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To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 04 Jun 1993, part 1
Precedence: junk
Status: O

The RuneQuest Daily and RuneQuest Digest deal with the subjects of
Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha.

Send submissions and followup to "RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM",
they will automatically be included in a next issue.  Try to change the
Subject: line from the default Re: RuneQuest Daily...  on replying.

Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest.  If you 
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Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor:

RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld)

---------------------

From: lgyreng!tg01!eeh@fernwood.mpk.ca.us (eeh)
Subject: Sorcery and RQIV
Message-ID: <9306031657.AA18437@tg01>
Date: 3 Jun 93 02:57:59 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 938


---------------------

I know I will regret this, but I felt I just had to put in my $0.02
into this discussion.

P.A.Snow@gdr.bath.ac.uk (P A Snow) wrote:

	   How "magical" do you want magic/sorcery to feel?

   The current rules for cults and shmanism do work well but ultimately lead to a
   world view where magic is technology. This is fine if this is how Glorantha is
   seen to be. However, if sorcery in Glorantha is intended to feel like magic in
   stories from Earth, it must be made more mysterious and unknown. The latter 
   parts of Paul R's analysis took sorcery down the Sorcery is technology route. Is
   this really what people want? If western culture/magic is going to be constructed 
   to parallel western european development then surely sorcery should be difficult
   to master and unpredictable so society has to rely on technology and learning
   and move away from sorcery in order to progress.

To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, any technology sufficiently advanced
is indistinguishable from magic.  If we plan to have a set of rules
covering sorcery, they will, by definition, appear mechanistic.  The
only way we can have mysterious magic either to keep the rules by
which magic functions a secret, or having the GM wing it.

To determine what sort of sorcery RQIV should have, we must examine
Gloranthan cultures.

RQII only deals with the area of Dragon Pass.  There are two magic
systems, battle magic, and rune magic, and both are controlled by the
religious cults that domiate the area.  Battle magic is the magic of
the common man, and the major revinue source for cults.  For a price,
a cult will teach any Joe off the street one of the standard battle
magic spells.  Because of the 4-point stacking limit, battle magic is
very useful, but not very powerful.  It is also quite draining,
because it uses personal magic points.

Rune magic is reserved for those who dedicate their lives to the cult:
priests, rune lords, and initates.  Rune magic is very expensive,
requiring permanent sacrifice of POW.  Only priests are allowed
reusable rune magic, and they must spend a full day in prayerr to
recover a single point of magic.  Battle magic matrices are created
through rune magic spells, and rune magic matrices are Heroic items.
Although most of the population uses battle magic, reusable rune magic
is probably restricted to 5% of the population or less.

Shamans operate on the fringes of this culture, trapping the souls of
the recently dead on their journey to the judgement of Daka Fal, and
using their POW, and what spells they still remember.

[ I still don't understand justification for the RQIII magic systems. ]

gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au (Graeme Lindsell) wrote:

    >From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu
    >RQ  Sorcery - Paul Reilly


    >  So if we use these rules _all_ western armies should be made up of 
    >people with enhanced stats and damage boost on all their weapons.  You might 

    While I agree with your other points, remember that those western armies
    are composed of  soldiers with much weaker magic than those of the 
    polytheistic or tribal cultures. Sorcery is great for the professional
    practitioner but its crap compared with spirit magic for the amateur:
    harder to learn, harder to cast and less effective: most sorcery needs
    a lot of MP behind it before its any good. I think RQIII sorcery is
    very un-Gloranthan in feel because of this: I think it would be a better
    system for a less magical world such as Gateway Earth. It's probably not
    a coincidence that this system first appeared in RQIII, with its drift
    away from Glorantha. The inclusion of spells for Farmers and Knights
    is something i like a lot about your Runic system.

    One question: do you think there is any way to give Western non-sorcerers
    a chance at a POW tick under your current rules, or do you prefer a new
    mechanic for getting POW increases? Remember that the Malkioni saints
    need POW sacrifice in the only description of them we have seen.

In western Genertela, the same magical distribution should exist:
Knights are the equivalent of Rune Lords, and Sorcerers the analogs of
Rune Priests.  Your knight spends his entire life training for his
position as premier warrior.  I think knights should be denied all
access to magic, even enchanted armor and weapons.  This is not a very
big disadvantage, because a knight armored in unenchanted iron plate
is almost completely immune to all magic.

