From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #118 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 118 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 Charlie Domino More Befuddling David Dunham via RadioMail Befuddle; RunePower Priests Steven E Barnes Befuddle; RunePower Priests Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederla Hugh Foster RunePower Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox. Non-Random Generation Liam_McCauley@ccgateshead.qs Arrgh! Not STORYTELLER! :-) SPerrin@aol.com Befuddle; RunePower Priests ANDOVER@delphi.com Befuddle (can't resist)! Steven E Barnes Befuddle (can't resist)! Styopa Original RunePower David Cake Alternatives to the Great Compromise ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charlie Domino Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 00:20:06 -0600 (CST) Subject: More Befuddling My personal experience with Befuddling was to run it exactly as the rules said. And I didn't like it in RQ 3. I haven't done enough with RQ 3 (maybe 2 dozen sessions) but changing it to RQ 2 style where parries were still allowed was something I have been seriously considering. My understanding of the spell (possibly from RQ2) is that it interferred with *higher* reasoning functions, hence the difficulty in recovery that high Int characters have. If this is the case, why should an experienced soldier/warrior/adventurer fail to parry out of sheer situational reflex? I think the RQ3 rule is based on the character being so confused by his own tangled logic, he just doesn't notice the attacker. Which seems pretty silly to me; just make up a spell called "Blind Sitting Duck" at a cost of two points. Alternately, you could argue he does see that attacker, but doesn't understand the other guy is swinging a Nasty Sharp Chopping Thingie with Intent To Kill. But if it affects logic *that* basic, the roll shouldn't be inverse to INT! ===================================================================== "What are we going to do tonight, Brain?" "Something we don't do every night, Pinky. Succeed in taking over the world!" =========================cdomino@icsi.net=========================== ------------------------------ From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 22:28:12 -0800 Subject: Re: Befuddle; RunePower Priests Steve Barnes puts up a straw man >I forgot to reply to a message a couple days ago, defending the >inverse-Int roll to shake off the befuddle: It was probably my message, and I was passing on Chaosium's justification. >I have a "Weakness" spell. It uses your own STR against you. >To shake off the Weakness, you must roll above your STRx5. >I have a "Fumble" spell. It uses your own agility against you. >To shake off the Fumble, you must roll above your DEXx5. >Does anyone think these spells make sense? Of course not, you made them silly. But how about I have a "Lock Muscles" spell. It uses your own STR against you. To unlock your muscles, you must roll above your STR*5. I have a "Double Speed of All Your Movements" spell. It uses your own DEX against you. etc. 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. Just by being an initiate you get an annual POW gain roll, so building up POW is just a matter of time. Under RQ3, being a priest is a mechanical matter of filling in the squares. "Jump 50%? Check. Sacrificed POW, 10 points? Oops, let me sacrifice 2 more. OK, check." This is not to say it's worse than RQ2. I saw one character become a priestess after her first adventure. After all, she started with a 17 or 18 POW. As opposed to my character: "Damn, failed my POW gain again" (after all, you had a mere 20% chance of increasing from 17). ------------------------------ From: akuma@netcom.com (Steven E Barnes) Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 23:48:51 -0800 Subject: Re: Befuddle; RunePower Priests From: David Dunham (via RadioMail) >Steve Barnes puts up a straw man > >>I forgot to reply to a message a couple days ago, defending the >>inverse-Int roll to shake off the befuddle: > >>Does anyone think these spells make sense? > >Of course not, you made them silly. Unfortunatly, your counter-examples are equally silly. >But how about >I have a "Lock Muscles" spell. It uses your own STR against you. To unlock >your muscles, you must roll above your STR*5. Why is this related to STR at all? If anything, being stronger makes it harder for an enemy to control your muscles. This is like saying it is easier to Harmonize a strong person, compared to a weak person. This is a particularly bad example, as a midget, with a STR proportional to his SIZ can break out easily, but a large Troll, whose STR/SIZ ratio is the same, will have a very hard time... >I have a "Double Speed of All Your Movements" spell. It uses your own DEX >against you. etc. Again, silly. Having a high DEX enables you to better coordinate your actions, even if moving at double speed... To get back to Befuddle, I remain unconvinced of there being any reasonable explaination of inverse stat rolls, other than "punish the powergamer". - -steve ------------------------------ From: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 09:19:10 +0100 Subject: Re: Hugh Foster RunePower > > ... It makes sense. You sacrifice POW and "learn" > certain spells; then you have a pool of points [ ... ] > Single-use users lose the "knowledge" after one use; > priests et al keep it. Not the spell knowledge [Awful AD&D concept], but the points spent casting a spell cannot be renewed. Henk Langeveld ------------------------------ From: Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 00:49:07 PST Subject: Non-Random Generation Received: by eccles.wgc.rx.xerox.com (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA03579; Tue, 28 Feb 95 08:48:36 GMT When I playtested RQ4 one of my players generated a character used the design system. He built a hyped up sorcerer that was physically as weak as possible but was as magically strong as he could get. This magical power was invested into two items: a sphere that offered something like 22 AP to everything within the radius of one meter and a self-activated spell that sought to counter any magic cast at him. Oh yes and he was a pauper, as he had reduced his Wealth to 0. Don't get me wrong he was a good playtest player as he saw everything through the cold eye of logic. And I am confident that most of these issues will have been addressed in RQ4. It was him that pointed out that a system that awarded better Pow gain rolls to characters with low Pow could encourage people to sack their Power to a really low level (making a huge item of course in the process) and subsquently farm their Pows at that this new reduced rate, making lots of items that require only smaller amounts of Power. But if this player could have stripped his character of all social ties to