olskool

On 8/10/2019 at 2:29 AM, Mankcam said:

Yeah this is the way we played BRP/RQ - the Hit Location values are 'thresholds', not actual Hit Points. The damage still comes off the character's Total Hit Points, but the Limb HP are just thresholds for damage, working pretty much as you described.

The main thing for me as a GM is that I found it easier to track one set of Hit Points for the NPCs/Opponents (their Total Hit Points), and this was one less thing for me to keep up with. It was also great for the NPC stat block - I didn't actually need to list their individual hit locations, I just referred to my GM screen which had the intial limb HP values according to the chart. This takes up so much less space with the stat blocks

The game plays a little less grissily than the RQ RAW, as mainly limb locations will get disabled rather than hacked off.  So it is a bit less gruesome, although opponents still die the same when their Total Hit Points are reduced. Whenever something really gory happens in the combat, it really is a highlight, and it is often the result of a critical hit.

I am in two frames of mind whether I'll play RQG with declining Limb HP, or whether I'll just return to my comfortable old Limb Threshold rule. 

Great minds think alike.  Reach the HP threshold and the limb is TEMPORARILY disabled.  2 X HP and the limb is possibly permanently disabled (if a CON roll is failed). 3 X HP and the limb IS maimed or amputated.  In RQ2, we also used a sort of "threshold system" for the total HP but we liked our Runequest "gritty." 

1/4 HP in damage = Lightly Wounded with no effect.

1/4 HP to 1/2 HP = Moderately Wounded. +1 to SR.  Move reduced to 75%.  -1 to Characteristics when using the resistance chart or doing rolls.

1/2 HP to 3/4 HP = Seriously Wounded. +2 to SR.  Move reduced to 50%. -2 to Characteristics when using them.  *Skills reduced one Level to 3/4 (X0.75). 

3/4 HP to 0 HP = Critically Wounded.  +4 to SR.  Move reduced to 25%. -4 to Characteristics when using them.  *Skills reduced two Levels to 1/2 (x0.5).

Negative HP = Unconscious and dying. CON roll to regain consciousness.  Move 10% (crawling). -5 to characteristic tests. *Skills reduced tree Levels to 1/4 (X0.25).  

Negative HP over CON = DEATH.

* We recorded our Skills on the sheet with the following "Difficulty Levels" and just "shifted difficulty" up or down as modifications to a skill during play as it was much faster than doing math.  Those Levels were: 

Easy (2 X Skill)

Routine (1.5 X Skill)

Average (Skill) 

Fairly Difficult (0.75 X Skill)

Difficult (0.5 X Skill)

Formidable (0.25 X Skill)

Impossible (0.1 X Skill)  

On 8/9/2019 at 4:28 AM, Mugen said:

POW is the problematic one in games with POW economy (such as RuneQuest). IMHO, Other characteristics don't change that often to really be a problem.

A Simple solution is to put POW outside of skill category modifiers.

Mine was to simply get rid of most characteristics except POW and CON, for Magic Points and Hit Points. Everything else is a skill.

I substitute POW with WILL for mental strength.  POW then becomes a "derived value" (based on WILL) like HP.

 I am reminded of Fred Ward's Shinanju instructor in the movie Remo Williams, The Adventure Begins. 

Even now I can see him telling Fred "You move like a pregnant Yak!"

I worked armored cars for nearly two decades and I have NEVER understood the weight of coins in RPGs.  Most medieval coins were alloyed just like modern ones.  This significantly reduces the weight of a coin.  I would just use a modern US Quarter's weight as the base weight for coinage.  You get 180 Quarters total in a single Kilogram (coins are weighed to verify counts at the Federal Reserve).  You could also use a slightly heavier weight to account for the coins containing more precious metal in them than modern US coins.  I'd use a number like 150 coins per kg... a nice easily remembered number.

    If you like BIG coins just use the APPROXIMATE weight of a Half Dollar which would give you about 100 coins per kg.     

11 hours ago, Zit said:

May be using the Treasure Factor as in RQ2 could help ?

