From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #119 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, 1 March 1995 Volume 01 : Number 119 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. Alternatives to the Great Compromise Alex Ferguson Priests, RunePower and otherwise. Hugh Foster Castles David Cake Alternatives to the Great Compromise Alex Ferguson Sorcery, back after this break. alex Will? Won't! Alex Ferguson Banish piddly little differences! Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox. Towards a Generic RuneQuest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 00:05:48 PST Subject: Re: Alternatives to the Great Compromise Received: by eccles.wgc.rx.xerox.com (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA04344; Wed, 1 Mar 95 08:05:28 GMT David Cake replied to my comments below: >>So here are some ideas for generic RuneQuest where recourse to >>the Great Compromise is not available. >> > Why have this in a truly 'generic' product? Some people will like > to have a world where the Gods intervene directly. Well first off I consider generic RuneQuest to the RuneQuest rules apllied to background other than Glorantha. I would urge people to retain the distinctive non-Gloranthan properties of RQ which can be seen either in the parts of RQ2 disowned by contemporary Gloranthan material and the parts of RQ3 which was the first generic RQ product. Part of this distinctiveness, IMHO, is the rich background that gods can provide without their direct intervention. They may possess free will but they seldom act directly. > Take, for example, Mythic Greece (a subject being discussed on the > Hero list at the moment). In that genre the heros are often used directly > as pawns by the gods, and the gods will intervene directly to protect their > pawns or curse their enemies.` I agree in part. I have been reading up on this recently and the greek gods tend to act by releasing monsters, unleasing natural forces or acting in disguise, offering advice or suggestions provided in an attempt to seal someone's fate. The Norse gods are more prone to go for a wander on Midgard and then only Loki, Thor and Heimdall do so undisguised. So essentially their actions remain abstract and not direct, especially if the times they spoke from disguise was in fact the actions of 'inspired' people rather than the gods themselves. Mythic Greece however is an excellent example of how the gods can act to counter each other actions. > Similarly a Moorcock world (OK, so almost > noone will be adapting RQ4 when they could use Elric instead. But its the > principle). As as a fan of Stormbringer, Moorcock and Hawkwind I must say that the Eternal Champion gods do live behind a veil most of the time and only tend to manifest when they are either summoned or when the balance has tipped so far towards either law or chaos that the plane was shaped itself to the will of one of those forces. For the gods in the Young Kingdoms are restrained by an equivalent of the Great Compromise as law and choas met up to strike a deal between them that probably was broken only a undesirable summoning of Arioch by Elric, against which Arioch pleaded. > Who knows, someone might even want to use RQ4 to run something > like DragonLance, which has the odd incarnate god running around, I > think. Most backgrounds have the odd icarnate gods running about, arguably even Glorantha which possesses dragons, inhuman kings, red emperors and hero`s on the verge of apotheosis. But commonly gods lack such an incarnation, are passive and act in abstract ways like the RQ gods and like the folklore gods of myth. For although legends tell of Thor and the Ice Giants the most common manifestation of each is thunder and the cracking of glaciers respectively. Equivalent myths to the fictional Great Compromise exist to explain why their dieties do not live in the villages along with their worshippers. ------------------------------ From: Alex Ferguson Date: Wed, 1 Mar 95 08:34:05 GMT Subject: Priests, RunePower and otherwise. David Dunham is enraged that: > Mike Cule suggests preists need > >A certain level of RunePower pool. Lower than the current 10 points, > > I'd think. > No way! Priests are already quite easy to become. I think Mike says less than 10 points of RP as he says he'd be using some flavour of RP in which sacking for spells _also_ costs (separate) POW. (A la my varient, and Jeff Richard's, if I understand it right.) So this isn't making it easier, just keeping it roughly the same. (Plus or minus tweaks.) One could argue that there shouldn't be a preset limit at all, just a rough list of the sort of minimal level of magic a priest must have (Worship, Divination, other obvious standbys), and a per-temple ideaof the availability of vacanies, and what sort of level of competence is likely among the likely candidates. To wit, having umpteen points of rune magic does one no good if there's no vancancy, or if there's another qualified person with twenty-ump points. Conversely, if the temple is under-staffed, and no-one with the requisite cranial matter is in evidence, you'll get in with the very minimal sets of spells and skills. > This is not to say it's worse than RQ2. I saw > one character become a priestess after her first adventure. Yes, having