From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #72 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Wednesday, 8 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 072 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 sstair@cs.utep.edu RQR: Resistance Roll Steven E Barnes RQR: Resistance Roll Brent Michael Krupp RQR: Resistance Roll Nigel Smith RQR: rq-rules@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Nigel Smith RQR: DEX increases Nigel Smith RQR: Why going first doesn't matter Nigel Smith RQR: RQ2vsRQ3 Loren Miller RQR: Accounts Loren Miller RQR: temporary web archive Loren Miller RQR: "Battle magic" as a ... Joerg Baumgartner RQR: Who goes first... Joerg Baumgartner RQR: Encumbrance and spellcasting Bryan J. Maloney RQR: Spirit Magic Steven E Barnes RQR: "Battle magic" as a ... SPerrin@aol.com RQR: Accounts ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sstair@cs.utep.edu Date: Tue, 7 Feb 95 22:38:33 MST Subject: RQR: Resistance Roll Steve Barnes says: > What is wrong with using MPs? My only complaint is about the mechanism > of the RR table, which breaks down at high POW values... Could you explain what you mean? - -- Stephen Stair sstair@cs.utep.edu ------------------------------ From: akuma@netcom.com (Steven E Barnes) Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 21:56:13 -0800 Subject: Re: RQR: Resistance Roll >Steve Barnes says: >> What is wrong with using MPs? My only complaint is about the mechanism >> of the RR table, which breaks down at high POW values... > >Could you explain what you mean? Basically, a +10 POW difference means assured victory on the chart. This is OK for characters in the 1-25 POW range. When you are talking 40 POW, it is a little strange. At the 100+ POW range, the chart becomes silly. I know, most people could care less about this issue... - -steve ------------------------------ From: Brent Michael Krupp Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 22:59:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: RQR: Resistance Roll On Tue, 7 Feb 1995, Steven E Barnes wrote: > Basically, a +10 POW difference means assured victory on the chart. > This is OK for characters in the 1-25 POW range. When you are talking > 40 POW, it is a little strange. At the 100+ POW range, the chart > becomes silly. > > I know, most people could care less about this issue... I think it's an important issue, I'm just not sure what can be done about it. This raises the old topic of how characteristics are either linear or logarithmic depending on the situation (i.e. resistance table or not). I don't recall this one being satisfactorily resolved last time. Brent Krupp (fletcher@u.washington.edu) "In the faculty of writing nonsense, stupidity is no match for genius." -- Walter Bagehot, 1826-1877 ------------------------------ From: ns10005@hermes.cam.ac.uk (Nigel Smith) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 11:35:28 +0000 Subject: Re: RQR: rq-rules@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Gregory C. Walsh: >Even if you could take hits like that, the blows would >send the participants flying according the knock back rules. >So who ever hit first will be playing golf with the other. Which reminds me - how do other people play 'knockback recovery'. Any house rules, or tales from the re-enactment crowd? ------------------------------ From: ns10005@hermes.cam.ac.uk (Nigel Smith) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 11:35:16 +0000 Subject: Re: RQR: DEX increases Staffan Tjernstrom wrote: >Brent Krupp: >>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. > >Given the rules as written - yes. My solution is to limit the training that is >possible of DEX to 1.5 times that originally rolled. Something similar to: "Any training or research increase for DEX or APP is limited to half again the adventurer's original characteristic, rounded up." Players Handbook, P39. So, given the rules as written, no. Unless all your characters start with DEX 14 or more. And the 7 weeks it takes you to train from DEX 14 to DEX 14+(1D3-1) can get you a lot of training in skills or spells. And if the training period is interupted 1/2 way through, does the time still count? And... DEX races, like tick-fests, only become a problem if you, the GM, allow them to. Nigel ------------------------------ From: ns10005@hermes.cam.ac.uk (Nigel Smith) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 11:35:22 +0000 Subject: Re: RQR: Why going first doesn't matter David Dunham said: >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. "Your DEX is..?", player looks at sheet and answers. "Your strike rank is...?", player looks at the weapons section of the sheet, where BSR has already been added to the weapon SR, and answers. OK, so it is a much longer sentence, but neither a complicated nor time-consuming action. Nigel ------------------------------ From: ns10005@hermes.cam.ac.uk (Nigel Smith) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 11:35:25 +0000 Subject: Re: RQR: Re: RQ2vsRQ3 Steve Perrin asked: >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? I