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Long before Pendragon, Chasoim did Thieves World. In the Thieves World rules there was a % system for traits. I'll dig out the trait pairs from that.

thalba is correct, the key thing to remember is that the higher stat has the advantage. So if you treat the PC as "acticvely" resisting the poision, disease or whatver, you would have a succes mean he resists. On eht other hand, if you treat the posion as ther "attacking" force and the PC as the "resisting" force, a success means that the posion successfully inflcited it's full damage.

Don7t feel to bad. You can7t actually play MRQ1 correclty by using the book. Even the guy who ran the playtrest did it wrong. The only way to run it "correctly" would be to have bogut the book, gone to the Mongoose Foru and download (the most current) rules update. MRQ2 is certainly a big improvement over MRQ1. I think that is pretty much universally accepted by all. Where or not it is an improvment over Chasoium7s RQ2 or RQ3 is more a matter of personal preferce. Ultimately, what hurt MRQ1 the most was probably not so much the changes made to the RQ system, but how poorly those changes were through out and implemented. Many of the changes were not throught through in terms on what problems they might cause in opther aspects of the game. Most of the problems could have been solved before the game had been released if they had been considered (most of the flaws were pointed out by the playtesters).

Point conceeded on the use of the word "despot". It does have negative connetations from it's traddtional usal that are an exxageration when applied in a gaming context. The difficulty is that "overrestrictive" doesn't lend it self to degrees the way forms of government "Autocrat" is probably more accurate than "despot" but then virtually all GMs are autocrats due to the nature of the postion og GM. I think we do agree on "more intense exchange". The way Ilook at it, the whole point of a forum is open exhange on the topics pertaining to the forums subject matter, inense or otherwise. I generally don't get bothered unless someone gets rude, or thinfs turn into insults.

I didn7rt think this was "heated". I thought that the issues raised, such as shgould the GM protect the PCs from the actions of other PCs are worth discussing, but I'll drop it if that is what people want.

If you think this is bad, it's a good thing you didn7t stop by the Mongoose forums back when MRQ1 was first relased. THe moderator of this website got banned repeatedly from the Mongoose forums!

In real life or in an RPG? Real Life wise, certainly.But then the same holds true for those people who aren't rich, too. Most people don't get into sword or gun fights on a regular basis. As far a characrters go in an RPG, it depends on the GM and the playing stle of the group. I7ve seen GMs who have had great difficulties daling with rich PCs. On the other hand I've seen Gms not worry about money at all. Money is more of a problem in games where players can freely shop for "goodies" (magical or other), especially in combant dominated games. Indeed. I've seen a few groups ignore events (or at least try), too. One group decided to ingore the assassin who was after them. It't was hard to improve thier sword skills while busy dodging poisoned crossbow bolts.

So you are saying that if the players kept repeately dying due to thier own actions you would change the game to eliminate that possiblity. So when are you going to emilinate combat? Most PCs seem to die in combat. Again, the rulke doesn't create the problem, the players do with thier decisions. Practically any rule can lead to a high PC mortality if the players continually do something stupid with it. If someone starts drinking posion regularly, or tries jumping across a 30 meter wide gap, would you elimiate poison and falling damage to protect the PCs? No, you7re not a mechanic. you7re a despot. People abuse something so you eliminate the something rather than let people learn from this mistakes.

No not completely. But mostly. Training time is only a factor when you don7t have any. As far as skill use went, it doesn7t matter what skills you attempt or how often. So MRQ is just as vnlerable to "skill check" hunting if PCs have no time to train and want to improve something specfic. For example, if someone wants to improve thier First Aid skill, they can start going out of thier way to find an opportunity to make a skill roll. Another flaw is that this approach really hurts modern and advanced settings, since characters aren't likely to use the more advanced skills as often as combat skills.

