pachristian

I've never seen a character created 'bland' but I've seen a lot of them played bland! And you are correct, of course, it is the skills that really matter (especially in Nash-Whittaker RQ: i.e. Mongoose RQ, Legend, and RQ6). But this does not alter my core question: What are the parameters people use to create characters? I guess I have to add to that "And are they the same as used to create NPC's?" My challenge to you, daddy bear, is to find an NPC you created as a 'heroic NPC', someone whom you intended the players to look up to and admire, and check to see if that NPC could, within reasonable bounds of probability, have been created as a player-character.

Observation the first: If your players rolled their characterizes, and rolled a 13 SIZ, and a 13 INT, and 10 in every other characteristic, that would be over 75. Question the first: Is this how you generate NPC's? If you create the bad Guy's chief lieutenant, does he also have a characteristic average around 75? (Okay, you can roll well, but being fair, the total is very unlikely to be greater than 85). Allowing for RQ3's characteristics training rules, you can add a few points. Question the second: Given a 3d6 roll, a characteristic value of 16 or greater is unlikely on any character: Are NPC's in the same boat?

A very valid point. It can also be applied to Batman, Doc Savage, and John Carter. The players and the GM have to respect two elements: One that this is a group game, and players cannot play "one-man-against-an-army" characters. My point is more directed at the players and GM's of the "I-played-a-character-who's-highest-attribute-was-ten-and-I-liked-him-school". So the first rule is, and remains, Use, don't Abuse. If you want to create a mighty-thawed barbarian in my game, I am not going to try to tell you to be happy with a STR of 14 (and I've had that happen to me in a game), because "14 is better than average" (actual GM quote, before he threw us up against a group of warriors who all had d6 damage bonuses because they all had STR's of 19 and SIZ's of 16). But if, for example, we are rolling up characters, I will make sure there is a STR-training option in the game, so that you can build up your STR; so over time Atgxor the Barbarian can be the strongest man in the world if that's your goal and how you choose to improve him. I will not give you "free strength upgrades", nor will I give you an exclusive advantage over the other players. I think you misunderstood me here. I said no NPC is more powerful than a player-character can be, not more powerful than the players are at the start of the game. Assume, for a moment, that we are gaming in Glorantha. Jar-Eel the Razoress is one of the most powerful mortals in the world. My view is that it is only fair, as a GM, to develop an estimate of how she would have developed, from 'beginning character' to her current super-human abilities. It should be possible for you, as a player-character to develop to that level of power: Admittedly that should (in my opinion) take years of gaming, and hundreds of game sessions, but in the hero wars it should be entirely possible that your character can go one-on-one with Jar-Eel, or Harrack, if you play the character that long and work to improve your character along those lines. I agree that different characteristics have different comparative values in different campaigns. The GM should set up his character creation system to reflect this. Strictly from a mechanical point of view, in RQ6, and in BRP, and for that matter every other version of the D100 system, there are some characteristics that give you more bang per point than others. A point-buy system should reflect this, otherwise all of the characters will very similar characteristics. There's an old joke about Chaosium RQ2 as the game where every barbarian starts with an INT of 21, because INT cannot be trained and the advantages of high INT are so dramatic as to outweigh the loss of other characteristics. points. So, Atgxtg; How do YOU set up characteristics for an upcoming campaign?

So how high should a character's characteristics be? Everyone has different ideas about this. I do not propose to give a number, at this point, maybe later. But I'll lay out some guidelines that I use, and encourage people to chime in with their own observations. We are discussing characters created by point-distribution here: Randomly rolled characters can be astonishingly good, or pathetically bad, and people who want to insist on randomly rolling characters, all I can say is "more power to you". My guidelines: You should have enough to points to create a favorite fictional character. There are few things more annoying to me than to be told that "you can't duplicate Captain Blood. He's a hero." Excuse me? Because I'm a player-character I'm supposed to settle for less native ability than some named book or movie character? No NPC ever has more power than a player-character can have. It may take a lot of game time, but when I'm GM, your character has the potential to be just as powerful as Jar-Eel, or King Arthur, or Conan, or whomever are the game world's top heroes. That's an iron-clad rule of mine by the way: PC's are the game's heroes. Period. Characterics bought with points have variable cost based on the comparative game mechanics value. BRP does this: Some characteristics are 3 points for +1 for some, 1 point for +1 for others. On a related note, Pathfinder offers several point distribution settings, so a GM can tailor his or her game to the power level they want. I like that idea, and hope RQ does something similar. Thoughts and discussion anyone?

