styopa

Did you ever check Runequest Cities - that had a nice downtime resolver too.

It would certainly need some machining around the edges to fit in RQG, but it's got good interesting ideas, certainly.

https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/49956/runequest-cities

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Runequest-Cities-Chaosium-Midkemia-Press-Avalon-Hill-RQ-Great-MegaExtras-/352588458346  ...although at $50 on ebay, ask Anton nicely and you can probably borrow mine. 

On 8/1/2019 at 3:00 PM, Akhôrahil said:

This seems pretty shockingly powerful.

Apparently books are far better than the best possible teacher for the same period of study?

Would you still get the bonuses if you hired someone to read it for you?

Once you try to run them in your campaign, you'll pretty quickly note that RQ2 scenarios contain some rather overpowered loot that wasn't that hard to gather.  Not a lot of regards for balance over long-span campaigns.

Rather than flat gains, it would make more sense that books would give someone multiple checks (like 5 or more)  against their lore skill like a skill gain roll...this would mean they could still be big gains for people who knew nothing about the subject, and still be relatively treasured by experts.

(spoilers)

24 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

 there's SO MUCH TIDDY in Glorantha. It's not specifically lewd except in the designs of certain deities, it's just "welcome to the Bronze Age, I am a fertility priestess". Player characters of Earth Goddesses (not the Death Rune kind) are portrayed with Minoan buxom clothing, including in recent publications. I think the latest Runequest has quite a few if I'm remembering correctly.

Hell, the quickstart is pretty much about 

4 hours ago, Imryn said:

The word "Matriarchy" was created as the inverse of a "Patriarchy". It was not created to represent some other different structure or way of doing things.

I'm not sure we necessarily agree on what a fact is, but I'm pretty sure you don't get to completely make crap up.  

You might want to look up Dunning-Kruger effect.

22 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

They are worshipping all the time.

10 hours ago, Imryn said:

Matriarchy: A social structure where the majority of positions of power are occupied by women. There may be a few areas where men can hold positions of power but these would be limited and there would be a pronounced prejudice, and probably laws, against men gaining power outside these niches.

Except that depends ENTIRELY on your definition of what a "position of power" IS, doesn't it?  Why, for example, are you assuming a female society would be as exclusionary of males as primitive male ones are of females?  Sorry, but your model sounds more like "government by men with mammaries and vaginas" than actual women.  Read the wiki that's been linked; many feminist scholars defend the argument that the "opposite" of a patriarchy is an egalitarian society because that's what women tend to. (IMO, I think that's a wee bit idealizing women as being somehow morally superior...not sure I'd go that far.)

Man sits on throne, is ostensibly king.  Woman make all his decisions, and decides unilaterally what woman will marry his son, so that she knows someone competent will be making his decisions.  Man literally just parrots the orders she gives him: "matriarchy"?  The women have all the power and control, but don't wear the vestments of power.  Meaningful?

As I said previously, to me it's pretty simplistic to believe that the only possible 'valid' model of matriarchy is some weird negative-mirror-image of male structures.  Presumably where women are the generals and wave the swords around?

I hope I'm not offending anyone to say: that's simply not how most women seem to work, collaborate, or build power structures.  Women are intrinsically different; they are far more verbal than physical, far more collaborative than competitive, more manipulative of social orders than outright violent, more likely to kill with poison than a club to the head in a stand-up fight.

There's literally no reason (except to defend this strawman argument we're having) to presume that societies in which women have control would be in any way structured like men's.

cf: female forms of power and the myth of male dominance: a model of female/male interaction in peasant society

https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/ae.1975.2.4.02a00090

Quote

On the other hand, within the context of peasant society, women control at least the major portion of important resources and decisions. In other words, if we limit our investigation to the relative actual power of peasant men and women, eliminating for the moment those sources of power from the outside world which are beyond the reach of either peasant men or women, women appear to be generally more powerful.

or

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1521&context=cmc_theses

11 minutes ago, g33k said:

Well, even an "inexpensive copyshop" version calls it a "print run" once you get past a few copies...

I know you weren't entirely serious, but truly: I'd rather they spend that time/$ pushing to get the books out.

