drohem

Sorry PK, I empathize. That has to leave a sour taste in your mouth; especially with the cost for new RPG core books these days.

Also, I have to note one other thing: the fact that some people haven't seen it doesn't make it not a problem. If its a problem for anyone, its a problem; the only question is how wide spread the problem is. That's hard to demonstrate one way or another, but the best you can do is do some analysis on the maths of the rules. Of course if you can't even get people to agree that there's the possibility of a problem with it (as some don't) then no useful discussion can be had.

If one person finds it a problem, then I don't see it as a problem. I see it as that person's issue. RQ3 didn't force random character generation down anyone's throat: it was the default method and the rules expicitly provided other options for those who didn't like completely random generation.

Also, I would like to note that useless and inferior characters are subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I would say that it is poor role-playing skills that would cause a player to dismiss a character due to inexperience from age or lack of combat skills due to occupation.

In addition, it a poor game master that doesn't tailor their game so that every character, whether inferior or superior, can meaningfully contribute to the session at hand and over all campaign.

Specifically addressing your example of the sailor, I would say that it was a failing of that GM not to include some elements into the sessions and campaign that would allow the use of some of the sailor's skills and abilities.

Sure, but when I've seen enough people do so (and I have) you'll just have to accept that some naysaying on it isn't going to sell me on the contrary.

The inverse applies to me as well: I seen enough people have fun and enjoy the random character generation system of RQ3 that some naysaying on it isn't going to make believe that it's inheirently flawed.

I haven't seen anything someone has said to make it "unlikely"; what I've seen is people who've said that they haven't seen it. I haven't seen anyone really argue the numerical aspect, which is the only non-subjective part of the process that isn't also campaign dependent. At that point, the only thing you can do is talk about how people respond and what seems to happen in a typical campaign.

Yes, you're senario is subjective. I did state that I find your senario unlikely. As far as statistically possible, just look at the Occupation tables.

Are you saying that your typical campaign experience is that one player has a young farmer while every other player has generated an experienced warrior type?

I think that's the problem; to many, people, if all you're good for is to tie up an opponent while a better fighter does his work, and have no outside combat function, you're close enough to useless for practical purposes.

Or put another way, if you're inferior enough, the fact you aren't technically useless is meaningless to many, if not most players.

That's really my point; you can define the problem away, but at that point you effectively aren't talking about what I'm talking about.

Yes, and you can over simplify your definition of 'useless' or 'inferior' characters to support your unlikely senario.

It is strange that a RPG that sells out is considered not profitable and by the parent company and excised immendiately. It makes you wonder what GW was thinking. :ohwell:

Quote:

Originally Posted by drohem

what is the relationship between Maneuver and Handling?

So with the chariot example: would the net bonus/penalty to the Drive skill check be +10% (Maneuver = -5% and Handling = 15)?

On p.216 it says to add/subtract the Handling modifer for the vehicle from the character's appropriate skill.

On p. 265, it says that this modifier is applied to your character's skill.

Why is Maneuver expressed as a percentage and Handling just a number?

Why have two vehicle attributes that serve the same function?

I am confuzzled

I would surely appreciate some incite into these vehicle attributes and there applications.

And I think _generally_ it is a problem; that's my point. The fact some people have no issue with it doesn't make it a generally good thing.

The inverse of this is true as well: the fact that some people have an issue with it doesn't make it a generally bad thing.

I disagree about RQ3's previous experience system creating useless characters. Certainly, with a completely random character generation system, there is the possibility to create superior and inferior characters; and I do not see this as a problem. However, these characters are not the norm, and so when they do appear it only makes those characters all the more interesting to play, IMHO.

No one is useless in RQ3 combat. Every combatant is usefull, if only to occupy an opponent.

I've always favored a mechanism where someone actively attempting to spot/hear prompts an opposed roll mechanic against someone attempting to hide/sneak. However, if someone's defined (by the GM) as "inactive" in this context, then a simple success of the hide/sneak/whatever just plain works. IMO, that's the assumption of the skill number on the sheet. If you've got a 75% skill at hide, that means that 75% of the time you should be able to hide well enough that you aren't "obvious" to someone just walking by (or standing around, but not specifically looking for people who might be hiding).

If the person trying to be stealthy fails their roll, then I give the inactive potential perceiver a chance to make their appropriate roll to see/hear them (they get to roll their own scan/listen skill). But only in that case. The assumption here is that you're clearly visible and/or making enough sound to be heard. But that doesn't automatically mean that someone noticed you (otherwise why have scan/listen skills, right?).

It's a pretty simple system, but it seems to work quite well. In odd situations, I just use common sense to figure out what happens. I think sometimes, having too many rules in an attempt to cover every conceivable situation can make the game less realistic instead of more...