Cut-off points are on the "broken" list. Classic RQ characters tended to have all 8's, 13's, and 17's (and 21's) as characteristics. Stagger the cut-off points to avoid this, so you do not get a bonus for everything from a specific value.

Chill, both you. So the question was: In the game system RuneQuest (any edition), is character improvement too dependent on the character joining a social organization (cult, guild, or whatever). People have presented several answers: Some feel that the social structure and interactions of your organization are key features in their game. Others have cited games where characters trained in the cults, but did not otherwise worry about them too much. And others have found ways of providing training and magic to PC's without them being dependent on their organization. So the real answer is: It depends on how the GM wants to run the game. I think that sums it up for now. Does anyone want to add anything on-topic?

My issue with lack of skill checks is similar: In classic RQ, characters tended to go up in whatever skills they used. As a GM, you could 'encourage' players to build up skills that they did not see as critical, by giving them a chance to roll on the skill. Over time, skills used became skills raised. With a Improvement Points, the players tend to put their points in the skills they consider most important, and nothing else. Being specialized is not necessarily a problem; but the character that can't do anything outside his speciality can be a real problem.

So here's a question for you Conan, and Fafhrd and the Mouser fans: Is RQ (in all of its incarnations) too dependent on characters being members of cults or social organizations? Your character is dependent on his cult for much of his training, and magic, and social position and expectations. But the classic fantasy heroes cited above were not cult members; they were rogues and outlaws. So if I want to play a character who is not part of a cult, am I character-improvement screwed? The D20 system, by contrast, gives a character little or no reason to join an organization: Advancement is completely independent of any guild or cult affiliation - even for clerics! How do all of you handle this issue? Or is it an issue in your games?

BTW - I'm in Drivethrurpg getting a copy of Usage Yojimbo now, thanks to endorsements here. I want to check out this combat system. Now here's a tip for you: Check out Hackmaster (Kenner & Co). You can get the basic rules free online. The combat system is incredibly well written and balanced. It's a trifle complex, but it plays great.

Now I'm going to have to look at the Usage RPG. I'm looking at my own mashup of RQ3, RQ6, BRP, Legend... RQ6 will impact most of it. RQ3 will impact some areas. What I admire most about Chaosium RQ2 was it's simple completeness: Everything you needed in one short book, and nothing you didn't need. Although in fairness, the game did not really take off until Cults of Prax gave us some sample cults and organizations, and a feel for the world of Glorantha. What I didn't like was the attribute point cut-offs, and the way the game was heavily weighted to favor the smart and quick. Not that that's not 'realistic' but it meant that if you allowed point-buy you ended up with a whole party of STR 17, SIZ 8, INT 17 characters, who would then count on attribute training to raise CON and DEX, and pow gain checks to raise POW, and gaming in general to raise CHA. I like Nash&Whittaker RQ's using two characteristics to produce a base in a skill. I like RQ6's "combat styles" systems. I like the simplified skill system. I like the I really like the fact that a Healing-6 matrix is no longer the first magic item you hand out to the players - it's a lot harder to take a character's limb off, and I prefer that. I like N&W's approach to divine magic, where you piece by piece commit your soul to your god until it's all used up. I like RQ3's use of the resistance table, and the mathematical stability it brings to the attributes. I guess I'm one of the few people who didn't object to the "POW Economy"; I liked the way it created natural limits on a character's magical ability. The combat system remains a sticking point. I never liked Classic RQ's "one attack, one parry, you're done" approach. N&W RQ's multiple actions per combat round is more flexible, but has its own problems; such facing two enemies and using all of your actions to parry them on the first wave of attacks, only to have them each have 2 more actions - realistic, maybe, but the character can't even run away at that point! Ramble, ramble, ramble

Hmm - likewise I have friends with April Birthdays. That's about three copies to buy. There goes my budget. Loz, as we know that your entire life, work, and publishing schedule is being done entirely for our convenience...April it is!

Sorry - I was responding to an earlier post. Also a general idea.

I like it.

Whoo-Hoo! Whoo-Hooo! It's my birthday! Whoo-Hoo! Not that I'm eager to see this or anything... Thanks, Whitaker. You guys do good work.