Not being passive-agrressive at all.I'm simply saying that is the players spend two years in game time training the GM shouldn't simply skip ahead and pick thegs up two years later. Likewise, the rest of the game worldshouldn't be hled in stasis while the PCs are traning. If players want to act like gradulate students and train for 16 hours a day for months on end, they should be given the same sort of challenges that such people have to deal with in real life. Yup. I don't see a problem with it either, unless the players push it to unrealistic levels.

I don't object to point or reward based characrter improvment in general, I just don't consider the specific ("degenerate case?";D) method used in MRQ1 to be superior to BRP's "skill check" method. AI also don7t think that simply increasing the number of IP rolls hlps much, since it an IP roll doesn7t have as singincant an impact on improvment as character points/experience points do. In most reward based games, you spend the points and get the reward. In MRQ you spend the IP to get a chance for a reward. Even then the effect on animprovment isn7t as great as in other RPGs since the base chances are lower and it takes a long time to get to a competent level of skill.

TO some extent it does, and yeah, I WILL go there. Now where he other RPGs you mentioned differ from MRQ is in how the points are applied compared to improvment rolls. Now there are a few differences though it how most point based games handle improvment comapred to MRQ. For one thing, GURPS, HERO and most such games allow character to imrpove abilities through training, actually earning more points in the process. MRQ, by contrast requires IPs to improve. A guy who spends six months traqining in RQ/BRP, GURPS, Hero,m and such will probably improve. But no so in games that require the character to get the points before allowing imrpovement. Another difference is that most point based systems allow a character to get a reasonably decent skill rating (>50% success chance) for a modest amount of points. Typically 2 points in GURPS or HERO will do the job.But with MRQ it takes a lot of improvment rolls to get a starting skill over 50%. So it takes a much greater investiment from the character. A character is GRUPS or HERO can becme a compentent rider (over 50% success chance) after an adventure or two. In MRQ, it would take something like a dozen IP rolls to accomplish the same thing. That is a big difference, and what ultimately results in narrow focus characters. ANd is entirely unecessary if you not "protecting your players from bad decisions". You don't need to invent new rewards and penalties if you let the players benefit (or suffer) from thier actions. Good gaming is self rewarding, both is terms of charaqcter imrpvoement and if social effects on characters.

Wow! I've got some idtio players who I'd like to send your way. Maybe you7d give them a hug and a cookie when they screw up? Extending your line of reasoning to a logical conclusion why not get rid of combat from your gaming? I completely disagree with you here. I believe that " if I'd seen multiple players, in different groups, do the same thing over the years" and they keep dying for it, then the fault is with thier behavior. Yup, but that is no reason to change a rule. If player A does something srtupid that gets Player B killed, it is up to player A (and the others) to learn from that mistake. Case in point, a few years back I was running a Star Trek campaign. At one point one PC was desparely trying to figure out how to prevent the ship from blowing up. Another PC had figured things out, but didn7t say a word, instead enjoying seeing the other player sweat. The player didn7t think it was funny (or fair) when I pointed out that he was literally in the same boat, and that if the ship bloew up he'd be just a dead as the less knowlesgable PCs. Again, I'll stess if a player is choosing to consisteny do something that comes back on him and/or the group, it is up to the player to chance his behavior. Then they suffer for thier lack of prcepacity. That is life and gaming. It happens all the time and it is up to the PCs to figure out someone is up when "bad luck" keep reoccruing. Here is an example from something that I did as a player. In one campaign, my character, armed with a rapier, rushed a guy who was armed with a (blackpowder) pistol. I got lucky when the GM fumbled. LAter on, I was in a similar situation, charged again, and, much to my surprise, the GM fumbled again! Now this happened a couple of more times, and the tactic has become ingraned with that character. Do you think the GM should change the combat rules to accomondate my reckless and stupid decision to repeated rush forward into the face of a loaded firearm? After all, the behavior meets all your crtiera above. Would you eliminate fumbles so I couldn't take the risk anymore, or would you change things so the NPC can't shoot me? Thankfully, my GM didn7t change an thing, and was willing to let me charge into firearms until the day somebody blows my fool head off. I would too. In generall it is called advising them where they went wrong. But changing the rules to prevent players from making poor decisions doesn7t discorage the behavior, it simply prohibits it. And it does do harm to everybody else. The other players suffer becuase the GM dumbed down the game. THe player who scred up is harmed becuase he lot the opportunity to improve as a player. Help, whom? Frankly, the GM protecting players from bad decisions is a moreimportant itopic than just about anything else on this forum. It'S one of the worst things a GM can do. If you protect them from bad decsions then there is no point in thier making decesions!

