Rurik

The sad thing however for many old RQ fans is that: 1) No new supplements for BRP will work with RQ3 without a fair amount of work for the GM (assuming SR and Hit Locations will probably not be used for stats in most supplements as they are optional) 2) No new Glorantha supplements will work with RQ3 without even more work for the GM. Three years ago if you told me all the tidbits about the release of BRP, The release of MRQ, and all the Release of Second Age Glorantha for RQ, I would envisioned a utopia of RQ goodness. The reality of this brave new (RQ) world has not lived up to the promise. We have RQ, BRP, and Glorantha, but somehow we have three pieces that don't all fit together or work together nicely. Not that any of this is your fault, or Chaosiums. But I share in the pain of RQ grognards like Triff and company.

So if I admit to having never actually played a role playing game I win then, right? Wierd. :ohwell: (and Ace of Aces rocked very rockily)

Mine is the biggest. I'd post pictures to prove it, but I don't think this is supposed to be a porn board. (And I've played Car Wars - and raise you one Dawn Patrol).

We did it by the book for a while, but i'm pretty sure eventually it just became a 'spend 200 points kind of thing'. I thought that was an option in there somewhere but maybe it was a houserule. I think RQ3 by the book has a more variation in starting character ability than any other game I ever played (excepting maybe Traveller), and it mostly depended on that 2d6 age roll.

I have attributed the acceptance of (A) Player Death and ( Unbalanced Parties in my play groups style to a strong wargamer background. Wargammers accept a couple of things. One is that not every session is fulfilling. It can kind of suck when you spend a whole evening or two in a game and your side of the table ends up losing - and some losses are uglier than others. So why do people invest so much time and effort into a pastime that can be so dissapointing? Because it is that much more fun when you win. You have accomplished something substantial, and the bad times make the good times all the better. So no matter how much role playing you put behind it, a wargamer knows at some level that the little figure on the table is still above all a game piece, and very well can die at any moment. And though they are not playing against the other players (ususally), they accept that not every day is their day in the sun, but if they play well, they will get their turn. Though really, I'm a novice at this psychology behind game styles thing, those are just some thoughts on how a particular style (namely mine) could have well been fostered by a wargaming influence.

I long ago gave up the random background tables. The novelty of playing farmers did indeed wear off in short order. Also, it seems based heavily on real world demographics, but certainly certain backgrounds are more prone to adventuring than others - and farmer just sin't one that comes to mind (unless of course someone wanted to play a farmer). I've typically allowed either choosing background or more often used the assign a certain number of skill points yourself approach. In RQ3 if I recall right your age roll has a major effect on starting skills in the default method, which again I have not used in a while. I like the MRQ chargen approach a lot. Choose a background, choose a profession, assign your free points.

Also moved from over there... People keep throwing around stablehand and farmer as if you must start that way. A starting character in RQ3, or Stormbringer, or many games is just not equivelent to a farmer or stablehand. Oh god, just kill those right away... :thumb: On the other issues, without extensive quoting, It has always been my belief that forced balance is artificial, though you and I seem to differ by degrees. You would start a new character at in a 10th level game at say 5th level, which is still a disadvantage. Honestly many of the D&D games I played in started everyone at 3rd or 5th level anyway. But enough with D&D analogies - who plays that system anyway? (Well, OK, I just started in a d20 Thieves World, but it is literally the first time in 20 years). One difference is even rune levels I don't usually run a bunch of NPC's as the retinue. The party is the players, and maybe 1-2 NPC's come and go. Honestly, once a character reaches Runelord and Priest level normally all their time would be spent doing mundane boring cult stuff, and really should retire from adventuring. PC Runelords and Priests are therefore kind of oddballs anyway, and I don't attach a bodygaurd of NPC's to them while they are adventuring - I just prefer the party to be mostly the PC's - excepting situations where they are leading raiding parties or armies etc. etc.

Or, better yet, we could threadjack that one to be about weapon tables.

blah blah blah blah blah... Actually moved this big ole post over to the relevant thread.

The thing I think being overlooked is that most games have experience systems that cause less experienced characters to progress faster than more experiencd characters. It has certainly been my experience, and that of others who've used the new characters create, well, new characters approach, is that the 'noob' very quickly progresses in experience and ability - it is not like they are forever crippled. Right off the bat they have access to better equipment and magic than a true 'new' character and their skills advance quickly. A starting RQ character with starting cash as per the rules is just not on the same level as a starting RQ character with access to plate armor, casters who can boost them/protect them/heal them, and have readily available spell teachers and trainers. Their capabilities grow rapidly.

Not much for me to add to what Gnarsh has said other than that our experiences are similiar here. It really is possible to spin a good tale about Bilbo and some Dwarves and Gandalf even if they aren't all balanced out perfectly.