make him more powerfull magically he would have done so. Such a pauper outlaw, reviled by all would be unplayable as probably even associating with such a pariah would no doubt condem characters who had not benefited from his disadvantages. I prefer myself a semi-random system where characters can be nurtured into the style of play the players want. A raw design system tends to lead to too many rough edges. People on rec.games.frp.misc have reported accounts of rolling 3d6 as a base from which to buy points for Hero attributes, instead of starting all Hero attributes at 10. Further more advantages and disadvantages should be provided in sets so players and GMs can drop sets that do not appeal to them. For if someone is unfamiliar with Glorantha, or a freshly written RQ background, the doling out of social pros and cons at character generation time could be a mistake. I recommend that people look to Cyberpunk (if this is the right game) with its Traveller-ish skill system coupled with a random life events table to add flavour and dole out these kinds of pros and cons Just some food for thought, Guy Robinson ------------------------------ From: Liam_McCauley@ccgateshead.qsp.co.uk Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 14:34:02 -0000 Subject: Re: Arrgh! Not STORYTELLER! :-) Jonas Schiott does not seem to be the biggest fan of WW's Storyteller system (:-) just to explicitly set the tone for this message). I would like to remind him that Ars Magica has a much superior system (with a couple of bits... er... similar to Runequest - e.g. 1h weapons cannot attack & parry in same round [pre RQ3 errata]), to WW's Storyteller. In fact, it is widely recognised that the One True Edition of Ars Magica is the 2nd Edition, developed by Lion Rampant, rather than the 3rd Edition produced by White Wolf. Hmm, now where have I heard that before...? Cheers, Liam Who, the more observant of you might have noticed, quite likes Ars Magica. ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 15:21:43 -0500 Subject: Re: Befuddle; RunePower Priests Steve Barnes says >To get back to Befuddle, I remain unconvinced of there being any reasonable explaination of inverse stat rolls, other than "punish the powergamer".< Sounds like a good reason to me. :) Also, there's a certain whimsy to it that is also appealing. As much as we RQ rules writers like to tout our reality-based rules, sometimes--especially with magic, a notoriously hard subject for realism--we write it up to fulfill our own prejudices and sense of fun. Secrets Of The Game Geniuses Revealed!!!! :)!!! Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: ANDOVER@delphi.com Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 17:23:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Befuddle (can't resist)! OK, I said I wouldn't say any more about this line I already started, but it seems to be going on fine without me! The RQ 3 befuddle is clearly worse than sleep in AD & D because just about everyone can cast it and a befuddled person is DEAD, especially if several people walk up to him and hit him! Tjose who don't object to befuddle don't object because they haven't been following the RQ 3 rules!: they have been playing RQ 2 or giving extra saving throws, etc. My problem isn't the INT X 5 roll, that is kind of cute, my problem is with a widely-used spell with that kind of power. Martin's comment about Sever Spirit interfering with a player's fun because he is dead isn't really on point: last time I looked Befuddle was a tad more comon than Sever Spirit, to a ratio of many times to one! And the number of cults that have Sever Spirit is what: three? Frankly, the spell is basically a bad idea (in that respect like AD&D's sleep). But if we must keep it: bring back the parry/defend rule against someone hitting the character, and cut the number of cults that have it to those that make sense: Illusion, Moon, Eurmal, Uleria, whatever. Jim Chapin ------------------------------ From: akuma@netcom.com (Steven E Barnes) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 14:33:07 -0800 Subject: Re: Befuddle (can't resist)! >OK, I said I wouldn't say any more about this line I already started, >but it seems to be going on fine without me! The RQ 3 befuddle is >clearly worse than sleep in AD & D because just about everyone can >cast it and a befuddled person is DEAD, especially if several people >walk up to him and hit him! You don't lose your attack / parry action, unless you attempt to roll above your INTx5 to become unbefuddled. Thus the befuddled person is *not* helpless, just confused. As a player, I wouldn't attempt to do the INTx5 thing, unless I was at a safe distance from any potential attackers (I.e. everyone, including my friends) Of course, I favor the RQ:AiG writeup of Befuddle, which eliminates all my complaints about the spell. >a widely-used spell with that kind of power. Martin's comment about >Sever Spirit interfering with a player's fun because he is dead isn't >really on point: last time I looked Befuddle was a tad more comon than >Sever Spirit, to a ratio of many times to one! And the number of That was me, actually. - -steve ------------------------------ From: "Styopa" Date: Tue, 28 Feb 95 21:06:39 CST Subject: Re: Original RunePower On Mon, 27 Feb 95 17:26:38 EST, David Cheng wrote: >It seems RunePower has held on as a topic longer than usual. >If anyone doesn't have access to Tales #12, email me, and I'll send you a >full text version of the article. >-DC > >* David Cheng drcheng@sales.stern.nyu.edu cheng@io.com > (212) 472-7752 [before midnight EST] > > i'd like a copy, if i could.. tks! ------------------------------ From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 11:36:54 +0800 Subject: Re: Alternatives to the Great Compromise >Received: by eccles.wgc.rx.xerox.com (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA03031; Mon, 27 Feb >95 16:43:13 GMT > >Obviously the Great Compromise is not suitable for generic RQ >campaigns as it is proprietory, it apparently leaves the gods >without free will and the concept of all the gods agreeing to >one thing is not something that can be applied to many >backgrounds. > >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. 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. Similarly a Moorcock world (OK, so almost noone will be adapting RQ4 when they could use Elric instead. But its the principle). Who knows, someone might even want to use RQ4 to run something like DragonLance, which has the odd incarnate god running around, I think. Cheers David ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #118 ******************************* This is the bottom of the RuneQuest Rules Digest. RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill, and Glorantha is a trademark of Chaosium. 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