If you group "don't know jack" about feudal Japanease culutre as well as histrory, you might be better off doing what Hollywood did and adapt the story to a different setting that the players will be more familar with. I'd advise against buying any sorcebook for a one shot adventure. If, however you want to get into a Samurai campaign, however by all means go for it. One major hurdle with Samuarri campaigns is that it is very easy for players to get themselves killed due to the social differences between fedual Japan and modern Western Culture. That Land of the Ninja? Yes. But it is obviously a very different culutre. I agree with rust that RQ Vikings is among the best RQ3 supplments. IMO it is the best non-Glorantha RQ supplment, although considering the competion it deserse higher praise than that. Land of the Ninja, on the other hand, is a bit disappointing. There are a lot of blank spaces, and it looks like it isn7t quite complete. Franskly, I doubt it was playested. It is surprising too, since the author, Bob Charette, was one of ther guys behind Bushido, and RPG that needed two books and a small typeface to squeeze in all the info. LoN is playable, but you reallywill want to do more research on the culutre. Ironically, what makes LoN look so disappointing is comparing it to Vikings. Land of the Ninja simply comes up inferior to Vikings across the board. Vikings is more detailed, gives a better feel for the setting, gives a better treatment on the religion and magic, has better "monster desciptions" (a shame, since Ninja needs the desciptionsa more; gamers are more familar with the monsters in Vikings since they are mostly staples of fantasy fiction and RPGS), and better/more adventures.

Possibly. The feedback on thre MRQ boards in the early days of MRQ wasn't conclusive either way. I think that to those who didn't like the RQ experience system, for either reason, it was considered an improvement, and Mongoose was happy that it pleased both camps.. Personally, I'm not that fond of the GM handing out improvments, as it tends to promote one dimsensional characters. I've been seeing it in a few other RPGs, where character get points to imrpove thier characters after adventures. Since it is generally better fora group to have a master swordsman and a master wizard that a couple of guys who are medicore at both, I tend to see players focus on narrow arears. I agree with the though behind learning fron ones's mistakes. At times I7ve been tempted to reverse the check procedure (that is getting a check for failing a skill roll). That way, really skilled characters would get checks only by trying more difficult things. I don't really see the MRQ method as leaning from one7s failures as much as making improvment unleated to skill use. I see the same thing in d6 Star Wars. A character goes through an adventure where he is constantly using certain skills. He stubs his toe and puts on a medpac and at the end of the adventure he spends the points to imrpve first aid, even though he used it once, and several other skills multiple times. I would like to see improvment be tied to the extent that a skill was (or was not) used. Maybe something like getting a bonus to the imrpvement roillfor multiple checks. I could even see combining methods. SOmething like the checks keep accumulating until the character makes an improvment roll. More checks means a geater chance for improving.

Raising the number of rolls certainly helps, no doubt about that. It still chyannels the character but is not nearly as restrictive as the 3 roll limit. It is still an artificial limit, and I don't see it as an improvement over the tradtional method.

