Bell Digest v930203

From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: The RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 03 Feb 1993

This is an semi-automated digest, sent out once per day (if any
messages are pending).  Selected articles may also appear in a regular
Digest.

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The RuneQuest Digest is a mailing list on the subjects of Avalon Hill's
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From: MAB@SAVAX750.RUTHERFORD.AC.UK (Mystic Musk Ox)
Subject: Runequest rules stuff...
Message-ID: <9302031018.AA21444@Sun.COM>
Date: 3 Feb 93 09:16:00 GMT

Hi, Just a few thoughts of my own...

Helmets:
--------
I seem to remember a simple rule from StormBringer whereby anyone
wearing a helm with armour was limited to maximum Perception skills of
25%, which seems simple and workable. I guess its up to you to decide
what types of helmet cause this restriction. This really means that
you have to use Perception rolls in combat a lot more (ie roll to see
if you see the troll coming up from the side, or your friend in
trouble on the other size of the fight). It seems to me that in any
melee situation, it becomes very difficult to keep track of what is
going on, and very easy just to not see things at all, even if not
wearing any helmet!

Knockback:
----------
These seem a very silly set of rules - on getting a special, ANY
opponent is knocked back 1m/5 damage (I seem to remember), regardless
of size! A modification I used was to say that a special with slashing
weapons was rated at double damage (ie x2 rolled) for knockback
determination ONLY, actual damage inflicted was as normal.  Then
points over SIZ count as for normal knockback ie 1m/5 dam over
opponents SIZ. This means that you may not be able to knockback large
opponents, even if you get a special, which seems reasonable.

Also, chance to fall over as per knockback:

1m	DEX x 5
2m	DEX x 4
3m	DEX x 3... etc (I still think that these percentages are a bit high,
			but it's still better than blanket DEX x 5)

Fatigue:
--------
We used 2 types of fatigue, long term (LT-FP) and short term (ST-FP).
Both calculated as per RQ3 fatigue. Your ST-FP recover as per the RQ3
rules, BUT, may never exceed your LT-FP. LT-FP is lost and regained as
follows:

Walking/hour 		-3	Extra losses allowed for bad terrain, bad
Riding Animal/hour	-2	weather, wounded etc,etc
Riding Wagon/hour	-1

Sleeping/hour		+3
Dozing/hour		+2
Resting/hour		+1
Eat hot meal		+2 (only allowed so often, at GM discretion) 


Thus walking for 4 hours causes -12 LT-FP. If you started the day with
(say) 15 LT-FP and ST-FP, your LT-FP is now 3, and so therefore is your
ST-FP if any trouble starts.

ST-FP losses:

walk in melee/round	-1
move quickly/round	-2
run/round		-4
sprint/round		-6

Regain as per RQ3 rules. This may need some skill, eg Running, to
allow ST-FP to be regained while still moving. We only used to allow
Fatigue regaining spells to restore ST-FP.

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From: ade@insignia.UUCP (Adrian Brownlow)
Subject: Character Generator and oth
Message-ID: <9297.9302031138@piglet.insignia.co.uk>
Date: 3 Feb 93 03:40:26 GMT


                          Character Generator and other stuff
>I noticed a request for a character generator program and thought I'd
>mention that I have written such a beast for RQIII. It's in C++, has
>most of the main classes and I have a DOS executable. It even has the
>troll, dwarf and elf generation tables built in. If only a few people
>are interested then I'll e-mail it direct, if a lot then I'll sent it
>to the mailing list. Let me know if you're interested.

I'd be interested in getting hold of this (exe and src if possible).

Its all rules, rules, rules. What RQ needs is less rules and more
Glorantha.

However I also do Dark Ages reenactment and there's two things I'd
like to stick my oar in on.

The first is Helmets and Armour no matter what type should always
reduce attack parry and dodge. Anything which restricts your movement
or vison is going to impair fighting ability. Go into battle naked -
it's the only way. The best way to avoid injuries is to avoid getting
hit at all.

