Bell Digest v930903p2

From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 03 Sep 1993, part 2
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Sender: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM
Precedence: junk

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 
want to submit articles to the Digest only,  contact the editor at
RuneQuest-Digest-Editor@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM.

Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor:

RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld)

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From: pk18@prism.gatech.edu
Subject: Initiative in RQ
Message-ID: <199309021614.AA22306@prism.gatech.edu>
Date: 2 Sep 93 08:14:34 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1518

A long time ago our RQ group developed a dislike of strike ranks and
adopted (read: shamelessly stole) the combat advantage system used in
Skyrealms of Jorune.  This system (dubbed JoRunequest) is yet another
interesting mutation of the RQ 3 system. With apologies to the RQLite crowd
(who would like to simplify game mechanics), here's the idea:

At the start of each combat round (which are now 2 sec. long), PCs and NPCs
roll a d20 and add various modifiers.  The result determines what the
character can do in the round and the order of actions (highest advantage
goes first) as per the following table:

Melee or Spell:
1  -  5  One shield parry only (no action if shield is not carried)
6  -  10 One defensive action only
11 -  15 One action at full skill, another at half skill (be they offensive
or defensive)
16 -  19 Two actions at full skill
20+      Two actions at skill + 25%

Missile:
1  -  5  Dodge only
6  -  19 Attack or dodge
20+      Attack and dodge + 25%

A roll of 1 may not be increased (insuring that even the best fighter will
sometimes be distracted by invisible gerbils or whatever) and a die roll of
20 may not be decreased.

Advantage modifier are:

For skill value of attack, dodge or spell used:

Skill %  0  10  20  30  40  50  60  70  80  90  100 for each +10
Melee   -5  -2  +0  +1  +1  +2  +2  +3  +3  +4  +5      +1
Missile -4  -2  +0  +1  +2  +3  +4  +5  +6  +7  +8      +1

For armor:

Armor covering legs and/or arms: -1
Metal armor on body only     : -2
Metal armor on body and/or legs : -3

For SIZ and DEX:

SIZ or DEX value  1 - 9   10 - 15   16 - 19   20 - 21
Modifier            -1       +0        +1        +2

There are some other modifiers that have to do with defender prone, etc.
which are not as useful, but I will send them to anyone who's interested.
We also adopted some Jorune maneuvers, such as feint (subtracts 25% from
your attack skill and 20% from your opponents defense skill).

Though the advantage (or, as its known by some, the disadvantage) system
may seem to add a lot of complexity, it actually cuts down the number of
die rolls per round as insuring that low skilled individuals will act less
often (and sometimes not at all).

TTFN

Paul Kemper



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From: yfcw29@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk
Subject: Who are these Vingan babes?
Message-ID: <9309021407.aa09066@uk.ac.ed.castle>
Date: 2 Sep 93 13:07:46 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1519

Any Grey Sages out there?

There is an obscure refference in 'King Of Sartar" which I would
like to know a bit more about. The 'Vingans' are mentioned several times.
They appear to be a women's warrior or adventuring cult and are reputed
to dye their hair red. They seem important enough to sometimes appear on the
ruling councils in some clans or tribes. I do not have KoS with me at the
moment, so I am working purely from my recollections and can't give page
refferences. I believe they are in the Index though. Does anyone know
anything about these people?


Simon	yfcw29@uk.ac.ed.castle

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From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: Quick training system
Message-ID: <9309021356.AA06812@condor>
Date: 2 Sep 93 13:56:28 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1520

Anyone interested in a quick-training system for RQ3? Read on.

(Newton Hughes wrote)
> Take rq3's skill increase system.  My players wanted to know, "OK,
> if I spend x lunars and y time starting from z%, how big an increase
> do I get?" and there's no easy answer.  We were willing to spend some
> extra time resolving combat because it's dramatic, but waste time
> on out-of-game number-crunching bookkeeping?  No way.

