From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 24 Aug 1993, part 1 Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily) Sender: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM Precedence: junk 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: dustin@ocf.Berkeley.EDU (Dustin Tranberg) Subject: Shield-Smashing Rule Message-ID: <199308210640.AA08700@locusts.berkeley.edu> Date: 20 Aug 93 16:40:25 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1434 Chris Pringle's smash-the-object rule seems problematic: A) Two-handed weapons won't last long with this rule, not even beefy greatswords. B) You can often get a lot of mileage out of simply TARGETING an opponent's shield to smash it. C) Spears shouldn't be able to do a lot of damage to a parrying weapon. Just my 2 front teeth, Dustin --------------------- From: nrobinso@sirius.UVic.CA (Neil Robinson) Subject: RQ-Con Message-ID: <67984.nrobinso@sirius.uvic.ca> Date: 22 Aug 93 02:53:02 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1435 Arrgghhhh..... Why oh why does that RQ-Con have to in Maryland? I have to cross an entire continent to get there and at great expense! It is ALMOST enough to convince me not to go. Almost. :-) David (Cheng), you and the other people setting this up look like you have your work cut out for you. I can't wait to see it! It will be interesting to meet the 'netters'. Only 5 months...... (less a week!) I guess I'll have to auction off my RQ II duplicates to pay for the trip. Sigh. Neil Robinson | "Never underestimate the power of human nrobinso@sirius.uvic.ca | stupidity." - L. Long 2996 Dysart Rd. Victoria B.C. V9A 2K2 (604) 385-1642 --------------------- From: nrobinso@sirius.UVic.CA (Neil Robinson) Subject: RuneQuest-Con Message-ID: <68349.nrobinso@sirius.uvic.ca> Date: 22 Aug 93 02:59:06 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1436 Arrggghhhh! I got the RQ-Con Preregistration Booklet yesterday. It looks great! Why does the convention have to be in Maryland? I've got an entire continent to cross to get to it. It is enough make me miss it. Well almost enough. :-) So much for the new CD player.... I guess I'll have to sell my RQ II duplicates at the auction to fund the trip. Only 5 months (less a week!) Neil Robinson | "Never underestimate the power of human nrobinso@sirius.uvic.ca | stupidity." - L. Long 2996 Dysart Rd. Victoria B.C. V9A 2K2 (604) 385-1642 --------------------- From: MOBTOTRM@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au Subject: Chaos Down South Message-ID: <01H22SQBLJYU9S4AWU@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au> Date: 23 Aug 93 18:00:21 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1437 G'day all, MOB here. I haven't sent anything to the Digest for a while, been too busy in my real job. I've got a question: I'm currently working on Tales #11 - The Pamaltela specialissue. There's an obscure reference I've had no luck tracking down: somewhere I read that while chaos manifests as groups of smaller, weaker beings in Genertela, in Pamaltela chaos monsters tend to be single, unique individuals (eg. Mother of Monsters). I'm pretty sure Greg or Sandy wrote this somewhere, but where? I've looked through just about everything, but it must have slipped past me. Can anyone help? And I'll leave you with this old joke from Tales #4: Q: "Why have all the Sun Domers got brown eyes and blonde hair?" A: "'cos those who ain't get "Totoal Celibacy" Anyone else got Gloranthan jokes? Cheers, MOB --------------------- From: Ola.Knutsson@ina.hv.se (Ola Knutsson) Subject: Generating npc's ? Message-ID: <930823.143703.417@macpost.hv.se> Date: 23 Aug 93 15:37:03 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1438 I'm posting this for a friend. Please send replies through me. --------- hello all you RQ Gm`s with a pc out there. I don`t know if the digest is the right place to do this, but if any of you have a pc program for generating pc`s or npc`s i would be very grateful if you could send it to me. thanks, Miklos Weiss. ---------- Ola Knutsson V{xj| University, SWEDEN email: Ola.Knutsson@ina.hv.se --------------------- From: C442196@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu Subject: ghosts, undead, spirits, POW in Glorantha Message-ID: <9308231937.AA16770@Sun.COM> Date: 23 Aug 93 19:11:23 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1439 About the line between ghosts and undead and the nature of POW: To me the rules on this make no sense; in fact, I'd