From: owner-runequest-rules@ (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.MPGN.COM Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V1 #179 Reply-To: runequest-rules@mpgn.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@ Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@ Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Thursday, October 15 1998 Volume 01 : Number 179 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS Re: [RQ-RULES] Skill difficulties RE: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Combat skill mechanics Re: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Combat skill mechanics RE: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Combat skill mechanics RE: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Combat skill mechanics [RQ-RULES] Runequest Lite [RQ-RULES] Special/Critical RE: [RQ-RULES] Runequest Lite [RQ-RULES] BFRP Project Organisation [RQ-RULES] Rules revision and BRP Re: [RQ-RULES] Skill difficulties 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, 15 Oct 1998 10:40:20 -0400 From: "Bob Stancliff" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Skill difficulties > Gosh, my players talk about nothing else all game session. Realy, I just > don't see how this benefits the game. It also makes this a new game > which is incompatible with previous characters, as does the root/branch > skills cascade system. I have done this kind of transition twice for my game. It is not something you want to do twice in a year, but it works. Changing the skill list is actually much more disruptive than adding skill levels. The players put a mark for the skill level next to the skill and they naturally memorize most of them, so running old rule characters, even RQ2 is hardly more difficult. > If you're developing a new BRP based game, you should IMO realy be > talking about what to drop from RQ3, not what to add. RQ3 was a complex, > monster of a game and that's one of the reasons it faded away. You can't > turn the tide of history. Sure you can, by gaining followers at the grass roots and spreading. You are right about thinning the rules, but with good wording and fewer examples the rules will naturally get thinner... a web book doesn't need pictures either, they just add color. By the way, D&D was a complex monster of a game, and did OK until the second (or third?) rewrite. RuneQuest won several awards at it's inception, but didn't have enough Gloranthan material for people to understand the nuances. Attention faded faster than interest was sparked by new material. It stayed a big favorite in England for years, unlike America. DragonQuest was a good game that never had enough supporting material. It had some complex rules, but could probably be dropped into RQ or Glorantha with just a few changes. Champions is a great game which could be forced to support the RQ concepts. Combat would be better, but the magic systems would be strained. > Just out of interest, has anyone actualy started writing this thing? No, we just think we are. > What mechanisms do you have for dividing up the work? Who makes final > decissions on content where there is disagreement? It is clear that we will end up with at least three distinct versions since everyone will give their ideas precedence over other's. This is moving too fast to be organized or thought out. We are in the fever rush of a new idea, before people realize how much work is really involved in writing new descriptions for each aspect of the game. Everything has to be written fresh to not be a letter-of-the-law copyright violation. *************************************************************************** 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, 15 Oct 1998 15:45:50 GMT0BST From: Bruce Mason Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Combat skill mechanics > From: "Hibbs, Philip" > > I'd prefer not to have to roll the extra die. I was thinking earlier of > > the following simplified table: > > > > Skill Critical Special > > 01-10 01 > > 11-49 02 03-05 > > 50-99 03 04-10 > > 100-149 04 05-20 > > 150-199 05 06-30 > > each +50 +1 +10 Well the system I have been using for a long, long time is to collapse the difference between specials and criticals and to make critical equal to 1/10 of your skill chance. I also use the now standard skill <=50% = fumble 99-00, skill >50% fumble 00. Makes everything a lot simpler. I then generally let players choose the results of the critical, e.g. in combat they get the choice of: double weapon damage ignore physical armour ignore magical armour choose a hit location or do some special effect that is mutually agreeable to GM and player. The default is ignore physical armour. - ---Bruce Bruce Mason, SOCAS, UWC. Research Associate: Hypermedia and Ethnography Email me for more information about this project or check the following url: http://www.cf.ac.uk/uwcc/socas/research/hyper/ *************************************************************************** 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, 15 Oct 1998 10:55:30 -0400 From: "Bob Stancliff" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Combat skill mechanics > Drop the calculation basis for specials, criticals and fumbles, instead roll a d20 along with your percentile dice, if you have missed and your d20 comes up 20 you have fumbled. On the other hand if you have hit your d20 result is interpreted as follows: > 1 Roll an extra set of damage dice and re-roll d20 and re-interpret result form this list > 2-5 Roll an extra set of damage dice > 6-20 no effect > Yours Paul You should have carried your idea to the full conclusion. If the % roll hits, then a d20 of 16-19 is a special and a 20 is a critical. If the % roll fails, then the same values on the d20 are special failure and fumble. Special failures are the mild results like lose next attack or drop weapon. Fumbles are the severe results like hit self or break weapon. Never add an unneeded die roll. Figuring the crit