From: owner-runequest-rules@ (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.MPGN.COM Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #59 Reply-To: runequest-rules@mpgn.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@ Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@ Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Thursday, April 1 1999 Volume 02 : Number 059 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS RE: [RQ-RULES] HeroQuests and huge skill levels... [RQ-RULES] Re: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #58 Re: [RQ-RULES] HeroQuests and huge skill levels... Re: [RQ-RULES] HeroQuest "rules" [RQ-RULES] Heroquesting outside Glorantha Re : [RQ-RULES] Hero Points RE: [RQ-RULES] HeroQuests and huge skill levels... [RQ-RULES] Pendragony RuneQuest Re: [RQ-RULES] Pendragony RuneQuest [RQ-RULES] First HeroQuest post 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, 1 Apr 1999 17:14:58 +0100 From: Ashley Munday Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] HeroQuests and huge skill levels... Just read Tal's thing about a non-Gloranthan HQ: "The important part, IMO, is the reenactment of myth by mortal characters, for material/spiritual gain." Personally, I think we can be far more general than this: "The important part is the exchange of an Adventurers freedom of action for material/spiritual gain." I only say this 'cause it validates what I said earlier about Gifts and Geases! Nothing like being onanistic huh? Ash *************************************************************************** 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, 1 Apr 1999 11:38:45 -0500 (EST) From: Al Harrison Subject: [RQ-RULES] Re: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #58 > Just as an aside, has anyone ever done any "Heroquests" for other game > worlds than Glorantha? I don't think that HQ is necessarily Gloranthan. > Think of the Arthurian Grail Quest for example - that's an HQ without > needing Glorantha. > > Here's another aside: The current vogue seems to be using Pendragony style > rules: Has anyone any thoughts of usiong RQ rules for a Pendragony style > campaign? Yes. I ran a Celtic Irish campaign (using the Pendragon supplement plus that old AD&D book on Celts, plus a copy of "Hounds of the Morrigan" and the Susan Cooper series "The Dark is Rising" plus a lot of other pieces) with RQ mechanics. It worked fairly well, except for three problems: 1. druidic magic is a combination of sorcery and divine 2. "spirits" per se have little place in Celtic lore (ghosts and Sidhe may be summoned, but there's no concept of a "passion spirit" or anything similar. 3. RQ combat was a little deadly for the players' taste - I liked it fine. 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. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 11:57:04 -0500 From: "Bob Stancliff" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] HeroQuests and huge skill levels... > The list is slow, so I think I'll ask a question I hope others are > wondering about too. Can someone post a short, simple explaination of > HeroQuesting, without sending me all over the web to read various > incarnations and rule sets? In particular, I'm wondering how any RuneQuest3 > character can acheive such large skill levels. I'm assuming this is a > special boon rewarded to the character upon successful completion of a > HeroQuest. NO. The discussion is Based on 3 to 5 HQ rule systems written by various gamers. YaHQS, Steve Maurer's, and a couple of others. Common themes were to drop all rolls by one success level (or divide by 10, etc) to make the god plane more SUPER, so that Rune Lords were just novices. The result was that they were too weak so SUPER experience was awarded to allow them to catch up; this took them far beyond the normal values of people in the world and completely unbalanced any normal gaming. HQ'ing shouldn't be an issue of raw combat %'s, but of knowledge and divine or magical affinity. Nothing says that a god needs a skill over 500%, for instance, since he may of had the same experience restrictions as people within time. It is more important to balance character advancement with quality of opponents to keep the games interesting. > I'm very interested in the HeroQuest aspect, though, so a brief > explaination would be great! Is HeroQuesting something that should even be > attempted in most RuneQuest games? Most of the discussions have been in regard to combat. The storytelling concepts are much less game specific and are often very flexible or undefined. Some systems say that only your spirit goes to the god plane and you act for your god, others say that you physically go there and you can act for yourself if you don't want to follow a mythic path. A great deal of material relates to Hero Paths, how they are formed and modified, and these concepts change with each rule system. > In our games we use a modified skill check system, so that the > first successful use of an unchecked skill gets a checkmark, and after that > any special or critical success in that skill also gets a checkmark. At the > end of an adventure skills like Search, Scan, Climb, and weapon skills > usually have three of four checkmarks, but these usually only result in one > or two increases per skill. Even with this increased chance to increase our > skill levels we still, after several gaming years, have very few characters > with skills in the high 90% to 100% range. Characters with 150% are unheard > of, let alone 200%! This is an excellent way to bring characters up to Rune Level faster without skipping over the lower level of character development. It has the bad effect of letting characters become masters at a very early age unless the game timeline is adjusted to make more down time occur between stories. Any character generation system that adds skill percents in a linear %'s/year way is bad. Characters in the game don't improve that way, and new characters shouldn't do so either. I have adapted the experience system to be one of assigning skill checks/year that are rolled for to see if a gain is made. Low skills advance fast and trail off in the mid-range. Many checks on a skill are needed to make mastery (about 20 to 30 successes for a normal skill and at least 3 times as many checks). *************************************************************************** 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, 01 Apr 1999 12:37:33 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] HeroQuest "rules" Ashley Munday wrote: > > Just as an aside, has anyone ever done any "Heroquests" for other game > worlds than Glorantha? I don't think that HQ is necessarily Gloranthan. > Think of the Arthurian Grail Quest for example - that's an HQ without > needing Glorantha. Part of RQ/Greyhawk project is fleshing out myths to go with the gods in question. I'll be the first to admit I'm not always 100% successful, but usually by the time I'm finished with a set I have a fair idea about the kind of heroquests a particular pantheon lends itself to. - -- 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: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 12:54:41 -0500 (EST) From: bjm10@cornell.edu Subject: [RQ-RULES] Heroquesting outside Glorantha Actually, I did run a few heroquests outside Glorantha--they were in the Forgotten Realms, but I was using the GURPS rules at the time. The first HeroQuest was a bit of a sucker-play, but the player didn't fall for it. They did manage to teach magic to Mystra, but my "target player" was able to foist the role of Azuth off onto a hapless NPC rather than be stuck into the trap of being a god. The second was simply too wierd for words: I did a "hypertime" thing years before DC came out with it. The PCs had managed to disjoint themselves from reality (oops) and were working on "re-affixing" things. *************************************************************************** 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, 1 Apr 1999 18:03:22 EST From: JTDLord@aol.com Subject: Re : [RQ-RULES] Hero Points >>One suggestion, though: >>Rather than having PC skills divided and recalculated for every HQ, >>instead I multiply (or rarely, divide) _NPC_ skills for each encounter. >>This rather simplifies book-keeping, keeps the players guessing, >>and is more versatile than the old Chaosium system, because >>it's much easier to have varying levels of difficulty during a Quest. >Also saves aspirin. >Multiplying the skill of the NPC's surely offsets what you were trying to >solve. Erm, no. I have a Heroic Success rule (1/100 of skill) which works. >I was dividing skills by five because a combat between somebody with >300% combat skills and 200% combat skills is SLLLLLOOOOOWWWWW, My Heroic Success rule makes it FAST!!! (Also, the RQ "Critical Hits bypass all Armour" rule really speeds things up at high level ... ) >whereas a >fight between somebody with 60% attack and somebody with 40% combat skills >is far faster. And anybody in my game who can't take their skill and divide >it by five shouldn't be playing (I'm not saying I don't have players like >that, just that they shouldn't be there : ) Sure, but that doesn't make the calculations any less