I agree with you. I see this way as well. It's simple and intuitive.

I have a .pdf of what I believe was the last draft done; one of the giveaways was that the layout and other material were already being done in a relatively professional way. If its listed as Runequest: Adventures in Glorantha, its at least a pretty late draft, as that title wasn't settled on until the non-Gloranthan playtesters lost that particular war to the Gloranthanists.

Is it small enough to send via email? I would be interested in obtaining a copy of it. I've seen the web page version on the yahoo group, but it was a pain trying to copy and paste it all and I gave up. Now, it sounds like that might not have been the latest version anyway.

Congratulations Triff!! So close...I bet you can taste it

Hang in there soltakss! You and your wife can do it!! :thumb:

Hi Zomben and welcome!

i plaid dunjins an dragns moar then evry1. w00t! ph34r my l33t skillz. I m an RPG h4x0r.

Srelusly. I plaid 2nd edison DND.

I M AWSUM!!!!!!11!!1one

argh! That hurt my brain.

Unless you deliberately got killed early, you could be dealing with the consequences for quite a while from it. Like it or not, its just not satisfying to most people to play what adds up to the sidekick, and if you ended up with a 17 year old farmer, that was pretty much what you were going to be compared to almost anyone. Yeah, if you lasted long enough you'd probably even out, but you weren't getting much done during the game until then, as almost anything you did, someone did better--usually a lot better.

If this sort of thing doesn't bother you, it doesn't, but it _does_ bother a lot of people, and its not like they're getting paid to do this.

Wouldn't be cool to get paid for playing?

Yeah, everyone has different styles of play and what they consider *fun* in any given RPG game.

We had House Rules with our RQ3 games for character creation to mitigate some of the randomness of the dice (they can be a cruel mistress sometimes ).

Well, back when I got RQ2, it was just a standalone book anyway.

oh, that's right is was the later 1981 version that came in the boxed set, and the 1979 version was just a booklet as well.

The variance in profession using the randomizer there didn't help. While I realize some people's experiences differ, I didn't see a lot of people who enjoyed playing a civilized farmer in the group otherwise consisting of a civilized soldier, a barbarian warrior, a nomad noble and a primitive hunter (which was suprisingly good profession for typical adventuring because it got so many useful skills such as the stealth and perception ones).

My response is: what a bunch of babies! Seriously, ooh your toy is better than mine, not fair!

/oldmanvoiceon

In my day, we rolled rocks and liked it!

/oldmanvoiceoff

Why are they so concerned with what other people are playing? Why not focus on your own character and breath life into it?

I can understand this mentality to a point if it happened consistently, but given the nature of the tables I doubt this was a common occurence.

Ok, I am jealous. I would like to have a copy of RQ1 for my collection. I still have to get an copy of RQ2 boxed intact. I just have the sepia-colored booklet.

Also, remember that RQ3 professions were "parent occupation". In other words, that's the profession your were born into. There was no requirement to keep it, and in fact there were rules for changing profession if you wanted to. We typically allowed a new character to pick any of the more "standard" professions that might be available in the area if he wanted without penalty (obviously, you couldn't just choose to be a noble if you weren't born to it).

IMO, they added flavor to the game. It wasn't just "I'm carbon copy warrior number 19...". You were something else when you grew up, and then you (presumably) decided to go off in search of adventure, ran into a group of troublemakers (the rest of the player characters) and things just snowballed from there.

Yes, I agree and how I viewed it as well. Once you became an adventurer, you stopped training in your parents occupation and persued your calling (whatever that may be).

hehehe....yeah, I'm a young buck and not a gronard!!!

Woot!! Congratulations!

We did it by the book for a while, but i'm pretty sure eventually it just became a 'spend 200 points kind of thing'. I thought that was an option in there somewhere but maybe it was a houserule.

RQ3 did have an alternate character generation method to Experience by Occupation: the Quick Experience rules. You picked your age and got 30 percentiles per year over 15-years-old. Boxed skills couldn't be improved past 75% and no-box skills couldn't be raised over 100%. Magic skills had some special rules for development.

I am a stay-at-home father with a 2-year-old and newborn. Sometimes I get a moment or two throughout the day; but it really depends on how my girls are feeling at the moment.

This gets back to how much it matters other PCs are simply better than you; most people I ever played with were just going to wonder why they were there if they ended up with a 17 year old farmer and someone else got a 27 year old warrior.

Its why I was much fonder of the RQ4/RQ:AIG approach which made profession part of a managed purchase system, and made quality within profession a campaign setup choice rather than random.

Yeah, it was never an issue with our group; we just dealt with it. There is the Quick Experience rules for RQ3 where you get 30 percentiles per year over 15. We just never used it and stuck with random rolls. It made getting certain professions all the more cooler; like when you got a civilized thief or sailor. :cool: