From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #203 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, 21 April 1995 Volume 01 : Number 203 RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to add "Yeah, I agree" or "No, I disagree." Or be excoriated. If someone writes something good and you want to say "good show" please do. But don't include the whole message you praise. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. 3. Learn the art of paraphrasing: Don't just quote and comment on a point-by-point basis. When paraphrasing you demonstrate exactly how well you understand the point someone was trying to make. 4. There is no number 4. TABLE OF CONTENTS SPerrin@aol.com Running and fatigue SPerrin@aol.com Pendragon to RuneQuest SPerrin@aol.com Steve Perrin's fatigue Loren Miller Note rules change in the digest rstaats@mail.lmi.org Re[2]: Current Sorcery draft alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk Pendragon to RuneQuest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 16:33:13 -0400 Subject: Re: Running and fatigue The discussion of fatigue and running brings to mind the basic Roman theories on how long a soldier can fight. As I recall my second-hand source, a Roman legionnaire was expected to fight all-out for about 15 minutes before he fell back for another to take his place. During that time he could be expected to lose some efficiency, but not enough to drastically curtail his activity. More important--this same legionnaire was expected to be able to step in to replace another soldier within an hour or so. In various desperate battles, of course, they were called on a lot sooner or never got a break. At this point in my Celtic Faerie campaign, we have had one major fight. The two fighters in chainmail (both in the >STR, <2*STR range) fumbled or exceeded their Fatigue Thresholds at least once, but the fight was almost over by that time. In regard to the running discussion on my Fatigue system, I can see the pertinence of several arguments, but at this point the system I've adopted seems the simplest for me to keep track of. Of course, the NPCs I had to deal with were two monsters with 100% as their Thresholds (CON 25 + 75). One even fumbled with a 100 roll, but again, by that time he was losing anyway. Also, for the staticians in the group, I'm using a 10% critical rule with starting %iles even for young characters usually at least 20+%. Yet, in the course of the combat Tuesday evening we had three criticals (one being for a Scan roll) and almost a dozen Fumbles (using 99-00 as fumbles). The NPC sidhe sorcerer managed to fumble his sorcery roll twice in a row! What are the odds ladies and gentlemen? (that's a rhetorical question, folks) Ah well, good discussion, folks. Oh yes, Eric Rowe pointed out that combat will tire out anyone, even someone in relatively light gear. My take on this (Created as I type) is that for short-term combat someone is going to lose at least one Fatigue Level, but they will be recovered sufficiently fast after the combat that it is too piddlin' to figure in. Also, it occurs to me that someone in a match knows that when it is over, it's over. He can relax, which is when all the fatigue poisons hit. Someone in a tense combat situation will stay on an adrenaline high until he is either (1) dead or too badly wounded to fight, (2) absolutley sure the battle is over, (3) or fighting so long that adrenaline is no longer enough. I suppose that one alternate to my system would be to keep track of failures but not call for actual reductions as long as the character can make CON rolls (of two minds whether these should be reduced by numbers of failures). Once a CON roll is failed, the PC loses 10% for each recorded failure. For those who were suggesting reductions in damage and SR for fatigue losses: quite frankly I don't as a player want to have to keep track of them and make calculations on the run or mark up my character sheet any more than it normally is. Checking off boxes means I have to keep track of those boxes--looking at two chunks of the character sheet at the same time. I am also finding that I pretty much ignore SR these days in favor of straight DEX. Once I know the DEXs of the characters involved in a melee, I don't as GM want them altering. Where the rules generally call for checking SRs first, then DEX, to determine who strikes first, I am more inclined to use SR as the tiebreaker and, if those are the same, then just use simultaneous attacks or call for roll-offs. Of course, I'm dealing with 10 players, with another who might want to join later. Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 16:33:20 -0400 Subject: Re: Pendragon to RuneQuest Rich Staats provided some useful material on converting Pendragon to Rune Quest but I have some more questions. Unfortunately, a former employer of mine has my copy of the most recent Pendragon rules. All I have is the originals and some supplements. Thus, I have no clear idea of Average Human Hit Points for Pendragon (unless they haven't changed). Also, Pendragon magic seems to revolve around something called Life Force. Anyone have any ideas of how to translate this to RQ? Or should I just use my own system and ignore all the Life Force comments? I left Chaosium long before the possibility of PCs using magic in Pendragon was accepted. Thanks for any help. Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 16:35:47 -0400 Subject: Re: Steve Perrin's fatigue Dave Dunham generally likes my fatigue systems but says: > I worry it'll be prone to minimaxing...< As far as I can tell, the minimaxing character under this system will have a high STR and CON and wear about 3 points of Armor. Sounds like my picture of the average adventurer. Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: Loren Miller Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 16:49:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Note rules change in the digest Dear Digest Readers, Those who read the digest versions of these mailing lists (glorantha-digest, rq-rules-digest, world-design-digest) will notice new phrasing in the RULES OF THE ROAD section. Thanks to Henk Langeveld for his suggestions on rewording them. I hope the newly rephrased rules do no bad, and encourage people in the right directions. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller "I don't have to practice what I preach 'cause I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to!" The Book of The Subgenius ------------------------------ From: rstaats@mail.lmi.org Date: Thu, 20 Apr 95 17:45:57 EST Subject: Re[2]: Current Sorcery draft Hi-Ho! Perhaps this is heresy, but it would be kind of cool (and probably good for sales of later supplements too) to include some unique spells into the spell list whose base MP cost is greater than one. I *like* the things coming out in the recent sorcery drafts, but it still puts quite a burden on the GM to adjudicate attacks per round and effects such as ``how far away can Mungo see using the 3 MP floating flameball?'' Over time, more standard spells would probably have arisen, and their might even be lineages of spells. For example, Bersire was taught the spell the Bouncing Pebble of Shadow-Slayer by his former master, Wilimun. The spell costs 5 MP and can animate approximately 30 small stones to bounce and strike up to 3 meters away. The stones can move up to 3 meters per round or strike once per round. The spell lasts for 6 rounds. The stones will do 2D6 smashing damage. Wilimun in turn was taught the spell by his master Styles who had discovered an old scroll while rummaging through the Halls of the Theocrat (show your age by recognizing the obscure reference! ;-) ). You get the notion. One of the things that used to attract me to new gaming products as neophite was seeing what neat new spells or magical devices were described therein. It seems like a way of adding some fun without having to throw in additional game mechanics. I have done a fair amount of conversion of other spells into RQ over the years without severe game balance problems. (Heresy!) :-) The players have reacted well to it. The new players like the cool spell names and effects, and the old hands like having more specific spells to individualize their PCs. Everyone might learn a few of the ``basic'' spells and manipulations, but they focused on these unique spells. ``Watch out for Skargon! He's got a spell that conjures poison gas. He called it down while we were in a cave. Put out the torches and then we just kept choking. We were lucky to get out alive. This time though we'll be ready! I've sacrificed for a sylph!'' Got to fly! In service, Rich Staats ------------------------------ From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk Date: Thu, 20 Apr 95 23:05:21 BST Subject: Re: Pendragon to RuneQuest > Unfortunately, a former employer of mine has my copy of the most > recent Pendragon rules. All I have is the originals and some > supplements. Thus, I have no clear idea of Average Human Hit Points > for Pendragon (unless they haven't changed). I don't think they've changed. As I implied in my message, the formula gives double the number of RQ hp, though one could argue that "typical" adventurer stats (if not the averages over the population) will be higher in P. than in RQ, as well. Alex. ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #203 ******************************* 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. WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html