From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #63 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, 3 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 063 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 Cake RQR: Strike Ranks David Cake RQR: RQ4, and Strike Ranks Bryan J. Maloney RQR: AH and RQ ANDOVER@delphi.com RQR: Whine David Dunham via RadioMail RQR: Fatigue; RQ4 Graeme A Lindsell RQR: RQ4, and Strike Ranks David Cake RQR: Fatigue; RQ4 David Cake RQR: RQ4, and Strike Ranks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 09:26:54 +0800 Subject: Re: RQR: Re: Strike Ranks >RQ4 dropped the idea that they control the combat round, in favor of doing >two actions per round (attack & parry, attack & dodge, attack & attack). >This was simpler, but also doesn't need SR. First attack happens before >second attack, that's all you really need. Who goes first is nice, but >slows things down, and most combat rounds it simply doesn't make any >difference. I disagree strongly that you can do without a method determining first attack. First attack happening before second attack is almost useless, as hardly anyone second attacks unless berserk or desperate. SRs make a pretty good first attack determination system. However, if you really dislike them, make them an optional rule, and use the BRP rule of highest DEX goes first (and second attacks count as 1/2 DEX). I use SRs, and after disliking them a lot as a general initiative system in RQ3, I find that as a simple first strike sytem in RQAIG I like them quite a lot. But I still use the DEX priority for things not covered by SRs. Cheers Dave ------------------------------ From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 09:18:53 +0800 Subject: Re: RQR: Re: RQ4, and Strike Ranks > On the assumption that Strike Ranks should be retained purely because they >are on all those character sheets and NPC writeups, do people think they >should be returned to the RQ2 standard of just regulating who strikes when in >combat? And, if so, what constraints should there be on movement and combat >in one turn? > Yes. SRs became a sort of initiative countdown system, and this was very silly. SRs should be used only as a relative measure - ie an SR should really only be compared to another SR. Of course, this won't actually happen, because the issue is clouded by spell SRs and such. RQAIG did adress the 'when things occur within a round' issue a little. It did this simply by having a lot clearer idea of what was an action and what wasn't. This meant that there were fewer actual uses for SRs - you had your two actions, and SRs where only used to determine if you could do them first, not to decide if you could do them at all. Ie a spell was simply a full action, and SRs where only used to decide if it went off before other actions. I have playtested this a lot, and it works really fine. Cheers Dave ------------------------------ From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) Date: Thu, 2 Feb 95 22:31:54 -0500 Subject: RQR: AH and RQ Avalon Hill has really very little to do with the final form of RuneQuest. It is being revised by out-of-house people on contract. AH lost their last RQ-line head (I believe the quote he used was "I had to get out of there before I went post-office and started shooting people".). They have not replaced him. AH has no specific plans for RQ, for its format or its content. The Dotts really couldn't care less about what RuneQuest actually contains, so far as I can tell from conversation with them. They want a role-playing game for Avalon Hill. The separation of RuneQuest from Glorantha was not a unilateral decision on the part of Avalon Hill. It was the culmination of a lot a bad communication on all sides, including Chaosium's. ------------------------------ From: ANDOVER@delphi.com Date: Thu, 02 Feb 1995 22:33:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: RQR: Whine WHINE! so there, Loren. Actually, I begin to think that there are lords lording it over the peasantry here :) Jim Chapin ------------------------------ From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 19:54:36 -0800 Subject: RQR: Re: Fatigue; RQ4 Nothing like me saying "nobody uses RQ3 fatigue" to bring them all out of the woodwork... I've never met anyone who has, and I don't recall anyone defending them when there was an RQ4 mailing list. As to RQ4, I'm sure it's annoying being a have-not, but that status is a little irrelevant. After all, the RQ4 draft some of us have will not be published -- and was due to be substantially revised thanks to playtest comments. And that was all last year. So the printout probably has little in common with the next draft which will be sent to Avalon Hill. People can comment on the obsolete draft all they want, but that doesn't prevent people from discussing how to use the current RQ3 rules, or wish the game were still RQ2, or talk about how a future Avalon Hill RQ4 can be improved. Mark Hansen said >I have noticed some (not all) RQ-Glorantha-lovers >to be very "critical" of non-Glorantha RQ releases. Unfortunately, the recent non-Gloranthan releases were really