From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #64 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Friday, 3 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 064 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 Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox. RQR: RQ without Glorantha Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox. RQR: Strike Ranks Marc Philips RQR: Alternative to strike ranks Nigel Smith RQR: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #54 Loren Miller RQR: Genderdentity Gregory C. Walsh RQR: Comments and Horse Questions SPerrin@aol.com RQR: Strike Ranks SPerrin@aol.com RQR: AH and RQ SPerrin@aol.com RQR: Sorcery rules SPerrin@aol.com RQR: Dump roll for divine... SPerrin@aol.com RQR: Ars-Magica-ish Sorcery Brent Michael Krupp RQR: Strike Ranks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 01:04:48 PST Subject: RQR: Re: RQ without Glorantha Mark wrote: >The only thing that attracts other people I know to RQ3 is the richness >and complexity of Glorantha. Is the richness and complexity of RQ solely because of Glorantha? The key question is: What is distinctive about RuneQuest? I am not convinced that Glorantha is that distinctive factor myself. For, as there is a distinct bottle-neck on Gloranthan information, it is very hard for a literalist to actually buy enough books to run a Gloranthan campaign properly. The well integrated background tends to hinder rather than help this situation. People feel that they can not compete with the official material and are inclined to believe that authorative material will be published real soon that will solve all their problems. Some official Gloranthan material, like HeroQuest, has never arrived. So what are the remaining distinctive qualities that RQ possesses? Credibility and History. Experienced gamers have been playing it for years and I even found someone who had played RuneQuest (and loved it) in a branch of Games Workshop, where roleplaying means you insult your opponent across a war game table. An Ancient Setting. Whereas D&D and Ars Magica are set in a medieaval background RuneQuest covers the Ancient world better with largely polytheistic beliefs, low technology and those bronse weapons. Based on Myths. There are all kinds of intriguing theories running through RuneQuest, in which players participate by joining cults, growing in power and becoming heroes. Cults grow in power as they receive more worship, rather than faith, and there is a kind of Power Ecomony as mortals trade Pow for benefits from cults. Ambiguity as a Strength. RuneQuest is a refreshingly ambiguous game, except where Gloranthan authors have sought to eliminate this source of refreshing material, for there is no black and white. Races other than human are not evil but instead competing for space and cultural dominance here and there. If RQ is be unshackled from Glorantha, these destinctive qualities could be re-inenforced, into a book that encourages people to write their own RuneQuest setting, preserving the abmiguity and empowerment that has been sucked dry from the marrow of Glorantha's broken bones. Regards -- Guy Robinson -- ------------------------------ From: Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 01:27:50 PST Subject: RQR: Re: Strike Ranks Dave Dunham wrote: > I disagree strongly that you can do without a method determining >first attack. First attack happening before second attack is almost >useless, as hardly anyone second attacks unless berserk or desperate. > SRs make a pretty good first attack determination system. However, >if you really dislike them, make them an optional rule, and use the BRP >rule of highest DEX goes first (and second attacks count as 1/2 DEX). > I use SRs, and after disliking them a lot as a general initiative >system in RQ3, I find that as a simple first strike sytem in RQAIG I like >them quite a lot. But I still use the DEX priority for things not covered >by SRs. SRs do make a good first attack determination system and RQ4 nearly sorted out the timing of the 2 actions per melee round as there was almost standard increments between the 2 actions you performed eg. to draw a sword and attack you add 3 SRs to determine when you attack. One of the problems is that we never saw the revised RQ:AiG version that benefited from our playtesting feedback. I was told that it existed but the project stalled before it was dispatched. Another seperate issue is that long weapons have low Strike Ranks. The problem is that if someone with a short weapon gets under the guard of someone with a long weapon then the table have effectively been turned and a dagger could indeed be faster than a spear. But is this an unnecessary level of complexity? Regards -- Guy Robinson -- ------------------------------ From: Marc Philips Date: Fri, 03 Feb 1995 11:03:21 MET Subject: RQR: Alternative to strike ranks Graeme says: >> The Pendragon system allows one to attampt mutliple actions in a round, at >>the cost of subtracting 5 from all the skill rolls for each action you attempt >>ie three actions = -10 to all rolls. (Pendragon is a d20 system, btw). Again, >>high skill allows you to successfully make more actions in a round compared >>to low skill. Dave adds: > Compare the Star Wars system, where all skills are measured in > dice, and each extra action means you lose a dice from all actions. IE > shoot one person at 6dice, or 4 at 3 dice. It is not very realistic, but it > does make good heroic action (just what you want in both Star Wars, and > Pendragon, but may not be what we want in RQ). Now that you mention Star Wars, there is a haste rule in the SW Rules Companion (droped in the SWRPG second edition) that could provide an alternative to strike ranks. Each haste action that you take reduces your die code by one dice and allow you to act before anyone who declared less hastes. A simple rule for combat could be : A. Statement of intent : 1. Each character is allowed one action per round. 