From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #22 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Saturday, 19 November 1994 Volume 01 : Number 022 RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to say "Yeah, I agree." Those who do will be lynched. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. RQR: will be prepended to it. 3. Do not engage in a point-by-point analysis or rebuttal of another person's message. It is too confusing for others to follow, qualifies as nit-picking, and it usually leads to flame wars. 4. There is no number 4. TABLE OF CONTENTS Re: RQR: Realism in RQ combat, other matters... Re: RQR: Re: TAP Spells RQR: Scales - Linear or Exponential/Logarithmic RQR: About Duplicate Messages RQR: mail was down, seems to be working now ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 16:17:57 +0800 Subject: Re: RQR: Realism in RQ combat, other matters... > >>I'd be interested in considering developing a slightly >>different classification of fighting skills, to separate fighting >>ability into three parts: area skill (hand-to-hand or missile), weapon >>class skill (edged or club weapons) and individual weapon (rapier or >>1-H short sword), with each category individually trainable, and the >>person's total skill in a given weapon being the sum of the component >>skills. Any takers? > While I am uncertain as to how this could be fitted onto the existing RQ rules, I do like the idea. Note that you are certainly not the first person to have this idea - compare both Champions and Shadowrun for skills that work this way. In Shadowrun I find that it works particularly well, as the concept has been applied throughout the skills system, and the default is the wider skills. > Not here! I lean towards making RQ simpler, not more complex. I especially >don't like developing whole new skills systems just for combat. I'd like to >reduce the number of skills; here's a short explanation as to why: > In practice it can make the skill system, while not exactly simpler, more customisable ie the level of detail can be changed to suit individual requirments and tastes. This can actually make the game system simpler for the people for whom it really matters - GMs. It also allows a bit more detail for PCs, who are better able to cope with it. > One thing I don't like in RQ is the way that skills that are just as >difficult to learn cover greatly differing amounts of knowledge: what >Loren has termed macro and micro skills. Examples of micro skills include >the weapon skills, which are divided up even into attack and parry, and >IMO the sorcery spells as well. Macro skills include most of the Lores, >IMO the communication skills, First Aid (which heals a whole range of >different wound types). I'd put the Craft skills somewhere in between. > This is definately a problem with RQ3 > The RQ4 authors didn't seem to tackle this problem IMO (or they didn't >think it was one): they expanded the number of skills and made some >Easy and some Hard but without really covering which were macro and >micro skills. > However I do think that the RQ4 authors did consider the problem, with not only skill difficulty but also subskills. I do not think that they did it particulary well, though. I do not think that the concept of 'macro' and 'micro' skills is as useful in practice as it seems. While I agree that both weapon skills and sorcery spells are too specific as a general rule (though sometimes they are just right), there are many very specific skills that are just right. There are differences between micro skills that reflect a wide competence in a very specific area (for example many very specific crafts actually involve a whole range of activities aiming towards a specific end) and those that concentrate on refining a particular skill. In fact, the biggest problem is simply that it is very subjective what is what - even with the short list of examples above, I disagree with some of them very strongly - first aid, for example, IMO covers only a small range of techniques, routinely forming a very small part of any medical or paramedical training, and the skill is really just practice. Routine chirurgy, in medieval terms. > The solution I favour is to wrap up the micro skills into macro skills. >Certainly I think there are too many weapon skills: do those of you with >combat or martial arts experience agree? I would be inclined to have skills >for a limited number of combat styles covering both attack and parry, and >giving the GM fiat to leavy an unfamiliarity modifier for using a new but >related weapon with that skill. Very much a matter of taste. I feel that many of the weapon skills are too specific, but some of them aren't (and sometimes just wrongly assigned cf. my recent post). I think the level of detail should really be something that can vary (with Loren's GoonQuest being one extreme). > If the game chooses to directly include the size of the combatants (which >RQ does, but say AD&D doesn't), then this should also try to give the >advantages that I'm told extra size does. Given that RQ tries to make >size into as much a disadvantage as an advantage I think it fails here. >This, like the over 100% problem, was discussed to death on the RQ4 playtest >list: has anyone had any new ideas? > Personally, I think that RQ is OK on the question of SIZ. SIZ definately is an advantage in RQ combat, which seems relatively realistic - certainly big people definately have a large advantage. Even in Judo, with its often claimed 'using a person size against them' big people routinely do really well. Not an insurmountable advantage, nor one without a few accompanying disadvantages, but in both real world and RQ combat SIZ is an overall win. What RQ does OK is that SIZ is actually a general disadvantage outside of combat, which is OK. Cheers Dave Cake >-- >Graeme Lindsell a.k.a Graeme.Lindsell@anu.edu.au >Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University ------------------------------ From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 16:17:40 +0800 Subject: Re: RQR: Re: TAP Spells >G'day > >> DO I find Tap overpowered? Not really. What you gain from Tap is >>just MPs, and not a huge amount (bear in mind the cost of the Tap spell). > >What I meant by overpowered is that for the cost of a few MPs, players >permernantly loose characteristic points. I was talking from the point of view >>of the recipient-end of the spell, rather than that of the caster. I guess that this is a reasonable criticism, though I never really saw it as a spell of offense (its touch range is a big problem)- more a spell that you use once you already have them in