Pendragon does combat well, rolling Attack, Parry, and Dodge into one skill. I would in fact put in some relatedness between all forms if one is trying to cut to a low level of detail, reflecting the fighter's growing competence in things like judging distances in a fight, maneuvering, etc. - Paul  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA00737; Fri, 27 Aug 93 01:16:31 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA17001; Fri, 27 Aug 93 02:15:38 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Fri, 27 Aug 93 2:15:49 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: COMMENTS, rq-skinny Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 16:14:35 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <87960284EA2@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > And this goes for alterations to DICE ROLL (as opposed to alterations to > skill) as well (like the RQ4 Fatigue rules). They annoy me a lot. Absolute agreement. They are the one thing I don't like about the RQ4 fatigue rules. > > > > There was a proposal a few months ago: -10% attack skill = +1 damage. I think > > allowing that and giving the option -10% to attack skill = -10% to parry > > dodge would allow the player to have some input and speed up those 100% > > skill fights as well. > > Not bad. Burton (who I was replying to above) has already pointed out that the end result of this is just subtracting parry from attack to get chance to hit. Oh well. Perhaps the RQ2 option of allowing attack skill over 100% to be deducted from parry skill could be used. Q: does anyone know why this was dropped from RQ3? > Dave Cake Graeme Lindsell a.k.agal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA16768; Sat, 28 Aug 93 02:42:15 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA28763; Sat, 28 Aug 93 03:39:22 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sat, 28 Aug 93 3:41:31 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: REPLY - SORCERY Date: Sat, 28 Aug 93 00:24:17 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <892C5927CF0@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) writes: > What I have tried to show is that rather than Sorcerers being nearly > worthless, blowing all their magic to get decent effects, they can > be a little more useful. > > Granted, effects that last years are not very possible. But then, anything > that needs more then a month should be ritualized with enchant and demand > personal POW. > > Did that help? We have tried it, and my sorcerer likes the square table > fine. At present he has not used the ceremony additions, since I came up > with it after he left for the summer. I'm sure he'll like them too. :) > Hmmm. Interesting. I may try adapting this for use with the general revision of sorcery in use with the RQ4 draft, allowing ritual casting to do some sort of squaring effect. Yours seems basically workable, but seems like it could allow a high Ceremony sorcerer to get fairly large durations relatively quickly, which may not be desireable. Thanks for reposting it, in any case. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA18370; Sat, 28 Aug 93 03:42:01 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA29319; Sat, 28 Aug 93 04:39:26 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sat, 28 Aug 93 4:41:19 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Sat, 28 Aug 93 00:33:26 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <893C58D58F2@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> David Dunham (via RadioMail) writes: > > I realize there are smarter, more patient people than me playing RuneQuest. > I think there are ways to do RQ-Lite that allow you to play the same game > you are now. The approach in that message was to see what could be removed > from RQ and leave it more or less RQ, more or less playable with existing > scenarios. All that was removed could be added in a rules supplement. This > approach is less radical than changing the combat system to opposed rolls. My objection to that sort of thing is that it becomes too easy to find the situation where the rules suppliment "just happens" to never get done. Simplification for its own sake can become a disease--I've seen it happen before. But I have no objection to looking...it just seems to me that much simplification from what is already present will destroy the identifiable character of the game. > It's good to know that RuneQuest will die with its soul intact. How long is > Avalon-Hill going to keep putting money into something that gets them such > a small return? You may not think simplifying the rules is the best way to > revitalize RQ, but it's one way, and probably cheaper than monthly > scenarios. I also think it would fail. RQIII lost people because it was overpriced, poorly supported, and contained godawful steps backwards like that obscenely random character generation system and the clumsy fatigue mechanic. I saw mighty few people bitch at it because of "complexity". If it's going to die unless someone rips the guts out of it, then as far as I'm concerned, let it die. If I wanted to play MagicWorld, I'd play MagicWorld. > > The point isn't that the fumble chart is horrible and should be shot at > dawn. The point is, it's just one more item to keep track of, one more > thing to explain to beginning players. And it does slow play (not by a huge > amount, and not all the time, but it's something I've noticed in our > group). None of these many things is the culprit, but they add up. > David, I think we've had too different a set of experiences here to have much meaningful discussion on this. I've heard various complaints by people over the years, but general complexity objections have not been one of them. There have been objections to the random character gen; objections to the way movement and strike ranks work (most of which are elimiated in the RQ4 draft) objections various other things. But outside of the strike rank thing, and the general dislike of the RQ3 fatigue system, I've never heard a single player of mine (and I've introduced a good score or more of players to RQ over the years) object to any of the other features you're talking about, even in aggragate. This can't help but make me view this sort of simplicity quest as chasing a snark. > ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA24081; Sat, 28 Aug 93 12:16:07 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA08285; Sat, 28 Aug 93 13:13:27 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sat, 28 Aug 93 13:15:24 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1993 10:01:10 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <89C5810309D@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) >Subject: Re: Re: Re: RQ4 Diet >David, I think we've had too different a set of experiences here to have >much meaningful discussion on this. I've heard various complaints by >people over the years, but general complexity objections have not been >one of them. There have been objections to the random character gen; >objections to the way movement and strike ranks work (most of which are >elimiated in the RQ4 draft) objections various other things. But outside >of the strike rank thing, and the general dislike of the RQ3 fatigue >system, I've never heard a single player of mine (and I've introduced a >good score or more of players to RQ over the years) object to any of the >other features you're talking about, even in aggragate. This can't help >but make me view this sort of simplicity quest as chasing a snark. You have the advantage of knowing the complaints of people who actually do play RuneQuest. I admit I'm speaking somewhat hypothetically, because I'm trying to figure out how to make RuneQuest have more appeal to people who _don't_ play it. I don't know why they don't play. (I suspect the cost of boxed Deluxe RQ was largely to blame -- RQ has always had semi-random character generation and RQ3 was no different.) Still, I've recently tried explaining RQ to a couple of new players, and I know it's a lot easier explaining Pendragon (even with the RQ magic added). So I suspect complexity is an issue. It might be addressed simply by rewriting the rules and separating many of the details out into a companion volume (or in the back of the same volume, though I favor a slim book). And I've been running both RQ4 and PenDragon Pass, and I know from personal experience, a combat takes several times as long in RQ. I used to run RQ all the time, but never noticed how a single melee could so dominate a session until I started running both rules sets alternately. >I've introduced a >good score or more of players to RQ over the years Out of curiousity, are they mostly people new to the hobby, or confirmed gamers? David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA17847; Sun, 29 Aug 93 16:26:14 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA28704; Sun, 29 Aug 93 17:25:02 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sun, 29 Aug 93 17:25:30 EDT From: jjm@zycor.lgc.com (johnjmedway) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: maneuver & defense Date: Sun, 29 Aug 93 16:24:07 CDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8B889BE5367@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >> Loren writes: >> > Maneuver is silly. You're telling me someone who is 150% with greatsword >> > attack and parry won't have maneuver at the same level when fighting >> > with a greatsword, and that he'll be equally as maneuverable when using >> > a scimitar and a chair? Just use weapon skill for maneuver, and get rid >> >> From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) >> Having fought (SCA) for 16 years, I'd have to say that there is a >> Maneuver skill independent of weapons form. Let me give a single example: Perhaps there should be a maneuver skill, but that number is only used when averaged with the skill of the character with the attack & parry combination used. Ex. Demonstratus has maneuver of 50%, and is a fencer of fine reputation ( 80% ), though mediocre at best when weighed down with normal military gear ( Scimitar+Med Shield = 40% ). When performing some action, which requires a maneuver roll, if he's fencing, his roll is a 65%, when armed for war, 45%. Give him a greatsword, where he's only 20%, and he will maneuver at 35%, reflecting that while he is reasonable fast ..., some of his positioning attempts will be wrong for greatsword. There was also mention of the venerable Defense rating from RQ2. Personally, I'd like to see that come back somehow. Possibilities include: 1. as it used to be 2. 1/10 of Maneuver 3. rolled into an attack/parry combination as it is right now, there's nothing save the relatively low agility/parry bonus to reward the graceful, and nothing save standard parry skill improve- ments to reward the experienced. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | john_medway@zycor.lgc.com | Landmark Graphics Corp | 512.292.2325 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA21452; Sun, 29 Aug 93 20:21:10 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA01883; Sun, 29 Aug 93 21:20:24 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sun, 29 Aug 93 21:20:26 EDT From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: maneuver & defense Date: Sun, 29 Aug 93 21:20:00 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8BC75E75E84@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Graeme writes (sensibly): > A Maneuver/Dodge skill that: >a) can be used in normal attack/parry combat to give an edge to the >fighter with the higher skill and/or better roll, and >b) can be used as a purely defensive skill if one concentrates solely >on not being hit. >appeals to me as an option for RQ4. I might have a proposal for a) >later, b) can be implemented using the current Dodge rules. This is getting back to the (good) basic idea of the old RQ 2 Defense. An all-around skill that helps you regardless of form. more when I am not so tired, paul  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA23577; Sun, 29 Aug 93 22:24:51 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA03453; Sun, 29 Aug 93 23:24:03 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sun, 29 Aug 93 23:24:07 EDT From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Lite backlash! Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 11:23:14 WST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8BE85FE0226@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> There does seem to be a bit of a reaction against the general RQ Lite movement beginning, and I think that right now, with the status of RQ4 in limbo, and the subject topical, is a good time to debate this properly. I want to know wether RQ Lite is what people are really interested in, before I work on inventing stylish complications to combat and sorcery. SO, I'll continue throwing down the gauntlet to the RQ Lite supporters. How would RQ Lite differ from the woeful 'Standard Edition' (I think that was what it was called). This nearly useless boxed set was RQ without most of the spells, special situation rules, enchanting rules, and a waste of time. I think that it missed out many skills, as well. All I really know about it (very few people I know were stupid enough to buy it) was that it caused several pages at the beginning of every supplement to be filled with rubbish that I already knew. The TOTRM crowd spoke out very heavily against it in 'Ruined-Quest' (also on the digest). Something that should be adressed in the RQ Lite debate is that it has been tried already, and it was a definite failure, so the onus is on the RQ Lite supporters to show how an RQ4 Lite would avoid the problems it caused. The RQ Lite idea in the sense of simplifying combat is not one that I am opposed to - I just fail to see how it really would work. In my experience most of the complexity of RQ combat as opposed to a game like Pendragon is only partly due to complications like hit locations, SRs, weapon APs. The things that cause combat to take a while are 1) Magic - without magic RQ combat is often very quick. I like the way magic makes RQ combat more interesting, however. I have run 'no magic' combats ocassionally, (duels, etc.) and they can be very quick. The effects of magic are compunded by - 2) Armour and healing - The more armour, the longer the fight. I suspect that this applies equally to any RQ Lite. By magic I include chaos features, etc. I suspect that if what is really desired is simply quick combat, that a few simplifying rules can be added - replace SRs with CoC Dex initiative, for example - its less 'realistic', but you get what you want. As any such optiuonal rules would be really simple (thats the point!) it would be easy to slip a couple of pages of optional rules into the RQ4 draft. It would be easy to use the current character generation system as a basis for a very simple one - everyone choose an appropriate template - maybe even two, using the simple additive system Oliver posted recently - spend the few excess points on skills from a small list. I probably wouldn't use these rules, but I have no objection to them. Similarly for I system to ignore hit locations. But I think that a lot of the complexity of RQ comes from its large lists of skills, the large number of spells, and its magic system - which is simple in essence, but becomes very complex if you are a skilled practitioner (just the way I like it - the only magic system that I like as much is Shadowrun - but I haven't tried Ars Magica). A RQ Lite that removes skills or spells from the game system leads to two competing flavours of game mechanics - and official supplements can realistically support only one, as the Deluxe/Standard situation showed. It might be possible to 'fold' multiple skills together for RQ Lite, to maintain compatibility (Like Trap Set/Disarm, Lock Pick, etc. where folded into Devise), but I don't think that there is much to be done for magic - either all spells are in RQ Lite, and the complexity remains, or they are not, and we have compatibility clashes. If RQ Lite is just a simplification of combat and character generation, with much the same skills, and the same spells, it is a couple of pages of rules options, that can easily be made part of RQ4 or any rules supplements. I would happily write a draft myself, and it would probably take only a day or so (though basing it heavily on Elric! (not yet in Perth) would be simplest). If it is intended to include a different spell list, or different abilities for shamans/priests, then I would want a damn good explanation of how it would avoid the problems of the misnamed 'Standard Edition' (the Deluxe set always was the standard). And I definately want most of the rest of the stuff in the RQ draft to be included in anything that appears. Anyway, thats enough ranting on the topic. What precisely should be in the long awaited RQ Lite? A simple set of optional rules is something that would be very easy to create, certainly a lot easier to put together than the large amount of work that has gone into the current RQ4 draft. If RQ Lite is heavily based on Elric!, then it should be very easy. Why doesn't someone just do it, and add it to the next draft? But people should think about the sources of complexity in their games, and realise that only some of them are amenable to an RQ Lite without creating compatibility problems. Dave Cake  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA27128; Mon, 30 Aug 93 02:50:45 -0500 Return-Path: <100270.337@CompuServe.COM> Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA06572; Mon, 30 Aug 93 03:49:50 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 3:50:02 EDT From: Nick Brooke <100270.337@CompuServe.COM> To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: RQLite and Elric! Date: 30 Aug 93 03:47:16 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8C2F43106E3@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Hi, guys: The same niggling doubt crosses my mind with regard to basing RQLite on Elric (basically a good idea, IMHO) as did earlier this year when people were singing the praises of the Ringworld skill and combat mechanics (not such a good idea, IMHO): Is Avalon Hill really going to want to buy the rights to use these rules sets from Chaosium? If not, will they be able to use them at all? Same goes for RuneQuest / Pendragon variants. Now, I happen to love the PenDragon Pass concept, and am working on something similar myself. But I don't imagine that anyone at AH or Chaosium would be too pleased if any elements of that system crept into RQ4 without due acknowledgements, etc. being given. It's a knotty problem, but one we ought to bear in mind. If anyone out there does have a better understanding of the position between the two camps, could they let the rest of us know? Like, is there an official KR / AH position on whether or not "RQ4" (whatever it turns out to be) should be made compatible with newer and more sophisticated BRP-based designs? Has any attempt been made to get Chaosium input into the "RQ4" rewrite project? ==== Nick ==== => "Why did the Shaman cross the road?" ==> "To get to the Other Side!"  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA28178; Mon, 30 Aug 93 03:58:52 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA07167; Mon, 30 Aug 93 04:56:17 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 4:58:08 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: maneuver & defense Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 01:40:01 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8C40F963DE5@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > Lately I've been thinking that there is a justification for a Maneuver >skill (which I opposed earlier), but I've been wondering whether a Dodge >skill is required. Most of Dodge to me seems to be out-maneuvering your >opponent, and I've never really liked Attack and Dodge as a legitimate >combat option. The Dodge in CoC 4th edition, which can only be used as >the sole combat action for the round, seems better to me. I used to fence saber against a guy who would dodge my attacks. I'd attack, he'd lean slightly and I'd miss, then he'd nail me in the arm. That's an attack and a dodge. (It's Maneuver related, since he had to be at just the right distance for it to work.)  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA00666; Mon, 30 Aug 93 07:07:15 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA12382; Mon, 30 Aug 93 08:06:21 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 8:06:26 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 01:56:24 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8C73A746A39@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> David Dunham (via RadioMail) writes: > > You have the advantage of knowing the complaints of people who actually do > play RuneQuest. I admit I'm speaking somewhat hypothetically, because I'm > trying to figure out how to make RuneQuest have more appeal to people who > _don't_ play it. I don't know why they don't play. (I suspect the cost of > boxed Deluxe RQ was largely to blame -- RQ has always had semi-random > character generation and RQ3 was no different.) I must disagree. If used straight, RQ3 did something previous editions had NOT done; stuck you with the TYPE of character you could play. Short of GM limitations on culture, in the past, if you wanted to play a warrior type, you could pick, say, the barbarian previous experience and expect to end up with at least an acceptable warrior. Further, while there were random rolls in the skill distirubtion within these backgrounds, you didn't live or die on a SINGLE die roll the way the RQ age roll did. RQ3 was, in effect, far MORE random than earlier issues. I will agree about the price, however; I've heard complaints from any number of people about it. By 1990's boxed-set standards, it's only high; but by the standards of the RPGs out at the time, other than AD&D, it was WAY over the line. > > Still, I've recently tried explaining RQ to a couple of new players, and I > know it's a lot easier explaining Pendragon (even with the RQ magic added). > So I suspect complexity is an issue. It might be addressed simply by > rewriting the rules and separating many of the details out into a companion > volume (or in the back of the same volume, though I favor a slim book). > > And I've been running both RQ4 and PenDragon Pass, and I know from personal > experience, a combat takes several times as long in RQ. I used to run RQ > all the time, but never noticed how a single melee could so dominate a > session until I started running both rules sets alternately. So? Any combat system can be simplified; any rules set can be simplified. The question is, is what you throw out worth the simplicity and time you gain. > Out of curiousity, are they mostly people new to the hobby, or confirmed game > Some of each. Most were ex-D&D folks, but a few were brought into RQ directly from outside the hobby. ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA28482; Mon, 30 Aug 93 04:21:45 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA07343; Mon, 30 Aug 93 05:19:10 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 5:21:02 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Lite backlash! Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 02:02:58 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8C4715C724F@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >How would RQ Lite differ from the woeful 'Standard Edition' (I think that was >what it was called). .. >Something that should be adressed in the RQ Lite debate is >that it has been tried already, and it was a definite failure My recollection is that "Standard Edition" was intended to be RQ for less $, not something less complex. "Standard Edition" wasn't modular. I see RQ-Lite as something you could add entire new complexities to, not stuff you edited out to fit page count. For example, you can conceivably play the game without strike ranks. Then those rules could be relegated to a Rules Companion. You can definitely play the game without sorcery (e.g. RQ2). Sorcery gets cut. RQ4's cool combat tactics get cut. Bleeding rules get cut. There are other possibilities which aren't essential to play the game. Some of what gets cut might be replaced with a very brief summary of what's out there (e.g. "Some cultures exclusively use a different magic system called sorcery, which takes a mechanistic world-view. The average practictioner knows only a few weak spells, but sorcerers can cast spells similar to very large spirit magic but with weeks-long duration, or at great range. Most hated is the Tap spell, which lets sorcerers take someone's characteristic points to power their spells." A GM could improvise something if the PCs run into a sorcerer, but doesn't have to deal with game mechanics. And none of what gets cut goes away -- all of it was compatible with the basic game in the first place, and can be added back easily. But in a separate book, you get to pick and choose how much complexity you want to deal with. If you don't want any, you don't buy the Companion. > In my experience most of the complexity of RQ combat as opposed to >a game like Pendragon is only partly due to complications like hit locations, >SRs, weapon APs. The things that cause combat to take a while are >1) Magic I run PenDragon Pass (which uses the RQ3 spell list), and it's much quicker. Perhaps this is partly because I say you can either fight or cast a spell each round, but not both. If you can't do both, much of the need for SR goes away... >2) Armour and healing - The more armour, the longer the fight. I suspect that >this applies equally to any RQ Lite. True -- how can we encourage PCs to wear less armor? In real life, people didn't walk around like tanks. David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA28673; Mon, 30 Aug 93 04:37:29 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA07470; Mon, 30 Aug 93 