BOOOOORRIIIING... ( :-] ) >>Should "Hero Points" be called, simply, Support? >Hmm, I don't like that name, you don't need Support to get Hero Points. I >just wanted something that didn't sound so tacky, and had more of a >Gloranthan feel to it, like Rune Points, or Divine Mastery Quotient : ) How about "God Learner Points"? >In my opinion, personality traits/passions are >the way to go. When you become more powerful, more connected to a god, you >get lots of rune magic and really cool abilities, but in turn your traits >change to reflect those of your god, so much so that at some point they go >so high you can't help but act like your god does. Perfect, loss of free >will in return for power. Just what Free Will is all about. All IMO. Exactly what I do myself, except that PCs and other Hero types get to retain a portion of their humanity as a WILL*1% roll versus these passions. 'nuff said. >I'd be quite interested in seeing your HeroQuest rules, is there any chance >of you posting them either privately or to the Digest? Yeah, there's a chance. Keep pestering me. (YES, PLEASE _DO_ !!!) But it'll probably have to wait until I've got my Masters'. Basically, they are: - -- a couple of rules tweaks - -- Heroic Success rules - -- Mass Combat rules - -- Mass Activity rules (a 350% First Aid character can heal an army) (similar to Mass Combat) (similar to Sandy's Sorcery!!) - -- Opposite Support rules (that is; Heroes supported by great Temples gain more *a priori* HQ power than those supported merely by their family (for example) - -- Season phase (a la Pendragon Winter Phase) rules - -- Family/Cult/Clan Support - -- Rules for non-Adventuring activities; ie "Organisation" - -- Modified SuperRuneQuest-type experience rules - -- Peer Pressure/Culture/Personality rules (these give benefits to skill improvement) - -- Character generation rules I really want to publish these at one point, probably as a fanzine. *************************************************************************** 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, 1 Apr 1999 18:03:18 EST From: JTDLord@aol.com Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] HeroQuests and huge skill levels... Rich Allen: >Can someone post a short, simple explaination of >HeroQuesting, without sending me all over the web to read various >incarnations and rule sets? Well, I'll give it the 'old college try', even though I'm not American ... ;-) In a nutshell, I'd say that HeroQuest is epic roleplaying. (I'm deliberately going to be non-Gloranthan in this post.) From an abstract POV, HQ deals with the transformational experience (of Self and Others) in RPGs. From a more pragmatic POV, Star Wars (the movies, NOT the RPG) is HeroQuest. And so is the LOTR. HeroQuest is the unwritten (and perhaps unwriteable, despite various claims by Greg Stafford) game wherein the actions of the few mirror, symbolize, or motivate the actions of their culture as a collective. Star Trek the Motion Picture is *EXCELLENT* as a model for HQ. (provided one understands that the Hero/Divinity in the film is the U.S.S. Enterprise herself ... ) The problem, then, is to establish some sort of relationship with the concept of 'Epic*. You have to sit down and wonder: "What is Epic?" and then try to simulate, with homebrew rules, whatever you think that might be. (We all disagree on this point, hence unwriteable-ness.) Classical Myth, LOTR, JLA, Star Wars, A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, The Big Lebowski, the Bible, Full Metal Jacket, The Wife of Bath, Lancelot, Buckaroo Banzai, are all good templates for HeroQuesting of various kinds. For Gloranthan HQ, see Nikk's post. >In particular, I'm wondering how any RuneQuest3 >character can acheive such large skill levels. He can't. You have to change the rules so that he can. (If you want to.) HeroQuest is NOT RuneQuest. High skill levels are simply a matter of taste. HeroQuest, as such, doesn't need them. But, RQ Tradition says that Heroes have ludicrously high skill levels. I'm game! >Is HeroQuesting something that should even be >attempted in most RuneQuest games? It's unavoidable. In a very basic sense, EVERY Adventure (as opposed to 'every Scenario') is a low-level HeroQuest. This is why characters who have Adventures gain far more than those who participate in a common Scenario. HeroQuest *per se* concerns itself with game philosophy in an *explicit* rather than an *implicit* manner. If RulesQuest is the Grammar of roleplaying, then HeroQuest is the Poetics. For more ideas, get hold of a copy of Tales of the Reaching Moon No 7, or the Best of Tales, which will, I