Sorcerers typically spend their entire life training for their
position as well.  Unlike priests who receive their magic from the
gods, sorcerers are on their own.  Thier *skills* are the manipulation
of raw magic.  (I see no justification for free int, or requiring int
fro memorizing spells.  There is no real difference between bastard
sword attack and invoke fire, except invoke fire is not immedeately
obvious -- 0% base, or less.)  

[I will henceforth use the term spell to refer to a basic spell *plus*
all manipulations upon the spell.]

Sorcerers are flying without a net, and their chances of success
should be inversly proportional to the power of the spell.  This is
best simulated by subtracting 5% for each point of manipulation from
the spell chance, and 10% per point for each manipulation.  These
should be rolled *separately* and *in order*, so if a sorcerer
attempted to invoke fire at increased intensity and range, succeeded
at the fire and the intensity, but not the range, it would have the
desired intensity, but zero range (*ouch!*).

pvanheus@cs.uct.ac.za (Peter van Heusden) wrote:

    My concept of Sorcery is heavily influenced by 2 things. 1) Tolkien.
    2) Ars Magica

[...]

    2) Ars Magica has 2 basic types of spell - spontaneous, and formulaic. This
    all will be discussed below, however.

[...]

    2) BIG problem. We don't want this to only work in Glorantha. So, do we 
    create a dual system, or drop the runic idea, or give a sorcery construction
    kit, whereby you can adapt sorcery to your world.

[ Probably a very good idea ]

[...]

    Ok. What should we have: 

    Ars Magica (AM) has 2 types of spell, as I have said. A spontaneous spell is
    a off the cuff combination of forms (read Runes) and techniques (things like
    create, destroy, change). A mage would often light a candle like this: quick
    create Fire on the candle. Basically, I was thinking of skills for each
    form, and each technique, and averaging them or something. This has been 
    done, posted, responded to, etc, before.

[ As I said, I think each technique should be rolled separately. ]

    Then, you have formulaic spells - the ones in books. Basically, you crit on a
    spell, you can write it down, and get a new spell, which you can then cast
    again and improve seperately. Its a lot less dangerous that spontaneous 
    magic.

Here I tend to disagree.  I go by the rule that *permanant* effects
require *permanant* power.  At least one point of permanent POW is
needed to "tack down" sorcerous magic so it does not dissipate.
Duration should be on a linear scale: 1pt duration (default) = 3min,
2pts = 6min, 3pts = 9min, etc.  This provides for several things:

Sorcery Spell Matrices:

These are very similar to battle magic matrices.  A sorcer casts a
spell, with any desired manipulations, into an object and tacks it
down with a point of permanent pow.  The spell is cast with the
enchant matrix skill so its effects are not immediately felt.  That
spell matrix is now immutable and cannot be manipulated further.  The
matrix can now be given to anyone, and whenever he puts in the necessary
amount of pow, the spell is recast.

Sorcerous Enchantments:

Cast a spell, tack it down, and it becomes permanent.  Enchanting a
suit of armor is expensive, because it requires a point of permanent
POW per location.

Time delayed spells:

Use a point of permanent POW and create a spell storage conatiner.
The sorcerer may then cast a spell into that container.  The spell
will not immediately take effect, but may be released at a later time
by the sorcerer.  Several of these are often placed in magic wands.

Magic point storage:

A sorcerer can create 1 point of magic point storage by sacrificing 1
POW into an item.  This storage is not self-regenrating, and cannot be
used either offensively or defensively for overcoming someone's POW or
spirit combat.

Spirit trapping:

Sorcerers don't beleive in spirits.

POW storage crystals:

These are not generally available in the West.



What this means it that sorcerers are not limited by stacking.  They
are limited by their sorcerous abilities and the magic point
requirements of their spells.

One final point: Cantrips.  Cantrips are the sorcerous analog of
battle magic.  Sorcerers use the create cantrip skill design a spell.
This spell can then be taught to a commoner at 1 point per week, if
the sorcerer succeeds with his teach cantrip skill.  The student's
chance to cast the cantrip is quite low, say INT x 2 or INT x 3.  A
cantrip *cannot* be manipulated further.

======================================================================
Eduardo Horvath					          eeh@btr.com
======================================================================


---------------------

From: tzunder@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tom Zunder)
Subject: various
Message-ID: 
Date: 3 Jun 93 18:49:24 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 939


POW gain rolls

I agree that mastering a skill would allow a gain roll.
I like my suggestion because it's a simple rule fix and it mirrors how we
all think POW should be accumuklated. It prevents the Disruption silliness
and leaves us free to discuss chaotic ivy.

