Al.

1) Raise the characteristic, raise the skill. But I get the central premise of your question and I'd like the opportunity for a skill or test or roll to be improvable separate to the characteristic 2) Very true. And one of the things that potentially makes CoC more fun than other games. 3) As far as Skills go you are quite correct. However in all of the WoW subgames. Idea = Int x3, Luck = Pow x3, Persuade = Cha x3, Dodge = Dex x3, etc

Don't bother, they're no better than VHS. Hold either of em up to the light and you still can't see a darned thing. I believe that Johnny Foreigner is doing marvelous work on developing a colour Daguerreotype though

I'd second (third) a call for Dragon Warriors Legend. Morris and Dickinson were both big contributors of RQII material to WD and the whole combat mechanic (but not Rank and Profession) came from a house rule Morris suggested in WD for speeding up RQ combat. Also for your consideration: Neal Asher's Polity series (I really don't like his right wing views or refusal to acknowledge Banks as an influence and a single Culture ROU could bend the entire polity over its knee and spank it; but it's a setting which is ripe for RPGs in a way that the late, great Mr Banks' works just aren't) The Lies of Locke Lamora setting (but not the increasingly weak sequels) Joe Abercrombie's First Law books (I know that he is an avowed D&Dist but I think that the d100 rules are a better fit) But I do think that the advice to hoover up public domain out of copyright settings is a much more financially sensible route (if nuChaosim actually make some money from these then they can assuage their and our guilt by contributing to a cause dear to the heart of the original author)

Whenever I've run PenDragon at cons (which I've done many times) I always have a sheet on the table stating This is Literary Fiction not Historical Fiction King Arthur is the Land Do the Right Thing The system works brilliantly when there are real social constraints and expectations (I've used it for Samurai/Saborai, Celtic, Dr Who and Archaen games without any trouble, and I don't think that I'd use any other system for any of those settings now) I found the 4e magic system really interesting to read but horrible in play. The OriginalMagicWorld magic rules work surprisingly well alongside (with the advantage that the zap-bang-flash spells can just be removed if desired or kept if required) A friend of mine had a simple lifeforce magic system in a one-off con game which worked brilliantly (my Celtic Witch could heal as many HP as she sacrificed Con of victims for example) I'm confident that one could run a D&D/Pathfinder level of high-magic-fantasy quite easily

Isn't that when I achieve Illumination?

My comments are well thought out, insightful and beautifully balanced Yours are unnecessary whinging The hardest skill I've developed (and I'm only just over base percentage, however one calculates it) is reading someone else's observation or complaint on a topic which I don't care (or have never thought) about and not just labeling (in my head) that its author is a malingerer and a counter jumper. Just on the principle that misery loves company I assume that I'm not alone.

Thanks for the reply Most of it doesn't need a further response from me beyond 'I agree, that sounds about right' On this particular point: either is a reasonable explanation, I'm pretty sure that it was a conscious decision

The sensible mature person would say play the rules as written for a bit first But that's not me And I'm guessing that most of the people reading this particular thread on this particular forum have played various versions of RQ down the years and houseruled the bits they didn't like In SBIII physical damage modifiers were capped at +3d6 (it was just that the damage modifier from bound demon weapons that could go stratospheric), I wonder if that would help with BigClub vs BigClub? (Whilst retaining the design aim of making Rurik vs BigClub a possibility) I think that the (CON + modified by SIZ) HP is a reasonable design choice. But just the wrong way round. I'm ALMOST certain that the last time I played RQ2 we did it SIZ plus a modifier for CON (it may well have been exactly the same line on a chart as used for the RAW but just reading CON not SIZ) One thing RQ3 in RQG is the negative POW modifier for Stealth. And I think that's still ripe for my all time favourite-house-rule-someone-else-made-up: Initiates or better in Thief and Hunter Cults add their POW as a positive modifier. Completely and wildly off topic (I can defend the others at least halfheartedly): the standard deviation on 3d6 is 3, so why are characteristic modifiers in blocks of 4? I've never understood that.

That's the 1d100 SAN question isn't it? I'm leaning towards taking a leaf out of the (original/old) MagicWorld rules: using characteristic rolls (although in MW I think they wre x3 not x5) for the mandatory skills.

Not quite what I had in mind when I posed the question; but the joy of starting a thread is not feeling any guilt about contributing towards thread drift. I fully agree with that post. In Real Landtm I am a notoriously rubbish liar; if I have any input to a character's competence I always make them excellent liars. It's part of my wish fulfillment, something which I just cannot do for real I can pretend to do with funny sided dice. Similarly an old gaming buddy of mine was (and may still be, I've not seen him for years) a doorman at quite a rough bar, his RPG characters are always complete cowards and wet tissue paper in a physical fight. He simply has no interest in playing in a game a role which he has to play in normal life.

Don't you oppress me by telling me that I can't oppress other people and tell what to think and how to play. (In deference to the fact that e-posts don't convey subtext well - especially when I make them - that's not a dig at or accusation of the OP, it's a straight up piss take)

Sorry for the predictable and almost herdman-like behaviour but I have to join with the chorus of approval for the art in these books. I might even get away with RQG as a coffee table book rather than stuck up the single bookshelf in my study I'm permitted for my other RPG books. Those pieces look lovely.

