(Message rqd:21) Return-Path:Received: from Holland.Sun.COM (sunnl) by homeland.Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA05193; Wed, 9 Jun 93 17:17:34 +0200 Received: from glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM by Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1e) id AA11453; Wed, 9 Jun 93 17:17:02 +0200 Received: by glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14688; Wed, 9 Jun 93 17:16:02 +0200 Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 17:16:02 +0200 Message-Id: <9306091516.AA14688@glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM> From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 09 Jun 1993, part 3 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 want to submit articles to the Digest only, contact the editor at RuneQuest-Digest-Editor@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM. Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld) --------------------- From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 08 Jun 1993, part 1 Message-ID: Date: 9 Jun 93 10:39:25 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1016 ______________________________ Henk Langeveld in X-RQ-ID: 994 > brandon@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (Brandon Brylawski) writes: >> I recommend cutting down the duration of sorcerous spells (and perhaps >> some divine spells, too) sharply, while permitting these durations to be >> lengthened substantially by the use of POW sacrifice. In other words, long- >> lasting spells are junior enchantments. Any thoughts? > It feels "right" to me... We would have to extend Extension to Sorcery... Extension is reusable. This POW sacrifice would have to be, too. _________________________ Carl Fink in X-RQ-ID: 996 > Um, David, *most* sorcery users on Glorantha are NOT Malkioni. The > Dwarfs, Kralori, East Islanders, many Pamaltelans, and some trolls use > sorcery, and have nothing to do with Malkion. Finally one who noticed... _____________________ Boris in X-RQ-ID: 998 > I was perusing old rqdaily's earlier, and got to thinking about common > divine spells. Not the spells that are offered by every cult, but the > spells that cults teach at their shrines. These should be the spells > that the cults want everyone to have, the magic that they want everyone > casting. > In a lot of cases, this works out. Storm Bull shrines teach Impede Chaos > (arguably, Berserk would be a better choice, but this works), Humakt > shrines teach Truesword, etc. That's how I figured it to work. > But some, from a social aspect, don't > make sense to me. For instance, Ernalda shrines teach Bless Crops. But > surely you would have the priestess, or at least an acolyte (godi?) > come to do this? She'll have several castings, with a high ceremony skill, > and the Goddess is *sure* to hear her. Perhaps the farmers will take part, > fertilizing the fields with their wives or sweethearts, but the blessing > itself would be cast by those blessed by the goddess. Especially since > Heal Body or even Command Swine would make more sense as a shrine spell. Let the Acolyte lead the ceremony, but have the farmer cast the spell - after all it's his belly that will be filled. If the average acolyte tends say 4 villages with say 20 days worth of plowing each, and she had any insufficient number castings of bless crops, she could care for the first fields without problem. For each following field she would have to spend 4 days - three in regaining the spell (3 points!), and one in leading the ceremony. By the time she gets to the last field the harvest is in... Heal body is too attractive to have it hang around at any shrine. > An even better example is Cloud Call, taught at Orlanth shrines. So this > means that most farmers will have it. So, say it's a dry season. Each > one of hundreds of farmers think's "Hmm, could use some rain. I'll cast > Cloud Call." Severall hundred points of Cloud Call are cast within a few > tens of miles over a weeks time. Cloud cover increases to 300-500%, and > floods wipe out everybody's crops. Cloud cover does not yet mean rain, and you need rain more than once to secure a bountiful harvest. And then there is the possibility to coordinate their efforts (that's what clan chiefs and tribal kings are good for). > available! Surely, you would want this controlled by the priests and > chieftains. Wouldn't Shield make a much better spell to have at shrines? For shrines to Orlanth Adventurous or Orlanth Rex, yes. To Orlanth Thunderous, no. _____________________________________________________ From: MOBTOTRM@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au in X-RQ-ID: 1001 > My rantings about sorcery yesterday... >> Makes you wonder what civilised countries like Loskalm with >> adepts on tap could do with their armies doesn't it? > Not a bad pun really, but an unintentional one, I assure you. Actually, now you told me, I had to look up "on tap" in the dictionary... __________________________________ Peter van Heusden in X-RQ-ID: 1003 > 2) It is time that the readers of this Digest realise that they are part of > a larger community. Not all the Digest readers play in Glorantha. I think > from previous discussions there is ample evidence that a large number of > Digest contributors don't play in Glorantha (eg. Loren, myself). I, for one, > never will. The same holds for the Runequest community. It is meaningless > to say "RuneQuest is Glorantha" when quite obviously that is not true for > a sizeable group. Avalon Hill does currently say so. I tend to disagree. But Glorantha _is_ fun. > 3) A large number of people entered RuneQuest after RuneQuest II, and play > RuneQuest III. Some even prefer RQ III. > > So, we are dealing with a large group of people for whom a compatibility > problem with RQ III will be a compatibility problem with their games. And > RuneQuest II didn't have a Sorcery system to be compatible to. In fact, as > far as I am told, not much is known about the Gloranthan West, where Sorcery > comes from, so how can it be claimed that the "flavour" is wrong? Good point here. The problem is that most non-Glorantha players tend to keep their mouth/keyboard shut. Why? -- -- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de --------------------- From: dickmj@essex.ac.uk Subject: Re: Cult points and other stuff Message-ID: <9306091145.AA06036@serdlc13> Date: 9 Jun 93 11:45:11 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1017 Got to be quick. It's nice to see an interest being payed to my cult points idea. Here's a few answers; >Cult Points: Nice concept, how do you gain them? Can you dirrectly trade >them? >Attempts to DI: Do you treat this as a spell (RQ2-style?) You get CP by doing things your god likes - in it's most crude form, for killing the foes listed in 'particular likes and dislikes' in the cult write up. I also give them for good roleplaying