05:36:45 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 5:36:48 EDT From: "Peter A. van Heusden" To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Rules Companion + RQ Lite Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 11:35:27 +0200 (SAT) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8C4BBF97EA0@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> I think a Rules Companion is a definite BAD idea. This is starting to sound like Rolemaster - where the core rules get added to all the time in Rules Companions and everyone ends up saying refer to RMC X. I don't see why people say RQ is too complex. Arguably the up and coming system of the day is Ars Magica. I found RQIII easier to read and understand than Ars Magica. Again using AM as an example, consider the Werewolf and Vampire systems. These are to a certain degree, AM Lite. Everybody I know who has played them ends up wanting more meat, more detail. RQ was the first system I started DMing... and previous to that I had only played AD&D, and it was very easy to learn. I have heard much mumbling about people finding RQ too complex. Apart from AD&Ders, I have not seen such people. Thus I have yet to be convinced. Peter ******************************************************************************* Peter van Heusden One man one newsfeed CS3, UCT, Cape Town, RSA "but I love the setting. and the hippies pvanheus@cs.uct.ac.za will be back in the fall" Red_Guest on MediaMOO  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA01120; Mon, 30 Aug 93 07:34:55 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA13065; Mon, 30 Aug 93 08:34:08 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 8:34:11 EDT From: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Spirit Magic spell Improve(Skill) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 14:33:44 +0200 Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8C7B1530A77@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> In rq-playtest you write: > Why not? Spirit magic is the most common type of magic in RQ, >at least in the published scenarios. I think making it a bit more >generic is a good idea: it is still very combat oriented. Each >cult could have Enhance (Skill) for the primary cult skills as >a start (as separate spells for each skill: I'm not advocating >a single "Enhance all cult skills" spell). To not get in conflict with Enhance (Characteristic) I suggest that we name it Improve(Skill). > Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au -- Henk | Henk.Langeveld@Sun.COM - Disclaimer: I don't speak for Sun. oK[] | RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA01397; Mon, 30 Aug 93 07:46:38 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA13380; Mon, 30 Aug 93 08:45:51 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 8:45:53 EDT From: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 14:45:35 +0200 Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8C7E3491782@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> In rq-playtest you write: > Pendragon does combat well, rolling Attack, Parry, and Dodge into one >skill. I would in fact put in some relatedness between all forms if one >is trying to cut to a low level of detail, reflecting the fighter's growing >competence in things like judging distances in a fight, maneuvering, etc. You can always add modifiers for different weapons in classes of Trained(+)/Familiar(0)/Unknown(-)/Unbalanced(--). This would reduce weapon-switching during adventures as well. If this is not clear, I'd be happy to work this out further. > - Paul -- Henk | Henk.Langeveld@Sun.COM - Disclaimer: I don't speak for Sun. oK[] | RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA24604; Tue, 31 Aug 93 09:41:56 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA00684; Tue, 31 Aug 93 10:41:08 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 10:41:11 EDT From: rq4@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: character generation Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 15:13:38 MEZ Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8E1CDD0555A@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> In <874E2F92250@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu>, you write: > My feeling on the matter exactly. The only way I can see to reduce the > time taken when building a complex character other than by reducing > options is to make the skill purchase system more mindless--which is > exactly a feature that this rules set got away from that I was glad to > see. I can't think of a single character generation system that produces > characters with a complex range of skills and options that DOESN'T take a > while if used to it's fullest. The point with the RQ4 character gen is > that you CAN use it quickly; all you have to do is stick to one template > and buy only from that. Barring problems with look-ups from other parts > of the rules (more a property of working with playtest documents than > anything else) there's no reason that that sort of thing should take more > than 20 minutes. And if that's too long, all I can say is "Go play D&D". So what you say is if we want to speed up character generation we have to produce templates for "common" combinations? Maybe a "foes" expansion with lots of careers and sample characters useable as NPCs? -- Joerg Baumgartner rq4@sartar.toppoint.de  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA21212; Sun, 29 Aug 93 20:08:01 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA01654; Sun, 29 Aug 93 21:07:13 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Sun, 29 Aug 93 21:07:18 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: maneuver & defense Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 11:05:50 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8BC3D9D3721@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > >> Loren writes: > >> > Maneuver is silly. You're telling me someone who is 150% with greats> >> From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) > >> Having fought (SCA) for 16 years, I'd have to say that there is a > >> Maneuver skill independent of weapons form. Let me give a single example: > John Medway writes: > Perhaps there should be a maneuver skill, but that number is only used when > averaged with the skill of the character with the attack & parry combination > used. Ex. [Example Given] I'd hate to have to work out this average given how often one's skill is modified, and I couldn't really justify not changing the average when one gets a modifier. Lately I've been thinking that there is a justification for a Maneuver skill (which I opposed earlier), but I've been wondering whether a Dodge skill is required. Most of Dodge to me seems to be out-maneuvering your opponent, and I've never really liked Attack and Dodge as a legitimate combat option. The Dodge in CoC 4th edition, which can only be used as the sole combat action for the round, seems better to me. A Maneuver/Dodge skill that: a) can be used in normal attack/parry combat to give an edge to the fighter with the higher skill and/or better roll, and b) can be used as a purely defensive skill if one concentrates solely on not being hit. appeals to me as an option for RQ4. I might have a proposal for a) later, b) can be implemented using the current Dodge rules. > > as it is right now, there's nothing save the relatively low agility/parry > bonus to reward the graceful, and nothing save standard parry skill improve- > ments to reward the experienced. Yes, the current system is a bit bare of options. > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > | john_medway@zycor.lgc.com | Landmark Graphics Corp | 512.292.2325 | > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA08335; Mon, 30 Aug 93 10:33:14 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA20339; Mon, 30 Aug 93 11:32:22 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 11:32:30 EDT From: "Loren J. Miller" To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Lite backlash! Date: 30 Aug 1993 11:33:32 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8CAAA48743C@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Dave Cake writes: > There does seem to be a bit of a reaction against the general RQ Lite > movement beginning, and I think that right now, with the status of RQ4 in > limbo, and the subject topical, is a good time to debate this properly. I don't know if it's a big movement, but there are a few voluble people out there who don't seem to like RQ Lite. As one of the proponents of RQ Lite I'll try to explain the idea as I would see it, and to clear up any misunderstandings with my own position. This won't clear up the whole thing, though, since neither side on this debate is exactly unanimous. First, RQLite would have rules modules, each of which could add complexity if desired. The basic game would be stripped down and intended for use in a universal setting, a lot like BRP. The rules modules would all be directly compatible with the basic game. The skill system would be a simple binary success/failure system, with special successes for impaling weapons added in (since that's a popular part of RQ and I like to encourage PCs to use spears). Skill difficulty would be handled by adding the base chance to the roll when rolling for skill increase, and skill check frenzy would be addressed in GM advice rather than with restrictive rules. Criticals and/or hit locations would be a rules module that you could add in if you want. Frankly speaking, I don't think you need both a critical system and a hit location system in the same game; they cover the same function. The initiative and combat system would be simplified, without all the rules-bound special options in RQ4, but with ways for the GM and players to roleplay combat options without consulting lots of rules to do so. I'd lean towards defining spell casting as an action that takes all round to do, disallowing simultaneous casting and fighting. The modular SR rules would allow people to use the old rules if they want. The magic system would cover spirit magic only, and would allow either the MPx5% chance of success or the auto-success rule to be used (options) with the note that in Glorantha you should use the MPx5% rule. The weapon damage and armor rules would be amended as per Oliver's draft changes. The reason for this is to allow characters to wear less than full armor and still have a good chance of surviving minor fights. Characters wear maximum armor because it's better to run slow and have to turn and fight than to get chopped up. Character generation rules would be based around sample characters of several basic types. I'd go for tribal warrior, hunter, healer, scholar, heavy infantry, cavalry, light infantry, assistant shaman, noble son or daughter, farmer, fisher, sailor, ruffian, bureaucrat, artisan, trader, laborer, and initiate as a start. The RQ4 generation rules (fixed to reduce overly common combat skills) would be a rules module that you could add on to these rules, as would a simple CoC-style set of rules. Monsters and NPCs would be made available in the form in which you actually use them. Rather than being presented with all characteristics, their combat stats and skills would be presented so you could take them directly from the monster listing and use them in the game without rolling them up and calculating everything down to the last percentile. There would be an additional module giving stat ranges and cultural skills for those who want to play non-human PCs. In addition to the rules modules mentioned above, there would be a rules module allowing you to run diceless RQ. This is a huge boon to live roleplaying groups and to those who want to get up from the table every once in a while. The whole thing would be called RQ4, with the RuneQuest Lite rules being in one inexpensive book for those who wanted just the basics and the full rules modules in an Advanced RuneQuest book. Alternately you could have one book with a Lite section and an Advanced section. Magic systems aside from spirit magic would be in the RQ4 Magic of Glorantha book, which would have enough room to cover sorcery and divine magic in the space that we all think it needs, and to explain Gloranthan shamans. This would also allow for additional magic systems for other game worlds to be published as separate books. Now, what about Glorantha information beyond the magic systems? I'd prefer to see it in its own books, rather than mixed up with the rules. However, I'd love to see a nice beginning module included with the rules book, a module which would introduce players and GM to the world and give them enough stuff to play with for a month. All you need here is a small tribal module, something along the lines of the Garhound Contest, with a bonus description of a few tribes and areas and some of the nasties that inhabit the locale. This is the kind of module that most game companies include with the GM screen, which by the way is another