POW as the Main Criterion was Most Silly. Sadly though, in RQ3, it's Hardly Any Criterion At All. I think RQ needs some sort of guideline of why and how priests need POW, if not necessarily a fixed requirement as to some arbitrary fixed value. For example, RQ2 hints that they need a high POW to officiate at ceremonies. If true, this would be a key factor in priestly preferment. The sedentary-but- powergaming acolyte who keeps his POW down at 5 to get easy gain rolls, and hence lots of divine magic, is merifully hosed in such a picture. The trouble is the Test of Holiness provides only a vaguely POW-related requirement, and once in, there is no further restriction on current POW, this side of intangibles like GM sanity. Sometimes very intangible. Alex. ------------------------------ From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> Date: 01 Mar 95 03:39:48 EST Subject: Castles >> Brian R. Jones B.O.C. << A fellow fan! Hi! >> realistically supporting the use of castles as havens or strongpoints, when wizards can just walk up to it and blast its walls, and people with it, down (a simplification but i hope you get my point) or dragons can fly into its courtyard and gobble people up. You can say that the castle can be defended magically...etc. Yes, this is true--but defending something uses more energy then blasting away at your enemies. With this in mind; if you can't defend a castle properly, then there is no use building it in the first place--is there? << I debate this approach. Consider the investment of time and money for a medieval society to build a castle. Enormous! But with good reason. When the war comes, the castle will shelter the whole community and save it. An analagous expenditure of magic / enchantment to create a defence against magic is not only likely; it's essential. So, along with the masons and carpenters and ballista-makers, the castle-builder will employ wielders of magic to bind enchantments into the infrastructure. Defences match threats. If Bladesharp exists, people armour with Protection. If Disruption exists, people armour with Countermagic. If wall-busting wizards exist, people build castles with Multimissile matrices built into ballistas and Protection matrices next to windows (to shield archers) and Wardings set in the drawbridge and..and.. and... And spellcasters employed to defend. Think Arms Race. ------------------------------ From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 17:06:28 +0800 Subject: Re: Alternatives to the Great Compromise >Received: by eccles.wgc.rx.xerox.com (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA04344; Wed, 1 Mar >95 08:05:28 GMT > >David Cake replied to my comments below: > >>>So here are some ideas for generic RuneQuest where recourse to >>>the Great Compromise is not available. >>> >> Why have this in a truly 'generic' product? Some people will like >> to have a world where the Gods intervene directly. > >Well first off I consider generic RuneQuest to the RuneQuest rules >apllied to background other than Glorantha. I would urge people to >retain the distinctive non-Gloranthan properties of RQ which can >be seen either in the parts of RQ2 disowned by contemporary Gloranthan >material and the parts of RQ3 which was the first generic RQ product. > I have two distinct answers to this. The first is that I do not consider the non-intervention of the Gods to be part of a generic RQ. For example, in Land of Ninja you can meet Bosatsu or major Kami, and in Vikings you can meet the Aesir out for a walk. Similarly, in other BRP games (like Elric!). Certainly, there is nothing in the RQ3 rules book that tells me that I can't. Of course, it isn't the sort of thing that happens often in RQ games - but I think this is simply an artifact of RQs relative realism - in the abscence of AD&D 1st edition style ability of characters to take on gods mano a mano (ie gods as big monsters) you actually need to interact with gods as they are supposed to be - divine beings of great power, which makes good GMs wary of using them. Secondly, the whole idea of a generic game is that you do not have to put your metaphysics into the world. If non-intervention deities where written into RQ, I would be suggesting that they be taken out. I figure that this is at the basis of my discomfit with the idea of incorporating Runes as well. In fact, for me a good point of RQ is that it does not have one set metaphysics - so the sorcerers and shamans are free to revile each other, without the players knowing that one of them is wrong. While I like the idea of a meta-magic system, I would prefer that this concentrates on the how, not on the why. >Part of this distinctiveness, IMHO, is the rich background that gods >can provide without their direct intervention. They may possess free >will but they seldom act directly. > Seldom interact with the players, sure. But we can do this by either not providing stats (Glorantha), or making them obviously beyond players power (RQ Earth). We don't need to make it an overall rule of the system that the gods seldom interact directly with the world. >> Take, for example, Mythic Greece (a subject being discussed on the >> Hero list at the moment). In that genre the heros are often used directly >> as pawns by the gods, and the gods will intervene directly to protect their >> pawns or curse their enemies.