simonh

I think the race example is pretty easy in the ‘highest roll wins but they both succeeded and rolled the same number’ situation actually, it was so close everybody disagrees on who won. Not quite sure how you do that in the levels of success method though. Both critical seems about right odds wise?

I haven’t bothered myself, my current iPad has plenty of storage, but back when I had a 16GB model I’d absolutely be doing that. I was constantly close to filling it up. I have a folder action on my Mac set up to shrink PDFs for me so I can do it with a drag-and-drop. Big PDFs go to the in folder, small ones appear in the out folder, but that’s mainly to make it easier to email scans of stuff nowadays.

Heresy! Gary Gygax will be turning in his grave, poor guy.

Ok, so the whole thing regarding wielding multiple weapons and on subsequent parries after the first needs completely rewriting then. I await with bated breath, but I'll stick with my interpretation above for now as IMHO it's just what the rules say and therefore the path of least resistance. This stuff is not easy. I've written some moves for dual-wield and two-handed weapon use for my Apocalypse World/Glorantha hack and balancing it is really awkward, even in a conceptually very simple system like that. See my Rune Hack post in the Inn, Grim Swordsman playbook. It took ages to figure out a way to make it work, and I'm still not sure about it.

It depends on the situation. If you view a shield as just an off-hand weapon, then if you are also attacking with your primary weapon as well, yes you are giving up your shield parry. What you are doing is lashing out with your shield and sword at the same time, regardless of your opponent's threat, creating an opening for an undefended attack. The only question then is did your opponent effectively make use of that opening? However if your are simply attacking and parrying with a shield (maybe your sword got broken), then I agree, you are just looking for openings to attack with your shield while maintaining defence. That should be no different from using any other weapon.

I've been involved in a thread discussing this on RPGNet and this is my take on it. I would re-phrase the two-weapon rule something like this: When wielding a weapon in each hand, the Adventurer may choose to attack with each, parry with each, or attack with one and parry with the other. This is barely even necessary, but helps clarify the 'why parry with both weapons' question, because the multiple parry rule already says that subsequent parries with the same weapon are at a cumulative -20. So the advantage of parrying with two weapons means your first two parries are at full chance, second two at -20 each, etc. Not a huge difference, but a difference, especially as you have two weapons your opponent needs to break to disarm you instead of just one. Another way to think about it is that, in the parry with each weapons option, instead of attacking and parrying with one weapon you are transferring your full chance parry to the second weapon. Then you're turning your attack with your primary weapon into a new full-chance parry. Both those full-chance parry actions are then subject to the multiple parry with the same weapon rule. What happens if you want to attack and parry with only one of the weapons? Then you're not wielding two weapons. Youre wielding one weapon and just holding the other. I really don't see why people wielding one weapon need to have their parries nerfed, per Sytopa's suggestion. They're already at a moderate disadvantage anyway. As for shields, they're just a funny shaped weapon, and normal subsequent parry rules and dual-wield rules should apply. I'd simply clarify this with a statement to that effect in the Parry rules section, and rephrase most (not all) of the rules that discuss fighting with weapon and shield to generalize them or drop them entirely. So the way you use a shield with your sword (or whatever), is via the two-weapon rule. All you need then is a separate special section of shield rules, to cover things like defence against missiles.

And I really do feel like an arse. Must try harder.

Yep, I screwed up. Sorry.

Yes, it’s impossible to play RQG without Cults of Prax. Can’t be done.

To be fair, Bieber is a Canuck.

A whole bunch more draft playbooks done. I'm riffing as I go so there are probably a few typos and duplicated elements. RuneHack Playbooks Suggestions welcome.

I like that, I was thinking about using a familiar to 'store' spells for quick casting but I really like the idea of sorcerers using scrolls. So the sorcerer creates a scroll for a spell capturing the potential for the spell to be cast rapidly, but thy must devote a point of Free INT to hold enough knowledge, linked to the expression of the spell in the scroll, in memory to be able to use it. Nice. Is the scroll expended in the casting though, or is the the Free INT released when doing so? What's the rationalisation for that? Perhaps the spell is actually cast into the scroll, which has to be destroyed in order to release it?

This is something I've been chipping away at for a while. An Apocalypse World/Monster of the Week hack for my favourite fantasy setting. The Thunder Rebel It's the first semi-complete, usable playbook. The full text of the hack so far is available here on Google Docs. I think the next step is to a couple of reference sheets with all the basic moves, then go on to do a minimum viable set of playbooks. Particular issues I'd like to ask for comments and suggestions on - The Background section is pretty new and a bit low effort. Suggestions welcome. The idea is to differentiate the character a bit into slightly different versions. I've not written up the rules for this properly, but the idea is you can only have one background at a time, but you can change backgrounds at almost any time without having to level up. So not really backgrounds, more current status or something. help! I need to put rules for Luck into the docs version, but it's basically as in MoTW. Need to rename it to something like Hero Points maybe? I've not put a huge amount of thought into the stat ratings options. Better ideas welcome.

Magic isn't an elemental rune and doesn't pertain purely to elements, while Moon is an element.