thing lacking in RQ3 that should be included in RQ4. > How would RQ Lite differ from the woeful 'Standard Edition' (I think that was > what it was called). This nearly useless boxed set was RQ without most of the > spells, special situation rules, enchanting rules, and a waste of time. The difference is that Standard Edition RQ had crippled versions of every system from the full game; RQLite on the other hand would include just enough systems to play a quick version of the game, but would cover them in entirety. In RQLite, Spirit magic, for example, would be covered entirely, but Divine and Sorcerous magic and shamans would be glossed over and those who are interested would be pointed to the RQ4 Magic of Glorantha book. The modular rules design would ensure that those who bought RQLite wouldn't be stranded without a clean upgrade path to the advanced game, and it would also ensure that they could play with whatever magic systems they wanted without having to switch to complex rules systems such as strike ranks and critical hits. > In my experience most of the complexity of RQ combat as opposed to > a game like Pendragon is only partly due to complications like hit locations, > SRs, weapon APs. The things that cause combat to take a while are > 1) Magic - without magic RQ combat is often very quick. I like the way magic > makes RQ combat more interesting, however. I have run 'no magic' combats > ocassionally, (duels, etc.) and they can be very quick. The effects of magic > are compunded by - My version of RQLite would make magic casting a combat action, and get rid of most of the SR stuff right there. This would speed things up a lot, especially if you don't have to keep track of spell durations. > 2) Armour and healing - The more armour, the longer the fight. I suspect that > this applies equally to any RQ Lite. That's why I would encourage us to go with Oliver's amended armor and damage tables. The result of this kind of rework would not be one-hundred percent compatible with RQ3, but only because armor and weapon damage values would need to be recalculated. Everything else would remain the same, allowing old modules to be used with the new rules and new modules to be used with the old rules. It would satisfy both those who want quick mechanics and those who want as many rules as Rolemaster. It would satisfy the Glorantha crowd and the non-Glorantha crowd, and the n-G crowd hasn't been well represented in the rules discussions so far. whoah, +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu "Science" does not remove the terror of the gods.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA24950; Mon, 30 Aug 93 15:32:06 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA04311; Mon, 30 Aug 93 16:31:12 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 16:31:20 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: maneuver & defense Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 13:30:49 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8CFA49D1FD5@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >> I used to fence saber against a guy who would dodge my attacks. I'd attack, >> he'd lean slightly and I'd miss, then he'd nail me in the arm. That's an >> attack and a dodge. (It's Maneuver related, since he had to be at just the >> right distance for it to work.) >> > But by dodging did he throw away his option of parrying, as he'd have to >in RQIII? (Actually, by the sound of it he did, so much for my argument) >I think (and I admit I'm no fighter, so tell me if I'm wrong) that the >two options of "stand still attack & parry" and "dodge about and attack" >are inaccurate: all three combat options are used in any round. That's >a point where RQ2 was superior with its Defense skill. I can see why >they dropped Defense though: it didn't fit into the RQ skill system >at all. It fits well with the current RQ4 model where you declare in Statement of Intent to Defend, and then use what's appropriate. Fencing (like kendo, like SCA) is very stylized and only approximates real combat. And game systems have to be playable -- in fencing, no one person always attacks first, and sometimes by pressing the attack your opponent is unable to attack back (on the other hand, sometimes attacking opens yourself up for a riposte). Neither strike ranks nor melee rounds are much of a simulation, they're merely game mechanics. I'm currently thinking that an Elric-like system where you defend as appropriate against each attack (-30% to defend against successive attacks in a round, and you can choose parry or dodge at the time of the attack) is more playable (you don't have to roll as often in standard combat, and don't need statements of intent for defense), and handles the problem of "throwing away an option of parrying." All-out defense could be +30% on the first defense; all-out attack could be -30% to your first defense. > P.S was this saber opponent much better or worse than you? Were you >evenly matched? He was definitely better -- people my own skill could barely parry, let alone dodge. David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA28570; Mon, 30 Aug 93 04:23:51 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA07394; Mon, 30 Aug 93 05:21:18 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 5:23:08 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: maneuver & defense Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 19:19:49 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8C479D75D61@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > > I used to fence saber against a guy who would dodge my attacks. I'd attack, > he'd lean slightly and I'd miss, then he'd nail me in the arm. That's an > attack and a dodge. (It's Maneuver related, since he had to be at just the > right distance for it to work.) > But by dodging did he throw away his option of parrying, as he'd have to in RQIII? (Actually, by the sound of it he did, so much for my argument) I think (and I admit I'm no fighter, so tell me if I'm wrong) that the two options of "stand still attack & parry" and "dodge about and attack" are inaccurate: all three combat options are used in any round. That's a point where RQ2 was superior with its Defense skill. I can see why they dropped Defense though: it didn't fit into the RQ skill system at all. Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au P.S was this saber opponent much better or worse than you? Were you evenly matched?  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA07944; Mon, 30 Aug 93 20:12:02 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA11997; Mon, 30 Aug 93 21:11:15 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 21:11:17 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 18:11:04 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8D4501B50BD@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >So? Any combat system can be simplified; any rules set can be >simplified. The question is, is what you throw out worth the simplicity >and time you gain. I think you have this backwards. Any rules set can be _complicated_, but they're hard to simplify. It's moderately easy to say, _in a separate place_, "OK, you want to be more detailed about who hits first? Here are some rules that take into account reach and weapon type." It's harder to see strike rules and then see a section that says "Oh by the way, you can not use these" (which ElfQuest does!). A beginning GM can more easily add complexity if it's to his taste, but it's hard to remove something without completely understanding the system. And I don't think RQ-Lite needs to throw anything out. It merely prints messy stuff in a separate product. >> Out of curiousity, are they mostly people new to the hobby, or confirmed game > >Some of each. Most were ex-D&D folks, but a few were brought into RQ >directly from outside the hobby. Keep evangelizing! Wayne (and others), given that you find details rewarding, you're not going to be playing RQ-Lite anyway. Are you speaking against it because you'd never use it, because you have better ways to simplify and speed up play, because RQ should never be tampered with, because labelling scenarios "This scenario refers to, but does not require, rules in the RQ Companion" is incredibly stupid, because Avalon-Hill should put their resources elsewhere? (In other words, we're probably not going to convince each other, but I'd at least like to be able to agree to disagree.)  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA08322; Mon, 30 Aug 93 20:26:12 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA12430; Mon, 30 Aug 93 21:25:24 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 21:25:27 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Some RQ Lite ideas Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 18:25:03 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8D48BEB488D@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >Agility skills >start at (00) if they need to be learned, or at (Str) if they don't. I like it! (So we lose the concept of cultural base chances, but that can probably be handled in the character generation system simply by giving additional points in cultural weapons.) > iii) Initiative: a single initiative equal to Dex could be used, but >I like the idea of a melee initiative of Dex + Siz, and a missile/magic >initiative of Dex + Int. This keeps some of the ideas in the SR system >in RQ Lite. Simple, though I find simultaneity even simpler. > iv) The table of criticals, specials, and fumbles should be printed >on every character sheet. I know this takes up space, but these >values aren't easy for new players to calculate quickly. I don't >like the idea that RQ Lite should be just success/failure with >a couple of exceptions: I feel the critical/special/fumble system >to be the heart of RQ. I actually thought about doing this because I had a little space free on my new draft RQ4 sheet -- but not enough space (even going with the Elric fumble on 99 or 00 rule). And I think having this big table of numbers would be a little intimidating. It would make the game look very number-intensive. Also, I don't think that's the heart of RQ, I think they're chrome. The heart probably isn't any single rule, it's the gestalt: anyone can do anything. (Everyone has some chance with most skills, and you don't have to be a specialist to use magic.) > v) A simple non-locational damage system, say: > > HP = Con + Siz > > Wound Levels: If you take damage in a single blow equal to > these values, you take the associated effect: > > Disabling: HP/6 Effect: -20% to all actions > > Crippling: HP/3 Effect: -50% to all actions, Conx5 roll > each round or lose 1 HP > > Mortal: HP/2 Effect: -50% to all actions, Conx5 > each round or die > > Killing: HP Effect: Die. > > Total damage is accumulated and death occurs at zero HP. That's not simple -- there's no way I'm going to be able to keep track of all that for 7+ NPCs in a melee. I have a hard enough time keeping track of who's Befuddled, and that's a single bit. Pendragon's Major Wound is simple, because it takes you out. All the GM has to keep track of is who's up and who's not. Also, if you take 2 "Crippling" blows are you -100% to all actions? If you take one "Crippling" blow are you unable to use your First Aid 49%?  