2. Characters can take extra actions each round at the cost of 5% per action to all their success chances. 3. Character can increase their speed by taking haste actions at the cost of 5% per haste action to all their success chances. B. Resolution : 1. All characters take their first action in descending order of hastes, then all character who declared a second action take it in descending order of hastes, etc... 2. Parrying or dodging an attack made at a higher level of haste, reduces your parry or dodge success chance by 5%. 3. There is no bonus/penalty for parrying an attack at a higher haste level than the attacker. I think I'm going to try it tonight... Comments are welcome but don't tell me that this isn't RQ; I know it isn't, but this list is for the discussion of house rules, isn't it? Marc. - -- Marc PHILIPS Eurocontrol - Central Flow Management Unit marc@cfmu.eurocontrol.be Rue de la Fusee 96 Tel: +32 2 729 96 92 B-1130 BRUXELLES Fax: +32 2 729 90 22 Belgium ------------------------------ From: ns10005@hermes.cam.ac.uk (Nigel Smith) Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 15:36:07 +0000 Subject: Re: RQR: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #54 Hugh wrote: >The previous solution offered puzzles me a bit. (I've lost >the file sorry) He suggests that sorcerers can't create >spirit matrices, but can bind a spirit spell spirit (eh?) >into an item, and force it to cast its' spell. Ah, I see, >with the matrix he'd still need to know the spell to cast >it, but with the bound spirit it would function more as a >self-contained magic item. Yup, it all seems to click together! The problem is that a spell spirit in a binding is of little use - all you could do is release it for spell-gaining spirit combat. Your sorcerer should bind a _magic spirit_ which he could then get to cast spells for him. I feel that a sorcerer, as the most 'mechanist' of the 3 styles of magic use, would probably prefer to use a matrix anyway - and if your guy is that old then he'll probably have accumulated quite a few! Nigel ------------------------------ From: "Loren Miller" Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 12:35:32 EST Subject: RQR: Genderdentity Dave Cake replies to David Dunham: >>BTW, I've met Loren, and he is not a she. If she were named Lauren, then he >>would be a she. > > Its not even that simple - I know a male Lauren. And I have met at least two female "Loren"s. Sometimes I thank Arachne Solara that I don't have an even more genderless name like Sandy or Dale or Chris. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller LOREN@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Life at the water's edge is the real life for men and women ------------------------------ From: "Gregory C. Walsh" Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 12:37:45 -0500 Subject: RQR: Comments and Horse Questions Before I tap into the collected *widsom* of this group I have a few comments on what I have read. 1) Fatigue. I like using fatigue, but if the new system doesn't have it, I will give it up. Fatigue changes the nature of the game; if I were running a Gloranthan based game (ie, the idea is to generate Heros of various Cults) I would not use them. But my campaign is not Gloranthan. 2) AH and so on. I would like to see them make up their minds, preferable not make to many radical surgeries, and just get on with it. I mean putting out modules and the like. I think the market size you can capture with just a set of rules is limited, because there are only so many people (like me) who are willing to intensive GM - that is, make up everything. Many people play D&D because there are modules to get them started, as far as I can tell. They look at a set of rules as a "game system", and modules as "cartridges" you can plug into them. I think Glorantha's popularity is due in no small part to the fact that it is the only thing well supported for RQ. The rubble, cult details, maps, modules, and so forth. I have always suspected AH's management problem stemmed from treating RQ like a boardgame. Rules came in a box, with a couple of dice maybe, and that was it. An RPG needs more than a boardgame. 3) This is getting way too long. Sorry. I will put my two clacks in some other point. I want to get to business. My campaign is primarily from horseback. Soo, I am elaborating the rules, for the obvious reasons. Questions/issues are 1) Maneuvering. I have worked out a system for this, but has anyone else done this? Mine is pretty ad-hoc; but I am sure someone has figured out a good system. Basically I looked up horses/humans in the creatures book, took the movement values, and did some figuring. Skill at horse riding let you push the horse to max capacity. 2) Encumberance/Fatigue for horses. From my reading, steppe nomads used rather small horses, refered to as Steppe ponies. My research has indicated that such horses could not carry a heavily armored man into combat. So I did some calculation. Clearly ENC = 6 * Size does not work. I fiddled till I got something that worked. Big big horses can carry armored men, little horses can't, and small small ones have trouble with big men. 3) Saddle types. I have made a heirarchy of saddles. From worst to best -> riding -> nomad -> knight. I differentiate them by knockback resistance. For example, you are always braced in a knight's saddle. So if you get knocked out of one you must be pathetic. Or pulled by 5 guys with hooks. 