From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V1 #147 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, 15 March 1995 Volume 01 : Number 147 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. 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 SPerrin@aol.com Runepower problems ANDOVER@delphi.com Criticals; power levels SPerrin@aol.com Checks as training ... SPerrin@aol.com Criticals; power levels Nils Weinander Criticals and fumbles Steven E Barnes RunePower Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox. Criticals, Specials & Locations David Cake Criticals, Specials & Locations David Cake Criticals; power levels Malcolm Cohen Opposed rolls Erik Sieurin Various Subjects ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 23:53:48 -0500 Subject: Re: Runepower problems Nigel Smith offers: >Perhaps runepowered Divine magic should work somewhat like spirit magic - you contribute points to the pool, which you can use towards the spells you have 'learnt' (sacrificed for?), up to the limit you have learnt. So if you want to stack to Shield 4, you must have sacked 4 points _specifically_ for the Shield spell. If you have 8 pts in your RP pool, you could use them to cast Shield 4 twice, or any other spells you have sacrificed for, as per the usual RP system.< This has actually been said before in other ways, and I still think it is the most viable version of Rune Power. Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: ANDOVER@delphi.com Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 00:30:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Criticals; power levels Re two recent messages from Steve Perrin: >Criticals: it's an elegant solution, but somehow it doesn't FEEL right! I have a feeling that my players like rolling low or high, but I'll check! >Power levels: Gasp! I'm amazed that Steve hasn't been destroyed by various RQ spirits of reprisal! He actually wrote this: "It's like D&D. Some campaigns never get beyond 4th level because characters are killed or otherwise retired before they can get any further. Others have 10th level characters in no time. The GM style is key." IT's Like D&D! Steve, don't you know that all the RQ players spend their time sneering at those snot-nosed pimply faced power gaming teenage D&D players; saying that RQ is much more sophisticated, and then running campaigns in which people become Runelords in three months, having serious debates about what to do with their 150% characters facing off against each other, &c, & C! For the record, of course you are right. Judging from everything I have read on these lines, the average RQ gamemaster is no better than the average AD & D GM, and the average player seems to be about as much a powergaming dweeb. I must say that our style of sticking to the actual rules and playing printed scenarios has resulted in slow advancement as much in AD & D as in RQ. The Rolemaster/MERP characters do better . . . Finally, one of my sons reminded me that we did have a Rune Priest once, in RQ 2. He rolled an 18 POW to start with, became a Humakt Priest, actually proved useful talking to the Blue Ghost in Snake Pipe Hollow, and had his head crushed by a scorpion man on the way out. Oh well.... Jim Chapin ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 01:06:20 -0500 Subject: Re: Checks as training ... Hmm, my last missive got a little cryptic as I expanded my original thoughts... When I said >In a word, yes< It meant I did want to see Hugh Foster's Training system written up fully. Steve ------------------------------ From: SPerrin@aol.com Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 01:38:59 -0500 Subject: Re: Criticals; power levels Jim Chapin's response to my equating RQ power levels in various campaigns with AD&D power levels in various campaigns reminds me of a Champions game I once heard about. For the BRP purists, you might want to go to the next message. Stacy Lawrence (now Thain) was running a convention game. Glenn Thain's villains were being run, so he was helping Stacy out. A PC took a shot at Sunburst (a very studly master villain) and the player said "I do 12d6 so..." Glenn interrupted, "You haven't rolled to hit yet," Player "OK, but I have 25 Attack Levels, so it's pretty sure." Sure enough, the player did not roll 18, and then rolled his damage dice. Glenn had Sunburs t roll with the punch, then attack back. "What's your character's DCV?" "35" "35!!! How does he get to be 35!?!?!" "I have 25 levels in Defense." "No, you can't use the same levels for two different things in the same phase. " "No, I have 25 attack levels and 25 defense levels." "How did you get so many levels?" "I play the character every day during lunch at school." Glenn abandoned the confrontation with the comment to Stacy, "You let him into this game, I'll let you deal with him." And Glenn and Stacy still got married--albeit several years later... The moral of the story is that you can get any kind of super character if you play during enough lunch periods... Oh yes, and I managed to kill a Flintnail Rune Lord in Snake Pipe Hollow myself... Steve Perrin ------------------------------ From: niwe@ppvku.ericsson.se (Nils Weinander) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 95 08:41:13 +0100 Subject: Criticals and fumbles Steve Perrin: >And speaking of skill rolls and special results, does anyone have any >response to my idea of changing criticals to 1/10 (as both Bruce and Ray >Turney have suggested), dropping specials (special effects become those of >criticals) and just reading the "ones" of the %age roll to determine if it >was critical or a fumble? In my experimental rules, I have dropped specials and increased criticals to 1/10 as above, but I don't use the "ones" as in Steve's suggestion. Looking this way at one of the dice seems counterintuitive, so I keep the usual 'low roll = good roll'. As for fumbles I rule that with skill 1-50, you fumble on 99-00, 51-100 fumbles on 00 and 101+ doesn't fumble. On weapon attacks a critical does double damage. Armour coverage is a separate roll and _not_ related to the quality of the hit. I should note though that this isn't exactly well playtested yet... /Nils W ------------------------------ From: akuma@netcom.com (Steven E Barnes) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 00:03:22 -0800 Subject: Re: RunePower Nigel writes: >>I assume that most Runepower advocates also believe the RQ2 >>stacking limits or something similar should be reinstated. > >In which case you would also have to place a limit on spirit magic and >sorcery, or else the Divine magic users would find themselves out-gunned. Yes, I believe spirit magic should have limits, RQ:AiG has excellent rules for that. As for sorcery, it has always been constrained. In RQ3 it was limited by free INT; in RQ:AiG, it is limited by spell skill divided by 10%. Bruce Lionel Mason writes: >> >> To paraphrase my Gloranthan mentor: "A lot of small magic does not >> equal major magic". That means that 20 guys casting Shield 1 should >> be quantitativly weaker than one hero casting his special "Really Big >> Shield" rune spell he learned from Humakt Himself... >Maybe I'm misunderstanding the rules. Assume 20 plebs all know shield 1 >and mindlink 1. Each pleb mindlinks to the high priest who then stacks >all their shield 1's together in one cast onto our friendly neighbourhood >hero who gets Shield 20. I always thought this was the primary use of >Mindlink. You are understanding the rules. However, this was not the primary intent behind the design of Mind Link, as RQ1 and 2 had stacking limits, making a Shield 20 impossible. To rephrase my complaint, a really awesome spell should require awesome abilities. Not simply having 20 guys use 2 points of rune magic on you. In fact, the guy at the center of all the mind links doesn't even have to know any magic at all in order to cast the Shield 20. This is not the way the rules should work. Since Shield is stackable, doesn't this mean that you don't even need the Mind Links? Just have 20 guys cast Shield 1 on a person, and you now have a Shield 20... >See I like this because it gives people good reason to cooperate and adds >a social dimension to high-powered magic. Add it to the temple limits >and it gives you loads of scenarios with PCs travelling to such and such >a temple to learn a new spell. Essentially pilgrimaging. Social dimension is great. That is why I liked the original proposal to allow a group to pool their Runepower... - -steve ------------------------------ From: Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 01:13:31 PST Subject: Criticals, Specials & Locations My facilities for mailing out have become a but flakey but here are some points that I thought I had better throw into the pot. Criticals at skill/10 are pretty usefull as this is an easy mathematical task. Doubling on a Critical at skill/10 is a bit extreme, however. Special should be retained as RQ4 had some clever uses for Specials and I would hate to see this work be wasted. The only problem with this system was that Specials where too rare at skill/5. I would hazard that a 'Noteable' blow at skill/2 might be usefull for this approach. When I was playtesting Steve Perrin's method where hit points are only keep for locations I found myself questioning the unthinkable. Why are we keeping locations if Steve is seeking to simplify things? Do people that that RQ without locations would