and abiding to personaltiy traits - not necessarily the cult approved ones. Often it is better to see an Orlanthi acting modest because he's got a high modest score, rather than acting proud because that's an Orlanthi trait EVEN THOUGH he has a high modest score. I rule that the more CP you have, the harder it is to get more. So, a Humakti lay member with no CP will get one for killing a zombie whereas a Sword with 5 CP would have to kill a vampire to get one. It is seldom that people go up more than 2 CP during one adventure - the only time I've seen it happen was when we foiled an attempt by the Krahst cult to build a temple under Pavis (and more, but I can't remember the rest) - and I wasn't the GM! The increase in DI is not as large as it sounds. You simply consider POW + CP when trying to roll DI e.g an initiate with POW 15 and 4 CP has 4 attempts at 19% each. You can decide to use up a CP instead of POW if you succeed - so in the example above, if the player got 05, he may decide to reduce POW by 3 to 12 and CP by 2 to 2. Now, onto the weapon length debate (titter ye not!) Rob Mace writes 'I have about 6 years of SCA armored combat experience. When I first started in the SCA I started trying to simulate more and more of what I saw happening in games. What I found is that no matter how many rules I added I was never able to get really get the feel right and the rules just got more complex and slower to use. Finally I just used the rules as is and gave people situational bonuses that I made up on the fly. Anyway I will talk about some of the flaws I see in your rule. First, pikes can be used at Point Blank range. You simply move a hand to near the point and use it as a short unbalanced thrusting weapon. I have done this with a 7 foot spear many times and a pike a few times. However if you do not choke up on the weapon as your opponent is closing you are likely to get it trapped and then it will be useless for attack. Usually I would carry a small mace for when I was closed on.' What I had in mind was more like the 3m pike used in the English Civil war. I find it difficult to believe you could 'simply move a hand to near the point and use it as a short unbalanced thrusting weapon'.Besides, when I say point blank I mean grappling, body to body, which would not leave enough room to move a pike even if you did have your hand near the point. He continues... 'Your PB values are also wrong for shields. I used a short sword a lot and usually closed with my opponent to the point that I was pushing against them. Opponents with small shields were much worse off them opponents with large shields. It was much easier to trap a small shield and then thrust around it. This happens for two reasons. The small shield has much less mass and it cover a much smaller area.' This much I do concede. I like John Medway's idea of no parry and holding the shield fixed so it covers locations like in missile combat. In fact, wouldn't shield reduce your capability at PB range? The tie up one of your hands so you can't use it and necessarily make it harder to balance. The only good thing to be said about a hoplite shield at such range is that you can try a 'shove' as in the RQIV rules. Maybe a new skill of 'close-in fighting' is needed because most of the current melee rules seem to require the combatants to adhere to fencing rules! 'Close-in fighting' would represent the fighter's ability to see an opening and exploit it - remember that the combatants arevery probably rolling around on the floor at this point so it doesn't remain a simple matter of attack and parry anymore. Each round you'd compare rolls against one another, just like with manouver - if you beat your opponent's success level then you get to make an attack on him - possibly rolling on a table someone ( I forget who ) suggested earlier to see which part of your body you can use. THEN and only THEN do you get to make an attack. Suddenly, someone with a dagger is a very frightening thing, because, if he can get in close, then you're dogmeat! For a better example of this 'rolling around on the floor' business, watch Kenneth Branagh's (I'm sure I've spelt that wrong) version of HENRY V. >Are you defining 'butt' to also include the shaft of a hafted weapon? >Otherwise, I'd hate to see someone try to sweep a pike in a 180 degree >arc in order to strike with the true butt. Yea, I suppose I am, although with a pike, your opponent is still 1m away, so maybe you could use the true butt. Sorry to show my ignorance, but just how far from the point do you hold a pike if you are using it 'normally'? >As for the shields, you mean parry, right? ( 8-) ). Yep. johnjmedway writes... 'There is still a problem, though. This ties in to a generic problem RQ suffers regarding extremes of size. Suppose you have a Great Troll with a 2H Sword. He's fighting a Duck with a 2H Sword. Why is the _base_ damage the same? Sure, the troll gets a damage mod, and because of the size _of_the_troll_ he gets either a SR or other advantage at longer ranges. The point is this: the weapons may be used with the same skill, and in the same style, but they would not be the same weapon. There should be about 2-3 feet of difference in the lengths of the weapons, yet there's no further SR mod.' I've worried about this in the past -we had a halfling with a greatsword. There're two ways I can think of to get round this 1/ Introduce a SIZ requirement to use a weapon, just like the STR and DEX requirements. The point behind this is that although you may have one hell of a strong halfling (as we did), he can't get enough leverage to either get the thing of the floor or hasn't got enough bulk to stop himself from being flung around when he tries to swing the greatsword. 2/ Allow smallies to use weapons called greatswords, but introduce a further SR modifier based on SIZ which is added to the weapon SR - in LotR, Frodo's 'sword' was the equivalent of a human's dagger. Naturally, weapon damage would also have to be reduced. Personally, I prefer the first rule as it's simpler. 'Related beef: why is a damage mod a universal value, and not proportional to the damage of the weapon? Why does strength affect thrusting weapons as much as lever weapons? I've had physics, and that's just not right. ( One of the few things I like about Gurps is that someone finally figured that one out. )' The 'PenDragonPass' system presented in Tales 6 (?) had damage mod levels. WEapons added to this e.g broadsword gave +1 (I think), so 1D6 went to 2D6 or something like that. This worked well, but converting it RQ may be difficult. Having done some physics myself, I take your point about Thrusting weapons getting less impetus than slashers, but do you really want try and work out a rule for this? Yelmalioans are weedy enough already!! Got to go and read today's digest My door, like the grave, is always open. -Arganth