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Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 17:16:02 +0200
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From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 09 Jun 1993, part 3
Precedence: junk
Status: O
The RuneQuest Daily and RuneQuest Digest deal with the subjects of
Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha.
Send submissions and followup to "RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM",
they will automatically be included in a next issue. Try to change the
Subject: line from the default Re: RuneQuest Daily... on replying.
Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest. If you
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Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor:
RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld)
---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 08 Jun 1993, part 1
Message-ID:
Date: 9 Jun 93 10:39:25 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1016
______________________________
Henk Langeveld in X-RQ-ID: 994
> brandon@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (Brandon Brylawski) writes:
>> I recommend cutting down the duration of sorcerous spells (and perhaps
>> some divine spells, too) sharply, while permitting these durations to be
>> lengthened substantially by the use of POW sacrifice. In other words, long-
>> lasting spells are junior enchantments. Any thoughts?
> It feels "right" to me... We would have to extend Extension to Sorcery...
Extension is reusable. This POW sacrifice would have to be, too.
_________________________
Carl Fink in X-RQ-ID: 996
> Um, David, *most* sorcery users on Glorantha are NOT Malkioni. The
> Dwarfs, Kralori, East Islanders, many Pamaltelans, and some trolls use
> sorcery, and have nothing to do with Malkion.
Finally one who noticed...
_____________________
Boris in X-RQ-ID: 998
> I was perusing old rqdaily's earlier, and got to thinking about common
> divine spells. Not the spells that are offered by every cult, but the
> spells that cults teach at their shrines. These should be the spells
> that the cults want everyone to have, the magic that they want everyone
> casting.
> In a lot of cases, this works out. Storm Bull shrines teach Impede Chaos
> (arguably, Berserk would be a better choice, but this works), Humakt
> shrines teach Truesword, etc.
That's how I figured it to work.
> But some, from a social aspect, don't
> make sense to me. For instance, Ernalda shrines teach Bless Crops. But
> surely you would have the priestess, or at least an acolyte (godi?)
> come to do this? She'll have several castings, with a high ceremony skill,
> and the Goddess is *sure* to hear her. Perhaps the farmers will take part,
> fertilizing the fields with their wives or sweethearts, but the blessing
> itself would be cast by those blessed by the goddess. Especially since
> Heal Body or even Command Swine would make more sense as a shrine spell.
Let the Acolyte lead the ceremony, but have the farmer cast the spell -
after all it's his belly that will be filled. If the average acolyte tends
say 4 villages with say 20 days worth of plowing each, and she had any
insufficient number castings of bless crops, she could care for the first
fields without problem. For each following field she would have to spend
4 days - three in regaining the spell (3 points!), and one in leading the
ceremony. By the time she gets to the last field the harvest is in...
Heal body is too attractive to have it hang around at any shrine.
> An even better example is Cloud Call, taught at Orlanth shrines. So this
> means that most farmers will have it. So, say it's a dry season. Each
> one of hundreds of farmers think's "Hmm, could use some rain. I'll cast
> Cloud Call." Severall hundred points of Cloud Call are cast within a few
> tens of miles over a weeks time. Cloud cover increases to 300-500%, and
> floods wipe out everybody's crops.
Cloud cover does not yet mean rain, and you need rain more than once to
secure a bountiful harvest. And then there is the possibility to coordinate
their efforts (that's what clan chiefs and tribal kings are good for).
> available! Surely, you would want this controlled by the priests and
> chieftains. Wouldn't Shield make a much better spell to have at shrines?
For shrines to Orlanth Adventurous or Orlanth Rex, yes.
To Orlanth Thunderous, no.
_____________________________________________________
From: MOBTOTRM@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au in X-RQ-ID: 1001
> My rantings about sorcery yesterday...
>> Makes you wonder what civilised countries like Loskalm with
>> adepts on tap could do with their armies doesn't it?
> Not a bad pun really, but an unintentional one, I assure you.
