DreadDomain

Nice. Definitely something to try. I like it (theoritically of course).

The "building from the ground up" is a totally irrelevant argument so I would not worry too much about it. It doesn't really matter how many times the argument is repeated, the fact is in this conversation, I am the only one who went through the trials and playtests to make RQ3 work for us. We tried massive changes and it wasn't worth the effort so in the end we settled on minor changes and gave us what we wanted. In RQ3, the changes implemented did not have reaching consequences but I agree with you and I suspect it might be the case in RQG if only bacause of the more prevalent magic. I haven't played RQG so I would play it RAW to start with and if I suspected I would find it lacking, my first temptation would be to ignore rules rather than adding rules. Potential candidates to ignore would be: - Activities within melee (use as per activities outside of melee) - Dual wielding special rules (dual wielding already has benefits on its own) - Splitting attacks - Penalties to multiple defenses Although, I might feel like ignoring these rules could make the game simpler and more to my liking, I have no clue if it really would as I did not try them (nor RAW). I do not quite appreciate the impact magic would have on the play experience.

To make it clear, I do not try to reproduce Conan but my Glorantha that was heavily influenced by RQ3. And maybe that's it. Maybe the inability to defeat an opponent by martial prowess is a feature. Maybe the mechanistic nature of melee combat is a feature. Maybe Glorantha, and by extension RQG, is just not for me anymore. I am just not willing to accept it yet.

Yes, this is exactly it. It is less about detail or reslism and more about making sense within the parameters of the game. Pendragon makes sense in a Pendragon context. There is so many details in RQ that a one attack per 12 seconds do not make sense to me. We had alot of experience with RQ3 so we could make the changes that would give us the desirable flavour. I have no experience with RQG so discussing a theoritical solution is fun but only playing it can confirm it. In the end it could be as simple as ignoring the fact that the MR is 12 seconds and consider it elastic or just allowing multipke attacks but it could be much involved, building from the ground up as you say or even forget about RQG altogether and use another game. You mention Mythras and let's be honest Mythras is a fantastic game. It is in many ways superior to RQG and maybe an easier solution would be to simply port the Rune system in Mythras and run with it. The fact is RQG has alot of positive things going for it so I'd rather try to make it work for me. If I wanted to play in the Hyborian Age, would I use RQG? No, I would use Mythras. But in a Gloranthan context, I'd rather give RQG a chance. It's just that I'd like melee combat to stand on its own. But I agree maybe it can't. Magic in RQG has much more profound impact than it had in RQ3 and maybe combat cannot be looked at without that lens.

@MOB will the pdf be updated to reflect the print copy or foes the print copy already reflects the current pdf?

Conan and Spactacus are clearly not using combat magic so that doesn't help. As for skills over 100%, It does help but it means the skills need to be insanely high (as in beyond reasonable level even for heroic figures like Conan, Spartacus, Gannicus Crixius, Agron and company) to make it work. I can see these combats working fairly easily (with reasonable if heroic stats) in Mythras, HERO, GURPS, TDE, even KAP and HQ... but not RQG (but again, would love to be proven wrong).

Yes, it would be much more useful. Keep in mind thought that what I was describing above were house rules on RQ3 decades ago. I would have to have a cold hard look at how it could be applied to RQG and obviously playtest it. But still, there are two things that would be useful. First, as I already expressed, the RQ2/3/G constraint on the number of attacks in a MR annoys me because I find it artificial and mechanistic, I feel it lacks versimilitude (really, I cannot try to attack two different opponent in 12 seconds?) and it prevents me from immersing or feeling tactical engaged in melee combat. While rewatching the Spartacus series or rereading Robert E. Howard, I reflected that there was no way such combat could be recreated in RQG. So the first question is, if someone feels somewhat the same what solution have they used? Second, I fully appreciate that my sentiment is not universally shared and for some the limit of attacks in 12 seconds is not a bug, but a feature. I am interested to learn why it is the case. Do you feel you can recreate immersive, visceral combat as seen in literature (REH) or on telly (Spartacus, GoT, etc...)? Does the impossibility to attack two different opponent whith a single weapon bother you? Do you feel immersed and tactically engaged. To be honest, I would love to be convinced that the system can work for me exactly as it is.

Nor is it rebuilding from the ground up Absolutely! Of course it offered a different play experience. House ruling without changing/improving play experience is rather an exercise in futility or change for the change of sake. Over time RQ3 did not offer the play experience we wanted so we house ruled it until it did.

Let's say that we clearly disagree. Continuing this exchange is becoming rather pointless as we seem to argue on a side issue (is it from the ground up or not) that is not bringing anything to the conversation.

You do realise that what I just described can be summarize by: 1) Take RQ3 melee combat 2) ignore the 1 attack and 1 parry per MR constraint 3) add a few options to closing in combat 4) playtest and tweak as require You and I have very different of building from the ground up. Revolution d100 is building from the ground up. Would you consider RQG a game built from the ground up. As for RQ3 and RQG, I agree, I would need to replaytest this. Not only are the games slightly different but these were the house rules we used 30 years ago!

Is the printed book the same as the pdf currently in the store?

Of course we could and as I said we did as early as late 80's. The modifications did not create more issues than it solved and the issues it did create were resolved at the time. Yes. Or no. It depends. Some groups will see that as a feature as dual wielding does not become the de facto style become you finally could attack twice in a MR. At the same time, you still gain some benefits. A sword and board fighter will get better defense (from the shield) while a dual-wielder has both versatility (if he chooses different weapons) and a back-up weapon. Of course it comes at the price of extra training. Back then, we saw that as a feature. Not really, it's is just a pacing mechanism and RQG already uses this exact pacing for Missile Attacks. Resolving melee attacks the same way improves internal consistency and reduce confusion. However, so what if SR were a measure of time, albeit inaccurate? The confusion is already created by having a 12 seconds MR divided in 12 SR. So a big, dextrous and quick fighter with a long weapon would be advantaged against a small, clumsy, slow fighter with a small knife. Yes, we also saw that as a feature. What we saw at the time as a bug was that someone with a big or long weapon (low SR) would strike often and a small, short weapon (high SR) would be slow. We ended accepting that while a shorter weapon fighter would be kept at bay, opportunities to strike would be lower and we slightly modified the Close Combat maneuver from RQ3. From memory, in addition to the normal rule, there were three other situations for someone with a short weapon to slide with the longer weapon fighter's defense: 1) if the short weapon fighter would succeed his attack and the long weapon would fail his defense 2) if the short weapon fighter would get a special on his defense 3) if the short weapon fighter would spend a MR successfully defending against the longer weapon fighter (the opposite of disengaging) Once inside the defense, we were flipping the weapon SR (we tried many variants here and I cannot remember if we were also flipping the SIZ SR). The longer weapon fighter had to regain an appropriate reach in the same way described above. It did create quite a few exciting back and forth. As for cramped areas, in RQ3 the rule was to halves the skill%. I can tell you, it was a big incentive to drop/not use a big weapon and have something smaller. I am not "starting to suspect", we played that way for many years . Good points though. We also played with dropping the MR and the Statement of intents but finally realised it gave a structure to the flow of action and helped everyone to decide quickly what they wanted to do in the MR and avoided/reduced decision paralsys in combat. I believe we tried three different things with defenses: 1) unlimited defense 2) each subsequent defense is at a penalty (we tried a few penalties but I believe we used -10% the most) 3) each defense push your next action by 1 SR We flip flopped between the three, they all worked well for us and never quite decided which one we preferred. The first was just easier and the second and third were forcing us to take more tactical decisions. I feel you might be selling the SR system short because we found it to be very easy to change and quite resilient to these changes. The changes we adopted ot those we rejected were less about breaking the system or not and more about creating and enjoyable, immersive flow without cluttering ourselves with extra rules. Like I said, we initially tried different add-ons inspired by GURPS or HERO but dropped them to come back to only a few tweaks to the RAW of RQ. I quite like Mythras (and would never choose Legend over it) and haven't tried Revolution yet. The thing is, I believe RQG is a pretty good game and it just make more sense to use it to play in Glorantha. And it's not that the "core assumption of the game doesn't work for me" (most of RQG works for me). I simply do not like the straightjacket put on the SR system in melee combat.

There might have been two parallel conversations!

Haven't played RoS for years but the passage I emphasized is part of my issue. We have heard/read people describe the RQ combat system as visceral and/or immersive. The current system as written doesn't feel like it at all. I appreciate it does for many others but personally, I cannot immersed or feel viscerally engaged in a combat when a full 12 seconds of combat abstracted in one single roll. Again, it doesn't mean that it is wrong or bad, simply that it doesn't work for me.

Again, totaly agree. In the 80's when we were playing RQ3 almost on a daily basis, we were using the SR system as is (one attack per round). We grew unsatisfied my the limitation of the system and tried implementing varous solutions inspired ny GURPS or Fantasy HERO. In the end we thoughts these "improvements" were adding too much and were taking away from the fun. I can't recall were the idea came from but we ended up using the SR exactly as was later described in BRP BGB p.199 and it was the right ratio of tactics and abstraction for us. Fast forward to 2018, I see I could do the exact same thing with RQG with very minor changes. One thing I would need to try is the penalty for multiple defenses to confirm it would still make sense within that context.

