From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #75 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Thursday, 9 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 075 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 Steven E Barnes RQR: SR and the Crimson Bat (fwd) Kirsten Jacobus RQR: Some ideas for sorcery. Mike Cule RQR: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #74 Kirsten Jacobus RQR: The RQ scale BRIAN ADRIAN JACKSON RQR: Sorcery rules BRIAN ADRIAN JACKSON RQR: RQ without Glorantha Hugh Foster RQR: Knock-Bat.. Loren Miller RQR: SR and the Crimson Bat (fwd) Kirsten Jacobus RQR: Runes are now not part of RuneQuest Tim Leask RQR: Battle Magic Skill Loren Miller RQR: Runes are now not part of RuneQuest ANDOVER@delphi.com RQR: Runes in Runequest Steven E Barnes RQR: Runes in Runequest David Cake RQR: Runic sorcery ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: akuma@netcom.com (Steven E Barnes) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 11:31:15 -0800 Subject: Re: RQR: SR and the Crimson Bat (fwd) >From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) >Steve Barnes replied >>>I think POW and other stats >>>are exponential rather than linear. Mr. Barnes stands with the loyal >>>opposition on that debate and he disagrees. >> >>When they stop making monsters like the Bat, with STR and POW measured >>in the 1000s, I'll agree with you. > >But the Bat is easily 1000 exponential POW! It eats towns for breakfast! >This is a feature, not a bug. The Bat, as listed in Elder Secrets, has an aproximate POW of 2500. Assuming Champions scale (x2 per 5 points), that gives the Bat a POW 2^498 times that of a normal man (basically, 8 followed by 149 zeroes). I think this is a bit excessive. Of course, you can always dismiss the issue by saying "It is a god..." I don't think the authors really gave this much thought. They probably said "POW? How about 2000... no, 2500?" But here's a different angle on the argument. Lets assume Jareel has a mere POW of 30 (this is debateable, as in the Dragon Pass boardgame, I am told the Bat is fairly wimpy defensively. This is one of the justifications for the "Super-RQ" style of Heroquesting). Anyway, Jareel would have the POW of 32 men. Sounds reasonable. She decided to cast a Bladesharp 5 (for some reason, she has to use her own MP; bear with me...). Suddenly, she only has MPs equivalent to 16 men. A dirt farmer with a POW 10 casts a Bladesharp 5, but only drops by .5 men worth of MP. What gives? Jareel, being 32 times more powerful, should be able to cast 32 times as much magic. Also, if she sacrifices one point of POW, that should be 32 times more significant than if the dirt farmer sacrifices a point... Regarding the RR table, I once tried a system that was something like this: MPs used penalty - ----------------------- 0-49% 0 50-74% -5 75-89% -10 90-94% -20 95-100% -40 While not perfect, it has some hope of working for characters with high POWs... (By the way, the penalty was applied to all skills, not just magical combat) - -steve ------------------------------ From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Kirsten Jacobus) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 95 14:44:29 -0500 Subject: RQR: Some ideas for sorcery. I'm going to playtest the following rules should I have any sorcerous characters in my Pavis campaign (I may have a Carmanian.) Anyhow, here's the ugly version: Each spell is a separate skill. I'm keeping the High/Low divisions of the spells and the concept of traditions. Manipulations are not skills. They are QUALITATIVE abilities. The first manipulation, Intensity, is acquired upon sacrificing a point of POW under a Wizard's tutelage. Adepts have all the manipulations of their tradition, possibly at the cost of another POW. I'd like to figure out how to make this less of a drastic jump, but the caste-nature of the West does sort of lead to it. Perhaps a midpoint that costs another POW and gets you half the remainder? Learning manipulations outside your tradition requires a cooperative Wizard who has that manipulation and an expenditure of 1 or more POW per manipulation. Okay, so you have your spell percentage. Every level of manipulation added to the basic spell is a -5 perentile penalty to your roll. If you are attuned to a particular manipulation, you can use it. If not, you can't. POW expenditure for extending effects of various manipulations is still an option. The actual numeric values of things like Range, Duration, etc., are an entirely different matter that is peripheral to my basic idea. Okay, I can see people getting all hissy over aspects of this because it makes sorcerers so qualitatively