Actually, now you told me, I had to look up "on tap" in the dictionary...
__________________________________
Peter van Heusden in X-RQ-ID: 1003
> 2) It is time that the readers of this Digest realise that they are part of
> a larger community. Not all the Digest readers play in Glorantha. I think
> from previous discussions there is ample evidence that a large number of
> Digest contributors don't play in Glorantha (eg. Loren, myself). I, for one,
> never will. The same holds for the Runequest community. It is meaningless
> to say "RuneQuest is Glorantha" when quite obviously that is not true for
> a sizeable group.
Avalon Hill does currently say so. I tend to disagree. But Glorantha _is_ fun.
> 3) A large number of people entered RuneQuest after RuneQuest II, and play
> RuneQuest III. Some even prefer RQ III.
>
> So, we are dealing with a large group of people for whom a compatibility
> problem with RQ III will be a compatibility problem with their games. And
> RuneQuest II didn't have a Sorcery system to be compatible to. In fact, as
> far as I am told, not much is known about the Gloranthan West, where Sorcery
> comes from, so how can it be claimed that the "flavour" is wrong?
Good point here. The problem is that most non-Glorantha players tend to
keep their mouth/keyboard shut. Why?
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
---------------------
From: dickmj@essex.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Cult points and other stuff
Message-ID: <9306091145.AA06036@serdlc13>
Date: 9 Jun 93 11:45:11 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1017
Got to be quick. It's nice to see an interest being payed to my cult
points idea. Here's a few answers;
>Cult Points: Nice concept, how do you gain them? Can you dirrectly trade
>them?
>Attempts to DI: Do you treat this as a spell (RQ2-style?)
You get CP by doing things your god likes - in it's most crude form,
for killing the foes listed in 'particular likes and dislikes' in the
cult write up. I also give them for good roleplaying and abiding to
personaltiy traits - not necessarily the cult approved ones. Often it
is better to see an Orlanthi acting modest because he's got a high
modest score, rather than acting proud because that's an Orlanthi trait
EVEN THOUGH he has a high modest score.
I rule that the more CP you have, the harder it is to get more. So, a
Humakti lay member with no CP will get one for killing a zombie whereas
a Sword with 5 CP would have to kill a vampire to get one. It is seldom
that people go up more than 2 CP during one adventure - the only time
I've seen it happen was when we foiled an attempt by the Krahst cult to
build a temple under Pavis (and more, but I can't remember the rest) -
and I wasn't the GM!
The increase in DI is not as large as it sounds. You simply consider
POW + CP when trying to roll DI e.g an initiate with POW 15 and 4 CP
has 4 attempts at 19% each. You can decide to use up a CP instead of
POW if you succeed - so in the example above, if the player got 05, he
may decide to reduce POW by 3 to 12 and CP by 2 to 2.
Now, onto the weapon length debate (titter ye not!)
Rob Mace writes
'I have about 6 years of SCA armored combat experience. When I first started
in the SCA I started trying to simulate more and more of what I saw happening
in games. What I found is that no matter how many rules I added I was never
able to get really get the feel right and the rules just got more complex and
slower to use. Finally I just used the rules as is and gave people situational
bonuses that I made up on the fly. Anyway I will talk about some of the flaws
I see in your rule.
First, pikes can be used at Point Blank range. You simply move a hand to
near the point and use it as a short unbalanced thrusting weapon. I have
done this with a 7 foot spear many times and a pike a few times. However
if you do not choke up on the weapon as your opponent is closing you are
likely to get it trapped and then it will be useless for attack. Usually
I would carry a small mace for when I was closed on.'
What I had in mind was more like the 3m pike used in the English Civil
war. I find it difficult to believe you could 'simply move a hand to
near the point and use it as a short unbalanced thrusting
weapon'.Besides, when I say point blank I mean grappling, body to body,
which would not leave enough room to move a pike even if you did have
your hand near the point. He continues...
