From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #86 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Tuesday, 14 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 086 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 Charlie Domino RQR: Knockback Charlie Domino RQR: Ray's ideas David Dunham via RadioMail RQR: sorry, Ray Graeme A Lindsell RQR: More Turney ideas on magic ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charlie Domino Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 21:13:04 -0600 (CST) Subject: RQR: Knockback I also use knockback, with a 3 SR delay to getting up if one falls. Charlie ===================================================================== "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: Charlie Domino Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 22:06:43 -0600 (CST) Subject: RQR: Ray's ideas Hm, I like Ray's ideas, right up to the point where he veers off the track with spirit magic. Frankly, I've never been comfortable with non- shamans having a slew of spirits around for MP supply and spell casting; in RQ 2 it could get downright dangerous as a GM to hit the party with a spirit combat; either the player got slammed or he shoved the spirit into a spare crystal, should one be availible. RQ 3 allowed me to control this by making the "Bind (x) spirit" spells hard to get. Now Ray wants to go beserk with this idea? Sure, for Shamans and maybe Apprentice shamans, but not for the average Gloranthan adventurer. As for RL, Acolytes, & RP, I agree acolytes need to be developed as an "alternative" to having to go for priest, for the playbility and cultural reasons enunciated. But I thought RL already GOT reusable Rune spells (aka divine magic), though some were restricted to priests only in cults with both. Keep the allied spirit, but it shouldn't be automatic. Present it as a combination "assistant" and "concience" for the player; I give mine a cult lore% and they often nudge players who stray from the narrow. Offend your god and you AS might not cast spells for you--or even choose to leave! Ray seems to be suggesting that the basis for a priest or lord's spell list is the flock he/she tends; that they provide the POW or spells rather than the RL/RP. Did I read that right? As for the hard/easy, I took the 20% modifier to apply to the chance of going up in the skill by experience. IE: an easy skill would be subtracted from 120 (in the old RQ2 system) instead of 100. Thus the chance of increasing a 75% skill would be 120 - 75 = 45, not 100 - 75 = 25. Right or wrong? Charlie ===================================================================== "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: David Dunham (via RadioMail) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 20:33:38 -0800 Subject: RQR: Re: sorry, Ray For some reason, I don't like any of Ray's recent suggestions. >consider weakening the skill >qualifications for RL to say, 2 90% and 3 75% Way too easy. I liked the way RQ2 (the only campaign when I've had the chance to come close) Rune Lords were really hard to get, a definite long-term goal. > I suggest quietly dropping the idea of allied spirits ... or making >them a subclass of cult spirit granted by successful DI. The reasoning >here is simply that allied spirits stylistically smack strongly of shamanism. And cult spirits don't smack of shamanism? > Acolytes should continue to exist, as a category of initiates 50% >or better in Ceremony and Cult lore, Again, way too easy. 5 skills at 50% and 10 sacrificed POW is fairly easy as it is. > The point about allied spirits raises the issue of shamanistically >influenced cults. These should offer cult spell spirits similar to the >ones discussed below, and POW sacrificed to the deity should be added to >the character's POW for spirit control. Just about all Praxian cults are shamanistically influenced, so you're saying all Praxian warriors are good at spirit control (whatever that is)? > Finally, I suggest that spirit magic work by sending spell spirits >into spirit combat with an enemy Ignore the fact that it's called spirit magic; RQ2 battlemagic worked well. Spirit magic shouldn't be one-use (you propose spirits returning to spirit plane after being released). > My motive for suggesting this reinterpetation of spirit magic is >to more clearly distinguish it from sorcery. Given that it's not skill-based, and not manipulable, it's nothing like sorcery (except that both are fueled with magic points). > I suggest changing the experience system, so that in addition to >checks there are also stars Learning through failure makes sense, but having both through success and through failure seems redundant. If you want to combine, Loren's learning through use idea would be better than two kinds of checks. >divine magic magic thru something like >the runepower system, but with a channeling like skill what's channeling supposed to be, like Boopsie in Doonesbury? Runepower is technically incompatible with all published material. > Each increase in range should cause a step or more loss in casting >precentage chance. The primary intent of this is to increase fantasy feel >by reducing computation in modern units, and the secondary purpose is to >simplify computation. So you're incompatible with all published material, where sorcerers had to learn Range. You'd increase the fantasy feel a lot by getting rid of strike rounds and percentiles too. I see nothing wrong with using modern units (_not_ lame terms like "keymiles") since everyone is familiar with them. I do go for simplification, however, maybe there's a way to use your simplified ranges with the Range skill. >duration for the length of the situation the spell To me, the fact that sorcerers have spells up for long periods of time is a feature. >I push for initiates to get reusable divine magic This I do agree with, but I'd go for the "one point back each High Holy Day" idea. >I want initiate to be the valuable status Many of us see "initiate" as being more or less synonymous with "adult." So all characters have the status in a Barbarian or Nomad game. >make characters >in divine magic using cultures to be forced to