Sub Skills

I liked the Ki skills in Nihon, I think that once mastery is achieved, one
can activate special skills, at one's critical %, but which can then be
learned seperately within the skill. Thus the RQ4 special options are
available to masters only. Makes a nice reward for mastery. One could have
to sacrifice POW to Humakt, ZZ or whoever, to awakwn the skills, although
I'm sure spirits could do it as well. One could have several special
sub-skills and choose amonsgt them.

Thus Orlanthi Wind Lord with 100% in Sword, sacrifices 1 POW to Orlanth who
awakens the special sub-skill of Flurry, at 5%. When rolling to hit, the
Wind Lord announces his intent, spends a magic point, and if he rolls under
the 5% performs a flurry, whatever that is. He also criticals and if he
rolls highrer than his Flurry sub-skill, he does a normal attack. After
a while he has 100% Sword, 30% Flurry. Then not all Flurries will still
be criticals, but he will be able to Flurry far more often. Similar
sub-skills must also be created for non-combat skills.

I like this better than the RQ4 draft 2.0 version.


--------------------------------------------------------------------
                                        tzunder@cix.compulink.com.uk 
                                                   How Illuminating!
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---------------------

From: tzunder@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tom Zunder)
Subject: Conventions IN Europe
Message-ID: 
Date: 3 Jun 93 18:49:40 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 940


I'd like to say that I'd love to go to a European RQ convention.

I'm British, we could have French, Germans, Finns all congregating and
having more fun translating than any game!

Seriously if the Germans want to hold a multilinguial con, assigning
nations in Europe to language groups in Glorantha, of course, then I'd
come!

--------------------------------------------------------------------
                                        tzunder@cix.compulink.com.uk 
                                                   How Illuminating!
--------------------------------------------------------------------



---------------------

From: tzunder@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tom Zunder)
Subject: Airships
Message-ID: 
Date: 3 Jun 93 18:49:53 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 941


Now we know that Lunars have moon boats.

Presumably the Orlanthi have sky chariots?


--------------------------------------------------------------------
                                        tzunder@cix.compulink.com.uk 
                                                   How Illuminating!
--------------------------------------------------------------------



---------------------

From: carlf@Panix.Com (Carl Fink)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 03
Message-ID: <199306031901.AA18824@sun.Panix.Com>
Date: 3 Jun 93 11:01:02 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 942

To: runequest@glorantha.holland.sun.com
subject: Two weapons

F.Fontana@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Fabio Fontana) writes:

R>What are the penalties for using two weapons? On page 51 of the Players
 >Manual it says that off hand weapons start with a base chance of 0.5%, do
 >the actually mean "0.5 per cent chance" or half the normal base chance or
 >something like that? Are there any other penalties for using two weapons?

  It means that your offhand chance with a given weapon is half your
preferred hand chance.  I'm right handed - if my right hand broadsword
attack is 90%, my left hand attack is 45%.  Note that you can raise
the offhand chance by experience or training, separately from the
other.  One of my characters has RH rapier attack 105%, LH attack
97%.

R>Finally, what is a primary weapon? I have seen it mentioned in the Primitive
 >Hunter skill list and nowhere else....

  It's just "your main weapon".  The old rules refer to "Primary" and
"Secondary" attacks.  A person might have Primary weapon:  broadsword
and Secondary weapon:  1H Spear.  Then if he gets percentages for
Primary weapon, they're added to his sword attack, and percentages added
to Secondary weapon are added to his spear attack.
                                                                      

---------------------

From: mabeyke@batman.b11.ingr.com (boris)
Subject: Mechanical Magic: Just Say No!
Message-ID: <199306031953.AA14625@batman.b11.ingr.com>
Date: 3 Jun 93 19:53:07 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 943



  Something P. A. Snow said in 6/2's Daily reminded me of one of the few
  things I dislike about RQ Spirit magic, namely how mechanical it seems.
  If a character knows Bladesharp 5, then they can cast any amount of BS
  from one to five at will, all very precisely.  If they also know Heal 4,
  and have a 13 INT, then they may learn exactly four more points of spirit
  magic, and may purchase exactly that amount from their temple.  There
  seems to be too much bleedover from player knowledge to character
  knowledge.  How this can be fixed, I'm not sure, but here are some
  thoughts on the matter.

