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I'm not sure if I understand how that works.Do you mean that a weapon with SR 0 gets no extra attacks but one with SR 3 would get three extra attacks, assuming a low enough DEX SR? Well, for starters I would consider it to be a significant change, since it would make lighter weapons more significant, as well as make armor, protection spells, and DEX much more important. Additionally, I agree with you that such a rule would work differently in RQG than in RQ3 as the extra 2 strike ranks would translate into another attack for most characters. So a swordsman with SR7, could end up getting two extra attacks instead of one. I'd also think that such a rule wouldn't be fair to weapons with a low SR modifier, such as spears, as not all low SR weapons are slow, and I would not use or encourage the use of the rule.

The skills probably are "insanely high" for those characters. It's part of the style of how such characters are portrayed. For everyone else... Part of the problem here is just what 100% skill means.In older versions of RQ, a master of a skill had a 90% score. I don;t know if this is spelled out the same way in RQG. I think it is, due to Rune Lord requirements, but someone else will have to confirm it. Now people today, when they here the word master, they think of some little old man with enough skill at martial arts to kick the butt of a half dozen muscle bound ruffians. But, that's an inaccurate view. Historically, a master of someone was really just a craftsman who was considered "good enough" to set up his own business and do something professionally. In the modern world, people go to college and get a master's degree, which basically means the same thing- they are considered "good enough" to do something professionally in the eyes of society. It also means they are considered good enough to teach professionally. Likewise, a master swordsman, was someone considered to be good enough to teach swordsmanship professionally. So think of mastery more in terms of a school teacher as opposed to Yoda. Now by that reasoning (and, to be honest, not all Chaosium RPGs have used that approach. Early editions of Stormbringer and CoC, for example, maxed skills out at 100-%) skills for experienced characters would probably be higher than 90%. That approach seems to match up with later version of Stormbringer/Elric! as well as, apparently, RQG. So in that light, a skill score over 100% isn't "insanely" high. It just means that they are better than most starting professionals in that field. But, I don't think that allowing a second attack with a weapon, say DEX SR after the first is unplayable. Nor do I think splitting skill the way they do in Pendragon necessarily be a bad thing for accomplishing what I think you are trying for.

I must have misunderstood what your meant. That's where we disagree. Tinkering with the SR system could be a minor houserule, depending on the just what the change is. For example, if an RQG player were to adopt RQ3 Strike Ranks that probably shouldn't be that big a deal. I'd think that the major differences to play would stem from clearing up some of the ambiguities of RQG, such as what SR spirit magic goes off. Ah. Okay. For most of the thread I was in agreement with you. Game mechanics in RQ are interlinked, and changing one thing can cause a domino effect of consequences. Something that Mongoose didn't seem to understand when they came up with ideas such as increasing weapon damage to try and regain the lethality that RQ players were expecting. They failed to realize that increasing the damage, something that they had done in some D&D products, had a negative impact on how armor and parrying would work in RQ. In D&D armor and defense (armor class) works independent of damage and hit points. In RQ they are integrated. But as to how severe tinkering the SR system would be, again, I think it depends on just what those changes are.

Because this is a forum for RuneQuest. Rosen is stating that by tinkering with the Strike Rank system means that someone is no longer playing RuneQuest. So that would mean that this topic is in the wrong forum and belongs someplace else. Frankly, I think the topic does belong here, and that the Strike Rank system isn't a sacred cow. Why can't someone tinker with it? Now I'm a fan of the SR system, and would be hesitant to tamper with it, but I want to see how someone is going to change it before I condemn the change. There have certainly been more radical, official changes to RQ over the years. Just look at all the changes in RQG. Multiple parries, reusable rune magic for everybody, passions- all probably have a much greater impact on game play than tinker with the SR system will. So claiming that tinkering with the SR mechanic means someone isn't playing RQ anymore is an overreaction. I'd rather focus on the proposed change and try to see how it would affect the way the game functionally.

