From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #44 Reply-To: rq-rules Errors-To: owner-rq-rules-digest Precedence: bulk Content-Return: Prohibited Return-Path: owner-rq-rules-digest RQ Rules Digest: Monday, 21 August 1995 Volume 02 : Number 044 TABLE OF CONTENTS Graydon Very high skills and survival Phil Johnson Very high skills and survival Crom Monster Coliseum Phil Johnson Very high skills and survival Thomas Michael Cantine Very high skills and survival Cedric Chausson XP system Craig K Repost about DI Craig K Above 100% XP Frederic J Moulin various stuff RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to add "Yeah, I agree" or "No, I disagree." Or be excoriated. If someone writes something good and you want to say "good show" please do. But don't include the whole message you praise. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. 3. Learn the art of paraphrasing: Don't just quote and comment on a point-by-point basis. When paraphrasing you demonstrate exactly how well you understand the point someone was trying to make. 4. There is no number 4. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Graydon Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 16:37:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Very high skills and survival On Sun, 20 Aug 1995, Cedric Chausson wrote: > In RQIII experience throws are done with a d100, you get to add > your skill category modifier and if the result if superior to your > present skill, you add 1d6 or 3 points. This essentially means that > since most category skill modifiers very from slight minus to say > maximum 10-15% basic skills cannot improve after reaching the 115- > 120% range. This, of course, if no magic is involved. Uh, nope. Skills over 100% are a special case, and advance if your roll is over 100% after adding your category modifier. (This is right after 'Increasing Skills by Experience' in the Players' Book - 'Exceeding 100% in a skill') So those with positive category modifiers can keep advancing forever in that category. The think I dislike is that it does nothing to the 96-00 failure rule; I'd say that over 100, it becomes 97-00, over 200, 98-00, and so on, but you can never quite get rid of it. saundrsg@qlink.queensu.ca | Monete me si non anglice loquobar. ------------------------------ From: "Phil Johnson" Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 13:07:24 GMT+800 Subject: Re: Very high skills and survival > > The think I dislike is that it does nothing to the 96-00 failure rule; > I'd say that over 100, it becomes 97-00, over 200, 98-00, and so on, but > you can never quite get rid of it. > Yes, once you start going over the 100% mark your special and critical ranges increase and thus your failure range decreases eg.. Skill - 150% Crit = 8% <150 / 5% = 7.5% ( rounded up )> Special = 30% <150 / 20% = 30%> Failure = 1% <(150 - 100 = 50) = 1% ( Failure is 5% of difference between 100% and actual skill if it is a negative number and in this case it is not so failure is 1% or a roll of 00% on the dice)> To Demonstrate Failure calculations refer below.. Skill = 50% Crit = 3% <50 / 5% = 2.5 ( rounded up )> Special = 10% <150 / 20% = 10%> Failure = 98% <(50 - 100 = -50) = 3% ( Failure is 3% counted down from 100% so the range is 98% - 100%)> Phil. P.S. This seems to make perfect sense to me written this way but May be extremely confusing to others. Please don't flame me..! ------------------------------ From: crom@erinet.com (Crom) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 01:01:39 -0400 Subject: Re: Monster Coliseum >Well, considering they gave you all the same stuff in an issue of White >Dwarf for what, GBP3.50, i think its not worth it. > And which issue was that, hmmmmmm? C'mon - GIVE! >> CRoM << crom@erinet.crom "Your destiny is a noble, and a sorrowful,[sic] one. It is not yet done..." -- Michael Moorcock, _The_Chronicles_of_Corum_ ------------------------------ From: "Phil Johnson" Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 15:26:44 GMT+800 Subject: Re: Very high skills and survival > > One day, I had nothing better to do than think about this, I > realized that maybe I could answer this problem while solving another > point which I found lacking in RQIII: rewarding players. > The thing is that in the RQIII there is no system for rewarding > players for good roleplaying, taking risks, having good ideas > etc...Now since I am a master who does not hesitate to punish > severely I also like to be able to reward my players when they > deserve it. But I had a problem how to reward my players since there > is (fortunatey) no level advance in RQIII. > Although I'm probably going to get flamed to death on this I to have a XP system that I implemted for RQ aswell. basically each skill catagory, eg agility can acculimate xp from successful die rolls, initiative, good ideas, and effective roleplaying. these points were marked next to each catagory and if the skill being used was very intensive then the XP rewarded was just for that skill. the reason for me implementing this is that I had a group of players whom went on a very long trek up a moutain range and they were making heaps of climb rolls and agility checks and they all played the "dumb and learn by mistake" group of players eg.. tying each other together securing ropes and lifting their packs after each other instead of carrying them on their backs all the time ( which I penalised them quite extremely for untill they realised ENC was a major factor to all their problems ) thus their characters ignorance at being a bunch of lowland thanes to mountaineers in about a 4 week period wasn't really reflected when their average skill increses was only 10% when they had had to fight in these conditions at least 1/2 dozen times perform some rather tricky rope techniques and the DEX and AGI checks which always kept their character sheets near the ashtray bowl to be burnt in offering to Orlanth should they fail. The XP's were awarded in such a way. Skill successe - 1 point Special success - 2 points Critical success - 3 points Statistic Checks - 1 point Failure roll - 5 points (always learn something from your mistakes..!) Role-Playing - Points as desired. These XP points can be used in three ways.. 1.) To make a failure a success - should a roll be a failure the player could use the acclumated points to make a failure a success eg. skill 50, die roll 60 - player uses 10 XP to make the roll 50, thus a success. 2.) To make a roll better* - The same as above but the player elects to use their XP points to make a roll a Special success or a Critical success. 3.) To increse A skill within the catagory - This depended on the current level of the skill as to what XP to ratio of increase they would have to spend - refer table : Skill Level XP Ratio / increse 01 - 50 10XP for 1% increase 51 - 70 15XP for 1% increase 71 - 90 30XP for 1% increase 91 - 95 50XP for 1% increase 95+ 100XP for 1% increase * A player also forgoes any XP benifits if they artifically increse a die roll However commonsense and GM discretion prevails in any gaming system and one should not allow a player to increse his dodge if all the XP came from successful climb rolls. However what this XP system did open up was the ability to research active skills from books and manuals. That is the player is using a book written by a famous climber while studying climbing so the book has an XP value that the player can directly apply to the skill should the research roll be succesful as the book has a research bonus and a direct XP bonus. eg 20XP to climb once research is complete. These bonuses from books could be applied in the field slowly.. that is the book takes 20hours to read and thus every hour of reading..eg 1hour a night the player would recieve an XP towards his Climb pool or they may elect to recieve the full 20XP bonus once studying the book is complete. Thus Library's become a more visited place in games that I run as players are always searching for knowledge or finding tidbits of infornation about a store of information at some "remote hilltop tower deep within the stinking forest" I hope you like my XP system as it works for me and those that I play with. The main thing is not to be a rules lawyer and not to hand out XP like Tim Tam biscuits. Phil. ------------------------------ From: Thomas Michael Cantine Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 03:59:03 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Very high skills and survival All this talk about additions and modifications to the skills experience checks system reminded me of a very minor modification that I've been considering for some time Specifically, I'd like to see experience checks awarded for fumbles as well as successes, on the theory that the mistake which does not kill us makes us strong. Fumbles can be pretty nasty most of the time, so I don't think I really have a problem with allowing SOME good to come out of it, and it seems realistic enough. Also, the chance of rolling a fumble drops as one gains in skill, so presumably the sorts of stupid moves that led to fumbles at lower skill levels are being avoided (perhaps because they've been discovered the hard way). About the only argument I can think of against such a rule is that it might encourage goofy people to attempt outrageously impossible shots yo increase their chance of fumbling. But if Orlob the Oaf with a 3% self bow skill (let's say he's got a negative manipulation modifier) decides to sprint around with loads of encumbrance until he's about to pass out (-15 fatigue), then jump on a horse (-10, attacker is riding an moving animal) and take a shot at a tiny (-30 for SIZ 1) flying (-10 for moving target) bat in the dark (-75%) just so he can reduce his effective skill for the shot to -137% (although 01-05 will still hit) and increase his fumble chance to 12% (5% of 237) so that he could get a 17% chance of getting an experience check (and a decent chance of shooting his horse), when it would be much easier just to ambush some big animal (it should be easy to pile up at least +30 percentiles in situational modifiers), well, more power to him. I just don't wanna be anywhere near. Too many of those missile fumbles turn out to be "Hit nearest friend". - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thomas M. Cantine "My theory, which is mine, is mine. g9326443@mcmaster.ca And I own it, too." ============================================================================== ------------------------------ From: Cedric