On 7/28/2019 at 10:45 PM, Rick Meints said:

I could bring some, if any are unsold after Gen Con. The thing is, all the joy in packing an extra bag with 20 kilos of books in it lost all of its appeal long ago.

That may sound uncaring, but I lugged books around like that for almost 20 years worth of conventions overseas. 

Here sir, let me help you from the kindness of my heart, and overwhelming generosity: I will give you a fedex code and you can simply send me a book, saving your poor shoulder and luggage the strain.

Because I'm just a great guy, that's why.

On 7/29/2019 at 9:06 AM, g33k said:

Hmmm.

Any chance at just doing a whole new Eurocentric print-run, picking it up locally?

I ask/suggest for the sake of fans Over There, and for Rick's back... GenCon unlikely for me, and The Kraken impossible!

Er, are you seriously talking about a print run ... of the preprint version?

Seems like if they were going to make a print run of it...that would be the print version, no?

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Obviously not - didn't I mention how we clearly have them in Glorantha? What I was reacting to was the idea that they somehow have to exist, in light of how matriarchies are basically non-existent in our world.  

Seriously?  Who said they "have" to exist?  I said:

It's the interfaces that are where the interesting shit happens - in chemistry, biology, and even in cultures.  There are going to be cultures that are 'men-have-all-the-rights-and-women-have-none' (I was going to say 'hidebound traditionalists' but that would be pejorative and frankly unfair), there are obviously cultures where women have the same unquestioned dominance.  There are going to be slaveholding societies and societies that react to slavery with revulsion.

All this over saying "there are" instead of "there could be"? 

Get a flippin' hobby, man: the whole sentence was a hypothetical.  And wasn't even the point, TBH.  

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Again, obviously not (I can't say I think you're arguing in good faith here, putting up such straw men). What if would take would be for women to systematically and definitively dominate the society politically and economically, something which clearly wasn't the case.

Not sure that you're entitled to conclusively define socio-anthropological terms.  Among actual professionals, the definition of matriarchy is a debate that's gone on at least since 1924.  

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Did women dominate the economic, political and military order within the Hopi? Were the chiefs almost exclusively female? If so, you may have a point. Your quot, in fact, makes it look fairly egalitarian. "gender roles ... are egalitarian [...] Hopi women "participate fully in ... political decision-making."" - that's not what sounds like a matriarchy to me!

Your argument basically devolves down to the No True Scotsman fallacy.  You ad-hoc some narrow definition in your head, and then insist that according to THAT, nothing fits.  Personally I prefer using words with the meaning generally attributed to them by the world at large. 

To your standard, I certainly concede: you win the solipsism award.

7 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Name two such matriarchal societies (I'm saying two because there is one that you could maybe, maybe, get away with). 

So if I understand what you're saying, it's "we can't imagine any matriarchies in Glorantha because none exist* on earth historically"?

I don't want to put words in your mouth, just want to make sure I understand your assertion clearly.

*to your definition.  You seem to have disregarded my entire point that matriarchy may be exercised in a form that isn't just "Queens instead of Kings".   

First, the entire definition of "what is a matriarchy?" is pretty hotly debated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matriarchy  Was Imperial Russia under Catharine the Great a matriarchy?  Or Austria under Maria Theresa?  Both women held - insofar as their countries recognized such - absolute power.

And in response to Shiningbrow's comment about the Hopi, for example:

5 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I believe you're confusing matrilinearity with matriarchy, just as I warned about.

Wikipedia: "Most anthropologists hold that there are no known societies that are unambiguously matriarchal."

Of course, this is not the case in Glorantha.