Zit's spot on.   Just calculate the Treasure Factor for the party members and then make sure the monsters AT LEAST total that amount of TF.  I say at least because a party with good synergy can survive a 200% of their TF advantage with some difficulty and routinely defeat up to 150% of their TF just through cooperation.  I used this system to balance games so much that I even changed the name to Threat Factor. 

On 5/13/2019 at 1:24 PM, Kloster said:

I would prefer a "reimagining" of RQ3 but I'm sure I will not got it because it would be too expensive to do. That's why yes, I would participate in a kickstarter for a re-edition of RQ3. This is better than nothing, my Avalon Hill print is in a bad shape (too much use) and my french printings are in a slightly better shape. In addition, that would be a searchable PDF.

I'd definitely back a Chaosium reprint.   I wonder how much SAN we lost looking at AH's artwork though?💀

16 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

I guess it highly depends on what you are trying to hack. If it is not a fantasy game then the best options in the family are probably Mythras, BGB and Revolution d100.

If it is a fantasy game, then the best options are Mythras and RuneQuest 3.

For the purpose of the poll and the options given, I have choosen RQ6

By the way, I would participate in a kickstarter for a re edition of RQ3.

"I would participate in a kickstarter for a re-edition of RQ3."  

WAIT!?  Do you mean an actual REPRINT of the Avalon Hill game or a "reimagining" of RQ3 by Chaosium?  If it's a literal reprint of Avalon Hill's work I'd probably decline.  Aside from the confusion in some of the rules in the base edition, there was artwork in the AH editions that once viewed, one simply cannot "unsee."  The Dwarf, Troll, and Elf in the Elder Races book come to mind immediately.  IF Chaosium did a re-edited version, I might bite.  

1 hour ago, kiryamo said:

It does not seem very realistic that a 21 years old adventurer has starting skill levels of 80, 90 or 100% - or even more! If the proficiency in a skill is measured between 0 and 100, how is it possible that any 21 year old warrior has achieved technical perfection in the handling of a weapon, for example?

I think the system is not well balanced, and maybe it would be necessary to re-establish the RQ3-limit of 75% + modifier.

Consider the case of a 21-year-old US Army soldier who joins at 18 right out of high school.  If that soldier signed up after 911, he could have more than 2 years of actual combat experience and already be an NCO (SGT or possibly even an SSGT with a waiver and a good career record).  It takes about 6 months "in country" to get to a passable level of experience as a soldier on deployment.  By the time that soldier has 2 years in combat, he (or she) would be an expert in the "soldiering skills" needed in the combat zone.  Therefore, "Experience" has very little to do with a person's "chronological age" and more to do with their exposure to danger in a combat zone.

"Wisdom is a product of Experience and Experience is often the product of poor choices."  

                                                                                                       Mark Twain

I run a modified "skill tree" where Special Effects (hereafter SEs) are awarded at the following "success levels..."

1/2 Skill Level (rounding up) which I call a Special Success.

Outstanding Success which is 1/10th Skill (rounding up) and is the old Impale/Slash/Crush or Special Success. 

Critical Success (which is the same term I use) which is any DOUBLES rolled (counting 00 as zero, zero and not 100) that are under the Skill in question.

Fumbles are DOUBLES OVER the Skill roll needed (excluding 00 which is counted as zero, zero).  

If both parties roll an SE, I allow the option for BOTH SEs to apply in order to "spice up" my combats a bit.  Losing players (the one with the higher roll) also have the option to "reduce" the opponent's SE by a grade instead.   My SEs are divided into 3 tiers of "effectiveness" based on how damaging the results can be.  Criticals are reserved for the largest effects (sunder weapon/armor, compel surrender,  bypass armor) and the 1/2 Skill level is for the weakest (change range, press advantage, increase parry size).  This method of doing SEs works just fine and breaking down the SEs into 3 steps reduces "analysis paralysis" during play.  I have had zero issues implementing this system.