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA09317; Mon, 30 Aug 93 21:06:59 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA13248; Mon, 30 Aug 93 22:06:11 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 22:06:13 EDT From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: COMMENTS Date: Mon, 30 Aug 93 22:02:35 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8D53A6F363A@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Graeme A Lindsell %% John Medway writes: %% > Perhaps there should be a maneuver skill, but that number is only used %% > when averaged with the skill of the character with the attack & parry %% > combination used. Ex. %% %% I'd hate to have to work out this average given how often one's skill %% is modified, and I couldn't really justify not changing the average when %% one gets a modifier. Why don't we just use the RQ4 draft mechanic of adding 1/5 of a "helpful" skill. Perhaps DEX x5, +1/5 Maneuver. Thus, trained warriors with maneuver will do better that equal warriors without. David Cake... %% I want to know wether RQ Lite is what people are really interested in, %% before I work on inventing stylish complications to combat and sorcery. I look at RQlite as RQ with some simplifications to speed things up, but I want many of the things in the draft. %% Anyway, thats enough ranting on the topic. What precisely should be in %% the long awaited RQ Lite? A simple set of optional rules is something that %% would be very easy to create, certainly a lot easier to put together than %% the large amount of work that has gone into the current RQ4 draft. Actually, I'd rather look for a 'RQslim' then 'RQlite'. I look for smooth, fluid rules, not 'lite' rules with stuff missing. For that reason, I sort of use the same basic mechanics with Parry and Dodge...it goes easier. David Dunham %% True -- how can we encourage PCs to wear less armor? In real life, people %% didn't walk around like tanks. I usually try and place a social stigma to it...the watch harrases them more often, they get worse deals at stores, etc. :) Loren J. Miller %% First, RQLite would have rules modules, each of which could add %% complexity if desired. The basic game would be stripped down and %% intended for use in a universal setting, a lot like BRP. The rules %% modules would all be directly compatible with the basic game. Well, I agree it should be modular. I don't know if we should go "generic". %% The skill system would be a simple binary success/failure system, with %% special successes for impaling weapons added in (since that's a %% popular part of RQ and I like to encourage PCs to use spears). Sounds okay. Mark one 'yea' %% difficulty would be handled by adding the base chance to the roll when %% rolling for skill increase, and skill check frenzy would be addressed I like the varying dice rolls. One 'nay' :) %% Criticals and/or hit %% locations would be a rules module that you could add in if you want. %% Frankly speaking, I don't think you need both a critical system and a %% hit location system in the same game; they cover the same function. While I like the idea of "levels of success" (fumble-fail-succeed-special -critical), I'm not fond of how the damage is done for those levels. I know impale should have some special stuff, as should crush weapons, but I'm still mulling over the best ways to handle special vs. critical. %% The initiative and combat system would be simplified, without all the %% rules-bound special options in RQ4, but with ways for the GM and %% players to roleplay combat options without consulting lots of rules to %% do so. I'd lean towards defining spell casting as an action that takes %% all round to do, disallowing simultaneous casting and fighting. The %% modular SR rules would allow people to use the old rules if they want. Like I said, I use 1d6+SR for personal initiative. I agree that the special options could use re-writing. I also think magic is best kept as a "either-or" system -- you use steel, or you use magic. :) %% The magic system would cover spirit magic only, and would allow either %% the MPx5% chance of success or the auto-success rule to be used %% (options) with the note that in Glorantha you should use the MPx5% %% rule. Dropping Divine magic would be a BAD idea IMHO. %% The weapon damage and armor rules would be amended as per Oliver's %% draft changes. The reason for this is to allow characters to wear less %% than full armor and still have a good chance of surviving minor %% fights. Characters wear maximum armor because it's better to run slow %% and have to turn and fight than to get chopped up. I agree with this. I like the new Armor and weapon stuff. %% Character generation rules would be based around sample characters of %% several basic types. I'd go for tribal warrior, hunter, healer, %% scholar, heavy infantry, cavalry, light infantry, assistant shaman, %% noble son or daughter, farmer, fisher, sailor, ruffian, bureaucrat, %% artisan, trader, laborer, and initiate as a start. The RQ4 generation %% rules (fixed to reduce overly common combat skills) would be a rules %% module that you could add on to these rules, as would a simple %% CoC-style set of rules. I LIKE the RQ4 character professions. When the RQ3 professions are converted it comes out pretty good and it's at least somewhat compatable. %% Monsters and NPCs would be made available in the form in which you %% actually use them. Rather than being presented with all %% characteristics, their combat stats and skills would be presented so While nice if you wanted to generate creature varients, it DID seem a tad much to present rollups. Perhaps the Powers & Perils way of creature variation would be the way to go. %% In addition to the rules modules mentioned above, there would be a %% rules module allowing you to run diceless RQ. This is a huge boon to %% live roleplaying groups and to those who want to get up from the table %% every once in a while. Hmmm. Sounds like a better idea for a TotRM article then trying to convince AH to spit out a suppliment. David Dunham %% I'm currently thinking that an Elric-like system where you defend as %% appropriate against each attack (-30% to defend against successive attacks %% in a round, and you can choose parry or dodge at the time of the attack) is %% more playable (you don't have to roll as often in standard combat, and %% don't need statements of intent for defense), and handles the problem of %% "throwing away an option of parrying." All-out defense could be +30% on the %% first defense; all-out attack could be -30% to your first defense. This sounds good. Perhaps I'll try it. -- Burton  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA09296; Mon, 30 Aug 93 21:04:41 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA13228; Mon, 30 Aug 93 22:03:52 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 22:03:56 EDT From: Tim Posney To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Some RQ Lite ideas Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1993 12:03:28 +1000 Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8D5308A572C@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> There has been much discussion about how hard it is to tell if a low roll is a critical or a special, we use a multiplication instead of a division. i.e. is an 03 a critical? answer - subtract 1 and multiply by 20, giving 40. Is this still a hit if so then it is a critical hit. i.e. is 17 a special? answer subtract 1 and multiply by 5, giving 80, is this still a hit? if so then it is a special hit. The subtract 1 is strictly speaking required, but not much is lost if you ignore it, and the rule is still easy to use. (This is what we use). Special hit if roll times 5 still hits Critical hit if roll times 20 still hits. Players find this much easier to use than dividing their skill and rounding up. regards tim  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA13184; Mon, 30 Aug 93 23:33:57 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA15488; Tue, 31 Aug 93 00:33:04 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 0:33:12 EDT From: "Loren J. Miller" To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: COMMENTS Date: 31 Aug 1993 00:34:09 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8D7ACFA7A7F@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) writes: > Loren J. Miller writes: > %% First, RQLite would have rules modules, each of which could add > %% complexity if desired. The basic game would be stripped down and > %% intended for use in a universal setting, a lot like BRP. The rules > %% modules would all be directly compatible with the basic game. > > Well, I agree it should be modular. I don't know if we should go "generic". I think that modular has to be generic. If you include Glorantha-specific information in the Lite rules then how can you eventually use the Lite rules for Alternate Earth or Gateway or Tekumel? Also, some people have been saying that RQLite is a lot like BRP or Magic World, and so what if it is similar? Is either one in print? Is either one in print by AH? Doesn't AH need an easy to play FRP that isn't as silly as the Floating Vagabond? > %% difficulty would be handled by adding the base chance to the roll when > %% rolling for skill increase, and skill check frenzy would be addressed > > I like the varying dice rolls. One 'nay' :) I'm not sure if you understood me. I mean that you would have a base chance for a skill that would depend on stat(s) and difficulty, and when rolling percentiles to see if the skill goes up you add the base chance. I like the one stat modifier idea, so let's say that base chance for climb is based in STR, and since climb is pretty easy the base chance is STRx2. You could have cultural modifiers that would add to the multiplier for beginning skill level, but it would not modify the base skill. Now when you use climb successfully and make an experience roll you roll d100 and add the base chance, STRx2, to it, and if the result is over your current skill then it goes up by 1d6. Obviously you'd have to tell GMs to keep a tight rein on skill check frenzy with this system, since it makes it easier to go up, though I don't think it's easier than RQ2 was. Of course you may have understood me and just like the different dice rolls once you roll to fail, and if that's so then we'll have to agree to disagree. I think the different dice are just extra rules for the sake of rules. Imho, they're what game designers call "dirt." > %% The magic system would cover spirit magic only, and would allow either > %% the MPx5% chance of success or the auto-success rule to be used > %% (options) with the note that in Glorantha you should use the MPx5% > %% rule. > > Dropping Divine magic would be a BAD idea IMHO. I don't think that you can do justice to divine magic in a Lite rules set. Just look at the RQ3 Magic book to see a really weak explanation of divine magic. You're not going to have more space than the RQ3 divine magic section to explain divine magic within the Lite book. I think you need a *lot* of space to explain divine magic as it works in Glorantha. That's why I'd leave the whole thing to the Magic in Glorantha book, which would also cover Sorcery and shamans. If you want divine magic before the MoG book comes out, and you don't already play RQ so you don't have the rules, then just improvise and say "it's Divine power and you can't understand it." > %% Character generation rules would be based around sample characters of > %% several basic types. I'd go for tribal warrior, hunter, healer, > > I LIKE the RQ4 character professions. When the RQ3 professions are > converted it comes out pretty good and it's at least somewhat compatable. I like them too, but they take too long to qualify as Lite. Thus I'd hand out templates to players for their first characters and let them work on things longer, later, if they wanted to. Also, remember the full rules are always available in the Advanced rules. > %% In addition to the rules modules mentioned above, there would be a > %% rules module allowing you to run diceless RQ. This is a huge boon to > %% live roleplaying groups and to those who want to get up from the table > %% every once in a while. > > Hmmm. Sounds like a better idea for a TotRM article then trying to convince > AH to spit out a suppliment. It wouldn't be a whole supplement. It would be a short section in the Advanced rules. Besides, do you really think that TotRM is something that everybody who we might want to get playing RQ reads, or can actually find? It would be very silly to put important rules like diceless stuff in an obscure (sorry, but though I love Tales it doesn't reach all that many people) magazine when live action events are starting to get popular, and even live action RQ events are going on like gangbusters. whoah, +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu "Science" does not remove the terror of the gods.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA15096; Tue, 31 Aug 93 01:13:08 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA16798; Tue, 31 Aug 93 02:12:19 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 2:12:23 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: More RQ-Lite comments Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 23:12:02 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8D9544E4A50@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) > There is a point where a player will not accept a rule, saying it >isn't realistic. This point differs for every person. To remove the >concept that some people are faster than others is one of mine. I feel the current system is unrealistic. Impaling someone a second before their mace was due to land on your skull wouldn't necessarily stop the mace from continuing in its arc. >From: Tim Posney >i.e. is an 03 a critical? > answer - subtract 1 and multiply by 20, giving 40. Is this still a hit > if so then it is a critical hit. >i.e. is 17 a special? > answer subtract 1 and multiply by 5, giving 80, is this still a hit? > if so then it is a special hit. Clever. _That_ could go on the character sheet if necessary... >%% Frankly speaking, I don't think you need both a critical system and a >%% hit location system in the same game; they cover the same function. Interesting point -- I ran the latest RQ4 draft last night, and it seemed like what cost me the most time in a melee was keeping track of NPC damage by hit location. A player shooting arrows would say, "I do number 6 7 in the L leg and 5 in the R arm." Me: "Let's see, number six. You did him 5 points where?" "7 in the L leg and 5 in the R arm." (Your GM skill may vary.) Although I don't miss hit locations when I run PenDragon Pass, I do feel they're almost a defining characteristic of RuneQuest -- but they sure are a lot of trouble.  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA16555; Tue, 31 Aug 93 03:03:45 -0500 Return-Path: <100270.337@CompuServe.COM> Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA18076; Tue, 31 Aug 93 04:02:57 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 4:03:00 EDT From: Nick Brooke <100270.337@CompuServe.COM> To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: RQLite Date: 31 Aug 93 03:59:56 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8DB2CF26FC7@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> ___________ Loren says: > Also, some people have been saying that RQLite is a lot like BRP > or Magic World, and so what if it is similar? Is either one in print? No, they aren't. And I don't know if many people are still playing either. Maybe being simple *and* generic isn't such a great survival strategy... ____________________ Tim Posney suggests: > i.e. is an 03 a critical? > answer - subtract 1 and multiply by 20, giving 40. Is this still a hit? > if so then it is a critical hit. > > i.e. is 17 a special? > answer - subtract 1 and multiply by 5, giving 80, is this still a hit? > if so then it is a special hit. Cut out the "subtract one" and that should be the whole of the rule, in my opinion. The fiddly division in RQ3 is unnecessary if you have a clean method for calculation like Tim's. I love it! :-) ______________________ David Dunham comments: > Although I don't miss hit locations when I run PenDragon Pass, I do > feel they're almost a defining characteristic of RuneQuest -- but they > sure are a lot of trouble. This one's for David, who shares many of my worries about RuneQuest combat "number-crunching overload", and opened my eyes to the Gloranthan virtues of the Pendragon rules system: Try working out some elemental associations with characteristics and hit locations. Could be something like (in my version): STR Storm Chest CON Dark Abdomen SIZ Earth Legs INT Fire Head DEX Water Arms Then you use these with the Pendragon Major Wound rules and the normal RuneQuest hit location table (or any reasonable variant you may prefer) to determine which characteristic loses a point when a Major Wound is struck. If you like APP or CHA, you could perhaps split head hits so that 19=APP, 20=INT. While I'm formalising this, why not: 01-03 R Leg SIZ 04-06 L Leg SIZ 07-10 Abdom CON 11-14 Chest STR 15-16 R Arm DEX 17-18 L Arm DEX 19 Head APP 20 Head INT On this table, "losing a point of SIZ" is useful to simulate lameness etc. if you use SIZ to work out movement rates or strike ranks. It doesn't affect height and weight, of course... ==== Nick ==== "'Do what thou wilt' shall be the whole of the rules."  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA29526; Tue, 31 Aug 93 21:47:16 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA28087; Tue, 31 Aug 93 22:46:21 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 22:46:32 EDT From: shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RQ4 Diet Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 01:58:16 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8EDE6BB7A0E@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> David Dunham (via RadioMail) writes: > > I think you have this backwards. Any rules set can be _complicated_, but > they're hard to simplify. It's moderately easy to say, _in a separate > place_, "OK, you want to be more detailed about who hits first? Here are > some rules that take into account reach and weapon type." It's harder to > see strike rules and then see a section that says "Oh by the way, you can > not use these" (which ElfQuest does!). A beginning GM can more easily add > complexity if it's to his taste, but it's hard to remove something without > completely understanding the system. I said what I meant. A system that is designed for a more complicated approach can usually be stripped down without throwing things out of wack, as long as you understand how the parts fit together. Adding extra often imbalance things in ways that are difficult to fix. But my real point was that there is almost no point that someone cannot argue that a rules set could be a little simpler and a little quicker. My question always is "What did you decide to ignore to get it that way?" > > > > >Some of each. Most were ex-D&D folks, but a few were brought into RQ > >directly from outside the hobby. > > Keep evangelizing! Well, truth to tell, previous to my involvement in the RQ4 playtest, I had actually been away from the system for at least two years. Partly from my having lost tolerance with random character generation, partly just from having not ran a fantasy game in that time. But I still always point it out to people who are looking for something in the Fantasy line and want to stay away from D&D and it's kin. > > Wayne (and others), given that you find details rewarding, you're not going > to be playing RQ-Lite anyway. Are you speaking against it because you'd > never use it, because you have better ways to simplify and speed up play, > because RQ should never be tampered with, because labelling scenarios "This > scenario refers to, but does not require, rules in the RQ Companion" is > incredibly stupid, because Avalon-Hill should put their resources > elsewhere? (In other words, we're probably not going to convince each > other, but I'd at least like to be able to agree to disagree.) > My feeling is that I don't feel it's desireable for a number of reasons. First, it diverts resources that can be used elsewhere: the same people who are clamoring for RQ Lite might be useful in smoothing and streamlinging the full fledged systems, but if they're off rebuilding the system into a stripped down version, that won't happen. I also question whether a stripped down engine plus a large supplimental package is the best way to present a game. It certainly could produce a result where the material presented in suppliments is not complete enough for those using the full-bore version to use it without extra word. A lot of it really is that when people start talking about something as though its a given, I feel compelled to point out that it ain't necessarily so. RQ Lite might or might not be an improvement from the point of view of introducing more people to the game, but if it eliminates features that make the game distinctive from others on the market to do so, was it worth the price? ------------------------------ shadow@qedbbs.com (Wayne Shaw) or qed!shadow The QED BBS -- (310)420-9327  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA24208; Tue, 31 Aug 93 09:31:48 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA29843; Tue, 31 Aug 93 10:30:53 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 10:31:03 EDT From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: More RQ-Lite comments Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 10:30:34 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8E1A4385B3C@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >I feel the current system is unrealistic. Impaling someone a second before >their mace was due to land on your skull wouldn't necessarily stop the mace >from continuing in its arc. uhh.. a mace blow takes less than a second. I only rule hits simultaneous if they're on the same strike rank. Even a blow that's already started won't hit very hard if there is no follow-through. >it seemed >like what cost me the most time in a melee was keeping track of NPC damage >by hit location. In a big melee I often don't track all wounds on NPC's by location, especially in these cases: 1. Light wound that the NPC will take a round out to heal. 2. Incapacitating wounds on an opponent with no Healing. - Paul Reilly  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA19571; Tue, 31 Aug 93 17:14:41 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA21774; Tue, 31 Aug 93 18:13:47 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 18:13:48 EDT From: rq4@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Location-less armor problem Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1993 16:52:52 MEZ Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8E95B4F73AF@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> One point the people wanting to chase hit locations out of RQLite seem to miss is the effect of armor. In my RuneQuest-campaigns, most characters (PCs and NPCs) wore different values of armor on different locations. As long as we keep the simple integer damage reduction as the effect of armor, the question where the hit occured is essential. Or, put in other words: if my character wears his ancestral ringmail hauberk, a bronze plate helmet and soft leather covering on the limbs, how does this reduce incoming damage? What if he leaves the helmet off? Neither the Nethack approach (each piece of armor reduces the chance to take damage) nor the Stormbringer/Elric mechanic of rolling for the armor seems appropriate to me. (Of course the effect of partly covering armour like that of Lunar or Spartan hoplites remains difficult to determine, it's an all-or-nothing approach, much like sorcerous Damage Resistance.) With regard to the ongoing RQLite discussion: Do we have any Swedish or Danish participants on this list with access to Aeventyrspels "Drakar och Demoner"? This is a Basic RolePlaying system very popular in Scandinavia which appeared to be sort of RQLite. I own some fragments of it (my read Swedish is sufficent), but don't have the full measure. If somebody has, please report! This is a system which introduces thirteen year olds to the mechanics we use in RQ, including the concept of hit locations etc, and makes it easy for swedish RQers to explain RQ to newcomers. Maybe we could learn from them... -- Joerg Baumgartner rq4@sartar.toppoint.de  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA07566; Mon, 30 Aug 93 20:00:38 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA11771; Mon, 30 Aug 93 20:59:40 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 20:59:52 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Some RQ Lite ideas Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 10:58:20 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8D41ED852C6@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Some Lite Ideas for RQ Lite: Just a few thoughts: i) Stat Modifiers for Skills: it has been suggested that an easy simplification for RQ Lite would be to remove the stat based skill modifiers for the various skill groups, as they add to the complexity of character creation and are difficult for new players to calculate. RQ Lite would just have the ordinary skill bases. I don't like removing skill modifiers: it removes most of the use of the stats outside of the occasional direct stat role. Instead, I think a simpler soution would be to have the skill modifiers equal to a single stat, as follows: Agility Skills: Str (though some might be moved to Manipulation) Communication Skills: App Knowledge Skills: Int Magic Skills: Pow Manipulation Skills (most combat skills): Dex Perception Skills: Con Stealth Skills: Dex Since these are larger than the average RQ3 stat modifier, I suggest that they be used as the base for the skills as well ie, Agility skills start at (00) if they need to be learned, or at (Str) if they don't. This is a pretty big simplification of the RQ3 (and RQ4 draft) system, but it at least keeps the idea of skills being affected by one's stats. Note that most skills already start around 10-20% once the skill modifiers are added in. I have tried to use most of the stats, and so App doesn't make too much sense as Communication Base unless it can be assumed to be more like Cha in RQII ie it includes social ability. ii) Use Statx5 rolls more. In CoC the statx5 roll is used quite a bit: the intx5 idea roll, the edux5 know roll etc. I think these should be implemented a bit more in the game system, with the standard Con roll being used for fatigue, drowning, blood loss etc, perhaps with situational modifiers. I'd like the statx5 roll to be there on the character sheet for all the stats, so when the GM says "make a con roll to avoid disease" or "make a dex roll at -20% or fall off" the players can see the value immediately. I find that modifying a value by a positive or negative value is much faster to calculate than working out Con x 3, Dex x 4 etc. iii) Initiative: a single initiative equal to Dex could be used, but I like the idea of a melee initiative of Dex + Siz, and a missile/magic initiative of Dex + Int. This keeps some of the ideas in the SR system in RQ Lite. iv) The table of criticals, specials, and fumbles should be printed on every character sheet. I know this takes up space, but these values aren't easy for new players to calculate quickly. I don't like the idea that RQ Lite should be just success/failure with a couple of exceptions: I feel the critical/special/fumble system to be the heart of RQ. iv) HP = Con + Siz. If hit locations are used, then the values Burton posted last week could be used. If a non locational system is used, then v) A simple non-locational damage system, say: HP = Con + Siz Wound Levels: If you take damage in a single blow equal to these values, you take the associated effect: Disabling: HP/6 Effect: -20% to all actions Crippling: HP/3 Effect: -50% to all actions, Conx5 roll each round or lose 1 HP Mortal: HP/2 Effect: -50% to all actions, Conx5 each round or die Killing: HP Effect: Die. Total damage is accumulated and death occurs at zero HP. Ideas, Opinions, Thoughts, Flames... Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA29634; Tue, 31 Aug 93 11:05:10 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA04947; Tue, 31 Aug 93 12:04:21 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 12:04:26 EDT From: Malcolm Cohen To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: RQ4 Lite backlash! Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 17:02:55 MET Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8E3329C0A9A@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > I don't know if it's a big movement, but there are a few voluble > people out there who don't seem to like RQ Lite. As one of the OK, here are some of my thoughts on the issue, since I have not said anything before now on it. Basically, I do *NOT* like RQ Lite, particularly if it is going to scupper all the improvements hoped for in RQ4. > First, RQLite would have rules modules, each of which could add > complexity if desired. The basic game would be stripped down and > intended for use in a universal setting, a lot like BRP. The rules > modules would all be directly compatible with the basic game. This is just one of my concerns: it HAS been done before. It was not an overwhelming success story then. Why is RQlite going to be better than BRP? I disagree that we should be looking at how much we can chop out. We do need to rationalise some of the previous mistakes, but that does not mean throwing things out. COMPLEXITY OF COMBAT: --------------------- Let us focus on the areas of combat which are considered to add to the complexity: (1) fatigue - the RQ4 LTF rules (or something!) are needed to handle "encumbrance". - the RQ4 STF rules (or something!) are needed to handle longer (significant) conflicts. - surely everyone ignores fatigue for short inconsequential fights. WTP? - (I do agree that RQ3 fatigue is too much effort for too little reward, but the RQ4 rules seem to be ok). (2) hit locations - to me, this is one of the essential characteristics of RQ. Don't drop them! For running NPCs (what I mostly do, actually) these do NOT add noticeably more complexity during the actual melee; when I prepare a sheet describing a group of "monsters" I just put the hit locs into a table. Doesn't everyone do that? (3) strike ranks - are no more difficult than DEX order, or indeed any set order. WTP? Why does combat take so long? Perhaps because the GM encourages players to use too many tactics, to go off in all directions at once, etc. These all make combat longer... Since the last D&D-style combat I was in took all evening with only 6 attacking monsters, I cannot agree that it is worth losing all the flavour of RQ combat just to make it shorter. Sometimes it does, but at other times the mechanics of the rules are not the problem. CHARACTER GENERATION: --------------------- > Character generation rules would be based around sample characters of > several basic types. I'd go for tribal warrior, hunter, healer, [...] > artisan, trader, laborer, and initiate as a start. The RQ4 generation > rules (fixed to reduce overly common combat skills) would be a rules > module that you could add on to these rules, as would a simple > CoC-style set of rules. No, just fix the RQ4 rules. Splitting it into an "easy" set with an optional module just *complicates* things for those of us not satisfied with a "ok, you are the stereotypical tribal warrior of age 22, end of story" approach. In the best of all possible worlds, it will be possible to use the generation rules in such a streamlined mode for those who want it that way. (Can the GM not just say, "ok, pick just one Template, no changing professions, no extra-curricular activities" if they want players to get chars fast with little effort?). > Monsters and NPCs would be made available in the form in which you > actually use them. Rather than being presented with all > characteristics, their combat stats and skills would be presented so > you could take them directly from the monster listing and use them in > the game without rolling them up and calculating everything down to > the last percentile. There would be an additional module giving stat But... the "average" monster already has their combat stats and skills worked out! If the GM wants a bunch of average trolls they can have them. WTP? Again, splitting up the information makes things more complex for those who want to do more with them. And, what about DEX*5 etc. type rolls for monsters? The GM needs to know what the stats are if they are going to have to do this kind of thing! > In addition to the rules modules mentioned above, there would be a > rules module allowing you to run diceless RQ. This is a huge boon to Ah, you mean the booklet printed with 20 blank pages. One does not need rules to run free-form. > The whole thing would be called RQ4, with the RuneQuest Lite rules > being in one inexpensive book for those who wanted just the basics and > the full rules modules in an Advanced RuneQuest book. Alternately you Ugh. > could have one book with a Lite section and an Advanced section. Magic > systems aside from spirit magic would be in the RQ4 Magic of Glorantha Another essential characteristic of RQ is the cult system. (And I say this even though I run non-Gloranthan RQ with cults relatively downplayed). I think you probably need Divine Magic to handle cults properly. (Or a fixed-up Sorcery to handle sorcerous cults). > The difference is that Standard Edition RQ had crippled versions of > every system from the full game; RQLite on the other hand would > include just enough systems to play a quick version of the game, but > would cover them in entirety. In RQLite, Spirit magic, for example, > would be covered entirely, but Divine and Sorcerous magic and shamans > would be glossed over and those who are interested would be pointed to > the RQ4 Magic of Glorantha book. The modular rules design would ensure I do not agree that your description is a way of achieving such a result. If you cut down combat the way you describe you are going to end up with a "crippled" system for that at least. If you cut out Divine Magic you end up with a "crippled" cult system. What I want to see is a version of RQ which is not more "complicated" than RQ3 but is more effective - i.e. the complications actually give us something worthwhile (unlike, to pick everyone's favourite, RQ3 fatigue). But I do not see the need to chop out bits of the system which have withstood the test of time. -- ...........................Malcolm Cohen, NAG Ltd., Oxford, U.K. (malcolm@nag.co.uk)  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA19564; Tue, 31 Aug 93 17:14:30 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA21772; Tue, 31 Aug 93 18:13:34 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 18:13:45 EDT From: rq4@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Some RQ Lite ideas Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1993 17:10:24 MEZ Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8E95A902F5E@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Graeme Lindsell writes: > ii) Use Statx5 rolls more. In CoC the statx5 roll is used quite a > bit: the intx5 idea roll, the edux5 know roll etc. I think these > should be implemented a bit more in the game system, with the standard > Con roll being used for fatigue, drowning, blood loss etc, perhaps > with situational modifiers. I'd like the statx5 roll to be there > on the character sheet for all the stats, so when the GM says > "make a con roll to avoid disease" or "make a dex roll at -20% > or fall off" the players can see the value immediately. I find > that modifying a value by a positive or negative value is much > faster to calculate than working out Con x 3, Dex x 4 etc. I like to handle it the other way round: let the players roll d100, and see below which multiplyer te result is, this gives me several levels of success without rolling dice over much. Of course this postulates that people can multiply numebers between one and twenty with numbers between one and seven. Normal education ought to produce this skill around the age of eleven... The exact nature of modifyers (multiply/divide versus add/substract) has been the topic of many a discussion I had about RQ4 with the players of my group. Both tend to be unfair and unbalanced: either the lower skills are effectively reduced to zero (1 to 5 succeeds), or the higher skills are penalized more than the lower. Neither is the desired effect. Any ideas to solve this? -- Joerg Baumgartner rq4@sartar.toppoint.de  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA09013; Mon, 30 Aug 93 20:49:16 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA12958; Mon, 30 Aug 93 21:48:28 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Mon, 30 Aug 93 21:48:31 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: Some RQ Lite ideas Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 11:47:10 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8D4EF1C7B96@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Me replying to Dave Dunham > > iii) Initiative: a single initiative equal to Dex could be used, but > >I like the idea of a melee initiative of Dex + Siz, and a missile/magic > >initiative of Dex + Int. This keeps some of the ideas in the SR system > >in RQ Lite. > > Simple, though I find simultaneity even simpler. > There is a point where a player will not accept a rule, saying it isn't realistic. This point differs for every person. To remove the concept that some people are faster than others is one of mine. > > v) A simple non-locational damage system, say: [table deleted: you've all seen it] > That's not simple -- there's no way I'm going to be able to keep track of > all that for 7+ NPCs in a melee. I have a hard enough time keeping track of > who's Befuddled, and that's a single bit. Pendragon's Major Wound is > simple, because it takes you out. All the GM has to keep track of is who's > up and who's not. You don't have to: that was the damage table for PC's. For minor PC's you just say Crippling Damage+ = dead. You can use the table above for major NPC's only. > Also, if you take 2 "Crippling" blows are you -100% to all actions? If you > take one "Crippling" blow are you unable to use your First Aid 49%? Yes. The crippling blow is meant to be equal to double locational damage to a limb, mortal to double locational damage in chest/head/abdomen. Graeme Lindsell ak.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA08082; Tue, 31 Aug 93 13:43:04 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA12124; Tue, 31 Aug 93 14:42:09 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 14:42:16 EDT From: gharris@Jade.Tufts.EDU To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" <> Subject: Re: More RQ-Lite comments Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 14:39:54 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8E5D4BB2F2A@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Actually, Tim Posney's system for determining critical or special hits (subtract one and multiply by 5 or 20) *doesn't * work. Eg, if your skill is 63 and you rolla  a 4. Subtract one and multiply by twneenty gives you 60, which would be a hit, bjut an 04 *isn't* a critical for a skill of 63. So, let's not go printing erroneous formulae anywhere yet. -- gharris@jade.tufts.edu George W. Harris "He'd kill us if he had the chance." Dept. of Mathematics Tufts University The Conversation  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA15369; Tue, 31 Aug 93 01:30:47 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA17055; Tue, 31 Aug 93 02:29:57 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 2:30:01 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: More RQ-Lite comments Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 16:28:31 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8D99F943595@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Me replying to Dave again > I feel the current system is unrealistic. Impaling someone a second before > their mace was due to land on your skull wouldn't necessarily stop the mace > from continuing in its arc. But it could. What if it was 2 seconds before? A round is about 6 seconds. If you assume all combat is simultaneous,then you'll have a lot of people killing each other simultaneously. Too many people IMHO. > > >From: Tim Posney > >i.e. is an 03 a critical? > > answer - subtract 1 and multiply by 20, giving 40. Is this still a hit > > if so then it is a critical hit. > >i.e. is 17 a special? > > answer subtract 1 and multiply by 5, giving 80, is this still a hit? > > if so then it is a special hit. > > Clever. _That_ could go on the character sheet if necessary... Yeah. I could see introducing a new AD&D player to RQ: "all you have to do is subtract 1 and multiply by 20: it's simple!". Yes, this system works, and I'll use it myself but it's an terrible introduction to a new game. This is my motive for putting the table on the character sheet: a new game should be _minimum effort_ for a new player. One problem with RQ3 is the table only appears twice in the pack: it should be all over the place! > >%% Frankly speaking, I don't think you need both a critical system and a > >%% hit location system in the same game; they cover the same function. > I agree with this. I like the feel hit locations give to a game, knowing where you are wounded somehow brings you closer to your character, but it is a lot of work. Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA21412; Tue, 31 Aug 93 17:35:17 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA22506; Tue, 31 Aug 93 18:34:29 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 18:34:30 EDT From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: dd again on RQ Lite Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1993 15:34:07 PDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8E9B34B12DA@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >From: "Loren J. Miller" >> Dropping Divine magic would be a BAD idea IMHO. > >I don't think that you can do justice to divine magic in a Lite rules >set. Probably not, but one of the cool things about RQ2 was that all characters had a goal (in fact, it was the name of the game). The goal of becoming a Rune Level should be something self-contained within the rule set (even if you only include full details on the Orlanth cult). I envision RQ-Lite as something that's complete in itself, not low-level only. "Lite" is in terms of number of rules and time to resolve combat. >eventually use the Lite rules for Alternate Earth or Gateway or >Tekumel? I ran RQ for 12 years before I ran RQ/Glorantha. I could see how Glorantha worked, and ignore it. If I had to make up the whole thing from scratch, it would have been harder. Cast my vote for non-generic. >From: Malcolm Cohen >(1) fatigue > - the RQ4 LTF rules (or something!) are needed to handle "encumbrance". > - the RQ4 STF rules (or something!) are needed to handle longer > (significant) conflicts. > - surely everyone ignores fatigue for short inconsequential fights. WTP? > - (I do agree that RQ3 fatigue is too much effort for too little reward, > but the RQ4 rules seem to be ok). Yes, even when I was trying to playtest all the RQ4 rules, I forgot to deal with the fatigue rules. Fights seldom lasted much longer than 10 rounds. Given that fatigue is so seldom a factor, why have rules? My current proposal ties back to my dislike of everyone wearing armor. Long-term fatigue mostly matters when you're about to enter combat. Thus, if you've been in a situation like walking through Prax, marching for a few hours, or whatever, you have to make an opposed roll of your STR vs the ENC of all the armor you are wearing. If you don't make it, you're fatigued (results can be as RQ4). If you are fatigued, you can make CON*5 rolls every 5 minutes. I haven't had to use this roll yet (other than to make sure my bad guys were rested before they were ready to attack), but I hope it at least leads to people riding around with their helmets off. >Why does combat take so long? Perhaps because the GM encourages players to use >too many tactics, to go off in all directions at once, etc. These all make >combat longer... Subjective data from last weekend's melee: People can take too long to make statements of intent. GM dealing with damage by location (I was using the Borderlands encounter book, which has all the numbers broken out) was the single worst element. Strike ranks didn't seem to take that long (but they did have to be accounted for). >From: rq4@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) >One point the people wanting to chase hit locations out of RQLite seem >to miss is the effect of armor. In my RuneQuest-campaigns, most >characters (PCs and NPCs) wore different values of armor on different >locations. Not miss, ignore. The unwritten assumption is that, as in Pendragon or Elric, armor is the same everywhere. This is not always the case with existing characters, but it's only a problem for conversions. More problematical are things like Humakti geasa. Those might be simulated as a -1 of armor per location (Pendragon has something like this if you don't wear a helmet). >This is a system which introduces thirteen year olds to the mechanics >we use in RQ, including the concept of hit locations etc, Hit locations aren't _that_ difficult, but they're one more rule. I suggest their removal more for speed. David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA16484; Tue, 31 Aug 93 02:57:15 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA17997; Tue, 31 Aug 93 03:56:23 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 3:56:30 EDT From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: More RQ-Lite comments Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 17:54:47 EST Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8DB10136D6A@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> >From: Tim Posney >i.e. is an 03 a critical? > answer - subtract 1 and multiply by 20, giving 40. Is this still a hit > if so then it is a critical hit. I thought criticals are rounded off. The critical number for a skill of 40 is 01-02. This system gives 01-03. I'll check the table tonight. >i.e. is 17 a special? > answer subtract 1 and multiply by 5, giving 80, is this still a hit? > if so then it is a special hit. > Ditto. I think the skill needed for a 17 special is 83. Could be wrong though. Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA22900; Tue, 31 Aug 93 18:08:20 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA23256; Tue, 31 Aug 93 19:07:25 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 19:07:28 EDT From: Tim Posney To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: Re: More RQ-Lite comments Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1993 09:06:57 +1000 Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8EA3FF7121E@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> > Actually, Tim Posney's system for determining critical or special hits >(subtract one and multiply by 5 or 20) *doesn't * work. Eg, if your skill is >63 and you roll a 4. Subtract one and multiply by twneenty gives you 60, >which would be a hit, bjut an 04 *isn't* a critical for a skill of 63. So, >let's not go printing erroneous formulae anywhere yet. OK, ok, ok, mea culpa. In our game we just use roll * 5 or roll * 20. I admit it is not perfect, so shoot me. However it is a lot easier than the current table checking. The subtract 1 simply allows more critical hits/specials. I (and most of the players) are happy with the straight forward multiply rule since it is so much quicker to work out. I put in the subtract 1 to satisfy the rule lawyers that lurk on the net and failed in that respect :-(. regards tim  0,, *** EOOH *** Received: from NOC4.DCCS.UPENN.EDU by deepthought.cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.2/relay) with SMTP id AA24510; Tue, 31 Aug 93 18:38:45 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from MKT46.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU by noc4.dccs.upenn.edu id AA23922; Tue, 31 Aug 93 19:37:55 -0400 Received: from WMKT/TEMPQ by marketing.wharton.upenn.edu (Mercury 1.1); Tue, 31 Aug 93 19:37:58 EDT From: burt@ptltd.com (Burton Choinski) To: "RuneQuest IV Playtest Discussion" Subject: COMMENTS Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 19:34:07 EDT Reply-To: rq-playtest@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Sender: Listserv@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu X-Mailer: Mercury MTA v1.1. Message-Id: <8EAC21E5534@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu> Loren J. Miller %% I'm not sure if you understood me. I mean that you would have a base %% chance for a skill that would depend on stat(s) and difficulty, and %% when rolling percentiles to see if the skill goes up you add the base %% chance. I understand what you are saying, but that has the effect of increasing the MAXIMUM skill as well as making it easier to go up. If supposedly "all percentages are equal", where 50% dagger means the same as 50% flail, you end up in this case where the former might well have a maximum 20% higher then the latter. Using different dice increases the rate of increase, but the maximums would be the same, based on Manipulation. %% I like the one stat modifier idea, so let's say that base %% chance for climb is based in STR, and since climb is pretty easy the This sounds like a harkening back to the "Ringworld" rules. It's not a bad idea, but skills will need to be rearranged in different areas... most craft skills woul dbe more DEX based, but some might be more dependant on STR. This, would end up being VERY incompatible with RQ3, and not just a minor change that could be converted easily. I doubt this would fly with the "RQ3 similar" restriction. %% I don't think that you can do justice to divine magic in a Lite rules %% set. Just look at the RQ3 Magic book to see a really weak explanation %% of divine magic. Hmmm. Well, I think if we are pushing for RQlite to be more Glorantha based, i.e. back to it's roots, then an updated GoG with notes on divine magic should be made. I don't know how AH has it's book data. If in computer someplace it may be relatively painless to crank it out quickly. %% > I LIKE the RQ4 character professions. %% %% I like them too, but they take too long to qualify as Lite. Thus I'd %% hand out templates to players for their first characters and let them %% work on things longer, later, if they wanted to. Also, remember the %% full rules are always available in the Advanced rules. On the contrary, I feel they are much quicker then even RQ3. Remember, in RQ3 you had to determine number of years in a profession, then multiply that by the modifiers. Or even worse, a year by year determination of background. Compared to that, picking a level and reading off the table is fairly painless. And after all, it's only done once. I don't see Char-gen as something that need be stripped to the nub for speed sake. Hell, if you speed, just let them take 1 template at a GM specified level, with no optional skills. Instant character, with a reasonable skill set. But for those that want the detail of multi-careers, chopping it out just makes it HARDER to handle. =============================================================================== Malcolm Cohen %% What I want to see is a version of RQ which is not more "complicated" than %% RQ3 but is more effective - i.e. the complications actually give us %% something worthwhile (unlike, to pick everyone's favourite, RQ3 fatigue). %% But I do not see the need to chop out bits of the system which have %% withstood the test of time. Agreed. We want a streamlining of clumsy mechanics (using "rules of thumb" rather than look-up tables, a-la the "ROLLx20 critcal, ROLLx5 special" rule rather than a division or table look up, the use of "A-B+10 or less" rule for the resistance table (now THAT was a waste of book space :), etc.) =============================================================================== Joerg Baumgartner %% The exact nature of modifyers (multiply/divide versus add/substract) has %% been the topic of many a discussion I had about RQ4 with the players of %% my group. Both tend to be unfair and unbalanced: either the lower skills %% are effectively reduced to zero (1 to 5 succeeds), or the higher skills %% are penalized more than the lower. Neither is the desired effect. Any %% ideas to solve this? It's a tough call. Perhaps we should just roll 1d6 for every 10% of skill, higher roll wins. Difficulty adds dice to the oppenent (i.e. a 5d difficulty normally becomes 6d or more with hinderances, 4d or less if you get help.) I can see the heresy hammers coming out already :) =============================================================================== David Dunham %% Hit locations aren't _that_ difficult, but they're one more rule. I suggest %% their removal more for speed. Hit locations are one of the better aspects of RQ. Too many times we'd be running other systems and try and cobble some way of doing locations into the "body hits". Just having hit points reduces targets to mounds of meat, designed to be hacked until they stop moving. Once you have to worry about losing your arm (or head), I've seen MUCH more use of tactics and covering vital areas to prevent loss of same. :) -- Burton