Kloster

I think mostly becuase it is very, very easy. I'd say easier than most other fatigue systems. Probably not that useful, but easy.

IMO, fatigue isn't as big a deal as (over)encumberance.

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That's also what we thought, and that's why we used the default rule:

easy to use.

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It's a solid method. A few games use fatigue levels, and that works out okay, too. Doing something strenuous requires a test, and the more strenuous the more difficult or often the test.

I also liked the way the James Bond RPG handled it. You got so many minutes of activity, based on stats, and then you were exhausted and suppered a penalty (about 1/2) to rolls. In extreme cases (like in the outback on a hit day) exterion counted at a faster than normal rate.

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It also works.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

I will put bets this just means in practice it gets missed fairly often.

No, it just means that most of combat didn't last a long enough duration to reach negative points, or if they do by 1 or 2, there was no roll on which that change anything.

My last character had about 5 FP free before combat start. Most fights were less than 10 MR, which means I finished at -5%. If no roll is above my skill minus 5%, there is no change.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

That would be nice, but for me it would go something like this: "Have you remembered to tick your fatigue tally? Please tick the tally! Remember to tick the fatigue tally every round. TICK THAT BOX YOU MORONS!!!"

And I'd get responses like, "Yeah, yeah, [tick!]", "I keep track in my head..." and "But it doesn't matter anyway".

I want a better system. Ticking every single round takes time.

SGL.

We didn't had this problem but I understand your point.

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Kloster

We had a Zorak Zoran with a riding prey mantis for a while. We left it with the horses outside while we investigated a cave and were down there longer than expected. When we finally came out we found the mantis got hungry and ate the sorcerer's horse. The sorcerer was upset, but Mr. Zorak Zoran just laughed at him.

Every night after that the sorcerer would cast a high powered Palsy on the Mantis when it was his turn at watch. Eventually he hit the head and incapacitated it. A little work with a Damage Boosted sword and the mantis ceased to be a threat to future horses.

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I like this one.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

The problem for most people was that once you hit the penalty part, constantly having to subtract varying values got tedious. Yes, its a part of the system, but there are plenty of times when you could normally just look at a skill as listed and use it as-is. Having to do the math, even if it isn't hard math, round after round could get old.

No. As some others have explained for their case, most of the time you just tick your fatigue tally. You have to check only if the roll is close to your real skill value AND the combat has already had quite a long duration.

Except for the occasional miss by 1 or 2 percent, the only real influence I can remember is a memorable (for me) fight where most of the participants were nearing exhaustion (negative FP equaling starting value), and were taking breath to regain 1 or 2 FP , just to be able to strike without passing out.

This fight was one of the most tactical and interesting I ever had, because we all had to outthink our adversaries, to use all our capabilities, to exploit the terrain, just to avoid losing our lives.

I liked.

Runequestement votre

Not really when you boil them down to their genesis.

Whatever the case, whether it's 1, 2 or 3 hands does not count (no pun intended). It's considerably below the number of games, and on that, we agree.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

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Generally I like SB5 presents its monsters. (eg. the fact that mundane animals only have one page with compressed stats without artwork - which is quite clever because it saves space and everybody knows how a horse or lion looks like)

I take.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

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You can count the different approaches to game functions on one hand; Level-based or skill-based, random or point-based character generation, resisted task resolution or tiered-scale task resolution. etc.

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At least 2 or 3 hands. Dices or no dices. Unique resolution tables or not. Simulationist or abstract. etc.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

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True. The concept of a sword being used for both is something that postdates swords actually being used to any large extent on the battlefield. Actual swords are designed to do one or the other and are not balanced properly to do both. I don't allow the option in my RQ games. Big swords are slashing weapons, strictly, and short swords are thrusting weapons...though they can be used either way.

The kopi (greek shortsword) is a purely chopping weapon.