you power. In which case they can probably just be killed, so I never found it a big problem. >It offends my sensibilities that a sorcerer might >permenantly cripple one of my players just for the temporary gain of a few >MPs, >lasting >possibly only a few minuites. I think the spell is intended to offend your sensibilities, and everyone elses as well. It is a gratuitously wasteful destroyer of attributes. >I would think that if the MPs gained exist only >for a few >minutes Well actually they exist until used, which could be anything from seconds to months, as I understand it. >, the charateristic loss should be simmilar, and vice-versa. Hence I'd >use the >rulling that the charateristics lost are lost only for the duration of the >spell. To prevent >the entire loss of the imact of the spell, I like the idea that some points >can >be lost >permenantly though. > I can live with your version - but I think that there has to be some permanent loss to retain the evil impact of Tap. If it just temporarily sacrifices attribute points, people might even submit to it voluntarily. >>Why would most people want to reduce attributes permanently? >To cripple your oppenent (permenently) > If you can hold them down, you can cripple them semi-permanently (or possibly permanently) in a minute or two with a sharp knife. Of course, there is less incentive to do it. My general feeling is that if someone is in a possition to Tap you, they can often have a good try at killing you. And permanently crippling an opponent is seldom a good strategy - it leaves them alive to foment revenge. >>>Other GMs may find things different but I know that my players would want >>>the spells no mater what the moral implications are (If I let them have it). >> There is something very wrong with your players, then. The essence >>of RQ roleplaying is to live within a religion and a society. > >I'd agree with that. But in Brisbane, there anen't that many players. I'll take >whoever I can get (currently ex. ab&c players {ie. powergamers}) > Well, you can educate them! Teach them that people like Storm Bulls are both allies and potential enemies - and very dangerous in both capacities. I agree that Tap is an extremely vicious spell, but I think that it is important for Glorantha that it is both permanently debilitating and wasteful. The extent to which it possesses these attributes is something that can change - but I don't want to change the essence of the spell. If it doesn't have permanent debilitating effects, then the various church stances on the spell lack basis. Also - beware of doing what RQAIG did - which is make it both wasteful AND less generally useful than Increase . Cheers Dave Cake ------------------------------ From: Loren Miller Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 10:33:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: RQR: Scales - Linear or Exponential/Logarithmic Keith Ivey writes: > Your idea that magic points and characteristics are logarithmic > is an interesting justification for the current table, but it > doesn't stand up to closer examination. The values are linear, > or at least not logarithmic. If they were logarithmic, the scale > would extend past zero into negative numbers. For example, the > relationship between 15 MP and 5 MP would be the same as that > between 5 MP and -5 MP. This is clearly not the case. I still think that the scales are log/exp, not linear scales. STR and SIZ are explicitly so. I think the truth of the matter is that the scales are arbitrary at the lower end and once you get above 10 or so the scale starts to become strictly exponential. I believe that's the case with all the characteristics. Certainly it is specious to point to the lack of negative characteristics as an argument against an exponential scale, only people who care more about math than the average joe shaman would ever notice it. I think that the ubiquitousness of the resistance table as a game mechanic is in fact a far better proof of the exponential scales in RQ than an unstated characteristic scale is a proof that those exponential scales do not exist. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller "I don't have to practice what I preach 'cause I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to!" The Book of The Subgenius ------------------------------ From: Loren Miller Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 11:41:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: RQR: About Duplicate Messages Hello Everybody, Let me know if you are getting duplicate messages from one of the mailing lists on hops (esp. glorantha-digest, world-design-digest, or rq-rules-digest). According to some mail I just received from the majordomo-users mailing list, it's possible that huge mailing lists like the glorantha-digest (with nearly 500 members) will generate lots of duplicate messages. I need to reset some sendmail settings to get around this behavior. I've done some of the work already, so let me know if things get better or worse or whatever. Especially let me know if you are constantly getting duplicates. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller "I don't have to practice what I preach 'cause I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to!" The Book of The Subgenius ------------------------------ From: Loren Miller Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 21:22:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: RQR: mail was down, seems to be working now I made a terrible mistake this afternoon and mail was down from 4PM until now, 9PM. I think it's up now, but I'm not even sure of that. If you sent email to this list, your mail might have gotten delayed, but it should be delivered. If any of your mail disappeared entirely, wait a few days to resend it. As the mysterious flushing queues proved earlier today, during the weirdness that led me to wipe out my old mail installation without a working replacement for it ready, a lot of mail could be setting around on hard disks all over the place. And some of it might be yours. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller "I don't have to practice what I preach 'cause I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to!" The Book of The Subgenius ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #22 ****************************** This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill, and Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium. With the exception of previously copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to archive unchanged for electronic retrieval. 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