From: owner-runequest-rules@ (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.MPGN.COM Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #60 Reply-To: runequest-rules@mpgn.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@ Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@ Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Friday, April 2 1999 Volume 02 : Number 060 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS [RQ-RULES] Second HeroQuest post [RQ-RULES] Heroquesting... [RQ-RULES] RE: Gifts and Geases [RQ-RULES] Traveling HQ [RQ-RULES] Mysticism Re: [RQ-RULES] HeroQuests and huge skill levels... [RQ-RULES] Re: Traveling HQ 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 19:03:14 -0500 (EST) From: Nikk Effingham Subject: [RQ-RULES] Second HeroQuest post >At one time I was enamored of the idea of a "super RuneQuest" approach to >heroquesting, with skill divisors (requiring the Special to be a normal, >a crit to be a special, a "super-crit" to be a critical) plus a "Will" >stat, plus "character traits" as mechanics, yadda yadda yadda, yadda >yadda yadda. Character traits make great mechanics. I think that a really pious Humakti with a low sword skill is better on a Humakti HeroQuester than John who is a sword master, but smokes, drinks, gambles and lies. (Again, sorry for a combatty example). The question is, IMO, what that mechanic is to be, and for me Pendragon style traits don't cut it, and in fact just hinder things. A lot. >Then I actually ran a heroquest and threw all that stuff out. Fine, i don't need such "Super RQ" rules for most HeroQuests. But the fact of the matter, for me at least, was that I was writing a set of rules that was intended to allow my characters to HeroQuest for anything that Glorantha allowed. In other words, I should be able to hand them the character sheets for Jar-Eel, and her companions, and then run a "Kill the Pharoah" HeroQuest. And I believe, more than firmly, that bog standard RuneQuest will fail utterly to let you play HeroQuests at that level. In fact, I would probably have nightmares even thinking about it : ) When designing a HeroQuest system I think you need to keep in mind that there is an element of Super RQ within it. Super RQ does not equal HeroQuest, but is part of it. If I want to go on a HeroQuest to Hell to "kick some mythical butt" (as one convention transcript read...) I want the rules to do this quickly and effectively rather than sitting around a table for hours at a time listening to "Hit... parry... hit... parry... hit... parry. I think dividing skills by five is the best plan, and for the really dangerous HeroQuests, you divide by ten - the HeroQuests that no sane GM would let a character survive : ) As for Will, I think I've already posted what I disagree about that. Ash: >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, Simon Phipps! Its on his webpage even! Bob: > This is exactly the flaw in logic of giving >super-experience to get super-characters, they are too >absurd to allow in the normal world. If you keep playing >the game the way it is written, a hero is a Rune >Lord/Priest with skills in the mid-100%'s and some divine >gifts, and a super-hero is a hero with skills near 200% and >several divine gifts and runic ties. Both of these will >have a party of follower Priests and Rune Lords to back him >up, which is the greatest source of his combat power, and >they can wail on most army brigades due to massive spell >support of any variety. This is what I was trying to solve. After having discussed the Hero Points idea with my players to replace higher experience I've had a cold response and some good arguments for keeping my system as it is. There is an average gain of 17% from a /5 HeroQuest, so to get from 100% to 200% would take about five HeroQuests, if you make the ticks. Now, as was pointed out to me, no player in their right mind would go on five such HeroQuests unless they were already a SuperHero. And I now think they may have had a point. I could see myself turning tables and protecting the higher experience rules.. after all, just how many HeroQuests of that power level can a character do, and more to the point how many can they survive? I don't know about giving Super Heros only 200%, I reckon a few Rune lords could take upon such a character so unless they had some seriously unfair divine gifts (of course, mine do, but they are unfair even after you take into cosnideration the 500% attack skills my super heroes have) then Super Heroes will drop like flies. IMO. I'm not particulary keen on getting into a debate over the skills etc... of superheroes, it all depends upon your own House Rules, and what I think Super Heroes and Heroes should be like is already on my webpage for the world to see : ) > The Passion idea is interesting and limits itself nicely >so that it doesn't get out of hand, but it does increase >the competence of all characters from the youngest to the >oldest by a varying degree. This changes the general >balance of the game and makes advanced characters even >tougher. Something I didn't mention about Passions in my system was that once they go over a certain level two things happen. First you get all the cool benefits on the HeroPlane! The downside is that you start acting in accordance with that passion, you've got a high Hate Chaos???? Great, at the start of any adventure make a roll to see if your character goes on that adventure or heads off to the local chaos nest. So Passions neatly covers the "free will" aspect of HeroQuesting as well. > The Hero point system is pretty good too, as long as you >usually only give out 1 to 2 points per quest... I assure >you a very few points will go a long way if the enemy isn't >using points back. I don't think the enemy needs to use poitns, because in my interpretation the enemy is already so powerful as to be capable of getting along quite nicely without them. >They will most often be >used to turn specials into crits to drop the enemy faster. >This speeds up combat by making it much deadlier. I think they'll most likely be saved up for dodging and parrying, or other "life saving" situations as oppossed to killing other things. For instance, when you're fighting the Devil on a HeroQuest you might have to make a dodge every round else take the POT 50 acid it spits forth at you - you're not going to survive that and your dodge is divided by 5 so you're hardly even going to make the roll. Hero point time. Certainly it helps you survive the harder Quests, and if you have a lot of Hero Point saved up you can use them to make it so that on the strength of those alone you beat the HeroQuest. But if you've HeroQuested so much to get that many points, surely the PC deserves it? And yes, only 1 or 2 Hero Points. 