From: owner-runequest-rules@ (RuneQuest-Rules-Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.MPGN.COM Subject: RuneQuest-Rules-Digest V1 #13 Reply-To: runequest-rules@mpgn.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@ Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@ Precedence: bulk RuneQuest-Rules-Digest Friday, February 6 1998 Volume 01 : Number 013 RuneQuest is a trademark of Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS Re: [RQ-RULES] Illumination Re: [RQ-RULES] Multispell and Area-of-Effect [RQ-RULES] RE: sHADES Re: [RQ-RULES] Illumination [RQ-RULES] Multispell/Shamanism/Homepage [RQ-RULES] Elementals Re: [RQ-RULES] Multispell/Shamanism/Homepage [RQ-RULES] Excess Stuff... Re: [RQ-RULES] Those Pesky Elementals 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. 4. No anonymous posting, please. Don't say something unless you're ready to stand by it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 21:51:02 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Illumination Erik Nolander wrote: > Mainly, what I am dissatisfied with is the way Illumination is > presented in the current (RQ3) rules, i.e. in LoT and D:LoD. The > convention of assigning a Riddle to a RuneQuest-skill is way too > arbitrary and constrained IMHO. Now I know that the books stress > the fact that skill checks alone cannot make you Illuminated, but > this doesn't remove the skill=Riddle connection. Well, you have to tie it to SOMETHING, afterall, yes? Whether you tie it to Riddles, a Mythos-like skill that grows as one learns, or just decide one day to tell the player "hey, you're illuminated!" somewhere along the line you have to decide what makes one character illumainated and another not. > A rule that I thought of, to solve the understanding-bit, was to > let each character's chance to understand a Riddle be equal to > his/her Knowledge bonus. This would of course mean that certain > characters (i.e., those with a Knowledge bonus of less than or > equal to zero) could never be Illuminated, but I like that idea. > Note that this also allows for involuntary (or "forced") > Illumination, which I think is possible although rare. This seems fair enough. You don't even need to limit it to Riddles, IMO... I seem to remember someone suggesting that paintings, poetry, even perhaps certain musical numbers or theatric plays (King in Yellow, anyone? ) might be illuminating in and of themselves. > canonical Riddles. For me, Illumination feels more like Zen-ish > than straight Riddle-ish (but then, my understanding of Zen is > fairly basic). Mine is too, but somehow Zen and Illumination don't look very similar to me. Zen is more akin to LoN's Ki. at least IMSIO. Nikk Effingham wrote: > > That's why I believe that the power ot avoid Vows is seperate from > the power to avoid geases. The power to avoid geases comes from > not having any guilt about breaking your taboos concerning your > god. The power to avoid Vows is to cast aside the artifical > shackles of a system that requires you to "prove" your self > discipline by adhering to a set of Vows. Yes, but in the case of the Vows, theres no 'Higher Power' looking over your sholder, unless you're a Malkioni. But I'd agree with you; they should be seperate powers. > One player in my game started off as an Illuminate, but only > received the first Illuminating power and must learn more riddles > and more illuminating knowledge to gain the rest of them. This I don't think I would do... I learned my lesson when I allowed a player to start the game as a priest. Some things should be earned in-game, I think. > Also, my group have come up with a way to abuse the Saint rules to > gain Illumination. Firstly, they learn one riddle, or at least get > one percent Illumination skill. Then they sacrifice for St. Daly > and Arkat the Betrayer (I think - the version of Arkat that when > invoked allows you a chance to become illuminated). Then they > invoke both Arkat and Daly, get a roll to become illumianted and > immediatley make it through the powers of St. Daly! lol. I dunno if I'd let that work, but then again, if you're willing to blow 14 POW to be Illuminated, why not? (It's Arkat the Deceiver, btw: the Betrayer requires that you already be Illuminated. > I think there are different schools of Illumination granting > different powers (like Rashorana Illumination, Nysalorian > Illumination, Metsylan Illumination etc...) has anybody seen > "Cults of Life and Death" wherein the Cult of Eudaimon has > Enlightenment, it's own version of Illumination???? No, I