>At the start of each season I was usually able to fight for 3 to 5
>minutes before fatigue became a problem, by simply practising against
>thin air I found that my stamina would increase such that by the end
>of the season I could probably fight for 10 minutes. This was without
>any noticable increase in my strength.

Personally I always find it works the otherway round. Adrenalin keeps
me up at the start of the season. At the end of the season I'm usually
too pissed to fight anyway. ;-)

Seriously though I follow your point, but I see PCs as being in peak
fitness anyway (or most of them) because only reasonably fit people
would be able to adventure with an success. (I sort of see CON as
resilliance rather than fitness). What you are doing is becoming
fitter through the season. The PCs already are at maximum fittness and
fat points - perhaps you should reduce their fat points if they spend
long periods sitting on thier backsides (couple of weeks+).

By the way, I'm very glad to here RQ4 will be in real books rather
than poxy, flappy, flimsey pamplets. I really hate those boxed sets.

Ade - Jomsvikings
-Spolling not my forte.

  Big Dogs Bollocks

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From: g.hoyle@genie.geis.com
Subject: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BIJA?
Message-ID: <9302031453.AA10674@relay1.geis.com>
Date: 3 Feb 93 02:35:00 GMT

On many early (published) maps of Genertela, the area north of Fronela
was called Bija; now that area is covered with "winter pack ice".
Apart from these maps, I have never come across any other reference to
this area.  Does anyone on the Mailing List know anything about this
mysterious land?

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From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu
Subject: Character generation for RQIV, what I'd like to see.
Message-ID: <9302031510.AA10287@sonata.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 3 Feb 93 05:10:56 GMT

Some friends and I were discussing what we'd like to see in RQIV
character generation, and we came up with the following consensus
items:

"Free purchase" is a bad idea.  Leave that to the generic games like
Hero and GURPS.  RQ characters should have some flexibility (unlike
what RQIII allows), but they should also be constrained to fit within
their culture.

Variety of constraints is a good idea.  The generic templates in RQIII
were both just too darned generic and too restricted.  Let's face it,
one "Barbarian Warrior" was pretty much identical to any other
"Barbarian Warrior" when starting out.

Here is what we want to see:

A system which utilizes a combination of society templates with player
choice.  What is meant by this is that there should be a set of
templates for Praxian tribers, NOT just one "Praxian" template, mind
you, but a set of general templates which define what makes a Praxian
a Praxian.  However, these templates should not define ALL of a
character.  The character should also be designed in part by the
player, probably through some progressive point system (where every
X%-iles of a skill cost just a bit more than the preceding X%-iles).
One more thing about this: The templates should NOT all come out to
the same "initial value" (before spending free points).  Instead, the
number of free points left should be calculated from the theoretical
"starting total" minus those used for the template.  This is to
reflect the fact that a typical Lunar farmboy just drafted into the
Legions may not know all that much, but a PC Lunar farmboy (who is
Hero Potential, after all) can spend all his "Hero Potential Points"
to simulate that THIS Lunar farmboy is not just ANY Lunar Farmboy.
However, the son of a Lunar Hekantokopos (commander of 100--I see the
Lunars as VERY Roman, but I prefer to use Greek- derived words to give
them a more exotic feel) will probably have more skills, on average,
than a "typical" Lunar farmboy.  Let's face it--there's the weapon
knowledge, the dancing, the knowledge of politics and associated
important lores (like poisoning, bribery), the knowledge of reading,
if the family is a social-climbing one, etc.

However, this is all pure mechanics.  What we want to see, more than
ANYTHING is a method which creates characters with some idea of
history and background APPROPRIATE to their Gloranthan cultures.

One more idea: Since the points used to purchase "free skills" should
be scaled to reflect the costs of training/study, I would think it a
good idea that one can improve one's rolled attributes with these
points on the scale of training them.  After all, some people practice
with their swords, some people spend all their time pulling huge loads
of beast manure.  The former helps with a skill, the latter probably
helps more with one's strength and/ or constitution (depending on how
ripe that manure is).