and special number is better, but this system gives the same results for the math impaired, and even continues working in the tight regions at the top and bottom of the percentile scale. Bob Stancliff (stanclif@ufl.edu) http://commnections.com/upgrades *************************************************************************** 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, 15 Oct 1998 16:04:19 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Combat skill mechanics >Well the system I have been using for a long, long time is >to collapse the difference between specials and criticals >and to make critical equal to 1/10 of your skill chance. That's quite neat, I like it. That could be extended so that on a 01 you get two of the options, defaulting to double damage ignoring physical armour. The problem is that it reduces the chance of an improved result by one half, without increasing the payback. philip.hibbs@tnt.co.uk http://members.tripod.com/~PhilHibbs/ Any view of things that is not strange is false - Neil Gaiman, Sandman *************************************************************************** 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, 15 Oct 1998 16:13:22 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Combat skill mechanics >You should have carried your idea to the full conclusion. >If the % roll hits, then a d20 of 16-19 is a special and a 20 >is a critical. If the % roll fails, then the same values on >the d20 are special failure and fumble. Now that I do like. I'd prefer 1 for critical and 1-4 for special, though, that gives a 20% chance of a special and 5% chance of critical, the same as RQ. The special failures need to be quite minor. philip.hibbs@tnt.co.uk http://members.tripod.com/~PhilHibbs/ Any view of things that is not strange is false - Neil Gaiman, Sandman *************************************************************************** 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, 15 Oct 1998 16:16:57 +0100 From: Simon Hibbs Subject: [RQ-RULES] Runequest Lite Bruce Mason : >Total agreement here. For a long time there was a discussion of a >system known as RQ-lite..... I was completely behind this idea - it was about 3 years ago now. I would have sat down and written it myself for my own use, but then I discovered Elric, in which Chaosium had already done the job for me. IMHO Elric and Call of Cthulhu 5th Edition are without a doubt the slickest implementations of the BRP game system to date. RQ3 and such give far too much of the impression that you're trying to manualy run a computer simulation programme with paper and pencil. Lightweight BRP gives you sensible results, with intuitive game mechanics that let you concentrate on creating a believable world. Nobody can actualy prove, or even demonstrate to me that skill difficulties or cascades are actuly more realistic than a simple uniform skills list. They attempt to simulate more factors that affect skill learning, but there is absolutely no method for checking whether those factors actualy produce realistic results. Anyone with a grounding in mathematical modeling will tell you that modeling processes is no guarantee of accurate results. At the end of the day it's all down to arbitrary assumptions, and in fact the more arbitrary assumptions you make, the less likely you are to get sensible results. Take skill categories for example. I could easily contend that having skills categories and category modifiers is very clearly less realistic than treating each skill spearately, with arbitrary skill point assignments, as in Call of Cthulhu. Skill categories mean that Fast Talk and Speak [Old Seshnellan] are always subject to the same skill modifier. Everyone who has an intrinsic boost to their Fast Talk will also be good at foreign languages. Yet this is clearly not the case. In the real world some people can have a fantastic facility for learning languages, yet be crap at other inperpersonal skills. I could say the same for a lot of other skill categories. Are all talented musicians good pickpockets? Imposing any kind of grouping of this kind reduces the variability between characters, stifling individualism. The same goes for skill difficulty levels. Some people are naturaly incredibly talented as skills that most other people find very hard to master. To simulate this in a complexified game system with skill difficulties, you have to add on extra rules to deal with exceptions. Simon Hibbs *************************************************************************** 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, 15 Oct 1998 16:23:38 +0200 From: Alain.RAMEAU@total.com (Alain RAMEAU) Subject: [RQ-RULES] Special/Critical Do we want to stick to special/critical/fumble as they are defined in RQ ? If we want this system to apply to Elric too, it may not be necessary to keep all that. In Elric, there is no such a distinction (as I remember). Only a 10% chance of good succes ? Further more, the calculations are not obvious ! Even after many years of RQing, I prefer sometimes to look at the table to be sure that the result is a fumble (for low skills at least) ! What about this simpler method of calculation with only special success and critical failure : Any double under the skill is a special success (11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66 and 77 for a 80% skilled character), while above the skill is a critical failure (88, 99 and 00 for the same character) ? In addition, you can add a critical success if the roll is exactly equal to the skill of the character (80% in the above example). For the effects, I think additional damages is a good solution (the open ended, as proposed by Paul Bestwick, is Interesting but open ended roll is not really part of standard RQ mechanism). Anyway, I don't like the the "no armor" effect, because too powerful against very protected character, and because it is not clear (in the rules, or following many discussions on this list) how to deal with magical protection and enchantment. Alain. http://www.btinternet.com/~karamo/rqgb.htm *************************************************************************** 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, 15 Oct 1998 16:50:12 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Runequest Lite >RQ3 and such give far too much of the impression that >you're trying to manualy run a computer simulation >programme with paper and pencil. LOL! I agree with your sentiments, but I'm not actually that keen on what I've seen of Elric!, although the game that you are running with me in may be suffering from being a bit of a hybrid. It has problems with RQ-compatibility due to the higher skill numbers. Skill categories may not be realistic, but they *seem* realistic, which is equally important - my strong, agile, but thick warrior is good at fighting, climbing and swimming, but not so good at magic, knowledge and communication. I'd like to simplify the category modifiers, as I nearly always end up taking peoples character sheets and doing the sums for them, and telling them which category modifiers will change when their stats change. Stat Bonus 1-4 -10 5-9 -5 10-14 0 15-19 +5 20-24 +10 each +5 +5 I don't see the need for secondary effects, the reduced bonus cancels this out. Negate numbers for negative effects (SIZ & POW on stealth &|| agility) philip.hibbs@tnt.co.uk http://members.tripod.com/~PhilHibbs/ Any view of things that is not strange is false - Neil Gaiman, Sandman *************************************************************************** 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, 15 Oct 1998 16:48:50 +0100 From: Simon Hibbs Subject: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Project Organisation Phil syas : >No, nothing so organised. My intention at this stage is to >work out who wants to work on what, and what general >level of detail we want to go to. We have a number of potions here : 1) Go for a Mega-Runequest based on RQ3 but much more complicated, with lost of bells and whistles and a high page count, requiring a new skills list and possibly more than one character sheet per character. 2) A Rewrite of RQ3 that is compatible with existing characters, including the classic RQ magic systems. This _may_ be simpler in terms of some game mechanics, but requires no new calculations or character sheet growth over RQ3. 3) RuneQuest Lite based on the simplified game mechanics familiar to Call of Cthulhu, Elric and Nephilim players. This would hark back to the old days of Hawkmoon, Stormbringer and Worlds of Wonder, but updated for the 90s. Option 3 would realy enable us to engage our creativity, because lightweight game mechanics would free up page count for our own innovations such as new magic systems and variant options for different game worlds. In my honest opinion option 1 is a non starter in today's world. It's also the most ambitious project and therefore the least likely to happen. Option 2 is a worthy project that I would support and perhaps contribute to, though it doesn't realy excite me. After all I already own RQ3 and it's still fairly easy to get hold of. Option 3 is quite an exciting idea that could reach a much wider audience, and popularise the BRP system with a whole new generation of roleplayers. Because BRP is inherently modular, any new stuff would still be adaptable to RQ3 or Mega-RQ, for those who are into that sort of thing. Simon Hibbs *************************************************************************** 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, 15 Oct 1998 15:55:30 +0100 From: Sergio Mascarenhas Subject: [RQ-RULES] Rules revision and BRP It may be interesting for you to know that Chaosium has a bizarre politic concerning BRP: they stoped developing new games based on it... in English. Yet, they allowed Casus Belli (a French RPG magazine) to edit a new version of BRP called Basic in French. CB is editing gamewords for Basic. So, if you read French, you can access BRP 98 quite easely. Try asking Chaosium if, given they accept new editions of BRP in French, they could license you BRP so you could edit it in English for non Gloranthan game worlds. You could even see what people at CB are doing in that context. Sergio *************************************************************************** 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, 15 Oct 1998 11:56:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Al Harrison Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Skill difficulties On Thu, 15 Oct 1998, Simon Hibbs wrote: > don't see how this benefits the game. It also makes this a new game > which is incompatible with previous characters, as does the root/branch > skills cascade system. Simon, Sorry ... no ... the root/branch system is _totally_ compatible with existing characters. Just take all their specialized skills (like "Jump", "Attack w/Klanth", "Speak: Auld Wyrmish") and attach to the proper roots (i.e. Agility, Manipulation [Weapon? as Alain suggests], Communication). The _point_ of root-branch - the sharp stick if you will - is that it gives specific numbers for specific skills the characters will always be using, and for more unlikely skills the characters fall back on the low base number for the root. > If you're developing a new BRP based game, you should IMO realy be > talking about what to drop from RQ3, not what to add. RQ3 was a complex, How about generation of skill ratings which are used once in a dozen sessions? The reason I suggested root branch. All IMO, sorry not very humble. Al Harrison www.coe.neu.edu/~aharriso/ aharriso@coe.neu.edu *************************************************************************** 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 #179 ************************************* *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. RuneQuest is a Trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. 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.