From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #93 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, 12 October 1995 Volume 02 : Number 093 TABLE OF CONTENTS Trent Smith Small Stead Economics Delecti@aol.com [none] PAUL POFANDT Small Stead Economics C.D.GRAHAM GRAHAMCD@charlie. Re:RuneMagic Matrices Frederic Moulin Small Stead Economics Hugh Foster Various 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: Trent Smith Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 18:59:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Small Stead Economics Thanks to Paul for confirming most of my speculations about his stead system (which I am anxious to put to use in an actual game, but that's another topic). Frederic also had some interesting suggestions, but I still have a couple of comments: While the idea of dividing the year up into seasons is probably easier than dividing into weeks and multiplying, it ignores the (to me) important distinction that Glorantha's year has many fewer days than Earth's (by about 100, I think). I still think the idea is nice and simple, though, and maybe I'll just set my complicated notions aside. I also had a problem with the practice (though not the theory) of using Craft:(x) skills instead of (x) Lore. Firstly, it clashes with the system I was using before (which is minor), and, secondly, with the character creation system I use (which is a variant on the RQ3 system incorporating the idea behind the Skill Improvement system) characters who were raised as/by Farmers and Herders will have hefty skill in the Lores but nothing in the new "craft" skills. I suppose I could tinker with the beginning skills list a bit, but (frankly) it seems like too much hassle for the minimal benefit. The "extra" rules for Nobles, "freedom" modifiers, special-purpose structures, etc. were interesting, and I plan to save them for possible later use, but they seemed to deal with situations on a much larger scale than what I'm playing with. Right now my players' stead is manned entirely by PCs (at least when all of the players are present) and they struggle constantly to show any profit whatsoever. The idea of setting up ANY sort of government is almost certainly far from their minds. I did like the idea of the "leader" rolling to determine what kind of year it's going to be and the lesser folks dealing with the consequences, but once again I'd use it on a smaller scale. About adding to items to Paul's lists, I can't think of specific numbers to go with them (high breeding number, worthless until slaughtered, not worth much more even then) but my players bred tremendous numbers of rabbits at their stead which became a running joke and figured into a number of goofy sub-plots (such as attempts to market "rabbit juice" and a DI which created several "Holy Rabbits of Orlanth"). Just throwing out an idea... Trent Smith ------------------------------ From: Delecti@aol.com Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 23:03:28 -0400 Subject: [none] trading spell from Issaries has now the added annoyance that the spells traded cannot be regained by the original owner until the new person actually uses them. In the old CoP i seem to remember you could get them back as though you had only cast the spell.<< Actually, as I remember it, you could pray for the spell, but could not cast it till the person who recieved it cast the one they recieved from you. There was even an example of it in the storyline on the sidebar. Asaroth@aol.com ------------------------------ From: PAUL POFANDT Date: Thu, 12 Oct 95 15:24:21 +1000 Subject: RE: Small Stead Economics In reply to Frederic Moulin >I wanted to tell you that I was extremely impressed by your post. Thank you. >Also in agreement with Trent, I think that your basic skill requirement are >a little on the low side. I will most certainly raise them by about 10%. The choice of "Skill_Base" is of course, yours. I picked 30% since I feel that 30% is a simple utilitarian level, easily reached, but with fair room for improvment. 40% sounds good though with other skills adjusted based on reletive dificulty. >The skill used for farming for us is "craft farming", and to raise cattle >"craft herding", we understand the "plant lore" more like the knowledge of >an herbalist, and animal lore like the knowledge of a veterinarian or a >prof. of natural resources... I agree with you there. I used PLANT LORE ect. since they are standardised accepted skills. If you have craft farming/herding ect. I'd say go for it! >About the influence of the rulers: I have one of my players being the lord >of a domain that he divided between his companions. For each new year, >during the sacred time, I make him roll under POWx5 (a luck roll) to This I realy Like. "The Land is the King. The King is the