Bren

45 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

if you live in america you've probably seen a lot of these

No, at most a handful. In the US, we do a lot of green field construction. Because we have a lot of fields, in most locales our tax and other incentives favor new construction, and people who can afford it, tend to like building a new house, rather than fixing up an old house. But that's as much off topic as I should allow myself.

Just now, Kloster said:

Romans had similar traditions, but their view of the end of the battle was not the same.

Did the Romans routinely apply those traditions to their non-Roman enemies? I don't know the answer. Though some of Caesar's campaigns against fellow Romans had quite low casualties. I seem to recall fighting in Hispania against Pompey's troops that were a war of maneuver with few casualties for the defeated. (Probably in part so that big Julie could recruit the survivors into his armies.)

It seems to me, that the Greek city states considered other Greeks to be part of a category of we Greeks, rather than being an other. That may have contributed to the much higher ratio of Persian casualties at Marathon.

The Romans initially seemed to divide the world into Romans and others. Now once Rome started acquiring allied states, they had three categories: Romans, allies, and others. Fighting others, usually makes it easier to inflict heavy casualties. In addition, for various reasons of tradition and superstition, the Romans contrived to interpret all of their wars as defensive wars. I think that their defensive claim probably encouraged infliction of higher casualties on the vanquished.

Chronic pain often interrupts sleep and chronic pain isn't the same as unbearable pain. Most chronic pain is, more or less, bearable. It seems reasonable to me that "unbearable pain" would interrupt a light sleep. 

On 3/31/2023 at 7:33 AM, Shiningbrow said:

After all, other than a building or wall or tree, what isn't mobile?? (such that it would need to be mentioned in the spell).

In the real world, I've seen a house jacked up from the foundation and  transported by road.

52 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

After the two minutes, they are still asleep. There's nothing in the spell that forces them awake at the end of it.

True, but a light sleep. The description says, "Once the spell expires, the target moves into a light sleep, and awakens easily." We aren't talking about using Sleep as a 3-point cure for simple insomnia outside of combat. The unbearable pain that Mossmac uses in their example would awaken a light sleeper after two minutes, so not much rest. Needing to spend 90 MPs to give a sufferer an hour of rest falls into what I would call effectively useless for the noncombat purpose described.

Several points:

1. In the article the author checked his numbers against battles with lists of the fallen, which were done by name. That seems like a very accurate method of counting. Do we have such accurate lists for Rome's battles? I believe there is pretty good evidence that Caesar, for example, overestimated enemy casualties in his Commentaries. So potentially the loser's casualties are overestimated.
2. My impression is that Classical Greek city states had a level of formality and, I guess civility is the word, in most or many of their battles. Once the battle was over, a truce was declared so that each side can collect and bury their dead. I don't recall the Roman's doing that. Their wars seemed to follow more of a total war model. If the Spartans had conducted war in the Roman fashion, there would have been no Athens or Athenians at the end of the Peloponnesian War. Historically, Carthage didn't survive the Punic Wars. If war is conducted differently, casualty ratios could easily change.
3. My impression lately, is that Alexander is kind-of, sort-of a model for Argrath. If we accept that, then the wars of Alexander (and probably his father Philip) may provide a better model. I don't know what those casualty ratios would look like. They may not be too accurate as I've seen some extremely high numbers for the Persians vs. Alexander. (Not as bad as the numbers Herodotus gives us, but still suspiciously high. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the losses for the losing side would be higher than for Classical Greek battles. 
4. Obviously, everyone is free to choose the model they find most convincing or enjoyable. What I like about the lower casualty figures is that I think players would find lower losses on their side more fun. Low casualty ratios make it reasonable that player characters are unlikely to be killed in battle by one bad die roll. In addition, for campaigns where multiple battles are a significant feature such as player led war bands or companies, clan vs. clan conflict, or where a player character has the roll of warband leader, chieftain, or rex, having lower troop casualties is probably more fun than the players losing 20% or more of their troops or clan fighters every time a battle occurs. And from he GM perspective, I don't want to have to create or stat up new clans, companies, or regiments to oppose the players. And, in the same way that lower ratios justify low probability of PC/protagonist death, they also justify low probability of antagonist death.

5 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Not in the new rules.

Nor in the RQ3 rules.

3 hours ago, Mossmac said:

"Oh Blessed one, the pain is unbearable, I lie awake at night, I get no rest, I am going mad with the lack of peace!..."

"Rest oh child, lie back and let the blessings of the white healer bring calm to your spirit..."

 

but then that would be role play.....😉

Sleep has a 10 round duration. Two minutes isn't much of a rest. Still basically useless.

18 hours ago, Jeff said:

In the forthcoming Sartar Book...

Is it out yet? Is it out yet?

[This should be heard in the voice of an 8-year old on a long family car ride.]

3 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

I’m a Lismelder, and I can authoritatively tell you that all Malani are assholes.

So, hostile, but not enemies. Gotcha. 😉

The Punic Wars were a different style of combat than most battles in Classical Greece. And those two battles are exceptions from the vast majority of battles in history. Cannae is highly unusual. It was one of the greatest tactical defeats in history. The Roman army was completely enveloped. Virtually none of the Romans could retreat.

Lake Trasimene, while not as bad, had the Roman army completely surprised while strung out along their line of march. The army never had no command and control and never had a chance to form up. Many groups were destroyed piece meal.

8 hours ago, hipsterinspace said:

I would imagine the Sleep spell begins with the target being overcome with a powerful hypnagogic state where they would like more than anything to lie down and curl into a fetal position before drifting off to sleep.

I like the idea that the target says something like, "So sleepy..." as they lie down and curl up for sleep. If this was in a movie the scene would be funny and would easily let the audience know what just happened and that the victim was asleep, not dead. Neither are bad side effects in an RPG session.

As far as the fictional plausibility of people falling unconscious without being injured by the fall to the ground, we have just about every action movie or science fiction franchise ever as precedent. Nobody in a noir detective story breaks their nose or sprains their wrist when the fall down after being sapped or hit with a gun barrel* and nobody in Star Trek or Star Wars gets stunned and then breaks their arm while falling to the ground.

* Not to mention the infrequency of any actual brain damage from repeated closed head trauma for the likes of Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe.

Tossing Sleep at a swimmer would be another problem area.

The Gamemaster Adventures lists Chalana Arroy among the deities with shrines in the Colymar tribe (p. 14) and the Chalana Arroy priestess, Kerisdana Hollybright, as being at the Lighbringers Temple in Clearwine. So shrines but no dedicated temples.

I had a chance to read the article. I had to look at his table twice to figure out how he calculated his ratios, but it is interesting how low the casualties were for the losers. The author identifies a lack of effective pursuit by the Greeks, as a major factor (perhaps the major factor) in the low casualties for the loser compared to many other battles.

Quote

On the other hand, the Greeks (as Thucydides says specifically of the Lacedaemonians) did not usually pursue far once a battle was decided. This reluctance to go too far  in killing enemy soldiers once their line had broken stemmed as much from the fear of a reversal if the troops dispersed as from a gentlemanly hesitation to kill fellow Greeks; but it did mean that the losers' losses, while twice or three times as heavy as those of the winners, were rarely more than a fifth of their engaged forces. [Emphasis added.]

I wonder it this might be a good model for typical Orlanthi warfare. I can see where chasing down and killing fleeing enemies might conflict with Honor.

Thanks for sharing that, I'll give it a read. Casualties for the victors is about what I would have guessed. Casualties for the losers seem low unless there was either little or no pursuit by cavalry or light infantry or else virtually the entire phalanx surrendered en mass.

Thanks for a succinct explanation for the oncoming train. 

Now I want to watch a Road Runner cartoon from the point of view that the Road Runner is High Priest casting Eurmali spells.

Hey, wait a minute. If a Eurmali had the Rune spell, Become Road Runner and enough Rune points, they could be the Road Runner.

58 minutes ago, g33k said:

Hallucinate is still, fundamentally, "Illusion" magic.
And in Glorantha, that means it's "temporary reality" magic.

I'm finding this way of thinking about Illusions and, by extension, Hallucinate to be very helpful. Thanks!
 

Road Runner cartoons also help me to visualize Gloranthan Illusions. When Wiley Coyote paints a tunnel mouth on the side of a cliff, the painted tunnel mouth for him is just paint on the wall. He can't go through the tunnel. But for the Road Runner (and any oncoming trains) the painted tunnel mouth acts just like a real tunnel mouth. For a few moments it is a real tunnel mouth. In Gloranthan magic terms, Coyote paints a tunnel mouth, then the Road Runner casts Hallucinate so he can pass through the tunnel mouth. (For the moment, like Wiley Coyote, we shall ignore the oncoming train.)

Painting the tunnel mouth doesn't correspond to anything in Gloranthan magic, but we, the audience, need the Coyote to paint a tunnel mouth before the Road Runner casts his hallucinate so we can understand what happens. And because it is funnier with a visible tunnel mouth.

A koku is 48 gallons. Wikipedia tells me a koku of rice is enough rice to feed 1 person for a year. (And presumably they don't only eat rice.)

A bushel is 8 gallons. Clearly, that is not enough to feed 1 person for a year.

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

That's not why I dropped the idea of the helots - rather it didn't make sense as I really looked carefully at the development of the Yelmalio cult.

Jeff, would you please explain a bit about why it now doesn't make sense to you? (Apologies, if you have explained elsewhere, but if so, I missed it.)

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

In my Glorantha, those factors exactly balance out the effect of healing and health improvement magic leaving the demographics more or less the same as a bronze age world except where explicitly described as different.

I don't sweat an exact rationale, but it is easier for me to envision the world if I assume demographics are similar to Earth's bronze age and/or classical antiquity. Glorantha seems to have a higher proportion of women in roles (like warrior) that on Earth were primarily masculine. I assume this decreases the birth rate so the counterbalancing factors aren't only monsters and magical peril .

4 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

However, the raft isn't an issue. No, it can't displace the water. But the caster will perceive it as having done so, it will sink slightly, and caster can step on it as if it were a real raft.

If it sinks, even a little, it displaces water. So we are back to displacing water. Just like the boat.

No. But if it doesn't displace any water it is nearly frictionless. Which is why I see the boat and the raft as the same. Either both work or neither works.

Although the colors are different, it reminds me of parts of Rainbow Mound.

4 minutes ago, svensson said:

Anybody seeing an Uz or Water cult ceremony here?

Why either or? Use sea trolls.

A trap I find easy to fall into. One of the things that drew me to Runequest back in 1979 or so was a world simulation/emulation design emphasis (monster stats same as PC stats, Greg's comment, etc.). I've only recently felt like I both understood and felt comfortable with the PC focused, RQG design philosophy.