started with RQ2 in 1981'ish (Canadian import) and got RQ3 when I had finally saved enough money. I know a couple o'dozen people who never bothered saving up and stayed playing RQ2. More than one of them predicted that AH would mainly republish RQ2 stuff anyway, and an often heard comment while reading my rules was "What have they done with Rurik?" As someone else mentioned, AH would improve their player base if they got more supplements onto the shelves - especially scenarios. ------------------------------ From: "Loren Miller" Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 10:37:23 EST Subject: Re: RQR: Accounts >From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) >I would like to offer a small correction. > >I do not use Kirsten Jacobus's account. >I use Kirsten Maloney's account. Touche. But note the address on the From line. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller LOREN@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Life at the water's edge is the real life for men and women ------------------------------ From: "Loren Miller" Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 11:00:44 EST Subject: RQR: temporary web archive for those of you with WWW access (e.g. Mosaic or Netscape or Lynx) you can reach the back-issues of the mailing lists served on hops (rq-rules, glorantha, world-design) through this temporary URL. http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller LOREN@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Life at the water's edge is the real life for men and women ------------------------------ From: "Loren Miller" Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 13:36:31 EST Subject: Re: RQR: "Battle magic" as a ... I pretty much agree with Steve Perrin that it's enough to have either a skill roll *or* use magic points for making magic work. Both is overkill. Too much rules dirt. Maybe some magic systems should use the roll and others should use points, and make that the line of separation between them rather than pointing to spell spirits and all that other weird spirit ecology that was obviously written as a kludge to explain the game rules (totally backwards from my preference in design). Here is how I'd pick it with some of the gloranthan magic systems. Sorcery/wizardry would use the roll, since it's widely stated that westerners see magic spells as skills. Theists and Spiritualists would use magic points to power spells which are gifts rather than skills, the magic elixir from the hero-pattern in Campbell's HWATF that is won from a spirit or god. From Sandy Petersen's speculations it seems clear that Kralorelans would see magic as the inverse of the more familiar pattern. Kralorelan sorcery is the magical effect of a mundane skill being applied with great expertise. It is akin to the ki magic from "Land of Ninjas." Kralorelan deism would have the magic elixir passing the other way, from worshipper to deity, in order to keep the land strong. Steve Barnes replies to Steve Perrin: >What is wrong with using MPs? My only complaint is about the mechanism >of the RR table, which breaks down at high POW values... I don't think it breaks down. That's because I think POW and other stats are exponential rather than linear. Mr. Barnes stands with the loyal opposition on that debate and he disagrees. C'est la vie. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller LOREN@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Life at the water's edge is the real life for men and women ------------------------------ From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) Date: Wed, 08 Feb 1995 16:07:04 MEZ Subject: RQR: Who goes first... David Dunham: > Anyway, given that most attacks are parried, so nobody takes serious > damage, it matters little who goes first. Combat boils down to alternating > blows, and who gests lucky first is what's important. Given that this seems > to be the reality of combat, we don't need a complex rule like SR. This is the extremely rare case (at least in the games I referee) of one-on-one combats. Usually combat boils down to two against three, or such. And all of a sudden you cannot parry incoming blows any more, or you lose your attack - either way a losing strategy. (Keeps the combats short, though...) Parried successful attacks happen maybe 50% of the time, with characters and opponents in the 60-80% range. The ability to dispatch one opponent quickly and then concentrate on the remaining one(s) has always been more important than anything else. Among my Vikings, pole-axes and long spears proved to win the field most of the time, being both quick and really harmful. I'm quite happy that my Heortlanders don't have these overkill weapons. > If we're stuck with SR, I do agree with David that they should be used only > for sequencing (and an optional rule as well), and the action system be the > primary focus. That's how I've used them all the time. SRs are a lot more handy than initiative rolls in the certain game featuring the "&", in my experience. > Actually, I'd agree with Graeme Lindsell that SR are inaccurate because > there's no connection with Fatigue. In really long fights, I get slower as > I get tired. Perhaps Fatigue should make you go second -- note you don't > need SR for this to work. Seconded. But fatigue ought to occur in finer steps than the ones in the draft (for those wo don't have it: add 3, 5, 10, 20 to the die roll (!), when reaching 20 halve skills and roll for unconsciousness; fatigue is accumulated whenever a Con roll * (5-ENC/STR) is failed, every ten melee rounds or whenever RQ3 calls for fatigue loss). My playtest group was reduced to 1/3 effectivity just by travelling a lot, some people verging on unconsiousness most of the time - not much fun in that. It helped the apothecary sell some powders, though. - -- - -- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de ------------------------------ From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) Date: Wed, 08 Feb 1995 16:24:44 MEZ Subject: RQR: Encumbrance and spellcasting Graeme Lindsell: > A few words in support of a single "Cast Spirit Magic" skill Which I support, too - though it shuold increase only slowly, just as Dodge_cum_Maneuver(sp?), or other everytime skills. Make it hard... > - That RQ is a game that models a PCs abilities mainly by skills: those > things that aren't based on skills are either things you can't learn to get > any better at, ie a CON roll to survive disease or things so simple that they > should be considered automatic, such as walking. [...] I agree that casting any magic is beyond automatic. Some truly automatic abilities like Scan or Listen are skills, too... > - Like Matt Thale, I didn't like the idea of a rune lord/shaman etc with 30+ > years experience of casting spells suddenly dropping to almost zero after > a DI or enchantment. Not to forget that penetration after POW loss is non-existent, too. A POW 3 character under RQ3 effectively has lost all magic. > I feel that we have to distinuish between the _ability_ to cast a spell and > the chance you have to cast it. Seconded. > RQ3 clearly gives origins for spirit and > divine magic - spirits and gods respectively. Humans (and other PC races) > apparently can't create this kind of magic themselves, and have to steal or > buy it off other magical powers that can. I don't see that acquiring a spell > from one of these powers should necessarily give you an automatic chance to > cast it, in the same way that buying a sword doesn't get you 100% sword > attack. Bought from the gods I can see the reasoning for a near 100% chance - - I just trigger the spell the deity has already cast. That's why I have to aquire some spells over and over again (unless RunePower is used). Another point I feel neglected is the casting time. Emergency castings of spells should be a lot harder than carefully prepared spells, so rather than give a bonus for use of Ceremony skill I'd prefer a malus for quickly cast spells. > There's also the MGF factor: personally, I don't find MGF increased by giving > characters some automatic powers and other with skill rolls without reason. In > this case it just makes emphasizes the use of magic over skills, which I don't > think is obviously a good thing. In resisted spells, first a low casting chance followed by a low chance of overcoming the target's MP/POW makes casting these spells a waste of time and MP for middle-POW characters. A skill like Focussing which can be helped with the use of the often neglected spell focus could do the trick. Foci of varying bonus would give nifty small change "treasure", too... - -- - -- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de ------------------------------ From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 95 14:43:02 -0500 Subject: RQR: Spirit Magic Okay, for us ignorant sots, what ARE the Battle Magic rules from RQ2? How is it acquired? What rules govern casting, foci, etc.? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: akuma@netcom.com (Steven E Barnes) Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 12:15:42 -0800 Subject: Re: RQR: "Battle magic" as a ... Loren: >Steve Barnes replies to Steve Perrin: >>What is wrong with using MPs? My only complaint is about the mechanism >>of the RR table, which breaks down at high POW values... > >I don't think it breaks down. That's because I think POW and other stats >are exponential rather than linear. Mr. Barnes stands with the loyal >opposition on that debate and he disagrees. C'est la vie. When they stop making monsters like the Bat, with STR and POW measured in the 1000s, I'll agree with you. - -steve ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 15:20:08 -0500 Subject: Re: RQR: Accounts Brian Maloney writes: >>I would like to offer a small correction. I do not use Kirsten Jacobus's account. I use Kirsten Maloney's account.<< Is this a perhaps-too-subtle announcement of a change of status, or just marking territory? Congratulations, in any case. Steve Perrin ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #72 ****************************** 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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