Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 17:15:08 +0200
From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: The RuneQuest Daily, Mon, 29 Mar 1993
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---------------------
From: NEIL@ARC.UG.EDS.COM (Neil Taylor ext 315)
Subject: Re: The RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 27 Mar 1993
Message-ID: <01GWD0B9I1K2000FFU@UG.EDS.COM>
Date: 28 Mar 93 17:26:37 GMT
Re: characters with gross stats.
My copy of the rules agrees with dustin@ocf.Berkeley.EDU (Dustin
Tranberg) - you have to beat your skill level until your skill exceeds
100%, but then only have to beat 100.
The point I was making was not a matter of how many ticks etc. (she's
actually an NPC so it doesn't matter!), but one of relative rates of
acquisition of gross skills. At the time I noticed this, I was trying
to estimate skill levels for Rune-levels, extrapolating from skill
bonuses.
Someone with a 5-10% bonus reaches 100% in a time which is similar (a
bit slower) than the 25% bonusers, but after that it's all different:
the one with the gross bonus shoots ahead!
How many ticks, and at what rate? I compared her with PCs who were
wandering around, and meeting various opponents & hindrances, and
getting in scrapes about once a game week. The rules indicate that
successful use, is enough, but in a "real" context (ie not practice).
A fight is certainly enough as I read it! As your (combat) skill
climbs, its value to you climbs (keeps you alive/kills your enemy),
but the experience % is level, so you can climb faster (by taking
risks lesser people can't).
Dustin Tranberg again:
>Well, IMHO, the stats say it all. First, maybe it MEANS SOMETHING
>to have an Intelligence that is higher than human MAXIMUM. This
>means that this elf maiden is smarter than Einstein, Nikolai Tesla,
>Rommel, or Aragorn or Ged for that matter. Yeah, I'll BET she's
>a quick study!!
Humans are almost all average (5-10%, perhaps 15%) (even if the blew
all their time & money on what stat training they could get), it's
Elves and such that cause the problem - they have high average rolls &
HIGH species max. If you take 10,000 elves & 10,000 humans, you will
find a bell-curve distribution: 1-in-216 humans have INT 18; 1-in-216
elves have INT 24! 56-in-216 elves have INT 19+ Thats 2600 elves with
supra-genius INT.... Watch out guys, the pointies (Vulcans?) are
coming!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Holy Day attendance & loss of cult-status, there are 3 classes of HD:
once a week usually the "day of the Rune"
once a season "week of Rune A", "day of Rune B"
once a year "season A", "week B", "Day C"
Cults with fewer than 3 runes double up; cults without elemental runes
fudge it (ie refer to their mythos if available, or make it up).
Any initiate near (same town) as a Temple, should attend all Holy Days
(weekly) to show Good Standing, but if you're away, it doesn't matter
too much, especially if they know you are pious when you do show up.
[ie Attend on Sundays]. If you're out of town, you should return to
attend the Seasonal ones or present a good excuse [like the major
festivals of Christmas, Whitsun, Harvest etc]. If you miss the
once-a-year High Holy Day, and especially if you also missed all the
seasonal days too, my impression was that you had better have a Good
Excuse. [This is like missing Easter - the mystery of the
Resurrection etc.].
It's not just a matter of keeping the priests happy - a good bribe can
do that much more easily - but of satisfying the Deity -- the Cult as
a whole. On the HHD, and the SHD the Cult enacts rituals of immense
significance, which explain and justify their very existence. Not
participating in these is pretty outre!
mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace) says:
>If they could not have people in the field on holy days it would make them very
>vulnerable. Enemy's would know when the best time to act was.
Too true! In Cults of Prax, that's exactly what they DO! Biturian
Varosh attends an Eiritha/Ernalda ritual at the Paps, and up pop the
Darkness cultists from tunnels under the earth, trying to spoils it
all. What the DC's don't realise, is that they are almost "fated" to
do this - it's their part to play in the Wheel of the seasons. [True,
there are a few minor enemies who have a temporal grudge & cause
trouble, but the ones to worry about are the ones for whom the grudge
is Real.]
Taking the Christian Church as an example again... On HHDs & SHDs
Priests in the field can improvise ceremonies, and should (*must*) do
so for initiates who present themselves to them. At the temples,
worship starts early (Dawn for most, Dusk for some, other ritual times
for the oddities), and continues all day. Initiates can attend at any
time, and any of the day's cereemonies; even priests can do so, as
some must to fulfill the normal duties around town/temple. [They may
bear the day's special significance in mind as they perform their
duties, but that's just extra]
---------------------
From: MAB@SAVAX750.RUTHERFORD.AC.UK (Mystic Musk Ox)
Subject: RQ IV comments and stuff...
Message-ID: <9303291039.AA00673@Sun.COM>
Date: 29 Mar 93 10:21:00 GMT
------------------------------------------------------------------------
sent to: Oliver Jovanovic
RuneQuest Daily
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi. I recently obtained a copy of the RQ IV playtest rules, thanks to
Arganth (dickmj@uk.ac.essex) and yesterday a few friends and myself
ran through them in an attempt to see what we thought. Generally we
were impressed with the improvements made, the system feels much nicer
to use, and quite a few holes have been closed. We especially liked
the new fatigue rules, character generation and spirit combat.