must have missed that one. What's the source? Maybe some of us could work out different schools of Illumination, as a net.project? *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 21:31:07 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Multispell and Area-of-Effect Michael A. Pastorello wrote: > Well in my game it depends on the multispell. If you are just > tying 2 spells together for convenience only the spell aimed at > collapses with a loss of all of it, the other spell does not gan > anything. If the spell that is attacked is like protective circle, > the whole thing comes down, however the resistance is done against > the whole value of all the spells that were combined with > protective circle. True, I've always played it the same way, myself. But when I get to thinking about the 'structure' of magic, the idea of the whole multispell being in effect one spell, that when dispelled completely vanishes, begins to appeal to me. - - Backtracking to my last post; how about AoE as an Art? Say each point spent on AoE creating a 1m diameter circle in which the spells effect takes place? Workable? Too.... much? - -- talmeta@cybercomm.net - Former sysop / netgod, now 'net bum. Do I look like someone who cares what GOD thinks?! / I have no webpage. / Curiosity killed the cat... Loathesome rituals BROUGHT IT BACK! / Will work for cash. / Insert Nifty ASCII graphic here. / Give me Slack, or give me Food. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 09:27:28 -0000 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: [RQ-RULES] RE: sHADES >The usual tactic is ever to release a shade on top of your >opponent or cast some mobility on it and send it in a straight >line at your enemies. The supprise alone is worth a couple of rolls. In RQ3, shades only get to use fear once per full turn, ie. 5 minutes. philip.hibbs@tnt.co.uk or phibbs@compuserve.com http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/phibbs +--------------+ | Philip Hibbs +---------------------------------------------+ | What immortal hand or eye dare frame thy perfect symmetry? | +------------------------------------------------------------+ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 02:29:17 -0800 (PST) From: Erik Nolander Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Illumination Hi, - ---Tal Meta wrote (in response to me): > > A rule that I thought of, to solve the understanding-bit, was to > > let each character's chance to understand a Riddle be equal to > > his/her Knowledge bonus. This would of course mean that certain > > characters (i.e., those with a Knowledge bonus of less than or > > equal to zero) could never be Illuminated, but I like that idea. > > Note that this also allows for involuntary (or "forced") > > Illumination, which I think is possible although rare. > > This seems fair enough. You don't even need to limit it to Riddles, > IMO... I seem to remember someone suggesting that paintings, poetry, > even perhaps certain musical numbers or theatric plays (King in Yellow, > anyone? ) might be illuminating in and of themselves. I've thought along these lines as well, and it makes sense IMO. Furthermore, according to "Big Rubble", the Puzzle Canal *is* a Riddle in itself. This seems to support this notion. > > canonical Riddles. For me, Illumination feels more like Zen-ish > > than straight Riddle-ish (but then, my understanding of Zen is > > fairly basic). > > Mine is too, but somehow Zen and Illumination don't look very similar to > me. Zen is more akin to LoN's Ki. at least IMSIO. You're probably right. I also think that the Kralori Enlightenment may be more Zen-like than Illumination is. Erik _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 11:56:01 GMT From: "Nikk Effingham" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Multispell/Shamanism/Homepage MULTISPELL I'd play it that the entire spell collapses. One of the drawbacks of using Multispell I suppose.... I think of a set of multispelled spells being just one huge spell doing many things at once. I think Multispell is pretty damn powerful as it is. This at least limits it in some fashion. SHAMANISM I've been thinking of trying to rewrite the Shaman rules as they stand in RQIII. One of the points that I came across was the concept of the Fetch. I think it was raised on the Glorantha Digest, that not all shamans would have their fetch equivalent stored as an actual Fetch. For instance, some would have Spirit Allies (like good old RQII) while some might have their power invested into an area of power such as a