From: owner-rq-rules-digest To: rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu Subject: RQ Rules Digest: V3 #55 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, 2 September 1996 Volume 03 : Number 055 TABLE OF CONTENTS Alain RAMEAU Runes Frank Rafaelsen On sacrificing Colin Watson MAGIC ECONOMICS Sandy Petersen Sanity/Other Worlds Tal Meta Sanity/Other Worlds Brad Stradley Sanity/Other Worlds Jim Bickmeyer Enlarging combat options Jim Bickmeyer Real World RQ 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: Alain_RAMEAU@total.fr (Alain RAMEAU) Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 09:38:54 +0200 Subject: Runes In digest 47, Sandy talked about "A Gloranthan Rune Anacephalosy" by J.P. Lhuillier, where 98 Runes are described. Has this book/article been published ? Where can it be found ? Thanks Alain ------------------------------ From: Frank Rafaelsen Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 13:36:17 +0200 (MET DST) Subject: On sacrificing Colin Watson said: > It takes "only" about 3 months to learn Enchant up to around 50% > (assuming a positive magic modifier and a little help from ceremony). I've not been paying much attention to this debate, so I don't know if this is an old suggestion. But I'll give it anyway Reading Colin Watsons post it just appeared to me that a simple solution to this would be to enable enchanters to benefit from other peoples cermony. This would mean that people with lousy enchantment skills could hire the village priest to do a cermony for them while they tried to enchant. This is not as powerfull as vicarious pow sacrifice, but it enables more people to enchant things. Just a humble suggestion Frank Rafaelsen rafael@nvg.unit.no "Si fallor, sum" ------------------------------ From: Colin Watson Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 15:32:57 +0100 (BST) Subject: Re: MAGIC ECONOMICS _____ Sandy: > The final tally: 20,000 loafer salary > + 4,000 apprentice salary > + 6,000 Hall o Learning & guards > +10,000 payment for POW > +10,000 the item to be enchanted > TOTAL 50,000 pence > > This is an average of 1000p per POW spent, the same as the rules > suggest. Actually, my book suggests enchanted items cost at least 1500p per point of POW, which results in a healthy profit. > >Anybody who wants to Get Rich Quick simply has to borrow the capital > >so they can learn Enchant and then gaily sacrifice their soul for > >hard cash. > Yep. Except doesn't he have to pay back the person he > borrowed the money from? A normal human has a living standard of 4p a > day. Thus, it will cost me 400p to go to school for 100 days (3 > months), just for my own upkeep. Even a very cheap teacher no doubt > charges sufficiently to maintain a living standard of 4p a day (this > would be unusually low, I suspect, for an esoteric skill like > Enchant), so we pay another 400p for him. It doesn't require 1-on-1 tuition, of course. You could join a class of 8 students paying 2p per day; the teacher would rake-in 16p per day. This would be perfectly adequate to get you to 50%. My original point was that the training/living expenses which are required to learn Enchant to a reasonable level (50%) are small compared to the monetary return on selling enchantments. (And after you've burned as much POW as you feel like you can earn a healthy living teaching others how to do the same.) Really part of the question is: why should Enchant be so "esoteric" when it can be such a money-spinner? Perhaps it is guild-controlled? > >perhaps POW should be of more use to the average peasant. > It is -- higher POW has four useful functions: > > 1) you have more MPs to power your average peasant spells > with, such as Plowsharp, Kill Rats, Ignite, Heal, etc. > 2) you can sacrifice for handy one-use Rune magic. > 3) your communication and perception skills improve. Stealth > gets worse, but what need has a peasant for Stealth? > 4) your luck improves. Say you sack 8 POW on enchantments. That's 8 fewer MPS, 40% less casting chance for spirit spells. 8 fewer rune spells. -4% communication and perception. 40% lower "luck". Oh, and -8% magic modifier (which is maybe most significant). On the upside you gain, after covering start-up costs, about 5000p and an almost guaranteed chance to succeed in your POW gain on the next High Holy Day (which will earn another 750p on average). How unlucky. You'll probably never have to work again. While it wouldn't be everybody's cup of tea, I imagine enough people might go for this to drive the price of enchantments down. (But as the price dropped it would make becoming an enchanter less appealing, so the price would level out.) It's not that I particualrly want to see cheaper enchantments (quite the reverse in fact). I was simply making an observation about the imbalance, as I perceive it, between the training and enchantment rules. ___ CW. ------------------------------ From: Sandy Petersen Date: Mon, 2 Sep 96 12:01:10 -0500 Subject: Re: Sanity/Other Worlds Simon Phipp >One argument against the use of Sanity in