From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #62 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 062 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 Mustafa Unlu RQR: How to comment on RQ4 playtest rules. David Dunham via RadioMail RQR: SR; combat skill groups Gregory C. Walsh RQR: more fatigue points points Renekot the Stone RQR: RQ without Glorantha...stand a chance Charlie Domino RQR: Correction on RQ 4 list Loren Miller RQR: How to comment on RQ4 playtest rules. George W Harris RQR: RQ4, and Strike Ranks Graeme A Lindsell RQR: Correction on RQ 4 list Bryan J. Maloney RQR: Fatigue ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mustafa Unlu Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 17:39:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: RQR: How to comment on RQ4 playtest rules... The summary of this topic seems to be: 1) You need to be a playtester for RQ4 to have these rules. 2) The people who are in possession of these rules (Mike McGloin & Olivier Jovanovic) may not be inclined to give any more copies out. 3) A significant number of posters seem to already have a copy or access to a copy. Thanks to everyone who replied helpfully. I guess I will just have to sit back and read the RQ4 stuff without contributing. I do want to say one thing: I don't have much time to go into this but I find that Loren Miller's replies leave a bad taste in one's mouth. Unless Loren is joking, the attitude of "if this discussion makes you feel left out, then change the way you feel" is frankly a boorish attitude, smacking of elitism. I realize that Loren was responding to a similar post which said something to the effect of "I don't have the RQ4 rules so stop discussing them", but just the fact that the original poster was bordering on being rude does not justify the reply being just as rude. I invite further discussions of this topic and any replies (in whatever manner) to private email. M. ------------------------------ From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 14:59:21 -0800 Subject: RQR: Re: SR; combat skill groups >From: Chris Faber > 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. >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. Very true. And the real problem is that the players are dueling, but the GM is meleeing. My players always hate any attempt to simplify because it's reducing their dueling options. As GM, I'm interested in making the whole game flow faster and be easier to run. >stop waste time with statements of intent RQ:AiG had simplified statement of intent (as I recall, you only had to say anything if you weren't attacking and parrying -- you didn't need to state who you were attacking or defending against). I long ago tried a system with micro-actions, and dropped it as unwieldy. I am impressed at your ability to keep track of fluid strike ranks for the dozen or so NPCs you have to run in a melee. I think most of us can't do that, and still need melee rounds for convenience. Lewis Jardine said >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. That more or less fits my fencing experience; there are differences between the cutting saber and the jabbing foil, but if RQ had only a "1-Handed Sword" skill, it would be realistic enough. I think the combat style idea is nice chrome but not necessary in the basic game, everyone simply learns cultural combat style and specializes as needed ("2-Handed Mace"). >On the other hand Combat might be a stat. Hmm, so only lucky rollers can fight well? 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: "Gregory C. Walsh" Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 18:02:28 -0500 Subject: RQR: more fatigue points points I am seconding the defense of RQ3 fatigue points, even though I know I am in the minority. I used to GM RQ2 games, and switched when RQ3 came out. I suppose fatigue points were disliked because they changed the character of the game sooo much. In my campaigns it forced specialization; provided interesting combat situations, and generated all kinds of tactics. It was kind of a pain to keep track of them, but it was worth it once we all got used to it. IMHO RQ before RQ3 needed to be Gloranthasized, since the only way to differentiate characters was to have them in different cults. At least as they became powerfull - everyone had their heavy armor, tossing spells willy nilly, and so forth - after a few years of RQ2 playing. Consequently all characters evolved into Heros, powerfull stand alones, which was after all one of the points of the game. Fatigue did a number on this route. Everyone started off pretty much the same, but over the years, some went into fighting, wearing heavy armor, needed Endurance and Con boosts to last in long fights, and not casting magic hardly ever. Others kept it light, focusing on missile attacks and/or magic casting, and supporting the front line toughs in the big fights. It forced cooperation. Generated strategy (you were carefull about chasing people, because it could be a trap - they run you into a trap far enough away to knock off 10 or so fatigue points), hitting armored people with Drains, and so on. So I liked the fatigue point system, since it forced character differentiation without using cult rules and regs, and it made the players into a team - strong together, weaker seperated. Cheers, Greg Walsh ------------------------------ From: Renekot the Stone Date: Thu, 02 Feb 1995 18:14:56 -0500 (CDT) Subject: RQR: RQ without Glorantha...stand a chance? Hi, this is filled with a lot of opinion, and it's therefore great flame-bait. It's more of an gloomy editorial on RQ than discussion of RQ rules. Sorry, if you feel it's out of place. I just started thinking about this when I read one of the last digests... >> However, now that RQ is officially un-grafted from Glorantha... << Hmmm... I read the RQ3 rules and was taken in by the system. I was attracted to it as a "superset" of my faithful Call of Cthulhu rules. Being disgusted with TSR and AD&D and loving Call of Cthulhu it became easy for me to love RQ3--no matter what the campaign setting. However, among my crowd, I am the exception to the norm. The only thing that attracts other people I