From: owner-runequest-rules@ (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.MPGN.COM Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #56 Reply-To: runequest-rules@mpgn.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@ Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@ Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Wednesday, March 31 1999 Volume 02 : Number 056 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS [RQ-RULES] DMD - Yondalla for RQ/Greyhawk [RQ-RULES] Re: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #55 Re: [RQ-RULES] Re: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #55 [RQ-RULES] MAGIC CHECKLISTS [RQ-RULES] Hero Points Re: [RQ-RULES] Hero Points Re : [RQ-RULES] Hero Points Re : [RQ-RULES] Hero Points 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: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 21:11:25 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: [RQ-RULES] DMD - Yondalla for RQ/Greyhawk Gods of the Hobniz YONDALLA Runes: Kinship x2, Fertility, Stasis The Blessed Provider, the Nurturing Matriarch. Cult in the World Yondalla is seen as the mother of the hobniz race, their provider in times of need, and their spiritual center. Family is very much at the center of hobniz society, as is evidenced by the deep faith nearly all hobniz feel for Yondalla. Most if not all hobniz remain active initiates in her faith as well as any other they may belong to. High Holy Day for this cult is the 7th of Readying, with lesser holidays on the 7th of each month in addition to regular Godsday observances. Temples to Yondalla are rarely built; shrines to her faith are nearly universal in hobniz homes, and most villages boast a larger, central shrine. Ceremonial garb consists of overlapping robes of green and brown, with a yellow overcloak. An shield bearing a cornucopia device is frequently carried as well. Lay Membership Requirements: As membership in this cult is nearly universal, merely being a hobniz is all that is required to qualify. Skills taught include Dance, Orate, Sing, Speak Languages, many Crafts, First Aid, Lores (Hobniz, World), Read/Write, Listen, Scan, Ceremony, Short sword attack, and Shield parry. Initiate Membership Requirements: Standard. Known among themselves as the Blessed, initiates of this faith serve their communities in a variety of ways. Besides their obvious ecclesiastical role, they work as civil leaders, peace keepers, and counselors, and some even serve as inter community emissaries. Spirit Magic: Befuddle, Countermagic, Ease Pain, Light, Yondalla's Touch Acolyte Membership Requirements: Standard. Priesthood Requirements: Standard. Yondalla's priests are known as the Exalted. Except in times of war, they lead their village defenses, and can frequently be found aiding the cults of Arvoreen, Cyrrollalee, Sheela and Urogalan. Virtues for Yondalla include Altruistic, Energetic, Loyal, Social, and Trusting. Common Divine Magic: all Special Divine Magic: Accelerate Growth, Bounty, Brace, Community, Couvade, Earth Strength, Group Defense, Heal CON, Restore (all). Associated Gods Arvoreen: provides Vigilance Brandobaris: provides Avoid Fate Cyrrollalee: provides Heal Body Sheela: provides Tanglethicket Urogalan: provides Resurrect - -- talmeta@bellatlantic.net - Heretic & Dilettante ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta1 Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 22:21:58 -0600 From: "Guy Hoyle" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Re: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #55 >Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 20:54:06 -0500 >From: Tal Meta >Subject: [RQ-RULES] Sandy? > >Anyone got a valid e-mail address for Sandy Petersen? > >My company is having a number of guests at our next RPG convention, and >I'm hoping we can get the man behind Call of Cthulhu as one of our >Guests of Honor... I've passed this along to him. (I feel wierd giving out other peoples' email addys without their permission; guess I never got over that stalker ;-) ) Guy *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 23:41:56 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Re: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #55 Guy Hoyle wrote: > > I've passed this along to him. (I feel wierd giving out other peoples' > email addys without their permission; guess I never got over that stalker > ;-) ) More than fair. Thank you sir. :) - -- talmeta@bellatlantic.net - Heretic & Dilettante ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta1 Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 12:53:09 -0600 From: "Guy Hoyle" Subject: [RQ-RULES] MAGIC CHECKLISTS For some time now I've been thinking about formulating a kind of "magical traditions" checklist as a shorthand way of noting the differences between the different magic-using societies in my game worlds. I envision this as some kind of checklist, where you check off all the options that apply. Some of the criteria I've noted are: 1) Use of magic is based on: gender; bloodline; birth order; random selection; magical aptitude ("Magic skill"); inborn magical "gift"; selection by supernatural entity. 