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Maybe, but it is also BRP's weakness. Players don't get excited over a framework. Nor do most people rush out with enthusiasm for a framework. It is what GMs do with the framework that can generate enthusiasm. With a fully fleshed out game system, it's a lot easier for people to see just what can be done with the system.

Maybe not "us" per say, but consulting the fan base isn't a bad idea.

Yeah, but my point is that if a Police Officer fires his weapon today the threat must be sufficient cause to warrant the use of lethal force. So the cop is taking the best shot he can. Now if a shoplifter was running away a cop might be able to risk a leg shot, but he would be far less likely to use his weapon under those circumstances today, as opposed to, say 50-60 years ago.

Looks more like an evolution of CORPS. Only CORPS went 3 levels deep.

I still got my notes. Depending on how RQ works out we could always get together and make our own RPG. I've got lots of notes for things I'd love to see in a BRP/RQ-based RPG.

That's mostly because modern police usually resort to using firearms only when confronted with a culprit who is using lethal force or at high risk to do so. That forces the police into trying to disable to culprit as quickly as possible with the best percentage shot. Thus center of body shots. If the police have the luxury of going for a limb shot, they are either extremely good marksmen, have limited choices for targeting, or in a situation when using a firearm is probably excessive.

Some RPGs do spread out the healing over time. Most don't because it is simplier, and the players don't want to deal with all the downtime. But...if you wanted to slwo down the healing you could have healing spells add to the healing gained at the end of a week. So instead of regaining a 1D3, they wold get 1D3 plus the healing magic. Or, if you wanted to you could either subtract the healing spell from the days required to heal (So Heal 5 would mean the character gets his healing 1D3 in 2 days. Healing 8+ would mean healing twice in one day.), or divide the healing time by the healing spell (heal 1 would mean healing in half the time, heal 2 would mean healing in 1/3rd the time, and so on).

I did something similar. What I did was eliminate the individual base% for skills and instead use a modified skill category base as the base skill score. Then the other skills built off of the base. I also was allowing specialization/sub-skills. For example, a character could have something like Melee 25%, Sword 60% [Broadsword 80%]

Yes but what I am referring to is how in RQ2 characters could go for associate status in an allied cult. That gave them access to the allied cults rune spells. With the new method, I suspect that some of that just isn't going to work anymore. Basically, I'm wondering how the new opposed rune system is going to impact the various cult relationships. Oh, and I hope Orlanth doesn't have the Chaos rune again!

Sorry, but you don't get it. "Back in the day", say 1982ish, I was running an RQ game at a convention where two PCs dueled each other specifically because of cult ties. The guy who wrote the adventure confessed that he had doubts that a Humakti and Zorak Zoran worshiper could work together, but the adventure was in Dorastor, so he figured they could do so under the circumstances. Now I ran that adventure, but I didn't write it, and all the RQ players who showed up (as opposed to newbies doing a one-off) knew of and expected the social stuff to be involved. So the mythic stuff was "IT" back then. Maybe not for you or Sandy Perterson, but for a lot of RQers. And speaking of Sandy Peterson so what? As far as RQ went, Sandy wasn't not the "go to" guy. He was for CoC. but that wasn't RQ.

Oh, I see. My past experience doesn't count, but your does.

It's not the spirit magic I'm concerned about, just the Divine/Rune Spells. Are there are variants of Heal Wound? Please explain. AFAIK the spells were pretty much the same from cult to cult. One cult might get something reusable or some such, but the spells were pretty much the same. In the new RQ are the Rune Spells tailored to the specific cults and/or runes?

Thanks. I'll check it out. The counter-attack options is such an easy thing to port over to RQ/BRP. I'd love to port a lot of the Usagi combat rules and Gifts over to RQ somehow. I like how in UY characters don't just stand there and trade blows, but instead move around on the battlefield. I love the way the use retreats, and how some abilties are triggered under certain circumstances, which leads to fighting styles instead of just a generic weapon skill.

Possibly. I'm not sure it I like the fact that warrior types are going to suck at healing magic because of runic affinities. I'm hoping there might be something like Pendragon;s Directed Traits to provide a slight work around to keep the old allied cult functionality.

Yeah, that was the intention for Usagi. It simulates the Samurai film genre, so you can have one expert swordsman take down a small army in a round or two. It's not automatic, or easy, but it is possible to recreate scenes from Yojimbo or Sanjuro. It requires an extremely good swordman vs. a bunch of mooks, and a bit of luck. And that's just what we got in the films.

Yes, but by the time RQ3 came out they separated the system from the setting. As I've said earlier, it Glorantha that is so heavily on social ties. Far from it. If someone had the cult sprits of reprisal after them they were also in bad standing with the cult (since getting the sprits after you meant that you behaved in a manner that broke from the cult dogma). Sure it did. I can't think of one RQ2 game I was in that had any Heroquesting or similar stuff. There just wasn't enough out there to explain what it was like, or what the results could be. Certainly. I've played some D&D games that were heavy on social interaction. But it is more of a choice of play style than a necessity. In Glorantha, you really don't have much choice. Unless you want to forgoe any magic and be a pariah. As for your experience with RQ Vikings, I wouldn't expect them to forgo the trappings. Its what makes a Viking campaign feel like a Viking campaign.