We always wanted to differentiate Spirit Magic from Sorcery and Rune/Divine Magic.  We gave Spirit Magic a duration of MINUTES equal to your Magic Points at the time of casting.  Have 2 Magic Points left?  Your spell's duration is 2 minutes.  Have 15 mp left?  You get 15 MINUTES of run time on that Protection spell.  The Shaman got to use his POW so his duration never changed (a perk for being a Shaman).  Divine/Rune Magic lasted minutes for Initiates and HOURS when cast by a Rune Priest.  The difference in runtimes between different "tiers" of casters proved to be especially popular reasons to take the restrictions those higher tiers had to endure during play (like the DEX x 5 limits on skills).     

I have to give Mythras the shoutout here as being easier to explain to new players.  A less "polished" version would be Legend by Mongoose Publishing.  I really like the ACTIONS system Mythras uses as well as their Special Effects.     

On 3/1/2019 at 12:09 PM, styopa said:

Beautifully done but how 'necessary' the aesthetics are is up to your own personal showmanship/OCD.

Miniatures are placeholders that show location and facing, minimally.  Beyond that, it's up to you.  We're pretty openminded - we have a huge pile of minis to pull from, but it's mainly a matter of convenience/speed/what we can put our hands on quickly enough in the course of play.. which means we're mostly using a well-worn set of crappy heroquest plastic minis for bad guys supplemented as needed from whatever other figures have been tossed into the bin over the years, each player has a "real" 25mm metal mini that they chose, some have painted them, some haven't bothered.  Our player with a duck character found a duck and he's using that.  The beast shaman has a figure, but uses animal ones when he's in animal form(s).

Here's the annotated map from last session, unfortunately we had to end abruptly due to work circumstances, so we took a pic to save the gamestate.  These are all runelord-equivalent characters in a ...not great situation right now.  (I'm running the D&D Tomb of Annihilation adventure, they're fighting Ras Nsi and his multiarmed bodyguard Sekelok in the Audience Chamber of the Fane of the Night Serpent...details provided so you can look those up if you choose).  Hexes are 1m.

Explanations below are /spoileriffic, if you ever intend to run/play that adventure.  Unfortunately AFAIK this board software doesn't have spoilertext functions. 

01: Black Fang duck party member; in desperation has summoned from his Mud Ring a 6cbm earth elemental (the horse figure @01A) and this round a 4cbm water elemental (garados at 01B)...he can't actually control them.

02 the main tank of the party, orlanthi wl & his cat; he's on the ropes, his cat's out of mp.  The red armless figure is Ras Nsi, in RQ setting an Apostate Zorak Zorani RL troll who'd been converted into a half-serpent undead monstrosity.  Head of Yuan Ti temple, several hundred years old, pretty powerful, BBEG.

03 as mentioned the horse is the 6bm angry earth elemental; the tipped-over sheep is a party member that is a shape-changing druidy Shaman in grizzly form*, prone; grey thing is Sekelok, 4 armed massive bodyguard of Ras Nsi BBEG2, immobilized up to his knees in the floor by the elemental, he would like to attack the elemental to free himself but with only 9 INT he keeps getting stunned by...

04 ...the silvery figure is the party's powerful sorcerer, currently hovering about 5m up,  can't really cast anything because his actions are used attacking with a (gained) psychic ability that allows a ranged int v int chance to stun target for some SRs.  So far, they've been enough to keep Sekelok cc'd.  The pearl is his familiar "glowy ball", an awakened floating stone ball 1m in diameter with a chain dangling from the bottom, it's floating about 2m above him.  Some of you will know where he found that.  Between the two of them, I think they've burned something like 50mp in this fight already so they're getting low.  The prone figure is the party's Zorak Zorani RL* whose 1 POW (from a regrettable previous DI) left him vulnerable to being commanded to attack the party by Ras Nsi (has the innate ability to command fixed-int undead, has a chance to control intelligent undead); fortunately, his only having 1mp also made him easily knocked out by being drained of that 1mp by another party-member's magic item effect touch attack.  (The other figure well back is a noncombatant scholar they have dragged along with them after saving his life.)