2) Magic source is: internal; external 3) "Spells" may be learned by: oral traditions; notes or texts; experimentation; communication with supernatural entity; meditation 4) Magician's duties are: full time; part time; require no extra time 5) Magician's upkeep is based on: community contributions or taxes; begging; commercial; subsidized by patron. 6) Spell variety: a) Is not restricted in learning types of spells (fire, healing, mind control, etc.); i.e., you can eventually learn to cast any kind of spell you can think of. b) Limited only by selection available (i.e., you must be able to find someone to teach you, or find the spell in a book) c) Limited by local custom (e.g. In Garamantia, the Red Wizards may only cast spells of fire and hunting, though some of them secretly learn healing magic as well); d) Limited by the nature of the magic (e.g. In Garamantia, Green Wizards may only cast spells of Healing and Fertility magic, and are unable to learn Death magic). I think there's room for much more development here, and could use some more input in developing this further. I don't recall seeing anything much like this, but it seems like it could be invaluable to a GM. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 14:31:05 -0500 (EST) From: Nikk Effingham Subject: [RQ-RULES] Hero Points I'm not sure if HeroQuesting should be discussed on the RQ Rules, but as it is a rules issue I thought it was best here than the Glorantha Digest. I've been playing HQing that when you get to the HeroPlane, on certain Quests skills are divided by five, on others by ten, and that when you return experience gained is mutliplied by the appropriate amount. It isn't that simple, of course, but thats the basic rules I was using. Now, I've playtested this a little, and of course it stops working. Characters head to 200% in a skill pretty bloody quickly, and worse still the desperation to get a tick becomes even worse. In some cases the ticks were worth more than the reward itself! So I figured that I'd keep the skill divisions (as it worked really well for representing gods etc... and worked well with my Passions) but get rid of the extra experience gains. Instead, I've come up with the idea of Hero Points (I might rename them, to Rune Points, Fate Points or something better). A character begins with one Hero Point (HP) if they're a rune lord, rune priest or other powerful sort of being, and none if not. You gain them by completing a HeroQuest, getting between one and three a time, depending upon success and how difficult and long the Quest is. You can only spend HP's on HeroQuests. You can spend them after any dice roll to bump up the success level by one i.e. form a fumble to a fail, from a fail to a normal success, from a normal to a special success etc... So they can be used at critical moments. Great. Plus, as well as other funky things you can spend them at the end of any HeroQuest to gain the ability to invoke the HeroQuest. If you haven't read any of my HQs etc... this means that you can use portions of that HQ in another. So, you could go on a Quest of trolls and spend HPs to gain the ability to summon Gore and Gash. On a later HeroQuest you can use up this ability by summoning Gore and Gash to help you. HP's would be used to do other really cool things. I'm not quite sure yet. What does everybody/anybody think? Nikk *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 14:52:19 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Hero Points Nikk Effingham wrote: > > You can only spend HP's on HeroQuests. You can spend them after any dice > roll to bump up the success level by one i.e. form a fumble to a fail, from > a fail to a normal success, from a normal to a special success etc... So > they can be used at critical moments. Great. I've used Elan (from Stormbringer) in similar ways, but in normal play. I only let folks use Elan to -subtract- from rolls, to possibly turn failures into successes, etc. - -- talmeta@cybercomm.net - Heretic & Dilettante ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta1 Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 15:20:44 EST From: JTDLord@aol.com Subject: Re : [RQ-RULES] Hero Points Hi Nikk, Hero Points sound pretty cool, but ... Should a player be able to use a HP for _any_ skill use? It seems to me that the system might be easy to abuse. A character with loads of HPs would be a bit too much like Joe90, wouldn't he? ;-) But I sympathise. HQ is a bit difficult to do with RQ ... The problem I had, myself, with very high skill levels was the special success. I wanted to incorporate a martial arts maneuvers/swashbuckling system, based on a nifty new rule for special success (Loren Miller's ideas I think? :-) into my own HQ game, but: What's so special about special success when everyone has 350% skills?? I have a different idea now about HQ skills: IMG players can only get HQ mega-checks in a limited number of skills: Those associated with their cult/religion, with the Quest itself, and a limited number of skills associated with a short list of five cultural personality traits, which are the character's favourite skills (there should ideally be overlap between these five skills and the Cult/Quest ones). Oh, and if they do anything really spectacular and fun on HQ, they get a mega-check, of course. Actually, if you look at mega-checks in the same light as D&D XPs, to be awarded entirely at GM whim, a lot of this HQ check problem just vanishes, doesn't it? the GM could award, say, 2 checks in Sword Attack for some fairly ordinary but fun success in HQ combat, or a dozen checks in poetry to the guy who got the Furies to weep ... Any help? cheers Julian Lord *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 17:56:36 -0500 (EST) From: Nikk Effingham Subject: Re : [RQ-RULES] Hero Points >Should a player be able to use a HP for _any_ skill use? >It seems to me that the system might be easy to abuse. >A character with loads of HPs would be a bit too much >like Joe90, wouldn't he? ;-) Well, yes. But, imagine saving up those HPs. This would require many, many HQs and require you to go on these HQs and complete them without using up HPs yourself. You could prepare for a major HQ, say the Terminus Quest or the Hill of Gold Quest by doing enough HeroQuests to have lots of HPs. I say fine, this is the sort of preparation I would demand of such a potential HQer. And such amount of HPs wouldn't make up totally for lack of skill. Firstly, if you had a total lack of skill you couldn't gain those HPs and unless you had a ridiculous amount of HPs (they don't regerneate or anything like that) which would require an equally silly amount of previous HeroQuesting then you couldn't make your way through as huge HeroQuest merely on HPs. Obviously this is an assumption, and I'd prefer to see it in playtest before I agree with either side. >But I sympathise. >HQ is a bit difficult to do with RQ ... I'm tempted top disagree and say "HQ is a bit difficult" >The problem I had, myself, with very high skill levels >was the special success. I wanted to incorporate >a martial arts maneuvers/swashbuckling system, >based on a nifty new rule for special success >(Loren Miller's ideas I think? :-) >into my own HQ game, but: >What's so special about special success when >everyone has 350% skills?? Well, base it on the critical success : )))) Part of the reason I came up with this idea was today when I was writing a Shadow Knight of Arkat up for a Lodrili Quest. Describing this character as having been on various HQs where they had gained high levels of skill experience, I awarded her about 270% in attack, parry and aover 150% in a variety of other skills. After all, she was supposedly an accomplished HQer of about ten or eleven HQs. This, in itself, isn't a problem. But I believe the RQ system to be able to define the Heroes and Superheros of the game, and here was a bog standard HeroQuester, barely noticeable, and she kicked arse. Fine, but this would mean the Heroes were walking around with 500% attack and parry, 2000%, even 3000%! OK, I was thinking about it in purely combat terms, but then this is where RQ breaks down. I decided high yield experience gains were a ridiculous game feature. >I have a different idea now about HQ skills: > >IMG players can only get HQ mega-checks >in a limited number of skills: >Those associated with their cult/religion, >with the Quest itself, >and a limited number of skills associated >with a short list of five cultural personality traits, >which are the character's favourite skills >(there should ideally be overlap between >these five skills and the Cult/Quest ones). This would work. But then