` > >I agree in part. I have been reading up on this recently and the greek >gods tend to act by releasing monsters, unleasing natural forces or acting >in disguise, offering advice or suggestions provided in an attempt to seal >someone's fate. I was thinking specifically of the Illiad, where various gods wander about the battle field invisible, deflecting blows aimed at their favourite heroes and such. But there are also Zeus's frequent dalliances, for example. many people meet gods directly, usually getting horribly cursed in the experience. The point is simply that for some genres active, wandering, deities are very much in character. [Moorcock] >For the gods in the Young Kingdoms are restrained by an equivalent of >the Great Compromise as law and choas met up to strike a deal between >them that probably was broken only a undesirable summoning of Arioch >by Elric, against which Arioch pleaded. > Actually, in the various Moorcock books gods are summoned all over the place, and turn up of their own accord every now and then. The restraint of the gods is more of a stalemate than a rule - certainly the gods appear often enough that to say that they never intervened would be stretching the facts quite a bit. >Most backgrounds have the odd icarnate gods running about, arguably >even Glorantha which possesses dragons, inhuman kings, red emperors >and hero`s on the verge of apotheosis. But commonly gods lack such >an incarnation, are passive and act in abstract ways like the RQ >gods and like the folklore gods of myth. > The 'folklore gods of myth' is a pretty confusing statement to me. Perhaps if I can explain why, you will get a handle on my position. Basically, there is a difference between folklore and myth. In most real world myth there a pretty arbitrary dividing line between god and hero. Most Gods behave much like heros in most actual myths, the dividing line is really how they are venerated (if there is one). Almost all pantheist gods are considered as being incarnated somewhere, just usually not here (and the Gloranthan ones are just the same - - they are certainly anthropomorphised all the time). Basically, if you read the myths of, say, Thor, he sounds pretty incarnated - he spends his time wandering round drinking, hitting things, etc. We know that in real Viking times Thor didn't do this, and in fact was an abstract religious figure. If you want to have a campaign based on Viking history and folklore, you have him an abstract figure whose purpose is to be worshipped. If you want to have a campaign based heavily on Viking myth, then he can turn up in person (In Glorantha the second sort of interaction is called heroquesting, and probably works by different rules - but that is a Glorantha rule, not an RQ one). I certainly don't want to tell people what sort of campaign they should have any more than the rules force me too. >For although legends tell of Thor and the Ice Giants the most common >manifestation of each is thunder and the cracking of glaciers >respectively. Equivalent myths to the fictional Great Compromise >exist to explain why their dieties do not live in the villages >along with their worshippers. Yes, but in most real world cases that myth is as simple as 'they live over there'. Heaven, Asgard, Olympus, whatever. I certainly don't feel that we should be telling people that there gods can't come down and mingle if that is what the GM wants. Cheers David ------------------------------ From: Alex Ferguson Date: Wed, 1 Mar 95 10:09:39 GMT Subject: Sorcery, back after this break. Many moons ago, Mike Cule (one of the Portin Dunbars, I haven't worked out which one yet) said of sorcery spells: > (I personally find the idea of having a skill > in a spell that isn't in your mind or your familiar's bizarre in the extreme. > But I find the idea of a matrix with a skill of 75% even more bizarre.) Here here! Completely barking. And what's worse, the Free INT nonsense _vigorously_ encourages this sort of rubbish. Gah. I've studied Sandy's sorcery rules in some detail, and they lessen this effect. I tried to encourage him to go the whole hog, and get rid of _both_ such bogus concepts (Free INT, and skill in an "unknown" spell), but he was unmoved. He likes the idea of sorcerers needing all this junk. Which is fair enough, but the mechanism is rather lousy. > And another thing...... (He is dragged off raving about Familiars) Gah-gah-gah! I think the simplest thing to do with familiars in Glorantha is: a) For almost all Malkioni, punt them, and transfer (some of) their powers to Vessels (or whatever we call 'em); b) For the occassional witch, hedge-wizard, etc, put up with them as they stand. Yours ravingly, Alex. ------------------------------ From: alex Date: Wed, 1 Mar 95 10:18:28 GMT Subject: Will? Won't! David D notes that > Luckily, Pendragon doesn't need a Will stat to accomplish [reduction of free will due to high traits] Indeed not. In fact, a common complaint is that Trait rules constrain players _too much_. But then, they would say that, wouldn't they? (Though possibly with some justification, if their GM is over-zealous.) > Given that Will is generally a stat used in heroquests, I don't think it's > appropriate for RQ. And is it even appropriate for HeroQuest(s)? I don't think that when one HQs, one loses "generic" free WILL, but rather, free will in the particular heroquest undertaken. For example, the Lightbringers Quest doesn't impoinge on your choice as to whether you eat porridge or bread and cheese in the morning for breakfast. But Geo's High Fibre Low Cholesterol First Meal of the Day Quest certainly does. Agree? Disgree? Take it to the right List? ;-) Alex. ------------------------------ From: Alex Ferguson Date: Wed, 1 Mar 95 11:27:48 GMT Subject: Re: Banish piddly little differences! Loren joins in the bandwagon against my proposed New Improved death in childbirth rule: > Sandy: Chance of safe delivery is CONx10 percent, rolled at > delivery. > -- vs -- > Alex: Chance of maternal fatality is 20-CON percent, rolled at > delivery. > Piddly Differences like this (that require game-time calculation for > no or little difference) infest the RQ rules like maggots in > roadkill. This is very, very, painfully, true. And greatly worsened by RQ3. Andone out there really get anxious about the distinction between 54% 1H Sword and 55% 1H Sword? You do? You don't have enough things to worry about, I fear. _However_, my proposed rule is hardly an example of such; we're not talking of a small _difference_ in a %age chance, but of a small chance, period. And of something pretty drastic happening, so the matter isn't trivial. Compare with critical chances, for example (only rather moreso), one of the few non-broken ways in which RQ3 utilises percentile dice. (Apart from crits, you might as well have played RQ2 with D20s. And you might as well not have bothered chancing most of them for RQ3...) We could always just use Pendragon style crits, of course. If we wanted to completely break an otherwise servicable game mechanic, that is. In a nutshell, the proportionate difference in chance of success or failure is just as great as with a CONx5% roll, frex. It just happens the chance of failure is much less. This does not a Bad Mechanic make. It isn't even arithmetically challenging. One subtraction per mother, or at worst, per child? Bargain. Furthermore, there's the question of whether the mechanism being "simulated" is captured even remotely accurately, but that's a whole 'nother story. (This is after all not a make-up-a-rule-to-describe- some-notional-combat-phenomenon-or-made-up-magical-effect situation, but something with a Real(ish) World statisticial basis.) > Alex, apologies for including your proposal as a stereotypical bad > example. I wouldn't have minded, except for the lack of evidence of anything actually wrong with it... Steve P. asked some time ago what "sacked POW" was. I didn't see an answer to this, and even if didn't just miss it, I'm sure he's worked it out by now. "Sacked" for the record, means "sacrificed". I think the etymolgical roots of this term lie in Trollball, or its NFL franchise, or some such. But the reason I mention this is; I have a nasty feeling that I might have spawned this particular linguistic monster. (In the RQ-Digest "Initiation" debate.) Say it ain't so, Joe. If anyone can assure me this term has been in use for longer than this, I'd be able to sleep easier at nights. Alex. PS. I have the vague feeling this might be a chessism (too?). As in, "She sacked her rook for a crushing kingside attack". So at worst, I can offload some of the blame here. ------------------------------ From: Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 05:40:47 PST Subject: Towards a Generic RuneQuest Received: by eccles.wgc.rx.xerox.com (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA04613; Wed, 1 Mar 95 13:40:24 GMT As the topic has wandered away from the Great Compromise I have changed the title in this reply to David Cake. We agree on several things, instances where gods and divine beings co-exist with the general population, the undesirable aspects of Deities and Demigods and a concern for creating a flexible generic RuneQuest. We also agree that RQ provides a degree of relative realism although I am sure we would disagree in detail over where RQ is realistic. My take is that RQ is ambigious about religions and I think this is a strength. This paragraph underlines some of your concerns I believe: >Secondly, the whole idea of a generic game is that you do not have >to put your metaphysics into the world. If non-intervention deities where >into RQ, I would be suggesting that they be taken out. I figure >that this is at the basis of my discomfit with the idea of incorporating >Runes as well. In fact, for me a good point of RQ is that it does not have >one set metaphysics - so the sorcerers and shamans are free to revile each >other, without the players knowing that one of them is wrong. While I like >the idea of a meta-magic system, I would prefer that this concentrates on >the how, not on the why. I think to apply a magic systems that crosses, and is changed by, cultural barriers then you have to look at the why. However it must be stressed that the why is cultural as well. The reason I am keen on Runes is that they have the potential to be flexible, fallable and differ vastly from culture to culture. I am simply loathed to see a copy of RuneQuest throw away such a valuable concept