The roman gladius is as good for chopping (Macedonians were horrified by the wounds made at Cynocephales, where it was used mainly as a slashing weapon) as for thrusting (after Marius, the roman doctrina was to use thrust to cause bleeding wounds that will kill sooner or later).

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

With the RuneQuest weapon tables, my players usually chose the same weapons over and over, because some weapons due to less damage or armor points just became filling on the weapon table.

Bows f.ex did 1d8+1. A throwing knife, dagger, axe or spear did less damage and had shorter reach, so why would anyone choose those missile weapons? The heavy crossbow was sometime employed due to its high one-shot damage, but the other crossbows where too slow for use (the one that didn't had puny damage so no reason to use it). Among the bows, the composite bow was the one who where always chosen.

Missile weapons showed this very well, but the same also applied for the melee weapons (though not as strongly). Some weapons where never chosen. With the STR and DEX requirement being as low as they where, there was really no reason not to pick a bigger weapon.

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So long as I've played, none of my players have used a scimitar unless forced to due so, because the broadsword is just better.

Anyone else who've had this problem?

SGL.

Nope, We always start with cultural weapons, and players tend to keep the weapons they started with. For the secondary weapon, we tend to choose the lowest ENC on what is available when we shop, so we had Axe, Kukri, Gladius, Broadsword (for a big barbarian whose main weapon was a poleaxe), dagger.

For missile weapons, I have personally used longbow, composite bow (in Prax and Pent, I think no other is available), heavy crossbow, repeating crossbow, javelin and plumbata (and thrown a lot of the hand weapons I have used: Dagger, hatchet, short spear among others).

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Last game I was in our mounts lasted long time. That was mostly because none of us was any good at mounted combat and tended to dismount before we got into a fight. Even though some of us had warhorses we tended to hand our horses off to a servant and then fight on foot. Guess we were a bunch of Dragoons.

Ditto.

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Kloster

Hi,

1st time we played RQIII, we carried over some elements from RQII, including ENC management.

All the other campaign (and the next to be started soon) have used the basic RQIII fatigue rules. And yes, we all ticked 1 FP every round, and it was not a problem. We all had a sheet of paper to mark MP, FP and Hits.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

100% agreement. Elmal and Vinga are completely superfluous.

Idem.

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Kloster

Today I had finally got to play some RQ again! Was home in Oslo for a short trip, and used the occation. The group was an all Yelmalio Sun County group, so I created a Templar using Pike & Shield. Big and fast, but quite stupid (INT 9). On a mission up to Pavis, we had to rescue a yelmalian who were to be crucified by the Lunars. My character, Grandor, got aquainted with the local spirits and got into a fist-fight with a bison rider, which he won (yihaa!). We waited until the guy had been nailed to the cross before attacking the guards outside the city. Killed the all and spirited away with the guy on the cross, down to Sun County.

Successfull mission, but I failed to get excited by the character. A bit dull Yelmalio worshipper with limiting growth potential. My natural munchkin wasn't satisfied. Hopefully we'll use another group next time.

SGL.

From Pavis to Sun County with the guy still nailed?

He must be tough!!! :innocent:

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

... OPen any D&D 3 or 3.5 book and you will find an acknowledgement of Arneson and Gygax's original design work.

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If I remember well, ADD 1st ed didn't gave credit to Dave Arneson, and ADD 2nd ed didn't gave credit do Gygax, so... it seems WotC is more polite than TSR.

But, all in all, I agree.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Hello,

Whatever the case, we need killer rabbits (and the holy grenades to hunt them).

Back to topic, I agree monsters/creatures are setting specific, except for the generic ones. So, count me on a light creature book that contains what is quasi-universal. The other creatures have to be described within their setting book.

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Kloster

Hello Jason,

OK for Sandy's independant work. But what he did for RQIII's magic book belongs to Chaosium, if I have understood correctly. So, can somebody start from this magic book (as present in the BRP monograph)?

If yes, what would be the conditions?

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Kloster

Actually BaSIC had way more stuff in it than the original BRPS booklet. It was closer to WoW than to the BRPS booklet.

True. It was also far more than 16 pages, although far below the 300+ of the upcoming BRP.

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Kloster

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Post Call of Cthulhu, that's really not true; from that point on, they pretty much were built up from BRP, not down from RQ. You can usually tell, too, from the lack of most RQ elements that didn't appear in BRP proper.

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I remember having discussed about that subject with Sandy Petersen about 15 years ago (at the Aquaboulevard Park in Paris), an he explained me that each time they were in doubt for a rule in a game, they were reverting to the original rule: RQ.

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Kloster

It was missing too much to be considered a system. In fact the BRP booklet does not call itself an RPG, but an introductory guide. All the stats, creatures and other info are incomplete and culled from RQ2. It isn't a system. No one actually played the thing.

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Even if I agree with most of your arguments, in fact, lots of people have.

At least here in France where Casus Belli (France's premier RPG mag during years) published it with Chaosium approval under the name BaSIC.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Thanks Jason,

I like the idea for the skill points.

And I think (like you guessed) that we will surely use the categories. I will.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Hi Jason,

What is the basis of skill amount in preliminary experience (EDU like in CoC, number of years like RQIII, a flat amount fixed by the rules or fixed amount assigned by the player)?

Is there skill categories (with their modificators) like in RQ or not?

Thanks.

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Kloster

No. Legally, the RQ name belongs to Greg (who paid for it) and is being used by Mongoose.

The rules actually belong to no one, since rule cannot be copywrited. Certain spefic terms and creatures can and are copywrited, but not the rules.

My point was that morally, since Steve (and others) wrote the rules, the rules SHOULD be theirs.

What I told is that the WORDS are belonging to Chaosium.

And no, RQ name does not belong to GS because he paied Steve Perrin and al.

Chaosium, not Greg, payed them.

It belongs to him because Chaosium sold it to AH, that AH let it's right lapse, and Greg was faster than anybody else to grab it.

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Kloster

In his blog on Chaosium.com: News - Chimeriades report Charlie Krank mentions a (new ?) French game based on BRP that Chaosium is interested in publishing. Anyone know what this game might be?

The only info I could find was about :Psychonautes 2027, by a certain Alain Legrand.

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Kloster

The game system really does affect the "feel" of your campaign. That's why I enjoy Hero System for superheroing (although I realize not everyone here is a fan). Especially with 3rd edition, it was hard for your character to get killed, encouraging cinematic brawls and outrageous stunts. And the system really does allow you to create nearly any character you've seen in comics or can imagine.

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Completely agree here. That's also one of the reason i like Champions.

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Villians & Vigilantes was also fun but you were limited to the predefined (and randomly selected) powers. Also, since you were playing yourself with powers, that's how the game system felt: "normals with powers." You might have awesome cosmic energies at your command, but you'd still huff and puff climbing the stairs -- and a kid with a pea shooter might be able to take you out.

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Agreed.

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Palladium's superhero game, Heroes Unlimited, had a feel similar to V&V. Combat was surprisingly lethal to a Champions player. Unless you had the power Invulnerability you'd better have ducked when the bad guys started shooting. And the random power assignment could lead to some kooky character concepts. That's OK as long as you didn't have a particular character type in mind, but if you'd wanted to play an homage to your favorite scarlet speedster it could be disconcerting to roll up a Robocop clone with pink horns and a prehensile tail. One thing I did like was the scads of skills every Heroes Unlimited character was required to pick. Before 5th edtion, a Hero System character practically had to choose between having powers or having skills. It was nice, in Palladium, to be able to do something other than melt brick walls with your breath.

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Yup. Apart from the system (Palladium is probably the most outdated system in production), lethality of the combat system and the random creation and attribution of powers are the weakest points. Your exemples are not the supidest ones we've rolled up.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster