From: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.imagiconline.com Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V3 #36 Reply-To: runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Friday, March 31 2000 Volume 03 : Number 036 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS [none] [RQ-RULES] on/off topic Re : [RQ-RULES] GM fiat (and other stuff) RE: Re : [RQ-RULES] GM fiat (and other stuff) RE: Re : [RQ-RULES] GM fiat (and other stuff) [RQ-RULES] Crankiness and RQ Re: [RQ-RULES] Crankiness and RQ [RQ-RULES] Crankiness and Glorantha 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: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 08:42:34 +0100 From: aevans5@csc.com Subject: [none] >Then again, the British version of RuneQuest had that abominable cover that was a bad ripoff of my wife's >original cover. We called that the Bikini tortilla cover and similar disparaging comments. If they were going >to put on an alternate cover, why do such a travesty of the original? > >Steve Perrin, who still thinks the original 2nd ed RQ cover was one of the best RPG covers ever... No, of >course I'm not prejudiced. I couldn't agree more, Mr. Perrin ... the cover of the softback 2nd edition rulebook is what got me to buy the damned thing in the first place. What a shocker ... if only I had known .... Regards Andy. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:30:38 +0100 From: Philippe Krait Subject: [RQ-RULES] on/off topic Bob Stancliff wrote : > Wile I know that this site was created for RQ rules, that purpose is > slowly leaking away. RQ is not published or supported and most of us have > a great interest in variant rules for RQ and Hero Wars. So I would hope > that people would consider this site to be appropriate for any rules > discussion based on these general systems. Bob, I'm truly sorry you took it that way. What I meant was : "Hello, I'm sorry to be a newcomer and that my first post on the RQ-Rules ML was about HW and not about RQ". I did not mean to chide anybody about posting comments about Hero Wars here, especially as I find these pretty interesting and often quite different from those expressed on the others ML. Also, I wanted to post a little about RQ itself, as it has always been my favourite one. Philippe *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 10:02:48 +0100 From: Philippe Krait Subject: Re : [RQ-RULES] GM fiat (and other stuff) Rich Allen wrote > As far as the d20 vs. d100 discussion... I think the d100 works better > than d20 as far as progression is concerned. I just don't see jumps in > skill ability of 5% at a shot to be all that "realistic", but 1 or 2% every > so often seems about right. Can't do that with a d20. Personally we > haven't run into any problems with scale in RQ3, because we don't have > characters with skills over 100% very often, and even then I've never seen > one go over 120%. I can't imagine the number of check rolls it would take > to reach 150%. That's a lot of 01's! If I remember correctly, you have to roll over 100, adding your category modifier, which is a lot easier than rolling just over 100. I liked that a lot, because it also meant that you had to be gifted to get really good in a skill. This was important, because it simulated well the fact that basically, everyone is more or les average in standard skills, but that only gifted people are either much better with very rare or complicated skills (low percentage) or much more likely to be incredible at standard ones. This is one thing which I both like and dislike about HW, BTW. Everyone can become a hero (good point, this was always one of the basis of my games), but being born one way or another (i.e. starting characteristics) does not count anymore (unless you potentially look at flaws), and this changes much on how you can envision and develop your character. One last point about RQ : there were a number of ways to look at scalability, whether it was using the RQ2 rules of substracting everything over 100 from your enemy's skill (very good one taht I kept with RQ III), using margins of success, allow splitting, or using Hero Plane rules (divide everything by 5, 10 or 20 in some circumstances). The scalability of HW is interesting, but gets tricky around the "edges", i.e. 19 vs 1W, so I don't think it's any better than all the ones suggested above, which all had some small flwas here and there as well. Philippe P.S., BTW, in 17 years of playing RQ, I have never raised a skill above 120 (including category modifier), apart from an Heroquest Game which got pretty silly from the rules point of view in the end. But we did not care, as the stories were absolutely excellent. it was only when we came back to Glorantha itself and started fighting with our full undivided percentages that it became truly silly, but we stopped the campaign shortly after that anyway. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 06:33:18 -0700 From: "Rich Allen" Subject: RE: Re : [RQ-RULES] GM fiat (and other stuff) > If I remember correctly, you have to roll over 100, adding your category > modifier, which is a lot easier than rolling just over 100. Oops, you're right, I threw in a house rule there. We have always played that after 100+ modifier was reached in a skill, it took an 01 roll to increase it further. Sorry about that! Even so, most good modifiers are what, around 10? That still means a lot of 90+ rolls to increase a skill beyond 100%, though not quite as many as in our games. Rich *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:35:31 -0500 From: "Bob Stancliff" Subject: RE: Re : [RQ-RULES] GM fiat (and other stuff) > Oops, you're right, I threw in a house rule there. > We have always played that after 100+ modifier was > reached in a skill, it took an 01 roll to increase it > further. Sorry about that! Even so, most good modifiers > are what, around 10? That still means a lot of 90+ rolls > to increase a skill beyond 100%, though not quite as many > as in our games. > Rich Usually in RQ3 Manipulation is