bad (unlike the good Griffin Island, Vikings and Land of Ninja releases which happened to come from Chaosium). BTW, I've met Loren, and he is not a she. If she were named Lauren, then he would be a she. ------------------------------ From: Graeme A Lindsell Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 14:59:43 +1100 (EST) Subject: Re: RQR: Re: RQ4, and Strike Ranks Graeme Lindsell replying to George Harris > > Ta-da! (A Gloranthan god). I bet you were wondering when I would show > up. Followed by my return. I wonder if it's the end of some 600 year cycle? > First, strike ranks. I think that strike ranks are a flawed mechanic, > but they do address two issues better than any alternative that I have seen > proposed. These two issues are 1) not all people act with the the same speed > and 2) different actions take different amounts of time. > I think they fail with the 3) the same peron does not act at the same speed every time they try a particular action and 4) increased skill improves ones speed. The Hero action system also fails in this regard, though it has other nice properties. My favourite system in this regard is the Pendragon melee system, where high successful roll hits (though the missile system still uses Dex). This wraps up a lot of things (like attack, parry and speed) in the one roll, based on skill, which IMO is most important. > To satisfy the first issue, I think it is necessary for a mechanic to > have some means of differentiating between the amount that two characters can > get done in the same amount of time. Strike ranks do this by having char- > acters have differing Dex & siz strike rank modifiers, so someone with a high > Dex can get more done in a single round than someone with a low Dex. This is > an issue wherein the RQ4 & RQ:AiG rules completely fail in my view. > The Pendragon system allows one to attampt mutliple actions in a round, at the cost of subtracting 5 from all the skill rolls for each action you attempt ie three actions = -10 to all rolls. (Pendragon is a d20 system, btw). Again, high skill allows you to successfully make more actions in a round compared to low skill. > ` The other issue I want to address is Spirit Magic & Sorcery casting, > but I'll do that in another post. Later. I'll look forward to it. - -- Graeme Lindsell a.k.a Graeme.Lindsell@anu.edu.au Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University ------------------------------ From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 12:25:52 +0800 Subject: Re: RQR: Re: Fatigue; RQ4 >Nothing like me saying "nobody uses RQ3 fatigue" to bring them all out of >the woodwork... I am gradually warming to it, however. I will put the question to my players, and I may well end up using the RQ3 rules. My basic feeling is that most of the time I am not going to bother with fatigue much anyway, so the additional bookkeeping will not bother me that much if I don't do it all the time. The only reason I ever objected to the RQ3 system was the bookkeeping. One thing I noticed omitted from RQAIG/ RQ4 that will need to be in it, BTW, is a rewrite of those spells that alter fatigue (Berserk, Strength of Basmol, Invigorate). To use Strength of Basmol with the new fatigue rules, the simplest suggestion is to make a fatigue roll every round, rather than every 5th. While this may seem to a bit strong (5 times as bad, whereas the RQ3 version was 1d6 instead of 1 - ie 3.5 times as bad) in RQ3 you lost extra points for being extra energetic, and my experience is that people who have cast Strangth of Basmol do some extrtemely energetic things. >>I have noticed some (not all) RQ-Glorantha-lovers >>to be very "critical" of non-Glorantha RQ releases. > >Unfortunately, the recent non-Gloranthan releases were really bad (unlike >the good Griffin Island, Vikings and Land of Ninja releases which happened >to come from Chaosium). > I agree completely with Dave. In fact, I wish they were going to continue the RQ Earth line. > >BTW, I've met Loren, and he is not a she. If she were named Lauren, then he >would be a she. Its not even that simple - I know a male Lauren. Cheers Dave Cake ------------------------------ From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 12:28:55 +0800 Subject: Re: RQR: Re: RQ4, and Strike Ranks > The Pendragon system allows one to attampt mutliple actions in a round, at >the cost of subtracting 5 from all the skill rolls for each action you attempt >ie three actions = -10 to all rolls. (Pendragon is a d20 system, btw). Again, >high skill allows you to successfully make more actions in a round compared >to low skill. > Compare the Star Wars system, where all skills are measured in dice, and each extra action means you lose a dice from all actions. IE shoot one person at 6dice, or 4 at 3 dice. It is not very realistic, but it does make good heroic action (just what you want in both Star Wars, and Pendragon, but may not be what we want in RQ). Cheers Dave >-- >Graeme Lindsell a.k.a Graeme.Lindsell@anu.edu.au >Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #63 ****************************** 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.