Chausson Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 12:34:10 GMT Subject: Re: XP system >1.) To make a failure a success - should a roll be a failure the >player could use the acclumated points to make a failure a success >eg. skill 50, die roll 60 - player uses 10 XP to make the roll 50, >thus a success. Actually I forgot to say that I also allow players to spend their RPs to increase their die roll. They must announce it before the roll and any surplus point is lost. I prefer this to allowing the player to complement the die roll after it has been rolled. Cedric the Heretic C.P.Chausson@stud.man.ac.uk "Violence is always a possible solution... but it is only rarely the best" ------------------------------ From: Craig K Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 16:19:00 BST Subject: Repost about DI Think I sent it to the wrong place last time, so.... >SandyP suggests that 'teleport out' due to DI be limited to just the >person making the DI. This I like. It feels good too; that 10 person >rule was always a bit arbitrary. This would also make it more difficult >for Rune Lords as they would have to abandon their followers. This seems a bit rough really. We have normally played the 10 people limited with the additions that 1. Allied Spirits count as people. 2. People from another cult count as double. This makes it more likely that a fleeing Runelord will take his own followers with him. I can see why you'd limit to one but this makes this kind of DI cowardly whereas being able to take ten people (all your mates for example) can make it a heroic sacrifice, (after all you are loosing power.) >If coming back from the brink of death (ie DIing as you are killed) >you only come back to one hit point. We did this because Rune Lords, >with their 95% chance of successful DI were getting up several times in >each combat. We normally play restored to full health because the character would just get killed again straight away otherwise. If you DI two or three times in a combat you are likely to loose at least 5 or 6 points of power. This is a hell of a lot of power to have to try and get back. We also play that if a Runelord is below 15 power at the end of the year then s/he is stripped of their runelevel status. This normally discourages reckless behaviour 8->. >Sandy suggests that such DI is impossible. We played this rule and it works quite nicely. It makes raiding and destroying temples a dangerous business, not to be undertaken by the faint hearted. After all God's are likely to want their places of worship to be safe. Keith K.Craig@lancaster.ac.uk ------------------------------ From: Craig K Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 16:24:00 BST Subject: Above 100% XP >Although I'm probably going to get flamed to death on this I to have >a XP system that I implemted for RQ aswell. In a similar vein we have used the following mechanism:- Any character who passes 100% can multiple tick skills as follows:- Success - 1 Tick Special - 2 Ticks Critical - 3 Ticks Fumble - 1 Tick A character adds up these ticks and can cash them in next time they make and experience roll. For each tick cashed in a player can increase their experience percentage roll by one. So for example a character who had 30 ticks could increase a roll of 70% to 100% thus making his/her roll and gaining 1d6 experience. We normally rule that ticks are only valid for one season after which they are lost and you start again. Keith K.Craig@lancaster.ac.uk ------------------------------ From: "Frederic J Moulin" Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 16:53:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: various stuff > Brian Tickler reports on some absolutely staggering Monty Hall > games (134th level rangers, etc.) Holy smokes. The worst-case game I > can report is one in 1974 (Steve Marsh as GM) in which my > first-level character came across a one billion GP gem, and was able > to keep it by running out of dungeon before the umber hulks could > catch me. > Of course, nowadays, I'd gleefully hand a pack of PCs such > a gem. "Go cash it in." I'd say, with a straight face. > Sandy P. > Dear sandy, I personally had a much more interesting experience in D&D: Has we were playing a level 1-3 scenario, one of our characters (1st level cleric) stumbled on a random-type treasure: the GM rolled on his mighty table and came up with "stone with 1D100 wishes" I think it was a misprint in the really old edition of the Dungeon Master Guide (I hope it was a misprint...) and asked our player to roll 2D10:as you could all expect, the result came as a double 0: for the next four weeks, we just wandered in the scenarios wishing the monsters away when they seemed really powerfull, loaded with wished magical relics and followed by wished magical monster friends: After 4 weeks, I switched to RQ. Since that experience, I have always played really greedy gods as a gamemaster, and players only get what they pay for with their power: With a 2 PP ID, their is no way you gonna save your 300 followers of another religion... Fred ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V2 #44 ****************************** 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. WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html