This is a good point. The hour-by-hour system for training in RQIII gets
real tedious, so we developed a system of week-by-week training that
gives similar results and is quick to calculate.
It's extrapolated from the hourly system given in the books:
    "current skill = z%, so spend z hours to get a 2% increase".
(I believe the errata changed this to 1%. Personally I think training takes
quite long enough as it was:).
The mapping isn't exact, but we found it close enough and it averages out ok
over time. Our system goes like this:

      CURRENT SKILL       INCREASE PER WEEK
         11%-20%                +4%
         21%-40%                +3%
         41%-60%                +2%
        (60%+                   +1% ?)

Skills of 10% or lower don't fit in neatly, but they all end up at about 14-16%
after 50 hours (1 week) anyway. Just call it 15%.

Skills much over 60% cause problems too but you can work them out "by hand"
(don't often train skills over 60% anyway:-)

[Warning: Cheesy example approaching]
So if Cormac has 15% Ride and wants to train it for 20 (!) weeks:
   he gets 4% in the first 2 weeks -> 23%
           3% in the next  6 weeks -> 41%
           2% in the next 10 weeks -> 61%
      and  1% in the last  2 weeks -> 63%
  (he probably gets piles for his trouble too).

Training costs are another matter & it depends a lot on how rich your campaign
is. But the book does have suggestions for calculating training costs based
on the trainer's earnings so I won't go into this.

I hope someone finds the training system useful - it's saved hours in our
campaign.
[I was going to have a rant about sorcery (my fav magic system:) but I'll save
it for another time...]

CW.


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From: staats@MIT.EDU (Richard C. Staats)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 31 Aug 1993, part 1
Message-ID: <9309021815.AA03917@MIT.EDU>
Date: 2 Sep 93 19:20:15 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1521

Greg,

Reference:

> DId it seem to be _Stafford's_ view that RQ is in trouble?!

Not in particular.  Greg was very upbeat, but he did reiterate the same comments 
that had been in the Daily over the past few weeks.  I got the *impression* that 
RQ was not as big a money maker as AH expected, and that AH was not going to 
sink a bunch more money into it.  This would leave Chaosium in a quandry.  AH 
still has the publishing rights to RQ *unless* AH ever allows RQ to go totally 
out of print, which is pretty unlikely.  In that case, it is not obvious what 
Chaosium would/should do.  One option that was mentioned was to just go back to 
RQ II and publish supplements.  (From past comments in the Daily, this seems 
like it might be a popular choice.)  :-)  The talk touched on RQ, but the main 
topics were CoC, the things that the staff were doing while in the Boston area 
and family topics.  Greg was his usual friendly and sincere self.  It was a nice 
chat.

In service,

Rich

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From: glidedw@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Donald Wilton)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 02 Sep 1993, part 2
Message-ID: 
Date: 2 Sep 93 04:16:27 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1522

This is in support of some of this first Daily. I agree that we need
sorcery. i find that the matter rests on the skills. If you combined Lunar
sorcery with regular, you might get this:

an apprentice, using an enchantment, can use Lunar sorcery. This creates
skills. upon creating a familiar, she switches over to regular sorcery.
Once you have skills in all of the sorcery capabilities, then switching to
regular doesn't require a major mod for characters. They do get major
level sorcery, soon. The apprentices are also fairly powerful magic users
until then. this works if you get rid of the Lunars, but for an RQLite,
this might make sense. I see the Lite version as introducing RQ as a game
system. The mechanics of the system make sense, and that goes a long way
towards creating the desire for players.



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From: staats@MIT.EDU (Richard C. Staats)
Subject: RQ-Lite
Message-ID: <9309021852.AA05491@MIT.EDU>
Date: 2 Sep 93 19:57:56 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1523

Greetings!

        Just a curiousity question.  Should RQ-Lite be forward or 
backward compatible?  

        Let me clarify.  It seems like you should be to take a scenario 
written for RQ III scale it back a bit and run it for RQ-Lite, but do we 
have to have "baby" versions of all the rules?  (I think a little 
mystery would be a good thing.)  For example, someone who enjoyed 
RQ-Lite might see an RQ III scenario and say "Wow!  What are these 
sorcery rules all about?"  He/she might be motivated to go out and buy a 
copy of RQ III.  *Extremely* personal view follows (caution advised  ;-)   
) . . . the real problem with Standard RQ was that the system was well, 
incomplete. (gasp!  Back to the regularily scheduled commentary!)  