It isn't an assumption, but a definition. The two terms are somewhat contraction. The "Melee round' is something that is standard to virtually every RPG. Now the Strike Rank system is something that only exists in five rpgs( RQ, RQ2, RQ3, ElfQuest, and Ringworld) in three variants (RQ/RQ2, RQ3/ElfQuest, and Ringworld's Impulse system). Yes, so what? People houserule all sorts of things, yet I wouldn't necessarily claim that they are playing a different game. Going from Strike Ranks to DEX ranks doesn't entirely change the game, does it? And, if it does, what does that mean to the whole "your Glorantha may vary," thing? Are none of us playing RuneQuest? It begs the question just how much of a game can someone change before they are considered to not be playing "the same" game anymore? We all divert from the established rules and/or setting in some manner, either by accident of design. I think you're handing out boarding passes for the ship of Theseus. Certainly, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Likewise, altering the SR system will change how the game plays and feels to some extent. But that is true of virtually any change in how the game is run, including changing GMs. Just how much of a change altering any particular rule has depends on how radical the change, and what sort of domino effect follows the change. Tinkering with the SR mechanic could have a minor effect or completely alter the game depending on just what the alterations are, and the domino effect of those alterations. I'm wondering just how much can we change the game before we are considered to be playing something else? If a GM were to replace the SR mechanic with a DEX rank mechanic from Strombringer would they be considered to be playing RQG with a minor change? RQG with a major change? a variant of RQG? A variant of Strombringer?

Whoa! You are saying that allowing for multiple attacks in a round is the basic assumption of the system, and that changing that one particular rule turns it into a different game system? That's a bit extreme.

I believe the answer is yes there is, but would the players want to? I'm not sure if gamers would want to get into the whole "who's sleeping with who" aspects of a soap opera, or any of the other tropes of that genre. And even if they did we'd probably have to modify the Game mechanics to better fit that sort of gaming. Passions, personality traits, directed traits and all that would take center stage. Then there are the competitive aspects. Unlike a typical RPG, characters is soap operas usually don't act cooperatively, but tend to stab each other in the back over things. That would also spill over into the "rewards and experience" aspect of RPGs. Raising sword or pistol skill isn't as important for this sort of genre as would be succeeding in getting the character one in enamored with, or getting revenge, or thwarting a rival. So it would require a pretty serious overall. And, again, I'm not sure if that would appeal to most gamers. There probably is a market for a Harlequin Romance RPG too, but the people would would enjoy that sort of RPG probably aren't the sort of people who play RPGs. IMO, the way to make something like a Dark Shadow RPG work would be to have a Barnaba-type of story arc (it is what keep the show from getting the axe), or three, combined with some sort of detective/investigator type of game. Something like CoC or Gumshoe, that the players could relate to, and that could provide goals and things to do that could be rewarding. In other words, the Scooby-Doo approach. One obstacle though, is that there are other RPGs out there that are better suited to that sort of game that RQ. The whole World of Darkness line is pretty much what we are going for, only WoD added "monster politics" to things so as to accommodate multiple monsters in the game. Likweise the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, like the series, kinda does the Scooby-Doo with a PC monster bit. The Slayer is basically a good supernatural creature, and the series did refer to Buffy's companions as "The Scoobys". And then there is Chasoium's own Call of Cthulhu, which probably would work great as far as the whole setting goes. Toss in the Ctuhlhu Mythos, with the PCs (even the monstrous ones) working against evil Cultists any Mythos beings bent of destroying/taking over the world (basically what the producers were trying to do with the disastrous Leviathan story), and I think you got a decent RPG possibility. So before doing a Dark Shadows RPG we'd have to figure out if we'd want to do it for RQ and why. A supplement for CoC would probably make more sense.

To add to your argument, the high rates of fire for archers historically was for volley fire, where a group of archers was shooting into a mass of targets. Against a single target, under real combat conditions, the rates were slower. Same with the range. I've read comments from archers today say that an archer can't reliably hit a target beyond about 80 yards. That's what happens when you 'mix-n-match" rule sets. The subsequent parries rule comes from Strombringer, which had a subsequent attack rule, the riposte. But, when subsequent parries were ported over to RQG riposte wasn't, probably because RQ already had a multiple attack rule (spitting attacks). If they had ported over ripostes, then they would not only have to deal with replacing an established rule (splitting attacks) but they would also have to figure out how to integrate ripostes into the Strike Rank mechanics. I doubt it. It was probably based on how long it took to get a good during SCA battles, as opposed to how long it took to get a good hit at an archery range. Bows are faster, but mostly because targets don't defend themselves- or shoot back.