A few things that came out that we were unsure about (these may purely
be due to us missing things in the rules as they stand at the moment):
Fatigue
-------
- Is there any effect for a critical or fumble result on a fatigue or
March roll?
- Are the effects of fatigue itself applied to further fatigue rolls
i.e. if you are weary, are further fatigue rolls at +10% on the dice
roll? (This would seem a bit harsh!)
- Regaining fatigue: 30/CON hours of sleep to regain 1 long term fatigue
level seems a bit low, especially at Exhausted/Incapacitated level.
Combat
------
- What is the sequence for attacking an opponent who has been knocked
over, given that all movement takes place before combat? e.g. in our
trials, an opponent was knocked back, and fell over. The attacking
character, on the next round, declared a single move and two actions.
The actions were taken as two attacks with the same weapon (at -10%
per attack. How does this relate to the guy trying to stand up?
We (temporarily) ruled that the first attack came in as he was
kneeling (+10% to hit), and the second as he stood up (no +% to hit)
- Manoeuvreing: To cross over dead body: DEX x 5 or Manoeuvre skill.
If you fail the roll, character falls down at the point he or she
entered the terrain. This seems a bit excessive! I would tend to
prefer that all further movement in the current move phase is lost
as a result of getting tangled up etc. Also Fumble states fall over,
take 16 damage - I'm sure this should be 1d6 (?).
- Critical Hits: I'm surprised that critical hits ignore magical
protection, I can see the argument for ignoring normal protection
but feel that magic should always count. (However, that is just an
opinion, there are arguments for both ways of resolving this).
- Firing into a melee: This is difficult to resolve. I don't really
like the old method of +5% to hit per figure in the melee and then
roll randomly to see who is hit, the person firing the missile ought
to have the chance to use skill to hit their target (How about add
+5% per figure, as above, firing character then rolls to hit. If they
score 50% or less of their modified skill, they hit their target, if
they score 51-100% of their skill, they hit someone else, otherwise
they miss the whole melee?).
Spirit Combat
-------------
- POW increase: Spirit Combat no longer uses POW vs POW contests. How
does a character gain a POW experience roll in the case of spirit
combat? Earlier, there is a passage which says:
'POW gain rolls use a related system. The GM should assign a
POW gain roll to characters depending on their use of magic
and involvement in spirit combat...'
Is this an arbitrary assignment by the GM, or are there some concrete
rules pending?
- If fighting spirits and using powerful defensive spells eg Spirit
Block 2, would this tend to also block off the chances of POW gain rolls?
- Is there any ruling on why spirits cannot just run away when they
are being defeated in spirit combat to avoid being bound?
Divine Magic
------------
- Resurrection spell: Is there a clarification of this? The RQ III rules
seems to imply that the priest must succeed in ONE round of mp vs
mp struggle to force the spirit back into the body. I think Cults of
Prax implies the spirit must be fought down to ZERO mp. Which is
correct?
SpellTeaching
-------------
- Would this count for a POW gain roll (I assume not, as the spirit is
not resisting).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Buckley Remember: King Kong Died for your sins
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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From: STEVEG@ARC.UG.EDS.COM (Steve Gilham | GDS Solutions)
Subject: Excommuniation & such
Message-ID: <01GWD427E6UA000BVA@UG.EDS.COM>
Date: 28 Mar 93 19:13:49 GMT
regarding
>> Excommunication is for when you've been a very bad boy and they don't want
>> you back, but not quite naughty enough to want to kill you.
and other postings on the topic of inactive/non-attending members
There are a number of possible levels of sanction that can be placed
on an initiate -
denial of services (e.g. access to cult magics or mundane benefits)
loss of benefits (e.g. known rune spells, god-gifts, allied spirit)
declared anathema (not to be recognied in any way by cult members)
open to the spirit of reprisal
totally outlawed
and a variety of levels of penance that might be required to regain
good standing (good works, financial restitution, indenture to the
cult); those with much chutzpah could even try appealing the ruling
all the way to the top - performing a suitable heroquest.
It seems to me that an excommunicate Orlanthi might well be able to
gain himself back into good graces if he were to perform the
Lightbringer quest (he might more likely get very dead, but let's
allow that he succeeds),
---------------------
From: MAB@SAVAX750.RUTHERFORD.AC.UK (Mystic Musk Ox)
Subject: RE: The RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 27 Mar 1993
Message-ID: <9303291104.AA01106@Sun.COM>
Date: 29 Mar 93 10:57:00 GMT
>The Mystic Musk Ox writes...
>Gark! Doesn't anyone play ordinary characters? You know, the ones with
>stats of 9-12, skills of 50%-75% and no money? When you start pushing...
>"Gark!" do you worship him/her/it? Chaos!!! Kill!! snort rage berserk.
>Sincerely,
>Storm Khan Thorvold
Dear Mr S.K.Thorvold,
I was most distressed to hear of your disapproval of my comments the
other day, and hasten to assure you that these were not intended as
inflammatory remarks, but were merely intended to point out the fact
that at the extremes of any system, breakdowns will occur, and that in
fact most characters probably fall somewhere in the middle ranges of
human (?) ability.
I am sure you will be pleased to hear that we were able to heal most
of the staff, albeit at some expense in Lunars, and the fire damage
will (I am told) be repaired in a few weeks.
yours,
M.M.Ox