You do understand that one sentence in wiki isn't authoritative, right?  To be clear, wiki doesn't make me one either, but this (for the Hopi) sounds like a matriarchy by ANY definition:

Quote

The Hopi (in what is now the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona), according to Alice Schlegel, had as its "gender ideology ... one of female superiority, and it operated within a social actuality of sexual equality."[86] According to LeBow (based on Schlegel's work), in the Hopi, "gender roles ... are egalitarian .... [and] [n]either sex is inferior."[87][k] LeBow concluded that Hopi women "participate fully in ... political decision-making."[88][l] According to Schlegel, "the Hopi no longer live as they are described here"[89] and "the attitude of female superiority is fading".[89] Schlegel said the Hopi "were and still are matrilinial"[90] and "the household ... was matrilocal".[90] Schlegel explains why there was female superiority as that the Hopi believed in "life as the highest good ... [with] the female principle ... activated in women and in Mother Earth ... as its source"[91] and that the Hopi "were not in a state of continual war with equally matched neighbors"[92] and "had no standing army"[92] so that "the Hopi lacked the spur to masculine superiority"[92] and, within that, as that women were central to institutions of clan and household and predominated "within the economic and social systems (in contrast to male predominance within the political and ceremonial systems)",[92] the Clan Mother, for example, being empowered to overturn land distribution by men if she felt it was unfair,[91] since there was no "countervailing ... strongly centralized, male-centered political structure".[91]

Not to mention our own, personal matriarchies:

5 hours ago, g33k said:

Maybe there are Mostali human-interface units that can be put into a "hibernation mode" for long durations, so they can be re-used later?

What if, with the collapse of jrustela, there was a ragtag fleet of ships, merchants, traders, pleasure craft, all fleeing the sudden and total destruction of their home? 50,298 survivors.  They were shepherded, led, and protected by the lone remaining jrustelan warship, a mothballed old vessel formerly commanding the Brithos Service Group, aka BSG-1.  But there were exactly such Mostali agents aboard, unknown even to each other...They look and feel human. Some are programmed to think they are human....

3 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Our society isn't "in antiquity".

So ?

I mean, I don't disagree at all with the assertion that slavery was basically universal in the ancient world. But again my reply would be...so? 

Edit: and if we're splitting hairs, he referred to matriarchies in antiquity, not so much slavery. 

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

Why would these exist? On some kind of 'fairness' grounds? Now, Glorantha does have these, but the real world didn't. There were no matriarchies in antiquity (or ever, really), and as far as I know, no society that had a problem with slavery.

On interesting dramatic grounds, if for no other reason.   It's a fantasy world, one can be creative.

I'd dispute the 'no matriarchies ever'.  Sure, if all you're looking for is a black/white feminized inversion of the Handmaid's Tale, no, you probably won't find it.  Realities of child bearing and sexual dimorphism (which is quite vehemently disputed as even existing in Glorantha in these very boards:

) make that prima facie pretty unlikely.  BUT, I'd assert, even in our dimorphic real world there are ample examples of systems (maybe at scales different from 'kingdoms' but instead clans, families, etc) where women make/made most of the important decisions alone or collectively, or exert control over those decisions to a degree that one would be hard-pressed to say isn't functionally matriarchy.  Women don't tend to rule by force, but by persuasion, insight, manipulation, and intellect; why would their systems of government copy the relatively clumsy, unsubtle 'do what I want or I hit you on head' male examples?

Re slavery: Our society today pretty seriously has a problem with slavery, no?  At least to classical models of it; variations where they sew Nike tennis shoes are more tolerated. 

10 minutes ago, g33k said:

I don't think the cultures-at-large have a sufficient understanding of humans to be able to adequately produce a close-enough-to-be-useful pseudo-human.

Not that would fool any human, certainly.

I think one of the compelling parts of Glorantha are the Elder Races being TRULY alien in everything from outlook to physiology.  IMO they need to be more mercilessly inimical to humans than presented in most of the game materials to date.  I have elves that like plants care nothing for their seeds, reproducing in bulk to outstrip the creatures that eat them, not "protecting" each seed as if individually precious.  This makes them frightningly merciless to human children (and likewise, willing to remorselessly sacrifice their own young if it helps the collective) and a wonderful "oh shit this isn't Dungeons and Dragons, is it?" moment for players.

43 minutes ago, g33k said:

 it often really IS "the myth is driving it" -- both the pieces as we expect them, and the pieces that very-much are UNexpected.

Oh I certainly get that, I just don't see a useful/meaningful reason to pull conceptual rugs out from under players for no compelling reason (IMO) because of unintended consequences.