not be RQ? Regards -- Guy Robinson -- ------------------------------ From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 18:22:37 +0800 Subject: Re: Criticals, Specials & Locations >Special should be retained as RQ4 had some clever uses for Specials and >I would hate to see this work be wasted. The only problem with this >system was that Specials where too rare at skill/5. I would hazard that >a 'Noteable' blow at skill/2 might be usefull for this approach. > I think specials are fine at %/5. I like the RQAIG specials quite a bit. Particularly like aimed blows, and aimed blow specials, and so do my players. RQ4 special combat options (most of which needed a special) had some really interesting effects, but the RQAIG mechanics made them much too difficult. My players, some of whom were quite keen on the idea, looked at the rules and rejected them as being far too much effort for too little gain. IMHO that counts as playtesting, albeit at a crude level. Cheers Dave >Regards > > -- Guy Robinson -- ------------------------------ From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 18:34:54 +0800 Subject: Re: Criticals; power levels >"It's like D&D. Some campaigns never get beyond 4th level because characters >are killed or otherwise retired before they can get any further. Others have >10th level characters in no time. The GM style is key." >IT's Like D&D! Steve, don't you know that all the RQ players spend their >time sneering at those snot-nosed pimply faced power gaming teenage D&D >players; saying that RQ is much more sophisticated, and then running >campaigns in which people become Runelords in three months, having serious >debates about what to do with their 150% characters facing off against >each other, &c, & C! Which is not to say that RQ doesn't need to handle such things well. Ray Turney made several comments a few months ago that made some of us think his game was at quite an outrageous power level, but it had been running for years. For that matter I know someone who has an 18th Level A D&D magician - - after about 12 years of play, under a GM I know to be quite vicious. Whether you do it quickly or slowly, the rules should still cope happily with it when you got there. And as for 150% characters fighting - try Berserk or Fanaticism. I want the RQ rules to cope well with over 100% attacks more because of the various weapon/ skill enhancing magic than my PCs (admittedly some of them are weaponmasters, but the magic is a bigger issue). > I must say that our style of sticking to the actual >rules and playing printed scenarios has resulted in slow advancement as >much in AD & D as in RQ. I mostly use printed stuff too, due to not really hacing enough time to prepare stuff. I still have some pretty tough PCs, though admittedly we have been playing regularly for some time. Cheers David ------------------------------ From: Malcolm Cohen Date: Wed, 15 Mar 95 11:10:36 WET Subject: Re: Opposed rolls Steve Perrin wrote: > I suggested all rolls of "0" mean a critical if the %ile is achieved, a > fumble if not. Cormac the Barbarian with 57% in spear gets a Critical if he > rolls 50, and a Fumble if he rolls 60. Uggh. RQ4d2 reduced the fumble chance from 5% of fail to 2% of fail (approx). I find this an improvement; fumbles still happen in a typical combat but it is nicer (better epic feel) to have the fumble rate much lower than the critical rate. Putting the fumble chance up to 10% of fails would make the game feel like KlutzQuest. Specials folded in to an increased critical chance could work ok though. - -- ...........................Malcolm Cohen, NAG Ltd., Oxford, U.K. (malcolm@nag.co.uk) ------------------------------ From: "Erik Sieurin" Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 13:35:33 +0100 Subject: Various Subjects RunePower: If you are supposed to "learn spell" and "Create RP" separately, then it is OK with, me, the system seems fine, but I tend to think it strange that only the soulforce sacrificed to the deity should count for your Runepower "pool". You can do a lot of other things in service to your god than sacrifice itty bits of your soul. Spirit Magic: I kind of likes Spirit Combat as the method of gaining magic, but thinks it should not always is the spiritual equivalent of "combat", rather of "competition". Here is a take on the "physics" of Spirit Magic: Material beings have organs they can use for useful things. Humans have hands, chaffinches have powerful beaks, hares have speedy legs, etc. Humans know how to take parts of other material beings and use them as tools or weapons. ("Being" here includes rocks and plants, by the way). Spirits also have parts that they use. Some spirits can, for instance, move quickly, or