grove (in the case of Aldryan shamans), or in an object - a fetish. I was wondering if anyone could add to this list of alternatives, and possibly give any rules ideas that they might have on the benefits/disadvantages of such alternatives. I'm trying to personalize shamans more, so that theyr're not identical copies of each other across Glorantha. HOMEPAGE Does the RQ Rules Digest ahve a homepage???? If not, I volunteer to set up a small operation on Angelfire - although I'm not sure what you'd have to do about archiving (I was thinking more along the lines of an introduction and details on joining etc....) Nikk E. Nikk Effingham eng7nje@leeds.ac.uk http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Lair/7556/ "If absolute power corrupts absolutely Where does that leave God?" -- George Daacon *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Feb 1998 10:25:44 +0000 From: Pete Nash Subject: [RQ-RULES] Elementals In our campaign I pointed out to the GM that elementals were far too easy to destroy in RQ3. At that time we were mid way to rune-lord and if we encountered an elemental summoning foe, the party would only face one or two elementals simultaneously. Six characters against 1 or 2 elementals meant that the creatures might only effect a character apiece before being chopped into non-existance. This upset the GM somewhat! Of course there were provisos. A water elemental dragging a character into a lake was certain doom for the PC. Lunes and shades are also buggers against low POW PCs. But our GM never used protection magic on his elementals, so they didn't last very long. To be an effective (long lived) elemental it currently needs to be BIG! To get a really large elemental is almost impossible, because of the difficulty of binding the huge POW involved. If you do bind the elemental then what sorcerer will waste the effort by sending out to be destroyed in combat? (I don't believe they come back afterwards do they?) Unless you send adventuring parties up against equal numbers of enemies who each summon their own elemental, the party will gang up on the magical creatures. In RQ2 elementals were feared nasties, so we came up with a way to make them tougher. >From the written sources an elemental is a magical being which annimates a volume of substance. If you cut a sword through the air, what are you doing to the air? Nothing. The matter just passes to either side of the blade and remixes on the other side. It is the same for all of the elements except earth (and I think most weapons would take damage from striking such a solid). In my opinion you _cannot_ chop bits of animated matter from the body of an elemental. It'll still keep control over the stuff. The earth elemental would replenish itself from the ground it rests on. Where does it say that the elemental is _bound_ to the original substance it was summoned into anyway? If a fire elemental set a house alight, I'd allow the creature to move around and animate any section of the flames it was moving through. So if you cannot damage the physical substance of the elemental, what can you do? You must attack the magical spirit of the creature. We play that _only_ magic can affect them. Thus doing them damage is akin to attacking a wraith(?). A bladesharp 2 does 2 points etc. As the elemental's spirit is whittled down then it loses the ability to annimate so much substance, and is finally destroyed. This rule keeps an elemental alive for about five times longer, and brings back their scarey reputation. Now a single salamander with 3d6 or 4d6 POW can trash half a village before it dies and it becomes a worthwhile investment of time and power for the average evil enemy. (In our game it is quite difficult to find and bind elementals. A lune requires a piece of moonrock for gods sake! Anything which is summoned from such a rare material _should_ be tough!) Pete *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 16:44:35 +0200 (EET) From: Tapani Mylly Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Multispell/Shamanism/Homepage On Fri, 6 Feb 1998, Nikk Effingham wrote: > SHAMANISM > > I was wondering if anyone could add to this list of alternatives, and > possibly give any rules ideas that they might have on the > benefits/disadvantages of such alternatives. I'm trying to > personalize shamans more, so that theyr're not identical copies of > each other across Glorantha. Shamanism (in real world) is thought to be sort of a extatic technique and I think that shamanism in Glorantha and RQ should more closely reflect actual