From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #42 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Tuesday, 20 December 1994 Volume 01 : Number 042 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 R. Andrew Bean RQR: Rusty's spirit combat Loren Miller RQR: Rusty's spirit combat Hugh Foster RQR: RQR Spell Splitting ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "R. Andrew Bean" Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1994 19:21:56 +1100 (EST) Subject: RQR: Rusty's spirit combat Rusty suggest making spirit combat analogous to physical combat and being able to take "tools" or make them on the spirit plane. He then pointed out that this is going to bore the rest of the players silly whilst the shaman plays around on the spirit plane. I feel it could easily be a problem but that the logical consequence of these skills/rules is that the shaman can take the other characters along into the spirit plane with them e.g. take the other players in their "dreams" ala CoC Dreamlands. Or alternatively I know some Pentians heroquesting to find Sheng Solaris and on about the 3rd layer of Hell the main shaman character led them all in removing their spirits from their bodies so that they could go onto the next level of Hell. Perhaps this ritual can be done on in the surface world in the right locations or with the right "ingredients/star conjunctions/etc." Otherwise I feel the GM and shaman's player need to be prepared to deal with all the other stuff, the shaman does by herself, out of game time when the other players aren't there. It is time consuming and perhaps biasing towards the shamans player but if that is too much for you then don't have shaman PC's. They have a lot of potential to become very powerful (if they survive) and I feel will tend to dominate the game: "Didn't you parents tell you that if you started hanging around with that shaman's apprentice you would all end up in trouble. Questing off to the spirit plane and being attacked in your dreams by ravening spirits is too scary for me". Of course , this of course may be a good thing for your players and game :-). Cheers, Andrew ------------------------------ From: Loren Miller Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1994 13:20:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: RQR: Rusty's spirit combat R. Andrew Bean makes a good point when he says that the answer to the shadowrun netrunner syndrome may not be to prevent netrunning, but to allow the netrunner (shaman actually, but my metaphor is stretched all to hell already, no need to muss it further) to take helpers along with him, and to allow them to have a helpful role to play. This requires the rules for travel into the alternate reality to behave a little differently than the current ones do. 1. It must be easy, perhaps trivially easy, for a shaman to bring willing people along to the other side. 2. Ordinary adventurers must have something to add to the typical expedition to the alternate reality. Their skills can't be totally useless, as they would be with the RQ4d2 shaman rules that basically stated that you need a whole new set of skills to do *anything* on the spirit plane, even walk around or fight. That's an example of wrong- headed game balance, in my opinion. I think that if you aim for these guidelines you would also alleviate the problem that Mr. Bean pointed out, that compared to everybody else shamans are all powerful in their alternate reality. If everyone has some power in the alternate reality, as they must for guideline #2, then the shaman's powers are more in line. This shaman would be a specialist in the alternate reality, but not the *only* source of competence. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++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: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> Date: 19 Dec 94 15:35:24 EST Subject: RQR: RQR Spell Splitting RQ Rules Digest: V1 #41 - ----------------------------------------------------------------- >I posited: "Hmmm... maybe this means that you can, say, cast a Bl*-4 >and get Bl*-2 on two different weapons--perhaps even some that you're >not holding!" I can't remember now if the spell was range=touch, but >I don't think it is. (anyone have the RQ2 rules handy?) Thus the example >I gave before: "Hey, comrade--c`mere, lemme give you a little edge in >this upcoming scrap..." Seems fair to me. After all, you're not getting any extra benefit from a tactical point of view, balancing one hero at BS4 vs two poobs at BS2.. in fact, the hero might be a better tactical bet! So for game mech reasons I'd allow it. I might be unkind if the target's unaware and make you overcome his MP (as for Dullblade) though! ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #42 ****************************** 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. Send electronic mail to Majordomo@hops.wharton.upenn.edu with "help" in the body of the message for subscription information on this and other mailing lists.