From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #61 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Thursday, 2 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 061 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 Bryan J. Maloney RQR: "flying off the handle without a foot Bryan J. Maloney RQR: Ars-Magica-ish Sorcery David Dunham via RadioMail RQR: Strike Ranks Hugh Foster RQR: Weapon skills Hugh Foster RQR: RQR Divine points Hugh Foster RQR: RQR RQAIG Chris Faber RQR: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #60 JARDINE@RMCS.CRANFIELD.AC.UK RQR: Combat Skills Loren Miller RQR: Is this the place for RQ4 discussion? Loren Miller RQR: playtest groups Bryan J. Maloney RQR: How to comment on RQ4 playtest rules. Charlie Domino RQR: RQ 4 on this list ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) Date: Thu, 2 Feb 95 13:47:52 -0500 Subject: RQR: "flying off the handle without a foot to stand on" Firstoff, whomever posted that they had seen "the latest version" did not specify WHAT this "latest version" was. It could have been quite possible, from the wording in that message, that they had seen a draft written AFTER RQ:AiG that the rest of us haven't seen. I was taking the message as it was written. ------------------------------ From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) Date: Thu, 2 Feb 95 13:52:09 -0500 Subject: RQR: Ars-Magica-ish Sorcery A more Ars-Magica-ish sorcery for RQ is something I'd like, too. The only fly in that ointment was that Greg seems to be adamant with his "one spell is one skill" schtick. However, now that RQ is officially un-grafted from Glorantha, we could have a more elegant Sorcery system and make the one spell equals one skill kludge a matter of Gloranthan conversion. (Basically, IF you go with a tight rip-off, I mean inspiriration, from Ars Magica, that kludge could be handled by only permitting Glorantha sorcerers to learn "formulaic"-style spells and not letting their "arts" scores actually permit them to improvise magic. You could give them a break on the difficulty of learning "arts" or something like that). ------------------------------ From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 11:10:00 -0800 Subject: RQR: Re: Strike Ranks Steve Perrin said > I have said that if I was going to completely restructure RuneQuest (and >no, I am not doing that with the suggestions I am making) I would probably >toss out Strike Ranks. In particular, the attempt to remake Strike Ranks so >that they control the entire combat round was, IMEducatedO, a grave mistake. > > On the assumption that Strike Ranks should be retained purely because they >are on all those character sheets and NPC writeups, do people think they >should be returned to the RQ2 standard of just regulating who strikes when in >combat? And, if so, what constraints should there be on movement and combat >in one turn? I'd drop SR, and tell people to ignore it in the old works. IMHO, this is compatible (it is not compatible to make them convert SR in any fashion). RQ4 dropped the idea that they control the combat round, in favor of doing two actions per round (attack & parry, attack & dodge, attack & attack). This was simpler, but also doesn't need SR. First attack happens before second attack, that's all you really need. Who goes first is nice, but slows things down, and most combat rounds it simply doesn't make any difference. David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206 783 7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net "I say we should listen to the customers and give them what they want." "What they want is better products for free." --Scott Adams ------------------------------ From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> Date: 02 Feb 95 14:17:41 EST Subject: RQR: Weapon skills >>How about we have one set of basic combat skills. Successful use of any weapons (perhaps in categories like missile, thrown, and melee) allows an experience roll with all weapons, << Hmn. Sounds a bit like going up a level to me; y'know, 10,000 exp and you're now +1 better with any weapon you know... ------------------------------ From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> Date: 02 Feb 95 14:17:45 EST Subject: RQR: RQR Divine points >>And is everyone here familiar with the "Runepower Pool" proposal that would have Rune Priests sacrificing POW to the god and then just using whatever spells he or she needs until the Pool runs out? << About the best rule mod suggestion I've heard recently. We use it and it _works_. ------------------------------ From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> Date: 02 Feb 95 14:17:53 EST Subject: RQR: RQR RQAIG >>I'd like to make a simple point. Don't waste my time discussing rules for a system that only a limited amount of people have access to. Leave this group to the discussion of the rules everyone has access to. After RQ4 is published, we can all run right out and pay big $$$ to have something to talk about, like RQ is cool, but the rules suck. << The converse of this is that the snippets we can glean from such discussion are about the only chance we have of getting access, and if we wait til it's published then it'll be too late to say "arrgh! that's crap!" This latest topic has, after all, juiced up the RQR post rate - I thought It'd folded for a while back there.. >>Requiring PCs to master (attain a 90%+ skill with) two weapons will indeed lead people to use two weapons whenever they can << And thereby sacrifice the defence benefits of a shield... I see no problem with that, it's changing weapons mid-combat or mid-battle that's the checkfrenzy problem I think. >>I do think that practice with one weapon in a competition setting teaches you things about those situations in general; I would argue that this would happen in life-or-death combat as well. << In Traveller we express this as a chance to use weapons the character is unskilled with. Sorta calculation based on held skills, gives "unskilled skill", if yer weapon's worse than that you use the "unskilled" level. Tends to be just better than pitiful. The same could easily apply to RQ; different maths is all. And you only need to refigure if a skill changes. ------------------------------ From: Chris Faber Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 15:20:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: RQR: Re: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #60 Greeting to all, To Steve, I don't wish to bash your attempts to introduce topic of discussion. I have been playing RQ for almost 17 years now, because it has always caught my imagination. After all these years of playing I must confess to Icon worshipping of God like RQ power names, as your. I would ask that if you wish to discuss RQ4 to please provide more background info for those of us who fall behind the power curve. In responds to strike ranks. I find strike ranks to be an important part of why RQ is a better gaming system then those system that allow a more free-form statement intent, because strikes rank lock the players into a real-time sense of action. Melee Rounds on the other hand are to constricting. I have totally remove melee round from my gaming. All action in my gaming is broken down into strike ranks. Every action my players take costs strike rank. In combat I only provide complete info to those character that have for example, taken the time to scan in the middle of combat. All other characters will receive limited info based on reduced scan chances. Players can fight while moving, with restriction on their actions. Player even get free actions, like striking at an opponent who passes through their zone of control ( +% chance to hit, - SIZ from all modifers ). Without the melee round barrier it becomes possible for players to observe their opponents and contruct a statement of intent with set actions and a real sense of timing. Using a set of strike rank based actions players can run to just outside of an opponents range, slow to combat speed to parry as they enter range, and then wait to settle into a solid combat stance for max damage bonus. Trying to perform a statement of intent with the melee round barrier is like running a program beyond the 640k DOS barrier, you can do it, but it sucks. The above statement of intent is a good example of a real-life statement of intent that I personally have tested with success for the pasted 15 years as modern medievalist. I have always felt that the RQ system mirrors a combat duel in a very realistic manner, but that it suffer in it's ability to handle melees. A lot of RQ combats that involve a large number combatants can take hours to resolve. This is due to the fact that the RQ system is based on duelling. I believe there to be a relationship between the RQ combat system and the SCA duelling based combat system. By removing the concept of a melee round, keeping strike ranks and defining a much larger list of combat and non-combat action with strike ranks values, it became possible for me to stop waste time with statements of intent and allow my player to construct their own action from building block actions. This has reduced combat time, rules argument, and promoted maximum game fun. My players can kill the monster, get the treasure and score the babe faster, while I can get on with the business of providing a maximum amount of PC dirtnaps for a well rounded evening of fun. Chris Faber ------------------------------ From: JARDINE@RMCS.CRANFIELD.AC.UK Date: Thu, 2 Feb 95 14:34 BST Subject: RQR: Combat Skills I have been interested to see the discussion about combat skills. There appears to be a basic dichotomy between the one skill per weapon (status quo) types and the only a few skills types. I have been releived to see neither of these camps promotting the THIS IS THE REALIST WAY philosophy. Just to add my tupence to the melting pot: In my (limitted) experience of martial arts what I have found is this you learn a basic martial arts system and once you have learned the basic (unarmed form) you will be taught weapon sets to go along with it. The weapons are fairly easy to learn since you have already learned the footwork and to some extent the handwork. The basic philosophy is that you must treat the weapon as an extension of the body. Weapons also allow training of strength as their heavier weight requires greater control. Thus the relevence of the above is that characters should learn a combat style and then learn the weapons up to a maximum of their ability with the combat style. Of course learning extra styles is easier as virtually ALL combat forms have things in common, after all they have common purpose. Thus for RQ I propose a combat skill (hard if you are a RQ4ite) and weapon skills which cannot exceed this. There is no need for Unarmed since this is at the comabt skill! Thus fighter types could be generally rough but might not know a particular weapon, but then again they have the basics to learn it quickly. On the other hand Combat might be a stat. It should have a fairly high base (self preservation instincts) and be hard to raise. An alternative would be to average Combat skill and the weapon skill in order to find the effective skill%. This allows general purpose fighters and also extremely specialized weapon masters. Well that should provoke some thought. Cheers Lewis ------------------------------ From: Loren Miller Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 15:53:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: RQR: Is this the place for RQ4 discussion? In short, YES!!!! Look at the welcome message you got when you joined. It specifically mentions RQ4 playtesting as a valid and expected topic for discussion. If you can't deal with it, then you probably don't even want to be a member of the list, since the only time it gets much volume is when people talk about working the current rules into the nearly perfect future rules in some kind of RuneQuest: New Generation project. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++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: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 16:38:25 EST Subject: RQR: playtest groups Jon Green writes: >That's only half an answer, Loren. How do you _become_ an "official" >playtest group? You ask Oliver and Mike. >I concur heartily with the original questioner (Mustafa): right >now, monitoring this list, I feel like one of the peasantry fighting >for the small morsels and crumbs falling from the masters' table. If feeling like that bothers you then stop feeling like that. >I thought that there was a separate RQ4 discussion list. Before this list existed I moderated a RQ-playtest list. When the RQ:AIG playtest looked like it had finally died for the last time, I killed off that list and started this one. >If RQ4 rules are to be discussed here, please either permit us >access to (at least part of) them, or remove the discussion to the >RQ4 forum. We cannot give you access to wholesale parts of the RQ4 rules. They are protected by copyright. We cannot remove the discussion to a RQ4 forum because there is no such forum other than this one. >Or tell us peasants to quit this list and soil someone else's >carpet. Just because someone doesn't have the RQ4 rules doesn't mean he is *required* to whine about it. Stop whining and pay attention to the posts that don't assume possession of "RuneQuest: Adventures in Glorantha" (RQ:AIG) or "RuneQuest 4 draft 2" (RQ4d2), which are the two sets of playtest rules most likely to be discussed. If anyone insists on whining then I cordially invite them to quit this list. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller LOREN@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Life at the water's edge is the real life for men and women ------------------------------ From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) Date: Thu, 2 Feb 95 17:02:10 -0500 Subject: RQR: How to comment on RQ4 playtest rules... ...without actually having a copy: Okay, I did this for a while on RQ:AiG when I didn't have a copy of the playtest rules (there was a several month delay between the relatively free distribution at RQ-Con 1 and mailed out distribution). I stated things I didn't like about RQIII and ideas I had to fix it. Remember, the fourth edition is mostly to improve upon the third, so you have as much utterly necessary information as you actually need. If you say something that is already redundant, then you'll be told, no harm done. Also, there was an ASCII document that summarized major bits of RQ:AiG was okayed for electronic distribution. Is this on the berkeley archive? I know it's technically out of date, but it would give some folks something to work with. From my reading and understanding (as a non-lawyer of copyright law), I think I can legally divulge the following: Character generation was completely re-done. Character skills were assigned from templates that had a few mandatory skills and then choices from a list of appropriate optional skills. There were a lot of "generic" templates and a handful of Glorantha-specific adaptations of these templates. There was no explicit method given for designing templates, but it was a trivial matter to figure it out from the examples. Attributes were still randomly rolled and were still 3d6 or 2d6+6 based for humans. The "APP" attribute was redefined from "Appearance" to "Appeal", thus explaining how Uzko and humans could both have 18 APP on one scale (although you get a substantial penalty when using communication skills outside your own species). RQ:AiG replaced the variable DB of RQIII with a straight number bonus. It reduced the armor value of plate to 6 AP and the rest accordingly. The damage of many weapons was reduced from RQIII as well, usually by dropping any +X modifier from RQIII, although a few weapons had actual dice changes. There were more sorcery manipulations, and they were all made linear in effect. SOMEBODY on the RQ:AiG design team is of the opinion that the best way to deal with sorcerers is to kill them at birth. Shamanic abilities were no longer cookie-cutter identical but varied with shamanic tradition. The implementation was clumsy and depended on the POW of the Fetch. There were other changes, but these caused the biggest storms regarding rule discussions. ------------------------------ From: Charlie Domino Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 16:26:28 -0600 (CST) Subject: RQR: RQ 4 on this list Well, I have to admit, that I'm one of the ambivilent ones regarding the RQ4 dicsussions here, but overall I think their presence is valuable. It bothers me, but the wider input is a good idea. Only if you have the RQ 4 list seperate to keep out spacewasting flaming fools, why come back here at all? Either you want input, or you want exclusivity; straddling the fence is going to cause resentment. I for one would have no objection to the whole RQ 4 mail list being opened to non-playtesters. Otherwise, if you're going to post here, you are going to have to explain yourself & your AiG or RQ4 rules almost every time you post, just to keep from being considered wasted space by the normal users of the list. Onto more rules-ish subjects, I DEFINATELY use fatigue, and in part for the same reasons as mentioned before. However, I elaborated on the rules somewhat, by establishing temporary and characteristic fatigue. Characteristic fatigue starts out at max each day, and lowers itself slowly (1pt./hr standard, penalties for high activity level) through the day. When you reach 0, make con rolls periodically or fall asleep from exhaustion. Thus a normal person can usually stay awake about 24 hours (my personal record was 33 in college ). Temporary fatigue starts at the current Characteristic Fatigue level and is lowered normally through the RQ 3 fatigue rules, 1 point for melee, 1 point for running, 2 points for both (or for sprinting, in my rules). Thus the players find themselves "fresher" at the start of the day, and more in need of endurance spells to keep going when holding all-night vigils or traveling fast over hard terrain. I also elaborated on fist-fighting to make it reduce temp fatigue rather than do hit point damage, but I'll save that for later if anyone's interested; it tends to violate game integrity a bit. ===================================================================== "What are we going to do tonight, Brain?" "The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try and take over the world" =========================cdomino@icsi.net=========================== ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #61 ****************************** 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.