'Your PB values are also wrong for shields. I used a short sword a lot and
usually closed with my opponent to the point that I was pushing against
them. Opponents with small shields were much worse off them opponents
with large shields. It was much easier to trap a small shield and then
thrust around it. This happens for two reasons. The small shield has
much less mass and it cover a much smaller area.'
This much I do concede. I like John Medway's idea of no parry and
holding the shield fixed so it covers locations like in missile combat.
In fact, wouldn't shield reduce your capability at PB range? The tie up
one of your hands so you can't use it and necessarily make it harder to
balance. The only good thing to be said about a hoplite shield at such
range is that you can try a 'shove' as in the RQIV rules. Maybe a new
skill of 'close-in fighting' is needed because most of the current
melee rules seem to require the combatants to adhere to fencing rules!
'Close-in fighting' would represent the fighter's ability to see an
opening and exploit it - remember that the combatants arevery probably
rolling around on the floor at this point so it doesn't remain a simple
matter of attack and parry anymore. Each round you'd compare rolls
against one another, just like with manouver - if you beat your
opponent's success level then you get to make an attack on him -
possibly rolling on a table someone ( I forget who ) suggested earlier
to see which part of your body you can use. THEN and only THEN do you
get to make an attack. Suddenly, someone with a dagger is a very
frightening thing, because, if he can get in close, then you're
dogmeat! For a better example of this 'rolling around on the floor'
business, watch Kenneth Branagh's (I'm sure I've spelt that wrong)
version of HENRY V.
>Are you defining 'butt' to also include the shaft of a hafted weapon?
>Otherwise, I'd hate to see someone try to sweep a pike in a 180 degree
>arc in order to strike with the true butt.
Yea, I suppose I am, although with a pike, your opponent is still 1m
away, so maybe you could use the true butt. Sorry to show my ignorance,
but just how far from the point do you hold a pike if you are using it 'normally'?
>As for the shields, you mean parry, right? ( 8-) ).
Yep.
johnjmedway writes...
'There is still a problem, though. This ties in to a generic problem RQ suffers
regarding extremes of size. Suppose you have a Great Troll with a 2H Sword.
He's fighting a Duck with a 2H Sword. Why is the _base_ damage the same?
Sure, the troll gets a damage mod, and because of the size _of_the_troll_
he gets either a SR or other advantage at longer ranges.
The point is this: the weapons may be used with the same skill, and in the same
style, but they would not be the same weapon. There should be about 2-3 feet of
difference in the lengths of the weapons, yet there's no further SR mod.'
I've worried about this in the past -we had a halfling with a
greatsword. There're two ways I can think of to get round this
1/ Introduce a SIZ requirement to use a weapon, just like the STR and
DEX requirements. The point behind this is that although you may have
one hell of a strong halfling (as we did), he can't get enough leverage
to either get the thing of the floor or hasn't got enough bulk to stop
himself from being flung around when he tries to swing the greatsword.
2/ Allow smallies to use weapons called greatswords, but introduce a
further SR modifier based on SIZ which is added to the weapon SR - in
LotR, Frodo's 'sword' was the equivalent of a human's dagger.
Naturally, weapon damage would also have to be reduced.
Personally, I prefer the first rule as it's simpler.
'Related beef: why is a damage mod a universal value, and not proportional to
the damage of the weapon? Why does strength affect thrusting weapons as much
as lever weapons? I've had physics, and that's just not right. ( One of the few
things I like about Gurps is that someone finally figured that one out. )'
The 'PenDragonPass' system presented in Tales 6 (?) had damage mod
levels. WEapons added to this e.g broadsword gave +1 (I think), so 1D6
went to 2D6 or something like that. This worked well, but converting it
RQ may be difficult. Having done some physics myself, I take your point
about Thrusting weapons getting less impetus than slashers, but do you
really want try and work out a rule for this? Yelmalioans are weedy enough already!!
Got to go and read today's digest
My door, like the grave, is always open.
-Arganth