3 for big HeroQuests like the Lightbringers Quest, or Yelms Ascension, or the Wonderhome. In these circumstances when I talk about HeroQuest I mean the really dangerous on-the-HeroPlane-with-the-gods HeroQuests, not practice runs or things like that. They'd be hard to come by. > 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. OK, I disagree here. For me, it was game balance. I thought that it was fair that if your skills were divided by five on a HeroQuest you got five times the amount when you returned. It was a case of "It sounded good at the time". I didn't do it to make the characters powerful because "they were too weak". If you're too weak on a HeroQuest in my game, you become HeroQuest Fodder in smart time and your own bloody fault to. My powerful HeroQuests are always a voluntary affair, normally when a character has expressed a desire to go on a specific HeroQuest, as oppossed to me forcing characters onto the HeroPlane. Plus I think Heroes should be far beyond the normal values of people in the world, as far beyond the Rune Lord/Priest as the Rune Lord/Priest is beyond the normal peasant. > HQ'ing shouldn't be an issue of raw combat %'s, but of >knowledge and divine or magical affinity. Agreed, most of my examples are combat based for simplicity. But, combat IS were the system breaks down. And as I run a game with Orlanthi and, in general, Orlanthi have combat (sometimes lots of combat) in their HeroQuests, i don't want a system that only functions half the time. How do I represent the Last Beast of Humakt in game terms if I describe it as being a creature that "even Arkat could not defeat"? I don't feel prepared to turn to my players and say "It kills you/Defeats you" and not roll any dice - not to give them a chance. The perfect HeroQuest system is the one that allows me to do anything I desire within the confines of HeroQuesting and then go on to give me a chance to actually succeed. I want a system where a character has a chance of marching into Humakts Lodge and nicking his Sword if he wants to. Sure, I don't know anyone who could do. But I want the system to give them a chance. 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. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 18:51:05 -0600 From: "Rich Allen" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Heroquesting... OK, know I understand it quite a bit more, despite the differences in opinon. I had the impression that HeroQuesting was something any RQ character could do, but aside from JTDLord's welcome opinion, these kinds of quests are intended for RuneLords and other priests of a religion. Well, that pretty much leaves out the characters of the two campaigns I'm in. We leave the religion to the priests, it doesn't concern us. I know, those of you in the Glorantha section are probably gasping in disbelief right now, but we just don't have a lot of diety involvement in our games. In fact, last friday was the last time I can remember when divine intervention was even attempted, and that was by my character (who missed the POW roll by one lowsy point!) The other players say I've been corrupted by this list, in fact! I was also confused about some of the terms being thrown around here regarding HeroQuests, too. It seems a Hero is on a level above RuneLord, whereas we had considered the term to mean anyone out killing bad guys for the greater good of the world. If a set of rules were to surface that allowed for the fact that the characters on the Quest weren't in any way interested in emulating their gods, I'd be happy to look them over. Until then, we'll just stick with our mundane world saving and leave the GodPlane to the priests. Rich Allen *************************************************************************** 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 19:52:35 -0500 From: "Jim Bickmeyer" Subject: [RQ-RULES] RE: Gifts and Geases It sounds interesting. Another chance to increase role playing. A change like this, I will be up to the players. But I think they might agreed to this. It can be added to an ongoing campaign without disruption. Besides it gives them a chance to have some say in how pious they really are. I would suggest that Adventuring without any armor on the torso would result in a major gift. Jim Bickmeyer *************************************************************************** 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, 02 Apr 1999 06:53:51 -0500 From: Richard Katsaros Subject: [RQ-RULES] Traveling HQ I've found the discussions on heroquesting interesting and a few thoughts come to mind. We know that sacred time ceremonies as a reenactment of god-time activities are in effect minor hq's. Since heroquests seem to require the active participation of a religious community, perhaps the enacting of certain heroquests from time to time (aside from sacred-time) is necessary to that community. This brings us to the the existence of troops of traveling heroquesters. These can be anything from actual heroquesters to acting troops. Perhaps every temple of Yelmallo has to reenact the Hill of Gold every so many years or so for the continuing prosperity of the community. This makes heroquesting a regular occurrence that the players may be a party to instead of trying to convince a temple to go along with 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: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 08:12:04 EST From: JTDLord@aol.com Subject: [RQ-RULES] Mysticism Nils: >An important thing to notice is that these rules were >created quite a while ago, before Greg had done any >work on the Gloranthan east, the Vithelan mythology >etc. So, these rules are no longer valid for orthodox >Gloranthan mysticism, as practiced by the eastern >meditators for example. They do apply to martial >artists as noted below, and other expressions of "active >mysticism", but orthodox Gloranthan mystics reject the >world and all forms of magic. As you progress mystically >you accumulate magic power, but if you _use_ it you fail >as a mystic. Actually, as has already been mentioned I think, I find Sandy's rules pretty close