From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #81 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Sunday, 12 February 1995 Volume 01 : Number 081 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 Peter Donald RQR: Some heretical thoughts on compatibil Mike Cule RQR: Sorcery Hugh Foster RQR: Card munchkins GAWINTER@aol.com RQR: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #80 SPerrin@aol.com RQR: Checks, point-less R... Paul Reilly RQR: Focussing SPerrin@aol.com RQR: "Runes" SPerrin@aol.com RQR: Fantasy Europe SPerrin@aol.com RQR: Support for expo... SPerrin@aol.com RQR: "Unfocussed" Spirit Magic SPerrin@aol.com RQR: Vivamort Steven E Barnes RQR: Sorcery / Vessels Bruce Lionel Mason RQR: Attacks and Parries ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Peter Donald" Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 02:24:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RQR: Some heretical thoughts on compatibility In a message of Sat, 11 Feb 1995 19:57:37 -0500, Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> writes: > How would you all feel, having to buy > completely new core rules...and also having to re-buy all the packs > (Troll-pak, Dorastor, ROC, Sub County, etc, etc) because a) the > originals are abruptly OOP You mean the way RQ2 and its excellent supplements all went OOP? I only wish more people were of the opinion that old supps are useless because they're not 100% compatible with the latest version of the rules - then I'd be more likely to be able to afford to pick up the ones I'm missing... > and b) they're useless with the new rules set ? Who says they'll be useless? I may the the lone list heretic, but I'd really find it hard to care less whether or not RQ4 is compatible with RQ3 (in no small part because I've given up completely on RQ3 as a cruel waste of trees and moved to slightly variant Elric! mechanics, I'll admit). About the only RQ3 supps I can think of off-hand that would become useless with the release of a completely revised fourth edition would be the PC and monster record sheet packs (products of at best dubious usefulness in the first place). If you consider Sun County, frexample, its strength as a supplement isn't that it provides stats for Jarst Daro, some skeletons, and a Jack o'Bear - if I need stats for 'em in Completely Revised Totally Different Lemon-Scented RQ4 I can whip up stats in a few minutes - its strength is in the background information and the scenarios. The hell with making RQ4 backwards compatible - make it *better*. If it turns out to be fairly backwards compatible, great - that'll save me some time re-statting monsters, characters, and NPCs. If it isn't a significant improvement over RQ3, though, I won't bother to buy it; if it *is* an improvement I'll buy it whether or not it's plug in compatible with the RQ3 material I've got. Either way I'll probably pick up the supplements, assuming they turn out to be of reasonable quality. - -- "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats."---------H. L. Mencken ------------------------------ From: Mike Cule Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 11:47:32 GMT Subject: RQR: Re: Sorcery Steve Perrin quoted me as saying: > >> I wanted some way of including the Runes in Gloranthan Sorcery. I have two > proposals to put forward to achieve this:<< > >>1) Use the Runes as background skills used, ... in researching and learning > spells.... 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.<< And then asked: > Then you are saying that if I have a sorcery skill of 75%, a Darkness > Lore of 55% and a Life Lore of 63%, then the chance of casting the Dark Death > spell is 55% (the Darkness %ile)? Or would there just be some kind of less > drastic reduction to sorcery? > What I am primarily proposing is that such skills are used in learning old (established) spells and creating new ones. To understand the mechanics behind the Dark Death spell then you need the theory. Your spell skill once learned could exceed the theory skills (you learn all sorts of things by practice that theory can't help you with.) But to create a Dark Death Spell off the top of your head you would need to roll *both* Dark-Lore and Death-Lore which reduces your chance still further (to 63% of 55%, if I remember O-Level Maths correctly). > >>Just suggestions. > Mike Cule<< > > And very inspiring ones. > > Steve Perrin Thank you. 'Praise from Sir Hubert is praise indeed.' I'd also like to comment on the fellow who said (sorry for my rotten memory for names. I should keep better notes) that there are very few verbs among the Gloranthan Runes. Well, many more than the ones you mention can be used as verbs (Movement, Harmony, Death/Seperation, Disorder, Fertility, Stasis, even Truth) but on the other hand I agree that Mastery, Magic and Law are the most useful ones. Why do you think Malkioni sorcerers have them plastered all over their robes? And on the third tentacle, why do we need a verb/noun structure at all? I must agree with those who call for maximum backwards compatibility with RQ3 and RQ2 in the rewrite. But I must call for a total rewrite on Sorcery. The system is so badly bodged (My pet hate is the Familiar rules) that it needs a total rethink. Oh, and I used RQ3 from the moment I could afford to buy a copy. I know some people who have stuck to RQ2 but regard them as ecccentrics. - -- Mike Cule ------------------------------ From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> Date: 12 Feb 95 12:06:59 EST Subject: RQR: Card munchkins >>I was wondering if something couldn't be made of the new card stuff, though: there might be some way to use them instead of dice, if the