happily toss out everything in the RQ2 Magic book. What really grates is the possibility of spirits taking part as worshippers in temple services, which ought to make ancestor cults incredibly powerful, not the primitive affairs they are. Also, if spirits regenerate MPs, what can humans give them that they would possibly want? My proposal: POW stores MPs, but CON regenerates them. Undead have POW, but no CON (after all, CON = health, and an undead creature is the least healthy thing imaginable). This way, spirits would need human contact and have more motivation to be worshipped by or to possess mortals. This would also slow shamans down some, since their source of MPs (fetch and bound spirits) wouldn't renew itself automatically. Shamans need SOMETHING to slow them down. Ancestor cults don't need great temple status anyway; they're there to summon and bargain with spirits, not to acquire tons of rune spells. That's my heretical idea for today. Feel free to flame the hell out of it. At least maybe it'll change the subject from this obsession with healing. nh --------------------- From: henkl@glorantha (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland) Subject: Re: ghosts, undead, spirits, POW in Glorantha Message-ID: <9308240024.AA09176@glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM> Date: 24 Aug 93 04:24:32 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1440 PS: Like the idea. Although in my world, POW does not (re-)generate mp, it just attracts it. In Prax there's the Dead Place, where no magic exists. No regeneration there... Your Soul is a vessel, POW is its size. --------------------- From: gbailey@aol.com Subject: RQ introduction; Boldhome Message-ID: <9308232330.tn257815@aol.com> Date: 24 Aug 93 03:30:24 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1441 I was playing at a game store and the store owner asked me to describe RQ to someone asking about it. Besides saying it's a fantasy RPG, what else can I say about the game within a few sentences that can get someone interested? We're having a game convention, TRICON, on Sept. 18-19 near Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and I volunteered to run a Runequest game. Title is Mischief in Boldhome, I have a few ideas to try out but welcome other suggestions. Most players (if I get any) will be new. I wrote up character descriptions on 3x5 cards and players will select their character by that, then I'll give them a character sheet with additional information (the descriptions have a D&D equivalent listed - please don't Disrupt me). Each character, all having run ins with Lunar activities, will be coincidently near the Bull's Tail Tavern (a known Orlanthi hangout). A Lunar raid will probably pull the characters together but I haven't decided where to go from there as yet. One of the characters will be a Lunar sympathizer. --------------------- From: ddunham@radiomail.net (David Dunham , via RadioMail) Subject: PenDragon Pass Message-ID: <9308240454.AA06617@radiomail.net> Date: 24 Aug 93 04:54:16 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1442 In 1985, I started a Gloranthan campaign depicting the colonization of Dragon Pass. I chose to use Pendragon instead of RuneQuest as the base rules because they were better suited to a long-term campaign spanning decades of game time. I tried to use straight Pendragon as much as possible, with RuneQuest's magic system (so I could use all the existing cult material). I called the result "PenDragon Pass." I didn't get to run the campaign very long, but I described the experience in Tales of the Reaching Moon 6. (Refer to that article for more detail, especially about the Gloranthan setting.) About a year ago, Greg Stafford asked me to take another look at Griffin Island, a campaign which I'd not given much thought to because it wasn't as good as the original Griffin Mountain. Well, it's still not as good as the original, but did have some cool stuff, and useful handouts (only the religion handout makes any mention of game mechanics). I decided to dust off the PenDragon Pass rules and run Griffin Island. Statistics To accommodate magic, I added POW. Pendragon doesn't use INT. As in Arthurian Pendragon, each culture has modifiers to the stats (see TRM6 for Gloranthan cultures), and different starting skills Traits and Passions Each religion has five virtues. For example, Hilme (the Sun God in Griffin Island) values Chaste, Generous, Honest, Just, Valorous (see TRM6 for Gloranthan