Joerg posted this in a thread here a few years ago: “Those Humakti and Yelmalian obligations/restrictions are pretty much a form of failed mysticism - reaching a certain state of consciousness and then reaping the reward, without any further advancement, except through further advancement in the cult hierarchy going hand in hand with a second, and deeper, iniitiatory experience. A true mystic wouldn't claim their reward but go on to master another of the restrictions. Both Humakt and Yelmalio are about intimate contact with Death, Humakt becoming it, Yelmalio avoiding it. Either way, this is quite close to a severe austerity as practiced by the Kralori (as has been told about Sheng Seleris' rise to mystic power).” As I said there, Joerg nailed it.

Ive really no problem with anything you’re say there Joerg. On the random table point, I think the general vibe I get from RQG is the tables are tools, not constraints. This is explicit in character generation background tables, but I’d never require a player to take a random geas they really objected to. As for poisons, and other edge cases isn’t having to deal with tricky issues part of the fun, and/or point?

Sure, and there a difference between simply being expected to and wanting to live up to the ideals of your religion, and making a magically binding pact to do so. I just don’t see why it’s so amazing that a Humakti without such a pact, and who is on the path to a higher status in the cult but not there yet, might still want to live up to those ideals.

Humakti aspire to certain standards of behaviour, and if you have the relevant geas that’s also backed up by a magically enforced pact. Lots of cults have standards of behaviour that aren’t enforced magically at all, so why do you think their followers bother paying attention to them?

I think multiple spells in a round is just if you are not engaged in melee. If you are, the restriction applies.

I think that's a different use of the term. In RQ3 each form of magic had a unique magical otherworldly companion form for advanced magicians. Shamans had their fetch, Theists had an Allied Spirit and sorcerers had Familiars which were more than just spirits bound into an animal. In RQG the Fetch and Allied Spirit exist, but Sorcerers don't have an equivalent otherworldly companion entity. Anyone can bind spirits into objects, and maybe into animals too, but that's not the same thing. Maybe there won't be any such thing in RQG, and clearly the term Familiar in particular is being used in a more general sense just meaning spirit bound into an animal.

I expect so. I think the reason we don't have rules for them in the core book is that there aren't any native Dragon Pass sorcerers with Familiars. If you look at who has sorcery in RQG, and therefore in Dragon Pass, it's lone philosophers and Lankor Mhy worshipers. I expect the secrets of creating a Familiar are known only to the Malkioni, and maybe some other sophisticated schools of sorcery.

I do hope that what we have now is complete and extensible enough to not need significant adaptation for human characters. However it’s not the end of the world if some new type of magic or such brings in a role for a different rune. As I’ve said before, all people have affinities with all the runes, they’re just not all represented in the game system. If we need to change that down the line it doesn’t necessarily mean these people are different in some fundamental way, it just means they have some magical technique or such that makes use of this rune connection that other people don’t know. Also it’s possible heroquesting might introduce new ways to ‘activate’ or use connections to new runes.

I understand that, but it doesn't make any difference to my argument. It's still a one trick pony augment. It's also still the Law Rune augmenting something you're doing based on the Law rune already simply by the nature of it being sorcery. I wouldn't let someone use their Air Rune affinity to augment casting a Rune spell they're casting using their Air Rune rating either on the same principle. We know that and are not disputing it, under the hood that's what's going on. We're just saying we haven't seen an interesting way to represent that at the game system level yet. Given a cool, interesting use of a Law Rune rating in the sorcery system and good way to represent that ability in the rest of the system (is it opposed by anything? How do you determine a rating?, etc) I think we'd all be on board with you.

And we're back to my point on this. In what situations would you not use Law to ensorcel things? If characters are going to do the exact same augment every single time, that's just not a useful or interesting mechanic. Yes, I do think sorcerers use their connection to the law rune when they cast sorcery spells. I think they do it all the time and it's absolutely fundamental to doing all sorcery. In fact it may not be possible to do sorcery at all without invoking the law rune. The problem is how do we make that interesting? Sorcerers doing a law rune augment every single time they use a sorcery skill just isn't interesting. Better to just assume it's subsumed it into the existing skills and mechanics.

I'll counter with a question of my own. Can you name any situation where a Shaman character would not use their Spirit rune affinity to enhance their summoning ability, or similar shamanic abilities relating to the spirit world and spirits? In general, if an ability only exists to enhance one particular other skill, or only one particular kind of activity, then it should not be a separate ability. It should be subsumed into the character's rating in that ability or set of abilities. The shaman's relationship to the spirit rune is a deeply intrinsic part of their ability to deal with the spirit world. Therefore it's already factored into their relevant abilities. Finally, how would non-shaman characters use Sprit and Law? It seems like they'd only be there to be used by shamans and sorcerers, or they'd always be used just in very specific kinds of circumstances. They're both one-trick ponies. Law is also duplicative of runes we already have. Law is immutable - but we already have stasis. Law brings order - but we already have Harmony. Law brings Justice, but we already have the Man Rune representing culture and civilisation. I'm entirely open to persuasion on this of course, but any new runes need to be able to do useful work for us not already done by some other part of the system.