First let me say that I agree with all Rosen said so far. However I believe I need to clarify my thinking here. I am not aiming at adding more details to RQG's melee combat. Certainly not to add significantly more detail. I am not aiming at replicating a blow by blow combat system. I am aiming at making melee combat as free flowing as missile combat. I am aiming at reducing the level of abstraction suffciently so that a professional warrior could make the appropriate tactical decision to attack more than just one opponent in 12 seconds. My suggestion does not add any kind of detail to melee combat (same HP, same hit locations, same weapon breakage, etc...).

I fail to see how it would lead to this. If in the system as is it takes 4 blows to bring your opponent down, it wil take you 4 MR. If you allow Melee to freeflow like Missiles, it wil still take 4 blows but only over, say, 2 MR. Same amount of die rolled, same amount of real time play just quicker ingame. Edit: Duh, just realised Mugen already said as much. I might add that if the rules about multiple defenses remains the same, if would potentially speed up combat because you would have more attacks to defend against per MR which would lead to a higher penalty.

Which is why they have an elastic, undefined duration. Combat in Pendragon, and generally every aspects of Pendragon's rules, are defined in broad stokes. This is ow it works and it's bloody excellent that way (another of my favorite games)! And here lies my frustration with combat in RQG. RQG is detailed. Character creation is detailed. Skills are detailed. It is not as detailed as other games but it is detailed to acertain degree that, as you noted, is higher than say Pendragon or HeroQuest (I don't know L5R so can't comment). There is a lot of crunchy goodness in RQG; SR, weapon length, Armour/Hit Points and weapon breakage, phalanx and chariot combat, encumbrance, shot by shot missile combat, etc. The level of detail in melee combat, more specifically taking actions and making tactical decisions in melee combat is simply inconsistent with the rest. When one shoots arrow, they will play out every arrow draw and every shots individually. Why is it not blow by blow in melee? No I won't . When it comes to taking actions in melee combat, the level of abstraction is simply too high compared to the rest of the game. I do not expect RQG to go down to the minutae of GURPS Martial Arts but I would have hoped it would have been internally consistent. Just a simple example to illustrate my meaning. A professional archer (DEX 13, DEX SR 2, bow 90%) is sneaking against three opponents. She moves into position for 9 meters while readying her composite bow and an arrow (movement and readying combined for 5 SR). She shoots the closest opponent (+2 SR) and as he drops, ready a second arrow (+5 SR). On the next MR, she will be able to shoot another opponent on SR 2 and could potentially ready another arrow (+5 SR) and shoot another opponent on SR 9. But it will depend on what the opponents do... A professional swordsman (DEX 13, SIZ 15, MSR 5, Broadsword 90%) is pitted against three opponents. He moves into position for 9 meters while readying his broadsword (movement and readying combined for 5 SR). He strikes the closest opponent (+5 SR). On the next MR, (of course assuming he could parry and/or survive his opponent retaliations) he is in a position to strike another opponent on SR 5... but that's it. While both attacks (1 in MR 1 and 1 in MR 2) can be abstracted to feint, footwork, all out attack (which I have no problem with), the professional swordsman is simply unable to attempt to strike two opponents in 12 seconds. He cannot even try, the rules simply do not allow it. It is this inconsistence that I simply cannot buy. Mind you, for me the solution is easy and it is simply to resolve melee combat exactly like missile combat (in other words resolve melee activities as per Multiple Activities Outside of Melee on page 195 and ignore Multiplie Activities Within Melee). This is pretty much what BRP does for the optional Strike Rank system (BGB p.199).

GURPS does that very well when you turn all (many) dials on specifically from GURPS Martial Arts. But that's not really what I expect from RQG. Ehen I want to play GURPS, I play GURPS (one of my favorite games for the record)

I don't disagree with anything you said and in actual fact you may be arguing a point I was not making but that's cool.

I have no problem with elastic durations. Pendragon does state a specific duration but based on movement it's most likely a 2 or 3 seconds duration. So even a knight in Pendragon, who doesn't claim to be blow by blow and visceral, attacks 4 to 6 times faster than a competent fighter in RQG. There is a disconnect here.

I did not think of that but this is actually quite true. I've seen player vs player fights where they would lock eyes and shout and taunt one another while shaking their dice, daring each other to roll them.

Unless I misunderstand what you mean, as Mugen points many many games use rounds that are shorter than 12 seconds (or at least provide for multiple attacks per round even without dual weapon fighting or super competency). One attack per 12 seconds really is a remnant of the 70's and is most likely the exception rather than the rule these days.

One of my favorite rpg cover. I cannot really explained why but it always resonated with me.

Are you implying you have ar least 100% in parry 😊. Just kidding, in any case, I quite like the parry rule in RQG. Of course one could wonder why your penalties resets every 12 seconds but it is a good enough representation of how parry should work. The number of parries one can make in 12 seconds is credible. What is not credible is that a professional soldier (or gladiator) can only attack once in 12 seconds. It really does not deliver a visceral, blow by blow experience as it claims to do. But that is another story.