I'd still be left with the fact that some Heroes are just vastly powerered by taking quests to give them hundreds of percentiles in cult skills. Instead, i wanted a different, yet interesting reward. >Oh, and if they do anything really spectacular >and fun on HQ, they get a mega-check, of course. > >Actually, if you look at mega-checks in the same >light as D&D XPs, to be awarded entirely at GM whim, >a lot of this HQ check problem just vanishes, doesn't it? Yes. As one of my players mentioned, half jokingly, that his character was going to do something because there was no penalty for bad roleplaying in RQ. I'd prefer a Storyteller experience system, getting experience for roleplaying and other non-character related stuff. Except then characters would complain that training etc... doesn't do anything for their characters. Players are never easily pleased.... >the GM could award, say, 2 checks in Sword Attack >for some fairly ordinary but fun success in HQ combat, >or a dozen checks in poetry to the guy who got >the Furies to weep ... These are my ideas: Passions are what I introduced. These work similar to Pendragon Traits, but I found - for reasons I have stated before - that traits were not a very good game aid, and sometimes were very restrictive. Passions are things like Love (Father), Hate (Chaos) or Piety (Humakt). Whenever a character acts in accordance to their Passions they add the level of the Passion to their skill for determining their success, and whenever they act against their Passions they minus it from their skills. And this applies _after_ a character has divided their skills by either five or ten depending upon the difficulty of the Quest. So a character with Hate Chaos 25 and Sword Attack 100 attacks a broo at 125% chance on a HQ where skills are unaffected, 45% where skills are divided by five and 35% where skills are divided by ten. this means that a really pious Humakti is better on HQ's than a really skillful, yet less pious, Humakti (as long as he acts as Humakt would've). This was very in line with current HQ thinking. Plus, it doesn't allow for boy heroes who have never picked up a sword to defeat gods by having high passions as the only way to get passions above ten it to HeroQuest or be a Rune Lord (among other, equally uneasy ways). This is the basic mechanism on my webpage house rules (please check them out at your leisure). I am planning to have it so that some HeroQuests give you a higher increase in certain skills if you succeeded in checking them, just as you've described, which I think is fine, as long as it is kept in check by the GM. Some of the things I haven't mentioned about Hero Points and their useage. It makes Cult Support really easy. If you get Cult Support you get hero points to use on the HeroQuest. Far simpler than any idea I've seen elsewhere, except YAHQS which is basically the same as this anyhow. (I learnt a lot about HQing from YAHQS and advise it to anyone designing a HeroQuest system). In Tales #7 David Hall describes a G:tg character sheet. He has HeroQuesters with special "cards2 to give them magic powers for HeroQuests, like summoning hurricanes, or Gore and Gash. Cool, with Hero Points you buy them at the end of a HeroQuest for use later. Just like Greg envisioned. I've also seen Sandy P.'s HQ system, and liked some of that. In Tales #7 he mentions WILL. On the HeroQuest you use WILL at one point to permanently increase stats, for every WILL spent one stat is increased by 1d6. You could use the Hero Points like this. Now, truly Heroic individuals get the best benefits. Plus it makes you better at HeroQuesting. Without making you gross or really, really silly. I've now seen a PC go on two HeroQuests and gained 5d6% in skills upon his return in addition to the normal HQ benefits. He is gross. A few more Quests and he will be very, very silly. I can't let this happen, Hero points (does anybody have a better name) solve this, so I see. Certainly it will arm me with a HeroQuest specific stat that I can "toy" with to allow for future changes in Greg's vision of HeroQuesting - which was always what I intended to do when I decided to write my own HeroQuest system - to fit in with what Greg thought. Heck, if you think this is radical you should see my ideas for Experimental HeroQuesting : ) Nikk *************************************************************************** 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 V2 #56 ************************************ *************************************************************************** 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.