styopa

Hopefully that's the value of the GM pack - a concentration of references into a screen.

I suspect SR is derived simply from weapon length, but the 2m quarterstaff gives it a SR comparable to a lance or pike? While a quarterstaff is indeed ~2m long, it's REACH IN USE is more like a a typical 1h sword, no?

OK here's the first draft worth looking at. THIS IS NOT FINISHED. A few comments: - there will eventually be 2 versions; one 'functional' that does things like calculate damage mods, etc and fill that stuff in as much as possible. The other will be blank for people to print and write on. - RQ sheets were already space-short; adding the runic affinities made it impossible to get it all on one side of one page and still be both legible and useful for people with pencils. So you'll see this is like the RQG standard sheet, with the skills on page 2 HOWEVER... I found my players really find it useful to have the "immediate need" skills referenced on the front page. For the functional version, this will just take the values from page2+category mods. For the blank, these will be cells people can put their current values in, I guess. Other comments: -- "Homeland Lore" makes sense for one's own area, sure, but "Homeland Lore, Other" is paradoxical. Why not just "Area Lore"? -- removed campaign name, subcult fields (it's just labeled another cult for more general utility) -- on the default sheet, Honor is listed almost like a mod (like Agility) but AFAIK it's Honor (something specific) or just Honor as a passion-like ability. So I figured it could just use a Passion line if the character has it. -- too much water space on (00) skills. Why fill EVERY player's sheet with Sense Assassin(00) and Spirit Dance (00)? -- Eliminated the exhaustive list of all weapon skills. -- Base values presuppose a narrow character background (I don't think everyone on earth starts with "Manage Herd (05)'? Every local washwoman has Battle Lore (10)?...not impossible, no, but the DEFAULT?) https://drive.google.com/open?id=14O6a3QHSOAlmOvQpqitkAyB-7RohraQe You should be able to reach that link. Enjoy.

Oh we have total body hp downings a fair amount...sure, limbs are more an issue, but poison, falling both do nasty things to body hp. I'm not wedded to sliders, I just thought it was an easy way to address hp/mp without constantly erasing and ultimately damaging the sheet. I'm about 60% done with my first draft google sheets version, I'll be posting soon.

Current (shortened) text for damage types is needlessly confusing: C Crushing: Weapons with blunt edges used for crushing with the weight at the end of the weapon...These weapons do crushing damage. CT Cut-and-thrust: Weapons capable of use for slashing or thrusting... player must state ... cut or thrust, as it may do slashing or impaling damage H Hand-to-hand: Rhese do crushing damage (for fists, kicks, and cestuses) or slashing damage (for claws) I These weapons do impaling damage. S Slashing: Weapons used for hacking or slashing. These weapons do slashing damage Suggestions: Use B for BLUNT instead of C for Crushing. Makes it more clearly different from "CT" H why even have the category? Just denote in the weapon table for fists, kicks, and cestii that they are B for blunt, and S for claws instead of calling them H, and then people have to mentally sub-categorize.... CT is an odd choice? If the weapons either do Slashing or Impaling, just call the whole category "SI"?

Agreed. Further, isn't a parry (whether with weapon or shield) really nothing more than a reactive usually-offhand attack on an opponent's incoming weapon/blow/attack? In that sense, I think it's a worthy thought exercise to try to see if we can distill out a consistent set of metarules, thus removing exceptions like how offhands and shields are handled entirely. Something like: Main hand is full skill. Off hand is half skill (unless otherwise trained to better). (Shield use then simply becomes a specifically-trained offhand weapon.) In combat you can reactively parry with either hand not more than once per SR. Subsequent parries after the first are cumulative -20% penalty. You can actively attack with either hand on your designated SR for that held weapon. If you've parried with that hand previously in the round, any subsequent attack by that hand would also suffer the cumulative -20% penalty thus far (and would accrue another penalty for the attack action, applied to any parries later in the round). It's not a perfect proposal by any means, but I just get the sense that somewhere under there there's a mechanically-consistent way to approach this.