to Greg's current thinking. They're just a little incomplete. One thing that Greg said about Mysticism and magic during Convulsion was that the mystic transcends matter/the World, and that he does "magic" basically because the world, or portions of it, have less existence to him, and therefore it opposes less physical resistance to his actions. ("physical" taken in a broad sense) (obviously a paraphrase) Combat examples: Old monks can punch through doors because it has less Being from his mystic POV than it does from our mundane one. Martial artists can somewhat ignore the Earth, Water, Storm, and Darkness portions of their bodies, and use a Burning Fists martial arts technique. (his fists _already_ contain the Fire; the monk is just transcending the other portions of his fists which prevent it from burning) In a perfect simulation of this, mysticism would _decrease_ game stats of opponents, material objects, physical laws (the Wind Dance is possible because gravity no longer affects the monk), magical natures, and so on. If, however, you tried to write the rules from this POV, your task would probably be impossible. Sandy's rules are nice, because they show what _appears_ to be occurring, from a game mechanics, mundane POV, which is actually what we need for the game. The trick is to remember that from the mystic's POV, nothing special is actually happening at all. (Except that he experiences deeper and deeper transcendental joy, of course!!) (which means that much of this "active mysticism" is in "reality" (whatever that is ;-) ) acceptable within the framework of a mystic life Quest.) But some rules for direct transcendance of matter are actually writeable. Think Seshnelan knights vs. wiry old men who can transcend their opponents' armour and the protection of God (ie damage Resistance spells!) with their bare hands! *************************************************************************** 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, 2 Apr 1999 09:36:10 -0500 From: "Bob Stancliff" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] HeroQuests and huge skill levels... > But, RQ Tradition says that Heroes have ludicrously high skill levels. No, not really. Big %'s will give you more crits, but big damage is more important since it incapacitates the enemy even if he parries. A spelled up fighter with a 2-hand weapon can hit three people in a round and expect two to stay on the ground while they do some serious healing. Greg expressed the power of a hero or super-hero in the 'Dragon Pass' game as being equivalent to a military unit (or two). When asked about this he elaborated to say that the hero counter is a very gifted fighter with a party of experienced warriors working together (possibly with support people). It takes a lot of luck or effort to kill a hero and he usually comes back later (good old Resurrection). I have demonstrated this in my game to work as an excellent model. My top eight PC's are an elite guard or small hero unit (if they would ever claim to be following one person). Five of these are currently riding with Argrath on the Wolf Pirate's ships accompanying Harrek around the ocean. 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: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 09:18:09 -0500 From: "W. Glenn Kirkconnell" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Re: Traveling HQ Richard Katsaros wrote: . This makes > heroquesting a regular occurrence that the players may be a party to > instead of trying to convince a temple to go along with it. Between the end of the Second Age to the begining of the Lunar Empire, most peoples were quite conservative and considered Heroquesting a mistake. It therefore seems that it is not in fact necessary. Stafford seems to be reserving the term "heroquesting" to refer to attempts to change the myths, not just to join along in ritual worship. At least, in some of the histories he does this; I'm not sure he's always consistent in this regard. I haven't read the Heroquesting materials yet, but I will when I can. I'll try to do it before Saturday night, as I sense this is going to be a topic of conversation. Personally, I've always thought that heroquests should be personalized to the questor, with the threats, punishments and rewards suited to the cultic and psychological background of the questor. I think questors should, at least occasionally, face their own personal demons, their pet phobias, character flaws, etc. made manifest and perhaps sentient. Since cult initiations tie one's soul to a god, these personal demons would take on cultic formulae as well; or more likely, the cultic challenges would have a personalized touch. An Issaries might be forced to barter "that which you hold most dear" to save comrades in a heroquest, but what that was would be peculiar to the questor---his/her life perhaps, or honor, or wealth, or child, looks, etc. (Perhaps later in the quest he will get the opportunity to bargain again, to try to buy back the thing he gave up as his initial investment and turn a profit to boot, like Harst repaying his friends) The Orlanthi who reinacts the Lightbringer's Quest may meet Yelm, who looks like his own father (the authority figure in every young man's life who must be rebelled against, then reconciled with for true maturity). The gifts of the heroquest are usually tied to the universal myth the hero has replayed, as in the Lightbringer's quest where you get any one dead person back. They could, however, be more personal, particularly if the questor is acting more personally. Perhaps the Orlanthi who's afraid of water is attacked by an undine minion of Magasta, and in defeating and plundering it he gains unlimited use of Mist Cloud. He also loses his fear of water. Or if he fails, he comes back now with a crippling thalassaphobia, and perhaps an inability to swim. We've shown with our recreation of the meeting of Harrek and Argrath that simply giving heroes megaskills is not enough to make them really heroic. They need to be not just more than normal people, but qualitatively different. They need to have some of the attributes of the divine. *************************************************************************** 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 #60 ************************************ *************************************************************************** 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.