that be used to express the why in non-concrete terms. Sorcerers, shamans and priests from differing cultures will still be able to revile each as each believes in their own perceptions of the ambigious mythic terrain. Each will have their own why and we need to understand only their perceptions, not the absolute meta-magic realities. However I would go as far to suggest that guidelines might exist to detail the growth and decline of cults and shamantic groups as the MPs and Pow acquired through sacrifice and worship accumilate or expire. This would be usefull for generic rq as it might lack a background from which to extract examples of this from. Here is an example of where we agree in part, again: >I was thinking specifically of the Illiad, where various gods >wander about the battle field invisible, deflecting blows aimed at their >favourite heroes and such. But there are also Zeus's frequent dalliances, >for example. many people meet gods directly, usually getting horribly >cursed in the experience. As a pragmatist I would say that gods wandering the battle fields deflecting blows while invisible and Zeus or Odin tricking people while in another form or disguised are not good examples of divine intervention. They are more likely to be excuses for why the gods not not manifest so regularily. I view the Great Compromise as one of those excuses. For example, an evangelical preacher could make a lot more conversions if the Christian god could make a personal appearance but he refains from such a gesture. Likewise it would be more convenient if mortals could talk direct to Apollo in Ancient Greece, rather than talking to the Oracle at Delphi, but this is not the case. Gods take a back seat role and this needs to be explained as it would commonly be more convenient if they became more active. >The point is simply that for some genres active, wandering, deities >are very much in character I agree totally, but this is the exception rather than the rule. And I feel that this rule needs at least a few differing suggestions so a referee can make up his mind why people feel things are this way. No absolute rulings - just a few suggestions. [Moorcock] Unfortunately most of Moorcock`s fantasy work is arguably to keep the wolf from the door and to provide him with funds to live off. This means that these pulp works tend to contradict each other. However it could be argued that there is a consistent thread to some of his books - the issue is which set you wish to consider ... >The >restraint of the gods is more of a stalemate than a rule - certainly the >gods appear often enough that to say that they never intervened would be >stretching the facts quite a bit. In the Young Kingdoms their personal intervention is pretty sparse. Of course godling exist like Parayh (sp?) exist but most of these are just monsters powerfull enough to challenge an Eternal Champion equipped with Stormbringer. Arioch can not for a stroll untill things start to break down for the final battle between law and choas. It does not matter to me whether the restraint of the gods is a stalemate rather than a rule - they still do not make many public appearances and in the Yound Kingdoms - - they must be summoned or contacted. Proviso: Moorcock has written some new Elric books recently and I am not familiar with their contents. >The 'folklore gods of myth' is a pretty confusing statement to me. >Perhaps if I can explain why, you will get a handle on my position. >Basically, there is a difference between folklore and myth. If my language gets torturous, like it did in the passage you were refering to it is because I do not want to offend anyone. On the subject you subsequently brought up I recommend the fictional books Wotan and the one about the Babylonian hero with the over-riding fear of death (the name currently escapes me). They present interesting treatments of the Norse and Babylonian myths respectively. >>For although legends tell of Thor and the Ice Giants the most common >>manifestation of each is thunder and the cracking of glaciers >>respectively. Equivalent myths to the fictional Great Compromise >>exist to explain why their dieties do not live in the villages >>along with their worshippers. >Yes, but in most real world cases that myth is as simple as 'they >live over there'. Heaven, Asgard, Olympus, whatever. I certainly don't feel >that we should be telling people that there gods can't come down and mingle >if that is what the GM wants. I agree that we should not be telling people. Instead a we should be offering the rich set of conceptual tools that RuneQuest has fostered to help people build a better world with ambigious meta-physics, or at least the possibility of this being introduced at a later date. For although the explaination that `they live over there` might be the surface version, if we look at religions that exist now the myths and reasons that account for seperation of gods and men are complex as any decent theologian will be able to explain. Surely it is better to allow the GM to retain the religious ambiguity of RuneQuest and suggest something richer than Dieties and Demigods? ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #119 ******************************* 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.