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From: bell@cs.unc.edu (Andrew Bell)
Subject: Re: The RuneQuest Daily, Mon, 01 Feb 1993
Message-ID: <9302031518.AA21663@beethoven.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 3 Feb 93 15:18:33 GMT

> From: trystro!rune@Think.COM (Peter Maranci)
> Subject: Alternate Sorceries

> There are, we're told, only three basic types of magic in Glorantha.

There are several less common types.  Dragon(ewt) Magic, the "Divine
Sorcery" of Godunya, the "Sorcery/Spirit" Lunar Magic, and the magic
done by tile patterns mentioned in the Gorger (I think) write-up have
been mentioned.  (Any others people can think of?)

> However, even though Glorantha will reportedly be (rightfully) restored
> as the default setting of RQIV, RuneQuest will still be a system useable
> with many different worlds.

I'd definitely discourage the Chaosium/Glorantha folks from doing
anything along this line.  Instead, if any group decides to create
non-Gloranthan RQ stuff, they should include their own magic system if
they want to use "non-standard" magic.  If AH/Chaosium can find a good
group to create a fair amount of high quality non-Gloranthan RQ stuff,
it might be worthwhile as a way to get people interested in RQ who
would find Glorantha too different to get into easily.

> 	On a completely seperate note, I'd like to applaud the idea
> of a Digest mailing list. A great idea, and one long overdue.

(Note that the old "Discussions" articles of the Digest were an
attempt to have a mailing list-style format.  Now I'm no longer
editor, I've figured out how to set up an automated message server,
and use it for a different list.  Sorry I never figured out how to
automate it for you folks.)

> From: SPB1@vms.bton.ac.uk (Ghost Dancer)
> Subject: Visibility and Combat

> One of the most important factors in any combat situation is being able
> to see your enemy, after all if you can't see his sword coming how can
> you parry it?

The RQ weapon damage/armor value ratio is such that if you give
significant penalties for using full helmets, no one would ever use
one.  A penalty to parrying would be just too dangerous.  Also,
helmets really don't hurt attack and parry against a foe directly
ahead that much. I would suggest instead a significant penalty to
perception skills from armor, especially scan.  (...and it would
affect the "listen" skill of your fellows!)  Realistically, scanners
and trackers should take off their helms for balance reasons if naught
else.  (I work with virtual reality head-mounted displays; the weight
for the heaviest of those things is very hard on the neck muscles.)

Suggested alternative modifiers (totally unplaytested):

Helmet type	Scan penalty
Open Face	    0
Semi guarded	   -15
Full Face	   -30

Heavier helmets should also hinder the character's sense of what's
going on, which is probably best handled by GM reminders/limitations.

(Anyone else want to figure reasonable Listen penalties?  Personally I
also think noisy armor should be a bigger hindrance to sneak, perhaps
3xENC for metal armor?)

Andrew Bell, former RQ Digest editor and one of Ken Rolston's gods
bell@cs.unc.edu



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From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu
Subject: The next playtest draft
Message-ID: <9302031519.AA10383@sonata.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 3 Feb 93 05:19:12 GMT

Oh, 

I've managed to lose Oliver's email address, so I can't contact him
directly, but I can get to him through this.  Basically, my question
is: When do you expect the next RQ playtest draft to be ready?  I've
got people breathing down my neck about starting the playtest
campaign, but I've no draft.  Just wondering.

PS: I'd like to put a vote in for evening ot the granularity of some
cults in Glorantha.  I'm glad that you're restoring Lay Membership
(don't forget the obligatory Lay Membership in Daka Fal for ALL PCs),
but some cults make sense to have more levels and finer-grain in
powers.

Examples: Orlanth makes sense to have a very rough gradation.  He's a
straightforward god with little time for hierarchy and that nonsense.
His cult makes sense to just have Lay Member, Initiate, and
Priest/RuneLord (put) together to denote a VERY ROUGH sort of equality
of concept if not function or actual rank.

However, Yelmalio is a hierarchy NUTCASE!  I'd see his cult having at
least the following gradations:

Lay Member
Initiate
Acolyte
Associate Priest/Informally Recognized non-Priestly Sort Who Still Does a Lot
   for the Cult.
Priest/Light Lord


Just an idea.