Runequest 3, house rules, Borderlands and questions

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

I really have to wonder tho...

Where the hell did the Praxians got their blue jeans from?

From a Marazi Amazon. You can get anything from Amazon.

[Jeff]

11 hours ago, BWP said:

Umm ... I keep looking and all I see are the good RQ3 rules that are missing.  I can't recall noticing any RQ3 rules of note in RQG, and certainly nothing that would constitute "a good mix".

It's not a lie from where I'm sitting.  What are these "awful lot" of RQ3 rules that you're referring to?  There's an entire thread (that I started) on "how much RQ3 is in RQG?" and the answer boiled down to "not a lot, and that was a deliberate choice".

I'm not disputing any of that.  The RQG core is still RQ2, and that's a fundamental problem with the game.  You can put nice sauce on a bad piece of meat, and it's still a bad piece of meat, even if it's edible.  Much better to have nice sauce on a good piece of meat.  Particularly when the chefs have trouble even cooking up a nice sauce ....

 

RQG has an awful lot of RQ3 rules - those rules that were originally developed as fixes for RQ2. But lots of other things were added to RQ3 that Greg (and Sandy) recommended jettisoning. I agree with Greg that overall RQ2 was better built than the final RQ3 - although there were specific Rule Fixes that ended up in RQ3 that were good (and they pretty much all show up in RQG). And RQG reflexes that perspective. 

[Jeff]

On 11/16/2019 at 2:11 AM, Atgxtg said:

Some of us consider it a superior system,.

But not, interestingly enough, the people who wrote it - most emphatically Greg. Greg strongly believed that RQ2 was the superior system to RQ3 and that although RQ3 had some useful rules fixes (like magic points instead of temporary POW), it went too far in many areas and that its "generic" approach was a huge step backwards. 

[Atgxtg]

On 11/17/2019 at 5:34 AM, Jeff said:

But not, interestingly enough, the people who wrote it - most emphatically Greg. Greg strongly believed that RQ2 was the superior system to RQ3 and that although RQ3 had some useful rules fixes (like magic points instead of temporary POW), it went too far in many areas and that its "generic" approach was a huge step backwards. 

What about Steve Perrin? 

Also, the people who are running or playing in a particular group are the ones who have to be happy with the game system. There are a lot of games out there and we all have our preferences, but I'm fairly confident that nobody tries or or wants to run a system that they don't like. Maybe it might happen at a convention or something where a GM is needed an someone does it for the sake of the Con but  in actual gaming groups people play games that they like. 

So what Greg, Steve, myself, or anyone else  prefers isn't as important as what a  particular GM or group of players prefer. It's not  like you're going to  come over an run my group next session, or vice versa. 

So if someone says that they prefer RQ3 over RQG, as the OP did,  they should be allowed to do so. And if someone asks why and they say why, then others such just accept it. Or, as Greg would have put it: Your Game May Vary.

Edited November 18, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Runeblogger]

And of course, no game is ever going to be perfect, nor are the people who love it going to play it 100% according to the rules. 
Even though I love RQ3 and have played it extensively, we ended up adding many houserules. The same will or should happen with RQG.

I even made a list of the 10 aspects of RQ3 that could be improved: (some of them already addressed in RQG!)

           You can read it here  
(use the Translation Gadget on the right margin - I could be convinced to translate it into English, though)

Edited November 17, 2019 by Runeblogger

[soltakss]

22 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Didn't you use any of the RQ2 Cults? 

Yes, but for the cults that were not described in RQ2, we used the RQ3 spells for our RQ2 Campaign.

 

[Atgxtg]

22 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Yes, but for the cults that were not described in RQ2, we used the RQ3 spells for our RQ2 Campaign.

 

I don't have problem with that. We used to cut & paste  (literally in those days) RQ2 Cult Write-up for our RQ3 games.

[Bill the barbarian]

3 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

I don't have problem with that. We used to cut & paste  (literally in those days) RQ2 Cult Write-up for our RQ3 games.

I learned how to use Pagemaker 5 doing that digitally,. Alas, all the docs are useless in the 21st century. 

[soltakss]

22 hours ago, BWP said:

Quote

There is an awful lot of RQ3 rules in RQG, don't believe the lie that it is just RQ2+, it is really RQ2/3+.