different from non-sorcerers. In RQ there is ample justification. Priests, Lords, and Shamans are all qualitatively different from each other and from the common members of their societies. Thus, it is not too jarring to have sorcerers also be so. It also cuts down the rampant skill proliferation that Sorcery was digging far too deeply into, even for my taste. The use of manipulations is self-limiting, since every level of manipulation is a cumulative -5 to the roll to cast a particular spell. Whether or not to use the rolls as a means of eliminating MP expenditure is another matter. I am going to try it in such a way that sorcerers don't expend MP but a fumble "crashes" the spell so that it can't be used until the sorcerer is able to meditate uninturrupted for a day. Simple failure just keeps the spell from working. Note: I am also testing the "spirit magic only fails on 96-00" rule alongside this. (And Divine Magic is always cast, no roll needed.) PS: I'm also going to by using "focus" roll, POW*3, for "fast cast" spirit magic. I think that this combination might work better and give a more mystical and unique set of flavors for the three approaches to magic. I'll be starting my new playtest within two weeks, so I'll report results soon as they come in. ------------------------------ From: mikec@room3b.demon.co.uk (Mike Cule) Date: Thu, 09 Feb 1995 19:42:34 GMT Subject: RQR: Re: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #74 I was thinking about the 'Ars-Magica-sorcery' issue. I wanted (when I brought this up) some way of including the Runes in Gloranthan Sorcery. I have two (alternative) proposals to put forward to achieve this: 1) Use the Runes as background skills used, not in casting magic which remains the province of the individual sorcery spell/skill, but in researching and learning spells. If you have the varying skill difficulties proposed in the RQ4 draft, then these are Hard skills. Mastery-Lore, Darkness-Lore, perhaps? If you allow improvised magic then these skills could be used for the effects, but no spell would need just one <>-Lore skill. Two at least would be needed and this would reduce casting chances. 2) How about a mechanism that involves the Mage's other important characteristic POW? Each spell would require the Mage 'binding' himself to the controlling Runes. The Mage could be limited in the number of Runes he is bound to by his POW. Just suggestions. - -- Mike Cule ------------------------------ From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Kirsten Jacobus) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 95 15:23:36 -0500 Subject: RQR: The RQ scale Okay, the exponential RQ scale is a doubling every eight points, not every five. Look at the SIZ vs. mass chart in RQIII. The table is degenerate at low levels, but once you get to SIZ 8, you have 50kg, doubling at every +8 SIZ. STR explicitly follows the same scale as SIZ. Other attributes are utterly undefined. ------------------------------ From: BRIAN ADRIAN JACKSON Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 17:25:49 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Re: RQR: Re: Sorcery rules On Fri, 3 Feb 1995 SPerrin@aol.com wrote: > What sorcery rules that Sandy put out? I really should contact Sandy, I > suppose, but if most of the rest of the list haven't seen them (are they in > one of the Glorantha Digests I haven't read yet, I wonder) it might be > constructive if we did. If everyone else has seen them, could you email a > copy to me? I didn't see them either, although alot people were talking as if they had a few months ago. Brian Jackson My language is my own, and any resemblance to other languages is a mere coincidence. ------------------------------ From: BRIAN ADRIAN JACKSON Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 17:17:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Re: RQR: Re: RQ without Glorantha > If RQ is be unshackled from Glorantha, these destinctive qualities > could be re-inenforced, into a book that encourages people to write > their own RuneQuest setting, preserving the abmiguity and empowerment > that has been sucked dry from the marrow of Glorantha's broken bones. > > Regards > > -- Guy Robinson -- I think I have said this before, but in support of Guy's comments. I have used the RQ3 rules (never played RQ2) in 6 non-Glorantha campaigns with only minor rule mods in each case. (Although I am always tinkering around with the rules). I have faced many of the problems with Glorantha material mentioned in by Guy but, being a rather independant sort, I just made my own stuff up rather than worrying about being contradicted by offical material. Not that I ever