Sort of. The intent behind my original question was 'what skills do the players have no choice in using'? I can choose for my investigator to (be an idiot and) shoot at a Hound of Tyndalos (sp) I can choose for my investigator to try and use her knowledge of higher order Mathematics to calculate when the Stars Are Right But (often if not always) I'm called upon to Spot Hidden, Listen, Psychology, Dodge (etc.) without conscious choice on my part. Succeed or it all goes horribly wrong and the investigation stalls or my PCs croaks at a dull point along its path. I do see Atgxtg's point that this isn't unique to CoC. But in other games (whether I enjoy them as much or not) I'm expecting to bring an idea of my character to the table and have some choice on their area of expertise. I COULD do that in CoC with cynical deliberate allocation of skill points (a friend of mine always plays a Texan to justify a high handgun skill, another one always maxes out Psychology, Listen and Spot Hidden) but that sort of seems to be missing the ethos of HPL's writing. Failing a roll can be fun too. And some Keepers have a very deft hand at failing forward. I'm trying to think of a Third Way. I'm fairly certain that I can't be the first to have thought down these lines (in fact, as mentioned I was inspired to this by a lively discussion with my own group), so first step was in trying to work out what those <no choice you need them> skills are.

That took me a while. EDO. Elves Dwarves Orks?

Thanks guys I can't believe that I forgot Fast Talk

A discussion arose after a recent game of Call of Cthulhu about which skills investigator's are 'always' called upon to use. I can list a few off of the top of my head, but I was wondering if I'd missed any glaringly obvious ones (I take it as read that there will be some specific to a particular story, otherwise why bother having them on the sheet or in the game, but that's not really what I'm asking. Likewise one can CHOOSE a certain course of action which leads to CHOOSING to use a skill) Dodge Drive First Aid Library Use Listen Psychology Spot Hidden Any more?

Apologies if this is considered derailing (I felt that these were fair questions asked in an open forum and probably relevent) A1: Yes. Six of us weekly. Typically running six week arcs and taking it in turns for GMing. The core of the group were avid (rabid?) Pathfinder players I met at a small local con years ago and then re-met when we all joined a larger local club which has since imploded. The others have been much more open about new and different systems than I'd feared. They enjoyed an RQ arc which I ran this year and all seem keen for some more later on. A2: When I proposed my RQ slot first question from two others was 'where do we get the rules?' followed by (coz the RQ Classic re-release had just happened) 'isn't that a lot of money for a 20-year old ruleset?'. So I SUSPECT that I will probably be the only GM but that at least half of the others will pony up for a copy of rules and cults. I do agree that Cult Compendium was brilliant. (Firstly being able to get hold off such old material again and secondly combined together). And I'd love for the new CC2 to have ALL of the Cults in longform and be not much thicker than CC and in a font size I can read and have loads of these lovely new illustrations. I fear that something has to give. YGWV but for me personally the least-bad solution is that it splits to two books. Balance again: I still think that Chaosium have messed up by keeping the base chance + category modifier model. Calculating a single base score for each category has been my favoured approach for decades. Al

And therefore it might have been less work if he'd done it himself? I once had a head of D&T ('shop class' for USAians, 'CDT' or 'metalwork' and 'woodwork' for the more veteran Brits) describe coursework season as 'making 30 practical pieces whilst a trail children came along behind him and messed* them all up' *he used a stronger word

I'm if not ethically then instinctively opposed to saying nice things about a company on it's house forum; but, I suspect that the market who want GoT quickly are probably those of us who would be prepared to (bat)wing it or have our own collection of rules and guidelines for the bad (or do I mean misunderstood?) Gods. New customers/initiates to Glorantha will be much more interested in the Cults that their characters can join. And will be quite happy to wait for the GM to get hold of writeups which give the enemies of creation the same kind of advantages that their characters have. Thinking back I'm sure that it was a long way into my GMing career before I had my players encounter Chaotics at all, certainly not ones with Cult affiliations. Just for balance: you're all barstewards, the lot of you.

One of the few things I preferred about RQIII to RQII was the rationalising/reducing of the skill list: Conceal covering Hide Item and Camouflage Devise covering Pick Lock and Set/Disarm Trap etc. I cannot think of much else which I thought RQIII did better than RQII. (So in answer to OP: almost everything!) The layout of RQIII was (and probably still is) the epitome of functional, efficient textbook which with the benefit of hindsightt may owe something to Avalon Hill being a wargames and boardgames company whose customers expect the rulesbook to be a reference work rather than an inspiring book of weirdness. VERY early on we played with EVERY point over 12 added +5% to a skill category (and every point below 9 subtracted 5%) and binning the base chances (I think that the minimum for a category was 5%) but I think that was the influence of Stormbringer rather than RQIII.

Certainly explains why Trolls don't use Bows. They're no bloody use down below in the Dark.

45 degrees from horizontal for maximum range if my vague recollection of resolving motion into i, j and k vectors is correct. (I'm guessing that TripphyHippy is a sufficiently competent topologist to recognise the reality of page size constraints on a more accurate picture) Lovely illustration and massively more interesting than a mere table of numbers As a Physics teacher myself I applaud the use of SI units (although 'paces' might be more flavoursome and won't be far off)

Unofficial but by far and away by favourite way of creating RQ2 characters: http://redbox.wikidot.com/making-runequest-characters (I'm an inveterate rules-fiddler so I do more meddling for my games, but if you are looking to be close to RAW but a bit more competent and flavoursome this group's idea seems hard to beat)

Considering what a thoughtful and cerebral chap MM is: I cannot think of many* of his main characters who are aren't warriors. The differentiating bit for them is what ELSE they are as well as warriors. So I'd be inclined to give everyone warrior (or fighter) and something else Dreamthief Sorcerer Criminal Scientist etc. I don't know the rules well enough to suggest how to do that however *Theleb Kaarna (sp) was a coward but I think that even he could fight

I've always run and played (back to early 90s with Elric! where you could only boost Pow in such a way) upto 3 points from any ONE characteristic to any other ONE characteristic. Re-reading the rules, I'm not quite sure why so strict an interpretation.