virtues). To become an initiate, a candidate must make 3 of the 5 rolls (as well as the normal RQ requirements). Likewise, priests (or Rune Lords) must not only make a POW roll (on d20) but make 4 of the 5 trait rolls. This screens out unworthy candidates. Hate passions seem popular. I haven't been doing the best job coming up with scenarios to test traits and passions (Griffin Island isn't much help). Status Unlike Pendragon, where knights seek Glory, in PenDragon Pass you gain Status not only for performing great deeds, but for healing or leadership responsibility (this hasn't come up in the current campaign, but a PC can certainly aspire to leading a clan). Pendragon halves Glory obtained through use of missile weapons; I kept this rule, but haven't always been applying it. I'll probably drop it soon (it makes sense for knights, but not for elves or Grazers), but I'm open to argument. Skills I dropped several Pendragon skills because they were too Arthurian (e.g. Hawking, Heraldry), and added Animal Lore, Bargaining, Custom, Devise, Industry, Mathematics, Memorize (limits magic, and can be used by heralds), Mineral Lore, Plant Lore, Ritual (this covers all the RQ3 ritual magic skills), Shamanism (this covers all the RQ4 shaman skills), Sleight, Sorcery (also the various manipulation skills), Stealth, Stewardship, and World Lore. Combat Pendragon combat works well and is very quick. I added several tactics (Break Shield, Disarm, Flurry, Guard) from RQ4, but I don't think anyone's used them. When iron weapons enter the campaign, they'll be more durable (swords won't break them on tied resolutions). Magic Spirit combat is simply opposed resolution of MP. The loser loses d3; if he makes a partial success, the victor loses one MP. I kept most spirit and divine spells, but they tend to be weaker (since hit points, damage, and armor are larger in Pendragon than in RQ). You can learn a spirit spell instead of one point of skill, and can learn as many spells as your Memorize skill. To keep things simple, you only learn a variable spell once. You can cast it at up to POW/3. Casting is a POW roll (the same roll may be used to oppose against a target's MP). Divine magic is just like RQ3. Only Regrow Limb eliminates a major wound. Rune Lords need five 18 skills -- several characters are getting close. I added sorcery rules vaguely based on an RQ4 proposal. You cast spells as an opposed roll of your Sorcery skill and the points in the spell. You can use Duration, Intensity, Multiialist, he's weak at it. Magic can heal a wound only once (and most magic won't remove a major wound or negate the need for Chirurgery), but can be combined with First Aid. Enchantments require a Ritual roll as well as a POW sacrifice. In this campaign, there haven't been any magic items, but the earlier Dragon Pass campaign did have priests as parents or grandparents, and thus a certain amount of heirloom magic. As in Pendragon, truly powerful magic is still the domain of the GM. Occasionally, magic has been more powerful than it should (such as the time a warrior with 18 points of battlemagic took on a gorgosaur), but the transition from RQ3 cults works pretty well. A few features still feel bolted on, and it's not as simple as I'd like. Converting I occasionally have to convert an NPC from RQ3 to PenDragon Pass. It's usually straightforward, dividing skill percentiles by 5 (sometimes finding a similar skill), figuring out what sort of armor's worn and using the equivalent Pendragon value, etc. Comments Play is much faster, and the game easier to explain, than RQ4. It's a little foreign to veteran RQ players. Wounds can have permanent effect, and can take weeks to recover from, which makes the game feel far more realistic than RQ (despite the lack of detail). We have some high level PCs (e.g. a Hilme Priest), since I'm not limiting the starting age (though aging rolls start at 35). This hasn't been much of a problem -- the priest has rune magic, but not the gear he'd have had if he attained the rank through play. I'd hoped to run one year per session, but haven't always been able to (Joh Mith's caravan route took about 4 sessions to play). Still, we've managed to get through 4 game years, and several characters are now married with children. The Future I plan to run a PenDragon Pass game at RQ-Con. By then, I may be using the new edition of Pendragon. And I'd still like to run a Gloranthan PenDragon Pass campaign starting in 1333... Copyright 1993, David Dunham