From: owner-runequest-rules@ (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.MPGN.COM Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V1 #176 Reply-To: runequest-rules@mpgn.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@ Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@ Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Wednesday, October 14 1998 Volume 01 : Number 176 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS Re: [RQ-RULES] Runes [RQ-RULES] give me spells Re: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Re: [RQ-RULES] Spell Names RE: [RQ-RULES] BFRP [RQ-RULES] Skills classification RE: [RQ-RULES] Skills classification Re: [RQ-RULES] Magic Systems Re: [RQ-RULES] Inbound newsgroupies Re: [RQ-RULES] Runic magic RE: [RQ-RULES] Runic magic [RQ-RULES] Runic Sorcery & Divine Spells Re: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Designer Re: [RQ-RULES] Owning games and Hasbro RE: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Designer RE: [RQ-RULES] Runic magic 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: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 10:57:32 -0400 From: "Bob Stancliff" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Runes > Can anyone advise me on the lesser known Runes > one I had at the back of my mind was Communication which I believe is > the Issaries Rune and then there's the Triangle that L Mhy(?) has > What is that? (scuse me if I just missed it on my Rune list) That is Law. > Any others I should know about? > Ian The current official gloranthan runes are: The Elements and their sub-runes: Fire, Heat Water Air Darkness, Cold Earth, Gor (Bloody Earth), Gorgorma (Vengeance) Moon The Powers (Pairs?) and their sub-runes: Disorder Harmony, Communication Death Fertility Stasis Movement Illusion Truth Fate (minor) Luck (minor) The Forms and their sub-runes: Plant Beast Dragonnewt, Godunya (Kralorela) Man Spirit And the final group: Law Chaos, Hunger Infinity Mastery Magic I may have missed one, but I think this is all that have seen print. Reference RQ2, 'RQ3: World Book', and 'Gods of Glorantha'. Bob Stancliff (stanclif@ufl.edu) http://commnections.com/upgrades *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 11:09:47 -0400 From: "Bob Stancliff" Subject: [RQ-RULES] give me spells I would like to have a copy to look at, please. > If anyone wants the new spells, send me an email with "GIVE ME SPELLS" in > the title Bob Stancliff (stanclif@ufl.edu) http://commnections.com/upgrades *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 11:18:36 -0400 From: "Bob Stancliff" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] BFRP > >Lets drop BFRP and call it 'Legends'. > Any other suggestions? 'Legends' is ok, but a bit ostentatious, and possibly > a WotC trademark. Oops, most of the short words are taken unless you misspell them, but you cannot copyright a word in common usage, it must be used in a distinctive phrase. I want a name that gives some hint of the very pre-medieval nature of this system. It is basically a Biblical period and flavor. 'Heroes' works well and is only similar to other game material. Bob Stancliff (stanclif@ufl.edu) http://commnections.com/upgrades *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 11:24:11 -0400 From: "Bob Stancliff" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Spell Names > We should drop all RQ names, that's a very specific thing that is part of that > rules group and replace them with our own. If the same name exists in another game system, not BRP based, then we can use it too since it is in common usage. The others should be re-worded whenever possible. > I always liked very specific spells that heightened the chances of impales and > criticals. We will have to be careful to write such spells to cope with both RQ > definitions of such terms but also Stormbringer and Elric. I have no knowledge of these games and they have no impact on my decisions. You will need to describe any aspects from them fully for us to understand. Bob Stancliff (stanclif@ufl.edu) http://commnections.com/upgrades *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 16:29:06 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] BFRP >> 'Legends' is ok, but a bit ostentatious, and possibly >> a WotC trademark. >but you cannot copyright a word in common usage, You can't copyright it, but can you trademark it? Best to keep clear, given WotC's litigousness (sp?). philip.hibbs@tnt.co.uk http://members.tripod.com/~PhilHibbs/ Any view of things that is not strange is false - Neil Gaiman, Sandman *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 16:28:06 +0200 From: Alain.RAMEAU@total.com (Alain RAMEAU) Subject: [RQ-RULES] Skills classification >These will be similar to the Categories in RQ, which is OK: >Movement (Agility/Stealth), >Control (Manipulation), >Lores (Knowledge), >Senses (Perception), >Expression (Communication), >Essence (Magic) My revised RQ classification was as follows : AGILITY COMMUNICATION KNOWLEDGE MANIPULATION PERCEPTION STEALTH MAGIC COMBAT (Weapons Attack & Parry) LANGUAGES (Speak & Read/Write) Alain. http://www.btinternet.com/~karamo/rq.htm *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 16:45:03 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Skills classification > revised RQ classification was as follows : > COMMUNICATION ... LANGUAGES (Speak & Read/Write) Why separate out languages? OK, in the real world, it's possible to be good with languages but crap at actually communicating (due to nerves or whatever) but I don't see the need. It may be worth ruling that written skills are in a given writing system rather than language, so you could be able to speak Sartarite and Safelstran, but only read/write Sartarite, but still write Safelstran notes in Sartarite script to someone with the same skills. The lower of the two skills would be used for the chance of successful communication, maybe with a blanket -25 penalty for using an inappropriate script, or maybe half chance. philip.hibbs@tnt.co.uk http://members.tripod.com/~PhilHibbs/ Any view of things that is not strange is false - Neil Gaiman, Sandman *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 11:44:23 -0400 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Magic Systems Hibbs, Philip wrote: > > >the old Basic Role Playing rules booklet Chaosium used to > >distribute with RQ2. > > That's a bit hard to get hold of nowadays, most peoples' copies fell apart > years ago. I agree with your size considerations, and it needs to be modular > so that users can just download parts of the system and print them, so they > don't end up with a bunch of magic systems that they don't want. One of my local game stores has maybe a half-dozen to a dozen of these left lying around... anyone want any? - -- talmeta@bellatlantic.net - I *am* one of the Chosen Few! ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta1 TANJ Lives! - Alternate Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 10:53:18 -0500 From: Steve Lieb Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Inbound newsgroupies Any way we could "digestify" this? I just checked after a couple days, and had 101 emails. Ugh. At 09:58 PM 10/13/98 -0400, you wrote: >Hibbs, Philip wrote: >> >> My brother just posted the signup details on uk.games.roleplay, 'cos some >> folks was complaining about there not being an RQ list, so expect a >> membership increase some time soon. > >And so there have been. Though about half as many have left, it seems >(might be folk on both the list and the digest, scaling back to just the >digest, though.) > >-- >talmeta@bellatlantic.net - I *am* one of the Chosen Few! >ICQ - 12594453 >AIM - talmeta1 >TANJ Lives! - >Alternate Homepage - > >*************************************************************************** >To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line >'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. > > - -Steve Lieb styopa@iname.com steve@necadon.com http://surf.to/styopa *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 11:47:37 -0400 From: Tal Meta Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Runic magic Hibbs, Philip wrote: > > I'm not interested in creating a system for designing magic systems, I just > thought that listing spells in broad categories would be nice. If it's going > to cause this much contention, let's just drop the idea and keep it > alphabetical. Keep it alphabeetical, perhaps, but include a blurb under Religion that says the foollowing spells are traditionally Storm (Earth/Fire/Fertility/etc) related. That's pretty much the eye I keep open when I do my Greyhawk deities. - -- talmeta@bellatlantic.net - I *am* one of the Chosen Few! ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta1 TANJ Lives! - Alternate Homepage - *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 17:14:27 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Runic magic >but include a blurb under Religion that >says the foollowing spells are traditionally Storm >(Earth/Fire/Fertility/etc) related. What I was hoping for was the ability to list spell types for a religion, so Orlanth might get all Air spells, Community/Wealth spells up to 4 points, and Death / War spells up to 4 points. Zorak Zoran would have all Death / War spells, Fire spells up to 4 points, and Darkness spells up to 4 points. philip.hibbs@tnt.co.uk http://members.tripod.com/~PhilHibbs/ Any view of things that is not strange is false - Neil Gaiman, Sandman *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 12:39:16 -0400 (EDT) From: Peter Maranci Subject: [RQ-RULES] Runic Sorcery & Divine Spells Much of the recent discussion of Runic Sorcery lately has reminded me of the Runic Sorcery system that I made up about ten years ago, which was inspired by a non-RQ game that an old friend or mine ran. I know that someone has already mentioned the URL, but I don't suppose that it will hurt if I mention it again: . It's by no means perfect, but it reflects a lot of the ideas that have been kicked around here lately. Regarding magic systems for the BFRP, there's a point that has always bugged me: the mechanistic nature of spells, in particular Divine (or Rune) spells. More than anything else it's the rigid time limit that feels wrong. Reality-testing may not be everyone's bag, but I can't help but look to legends of divine magic in Earth history (okay, I'm using the word "reality" somewhat loosely). Saints curing lepers, mystics floating in a trance or walking through fire, warrior priests smiting the wicked...none of these seemed to be on a strict time limit. Rather than mechanistic limitations, their abilities were shaped by their faith and worthiness. In other words, it seems insane that