Land!" >I would go with a loss range of 5%-100% for the stock disease: In my >professional experience, I have seen more than one herd wiped out to the >very last cow by diseases, which sometime affect even more than one specie. The 5%-30% loss was orignally meant to be 5-30% loss per season/week until cured. It could easyly cause complete loss of herd if left unchecked. >Slavery is a common fact of life in glorantha, but one can hardly compare >the work done by a slave with the one done by a free man working for himself >and his family. Definately. >I would try to represent that with a modifier to the skill level, depending >on the degree of freedom of the worker. So that the more free a >farmer/herder would be, the more productive he also would be. Of course, Works for me. >And finally the development of common infrastructures (buildings, roads...) ... >Granary: without a granary, a farming community cannot carry surplus in food >over more than one season. >Barracks: necessary to train a militia (that would be commanded by the ... many examples deleted... I can see the influence here of CIV, MOM ect. But I like them; alot. I'll include thoes suggestion in my next draft of the Small Stead Economics. Catch Ya. Paul. ------------------------------ From: "C.D.GRAHAM" Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 09:27:21 GMT+1 Subject: Re:RuneMagic Matrices In CoP the poor old Issaries trader had to give away a tiara with a reflection matrix. How are Runemagic matrix formed/made. Creating a battlemagic matrix requires a lot of sacrificed pow plus a 2pt Rune Spell but I would expect that for a RuneMagic matrix you'd need to do a hell of a lot more Cheers Chris G ------------------------------ From: Frederic Moulin Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 10:05:40 -0400 Subject: Re: Small Stead Economics > I also had a problem with the practice (though not the theory) of using >Craft:(x) skills instead of (x) Lore. Firstly, it clashes with the system I >was using before (which is minor), and, secondly, with the character creation >system I use (which is a variant on the RQ3 system incorporating the idea >behind the Skill Improvement system) characters who were raised as/by Farmers >and Herders will have hefty skill in the Lores but nothing in the new "craft" >skills. Mea Culpa! After posting my previous note, I asked myself "why in the H... did we use that craft skill instead of lore". The answer is a misreading/misunderstanding of the rules from our part. The rules book says " A lore skill does not increase through experience, either the adventurer knows the information or he does'nt". This sounded to us quite harsh! The player could never increase his ability by practicing. So we went to a craft system, and used a rule of experience check after days of farming/herding similar to what is used in the riding skill for exemple. However, reading the Dorastor part "managing a Riskland Stead" yesterday evening, I found the following line: "even if they don't study animal or plant lore, PC working on a stead receive one skill improvement check per season". And this is because practice is considered a forme of research (learning by trial and error). In that case, I have no further problems with using the Lore system, and will revert the old craft skills to lore. (welcome to the world of Gregging...) Frederic ------------------------------ From: Hugh Foster <100326.446@compuserve.com> Date: 12 Oct 95 14:39:02 EDT Subject: Various >> I was there and fighting in the early days of the SCA. Thrusting was outlawed because in the flimsy (read "no") armor we wore in those days, a thrust could really hurt someone and we had no effective padding. Early attempts at helmets had no more protection than a catcher's mask (a few _were_ catchers' masks--my first regular helmet was a combination of a catcher's mask and an Army helmet liner) and a couple of people almost literally had their eyes put out by thrusts at practice sessions. << The other point that I was going to make and forgot is that if you're fighting for an audience, slashes _look_ much better. Stabs are rather boring to watch, especially in big battles. _ _ _ _ ______ _ _ | | | | | | | | | _____\ | | | | | |__| | | | | | | | __ | |__| | | __ | | | | | | | |_ | | __ | | | | | | |_| | | |__| | | | | | |_| |_| \_____/ \______/ |_| |_| - ------------------------------------------------------------ | 12/10/1995 | | Hugh Foster [100326,446] or 100326.446@compuserve.com | |Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto | |you. Their tastes may not be the same. (George Bernard Shaw) - ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V2 #93 ****************************** 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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