*Both the player-bear and player-troll are ACTUALLY zombies; they died in play while the party is investigating a giant soul-sucking curse preventing people from being rezz'd.  A witch they encountered had "fell magicks" that nevertheless could ... sort of... bring them back.

I have that exact mapboard myself.  I also have the square/grid version too.  Nowadays, I also use standard sized (8.5" X 11.5" ?) 50 and 100 sheet pads/tablets with 1" grids (available at Staples) to draw individual interior rooms on.  If I plan on using them a lot, I will laminate them.  For most adventures, I just leave them as is so I can draw on them during play. 

For markers, I have seen Checkers, Chess pieces, and even Monopoly pieces used to represent combatants.  The coolest "minis" I have seen for a GM who travels to games is the 25mm cardstock prints that fold in half to show the front and back of the Character and which "clip" into a plastic Hex Base to stand upright.  You can carry a ton of those and swapping bases is very easy.   

On 2/25/2019 at 3:30 AM, ChalkLine said:

The big problem I have with the mods now is that they don't scale well as you get bigger. Even if you replace a 'crush' special with a 'slash' special the strength bonus is too large at +2d6 level.
I once had a different damage bonus table that just went up in dice; 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 and then around again; 1d12+1d4 etc etc but I feel it's too finicky

I came up with a simplified way to figure damage based on surplus STR for a weapon.  EVERY weapon is given a STR and DEX requirement and then each weapon is designated as a LIGHT or HEAVY weapon.  To determine your Damage Bonus, you SUBTRACT your STR from the weapon's required STR.  To this "SURPLUS STR" total, you may add 1 point for every 10 full points of SIZ above a size of 10 that the creature possesses (so a SIZ 31 Troll would add 2 to STR).  You then take this "MODIFIED SURPLUS STR" and give the character a +1 bonus to Damage for every 10 points of Surplus STR for LIGHT Weapons and a +1 bonus to Damage for every 5 points of Surplus STR for HEAVY Weapons. 

This system prevents the "double bonus" of a high STR character getting a big Damage Bonus IN ADDITION TO being able to wield larger and heavier weapons (due to STR requirements).  

On 2/6/2019 at 6:19 PM, Anunnaki said:

Let's look at the Loaded March (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_march).

Roman standard march rate is 29.62 km in 6 hours,  carrying 20.5 kg of gear. This equates to 16.46m per 12 second round.

Forced march rate is 35.54 km in 6 hours, carrying 20.5 kg of gear. This equates to 19.74m per 12 second round.

There is no mention in the article about terrain quality -- if marching, I would assume at least reasonably clear terrain, like a road or trail.

In the 10th Mountain, we had them beat.  Every 3 months we did a 30-mile road march in 6-7 hours (you'd better NOT take 😎 with an 80lb ruck.  You could only get it done if you "Airborne Shuffled" (kind of a slow jog) on the flats.  I really mind didn't the weekly 10-mile humps after doing a couple of 30's.

Are they ever going to have a slipcase set with the Runequest AND Glorantha books TOGETHER (in a single case)... in Leatherette.  😁 

And could Chaosium maybe... just maybe... put a copy out with a 16" X 24" page size format (with big print because I'm getting old) and a gilded bronze hardcover complete with dual leather straps, bronze or brass buckles, and a red silk bookmarker so I can rest a copy of RUNEQUEST on a podium in my game room like it was a giant Gutenberg Bible?😎

On 2/12/2016 at 4:09 PM, Archivist said:

Just curious, for those of you that hack your own system, what do you use for the base rules?

I have borrowed things from EVERY edition of Runequest for my homebrew.

I ditched conventional Movement AND the basic Strike Rank system for one where each SR equals one second of time.  My movement rates were based on METERS PER SECOND (SR) and consisted of (for a human):

Sprint:  8m/SR

Run:  6m/SR

Trot:  4m/SR

Walk:  2m/SR

Crawl:  1m/SR

7 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Oh, I don't know. I think if you told a player to keep track of X and it means eventual character improvement and they will do it.