use material directly out of a source book anyway. Brian Jackson My language is my own, and any resemblance to other languages is a mere coincidence. ------------------------------ From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> Date: 09 Feb 95 15:45:27 EST Subject: RQR: Knock-Bat.. >>have seen this before. Knockback makes for some dramatic situations. But not many people seem to use knockback rules.) << To quote Roger Rabbit: "Only when it was funny!" Or in this case, when dramatically appropriate. Basically, if a character hits another so hard as to make me think, "he should fall over", DEX roll or over he goes. Snap decisions speed things up, I find.. >>Fantasy Europe, judging by the map in the RQ III rules, is Europe between 650-700 AD. ... I have always hoped that this would be developed more! And this from someone who owns just about every bit of Glorantha stuff it is possible to own! << Same here! Hugh "Viking Battles" Foster. ------------------------------ From: "Loren Miller" Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 16:02:32 EST Subject: Re: RQR: SR and the Crimson Bat (fwd) Steve Barnes again: >But here's a different angle on the argument. Lets assume Jareel >has a mere POW of 30 (this is debateable, as in the Dragon Pass >boardgame, I am told the Bat is fairly wimpy defensively. This is >one of the justifications for the "Super-RQ" style of Heroquesting). > >Anyway, Jareel would have the POW of 32 men. Sounds reasonable. >She decided to cast a Bladesharp 5 (for some reason, she has to use >her own MP; bear with me...). Suddenly, she only has MPs equivalent >to 16 men. A dirt farmer with a POW 10 casts a Bladesharp 5, but This is the primary reason why I agree with Steve Perrin when he suggests getting rid of MP expenditure for magic. It allows us to get away from the linear application of what I believe to be an exponential score. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller LOREN@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Life at the water's edge is the real life for men and women ------------------------------ From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Kirsten Jacobus) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 95 17:01:37 -0500 Subject: RQR: Runes are now not part of RuneQuest Sorry to disillusion the grognards, but the terms of the current agreement pretty much say to me that ANY "runic" system will not appear in the RuneQuest main rules book. The "runes" of RuneQuest are, and have always been purely Gloranthan constructs (and they're just Godlearner things, anyway). Thus, there will be no "runic" sorcery, since the "runic" system of "RuneQuest" is purely Gloranthan. ------------------------------ From: Tim Leask Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 09:29:06 +1100 (EST) Subject: RQR: Battle Magic Skill If we are looking at the possibility of a focussing skill how about looking at battle magic spells themselves and see if they can be improved. I never liked the total game construct of variable battle magic spells like bladesharp. Characters should simply know the spell bladesharp. IMHO the variable effect should be at the time of casting. What do others think of the following of the cuff idea. Battle Magic works thusly: Spells don't have levels - there is no bladesharp 1,2,3,4 there is simply bladesharp. If doing a rapid cast you must roll your focussing skill and expend 1 magic point. If the skill roll succeeds roll 1D4 to see the level of effect. A result of 4 is equivalent to a bladesharp 4,a result of 1 is the same as bladesharp 1. A special success means roll 2D4 a critical does a bladesharp 8. Each magic point expended during casting increases the success chance by 10%. It takes 1 strike rank per magic point expended to cast a spell. For slow spell casting for each round spent preparing to cast a spell the base casting chance(100%) is increased by 20%. Humakti could perhaps roll 1D4+1 for bladesharp and 1D4-1 for heal. Feel free to offer any improvements,additions,criticisms (constructive only) Tim "God Learner" Leask ================================================================================ Department of Computer Science /*\__/\ "Anyone can hold the helm when University of Melbourne < \ the sea is calm." Parkville, Vic., 3052, AUSTRALIA \ _ _/ -- Publilius Syrus Phone: +61 3 282 2439 \| -- e-mail: tsl@cs.mu.oz.au ================================================================================ ------------------------------ From: "Loren Miller" Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 17:53:25 EST Subject: Re: RQR: Runes are now not part of RuneQuest Bryan writes: >Sorry to disillusion the