Again: Traveller. There was quite a bit about trade in the LBB, and then when Book 7 came along (Merchant Prince) it became rather interesting and substantive.

Question for the group....the RQG canonical sheets (as with most RQ sheets historically, iirc) use HP countdowns: sequences of numbers that you use to register your hp. Most D&D sheets don't (obviously because you have a much larger variation on hp). What do you personally prefer? I'm working on layout for an alternate RQG sheet and have the MP and HP countdowns on the right and left margins, respectively. Pros: It's easy to keep track of. Because they're along the margins, players can actually use paperclip sliders instead of constantly erasing. The sliders also make it easier for me, as a GM, from the end of the table to quick see who's in trouble in case I need to (not that I ever(?) fudge rolls for them, more as a time for me to remind them to remind each other). Cons Not terribly attractive, sort of obtrusive. On normal paper, it's too flimsy and they just work like the standard countdown lists. We use light cardstock for character sheets and that works well but I'm not sure everyone has that resource. Opinions? Comments on the specific concept of countdowns? They can be packed almost anywhere on the sheet, in any shape, if you like them.

If you wanted to get into the weeds of simulation, one could just say that vs someone with a shield, your OWN parry is +10% (as you can nearly guarantee which direction the attack is coming from, and a shield bash is itself pretty clumsy), likewise vs someone with 2 weapons your parry is -10% because you have to respect that an attack could come from either one. (Or if the logic makes more sense reversed, using a shield gives the opponent a bonus to parry, using 2 weapons gives the opponent a malus to parry.) Not sure either the bonus or penalty would apply to dodge though...is have to think that through. One could go further and apply the minus whenever someone is facing an opponent (like a hydra) whose attacks could come from various directions. In any case, then you have a small mechanic that would incentivize or de-incentivize dual wielding for someone who really wanted that edge.

One of the oldest extant texts is...a customer service complaint (http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/the-first-recorded-customer-service-complaint-from-1750-b-c.html) from 1750 BC that reads exactly like it was written on Yelp: Tell Ea-nasir: Nanni sends the following message: When you came, you said to me as follows : “I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots.” You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: “If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!” What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to collect the bag with my money (deposited with you) but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun who has treated me in this way? You alone treat my messenger with contempt! On account of that one (trifling) mina of silver which I owe(?) you, you feel free to speak in such a way, while I have given to the palace on your behalf 1,080 pounds of copper, and umi-abum has likewise given 1,080 pounds of copper, apart from what we both have had written on a sealed tablet to be kept in the temple of Samas. How have you treated me for that copper? You have withheld my money bag from me in enemy territory; it is now up to you to restore (my money) to me in full. Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt.

Chicken and egg, perhaps. If a game functionally has no mechanics, no rules, no encouragement of that sort of "Merchant Prince" style of play, why would people who DO enjoy that be interested in getting into such a game. I'm not saying its a giant group of people, I'm just taking issue withe categorical statement of "it shouldn't be the focus of player activity". If the players want to do something and the GM enjoys it as well, who cares what is the focus of player activity? I had two players that liked to roleplay the taking of coins from their pouch, and laying them on the table in front of the vendor, and other minutiae of just plain-old-normal transactions in an inn; I found it dull as dirt but since they enjoyed it, I as the GM and the other player (who didn't really care) played along.

Now you're going to start a fight between Americans and Euros. Agreed that there should be both letter- and A4-versions.

Sounds like rationalizing ? It's pretty unlikely a weapon's going to fail without a fair bit of wearing-down. It's a lot simpler just to say "these mechanics don't really justify why you'd parry with an offhand weapon". It seems there was a fair amount of cutting and pasting, with the volume of material being so much that there are a few points where the differences between pasted text and new rules weren't thoroughly reconciled.

Why not, for heaven's sake, if the players find it enjoyable? Hell, a goodly chunk of the game Traveller is BASED on that driving much of the characters' peripatetic habits.

Fist attack: are you assumed to be dual-wielding (as long as you have 2 functioning arms)?

Kind of where I'm at usually, but invariably there's SOME room for esthetics in the unused corners, etc. I *really* insist that all the necessary info for a character be on the front side of one sheet; the blank back is so constantly useful.

Because our RL religions don't have the ACTUAL GODS looking over our shoulders giving us ACTUAL MAGICAL POWERS...I think your analogy sort of breaks down...I suspect that likewise Gloranthan prohibitions are rather more than guidelines as well...? I don't believe I've ever heard of a Catholic or Islamic Spirit of Retribution, either?

Moral assassins, as well as chaos-worshipping people, or non-chaos worshipping monsters - well those are all ok though. #lunarforever #redmoonbestmoon #everythingisrelative

Completely agree. Going through it like this really just firmed my resolution to create a much more usable sheet. Sorry to whomever laid it out, but far too much space on this sheet is wasted when character sheet space is really rather precious. Simultaneously, opportunities for meaningful organization are missed. For example, listing all the possible weapon skills on a sheet is (to me) a waste of space...it's extremely unlikely that any character is going to be familiar with more than a handful of weapons. OTOH, if you are going to list all weapons, why not include a faint box around shared families to know at least generally where you have half-skill shared? There are better ways to present the armor/rune affinities section that still retain the (I think) aesthetically pleasing elements of the runes and body-layout. Your ap/hp are possibly going to be some of the most-commonly-referenced numbers - they shouldn't be literally the smallest text on the sheet. The RQG rules talk specifically about the myriad of gender-classifications available under Heort's Law, yet the character sheet offers only m/f for the entire history. Why not just have a "gender" text space which simultaneously takes up less room than unchecked boxes? Well....using PDF form editing software made me just more convinced that it's terrible. Making a new character sheet, I'd do it in excel or more likely google sheets just because it's far more portable, accessible to everyone, and (importantly) modifiable to other people's needs. When I first started doing the fields, I wanted to put them in sensible tab-order but OMG that would have taken 10x the time, so they aren't. The trick in routing info from a generator to a sheet is always open lists, like weapon skills. You're not filling in data on a fixed number of choices, the quantity of choices itself is a variable. I haven't dug into your generator's formulas but in my RQ3 monster generator, I sort of compromised by concatenating these things as text into text boxes...which had to be a last step because of course at that point they're unmanipulateable any further. The rest is just a glorified game of tetris, and prioritization by font/box size/utility. With google sheets I'm just not familiar with what capabilities it has in terms of aesthetics...and that's not trivial. Nobody wants a character sheet that's just a sterile field of numbers. I like the artistic elements in the RQG pdf, but I think they can be less-obtrusive and more economically integrated...if I can figure out how to do it. I'm probably going to start working on that this evening.

I can't imagine how they WOULDN'T be?

Which is why I personally have a hard time conceptualizing sorcery available to Theists at all; I see the magic you use as an embodiment of your worldview. IIRC some probably non-canonical Western source material mentioned that Malkioni see Theists as little more than deluded people bargaining with very powerful spirits, thinking those spirits are gods when "in fact" (to a sorcerer) the universe is filled with impersonal, objective forces (and why their "god" is invisible/unreachable). (It's also why we played that sorcery spells were truly blind - they could hit/hurt anyone, particularly area-effect spells. Divine spells, on the other hand, were guidable even within a confused melee: fire Orlanth's Lightning and it'll cheerfully avoid all your friends....unless one of them was perhaps sacrilegious or something, then it might tingle them a little.) It's also why sorcery is manipulateable and theistic spells really aren't - ones more of a rational result, the other is a gift from some remote being, already wrapped up and ready.

Checkboxes are big to make them easy to see. Edits/comments/suggestions - styopa1@gmail RQG Character Sheet 1.2.pdf

I understand they're ordinal, not cardinal numbers. But in the sense that they represent the time taken to do something, to determine the ORDER in which things are resolved, I'm simply saying that (in my very personal opinion) I see spell casting (even a 1 point spell) as taking a second, at least. Thus it should come after 'releasing a held arrow' which is nearly no time. Edit: Atgxtg said it more succinctly.

I agree with your expectation, but I think it should be the latter. Logically, casting a spell should take SOME time.

Agreed wholeheartedly.