It's not a lie from where I'm sitting.  What are these "awful lot" of RQ3 rules that you're referring to?  There's an entire thread (that I started) on "how much RQ3 is in RQG?" and the answer boiled down to "not a lot, and that was a deliberate choice".

Here are some examples:

• RQ2 Battle Magic is called Spirits magic, same as RQ3, and uses POWx5% to cast, same as RQ3.
• Skills are generally RQ3-like. It has First Aid, Dodge instead of Defense, Lores as RQ3, Craft as RQ3, Devise, Scan and Search, as RQ3
• Cloud Cover is as RQ3, Wind Strengths are as RQ3
• Experience is more like RQ3 than RQ2
• INT/SIZ are as RQ3 not RQ2

Don't forget that a lot of RQ3 rules are essentially the same as RQ2 rules, anyway, so are common between RQ2/3/G.

 

 

Edited November 17, 2019 by soltakss

[Atgxtg]

25 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I learned how to use Pagemaker 5 doing that digitally,. Alas, all the docs are useless in the 21st century. 

I know what that is like. I've got a lot of old gaming files that were written on an Atari ST and saved in Ami Pro format, as well as stuff that was written for an Atari ST for some database program that I believe was exclusively for that device. Fortunately, most of the documents can be accessed with a text editor, but removing the formatting characters manually is a pain.

[Bill the barbarian]

3 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Atari ST

I was using PM5 for lay out not WP so stripping out the formatting would be pointless. Unless I am willing to buy a computer that will run by PM 5 find a PM 6  and translate it...transfer the doc to a computer that will run early InDesign for OS X, well that is a rabbit hole and a half, I could try to find someone to pay to translate it for me but...

Hey did you ever run Citadel software for BBSs on that Atari ST?

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I was using PM5 for lay out not WP so stripping out the formatting would be pointless. Unless I am willing to buy a computer that will run by PM 5 find a PM 6  and translate it...transfer the doc to a computer that will run early InDesign for OS X, well that is a rabbit hole and a half, I could try to find someone to pay to translate it for me but...

Old formats can be rather difficult to get stuff out of. It's now like now where we have mostly standardized formats and competing products can generally read each other's files. Old files are often outdated rules-wise, and data tends to get lost of corrupted over time. It's usually not worth the trouble. I was just lucky that I saved those files to a IMB formatted floppy years ago and then backed those up on an external hard drive.  

Quote

Hey did you ever run Citadel software for BBSs on that Atari ST?

No, but I used to visit a couple of BBS that ran it. ASCII graphics and Space Empire Elite.

Back then internet service was charged by the hour, so, outside of a BBS that one knew, all internet activity was get on line download it, get offline, then look at it. I still download my email in part because of habits acquired when being on-line cost $29.99/hour. 

Edited November 17, 2019 by Atgxtg

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Old formats can be rather difficult to get stuff out of. It's now like now where we have mostly standardized formats and competing products can generally read each other's files

Thankfully I used Word back in the 90s and saved the contents onto 3.5" disks which I still have an external reader for!

[Atgxtg]

48 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Thankfully I used Word back in the 90s and saved the contents onto 3.5" disks which I still have an external reader for!

I'd advise backing them up onto another device. One problem with all magnetic storage is that is degrades over time unless accessed. So if the disk sit on a shelf unused they will eventually lose data. There are even some programs that you can get that deliberately refresh files on your hard drive to prevent this form happening, which are increasinly useful in this era of huge hard drives.

[SDLeary]

4 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I was using PM5 for lay out not WP so stripping out the formatting would be pointless. Unless I am willing to buy a computer that will run by PM 5 find a PM 6  and translate it...transfer the doc to a computer that will run early InDesign for OS X, well that is a rabbit hole and a half, I could try to find someone to pay to translate it for me but...

If you  have a pre-CC version of ID,  then THIS script might work.

SDLeary

[SDLeary]

4 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I know what that is like. I've got a lot of old gaming files that were written on an Atari ST and saved in Ami Pro format, as well as stuff that was written for an Atari ST for some database program that I believe was exclusively for that device. Fortunately, most of the documents can be accessed with a text editor, but removing the formatting characters manually is a pain.

MAN! I loved ST. PageStream was so ahead of its time back then...  not much  now though. Also used 1st Word Plus, and Microsoft Write. 

