From: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.imagiconline.com Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V3 #29 Reply-To: runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Wednesday, March 29 2000 Volume 03 : Number 029 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS [RQ-RULES] mea culpa [RQ-RULES] Steve being cranky at Peter [RQ-RULES] Ashley's new magic system [RQ-RULES] Tal Meta's bumping variations [RQ-RULES] Er, lads...? [RQ-RULES] Indeed it is Re: [RQ-RULES] Tal Meta's bumping variations [RQ-RULES] CRANKY Review of Hero Wars [RQ-RULES] CRANKY Review of Hero Wars [RQ-RULES] Removing One-Use Spells. Has anyone tried... [RQ-RULES] constructive comments 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: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 23:11:47 -0600 From: Steve Lieb Subject: [RQ-RULES] mea culpa Yikes, I just read my counterpoint to Peter's rant. Yuck, I tend to try to avoid flammage so blatant, but I'm afraid the "cranky review" got under my skin, more because it was mostly without logical basis in fact than any thing else. Anyway all, you have my apologies for the rant. - -Steve *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 22:56:24 -0800 From: "Timothy Byrd" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Steve being cranky at Peter [Story so far: Steve Lieb responds to Peter Maranci's cranky review of HW. Later he decides he has flamed, and realizing that this is not the GD, apologizes.] Hi Steve, Actually the thing that annoyed me about your post was it's subject line - "Re: [RQ-RULES] RE: RuneQuest Rules Digest V3 #26" As a Hero Wars player to be, you need to be more creative in your use of the "title message" ability. (Ya know, the RQ list is light enough in volume that you could get individual messages.) I'd like to thank Peter and Steve for their energetic posts. Now if we can just harness them for the good... I've got a few misc. comments on Steve's post. > You tell me - is there really such a HUGE difference > between an 87% chance to succeed and an 88%? I will merely note that in *my* post, I used 86% and 87%... (I'll give you partial credit. ) [Steve mentioned fate points.] I think I first saw something like them in TSR's Conan module for D&D and thought they were a neat idea. I actually *liked* fate points in the Warhammer FRP. This is just my particular style, but I prefer to run games with the underlying assumption that the PCs were tapped on the shoulder by Fate for a higher Destiny. (I'm big on Capital Letters, you see...) To take a literary example, I loved Glen Cook's Black Company series, but one thing that drove me up a wall was his tendency to have major characters die offstage in a trivial manner. (The Source of All Evil couldn't stop him, but then he slipped in the shower and cracked his head open. Or he got chicken pox and died.) HW just integrates this script immunity into the reward system. [Steve noted that RQIII had professions like Hunter and Noble.] I hadn't thought of that, they are analogous to the HW careers (? that's what they are called in Warhammer). RQII had character classes, too. Well, it had one class. Everyone was stuck being a fighter/magicuser/thief. This does not jibe with most of the fantasy novels I've read. So now that we've heard from Steve and a couple other, what rule mechanics can we steal for RQ? Here are the things I'm thinking about: I like the mastery bump ups and canceling masteries. I think they would make RQ scale better. Unfortunately, there is a glitch or two in the way that HW implements things. E.g. in some instances it's better to have a skill of 19 (=95%) than to have 1W (21 = 105%). I would want to try and find a simple mechanic for RQ that doesn't suffer from this. I like the hero points concept, I think it adds more fairness to rewarding the players. I really like the idea of quick start character generation. I have no idea about Action Points. I would need to see them used / abused before judging. I think M. Cule has some thoughts about a quick hit point mechanic that could be used, though. Somehow I want to end up with something that has the good points of RQ and the speed of D&D... - -- Tim (copy from one person it's plagiarism; from many, research) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 23:05:51 -0800 From: "Timothy Byrd" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Ashley's new magic system Ashley Munday wrote: > However, I have been rather taken by the magic > system. I'm now in the process of trying to lift > the magic system from Hero Wars and splat it > on top of RuneQuest. Has anyone else been > thinking along these lines? More to the point, > anyone actually got anything working? For the benefit of the disadvantaged like me, could you provide a clue or two about what the new magic system is? - -- Tim *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 23:13:18 -0800 From: "Timothy Byrd" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Tal Meta's bumping variations "Tal Meta wrote: > Same here. My current campaign is running with some grafted concepts (a > variation of the mastery/bumping rules) but most things will wait until > I can see the whole product. So how are you applying them? Trading 100% for a level of success? (What does a level of sucess mean in your game?) Do mutual 100%s cancel? Mutual 50%s? - -- Tim *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 09:39:58 +0100 From: "Ashley Munday" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Er, lads...? Isn't this a RQ list? Ah well, people in glass houses shouldn't store thrones, or something like that. Ash *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 09:50:31 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: [RQ-RULES] Indeed it is To subscribe to the hero wars discussion list, send a blank message to: hw-rules-subscribe@eGroups.com. Roderick Robertson is on the list, he's been in charge of writing the rules in the last year and a half or so. If anyone can answer questions authoritatively, he can. Philip Hibbs http://www.snark.freeserve.co.uk/ Opinions expressed may not even be my own, let alone those of any organisations, nations, species, or schools of thought to which I may be affiliated. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 09:02:39 -0500 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Tal Meta's bumping variations Timothy Byrd wrote: > > So how are you applying them? Trading 100% for a level of success? > (What does a level of sucess mean in your game?) Do mutual 100%s cancel? > Mutual 50%s? At the moment, when a skill reaches 100%, we subtract 90 from it and begin writing it as *10% (multiple * for multiple mastery (though that's hardly been a problem). Each * automatically moves a rolled result one position forward (though a 00 remains a fumble, no matter what). When two combatants with opposed *'s meet, they get subtracted from one another (i.e. Burt's attack of **35 vs. Larry's parry of *72 becomes an attack of *35 vs a parry of 72). Mastery in combat skills simply results in a simple Truesword effect (i.e. weapon damage rolled again). We've had situations where a combination of weapon skill, weapon styles, virtue rolls, and magic have produced some pretty impressive damage rolls... - -- talmeta@cybercomm.net - Heretic, Dilettante, & God-Machine ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 10:22:43 -0500 (EST) From: Peter Maranci Subject: [RQ-RULES] CRANKY Review of Hero Wars I seem to have stirred up quite a hornet's nest. "Hibbs, Philip" wrote: >> "Excuse me, Narrator, will the Narrator Character in this episode >> of this series receive Hero Points for killing my Hero?" > > Where the hell does this come from? Hero Wars. I was making a little joke about clunky jargon. >> A d20 system. Oh boy. Now *that's a leap forward... > > So they should have invented a new kind of dice? Would you prefer > D1000? I'd consider it, but what was wrong with d100? It was intuitive. Also, I was obliquely referring to D&D, the first RPG, which was also a d20 system. It seemed a little ironic that a supposed "cutting-edge" system has more in common with D&D than RQ did, which is almost as old. >> Character creation -- a hundred-word essay? > > That's one of the three character creation systems. Which I noted, but it's also the first one listed. I suspect that as soon as a lot of novices reach that point in the book (while looking it over in a game store, say), they are going to put that book down and go elsewhere. They'll never get to see the other methods. You know, the game is only going to continue to exist if people buy it. Particularly *new* people. > HW has an unlimited skill list. A skill can be anything you want > that the referee allows. Overly general skills will suffer an > improv penalty when used, and may be more difficult to raise. This sounds like a LOT more work for the GM -- almost any skill use could require a great deal of adjustment and adjudication. While this can also happen in RQ, HW's freeform skills will make GM involvement much more frequent. Also, I'm wondering if I don't take some sort of "Sneak" skill, and I later want to do some sneaking, is it possible? > "Your hated emeny enters the bar, the man who killed your parents. > Roll your 'Vengeful' to see if you reflexively react, but you may > use your 'self-control' ability to stop yourself." To me, that kind of sucks the juice out of the roleplaying experience. See, I'd rather go through that conflict *internally*, instead of rolling some plastic. Dependents: > This refers to kid brothers, and folks like that, not enemy bad > guys. I know. I'm merely pointing out that one of the great aspects of RQ was that all creatures were potentially equal. "Monsters" didn't have to be 2-dimensional cardboard targets; they could have rounded skills, and improve through time. The establishment of a class of character that by default cannot grow seems like a step back. > Yup. You have to pay for benefits acquired with Hero Points. Which takes another element of freedom out of the game. You know, I've never seen a system that combines over-the-top and unnecessary freedom in some areas with complete control in others. A player can name and define their skills however they chose (which invites chaos, it seems to me), but heaven forbid that they actually get to win and keep some treasure without paying up to the all-controlling Hero Point Gods. Distrust of players seems to be the keyword of Hero Wars. Responses to others will follow. But please, folks, some people are getting too upset -- it's only a game! Ob RQ reference -- looks to me like conversions are going to be a bitch. Anyone tried that yet? -->Pete - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Maranci pmaranci@tiac.net Malden, MA Pete's RuneQuest Page! Fantasy roleplaying adventures, an online game, art, character sheets, & more: http://www.tiac.net/users/maranci/rq.htm *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 11:16:59 -0500 (EST) From: Peter Maranci Subject: [RQ-RULES] CRANKY Review of Hero Wars More reponses: * "Erik Sieurin" wrote: > And BTW, I second Phil's opinions - except for one thing. I > strongly agree with Peter as regards the 100 word essay method of > creating characters. It's actually a wonderful idea, but won't work > with most new players. To tell the truth, in my own campaigns I've used a more complex and detailed system of character creation then that, involving hours (20+ of discussion of character concepts and history, thousands of words on paper, etc). But