  First, I guess casting fixed spells should be left alone.  The player knows
  that, for example, Lightwall costs four MPs to cast, but the character
  would only know it takes a lot of soulforce (mana? magic? what would be
  the "correct" Gloranthan, or at least Orlanthi, term?) to cast.  This
  requires only proper roleplaying, and not a mechanical fix, as I feel
  variable spells and spell learning do.

  When casting a variable spell, I would think the character has *some*
  control of how powerful a spell to cast.  If they know a large spell, say
  Vigor 6, then they may choose to cast a minor version (1-2 MPs), a moderate
  version (say 3-5 MPs), or as much as they can (all 6 MPs).  The character
  knows only that these choices will cost him a little mana (I chose this for
  brevity's sake, but the term doesn't feel Gloranthan to me for some reason)
  a moderate amount, or a lot of mana, respectively, as he feels a smaller or
  larger "drain" after casting.  Perhaps with a spell such as Heal, he would
  cast until the wound stops hurting.  Perhaps there are even different
  rituals for the different levels; a warrior with Protection 6 may know the
  "Leather Song", the "Ringmail Song", and the "Chainmail Song", doing 1-3,
  3-5, and 6 MPs, respectively.  Each time the character casts the spell,
  the player rolls the number for the range, and marks off the MPs.  Or it
  could be subsumed in the POWx5 roll; if this is barely made, then a weak
  version is cast, if specialed, then exactly as much is cast as the player
  wants.  This would reduce die rolling, but may not appeal to some as much
  as the other method.

  In regards to learning magic, the best way I can think of dealing with this
  is to make the price paid variable.  An orlanthi goes to his Storm Voice to
  learn the Broadsword Song (Bladesharp 4-6, since 5.5 is average for a
  broadsword).  Even though the player may want only BS 5, the GM rolls to
  see how much of a BS is paid for, and how much is gotten.  So you might
  pay for a four point spell and get a three or five, etc.

  I realize this is all very nebulous, mechanics wise, but part of that is
  intentional.  Magic, even in a magic rich world such as Glorantha, should
  be mysterious and uncertain.  And maybe something I said here will spark
  someone's creative genius to give us something that rings with veracity.

-- 
 Boris Mikey, aka        |"Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive
 Maurice Beyke           | for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if
 mabeyke@ingr.com        | you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire."
 Intergraph doesn't want                                      Nietzsche
   my opinions.

---------------------

From: jjm@zycor.lgc.com (johnjmedway)
Subject: Runes and Magic
Message-ID: <9306032347.AA27996@hp2.zycor.lgc.com>
Date: 3 Jun 93 23:47:12 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 944

>>  From: gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au (Graeme Lindsell)
>>  Subject: More Musings on Runes and the Invisible God...
>>  Date: 2 Jun 93 11:48:01 GMT
>>  
>>   Taking a gander through GoG last night I noticed that the Invisible God's
>>  runes are Law, Magic and Infinity (powerful combo). If the above is true
>>  then before Time his runes must have omitted Law, or it was of less
>>  importantance. 


Schroedinger's Rune: Did "Infinity" exist before there was Time?



>>  From: henkl@holland.sun.com (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland)
>>  Subject: Rune Smileys + Re: Malcolm: RQ3 sorcery patching
>>  Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 13:14:46 GMT
>>  
>>  Here's my list of Runic Smileys...
>>  
>>  oK	- man
>>  []	- earth
>>
>>  ..
>>
>>  Henk	|	Henk.Langeveld@Sun.COM - Disclaimer: I don't speak for Sun.
>>  oK[]	|	RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM


Now I know what the bugger in the lower corner of your sig means.



>>  From: henkl@holland.sun.com (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland)
>>  Subject: Re: Bound spirits
>>  Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 13:28:18 GMT
>>  
>>  Suggestion to limit the (ab)use of bound spirits:
>>  
>>  Make it impossible for bound spirits to regenerate MPs
>>  while being bound.   This would have the same effect
>>  as putting a slave collar on a person...


I think this would severly weaken Shamanic characters. Sure they have a 
fetch, but having to capture new spirits all the time, and then lose them 
after they burn out, seems like it would radically change the power of 
Shamans v. Priests.

Then again, I'm in favor of upping the power of Divine/Rune Magic with 
something like David Cheng's Rune Power Blasphemy rules. Sorcerors should 
stay as is, or ....

Or maybe this: For sorcerous magic ( that's what started this, right? ), 
do not allow the use of MP from Spirits. Sorcerors must use Tap to take 
POW from the spirit, causing a _similar_ condition to that which you 
suggest. The spirit would need to be released when its POW fell to low 
to be of use.



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