near 12, Stealth is -2 to 4, and the rest range from 3 to 8. It is much easier to design a good fighter than anything else. If we are going to make changes to RQ that draw it closer to HW, then we should consider making category mod's bigger so that skills are more likely to exceed 100% in a character's specialty, not less likely, as you have done. The original designers went to a lot of trouble to balance skill changing stats against the physical based stats (see above) but it might have been more balanced. Make a list of the seven stats and note which category modifier or secondary stat each affects. With the exception of Appearance, each stat is clearly important in several ways and by emphasizing only one or two stats strongly it is possible to create a wide variety of specializations (natural classes). By assigning stat points you can tailor you character to the type you want to play. It would be nice to see some of the lesser skill mod's become as important for character concept as Manipulate is for anyone who wants to fight. By emphasizing the right stats, a character could be a natural Sage or Merchant, far more than is possible now. Currently Dexterity is the most important stat since everyone needs it for skills and combat. Intelligence is important for nearly all skills, and Fighters need some combination of Strength, Size, and maybe Constitution. To better handle skill tests and especially high % combat, skill vs. skill checks should be based on a comparative levels of success chart reflective of HW. I believe that Steve Maurer's hero quest rules tried to develop a similar system years ago. When two char's roll the same level of success, the higher roll wins, thus giving advantage to the better skilled person. The number of success levels difference determines the resolution: from fumble, to normal hit, special hit, critical hit, to special critical (or super crit). For combat, Crit's bypass armor and special crit's are flamboyant effects, usually fatal, that allow extreme descriptions. For other skills, the difference in level of success can greatly affect the outcome of the skill use. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 10:47:58 -0500 (EST) From: Peter Maranci Subject: [RQ-RULES] Crankiness and RQ Darn it, Steve! You had to go and be reasonable. Particularly after certain scholars on this list and on rec.games.frp.misc had raised my crankiness level to new heights. It's my fault, too. I'd written a very amusing and cutting-edge-cranky screed on just how suicidal the Glorantha scholarship elite was being, but instead of firing it off I sent it to a friend and asked if it was too strong. He counseled forbearance, and now it's too late to use it. A sad day for crankiness. Sigh...it featured the line "Is your 20 up your back 9-11?". Not directed at you, Steve, though. Anyway, this has gotten rather far from RQ. so I'll just tidy up a bit and move on to something on-topic. I was honestly disappointed by the Hero Wars mechanics that I've seen so far. One of the great thing about RQ was that both the world (Glorantha) and the system were huge leaps forward from the then-current norms. In contrast, Hero Wars doesn't seem likely to set the world on fire. Much of its mechanics seem to have been created simply for the purpose of being "innovative", but in actual play I believe that they will be a burden to both GMs and players. I don't think they're well-designed. It also seems likely that the entire *style* of play will be so different from RQ/Glorantha as to be highly incompatible. "Series" will not have the same feel as RQ campaigns -- not by a huge margin, I'll predict. That means that those of us who enjoyed RQ/Glorantha will probably be disappointed by the new system. That's not necessarily a big deal -- frankly, in my book Glorantha has been kind of killed as a fun roleplaying setting by the attitudes of some of the Gloranthan scholarship elite -- but it *is* kind of disappointing. Makes me cranky. RuneQuest will go on in some online form, of course, but it's galling to see an outstanding system go permanently out-of-print when new and (to my mind) clearly inferior systems are being brought to market. Here's a free prediction, though: the attitudes of the Gloranthan elitists are going to make it hard to keep new players interested in Hero Wars. Somewhere along the way Glorantha changed from a fun, imaginative game-world to a confusing maze of constantly-changing esoterica ruthlessly patrolled by arrogant "scholars" not only willing, but eager -- hell, DESPERATE! -- to flame anyone who "talks crap" in their own holy estimation. That's not a world that's likely to gain a lot of popularity with newcomers, except for masochistic ones. Almost every gamer I know in this area used to read the RuneQuest Digest in the old days. NOT ONE of them reads the Gloranthan Digest now (and they *are* still gaming, by the way). That means something, and if I was working for Issaries/Chaosium, I'd worry about it. Okay, back to RQ. So now that we can be 99.9999% sure that RQ is dead except as an online non-commercial entity, what's next? A Lite version? A RuneQuest web ring, distinct from the Glow Ring? Modular rules and rules adaptations, allowing all sorts of genres to be used? I had a roommate in college who actually did a lot of work on what he called "StarQuest", a version of RQ for a science-fiction setting. I actually found a copy among some old papers last week. Pretty odd, but interesting, and characters could be easily transferred from SQ to RQ and back again. Personally I use RQ for almost all of my games, and fewer and fewer of those have been set in Glorantha over the years. I guess if I had to daydream about what I'd like to see, I'd say that RQ doesn't so much need a single world-setting as much as it needs a *lot* of fun stuff -- tables of magic items, weird effects, creatures, whatever -- that will allow GMs to use the system with their own worlds. Some rules improvements would be nice, but even better would be optional