Also, I think an easier way would simply to increase a stat whenever a skill hits 75% or 90%. Easy peasy.

I would have my players put an Experience Point/Dot after each physical Attribute (STR, DEX, CON) every game session.  Once they had acquired 10 EXP, I'd allow them to trade those points in for a chance to improve that stat.  They'd roll a 1D20 (for a human, I used different die sizes for non-humans) and attempt to roll OVER their current Attribute.  If they succeeded, that Attribute would increase by one point.  Successful or not, the 10 EXP were used and lost.  This provided a reasonable balance between allowing weak Attributes to increase and limiting the chance for higher Attributes to increase without imposing an arbitrary rule on the improvement of those high-level Attributes.

Of course, I allowed Attribute improvement (including mental ones) because I used an Aging Chart that required the players to make "Aging Saves" against their Attributes (using the same Roll-Over Mechanic) once they hit 40 (for a human) and every 5 years afterward.  I also allowed disease and certain poisons or magic abilities to "drain" Attributes during play.  The Vampire would drain both CON and STR with their bite while the Wraith could age you 1D6 years with its touch.  Thus I had Attributes in a minor state of "flux" during play. 

8 hours ago, lawrence.whitaker said:

Just to clarify, Mythras/RQ6 combat doesn't use Opposed Rolls for deciding combat outcomes and Special Effects. It uses Differential Rolls, which measure levels of success. Opposed Rolls don't have any Special Effects involved: effects are reserved for physical and spirit combat only.

For true opposed rolls, such as Perception vs Stealth, or Willpower resisting a spell, Opposed Roll resolution uses the 'Roll High But Within' method to determine the winner, with a Critical result trumping a success, and a higher Critical (ie, roll high within one's critical range) result trumping an opposing crit.

Mythras also reduces participants who have >100 to 100, with opponents being reduced by a number of points equal to the excess. This applies to both Opposed Roll and Differential Roll situations. In Mythras, skills don't tend to climb very far beyond 100%, and it would be exceedingly rare to find someone with 200%+.

1

       Yes, I'm aware of this.  My issue was always if you ran out of ACTIONS or you used your last ACTION for something else (casting a spell, readying a new weapon) and your opponent scored a success on an UNOPPOSED ROLL, he gets to not only hit you for damage but inflict some kind of Special Effect as well (some of which are "game changing").  All of this just because you run out of ACTIONS.  It felt more than a little "unfair" to slower characters and magic users trying to cast spells with their actions who were subsequently attacked (often with ranged weapons).   

       My bumping the selection of an SE up to a roll of 1/2 Skill or less your Skill reduces the frequency of SEs and makes them feel more like the Special Effects I believe that they should be.  This is just my opinion of course, and your RQ6 may vary.  This desire to make SEs feel "Special"  is why I divide them up between THREE levels of Success (instead of the two levels in RQ6).

14 hours ago, Crel said:

I've got to process the rest of your thoughts more, but I do really like this. It makes it obvious whether or not the roll was a crit or a fumble the moment you see the dice. When you round up for Outstanding Success, where do you cut off the rounding? In other words, would a 51% also round up to a 6% Outstanding Success?

 

 

Yes.  I give the benefit to the player since I'm dropping this from 20% of the roll for a normal Special Success (impale).

On 12/5/2018 at 5:22 AM, RosenMcStern said:

Your Memory roll was too high, Jakob  In fact, Revolution allows even starting characters to go beyond 100.

When your adjusted skill roll is above 100, you add your quota beyond 100 to your die roll for the purposes of comparing it to the opposition. This means that if for instance you have 140% and roll 49, it counts as 89 for comparisons. But you only need to make the calculation if a comparison is needed, whereas the "subtract to the skill before rolling" requires that you make the maths for all rolls. This completely eliminates the need for two-digit subtraction, and any kind of multiplication or division. I never found these operations difficult, but many people do.

