From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V2 #108 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, 2 November 1995 Volume 02 : Number 108 TABLE OF CONTENTS David Cake Pages of stats????? Alain_RAMEAU_at_03__paris__t RPG under spotlight again Trent Smith Pages of stats????? Gawain Emrys Ap Geoffrey GMing Hartley Patterson Nippon Loren Miller mailing list outage fixed martin 102541.3423@compuserv Losts of stats! Bruce Lionel Mason GMing Frederic Moulin Losts of stats! martin 102541.3423@compuserv GMing Steve Bonnot GMing 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: David Cake Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 13:12:37 +0800 Subject: Re: Pages of stats????? At 20:37 1/11/95 -0600, you wrote: >Martin Laurie asked how to adjust the "pages of stats" for his NPC's when >the PC's don't follow the GM's script. > >What pages of stats? I generally wing it, but I like to roll up stats every now and then, or scribble down some notes. Partly I find it helps you flesh them out, if they are going to recur. Knowing their stats,etc. Actually rolling for geases etc. or selecting minor skills helps keep every NPC from being the same. Which doesn't really matter if interaction is limited, but... It also helps keep away the temptation for every NPC to be a good alrounder - its good to skilled NPCs who just don't know some skills that you might assume they have every now and then. I also particulary like to actually roll up anything quite strange. I created a centaur vampire recently, and I actually created it in order to do the maths and work out just how tough it is (not quite as tough as the minotuar vampire, from memory). Similarly with unusual magicians - I will actually work out what they've got in detail, to get an idea how it works in practice. And I usually roll up my chaotics, because its fun :-) especially with the funky LOT chaotic feature tables (which encourage creative explanation). I like the RQ4 way of doing things, as a basis for NPCs - almost Goon-quest like. For those without RQ4, you can write things like 'trained soldier' or 'skilled merchant' and that gives you a fair idea of their skills. PCs require a lot of customisation from that point, but NPCs can usually be reasonably defined that way. > I try to keep things balanced--if the PC's are >ambushed at night and can't get off any defensive spells, the NPC's >probably won't have any Protection or Shield up, either. On the other >hand, if a PC wants to try out True Sword, he may find his opponent using >Sunspear. > Well, I try to keep things balanced, but I do believe in punishing them for situations - if they are ambushed at night, its going to be no fun for them, and the NPCs will use all the advantages they have. David Computing Officer |" Life is easily understood as bit strings of logical Arts Faculty UWA |depth greater than their length" - Rebis, Doom Patrol davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au |" Do not think, HIT, it is our way" - Milk & Cheese >Microsoft, meanwhile, denies that the problem exists. ------------------------------ From: Alain_RAMEAU_at_03__paris__tep@internet.total.fr Date: Thu, 02 Nov 95 09:30:03 MET Subject: RPG under spotlight again Today, once again, in France, RPG's are under spotlights, due this time to a young boy who hung himself to a tree. The journalist said he was playing to RPG (but in fact, the very short description of the "rules of the game" sounds more like a murder-party or a killer game). The journalist continued saying that he hung himself because he was out of play. In addition, the journalist said also that in another case presently under police re-examination (the destruction of tombstones in a Jewish cemetary in Carpentras, South of France), the policemen thought seriously that it could be the result of a RPG that took a bad turn. RPG once again an easy target. ------------------------------ From: Trent Smith Date: Thu, 02 Nov 1995 00:37:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Pages of stats????? In my RQ campaigns I've tended to use stats for NPCs most of the time, because the quarters that we play in are intimate enough that the players can obviously see if I've got a real set of stats or just a scribbled piece of paper in front of me. That's not to say, though, that I actually sit down and roll up NPCs and monsters, the few times I've tried that I found it so incredibly tedious that I gave up immediately. Instead, I just re-use the same stock NPCs and monsters from things like the "Snakepipe Hollow Digest," the Stats book from "Monster Colliseum" (which was well worth the $3 I paid for it), or the middle-third of "Dorastor" (if I'm feeling vicious). Even then I usually ignore most of the stats and actually run the combat in a manner similar to what Sandy described, but I like the added crutch of having something substantial in front of me in case I want it, or in case the players grow suspicious. On the other, related, topic, I fudge a lot of rolls for NPC hits and/or parries but I usually keep damage rolls pretty honest. The reason is, once again, that the players can see my dice rolls and outright lying is pretty obvious (whereas inconsistencies with skills usually go unnoticed and at worst cause questions: "hey, didn't that 87 miss last time?"). This is, of course, all just during combat. Otherwise I never use stats at all and on those rare occasions when I roll dice (for an NPC Scan or something) it's almost always either 50/50 or ignored in favor of the result I want. This avoids the problem that someone pointed out of having to constantly update NPC records (especially since my campaign clock moves pretty quickly). Trent Smith ------------------------------ From: Gawain Emrys Ap Geoffrey Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 08:52:05 PST Subject: Re: GMing (Disengage Lurking Device) Sounds to me like Sandy's got the hang of it just right. I wish I could do that (although admittedly I'm less experienced!!), I can do it with some games but not RQ. I keep having difficulty getting a game off the ground because my players keep messing me about but I'm in the process of building up a decent NPC library to make up for my shortcomings even if theirs will still be a problem. What I DO have though, that I find works, is a random plot generator that I find I can create working scenarios on the fly from. You just roll up a main theme, a few sub-themes and some opposition-problems and then guess what they mean. It seems to work. (Lurking Device ReEngaged) G w i m y p G o f e ------------------------------ From: hpttrsn@ibm.net (Hartley Patterson) Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 14:47:46 GMT Subject: Re: Nippon Brad Furst (#103) Sandy Peterson (#106) A number of early Kurosawa films have been rereleased on video in the UK recently, I don't know if they are also available in the USA. One I'd reccomend is HIDDEN FORTRESS, which would make a excellent Land of Nippon scenario if the GM can stop the players from watching it beforehand! It was his last contract film before he went independent. Toshiro Mifune plays a loyal samurai whose daimyo has been killed in battle, he has to smuggle the heir and the clan's gold to safety. The heir is a spoilt teenage girl who has to learn that throwing tantrums doesn't always work! As a bonus, there is an excellent duel with yari. Japan Guide to RPG: http://www.io.com/user/nishio/japan/index.html Includes monsters with pics, history of japan. Written in japanese hi-fi manual English, but that adds to the flavour! - -- Hartley Patterson ------------------------------ From: "Loren Miller" Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 10:44:12 EST Subject: mailing list outage fixed Last night someone decided to dump a 715MB file on the /users disk, filling it up. Because of this digests may not have been delivered to everybody. I know that neither I nor the archivers successfully received any digests from last night. This also means I need to get a copy of the digests. Don't everybody mail them to me at once, but I need the last issue of the glorantha digest, world design digest, and rq rules digest. - -- +++++++++++++++++++++++23 Loren Miller Life at the water's edge is the real life for men and women, and penguins ------------------------------ From: martin <102541.3423@compuserve.com> Date: 02 Nov 95 12:39:04 EST Subject: Losts of stats! Phew, what a barrage! Okay. I see there is a lot of winging and fudging going on out there. Hooray! I do it all the time too, but when it comes to really meaty characters I do do stats, although I rarely, if ever check the rule-book, as Sandy says. After playing awhile (13yrs for me) you remember it well enough for all the important bits. However I have to say that you cannot generate a certain feel to a major monster or bad guy without the stats. I'm not just talking about from the players point of view but from the referees too. I look at it like this; when I'm playing an NPC, I treat him like one of my own characters. Everybody knows that you know your own characters creases so well that you can imagine the guy standing there. Its the same for a major NPC to me. Eg Morthander Deville. Its highly unlikely my players will ever seriously fight the guy, at least not for a long time, though last session he was aiding the Coders, more for his amusement than anything and stood en guard amid an army of battling Orlanthi and Lunars and said "I'm here now, whos first?" Now my players are as Gung Ho as you can get, though they are learning some caution. One player actually _threw away_ his sword rather than have to fight Deville! I hadn't laughed so hard in ages! I firmly believe that when I roleplay Deville the fact that I did his stats fairly comprehensively makes a big difference. I know, just like my own PC what he can do and can't and its fair on the players cos he doesn't change, except with experience like they do. So from one session to the next there is continuity of abilities and therefore persona. When I ask my players "what do you think of Deville" they all say "oh he's really dangerous, don't want to get in his way" etc but they've never seen him do anything other than smirk dangerously! David Cake mentioned chaos too, and I think he's right, you really can't get the true varied feel of chaos without the effort of at least basic stats/notes. Of course if I were Sandy, and a player quibbled, I'd just say in a lofty tone "ah but that comes from a rules source I'm afraid you plebians don't have access too!" though I suspect that like the rest of us, he just throws a cheese roll at the offending player! Martin Laurie ------------------------------ From: Bruce Lionel Mason Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 15:11:23 -0330 Subject: Re: GMing On Wed, 1 Nov 1995, Jason D. Hendricks wrote: > > >Also, how often does everyone fudge. Am I > >alone in this nefarious cheating? > > > I fudge all the time. I also am among those GM's who don't roll up many > stats beforehand. Those I do have are usually either stock (ie: The generic > Mercenary, whose stats vary by +/- 10%), or recurring characters (ie: > Corfax, that nasty bastage Mage who is always offing favorite NPC's while > the characters are away adventuring.) > I find the RQ rules are pretty brutal to PCs so I do tend to nearly always fudge in their favour. My standard technique is to use standard NPC templates (usually 25%, 40%, 50%, 65%, 75%, 100%) but to have them hit slightly more often. However they tend not to criticial at inopportune moments and often do about the same amount damage as the PCs have armor. If I really want to frighten players I roll very clearly marked dice right out there in the open, it's amazing how it changes the game. Of course players have to have ignored several very clearly marked warnings to get themselves in that kind of trouble. Just my 2c, ---Bruce ------------------------------ From: Frederic Moulin Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 15:30:40 -0500 Subject: Re: Losts of stats! >Okay. I see there is a lot of winging and fudging going on out there. Hooray! >I do it all the time too, but when it comes to really meaty characters I do do >stats, although I rarely, if ever check the rule-book, as Sandy says. After >playing awhile (13yrs for me) you remember it well enough for all the important >bits. Well, I hardly ever change a dice or fudge NPC's stats during a fight. I never cheat in favor of the NPC's: If the big bully is killed by one lucky blow, I rejoy with the PC's and remember to put more followers around the next bully. I will from time to time cancel a critical from one of my NPC's, but only in case of minor adventure/encounter. For exemple, if during a hunt a long-term player should have been killed, I will transfer the critcal to a special. However, in any important part of the scenario, I will simply roll right in front of the players and apply the result. I creates a tension around the table that I trully enjoy, and they appreciate even more their victory. I considere that with a group of 8 players, if one get send to 0 HP, then the others should be able to do something, even if it requires to take a free blow from an opponent. And if the worst comes, they still can each try a DI in favor of their friend. If all of this does'nt work, gee to bad ! On the other hand, I don't have to bother about creating ridiculously powerfull monsters (I have allready expressed my opinion about Dorastor's NPC :-). In my game, even a Rune Lord is stressed about fighting 4 average (50%) opponents, because he knows that if I can kill him, I will! As a result, most of my players (and NPCs) run around with POW of 8-12 (DI are expensives), and magic is frightening, because nobody needs to boost the spells to have them work! I make up for the one monster (and the cheat) by having a larger number of lesser ennemies and no cheat. I don't like when my players cheat me, so why should I do it to them? As a player, I have no respect for the type of GM that I have encountered so many time during my D&D years, who creates absurdely powerfull NPC's and traps, then realize that, as predictable, the monster/trap is wipping out the entire party and improvise more incredible ways of saving everybody. I guess my players are not going to kill every gods in GoG, then E-mail to Greg for more stats. And Sandy, thanks for your brilliant demonstration on how to improvise a RL in 30 seconds, that was quite a ride, Waoo! Bye, Fred ------------------------------ From: martin <102541.3423@compuserve.com> Date: 02 Nov 95 17:58:28 EST Subject: GMing Frederic Moulin commented on "cheating" the players. I don't cheat the players in any way, because the whole point of RQ is, thats its a socially interacive story and there are no winners and losers. I'm not competing with them, they are not competing with me, _we_ are participants in a creative experience. My job is to provide catalysts and background colour. I have found, as a player myself, that to die for a cause is fine. A Humakti who dies for his Lord to escape is great drama and I've done it myself. Everybody remembers that. To die just because an NPC gets amazingly lucky is not good fun, its happened to me and it always left me feeling that the character effort I'd put into roleplaying was a waste. Its real life but I don't play RQ to get some more real life, I already have enough of that as it is! As for big monsters/villians etc, I love it when the PCs win against the odds and so do they. And they do get very tense when I roll the dice because I will kill them in a combat situation if thats what the dice indicate. I just don't do it when there is no roleplaying merit to be found in their pointless deaths. Hugely powerful NPCs depend on the power of your players. Just because some like 60% adventurers doesn't mean that everybody else does. I like a variety, but mostly I like to see the players growing and taking on a bigger and bigger role in the world. That usually involves them getting tougher! Of course, fighting a God is a bit silly, this _isn't_ D&D where god killing is a must for those teenage terrors I mentioned. Any teenagers out there, don't take offense, I have two in my player group and they are fine, its just the D&D teenager that scares me! "Oh, yeah, my 26th level mage/fighter/thief/demi-god took on this party of adventuring gods that were trying to enter my dungeon, course they could't get past the Dragon in the 10' room!" So save the stats for Humakt for MERP where one can go hand to hand with Morgoth over a spilt pint of beer........ Martin Laurie ------------------------------ From: Steve Bonnot Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 15:34:03 -0800 Subject: Re: GMing I guess i'll put my 2 cents in. I don't believe in fudging the numbers in combat. Anytime "cheating" is used, even for the noblest motives, the game can get corrupted. If the players get wind of any non-randomness by the game master, a unfortunate roll can and will be a cause great strife and possibly lead to the destruction of the group. Now keep in mind, I am talking about important rolls such as combat and special encounters. Trust between the players and the GM is essential to keeping the game running smooth and the group happy. If the players get the impression that the GM is messing with rolls, the trust goes right out the window. If your group is less that cohesive like a lot of the groups I have played and GM'ed in, trust is the only glue that binds. As a result, I ALWAYS make important rolls in the open. This eliminates any perception of favoritism or ill- will. Steve Bonnot ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V2 #108 ******************************* 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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