know to RQ3 is the richness and complexity of Glorantha. As I understand it, AH has the rights to RQ but Greg retains the rights to Glorantha. I ask a sad question: "Without Glorantha, will people buy RQ?" I don't know. Fortunately lots of good Glorantha stuff is still being created. I guess I view Glorantha as RQ's competitive advantage. I like the rules system, but I don't think that the RQ rules (or the rules of any FRP) are enough to overcome TSR's stranglehold on the FRP market. If AH wants to market RQ on its own (ungrafted from Glorantha) it will have to develop a competitive advantage for the game, something that differentiates it from the other games in the market. What's going to attract new players to it? Module design? Hype? Artwork? Campaign settings? AH will have to come up with something if they want to grow the RQ market. Otherwise, if AH wants to continue to hold on to their current market they can continue to work with Greg/Chaosium on Glorantha-based stuff. That could keep the existing customers happy. But, will it attract new customers to the game at a faster rate than the existing customers drop off? I don't know. This may be a losing strategy. IMO, AH needs to come up with something that differentiates RQ and they need to actively market it. This is hard to do with a Fantasy (as opposed to Sci-Fi, Horror, etc.) game. Otherwise RQ will continue to languish in obscurity. Lovers of RQ-Glorantha could unwittingly hinder things if AH decides to use something other than Glorantha to differentiate RQ and then heavily markets RQ based upon that something. I have noticed some (not all) RQ-Glorantha-lovers to be very "critical" of non-Glorantha RQ releases. In this business, like in any, "loose lips sink ships". Critical comments about such a new marketing campaign by AH could easily turn away any new player (or even an existing player) that was considering buying the new material. If new stuff doesn't fly, the game may not fly for long either. IMO, the strong feature of RQ is Glorantha. Glorantha is what differentiates it from other FRP's, it's what keeps RQ (maybe barely) afloat. Unfortunately, if AH wants to market Glorantha as its competitive advantage, it may not have worked out the best deal with Greg/Chaosium. I don't know, but they may feel forced to develop a non-Glorantha competitive advantage if they really want to go somewhere with the game on their own. If, however, AH wants to differentiate RQ on something else, I think they better do it on more than just the rules. There has to be something that draws people in and makes the sale. Where's all the action been this last decade. SJ had GURPS--it's feature was that it is universal. FASA had battletech, it was a new idea to play a big gun-toting transformer. Then FASA had Shadowrun, a blend of fantasy, and cyberpunk. Chaosium has CoC, which is well designed, a fun play, definitely unique, and they do a good job of "marketing it" at GenCon--plus it's got GREAT word of mouth. White Wolf has their "you play the monster" games--Vampire, Werewolf, Wraith--that will probably only take them so far. WotC offered Magic:the Gathering, boy is that a hot market. I guess my point is that each of these hot spots had something new and different that attracted people (for some time). The games also caught on because they were effectively marketed and they got good "word-of-mouth". With the exception of GURPS and maybe Deckmaster, it wasn't just the rules of the game that started the success! Where am I leading with all this? I'm not sure. I guess I'm just maundering about the future of RQ. I'd hate to see the rules become similar to the other systems out there. Although I don't think AH can build their main competitive advantage for RQ with the rules system, I think good and different rules can help. Keep the RQ "spirit" in the rules, please. I don't think they require major changes. I just hope AH doesn't expect to generate a big splash with new rules alone. It will probably get all of the faithful to spend some money. It may get a few newbies to spend a little money too. It probably won't make a difference in the long run. Nothing will really matter until they find the winning "formula" and effectively market it. Of course, maybe they only want to "milk" the market they have now until it dries up. I don't know. - -Mark ------------------------------ From: Charlie Domino Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 18:26:34 -0600 (CST) Subject: RQR: Correction on RQ 4 list Ok, while reading the latest digest, I see that Loren shot up one of my arguments: there is no more RQ 4 playtest group; that in part she set this one up as a replacement. Soooooo-- Point: She set the list up, she has the last say. Counterpoint: users have the right to input their opinions on the direction of a newsgroup, if done in an adult fashion and excess space isn't wasted on "minority crusade". More counterpoint: calling those who disagree with you "whiners" and inviting them to get lost, is NOT warrented, nor proper, especially for the "owner" of the list. The complaintants feel shut out because some of debate requires (and the rest touches on) information that IS NOT AVAILIBLE TO THEM. I understand the copyright implications. I also understand human nature. This situation invites feelings of resentment, and what is called for is a mature discussion of the ground rules for discussing RQ4, AiG, or whatever we end up calling it, when some of the information is not availible to all of the participants. I think we made some headway in the last digest. Final point: overall, the inclusion of the RQ 4 discussion in the list is a positive (it's really revitalized a list I was considering a waste of time & disk space before now) and I support its continuance. ===================================================================== "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=========================== ------------------------------ From: Loren Miller Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 20:51:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: RQR: How to comment on RQ4 playtest rules... Mustafa whines: > I don't have much time to go into this but I find that Loren Miller's > replies leave a bad taste in one's mouth. Unless Loren is joking, the > attitude of "if this discussion makes you feel left out, then change > the way you feel" is frankly a boorish attitude, smacking of elitism. The Facts are: 1. I am legally prevented from giving you the rules, even if I liked you. 2. It is *your* choice to feel left out. Given 1 and 2, the only advice I can possibly give is to change the way you feel. If you complain that this advice makes you feel bad, then I can only refer you to the previous sentence and ask that you actually think for a minute. And if you want to flame me any more then take it to private email, buster. As long as you post flames of me to any mailing list that I run I'll reply right back to it. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++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: George W Harris Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 20:59:32 -0500 Subject: Re: RQR: Re: RQ4, and Strike Ranks Ta-da! (A Gloranthan god). I bet you were wondering when I would show up. I thought I'd throw in my two clacks' worth on a couple of subjects. First, strike ranks. I think that strike ranks are a flawed mechanic, but they do address two issues better than any alternative that I have seen proposed. These two issues are 1) not all people act with the the same speed and 2) different actions take different amounts of time. To satisfy the first issue, I think it is necessary for a mechanic to have some means of differentiating between the amount that two characters can get done in the same amount of time. Strike ranks do this by having char- acters have differing Dex & siz strike rank modifiers, so someone with a high Dex can get more done in a single round than someone with a low Dex. This is an issue wherein the RQ4 & RQ:AiG rules completely fail in my view. The game system that does this most elegantly, in my opinion, is Hero (Hi Steve!). While their phases & SPD mechanic take a little getting used to, it is ultimately the smoothest means of differentiating character speed I have seen. The second issue is having different actions take differing lengths of time. Strike ranks handle this pretty much piecemeal; spells take MPs+DSM; attacks take DSM+SSM (or, in my preferred system, CSM) +Weapon SRM. Et cetera. This does give a fairly even and well-distributed range of action lengths. This system was pretty much held over wholesale in RQ:AiG, with some tweaks. I haven't really seen any other system that does this as well; Hero certainly doesn't. I don't have any suggestions to put forward; if there were some means of combining Hero's Speed Chart with the Strike Rank system for how long actions take to perform, I'd jump on it in a minute, but I'm sure I'd be alone. ` The other issue I want to address is Spirit Magic & Sorcery casting, but I'll do that in another post. Later. - -- George W. Harris gharris@jade.tufts.edu Dept. of Mathematics Tufts University Doesn't the fact that there are *exactly* 50 states seem a little suspicious? ------------------------------ From: Graeme A Lindsell Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 13:50:55 +1100 (EST) Subject: Re: RQR: Correction on RQ 4 list Graeme Lindsell here, Just a few point in support of Loren (not that he needs it, but he's getting no support from this list) Charlie Domino wrote: > Point: She set the list up, she has the last say. I believe Loren Miller is a man, but as I've never met him/her I could be wrong... I'd like to say that I'd be pretty irritated if I was in Loren's position. Having gone to the trouble of setting up a mailing list server - and it is a lot of trouble - only to have no traffic on it for months is bad enough. What's worse, when traffic does appear, people who can't be bothered to read the original info message the list sent them start complaining. > Counterpoint: users have the right to input their opinions on the > direction of a newsgroup, if done in an adult fashion and excess space > isn't wasted on "minority crusade". And you'll notice that Loren's original replies were quite straightforward and to the point. It was only when people began to complain about being treated like peasants that his responses changed. > More counterpoint: calling those who disagree with you "whiners" > and inviting them to get lost, is NOT warrented, nor proper, especially for > the "owner" of the list. Neither does complaining about being treated like "peasants", or insulting someone and then asking to continue the matter by private e-mail in order to get the last word. I've never seen the AiG draft, though I tried to get on the distribution list (mailing costs to Australia were too great for there to be many Australian playtesters). The only reason I saw the RQ4 draft 2.0 was that it was released onto the net without permission from the authors. All I've learned about the AiG system came from discussion on the old RQ4 playtest list, and the little recent comment on the matter. I heard enough to be able to take part in discussions on the old list without (IMO) appearing totally clueless. > > Final point: overall, the inclusion of the RQ 4 discussion in > the list is a positive (it's really revitalized a list I was considering > a waste of time & disk space before now) and I support its continuance. Well I'll agree with that, at least. Of course, many of the topics seem to be exactly the same ones that were on the RQ4 list 12 months ago... - -- Graeme Lindsell a.k.a Graeme.Lindsell@anu.edu.au Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University ------------------------------ From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) Date: Thu, 2 Feb 95 22:25:32 -0500 Subject: RQR: Fatigue I don't like the RQIII fatigue, and I have never played RQII. I don't like it because it's a pain in the ass to keep track of those points every single round. Furthermore, the effects were absurd, if I remember aright. ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #62 ****************************** This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill, and Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium. 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