From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #66 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Sunday, 5 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 066 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 David Dunham via RadioMail RQR: Why going first doesn't matter Mustafa Unlu RQR: Strike Ranks SPerrin@aol.com RQR: RQ2vsRQ3 SPerrin@aol.com RQR:skill rolls for magic... Hugh Foster RQR: Sandi Sor (grin) Hugh Foster RQR: Rule complexity Hugh Foster RQR: Strike back ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) Date: Sat, 4 Feb 1995 01:13:21 -0800 Subject: RQR: Why going first doesn't matter Mike Cule said >I forget who said it but someone remarked that 'who strikes first in a combat >rarely makes any difference'. > >Hah! > >To paraphrase Mr Mickawber: > >SIZ 13 DEX 13 Armed with a spear. Result happiness! >SIZ 13 DEX 13 Armed with a kitchen knife. Result misery! > >Or if that's too literary for you, you can't strike back at your enemy if >you're already dead. It was me, and I stand by it. Our games are well above 60% skill (but under 100%). This means people usually parry. This is important in the following analysis -- MOST BLOWS ARE PARRIED. (Actually, it's not that important -- if games are low skill, most attacks are missed.) So Mr Spear gets first blow. Mr Knife parries it well over half the time -- no damage. The remaining portion of the time, the spear does d8+1 damage, which can sometimes get through Mr Knife's armor. Then Mr Knife swings back. Then it's next round. Mr Spear stabs. Then Mr Knife swings back. Start to see a pattern? This goes on and on, and there was only one attack roll where going first COULD matter. And most of the time, it doesn't because odds are, the combat is never resolved by the first blow swung. If you have a low skill game where people have skills under 50%, Mr Spear misses his first blow most of the time, and combat still devolves to trading blows. I grant there is sometimes tactical variability, the occasional critical or special, and certain spells can make some difference, but as a general rule, combat is alternating blows and the first blow doesn't kill someone. Therefore, who goes first doesn't matter much. It certainly doesn't matter enough that we need a time-consuming and complicated game mechanic to worry about it. ------------------------------ From: Mustafa Unlu Date: Sat, 4 Feb 1995 12:44:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: RQR: Re: Strike Ranks Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com writes: > 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? This is covered by Close Combat rules. If a shorter weapon closes against a longer weapon, it always attacks first. M. ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Sat, 4 Feb 1995 15:55:01 -0500 Subject: RQR: Re: RQ2vsRQ3 Brian Maloney writes >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. Besides the obvious problems of keeping track of the points, Brian's comments bring up a question. How many people on this list have only played RQ3? Has the Avalon Hill publication of the rules actually expanded the player base that much? Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Sat, 4 Feb 1995 16:16:56 -0500 Subject: Re: RQR:skill rolls for magic... Loren writes: >...I also dislike the way the dice rolling mechanic works in spirit >magic and sorcery. I preferred the RQ2 rules for battle magic to >rolling against POWx5 to see if your spirit magic spells worked, and >I would get rid of all skill rolls for casting magic. Instead, since >the real function of those skill rolls is to make magic casting take >several rounds, I'd increase the casting time for large spells. I don't see where the function of the skill rolls is to make magic casting take several rounds. I could be persuaded to junk POW rolls for Battle Magic (see how the old terms stay in your vocabulary?) but I'm 1000% for skill rolls for sorcery. The whole point of sorcery as I see it is that it is a skill. This is not to say that I wouldn't be interested in other forms of magic that substituted time for skill rolls--or even the possibility of trading time for skill rolls to accomplish sorcery...But getting off a sorcery spell in spirit magic time means a skill roll as far as I'm concerned. To add to the debate on SRs, and using raw DEX instead of SRs, we could treat time for spells the way I did in Magic World. Rather than a reduction (or perhaps added to the reduction) in skill for a higher power spell, we could essentially show additional time by reducing the DEX of the caster for purposes of throwing the spell. Thus, a DEX 12 sorcerer casting a "power" 15 spell would have an effective DEX of -3 for casting the spell, and be able to do nothing else. (I figure, just to keep the game organized, it would be better for the spell to actually be cast in the melee round it was started, even at a negative number, than to try to carry it over to the next round.) More to think about... Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> Date: 04 Feb 95 17:10:20 EST Subject: RQR: Sandi Sor (grin) >> I don't remember them either, and I'm as tied into the net as anybody. Anyone want to ask Sandi to send them out to this list? << Yes please. Oops! Broken rule #1 - please don't lynch! . Some rules we _can_ read might mitigate the unhappy, unPlaytesters... ------------------------------ From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> Date: 04 Feb 95 17:10:25 EST Subject: RQR: Rule complexity >>I have a simple solution. I start with all the rules, and depending on who is playing, I ignore a certain number of them. Things like fatigue and strike ranks fall to the wayside unless I have players that are really interested in it.<< Yeah, I do that. For all game systems, come to it. I find if a player's hot on (say) FPs or SRs, they'll "rules-lawyer" a bit, saying "'ere, I've got time to do that!" whereas the more story-based folk are quite happy with my gutsreaction decision as to how long they can go on til they keel over. Important mech numbers like HP everyone has to cope with of course. It's particularly relevant with the RQ based game I'm running here on CIS, because only one player has ever played before. The others really don't give a damn about points for anything! ------------------------------ From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> Date: 04 Feb 95 17:10:30 EST Subject: RQR: Strike back >>Or if that's too literary for you, you can't strike back at your enemy if you're already dead.<< Yeah. After many bitter arguments from my players (all of whom have actually fought with these weapons and know how easy it is to run up past a spear and stab the owner with a scramasax ), I went a bit retro and added a 1d8 roll to the basic SR initiative number. I had to add a few SR more to the MR, but it all works ok and stops shortarses getting depressed. They're still usually last, but occasionally get the breaks. Which is how combat works for real. ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #66 ****************************** 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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