Boiling down to RPG Meta:

RPGs are fundamentally consensual stories.  When the GM says "you come walking into town on the dusty south road and see a handful of buildings on either side of the lane" already the players are broadly building a visual "set' in which their characters exist.  Unless you specify otherwise, they're compelled to make assumptions to fill in the unstated blanks - the sun is in the sky, not sitting on a nearby hilltop; the dusty road is from dirt/gravel and not ground-up--beetle-carapaces, down to details of the scene like water dripping downward & smoke rising through chimneys.

I'm not a supergenius; I can't imagine all the possible consequences from changing a fundamental physical constant, and it's entirely possible my players might either a) intuit something clever using a reasonable assumption from the real world and want to apply it in-game, or b.) find some unanticipated loophole resulting from an asserted fantasization of physics, chemistry, whatever that ends up being ridiculously overpowered.  Some GMs say that's gamey rules-lawyering by players; I'm the opposite: I'd blame poor rules-writing (and beta testing) that leaves such loopholes unanticipated.  (cf Bag of Rats problems https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/124869/what-is-a-bag-of-rats don't come from exploitative rules-lawyers, they're born from lazy rules writers)

And I frankly despise telling a player "oh, no, yeah: that seems like it would make sense but you can't do that in this universe." (the negative version of "a wizard did it").  Bluntly, that's just poor worldbuilding.

I prefer real-life where possible as it has the lowest number of potential loopholes, and maximum breadth for player creativity without them having to wonder 'oh wait, is that even possible in (X) fantasy universe?'  It's just flippin' simpler.

It's one reason I'm so ardently in favor of well thought out, logically consistent magic rules.  The more arbitrary they are, the less predictable they are OUTSIDE the margins of the rulebook and imo that stifles players that want to be creative.   

Sorry if I sound ardent but this is pretty core to how I approach GMing a game.  

2 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I don't get it - you quoted some specific suggestions for actual explanations, and then paraphrased them as a general dismissal of the question.

Not a dismissal of the question, a(n apparently-failed) mocking of the common mode of dismissal.

I guess an example of Poe's Law.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

We might be past it (with major reservations, there are plenty of people I know who still think that way), but Orlanthi society isn't. I don't want all fantasy societies to be postmodern liberal progressive utopias.

It's the interfaces that are where the interesting shit happens - in chemistry, biology, and even in cultures.  There are going to be cultures that are 'men-have-all-the-rights-and-women-have-none' (I was going to say 'hidebound traditionalists' but that would be pejorative and frankly unfair), there are obviously cultures where women have the same unquestioned dominance.  There are going to be slaveholding societies and societies that react to slavery with revulsion.  There are going to be societies that react against homosexuality with hatred, and others that embrace all sorts of relationship options formally.  The seams where these norms intersect (and overlap) seethe with scenario hooks and complications.  

Take some bog standard, rather dull scenario -  some cows were stolen, hunt down the thieves and bring them back.  Now 'juice' it with the complication that it's actually a small band of women escaped from servitude trying to survive in hiding in 'grey lands' between clans.  Maybe your clan doesn't like slavery, but is honor bound with nearby tribes to return these slaves to their owners.  MUCH more interesting, to me.  The sort of adventure that might stick in the minds of the players for a while.

What I'd like to see is ALL of these cultural choices addressed respectfully and thoroughly and objectively as possible.  I *really* don't want to see certain dogmas picked as 'winners' to be celebrated and others as 'losers' to be shamed.  Glorantha is a world writ of pure moral relativism in its very bones; it'd be hypocritical to only-sort-of embrace it based on our own cultural blinders.

22 hours ago, g33k said:

And you still bold the word "really" and ask for absolutes?

There's the money quote for the whole thread.  

And trolling?  I might *partly* raise my hand on that except (personally) I believe trolling as a thing has everything to do with intent - being hurtful, deprecatory, etc. and starting fights.  

I rewrote my comments here a couple of times very specifically to cull out begged questions and assumptions that likely went without saying in 'my' upbringing of the 70s and 80s but are certainly no longer assumable today.  