4) Riding Disasters. People fumble riding rolls. They fall off. Falling off is rather severe, I have discovered, even if you manage the fall no prob. So I have made a fumble chart for riding. 5) Horse breeds. Enough said, see 2). Advice anyone? Cheers, Greg ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 12:34:38 -0500 Subject: Re: RQR: Re: Strike Ranks Using DEX rather than Strike Ranks is certainly the approach I would take if I were really starting RQ over from scratch. I might use a system like I used in Superworld where a second strike is possible if the DEX is over 10 (first strike at 16, second at 6, etc.) but that might be too exclusionary to the low DEX characters and set off a DEX "arms race" between characters, as I have seen in other games. Thanks for the comments on RQ4s use of Strike Ranks. I thought it was something like that, but just haven't had the time to look at the manuscript to check it out. If the goal is to keep characters from any character sheet useful, then something like their use of SRs would be the way to go. BTW, to all who read this, I currently have the time online to engage in these discussions because Mindscape is paying me to cruise the Internet and discuss their game Dragon Lore, an interesting fantasy adventure that I wrote the background for. If anyone has played, or attempted to play, this CD-ROM PC game, please email me direct (don't post to this board) with your reactions. For that matter, just as a possiblity, would anyone out there be interested in a RuneQuest computer game? Let's not even speculate on which version of the rules it would use... Cheers, Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 12:35:48 -0500 Subject: Re: RQR: AH and RQ Brian Maloney writes >AH has no specific plans for RQ, for its format or its content. The >Dotts really couldn't care less about what RuneQuest actually >contains, so far as I can tell from conversation with them. They >want a role-playing game for Avalon Hill. True enough, but there is one further caveat. They want one that is selling better than RuneQuest is now. Jack Dott would like a game that sells the game system and supplements at about twice what they sell now. - --Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 12:47:54 -0500 Subject: Re: RQR: Re: Sorcery rules Yo, Kevin. What sorcery rules that Sandy put out? I really should contact Sandy, I suppose, but if most of the rest of the list haven't seen them (are they in one of the Glorantha Digests I haven't read yet, I wonder) it might be constructive if we did. If everyone else has seen them, could you email a copy to me? Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 12:50:00 -0500 Subject: Re: RQR: Dump roll for divine... Keith's problem with Divine magic needing rolls is mine as well. I say let the bad die roll come when the character is begging for the power using some kind of Ceremony skill, not in the middle of combat. - --Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 12:54:05 -0500 Subject: Re: RQR: Ars-Magica-ish Sorcery Brian, Let's see if I have this proposal right. You're suggesting a system where a Sorcerer has one Sorcery skill, and to get any effect he wants, he just has to make the skill roll with a reduction based on the magnitude of his spell. Is this like Mage, where he can do just anything the GM thinks he might be able to do with appropriate percentage subtractions? Or does he still have to learn a basic spell, as I specified before, with the Sorcery skill used to magnify the spell as I suggested before? Thus, as long as he knows the basic spell, he can magnify it any way he wants as long as he has enough Sorcery skill. One could then have "schools" of magic (such as Fire, or Summoning, or Life, etc.) that would either have a basic spell list withing the school, or the School itself would be the basic "spell." With this latter system, a Sorcerer of the Life School could do anything (grow plants, heal, summon insects to act as armor) the GM thought appropriate as long as he made the needed Sorcery skill. Just a thought. Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: Brent Michael Krupp Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 10:02:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: RQR: Re: Strike Ranks On Fri, 3 Feb 1995 SPerrin@aol.com wrote: > strike at 16, second at 6, etc.) but that might be too exclusionary to the > low DEX characters and set off a DEX "arms race" between characters, as I > have seen in other games. You mean RQ doesn't already suffer from DEX "arms races"? All of the players in my games have always put training their DEX to 21 at the top of their list so that they can get a DEX SR of 1. This seems to come before even buying good armor or fancy weapons. I guess this isn't quite as bad as what Steve is fearing -- DEX increases with no limit -- but it's close. Am I the only one to have this happen in RQ games? > For that matter, just as a possiblity, would anyone out there be > interested in a RuneQuest computer game? Let's not even speculate on which > version of the rules it would use... This would be *awesome*. Especially if Chaosium could be brought on board and Gloranthan stuff put in it. Brent Krupp (fletcher@u.washington.edu) "In the faculty of writing nonsense, stupidity is no match for genius." -- Walter Bagehot, 1826-1877 ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #64 ****************************** 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.