make the same tradeoffs of >normal skills vs. arcane ones that characters in sorcery and shamanistic >cultures do. Yes, but by using Runepower, you've eliminated one of the tradeoffs they already have: what spell to choose? > I propose that hard skills be subtracted from 80, and easy ones >from 120, as this is a more elegant means of implementing the variable skills >idea. I assume you mean for learning purposes. I actually think this is a little harder to explain than using a flat 100% but with variable increase. (It might be more elegant, but I think some of the less experienced gamers in my camapign would have trouble with it.) ------------------------------ From: Graeme A Lindsell Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 16:00:07 +1100 (EST) Subject: Re: RQR: More Turney ideas on magic Graeme Lindsell responding to some of Ray Turney's interesting ideas, as interpreted by Loren Miller's reply: >Sorcery should be skill based, This has been one point of universal agreement so far, but the more recent suggestions, including your channeling one below, put skills into all the magic systems. I suspect the demand for a skill based magic system is partly because there wasn't one in RQ2, and a broken one in RQ3. >divine magic magic thru something like >the runepower system, but with a channeling like skill, and Hmmm, Yeeess.... Yes, I'd go for this along with Ray's suggestion of allowing fully reusable runepower-type spells for initiates. The argument for giving divine magic automatic success is then weakened. >and initiates to be able >to regain divine magic, but only with a ceremony performed by a priest >or acolyte {and if the ceremony is fumbled they lose the points they were >trying to regain}. Being a priest is a title or office, depending on the >cult, not an aspiration of anyone who wants to use divine magic. Yes, I agree with this entirely. One thing I don't like about the current system is that initiates of gods almost never use the real magic of their god, but rather use the spirit magic system. Instead of Glorantha being split into spirit, divine and sorcery using cultures, it really has only two, spirit/divine and sorcery. I'd rather see initiates using _just_ divine magic, and I think Ray's system provides that. The Runepower system IMO has some problems (ie every initiate of the same god with the same amount of sacrficed POW has exactly the same spells, it requires some stacking limits to be re-imposed to stop Shield 12) but I think it enhances MGF to use it. I would go a bit further - I think that if the Runepower idea is used then DI as it currently stands should be removed from the game: if a PC has access to all his/her gods spells then that should be enough. >Normally, >when a priesthood is created the worshippers who wish to create the title >or office sacrifice to the god to provide the priest with access to magic >he would not otherwise have ... and these points must be regained by >other members of the group who gave the priest these points While I like the concept I'm not so sure about the implementation. As an alternative, how about giving a priest an extra runepower dependant on the number of initiates at his/her last worship ceremony? Not the best as it varies a bit, but it isn't dependant on how many friends the priest had at his elevation. >spirit magic >should work indirectly by attacking the enemy with spell spirits. While I'm one of the supporters of animist-style spirit magic (where each spirit magic spell is actually performed by a spirit), I'm not sure about this one-use implementation. The current properties of spirit magic are: it's easy to do and easy to learn; it's moderately effective - it boosts personal ability and can incpacitate one opponent with a spell; it's very easy to reach the INT limit. The last property is the balancing factor with spirit magic, along with the limited MP of most beginning characters. Spirit magic has been very popular with most players of RQ I've communicated with, and I'm not sure these properties should be changed too much. Most of my attempts at animist spirit magic assume a character has one or two "spirit friends" that s/he probably got through a shaman. These stay with him/her all of the time, or the character is able to summon them instantly when s/he "casts" a spell. Each of these spirits are capable of a few magical effects that they will perform at the behest of the character, pretty much the same as most spirit magic, and requiring. To gain one of these friends requires that the character sacrifice one point of POW to form a bond with the spirit. There is a limit on how many spirits a character can have bonds to at once, probably POW/5 or POW/4 at most. The reason for the rather low limit is that is give the gamemaster the possibility to give the spirits real personalities and abilities that differ from the norm - too many spirits per PC cause too much trouble. Each spirit should hopefully have some origin that explains it's abilities. Spell spirits in this system are not in infinite supply! Better/more important/nephews-of-the-tribal-shaman characters get offered better spell spirits as allys. A PC might be expected to change spell spirits over the year as s/he gains social rank and ability. (Note for readers who weren't on the RQ4 list over a year ago, when this was last discussed: this idea (and Ray's) are for replacements for the current spirit magic rules, not additions. That is, these are meant to be how characters should _do_ spirit magic. Obviously they require some other mechanic for POW gain, but I think the game needs that anyway. The reason behind this move is to make spirit magic actually involve spirits in some way beyond the rather limited RQ3 manner. The idea wasn't universally popular a year ago, and I don't expect it to be now, or think it likely that it will appear in RQ4. Doesn't stop me proposing it as a rule alternative I like, of course) Just getting back up on a few hobby horses... - -- Graeme Lindsell a.k.a Graeme.Lindsell@anu.edu.au Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #86 ****************************** 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.