    My experiences over the past 13 years with teaching new players how 
to play RQ seem to indicate that new players can pick up on SR's pretty 
easily.  Most new players like having that kind of nice "safety net" 
structure to fall back on.  The more advanced "converts" (from other 
gaming systems) like being able to tailor their characters and the 
additional combat options.  The sorcery system from RQ III has been more 
difficult to explain, and rules like "when you are moving, your SIZ 
modifier doesn't matter for determing SR's" --- well, just forget it!  

        I heartily support all the comments that less complex game 
mechanics should not equal less rich campaign backgrounds.  The 
"Gloranthan Beastiary" did a nice job by putting stars by the spells 
which were covered in GoG.  (That would *motivate* someone who liked the 
Beastiary to go buy GoG.)

        Bottom line is though, I'll support any program which promotes 
RQ which is not illegal, immoral or fattening!  :-)

        In service,

        Rich

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From: f6ri@midway.uchicago.edu (charles gregory fried)
Subject: Huh?
Message-ID: 
Date: 2 Sep 93 19:08:37 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1524

Greg Fried here.

Anyone else getting multiple copies from the Daily, and other weirdness?

Can anyone out there tell me about the White Moon?  Why was there no Moon in
the Gloranthan sky at the time of the Red Moon's rise?

Clay: 
Yes, I too would like an encyclopeadic reference work on Glorantha, and I
also agree that RPGs now seem most successful when based on a rich, exciting
world.  RQLite should not EXCLUDE such things, but rather allow new players
and GMs easier initial ACCESS to them.  This is an important distinction.
For this reason, I am coming more and more to Simon's and David Cake's
position, that RQLite must not involve any substantial, or indeed ANY, rules
innovations, only rules simplifications.  We must not make the monumental
error of rendering published material obselete, or requiring people to buy
eight billion different rules systems, with innane supplements in each
scenario pack explaining one set of rules to owners of another!  So, in my
thinking about new RQLite rules, I will now place emphasis on continuity with
RQ3.  ALL other substantial rules innovations should go to RQ4!  RQLite
should include: easy character generation; easy combat rules; an intro to
playing a Gloranthan character, with useful info for a player's choice of
cult and character background.  Such a book could be about 40-75 pages, bu e
included IN the RQ3 boxed set, or be sold separately.  Basically, it should
allow people to get started, and simply bring new levels in complexity in as
they are ready.  Indeed, as one of you said, the ideal would be to be able to
use the same character sheet, with areas 'blanked out' until you were ready
for them.  This would allow your character to go back and forth between
levels of play, too.  As I have said, once my disseration is on firm footing,
I'll get to the rules....!

GF out.

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From: DScott@snail.demon.co.uk (David Scott)
Subject: RQLite Yawn
Message-ID: <9309022241.aa12518@gate.demon.co.uk>
Date: 2 Sep 93 21:41:38 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1525

Fellow RQ Players

Time to launch a rescue mission for the RQ Digest!
A few months ago we were bored senseless by endless sorcery witterings..... Now 
it seems to be the in-depth mechanics of RQ Lite. I think most people will say 
yes to it but do we have to go on and on about it!!

Sam from Glasgow said

>So, lets say YES to RQ-Lite and return once more to all those high
>folutin' discussions about the moon and the god learners and all those
>fun things.

I would like to agree.

BTW Where is Nick Brooke these days? He has been awfly quiet..RQ Daily calling 
Nick Brooke come in please, over.

Who thinks after reading Dorastor that Ralzakark is a part of 
Nysalor/Gbaji/Arkat, and what will happen if all the parts are brought together 
again. Will Arkat/Gbaji/Arkat re-form.

What is a sky terror - it would seem that Ralzakark can make them from chaos 
gaggles!

David Scott.

Sandwiches on the edge of time
DScott@Snail.demon.co.uk 158.152.16.30