They are great charts, although they do miss a few BRP related RPGs. RQ was so influential on the games that followed that it gets difficult to know where to draw the line. Pendragon doesn't use percentile scores and D100, but is otherwise very close to D100 game system. FGU's Flashing Blades and especially Privateers and Gentlemen are also obviously influenced/related to D100 (if you are familiar with RQ2 you can pick up P&G pretty fast), and-as mentioned elsewhere RQ had a influence on the design of D&D 3E.

Well, there is always Lithium.

Yes they did do it, but they weren't very good. I would't say that they "pulled it off" so much as they ran with their popularity.

And they didn't always work. I think it is one of those cases of where "you had to be there". I think that was a case of having to escalate things. By the time of the remake the original series would have seemed pretty tame. Partially. I think the original is a hard act to remake. Stuff that would work in the 60s and 70s wouldn't necessarily work today. Depp, apparently, hated the part. Making it a comedy might have a bit of an out for them. A parody isn't looked at as critically as a remake, and if it flops it doesn't get the same amount of flak that a serious remake that flops. Plus it's just not a good idea to try to turn 600 hours of a TV show into a 90 minute film. The original product staff and cast couldn't even pull that off.

. I don't think character death, specifically, has to be on the line, it's more a case of how serious the campaign is and if there are consequences that the players take seriously and care about. Character death is just the most obvious, extreme and easiest case. Conversely, if there aren't any consequences to speak of, then the Gm can play very fast and loose. For example, a game like Toon, where no consequences ever last more than a few minutes-or until the end of the current game session, is one where a GM can basically get away with anything, just so long as the players can follow it, or trust him enough to accept it. Following what is happening, and trust are big parts of it. If the players can follow and understand the ruling, no matter what it is, then it won't be a problem. If the players can't follow or understand the ruling, then trust in the GM can carry it.

I, mostly, agree. A GM does need to keep his rulings consistent, and not seem to be arbitrary though, so if he does make a "snap ruling" he should keep that ruling for the rest of the campaign, or be very clear as to why, if he changes things later on.

Yeah, kinda. But is more like Spiderman took the soap opera route, and then added teen angst to it. And that's just it. Barnabas isn't malign. At least once he started to reform. He was probably the first of the reluctant/remorseful vampire characters. He'd live and let live if he could. From an RPG perspective though, much like the the series itself, it's his condition and similar things that would be interesting. Most of the the usual soap opera tropes of the time probably wouldn't be all that interesting, or even work. Passions and personality traits could help there, though. But, without the actual Dark Shadows license (and we are talking about a 40+ year old soap opera that is as old an dated as Moorcock's works, and somewhat less accessible) I think we'd be stomping right into World of Darkness territory.

Yes, exactly. On a similar note, back in the 80s most of the local gamers were convinced that RQ was more complicated and slower than AD&D! Now, I think most people here would consider RQ to be simpler and more streamlined than AD&D (a game system in which combat, magic, climbing a tree, lifting an object, blacksmithing, listening at a door (virtually everything) had it's own special rule. The reason why AD&D seemed easier to most of the people I was gaming with was that they were very familiar with AD&D. Everybody owned a copy of the books, and had generated hundreds of characters over the years, and could do chargen, work out hit points, spells, weapon proficiencies, armor class, and weapon damages without having to crack open a rulebook. With RQ, it was all new and unfamiliar, with only one copy of the rulebook at the table, so everything took longer and the game seemed more complicated and slower. But when players got more familiar with RQ it got faster and easier. Eventually we were able to run fights with over 50 characters in RQ faster than it would have played out in AD&D. It really boils down to how familiar people (especially the GM) are with the rules, and what the emphasis is during play. If the GM knows the rules, and wants to run it fast, then a game, even one like GURPS, can be run fast. I suspect that even applies to some of the stuff from Leading Edge Games, with their tenth of a second combat rounds.