Yup Rosen, that's it. With the tickbox method, characters advance in the skills they use as opposed to the skills they want to advance in. What seems to happen when the GM assigns a certain number of improvement rolls is that players try to max out a handful of skills and let everything else rot. The group starts to look like a bunch of idiot savants. Sword, Shield and Ride at 150% but can't tie their shoe laces.

Not really, or at least not yet. The RQ rules were pretty clear as to what the characters had to do to advance in the cult and get spells (rune or other types). There were even cult "Spirits of Reprisal" to deal with those who didn't live up to their responsibilities. Plundering the Heroplanes and/or Heroquesters was also out. Mostly because there was practically no information on how that would work. Nobody really knew how a Heroquest would work. Now I get your drift that the GM has control over things and can influence and decide to what degree social interact plays a part in any RPG, but the setting and game mechanics play a big part in how that ususally works out. With RQ, especially RQ2 set in Glorantha (at least once someone got a look at Cults of Prax), the social aspect was designed to be important.

I'd say the social organizations are important to Glorantha, not to RuneQuest. A GM can run a RQ campaign just fine without all the social organizations (i.e. cults). With Glorantha being so entirely focused around the various religions, magic, and mythic events that the cult structures dominates play. But is is a characteristic of the setting rather than the system.

Not quite. With experience rolls players end up spending their rolls on the things they WANT to improve and everything else just stagnates at starting percentages. So you wind up with characters who can't bandage themselves, spot a ship on the horizon, or fast talk someone because they are putting all their rolls into upping Sword, Shield and Bow. So you wind up with characters who have a ridiculously narrow focus becuase of the limited number of skills he can improve. The example I used to use to illustrate the differences in experience between RQ and D&D was this: Say you got a guy who climbs up in a tree with a crossbow and shoots goblins. Over time, in RQ, the guy would get better at climbing and shooting a crossbow. in D&D he would go up a level and might become a more powerful magic user and learn how to cast a fireball! In a experience roll system, the guy might never get any better at climbing trees, despite doing so everyday, because he only gets so many rolls to improve skills. What I think I'd prefer is rather than having the GM assigning the number of experience rolls one could make, I'd have him assign the number of skills that could be improved. During play the players would get skill checks per the normal RQ rules, but when rolling for improvement they would pick which ones to try and improve first. The difference here is that the player could still try to prioitize what he wants to get better at, but "secondary" skills would eventually improve when the main skills fail to do so.

I prefer skill checks. But I disagree with threedeesix's players. Typically, specialization works just fine in skill-based RPGs. Im my experience it's the players that mess it up. For example, in some of my old RQ games, the players would want to sneak up and scout out an area. They had a hunter and a thief who were both good at sneaking, but the group would mess thing up because when told that they had to make sneak rolls, EVERYONE would look on their character sheet, say "I have that skill!", and then roll. Now the hunter and thief both had stealth skills in the 70% range, but the rest of the group were at the base percentages. Sure enough when 6-8 people try to sneak around and most of them are at 20% skill or less- somebody blows the roll. For a month or so the group never managed to sneak up on anybody. Eventually (that is, when a frustrated GM pointed out that skills were like excuses, and that everybody had "that skill", but most of the group shouldn't be relying on it), they figured out that skill specialization was still the way to go.

LOL! I actually did something similar in a D&D 3E campaign. Since D&D has escalating hit points, after awhile it takes multiple hits to drop any sort of significant threat. With a pair of archers in the group, even at 5th level we were going through a ridiculous amount of arrows during a fight. I was wearing two 50-arrow "war quivers" and was still running out at times. My solution was to get a pack animal and take some blankets and put some "sleeves" in them to hold arrows. They looked something like ammo belts for a machine gun, stitched to a blanket. Then I'd roll them up in a fashion similar to how they could roll up rifles in a blanket in old Westerns. The next time we got into a big fight (not long in D&D), and we started running out of arrows, I pulled the cord on the blankets and they unrolled to reveal more arrows. There was some stunned silence and then a lot of laughter. We weren't sure what was sillier, that I made up such a device, or that, in D&D, I'd actually had a need for it.

Memory fails you. The Bishop's staff had a pointed end and was quite serviceable as a spear. The chance of killing Isabeau with it was better than slim. Navarre probably would have took the Bishop apart in a fight, but the danger was significant.

I don't think the "Ladyhawk Gambit" really needs to be addressed. One of the problems with the tactic, even if allowed, is that there is no guarantee that the weapon will hit and incapacitate the opponent. Thrown weapons can be parried or dodged, and the character has just thrown away his weapon and has nothing left to defend with.

One other thing I wonder about with the new "runic affinity" based divine magic rules is that getting spells from associated cults would seem to be less productive than before. For example, a Humakti, with a high Death affinity isn't going to be able to cast any divine healing magic at any reasonable reliability. I wonder if this will impact some of the relationships between the cults. It seems far more useful to bring along an ally from an affiliated cult than to learn any of their divine magic. I wonder if we will get pantheon modifiers or some such that boost the cast chances? Something like Pendragon's directed traits.