As much as I admit I'm a hidebound traditionalist, I see the interesting roleplaying and game-world opportunities of gender malleability and the "flexibility of context" intrinsic to the water rune.  OTOH, as Ladygolem adroitly noted, the approach here if anything has been a bit Dumbledore-y.  (For those who don't get the reference, it's where JK Rowling said "oh, of course Dumbledore is gay" without once alluding to it in 7 books or 1.08 million words of prose)?  If that's where we're going, I'd embrace it more than just having one of the characters wear a fake beard.  As motherhood is essential to the nature of the cult, why wouldn't then male god-talkers of Ernalda wear shiny golden faux-breast pectorals as well?

8 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

The "crazy" elf/dwarf/dragonewt ruling has proven pretty useful over the years because, well, that's how most players play them.  Especially players new to Glorantha.  (Curiously, Uz seem to work just fine for most newbies, though they usually don't want to play them.)  But for seasoned players who've boned up on the Elder Races, I'd welcome characters with backstories that emphasise a reason for cooperation and mingling with human society, and generally behaving like a human without being an outcast or slouching into the "young Prince Hal" trope.  Even a dragonewt may have an inscrutable reason for mimicking human behavior for several years before resuming more traditionally draconic pursuits.

By that you mean boobs, yeah?  I guess the Man Rune is pretty figurative in that regard.  And maybe, as you suggest, it goes toward supporting my theory that spiritually active forests occasionally grow PC elves as interfaces with their human neighbors and cultivate them to human's behavioral and anatomical expectations.

!i!

"The world's magical so don't assume your real-world expectations apply here."

aka

the "A wizard did it" excuse.

(stock explanation for anything in Glorantha that doesn't conform to someone's preconceptions)

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

True. I was just clarifying the situation.

Personally, I don't have a problem with cult restrictions... They all have them!

Then are the gender flexibilities really meaningful ?  Or is gender flexibility as asserted in the rules more like "you can say you're a different gender and we'll all play along, but it doesn't matter when it actually matters"?

That seems trite at the best, disingenuous at the worst.

How is "real" gender even determinable?    Is it simple physiognomy, meaning a (magically relatively common) shape change ACTUALLY changes the individuals gender, or is there some secret magical "setting" that knows what gender they really are?  What if they've been shifted most of their lives and live entirely as another gender?  Are there chromosomes or tests for such in Glorantha?

I'm confused by the various approaches to gender in RQG.

On the one hand, the book clearly states that gender is rather fluid, and that Orlanthi (for example) recognize 4 sexes and 6 genders.  This doesn' timply that there are social or cultural restrictions not otherwise mentioned ie I expect that a female in a male role is REALLY treated like a male in all respects.

But then there are many cults that express gender restrictions (Ernalda, Maran Gor, Babeester Gor, Yelm, etc) - are these then in reality open to any sex, if it expresses itself truly as a different gender?  Could an unmarried, male-sexed individual that expressed them selves as female gender then freely join Maran Gor?  Doesn't the Ernaldan Priest(ess) requirement of having a healthy baby sort of disable this gender expression flexibility in a sort of binary way?  Ie it'd be like a cult requiring having an actual penis.

On 7/24/2019 at 2:54 PM, Ian Absentia said:

I'm digging about for a reference, but isn't there some (potentially non-canon) assertion that player-character Aldryami -- the ones who look and act essentially like humans -- may have been grown by a forest specifically as "ambassadors" to other Man Rune species?

!i!

[Edit: I may be conflating this with the rationale behind Mostali player-characters.  However, sauce for the goose...]

Certainly this is possible.  Canonically I believe such elves are just basically considered crazy (rootless) elves by the others.

On 7/24/2019 at 1:51 PM, g33k said:

Maybe get some art (I think some of the good Gloranthan artists have DeviantArt and similar accounts, so you can call up typical images) to show at the gaming table?

 

There's an even more ample trove of screen shots from Guild Wars 2 players, their Sylvari are very much how I imagine Aldryami look:

some more plantlike than others of course: here's the page for their art direction https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ngogr LOTS of good stuff there.

Not as much time available to write an overlong essay on a creature this week, sorry.  So this week it's a mechanic: CALTROPS.

From Wiki: "A caltrop (also known as caltrap, galtrop, cheval trap, galthrap, galtrap, calthrop, jackrock or crow's foot) is an antipersonnel weapon made up of two or more sharp nails or spines arranged in such a manner that one of them always points upward from a stable base (for example, a tetrahedron)."    In Glorantha they are known to be deployed by the Blue and Red Dragoons of Hwarin Dalthippa, as well as Hon-Eel's Standfast regiment, but their ability to cheaply defend ground and deter pursuit mean their use is widespread by everything from mercenary companies to adventuring groups to small steadings expecting imminent attack.  (IRL: They were used often by the Romans, the Greeks (more to the era of RQG) called them tribalos.)  

Caltrops as a collective term are an ancient weapon used for two purposes: primarily, to injure an opponent (or their mount) while crossing a specific piece of ground.  Success in this role relies primarily on surprise, or the victim's lack of awareness that caltrops are even there.  Once this is known, they are still useful in deterring traversal of that ground or, significantly slowing an attacker that nevertheless pushes through them.  Even if they aren't actually deployed, any intelligent attacker aware that the defender has used caltrops will likely advance much more cautiously and slowly than otherwise.  They can be devastating against mounted troops.

Use: deploying  caltrops is easy - 10-12 can be tossed down to adequately cover a ~1m diameter circle in 1R.    The ground must be at least the hardness of firm sand (caltrops are often used to great effect in shallow fords of rivers without a fast current).   Retrieving such deployed caltrops takes maybe 5m for the same area BUT on any but the most obvious of surfaces must make a SEARCH check to recover them.  If they've inflicted harm on any opponent, only a d100% of them will be recoverable in any case (the rest scattered/destroyed by the activity).

Alternately, these rules can also represent more 'setpiece' similar defenses like 'punji' stakes (small sharpened stakes set firmly upright in the ground) which can be used in much broader conditions like soft ground and grass, but also take a lot longer to set up effectively - assuming the stakes themselves are already prepared, setting them takes a good 5 minutes' work per 1m radius for one person. 

Caltrops are usually visible to some degree and will automatically be seen by aware and alert victims before they move into danger; even unaware targets should usually get a scan check to notice them just before entering the danger area.  Stakes are easier to hide generally, meaning victims must be actively looking for them to get any chance to detect.  In either case, quadrupling the placement time and making a successful CONCEAL check will force the victims subsequent SCAN checks to be opposed - that is, they must succeed AND beat the CONCEAL check to spot them in time.

Note: this assumes 10 caltrops/stakes per 1m circle, roughly.  Less than this means each attack check only has a proportional chance to not even happen: if someone only spreads 6 caltrops, then each attack check has only a 6 in 10 chance of needing to be resolved at all.

Resolution:  Any victim moving through a caltrop'd area has a chance of being attacked by them.  Roll 1d4 vs the number of meters the target is moving per SR (typically 3); if the roll is that number or less, they will be attacked by the caltrops.  If the caltrops aren't obvious, THIS ATTACK IS ACTUALLY SECRET: A victim not actually attacked generally doesn't know they're there at all. A victim stopping in a caltrop area (if they're not attacked, or survive the attack) is fine if they just stand there, particularly if they know caltrops are present.  They could, for example, cast a spell or probably shoot a missile weapon without consequence.  Movement to then leave the area would likely suffer a chance of being attacked again.  Thrown missiles (that take a step, for example) may provoke an attack check, GM's discretion.  Going from prone to standing in a caltrop area may provoke an attack check at GM's discretion.  

Modifiers to this attack check: 

• SIZ4- or prone(crawling) : Normally not affected by caltrops at all.
• SIZ 5-8 creatures: meters/round is effectively -1
• SIZ 24+ meters/round effectively +1

Note: falling prone in a caltrop hex is a bad idea.  The victim automatically suffers 1d3 caltrop attack per 10 full points of SIZ. (Can hit any location.).  If the victim knows caltrops are present and is still otherwise capable, they may dodge each of the caltrops' attacks successively.   Note that falling into the caltrops however, physical armor value vs those attacks is fully effective. 

(Example: a SIZ 6 dog moving 3 through a caltrop zone would effectively check against a 2 (3-1=2) or less to cause an attack.)