percentages meant something in a card use. << Oh, good lord, no, please don't let the damn card munchkins into RuneQuest as well! I thought even AH were tasteful enough to keep their heads down until the fad blows over! ------------------------------ From: GAWINTER@aol.com Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 12:11:18 -0500 Subject: RQR: Re: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #80 >>It would be simpler to make attacks an opposed roll based on attacker skill >>vs. parry skill = 1 roll by attacker or defender. >Arrrgh! Please don't make us use the resistance table for each and >every combat roll! I am not suggesting it as I like the parry/defense roll. But statistically you can easily generate 1 roll that incorporates both. This might be a nice simplification for those who see RQ combat as too cumbersome. Ditto the comments trying to remove the specific damage to location rules -- simpler but a different feel. Less "realistic". Again IMHO I don't mind longer combats as I really only expect combat every other or third adventure. Re: Human Sacrafice Death cults would logically be involved with sacrifice: I assume that Babeester Gor shrines ritually sacrifices offending males during the High holy days, sacrificing them in such a way as to soak a quantit y of raw earth with the life-blood. This then is eaten by the worshippers who draw strength and perhaps magical power from it. Zorak Zoran probably has a bar-b-que Humakt is too civilized for these kind of rituals Other uses for Sacrafice are to enhance fertility so esrolia might have some earth-fertility ceremonies that called for human sacrafice. Now the ceremonies probably use a ritual substitute for the murder, ie pretending to cut someounes heart out (actually an apple) and then doing ritually significant things with it. Certainly chaos cults harvest the vast magical potential of human sacrifice, Vivamort eats them, Thanatar keeps their heads, Karsht uses them for communication (see Sun Dome County scenario Rabbit Hat Farm) and other scary purposes. ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 13:19:17 -0500 Subject: Re: RQR: Checks, point-less R... Hugh Foster writes: >> How would you all feel, having to buy completely new core rules (where all the weapon skills your character learned suddenly become useless because previously obscure weapons suddenly become standard) and also having to re-buy all the packs (Troll-pak, Dorastor, ROC, Sub County, etc, etc) because a) the originals are abruptly OOP and b) they're useless with the new rules set? GDW have shot themselves in the foot; please don't do that to RQ! << The plan is to make everything very compatibile to previous iterations. Guy Robinson's "tick" system was a great simplification to my original stated rules, and I hope he'll test them as stated at some point. To address an uncopied element of your letter, the original plan is to retain hit points and hit points per location, it's just that these are now thresholds to compare damage against, rather than points to subtract. I believe Guy was using "ticks" for the trollkin because they have only 1 or two hit points in a location, but I hope he'll try it again with studlier opponents. Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 15:55:15 +0500 Subject: RQR: Re: Focussing Paul Reilly here. Graeme Lindsell writes: > How did PCs without Focussing manage to get POW ticks, or were you using >another mechanic? POW ticks came from fame and glory... worship brought power with it. The first campaign we did this in was a Gladiatorial campaign and it worked pretty well. Kind of like Pendragon Glory points. -pr ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 16:26:04 -0500 Subject: Re: RQR: "Runes" Bryan Maloney says two different things: First [on my mail list, anyway] >>If you insist that "Runes" be in the game ..., then I insist that there be no less than ten-thousand Runes. That way, you'll be able to develop settings and systems for RQ without having to completely rewrite the magic system from the bottom up.<< Then, >>I have no objection for a system to handle the iconography of magic and religion in general. I object to pigeonholing that grand tapestry intoa dozen or so arbitrarily chosen "runes". >>Let there be designed a meta-system into which the Gloranthan concepts can be worked. Let not some halfway measure be taken, please. One possible benefit of separating RQ and AiG is that RQ is now free to step back and take the space to present things in a more meta-system format. This would improve the game immensely. >>A game with the detail level of RQ but actual insights into the meta-workings behind it would be much better than just piling on more and more detail until it creaks and groans from the weight of more and more unsubstantiated and un-derivable rules.<< I had already composed and set up for mailing a snippy reply to the first statement when I got to the second statement. The first statement seemed patently silly, the second a very eloquent appeal for just what I want to see. No, the basic game does not have to list particular "runes." It should discuss what a "rune" symoblises in the game and what is involved with questing for one or using it as a guide in a quest. Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 16:26:20 -0500 Subject: Re: RQR: Fantasy Europe Loren Miller writes: >> I do not think that Fantasy Europe was a fiasco _from_the_beginning_. The reason it became a fiasco was that Chaosium and Avalon Hill orphaned it. They never released ANY products for Fantasy Europe or the Alternate Earth line other than Vikings and Ninja. << At one time, there were projects afoot for an Aztec book (authored by Ken St. Andre and an unremembered associate) and a Celt book (authored by Katherin e Kerr). Kit discovered that she could make much more money writing fantasy novels and I think there were money problems with Ken and his co-author (who may have been part of the GURPS Aztec project, I don't know). And, of course, the incentive to do RQ projects of any kind was discouraged by AH's attitude toward getting them out. I also have an uncompleted "Gateway" manuscript by a friend who was so inconsiderate as to die before he got it done. It was called "Thule" but wasn't the northman Thule; it was a frozen island kingdom in the north of Ques tworld. Something could be done with it still, perhaps even turning it back into a Viking adventure... Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 16:26:51 -0500 Subject: Re: RQR: Re: Support for expo... Paul Reilly writes: "How about using the SIZ vs. mass table as a guide for MP vs POW also? 6 ENC on mass table = 1 MP on MP vs POW table. Thus: once you get to POW 8, you have 8 MP, doubling at every +8 POW Hence 24 POW has 32 MP; 32 POW has 64 MP; etc. Rescale Cwim, The Crimson Bat, etc. onto this scale... thus a 2000 POW Elder Secrets monster becomes... uhh... 112 POW, 2048 MP. Hmm. Could work. And then the resistance table make sense again." And then Bryan Maloney writes: "POW and MP are 1 to 1 at eight or lower, then MP doubles every eight. At normal levels, that isn't too gross a gain in my campaigns. It also gives us a reason to call "MP" something other than "temporary POW" or whatever it used to be called. Finally, it puts POW into the same scale as STR+SIZ (By the way, some rough momentum calculations vs. a few weapons gives a fairly rough exponential correspondence between one of the physics energy/momentum/ force measurements and the RQ damage scale. It's as ugly as a five-dollar hooker, but the correlation is there.)" I avoided trig in high school and college, so I have little idea of what this discussion is talking about. However, I am much more willing to believe in a Bat with 112 POW and 2000+ MP, so if this could work, it would be a good addition. Then again, I've been suggesting the abolishment of MP altogether... What would this do to the argument? Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 16:27:55 -0500 Subject: RQR: Re: "Unfocussed" Spirit Magic Paul Reilly wrote: >>Years and years ago I wrote ... about running low-magic campaigns. One feature was to take the old Focussed/Unfocussed distinction (usually Focussed on Self, Unfocussed on Others) from RQ 2 and use it to know when a new skill, "Focussing", must be used to cast spirit magic. The "unfocussed" magic was hardly thought of as magic at all. For example, Fanaticism on Self was just interpreted as the "act of will" which turned on an aggresive fighter's all-out efforts. "Strength" on self would be like those urban legends of the grandmother lifting the car off a trapped child, etc. Even "Healing" could be interpreted as basically non-magic: you are knocked down by a blow, check to see if you are OK, and find that the area just creased your scalp: a lot of blood but no real damage. I.e., the PLAYER decides when to use "magic" but the CHARACTER may think of it as "luck" or "willpower" instead. And MPs keep track of your luck/willpower running out...<< A very interesting rationale for a semi-historical campaign. Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 16:27:58 -0500 Subject: RQR: Re: Vivamort Recent mention of this dire deity reminds me of how he got his name. My wife had been reading James Michener's _Iberia_, wherein he comments much on the uniquely Spanish sentiment "Viva La Muerte" ("long live death"). I'm sure the connotation of the phrase is more on the order of "Hooray for Death," but it made an excellent name for a vampire god... Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: akuma@netcom.com (Steven E Barnes) Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 13:33:32 -0800 Subject: RQR: Sorcery / Vessels I sent Paul Reily's Vessel writeup to the list yesterday. It seems to have vanished. No doubt it is being held up due to size... - -steve ------------------------------ From: Bruce Lionel Mason Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 22:01:22 -0330 Subject: Re: RQR: Re: Attacks and Parries On Fri, 10 Feb 1995 SPerrin@AOL.COM wrote: > One complaint about the RQ system is constant dice rolling of attacks and > parries. Many consider the parries (and defense in RQ3) too much hassle. > > What's everyone's opinions on this? Aside from problems of backward > compatibility (which is a major consideration), what are your opinions of the > esthetics? Does having the responsibility for successful defense in the hands > of the defender a major attraction or liability? Has this system turned off > people you have tried to introduce to the rules? > Steve Perrin As someone who has run a rolepplaying group with over 100 members and had to introduce a lot of neophytes to RQ3 I've found that people like to be able to parry. It's part of the fun. The same way that getting to roll tons of dice for Hero system games is part of the fun. I think an underestimated influence in rpg games is that they are GAMES. An attack and parry system may be very unrealistic but it gives the players the illusion of dueling by rolling dice against each other. I've seen many a technically superb system fall by the wayside because it is too boring to play. Just my 2c worth. - ---Bruce ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #81 ****************************** 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. 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