modular add-on rules. Lots of alternate rules for magic, for example. Something for haunting. Sanity is a sometimes-useful thing to represent. You know, the RQ rules have the potential to be a better universal role- playing system system than the Generic Universal Role-Playing System. And as an entirely net-based thing, it would probably be a lot easier to write supplements for all sorts of worlds than it is for Steve Jackson -- we don't have to negotiate for the rights, after all. What else? Anyone have any suggestions? One other thing: I'm continuing to work on my Adobe RQIII fill-in form sheet. There's a plea for help up in the comp.lang.javascript group; if that doesn't work out, I'll make the Fumble field non-calculated and players can fill it in themselves (on their computers, of course). -->Pete - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Maranci pmaranci@tiac.net Malden, MA Pete's RuneQuest Page! Fantasy roleplaying adventures, an online game, art, character sheets, & more: http://www.tiac.net/users/maranci/rq.htm *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 15:57:01 EST From: SPerrin@aol.com Subject: Re: [RQ-RULES] Crankiness and RQ In a message dated 3/31/2000 8:04:56 AM Pacific Standard Time, pmaranci@sunspot.tiac.net writes: << So now that we can be 99.9999% sure that RQ is dead except as an online non-commercial entity, what's next? A Lite version? A RuneQuest web ring, distinct from the Glow Ring? Modular rules and rules adaptations, allowing all sorts of genres to be used? I had a roommate in college who actually did a lot of work on what he called "StarQuest", a version of RQ for a science-fiction setting. I actually found a copy among some old papers last week. Pretty odd, but interesting, and characters could be easily transferred from SQ to RQ and back again. Personally I use RQ for almost all of my games, and fewer and fewer of those have been set in Glorantha over the years. I guess if I had to daydream about what I'd like to see, I'd say that RQ doesn't so much need a single world-setting as much as it needs a *lot* of fun stuff -- tables of magic items, weird effects, creatures, whatever -- that will allow GMs to use the system with their own worlds. Some rules improvements would be nice, but even better would be optional modular add-on rules. Lots of alternate rules for magic, for example. Something for haunting. Sanity is a sometimes-useful thing to represent. You know, the RQ rules have the potential to be a better universal role- playing system system than the Generic Universal Role-Playing System. And as an entirely net-based thing, it would probably be a lot easier to write supplements for all sorts of worlds than it is for Steve Jackson -- we don't have to negotiate for the rights, after all. What else? Anyone have any suggestions? >> I'm currently working on a Superworld adjunct to my current version of RuneQuest, and that has undergone some revision (though probably not as much as it needs). I am still interested in feedback from those of you who got the copy of my rules that I sent around and are available on Tal Meta's website. I know some of you didn't get copies you asked for, and I am more or less once again ready to send out copies. The last flurry ran afoul of some other major email hogs on my time and got buried in my email inbox. Right now I'm not sure who got answered with copies and who didn't, so if you didn't get copies, let me know and I'll ship some off to you. For those who are wondering, I have refined some magic spell descriptions (making Flight and TK tolerable and further defining the differences between Call and Invoke and Animate) and there have been a couple of other things popping up. As I said, it needs more revision than it has gotten. Steve Perrin, still looking for ways to fully assimilate Stormbringer demons (and demon summoning) into RQ... *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 23:08:10 +0200 From: Julian Lord Subject: [RQ-RULES] Crankiness and Glorantha Peter Maranci : > Darn it, Steve! You had to go and be reasonable. Particularly after > certain scholars on this list and on rec.games.frp.misc had raised my > crankiness level to new heights. Hi ! > He counseled forbearance, and now it's too late to use it. A sad > day for crankiness. Can you send me a copy ? > Here's a free prediction, though: the attitudes of the Gloranthan elitists > are going to make it hard to keep new players interested in Hero Wars. Don't think so. There's this 14-year old Gloranthan newbie on-list (!), and everyone seems _thrilled_ he's there. (And being very _nice_ to him). The first of many, one hopes !! I think that the official HW list will almost certainly be a *lot* friendlier (mind you, that's probably not so difficult to do ... ) > Somewhere along the way Glorantha changed from a fun, imaginative > game-world to a confusing maze of constantly-changing esoterica Yeah ... FUN !! > ruthlessly > patrolled by arrogant "scholars" not only willing, but eager -- hell, > DESPERATE! -- to flame anyone who "talks crap" in their own holy > estimation. ** > That's not a world that's likely to gain a lot of popularity with > newcomers, except for masochistic ones. see above ... :-) > Almost every gamer I know in this area used to read the RuneQuest Digest > in the old days. NOT ONE of them reads the Gloranthan Digest now (and they > *are* still gaming, by the way). Frankly, the GD has very *little* to do with gaming nowadays. It's more a club for amateur writers (and NO, there ain't nothing wrong with that, and this is neither a troll nor a flame : everyone's got to start somewhere ... :-). Julian Lord *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of RuneQuest Rules Digest V3 #36 ************************************ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. RuneQuest is a Trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. With the exception of previously copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to archive unchanged for electronic retrieval.