if I walked up to the average gamer and sai "Hi! I want you to write an essay for me about your character, and let me give you my manadatory rules on grammar!" I'd get a well-deserved punch in the nose. Or darn few players, anyway. * Julian Lord wrote: > Yeh ... what *really* PISSES me off is Robin Laws' parallel > between RPGs and TV. I mean, I haven't watched TV for about 15 > years because I hate it so much, and new Glorantha is supposed to > be run like Star Drek TNG ??!! Darn good point. I was troubled by that myself, but couldn't find a way to express it. * "Timothy Byrd" wrote: > Over time, I think Glorantha has become less and less friendly to > newcomers. Maybe it's the result of spending years and years > debating successively more obscure points in the Cult of Greg, but > the long time members of the club tend toward impatience > newcomers. I 100% agree. Glorantha was a wonderful setting, and I still use it and evangelize it when I can, but the trend of the past ten years has been towards ever more useless debates over how many angels can dance on the head of Greg's pencil. Plus a few charming fellows who seem to have made it their life goal to insult anyone who dares disagree with them. That's why I dropped off the Gloranthan list years ago. As did most of the RQers I know. THEY didn't give up on Glorantha -- the Gloranthan "scholarship" community moved away from *them*. * "Grawe, Philipp" wrote: > I'm getting firey here, and it's not a flame, don't take it that > way, but are you honestly telling me that if I give you a blank > sheet of paper and ask you to design a character, the best you can > do is come up with Fighter, Magic User, Thief. No flame taken. No, of course I can come up with more. The only time I've played a flat character type was to mock players who didn't seem able to cope with the idea of more than two dimensions. But the whole keyword concept *encourages* narrower character definition. Instead of being a collection of abilities and skills, plop! you're a Mage! or whatever. Good roleplayers will transcend this, bad ones will wallow in it. But in RQ, it was much harder for a player to play a flat "class". And in truth, I suspect that when I first came over to RQ from AD&D, the skill system and lack of classes helped teach me to be a better roleplayer -- by not allowing me that crutch. Extending that argument further (perhaps too far), had I not made the leap from wargame-style roleplaying into more complex characterizations, I might well have not continued to game for as long as I have. There's a limit to how how many times you can slay a monster or pick a pocket, after all. > To me, it looks like Hero Wars finally frees Glorantha from the > Runequest system. Have you got any idea how long some of us have > been waiting for that ? No. I hadn't realized that RQ was so onerous. But I can't say that Hero Wars seems like a decent roleplaying system on any terms, much less compared to RQ. Still more to come... -->Pete - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Maranci pmaranci@tiac.net Malden, MA Pete's RuneQuest Page! Fantasy roleplaying adventures, an online game, art, character sheets, & more: http://www.tiac.net/users/maranci/rq.htm *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 17:20:26 +0100 From: Michael Cule Subject: [RQ-RULES] Removing One-Use Spells. Has anyone tried... I'm starting a new Gloranthan game next week with a group of RQ virgins. (This is a fantastic opportunity!) And I'm thinking which rules-variants to use. I've looked at the articles in ToTRM 12 about first of all allowing a pool of Divine Magic (the Runepower option) and secondly allowing initiates to have Divine spells that can only be renewed at High Holy Day. Has anyone here had experience with either of these? Has anyone tried using BOTH where Initiates have a pool that can only be renewed at HHD? - -- Michael Cule *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 10:26:22 -0600 From: Steve Lieb Subject: [RQ-RULES] constructive comments > You tell me - is there really such a HUGE difference > between an 87% chance to succeed and an 88%? I will merely note that in *my* post, I used 86% and 87%... (I'll give you partial credit. ) [REPLY] I find that almost creepy - I hadn't read yours yet.... [snip a bunch of good points] 1) I first heard about fate points in Top Secret, where they were almost required to prevent the "flunky shoots secret agent hero to cause anticlimactic premature death in adventure" 2) as far as the combat mechanic in HW goes, I'm not sure if this addresses your point, but to apply it to RQ would speed up RQ combats severely: I suggested a while back on the HW digest that maybe a better mechanic for resolving COMBAT was a multi (8)?-place vertical table where each combatant starts at healthy (at the top), and each "round" is a simple contest. For a marginal success/failure, your position on the table goes up/down 1 space (respectively). For major it's two spaces, for critical 3. Reach space -6 (for example, this would have to be tweaked i think) and you are unconscious. Reach space -8 and you're dead. Something like that. Obviously if you are at the top and succeed, you don't "get" anything for winning, aside from watching your opponent drop that amount. I dunno. It would have to be played out. I can see different creatures having their own table based on toughness, for example. A trollkin might be history at -4, a dragon at -30 or some ridiculous number. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of RuneQuest Rules Digest V3 #29 ************************************ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. RuneQuest is a Trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. 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