Saint Cugelbert would only be able to whack unbelievers with his mighty club for fifteen minutes, and then either take a break or be defeated. Likewise, healing of the sick should be predicated on the virtue of both the healer and the healed in the eyes of the healer's deity -- running out of magic points doesn't feel right. Mind you, I don't have that objection when it comes to spirit magic. But for Divine magic, perhaps a more flexible, diety/GM-controlled approach might be worth considering? I'm thinking of Divine magic as being blessings, rather than spells. These would at some times work by the conscious choice of the wielder, sometimes fail to work at the worshiper's behest, and at other times manifest unexpectedly, for unknown Divine reasons (for example, Saint Cugelbert's sacred club might suddenly glow with a divine light, surprising the heretics lying in ambush around the corner). Obviously this would make Divine magic much more powerful, and would require much more work and attention on the part of the GM. Blessings would have to be much more rare, and would probably need to be obtained through some sort of minor cult-sponsored ritual HeroQuest. Still, I can imagine that this approach to Divine magic would make it much more, well, Divine-seeming, and give a great deal of excitement and flavor to a campaign. It would make Divine magic both more magical, and more Divine. Could such a system be reasonably implemented by the average RQ GM, I wonder? Or would it take too much effort? -->Pete - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Maranci pmaranci@tiac.net Malden, MA Editor, Interregnum RPG/Science Fiction APA/magazine -- email for info. Interregnum WWW home page: http://www.tiac.net/users/maranci/index.html FRP adventures, art and more: http://www.tiac.net/users/maranci/rq.htm Associate Ed. of Tradetalk, magazine of the International Chaos Society *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 13:39:15 -0400 From: "Bob Stancliff" Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Designer > >All skills should have a difficulty rating based on the breadth, > >depth, and clarity of the field of knowledge... > >Easy = 1d6+2 exp., Medium = > >1d6 exp., Hard = 1d3 exp., Very Hard = 1d3-1 exp. > > Ugh, RQ4 tried that and I stopped using it. If we are going to change the > level of complexity relative to RQ, it should be generally downwards. Are > there any skills in the RQ list that should be anything other than Medium? > philip.hibbs@tnt.co.uk It works very nicely once you get each skill marked with it's rating. You still only need one check to improve, but harder skills go up much slower than easy skills because fewer points are awarded. There are many easy skills in RQ that suffered under the old rules, and there are many skills that you want to let players have but limit their ability to use, so you make them hard or very hard. Ride may be medium, but Ride is hard. Skills naturally learned by children are often easy such as Throw, Catch, Run, Jump and Climb. Rare or non-cultural skills (Iron Smith) and items used in unnatural way (Throw Sword) would often be hard, and Lores about things for which there is little knowledge or research available would be very hard and require travel to study. Many sorcery spells are hard or very hard since they encompass difficult concepts. Very foreign languages such as Kralorelan are Hard, Wormish is very hard, and TradeTalk is easy. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 12:27:26 -0700 From: Joseph Elric Smith Servant to Arioch Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Owning games and Hasbro Count me in too.Ken > I'd be game for this. (What's wrong with 7 magic systems? We could have > one based on each characteristic that way ). > > -- > talmeta@bellatlantic.net - I *am* one of the Chosen Few! *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 18:54:18 +0100 From: "Hibbs, Philip" Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] BFRP Designer >Ride may be medium, but Ride is hard. There's no such skill as Ride in RQ, and I don't see the need to simulate these differences. I've never found it a problem in RQ, nobody in my games ever had "difficult" skills at ridiculously high levels, or found that their "Throw" skill was not advancing as fast as it should be. philip.hibbs@tnt.co.uk http://members.tripod.com/~PhilHibbs/ Any view of things that is not strange is false - Neil Gaiman, Sandman *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 13:15:09 -0500 From: Steve Lieb Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Runic magic >What I was hoping for was the ability to list spell types for a religion, so >Orlanth might get all Air spells, Community/Wealth spells up to 4 points, >and Death / War spells up to 4 points. Zorak Zoran would have all Death / >War spells, Fire spells up to 4 points, and Darkness spells up to 4 points. for those of us considering programming character generator programs, this would be a HUGE help for the NPC generation. - -Steve Lieb styopa@iname.com steve@necadon.com http://surf.to/styopa *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of RuneQuest Rules Digest V1 #176 ************************************* *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.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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