As for the "philosophical" reasons why the blackjack method (roll as high as possible, but within your skill, as it happens in Pendragon and HeroQuest) is disruptive in classic percentile games, it may help to think in a slightly different way:

You roll low -> Thing went very smoothly and you went for the simplest approach to the problem. You did it, but not so elegantly and anyone who adopted a more sophisticated approach will outclass you.

You roll high -> Things went in the most complicate way you can think of, and only a real master could cope with this specific situation; if you are not such a master, you failed; however; if you were skilled enough to succeed, then your success outclassed anyone else's.

Well, you should consider that "borrowed."   

...(Sighs)... looks like I have another reason to buy Revolution now, and I just ponied up for RQG, D&D5e (not really impressed by this despite my nephew's accolades), and 3 softback editions of Mythras as Christmas presents.  I just wish my local gaming shop had a hardcopy to buy.   I am admittedly a "Dead Tree Grognard" and hate PDFs despite my "digital" nephew's best efforts.  He does seem to enjoy borrowing all my "dead tree" RPGs Though, pretty odd for someone so attached to digital media?  I guess I'll have to look into a LULU printing like I did with Mythras.

7 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

I think I will adopt the approach of high roll wins within result type.

When a comparison is necessary a critical beats a special which beats a success which beats a fail which beats a fumble.

If the result types are the same then the highest roll wins (which is only odd in the case of a fumble versus a fumble where 00 would beat 96 if both were fumbles).

When skills are above 100 I prefer equally reducing both opponents skills until one of them is 100 (with consequent reductions in the chance of specials and criticals for each of them).

Stephen

I did this too but I took a page from the new CoC and I changed the success levels to expedite play.  I use the Special Effects from Runequest 6 but I didn't like the "Effect hunting" that occurs with the "stock/RAW" system.  Therefore, I broke the Success Levels down to the following steps.

• Simple Success:  This is a roll under the skill involved and doesn't generate any added benefit in the form of Special Effects.  The highest roll between two Simple Successes wins.
• Special Success: This is a roll under HALF (rounding up) of the Skill involved.  It beats a Simple Success AND generates a Special Effect from the list of SEs for a Special Success (further segregated by Parry and Attack).  High roll wins between two Special Successes.
• Outstanding Success:   This represents the old Special Success (ie Impales, Slashes, and Crushes) BUT it is only 1/10th of the Skill rounding UP.  Thus a Skill of 58% would achieve an Outstanding Success on a roll of 6 or less.  There is a list of even more effective Special Effects (segregated by Weapon Type, Attack, and Parry) for the Outstanding Success.  Those SEs can be "game-changers" like Impale, Crush, Slash, Riposte, Disarm, and Trip.  Outstanding Success always beats a Simple or Special Success.
• Critical Success:  This represents the old Critical Hit and occurs ONLY ON DOUBLES ROLLED UNDER SKILL.  Thus a skill of 60% would Critical on a roll of 11, 22, 33, 44 and 55.  This level of success allows the best Special Effects in RQ6.  Special Effects like Sunder Weapon, Do Double Max Damage, Bypass Armor, Choose Location, and Compel Surrender all are found in this success range.  Criticals beat all comers except other Criticals.
• Fumbles:  The dreaded Fumble occurs on DOUBLES ABOVE THE SKILL LEVEL.  Thus that 60% skill above would Fumble on a roll of 66, 77, 88, 99, or 00.  Fumbles also have their own list of Special Effects BUT the opposing player picks the Fumble.  A player will pick for a GM's Fumble and vice versa.  Some of the Special Effects include Riposte, Hit Self, Hit Companion, Drop Weapon/Shield and Trip and Fall. 

I find the math much faster and easier with this system and dividing up the Special Effects between the Success Levels reduces the "Analysis Paralysis" that new players often suffer when playing a version of RuneQuest with such Special Effects included.  I hope this helps you out in your own game. 

I hope you find the answers to those questions we all ask but never have answered.  You shall be missed.  Godspeed Sir!   

The REAL QUESTION is...  Is Chaosium still suggesting that Morokanth are Vegan?   😒 

Retired Marine and Movie Actor R Lee Ermey died on Sunday.  May you rest in peace Gunny!