grognards, but the terms of the current >agreement pretty much say to me that ANY "runic" system will not >appear in the RuneQuest main rules book. There's ample precedent for inventing new schemes of runes in the introduction of the RQ3 books, and naturally in the NAME of the system. So why not include a "Runic" sorcery system that basically gives each school its own (probably unique) "rune"? In Glorantha each school would have a (probably unique) combination of Runes instead, but that's just a special case. There's no reason that the scheme for differentiating "runes" in the generic RQ rules has to match the Gloranthan one(s), especially if Chaosium are going to be ninnies about it. Call the runes Cleft and Wild and Rush and Standing and Four-Directions instead, or any arbitrary set of meaningful or meaningless names. You don't even have to use 4 or 5 or 6 elements. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller LOREN@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu Life at the water's edge is the real life for men and women ------------------------------ From: ANDOVER@delphi.com Date: Thu, 09 Feb 1995 18:53:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: RQR: Runes in Runequest So let's get this straight: we are talking about a game called Runequest, which won't mention runes? I don't think that you have to be a grognard to see a problem here! If I am a newbie to the game, I would expect it to have something about questing for runes! Or is this bad old grognard thinking? Jim Chapin ------------------------------ From: akuma@netcom.com (Steven E Barnes) Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 16:27:31 -0800 Subject: Re: RQR: Runes in Runequest >So let's get this straight: we are talking about a game called Runequest, >which won't mention runes? I don't think that you have to be a grognard >to see a problem here! If I am a newbie to the game, I would expect it >to have something about questing for runes! Or is this bad old grognard >thinking? Jim Chapin Bad Grognard! :-) I think we all agree that Glorantha is very important to the future of RQ, but this looks like another plan to repeat the "Fantasy Europe" fiasco of RQ3... - -steve ------------------------------ From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 09:18:35 +0800 Subject: RQR: Runic sorcery >I was thinking about the 'Ars-Magica-sorcery' issue. I wanted (when I brought >this up) some way of including the Runes in Gloranthan Sorcery. I have two >(alternative) proposals to put forward to achieve this: > Oddly enough, one of the barriers to using the Runes in Gloranthan sorcery is probably Greg. While he was originally came up with this idea, he has now changed his mind. So don't expect overwhelming enthusianm for runic sorcery systems. But Greg can be convinced. >1) Use the Runes as background skills used, not in casting magic which remains >the province of the individual sorcery spell/skill, but in researching and >learning spells. If you have the varying skill difficulties proposed in the RQ4 >draft, then these are Hard skills. Mastery-Lore, Darkness-Lore, perhaps? > This seems to make a very big change to the ways spells are learned. How will this fit in with the unique spells for each school ? I have one big complaint with this idea - it adds more skills for sorcerers to learn. Sorcerers are already the most overloaded with skill requirments of anybody. Please don't give them more! >If you allow improvised magic then these skills could be used for the effects, >but no spell would need just one <>-Lore skill. Two at least would be >needed and this would reduce casting chances. > In my experience, runic magic schemes that involve combinations of runes for spells tend to run into the problem that there are too few verbs. For about half the spells, one of the runes seems to be Mastery. Magic covers another fair few, and then runes like Stasis are lucky to get one. Basically, the Runes where not devised with this purpose in mind, and trying to make them match up to a spell list does not work well. >2) How about a mechanism that involves the Mage's other important >characteristic >POW? Each spell would require the Mage 'binding' himself to the controlling >Runes. The Mage could be limited in the number of Runes he is bound to by his >POW. > I think Sorcerers should have more to do with their POW, as currently they have little to do except enchant. I favour the Presence/Vessel system of Paul Reilly's, as long time list-members know. Cheers Dave >Just suggestions. > >-- >Mike Cule ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #75 ****************************** 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.