Attack: Roll a d10 for each of the target's legs: highest roll is the leg attacked.  Ties mean multiple attacks.  Base Chance of harm is 25%+(target's SIZ*3).  It can special, it can crit.  It can impale.  It cannot ever be parried nor usually dodged (unless the character is falling into them, as above)  

Damage: 1d4+1d(target's SIZ/3)  Physical Leg AP only count 1/2 vs this attack unless falling into the area as noted above.  Note that caltrops proper are almost never poisoned (too likely to hurt the deployer); punji stakes however are very often poisoned or smeared with other harmful substances to increase their efficacy.  The cascade effect of injury, poison, then falling prone while in the field of danger can make even non-fatal poisons like paralyzation or powerful narcotics extraordinarily dangerous to victims.

An intelligent creature moving into a known-caltrop'd/punji'd area may 'clear a path' for others doing nothing else that round.  Subsequent movement by the same route through that area by anyone would ignore the caltrop effects.  If the caltrops were well-hidden, then anyone following must make a SCAN check to see the safe route.

(Example of a bad day: Rurik, hired to clear out some nearby trollkin, decides to sneak into their cave complex during the day when they're probably sleeping.  They are indeed sleeping, but the clever leader, a Value Trollkin, set up some caltrops in shadows of the cave entrance - he was afraid the bear that laired here would come back.  He only had 7 caltrops though, so the coverage is short.  He spent the time placing them, to make them well-hidden with a decent CONCEAL roll.  Rurik is moving quietly but also wants to get in the cave quickly, is sneaking at half skill (moving 2m/SR).  He is not expecting caltrops, but they (as opposed to stakes) ALWAYS give the victim a chance to spot them ahead of time.  GM rolls his scan check to see if he beats the Value Trollkin's earlier conceal roll - failed; he doesn't spot them in time.  As he moves through the caltrops, the GM rolls d3 vs his m/SR and rolls a 1 - he is attacked!   Because the field is only 7 caltrops, the GM first rolls a d10...3, so the attack DOES happen. A roll of 8, 9, or 10 would have meant he strolled past the caltrops with no effect.  Note....as they were hidden, this means he wouldn't have even known they were there!  This could have been unpleasant when he tried to exit...

Rolling to see which leg is affected, he rolls 2d10....he rolls a tie, meaning both legs are attacked separately.  This is not Rurik's day!  The caltrops attack at 25%+Ruriks SIZ(14)*3.  25+(14*3)= 67% attack.  Orlanth is with him - the attack for his left leg misses!  The attack for the right leg specials- oh no!  Damage is 1d4+1d(SIZ/3).  SIZ is 14/3 = 4.6 = 4, so the damage is 1d4+1d4, or 2d4+2d4 with a special, ouch. Rurik is wearing 6 points of armor and wisely cast protection 3 before he entered.  Physical armor only counts as 3 points, but the protection spell is fully effective, giving him 6AP vs the damage.   The damage is nasty, 12pts, enough to exceed his AP and unfortunately his leg hp as well, causing him to fall prone.  Uh oh! 

His SIZ of 14 means he takes 14/10 = 1d3 attack to a random location (but against them, his AP would be the full 6+3 so barring a crit, he's probably pretty safe...  Assuming he survives that, he is now prone in the field of caltrops.  His GM will determine if that made enough noise to wreck his sneaking, and if there is even a single trollkin guard he will probably be in a difficult spot....it's RuneQuest, going alone was pretty dumb anyway.)

Cliff's Notes version of the above: Caltrops/Stakes:  Attack base 25%+target’s SIZ*3; Damage 1d4+(Target SIZ/3); Movement through: roll d4 for each hex moved through; if it’s less than target's effective move, target's random leg(s) are attacked.  Physical AP only count half vs this attack. Fall Prone in:  1 attack per 10 SIZ (FRU) of fallen, AP is full value.  Normally 10 caltrops/stakes per hex; if less than, then fractional chance of everything.

Edit: corrected some typos addressing movement to suit rqg's approach.

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

The counter to that was "but you always have to check a table"... Statistically, that's likely to be required only about 5% of the time if you don't have it written down. (5%, because some numbers are obvious! Like 01, 02, 99, 00... It's only required when the math isn't straightforward)

IIRC in RQG at least, after the initial learning period, the only tables that you 'have to' consult would be the fumble results?  Or?