Or X-Files, or Kolchak: The Nightsltaker. The basic idea of investigators encountering the Superantural (real of fake) is a staple of both the detective and horror genres.

Yeah, mystery-detective-horror. The big difference with Dark Shadows was that the Supernatural Horror stuff turned out to be real. Heck, CoC the RPG ends up fairly close to Kolchak: The Nightstalker, another Dan Curtis creation. Come to think of it, a Dark Shadows type of campaign would probably work better as a CoC campaign. It could expand CoC in such as way as to make a campaign more feasible. With Lovecraft, it gets difficult to believe that investigators could survive long enough to have a campaign. I think the hard bits would be the keeping the mystery to the campaign (something that Dark Shadows had a hard time doing once it revealed that it had a real vampire, witch and werewolf) and the soap opera type elements. Things like, who is (or wants to) sleep with who, petty jealousies, and such are hard to do in an RPG-especially in one like RQ that has next to nothing to cover social interactions.

Yes, but then you loose out on the benefits of a licensed setting. There are plenty of good, original settings in RPGs, and plenty of settings that are "inspired by"/based on/rip off a well known setting or story. But they aren't the same thing. They don't interest and engage fans the the same way. If you take out the Jane Eyre bit (which I did when I quoted you), you end up with the basic outline of Scooby-Doo.

At the risk up adding halogen bulbs to the target I've long ago painted on my back, I got a similar thought about the Horseclans series. So many of my friends loved the Horseclans books, but all I came away from them with was that Milo Morai was a p%#^&.

That's pretty much what I've read. I didn't want to state it outright, because I wasn't involved and all my information is, at best, second hand. But, to (hopelfully) reinfroce the point I was going for two months ago, yes there is risk with Kickstarter.

We did in RQ2. If you got one of the Soloquest adventures , I believe you'll find some of the NPCs doing it. It was how things were done at conventions, including ones with people who games with people from Chaosium. I remember because the whole add the POW point cost to the SR of the melee attack thing was something I first discovered while running RQ2 at Massconfusion by a guy who gamed with Steve Perrin.

No. The advice is: one section of the rules state X, but none of the examples from Chaosium did things that way. I agree with you. I believe the rules should be clear and concise, and that the game should "officially" be run according to those rules. Whatever those rules happen to be. If a rule is unclear, obsolete or just plain wrong, then it should be corrected, replaced, or removed. It's also why I believe we would have been better off with a smaller rulebook with less "fluff". It would have made things much easier to proofread and troubleshoot.

That's an exaggeration. I'm just pointing out how the game has always been run and played, and that contradicts one section of the text as written. To be fair, that's just my opinion, not necessarily factual. But to give you more context, I think part of the problem lies in the fact that so many of us have played this game for decades, , and have gotten into the habit of not really looking stuff up anymore. We've all sorta "know" how the rules work. Unfortunately, with so many variations and alternative versions of the rules, we don't all "know" the same rules. Worse still they don't all prefer the same rules either. LOL! I think that's the point that people were jumping all over me about back in June. Some of the old sections of the RQ2 text are either outdated or superseded by newer rules, and that had led to contradictions, and confusion. Things like rounding numbers, SR, number of attacks, casting spells in melee, and two weapon combat were all things that were pretty clear and easy to understand and run. Even with something was unclear or omitted from a game, someone could usually find the answer by looking at another, similar, Chasoium game. But now, with RQG we don't have that safety net of precedence anymore. We can't find the answer to something by looking at older versions of the rules anymore, because the new rules either mix things that weren't mixed previously (SR's and cumulative parries), or deliberately reverse previous traditions (such as rounding to the nearest). We're in uncharted territory now. Or, the RQG players are.

Yes it does. But I'm saying that the game wasn't played that way-not even by Chasoium. Clear of not, if the authors of the game do differently in play, the validity of that text becomes questionable. Yes, and the authors of the game printed examples where characters did exactly what the text stated they couldn't.