understand, carry much of the same HQ stuff. *************************************************************************** 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, 1 Apr 1999 18:24:50 EST From: JTDLord@aol.com Subject: [RQ-RULES] Pendragony RuneQuest >Here's another aside: The current vogue seems to be using Pendragony style >rules: Has anyone any thoughts of usiong RQ rules for a Pendragony style >campaign? Yeah, Great Fun !!! Seshnela, the PCs were young nobles, they all started out with iron plate mail, great riches, personal dominions, many servants, etc.. Passions, personality traits, nobility, Rokarism; the works!! I found out that it was fun as a short campaign. But when I wanted to extend it, and spread out into specifically Gloranthan themes, the template didn't work any more. (Pity ...) Outside Glorantha, though; (for example, in Greyhawk) I can't think of a better way to go!! My advice: TRY IT!! *************************************************************************** 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, 1 Apr 1999 17:29:33 -0600 From: "Paul Stolar" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Pendragony RuneQuest David Dunham has published Pendragon Pass, a mostly Pendragon rules set in Glorantha. It is in Enclosure #2, I think. - -----Original Message----- From: JTDLord@aol.com To: runequest-rules@mpgn.com Date: Thursday, April 01, 1999 5:41 PM Subject: [RQ-RULES] Pendragony RuneQuest >>Here's another aside: The current vogue seems to be using Pendragony style >>rules: Has anyone any thoughts of usiong RQ rules for a Pendragony style >>campaign? > >Yeah, Great Fun !!! > >Seshnela, the PCs were young nobles, they all started out with iron plate >mail, >great riches, personal dominions, many servants, etc.. >Passions, personality traits, nobility, Rokarism; the works!! > >I found out that it was fun as a short campaign. >But when I wanted to extend it, and spread out into specifically Gloranthan >themes, >the template didn't work any more. (Pity ...) > >Outside Glorantha, though; >(for example, in Greyhawk) >I can't think of a better way to go!! > >My advice: TRY IT!! > >*************************************************************************** >To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line >'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. > *************************************************************************** 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, 1 Apr 1999 19:02:34 -0500 (EST) From: Nikk Effingham Subject: [RQ-RULES] First HeroQuest post Well, it seems that the discussion has broadened up quite a bit. And I thought the Digest was getting quiet... I must apologise, as I think I'm going to send a few amount on HeroQuest in answer to everyone's posts (even if they weren't intended for me : ) but HeroQuest is one of my favourite topics. >The idea was that doing certain things or behaving in certain ways were >worth Hero Points. (He had some other term, can't remember what). These Hero >Points could be cashed in for an extra attributes, skills or special hero >powers from going on HQs as well as fudging (not in the English Public >School sense, we played in a public place) the d100 when you fell in deep >shit without your water wings. The Hero Points idea wasn't intended as Sandy Petersen's WILL. In some cases where Sandy uses WILL costs I'd use HP's. The general idea for HPs came up because I wanted to reduce the "super-experience" that a character gained from a /5 HeroQuest (i.e. that a character had his skills divided by five and gained experience mutliplied by five), and I wanted to replace it with a bonus for completing difficult Quests. Is it "super RQ"? And I use that term with trepidation, because of the negative connatations it possesses. For me, it isn't. Sure, you might save up lots and lots of Hero Points to go and battle the Devil and win the power to fart gold coins, but in general the amount of HQing you'd have done for that (the _preparation_ to do that) would be really, really difficult. And anyways, us 150% highest skill humans need someway to defeat these HeroPlane beasties. I also apologise for using combat examples when I talk about HeroQuests, but it is by far the easiest example to pick out and demonstrates rules strengths and failures far easier/better than non-combat examples. That said, the reason I thought HPs were really good (except for the fact that they're short form is the saem as for hit points : ) is that you can spend them on HeroQuest Powers to use on later Quests. Such as summoning Gore and Gash, or a Hurricane. This is exactly what Greg said he wanted from a HeroQuest system, he described it as being Cards. A Hero would have HeroQuest Cards with special powers, and could use them to "break the confines" of a HeroQuest. It also simplified cult support. At the moment I have a table/number crunching system that adds to the Passions/Traits of a character, as well as their POW. That is how I see cult support. But here we have a really simple and effective system, cult support gives you hero points. Simple and effective, as Ash says. The introduction of HPs was, IMO, to break away from Super RQ!!! To get closer to his vision of HQing (of course, you might want to get closer to your own vision of HQing). Pete: Before I begin, pete obviously has a lot of experience with HQing and seems to run it very well, and I agree (and use!) ideas very similar, almost identical in places, to what he uses: >In the long campaign I was enjoying for many years, the basic concept >was that whether you were enacting a heroquest on the mundane plane or >the heroplane, you still used your _normal_ skill levels. A lot of HQing is IMO! Only today I ran a Lodril Quest, and there was a darkness demon with mundane stats, and I was basically using RuneQuest (modified with my Passions, but as I've considered using them for ALL RuneQuest, this is more of a personal thing). There were no gods, no behemoths, no mountains that walk or anything like that. The hardest part was seducing a gods wife. Was it a good heroQuest? Yes. And it taught me on or two things about how HeroQuests work. Was it mythical in flavour? Yes, the player met the deniziens of the HeroPlane and swapped gifts, and spoke as he should, and spoke to the magic earth spirits, and learnt their secrets and it was really, really good. I could have played it without HeroQuest rules. But what if that player had said "Do you know what, that Yelm bloke, I want his spear". A fair enough comment, perhaps misguided, perhaps stupid. Again, I apologise for using the simpler, if more crude, example of combat. But how does RuneQuest fare describing combat between Yelm and a mortal? What about lower scale? A big demon or something like that, the RQ system with normal skill levels break down. I see no problem of dividing skills by 5 to reflect the difficulty of facing bigger problems. I mean, will a normal Fast Talk convince Eurmal he wants to give you Death rather than Orlanth? How difficult is it to survive the Baths of Nelat? Will a normal climb roll climb the Unclimable Wall of Doom (or what have you)? Whatever modifications you apply they will be big, this modification is merely to divide the skill by 5. You could say to your players that they just can't do it. That you can't fast talk Eurmal, can't survive the Baths and can't climb the Unclimbable Wall. But a HeroQuest almost always has a character somehow achieving the impossible. A system must handle BOTH the lower level HeroQuests and the more difficult HeroQuests. >What prevented lesser heroes from performing the big heroquests was the >lack of faith of the supporters. If they didn't think you were up to it, >then you wouldn't be going. What if my character decides to head off to the HeroPlane on his ownsome, say by jumping down Hellcrack and heading off into Hell? I'd find it unfair just to say, "You open the door, the monsters kill you." IMO those monsters, powerful as they might be, have stats, and all PCs have their right to be killed, fairly, as the rules state, by these hideously super powered monsters. My players would want the _chance_. And perhaps, one day, as a rune lord they get the chance to face these monsters. >Another small problem with this is that the GM has to make up a >reasonable power for succeeding. But the system needs to be flexible for >different people's style of play and different power levels. We never >thought of mega skills as being a sign of power. Special powers were >what counted. For example. Distract enemy with flashy weapon play. Jump >atop own thrown weapon. Split self into two. etc. (listen to some of >Greg's latest fiction) These are the powers which make heroes and super >heroes. Not 750% broadsword skill. All in my own opinion of course. I think Pete is already using ideas similar to what I intend to put in - more powers, less skill levels. Of course, I wouldn't WANT to meet someone with 750% attack, no matter what powers i had... All IMVHO, 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 #59 ************************************ *************************************************************************** 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.