"It" doesn7t create the problem, the players do. Look, if you had a player who repeatedly did something self descrtuctive, would you change the game system to prevent it? Acrtions have consequences. Characters who repeaatedly buck the odds and take unnecessary risks pay the price. How is it harming the game as a whole? If the players keep dying and can7t figure out why, tell them. If they argue about it, keep reminding them whenever they get killed for it. I ran a L5R campaign where one guy had a character who had gone to the Crane (Fast-Draw) stylre durling school. Later on, he was playing a guy who had gone to the Dragon (Two Sword Style) School. He got into a fight and instead of drawing both of his blades ASAP, he weaitied and tried to cut his foe down with a Iai strike (fast draw cutting strike). He botched it and got mauled by the time he managed to get both weapon out. Now, I fet some sympathy for him, becuase it is easy to laspe into the fighting style of a previous character when you swtich characters. But then the guy did it again, and again, and again. He started going through a new character every week, making the same dumb mistake each time, despite warnings from the GM anbd the other players. Do you believe the GM should have altered the game system to prevent iai strikes just becuase this guy kept messing up? I don't see anything that supports your argument here.

No its the players. Some basic mathematics skill will reveal that the more rolls that are made in a game, the greater the chance of a PC getting killed. So a player who opts to try for twice as many rolls is taking twice the risk. It is a faurly universal rule in RPGs, too. THe effect is less pronounced in games with increasesing hit points and limited damage (D&D), and more pronounded in games where one hit can kill (RQ/BRP), but it exists in most RPGs to some degree. Insureance comapnaies and casinos clean up on just this fact. Perhaps, but then averafge players don7t seem to have a good grasp of math. I used to work at a sotre where we sold lottry tickets and was amazed at how much money people would throw away without an inkling of the odds. THe store would regualry have to fire new help becuase they would play a whole roll of scractch tickets and expect to be able to pay for it out of thier winnings. I used to be amazed at how many people didn't understand the basic concept that lottery tickets have to take more money in than they pay out to be profitable. No , if it happens enough with "good players" then those players aren't very good. Good players would catch on by the second or third untinely death. I warned my group about the hazards of skill check hunting, and most of the players caught on fairly quickly, after seeing soem PCs get nailed taking unnessary risks. Yes, I7ve hard players argue it, but once they start dying I ask them how it was working out for them. No, it isn't grognardism, it's where or not you have a classes RPG or not. It also has the effect of making character develpment a rewaed from the GM rather than one of natural progression. To asnwer bluntly, that7s a load of bull. Most D&Ders I7ve games with can't handle RQ. RThey come in with a bunch of false expectations and an undeserved belief that they "know" how to play, and usually get killed off fairly quickly, using tactics that work fine in D&D. That doesn7t mean there is a problem with RQ/BRP, and that the game system needs to be changed to accomodate players who won7t learn. Likewise, if groups continuely go skil check hunting and get wiped out for the trouble, it7s not the fault of the expereince system. The people who are opposed to the skill check system ususally claim that it prmotes skill ckeck hunting. You case history, with higher mortaility rates disproves that. If players want to "play the lottery" with thier PCs lives, and start suffering lots of casualties, yet they stubbornly continue doing the same thing, they have no one to blame but themselves.

It actually makres a rather radical change in the game. With a limited number of imrpovment rolls instead of a variable number of skill chekcs, players end up focueing on a small number of skills, and let everything else slide. The net effect is "classless" character classes. PCs just can7t imrpove of magic and weapons and horsemanship, and stealth. That is one reason why MRQ has a fairly small skill list, comapred to RQ/BRP.

I see it as a player problem not a game mechanic problem. Stupid kills. I used to game with a guy who always treated RQ as if it were AD&D. He would often by surprised that elves didn7t have infravision, that a ill thought sword stroke meant as a repirmand actually cut someone7as arm off, and that griffon claws did 1D6+3D6 damage rather than just 1D8. The fact that the player couldn7t or wouldn7t learn from his errors and adapt was not just cause to change the RQ game mechanics. If they did it not matter the consequences, then they had no right to complain. It looks like you need better players. Sure there are risks inherent in all actions in a RPG. But that doesn7t mean that players should ignore those risks, or expose themsevles to greater dangerblindly. I've burchers quite a few PCs becuase the players decided to do something stupid and suicidal, for example, doing a frontal assault on a fortified postion. I7ve seen doxzens of PCs mowed down while charging a 50 cal MG. I7ve yet to see a group do that twice. If the players keep doing the same thing and expect differernt results, then the problem isn7t with the game system. I

Sorry I don't see a problem with this, let alone two. If players want to take more risks just to collect skill checks that fine with me. When they get killed "skill check hunting" that's fine with me, too. Years ago I had a player who thought that he was getting away with something by switching weapons during combat, trying to get more skill checks. He was successful for a couple of sessions and was starting to convince others about what a "great tactic" is was and that "everybody" should do it, becuase it "made sunese to do so" the ways the RQ rules worked. THenon he third session he got killed by a mook becuase he was playing around trying to get a check in his secondary weapon. Had he been using his primary weapon, not only would he have made his parry roll, but he would have hit on his attack and probably wouldn7t have had to parry. I looked at the player and said "So, you still think swtiching weapons for more skill checks is such a great idea?" Lesson to the players: If you want to risk your character hunting after skill checks don't cry to me when you get killed y it. I have no sympathy for that kind of stupidity. RQ 8and BRP) combat is not nice and safe like D&D, with character able to sit back on thier fat cushion of hit points. One good hit usually decides the contest, and if someone isn7t fighting at his best, he deserves whatever he gets. IMO if skill cjkeck hunting is a problem, the GM iss doing something wrong. Either he is allowing frivious checks, or he isn't applying the consecquences for failing under a stressful situation.

There is some truth to what you say. It's not entirely correct, since the GM determines what mertis a skill check, but there is definately some truth to it. The MRQ approach isn't any better. What happens is that since players only get a limited number of improvbement rolls, they concetrate on thier main (combat) skills and let everything else stagnate. It doesn't matter if someone has been doing a lot of riding, reading, or sailing, theose skills won7t iMprove at all, unless the player is willing to sacrfifice an improvement roll for it. What you end up with are "classess" with each character forcuesing on a small set of skills. Plus, I'm not sure that those character who do all the planning and such need to be rewared for it will more skill improvment rolls. In general, those who do more get rewarded in other ways, in game. They usually live longer and end up with more skill rolls in the long run, since the guys who don7t do the thinking tend to die more often. With the way BRP works now, I'd be inclined to reward good players with more hero points rather than more skill rolls.

[quote=Vile;33781 How were shields used historically?

For starters you could run MRQ1 as written in the rule book! In factg, even the guys from Mongoose supposedly ranb it wrong at Conventions! Before the book even hit the shelves Mongoose had changed the rules. Supposedly something was printed wrong, or was missing from the final version of the book. Unfortunately, the "updeaded" version introduced diferent problems, which needed to be corrected in a revised update that came out six months later. Intreoducing a new round of problems. Wash, rinse, repeat. THat was just the core rules. Once you started dealing with supplments new problems appeared (like the new runic associations didn7t mesh with Glorantha). Ultimately, I think the maijor problem was that the primary author of MRQ was a guy who didnh't seem to understand the old RQ system and it built in checks and balances. He seemed to change something without be aware that the change would have a "domino effect" on other aspects of the game. For example, in reposne to fan complatins about how "D&Dish" the new combat wounding system had become (in comarison to deadly RQ), he did a article in Sings & Portents with a new table of increased weapon damages, without a comment of what asuch damageas would do to the effects the new table would have on the way armor, magical protection and shields worked. By contrast MRQ2 is written by a couple of guys with a more than passing familairy of the parent RQ/BRP game system, and how it's various comepoent systems interact. SO the rules are less buggy, more consistent, and don7t need to be updated/patched continuously in order to repair problems introduced in the previous patch.