shamanism. At least in the north almost all shamans had two very important "objects of power". The first was shamans clothes, which reflected the animal whose form the shaman would take in the spirit world. Second object was a drum, that was used to enter the spirit world. In game terms the drum could act like fetch. The drum was very closely connected to the shaman, and when a shaman retired, he/she could sink his drum to a lake or swamp in order to prevent the misuse of this "other part of his soul". Paintings on the drum also reflected shamans personal and traditional wievs of the world. I don't think that drums were considered as "living" objects or that they were thought to possess spirits, but a shaman still had very close realtionship to his drum. Maybe spells could be chaneled trough the thing, to both directions... Yours Tapani Mylly *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Feb 1998 12:23:52 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: [RQ-RULES] Excess Stuff... I've got the following supplements for sale. Prices listed do not include shipping. Unless otherwise indicated, all items are still in the original shrinkwrap. (The following are all for the Avalon Hill edition of the RuneQuest RPG) Sun County for RQ, $8 Snakepipe Hollow for RQ, $5 Human & Nonhuman Adventurer Sheets, either for $5 Monster Coliseum for RQ (Boxed), $12 Trollpak for RQ (boxed), $12 Land of Ninja for RQ (boxed), $18 Elder Secrets for RQ (boxed), $18 The Haunted Ruins for RQ, $5 Apple Lane for RQ, $5 Lords of Terror for RQ, $9 Shadows on the Borderland for RQ, $9 Strangers in Prax for RQ, $9 RuneQuest Deluxe Edition (boxed), $20 RuneQuest 3 GM's Box, $10 (This item contains books 3, 4, & 5, plus map of Fantasy Europe & Play Aids) (For the Chaosium edition of RuneQuest) SoloQuest 1 , $12 Chaosium's Theives World (based on the anthologies editted by Robert Asprin) Boxed set: $25 Companion: $15 FASA's Tx Series Modules for Chaosium's Thieves World T1: Traitor $10 Chaosium's Ringworld (based on the novels by Larry Niven) (box has one tear, one seperated corner): $75 Ringworld Companion: $40 I also have games from several other companies. For a more complete list, please e-mail me directly. - -- talmeta@cybercomm.net - Former sysop / netgod, now 'net bum. Do I look like someone who cares what GOD thinks?! / I have no webpage. / Curiosity killed the cat... Loathesome rituals BROUGHT IT BACK! / Will work for cash. / Insert Nifty ASCII graphic here. / Give me Slack, or give me Food. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Feb 1998 16:20:39 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Those Pesky Elementals Hibbs, Philip wrote: > > In RQ3, shades only get to use fear once per full turn, ie. 5 > minutes. Well, per target, anyway. Nothing says it can't go from target to target, afterall. Pete Nash wrote: > > To be an effective (long lived) elemental it currently needs to be > BIG! To get a really large elemental is almost impossible, because > of the difficulty of binding the huge POW involved. Unless, of course, you're a mamber of a cult that gives elementals, in which case the temple has them in whatever size you need for the job at hand. > From the written sources an elemental is a magical being which > annimates a volume of substance. If you cut a sword through the > air, what are you doing to the air? Nothing. The matter just > passes to either side of the blade and remixes on the other side. > So if you cannot damage the physical substance of the elemental, > what can you do? You must attack the magical spirit of the > creature. We play that _only_ magic can affect them. Thus doing > them damage is akin to attacking a wraith(?). A bladesharp 2 does > 2 points etc. As the elemental's spirit is whittled down then it > loses the ability to annimate so much substance, and is finally > destroyed. I think I like this better than giving elementals a default AP value, really. It makes good sense, too (same rule I used for trying to whack disease spirits or madness spirits...) - -- talmeta@cybercomm.net - Former sysop / netgod, now 'net bum. Do I look like someone who cares what GOD thinks?! / I have no webpage. / Curiosity killed the cat... Loathesome rituals BROUGHT IT BACK! / Will work for cash. / Insert Nifty ASCII graphic here. / Give me Slack, or give me Food. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of RuneQuest-Rules-Digest V1 #13 ************************************ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. 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