RuneQuest id that it is >not used in the Elric/Stormbringer/Hawkmoon rules. Har har. I challenge you to find me an important character in any Eternal Champion stories who's not psychotic, or at the best _extremely_ neurotic. >As they don't have Sanity, then RuneQuest should not need them. Of course RQ doesn't _need_ them. They're just a sometimes-useful addenda for special cases. Example: in Gloranthan RQ, I would use Sanity only when going into some bad Chaos place. In Elric, I would use Sanity only when entering another plane of existence -- probably Chaotic, but not necessarily. In Pendragon, I'd restrict it to the faery stuff. Note that unlike CoC, an insane character in RQ/Elric, etc. should still be played. The madness might represent something else, such as adherence to Chaos (in Elric). Or it can be totally ignored, which is what most of us have been doing all along. But it can be a useful function. For instance, Steve used it to good effect in Elfquest. Well, not Sanity exactly, but a variant. Sandy P. ------------------------------ From: Tal Meta Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 20:58:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Sanity/Other Worlds On Sun, 1 Sep 1996 owner-rq-rules-digest@hops.wharton.upenn.edu wrote: > From: SimonPhipp@aol.com > Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 10:35:24 -0400 > Subject: Sanity/Other Worlds > > One argument against the use of Sabity in RuneQuest id that it is not used in > the Elric/Stormbringer/Hawkmoon rules. Surely any system which enables the > PCs to experience the raw stuff of Moorcock's Multiverse, especially the > Chaos Lords and their realms would be the system for Sanity rules. As they > don't have Sanity, then RuneQuest should not need them. Actually, one of the supplements for Stormbringer introduced Sanity as an optional new stat. Much like has been discussed by others on the list, the time and culture of the person involved dictated when and if they needed to make a SAN roll. ------------------------------ From: Brad Stradley Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 20:40:15 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: Sanity/Other Worlds On Mon, 2 Sep 1996, Sandy Petersen wrote: > Simon Phipp > >One argument against the use of Sanity in RuneQuest id that it is > >not used in the Elric/Stormbringer/Hawkmoon rules. > Har har. I challenge you to find me an important character in > any Eternal Champion stories who's not psychotic, or at the best > _extremely_ neurotic. > This is my point. I never implied that it was NEEDED but something to add depth to the game. Playing a character with weaknesses is the greatest fun for a diehard rollplayer such as myself. I orignially asked if anyone had used it and their thoughts on it. ttfn, Brad ------------------------------ From: "Jim Bickmeyer" Date: Tue, 3 Sep 96 02:25:12 UT Subject: Re: Enlarging combat options This may be a thread that is a little behind, but I just got back from an extended weekend. On the Flurry attack. I would NOT change the number of attacks possible in a melee round. You must have 100% or better to split your attack. To give low skilled charactors the same advantage as high skilled charactors is most unfair, besides being far from within the workings of the combat rules. I do however, think that flurry attacks can be done in the current rules. 1. The flurry attack chance to hit is 1.5 times the normal chance to hit. 2. The attack occures on normal MR+SR and other normal modifiers. 3. No parry for attacker. May still dodge. 4. One addition FG per round. After each round of flurry add one mor FG. (2nd round of flurrie is 3 FG, 3rd round is 4 FG....) 5. The attacker can not start another round of flurry attacks until 1/2 the number of melee rounds have passed that was spent in the flurry attacks. (An acker makes flurry attacks for 4 rounds and stops. The attacker must wait 2 rounds before starting a new set of flurry attacks) 5. Attacks are weeker. 1/2 or the damge modifier. If the attacker has a negitive damgae modifier then half again the negitive damage rolled. If the attacker has no damage modifier then roll 1D3-1 as a negitive damge modifier. As for the other possible combat tatic/rules I have them under consideration and haven't made up my mind yet. ------------------------------ From: "Jim Bickmeyer" Date: Tue, 3 Sep 96 02:25:23 UT Subject: Real World RQ Other than Greece or a Europeian for a real world FRPG. How about ancient India. I'm talking about the time of the Rig Veda. From 5,000 BC to 500 BC we have Deva's (Gods) influcing lives. Magic, mostly through forms of sacrifices, was very prevelent. There was also a wide range of cultures in India as well as influnce from outside. I'm not real knowladble of India. I only had one course in it to satisfy Non-Western History requirements. But I plan to do some more reading on early India soon. ------------------------------ End of RQ Rules Digest: V3 #55 ****************************** 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