heal wounds, or cause flames to appear in the material plane. A spirit magician gets his spells by taking parts or tools from spirits and uses them to achieve magical effects. (spells derive from spirits) This puts various limitations on his magic. He cannot, for instance, use more than a certain amount of these "tools" at a time, just like a craftsman cannot carry a lot of his tools and still use them effciently. (max points of spirit spells dependent on INT) Also, since his perceptions are directed on the material plane, the magician needs a material representation of the spiritual tool he uses. (the need of foci) So far, so good. But: One obvious way of getting the parts necessary is to cut them from the spirit in question. However, to limit this to the only method gives the image of spirit magicians as robbers. Some may be, but certainly no the majority. Thus I propose, that it is possible for a spirit to remove its "organs" willingly. They will "regrow". However, this si weakening, and not altogether pleasant - confer to donate, say, skin or bone marrow. A spirit will only dole out its precious magic parts if it has a damn good reason. Some reasons: a) The magician has done the spirit a Big Favor. (Example: Protected the tree of a Dryad from fire) b) The magician has given the spirit a Big Gift. (Example: Another spirit spell, or some POW) c) Often, various spirits and spirit magicians will make "bets". "If I can beat you at this, I will do this and this for you". This is not only excluded to spells, of course. The contest is resolved as normal "spirit combat", but some other characteristic or skill than POW is also included. One easy way is that both make a skill/characteristic roll, and POW is important because it determines 1, the number of MP you can loose before goin unconscious and 2, your "damage bonus" (Example: You may have a rhyming contest with a sprite, or a running contest with a wolf spirit, or wrestle an ancestor spirit). Note one important difference: If the character looses, he has an actual loss. He may not necessarily be possessed, but it is possible. He may have to give up one of his spells, or POW, or perform a service, or anything else they may have agreed upon. He may have to take a taboo upon himself ("Since you could not beat me at the running, you may never again wear the parts of a wolf, or harm a wolfin any way") Note that the above examples also assume two things: 1, An embodied spirit can also give its spells away. Since they are not natural, they might not regrow, or they may do so at a very slow rate. 2, There are no such thing as "spell spirits" whose sole function is to dole out spells to characters. The only "spirit ecology" reason I could think of is that they are _bred_ for this by, say, the gods, who want an easy way to produce spirit organs for use by their worshippers..... I also think _real_ spirit _combat_ should be more nasty. In an earlier posting I noted that we have a level between MP loss and POW loss, "Soul Point loss" - think of MP=FP, POW=CON and SP=HP. There are, of course, ways to heal SP. Criticals and Fumbles: I like the idea of reducingthe number of results. The idea ofreading digits instead of making a calculation also appeals to me; it is one of the things I like with Harnmaster. However, there both "0"'s and "5"s count as "critical success/failure". I like the idea that something special happens more often, so I would prefer to keep the special=1/5 chance, institute an equal chance for a "special failure" and have a-not-dramatically- different-result for these circumstances - closer to specials and RQ4 botches than criticals and fumbles. Training and earlier experience: One of the merits with the existing system (RQ3) is that it stresses that you need several different skills, something players tend to forget. A warrior who has high weapon and dodge skills, but not-above-average skills in perception, stealth, and movement skills, must be some kind of duelist or gladiator, and would not be very efficient in a military campaign. Any suggestions of how to do this and keep some freedom and avoiding the troubles RQ3 has when generating older characters? No system I have seen to date has done this. Also, I tend to think that you learn most of the things you know not so much by "training" as by "practice". If I have a job were Craft Wood, Broadsword or Listen are important, surely they would increase? Slowlier if I am a Master and seldom encounters anything I am not used to, OK, but my skills would still increase. Erik (sometimes known as Sven) Sieurin ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V1 #147 ******************************* 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.