Restrictions are good. Something to keep in mind is that adventure is often based more on what the characters cannot do instead of what they can. If Gandalf could have just teleported Frodo to Mount Doom, there wouldn't have been a story. If the players can fly, climbing Condor Crags is not an adventure. You get a narrative - and a game - when the players have to do something clever and creative to get around limitations that their characters have.

I'm always of mixed opinion on whether a skill list should be short, and each skill consolidates several others (for example Perception instead of Listen, Search, and Spot Hidden), or whether the greater precision of a long skill list is preferable. One thing I always try to remember is that the moment you put a skill in a game, you define a whole lot of people as not having that skill. So the moment I put the skill Fast Talk in a game anybody who does not spend improvement points or training (or whatever you use) on Fast Talk cannot strive to confuse and bamboozle people with words. In other words, by defining the skill, I either force players to spend effort on it, or deny them the chance to ever do it. Your mention of POW as a dump stat in BRP is interesting. I recently did some studies on RQ6 (different game, yes, I know). How many skills does each characteristic affect? The numbers were surprising: STR 7 skills, 1 repeat CON 10 skills, 2 repeat SIZ 1 skill DEX 18 skills, 2 repeat INT 37 skills, 9 repeat POW 16 skills, 2 repeat CHA 23 skills, 2 repeat "Repeat" in this context means skills that you are likely to take more than one of. For example Lore Skills or Languages. Obviously, your mileage will vary. Different characters will emphasize different skills. I used these numbers (plus some additional math for other, related game effects) to establish the training cost of characteristics.

Thank you sotakss: that's the kind of ideas I was hoping to spark discussion on. Do you use game mechanics of these rules, or do you work via narrative and story-appropriateness of the powers?

Very odd, as I was starting from the rune affinities in MRQ2, and looking for ways to expand them!

I'm currently playing in a game using Mongoose 2nd edition RQ. Finding, and binding to a rune is part of the game, and you guys did a great job of making a link to a rune something fun and interesting to do. I like the positive effect having a rune gave, and the side effect. I'm wondering if that could be expanded upon. My impression was that Runes were something for the "on beyond 100" setting - once my character has 100%+ in his key skills, what can he do to improve? The catch was that once you "acquired" the rune and got the one benefit, there was nothing to build on. All you could do was find an additional rune. So, what if instead of a single ability, the rune was associated with several abilities, and you had to pick each one separately? Then each iteration of the rune would grant additional abilities and make the existing abilities more powerful. Actually, I think in RQ that's Devotion and Exhort... But I think something similar could be done. Maybe I'm just babbling.

What if when a character adventured, they could pick up fragments of a rune? Each fragment - or focus - or aspect - or whatever you want to call it - would grant the character certain abilities associated with that rune, and probably certain side effects. The first fragment could be 'found' as part of a quest, but the further along the character went, the more specific their quest would have to be to have the next fragment. As the character gathered more fragments, their runic abilities would grow stronger, supplementing their magic and their other abilities. Assembling a "whole" Rune would mark the point where the character could be considered a hero. Simplistic here, but maybe a starting point? Who can add to this?

With all these notes, let's never forget an important point: "Never hesitate to add simplicity." - and I forgot who provided that quote. While a game system can be too simple, it is much easier to make it too complex. So my thoughts: 1) I want to be able to create a character in 1/2 hour. 2) I want to be able to explain character creation to a new player verbally, without having to ask him to read pages of resources. 3) When I run for people at a gaming convention, I don't want to need more than 1/2 hour to explain the game system and world to my players before we start playing. Nothing scares off potential new players to a system then having to put in a lot of work before the fun begins. 4) I don't want to have to explain Gloranthan mythology beyond "You'll want to pick a cult after you've played a few sessions. You cult will give you access to magic and some skills. It's also a way for your character to advance socially. You'll get the idea as we play." It's not that I don't want the depth available; it's just that starting a game should be fun; not a painful experience of needing to absorb a ton of material before the GM says "Okay, let's get started..."

Anybody besides me hearing the theme song to "Welcome Back Kotter" playing in their head? Sandy Peterson's on board, too, right? His sorcery system was (is) the best I've ever seen published.

It's perfectly obvious: When people you like call on their ancestors, they are remembering their honored dead and drawing aid from their mighty heritage. When people who you don't like call on their ancestors, it's foul necromancy and probably trafficking with chaos.