While admittedly there is a 20 year gap here since I've played D&D it sounds like what you've done with RQ3 is exactly what I have done with it - new characters are made with the default rules for new characters. It really isn't that big of a deal. Though as I recall (and this goes back to AD&D) that with the way xp work, a 1st level character coming into a game with 5th level characters is going to get his first couple levels very quickly (assuming he lives of course) - that experience system actually balances out faster than BRP - the difference is a brand new character in BRP character is not as helpless as a 1st level D&D character.

I never looked at it as punishing a player for dying, but as rewarding a player for earning the goals they have worked for. Ultimately the reward for roleplaying is good roleplaying. The reward for a heroic death is just that, a heroic death - one that will be talked about long after the character is gone. If one player attains runelord status he earned it, another player shouldn't just have it handed to him. I can see how you could look at it as punishing a player for dying I suppose, but really all they have to do is start over, and they have the oppurtunity of creating a whole new character. But then being the best fighter or sorcerer or whatever was not really the goal of most players in my experience. People roll up Ducks and Trollkin or whatever not because of their combat potential but because they think they will be fun to play (namely by being annoying as possible it seems for the two cases I just cited ). No one ever rolled up a Humakti expecting to live particularly long, nor an Issaries trader for the combat potential, yet players always choose to play these types of characters. I remeber a Cyberpunk game where a player joined our group that had been established a while and rolled up a Solo. We all looked at him and said "Oh My God you want to run with us?" And we dragged him down to our cyber surgeon (we had a good one, clean lab, quality parts) and gave him the work over (Cyber Optic linked to smartgun jack, embedded cellphone, skinweave, reflexes, the works). He was kinda bummed, he didn't feel he'd gotten a chance to earn all his cool stuff. Trying to keep statistics balanced seems artificial to me - but then different people are looking for different things from their games, such balance has never been important to me, but obviously is to others.

Can one buy down a greater success at a greater cost?

In the Interest of being Fair and Balanced I am going to agree with Nightshade on this one. Though this is automagic (forcing something with a skill of 95% to re-roll is not) it becomes severely limited in use. Take a Dragon for example, even with 18PP you can only reduce damage by 6, which is pretty much going to be useless. And when fighting dragons is when you want a mechanic like this to work.

I really am curious here as to how you handle new characters after player death. If a campaign started a year ago, and everyone started with say 200 skill points, and someone dies, do they get 400 skill points at chargen because that is roughly where everyone else is in the game? I really am curious, because as I've said, I have never gamed that way. To me it seems unfair to the players who have lived. It reminds me of the Computer game Oblivion in a way - what is the point of getting better if everthing/everyone around you gets better at an equal rate? To me, RPG's are just as much game as they are role playing and collective storytelling. There should be some risk/reward. The risk of dying is starting over.

I'm not trying to wave anything around, I'm just saying that in my experience it has been one way. I've never insinuated that it is the only way, nor assumed so. Is it the best way? Well for me, "yes", but not for everyone. Umm, the reason I used the word 'universal' is that you were throwing it around repeatedly. I accept different gaming styles exist and really have no need to feel mine is 'universal' or even generally accepted. It has worked for me across different groups and places.

Nonesense to you maybe. It has always been that way in every campaign I've ever played in. I learned that way, I have always run and played that way, and I've been gaming over 25 years. You seem to accuse of 'us' of universalizing and then imply your way is more universal than ours - who is universalizing here? Styles are different, and I've acknowledged (and accepted) that fact. I am all for giving players direction and limits (everyone has roll up a CIA agent, or an Orlanthi, or a pro NATO superhero, or whatever), and even working with players on chargen, despending on the focus of a game/campaign, and will even use pre-gens for one shot's or short multi session games, but always try to give players as much freedom over their characters as possible within the limits of what is required for the game. Open ended campaigns I try to give the most freedom. If it so impossible to for designers and playetesters to see all the possible abuses and loopholes of a system how is it possible for you to avoid them all by helping make a character? Again, just as I think one of the greatest pleasures to playing a game is when the GM creates genuine surprise for the players, I like it when my players surprise me. If I wanted the characters in my stories to always react the way I had planned, I'd write books instead of play rpg's. But again, that is just me. Your gaming may vary.

Come on guys, it is pretty well establisged that Triff is, after all, a troll. (Can we get a don't feed the troll smiliey by the way?)

Great - two threads now. This calls for a :focus:.

I don't think I like the direction this thread is going...

:mad:......

I'll probably run it over at rpol.net because it is so well optimised for pbp - but will definately recruit from here. Need the rules first. I'm not springing for Zero but waiting for the final release.

They sell the Monographs as Basic Roleplaying - I wonder if they still will after the release of BRP. But yes, they are exactly RQ3 with the serial numbers filed off, and should work very well with (this) BRP.

Also, When BRP comes out I'll probably run a PBP if there is enough interest, and I'm currently deciding between Western or Second Age Glorantha.