[Bill the barbarian]

39 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

If you  have a pre-CC version of ID,  then THIS script might work.

 

Shit SD Leary, this might actually work, I am up to my ears in work but when time permits I will have to give this a try.

[BWP]

17 hours ago, Jeff said:

RQG has an awful lot of RQ3 rules - those rules that were originally developed as fixes for RQ2.

I wish someone would say what they are.  All I hear is people asserting that they exist, honest.  I can't see them.

17 hours ago, Jeff said:

But lots of other things were added to RQ3 that Greg (and Sandy) recommended jettisoning. I agree with Greg that overall RQ2 was better built than the final RQ3 - although there were specific Rule Fixes that ended up in RQ3 that were good (and they pretty much all show up in RQG). And RQG reflexes that perspective. 

While I have tremendous respect for Greg and Sandy, I think they were mistaken.

[BWP]

6 hours ago, soltakss said:

Here are some examples:

That's your list of "awful lot" of similarities?  I'll grant you the skill stuff.  The rest is pretty ephemeral.  The changes to INT/SIZ had become standard in just about every BRP-based game released post-RQ2, so saying that it's a "RQ3 change that was incorporated" is misleading at best.

I'm reminded of a situation from many years back when one major Australian car was released (with a new name) by a different manufacturer (under a business agreement that was presumably beneficial to both companies) the "new" car was not "just" a copy of the original, there were literally hundreds of differences -- and a list was provided to prove it.  The vast majority of those differences were things like "replaced company A's badge with company B's badge on front grill", "replaced company A's badge with company B's badge on boot", "replaced company A's badge with company B's badge on steering wheel", and so on and so on.

Yes, there's a bunch of changes equivalent to "badge updates" in RQG.  What I'm concerned about are the meaningful changes -- the ones that make RQG play differently to the previous versions.  I've already indicated that there are new things I'm totally in agreement with -- but they're new things.  What bothers me are the old things that went backwards.  There's far too many of those.

Edited November 18, 2019 by BWP

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, BWP said:

That's your list of "awful lot" of similarities?  I'll grant you the skill stuff.  The rest is pretty ephemeral.  The changes to INT/SIZ had become standard in just about every BRP-based game released post-RQ2, so saying that it's a "RQ3 change that was incorporated" is misleading at best.

I agree. For instance based on what I've seen, while SIZ might be rolled the same way as in RQ3, the relationship between SIZ and mass has been greatly changed. 

But, ultimately it doesn't matter what anyone here like or dislikes, about RQ32, RQ3 or RQG, it matter what you and your gaming group like. Id you prefer RQ3 (or RQG for those who rather play that) then run the system you want to run and everyone else can run what they want.

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, SDLeary said:

MAN! I loved ST. PageStream was so ahead of its time back then...  not much  now though. Also used 1st Word Plus, and Microsoft Write. 

Yeah it was a nice machine. I remember using a desktop pulbling program that touted one of the first WYSIWYG layouts (it really wasn't, although it was an improvement).

[Joerg]

How much RQ3? Quite a lot, IMO. E.g. cult ranks are taken from RQ3, no more Rune Priest/Lords of Daka Fal or Eiritha, for instance.

What was ditched from RQ3? I don't miss APP or Enc. Removing the "10 points of rune magic" requirement for priests and replacing it with the requirement for not letting your POW go below 18 (while getting a four point advantage for POW gain rolls) might be the change that I like least.

RQ3 sorcery wasn't Gloranthan with its familiars everywhere. The new system has at least a Gloranthan logic. Finding spells that you can actually cast with the runes you have mastered during character generation is a different proposal, though.

Making 98% or so of the westerners non-sorcery-users feels strange, though, when Hrestoli society has prospective knights learning the priciples of spellcraft. Even with Daka Fal taking up much of the slack (and offering a vast array of divine magic to initiates) I wonder how the other orthodox Malkioni fare without breaking that orthodoxy. But that's a change in the presentation of Glorantha, not RuneQuest.

Quote

I know what that is like. I've got a lot of old gaming files that were written on an Atari ST and saved in Ami Pro format, as well as stuff that was written for an Atari ST for some database program that I believe was exclusively for that device. Fortunately, most of the documents can be accessed with a text editor, but removing the formatting characters manually is a pain.

While I did save some material (e.g. my diploma thesis and the issues 2 through 7 of Free INT) formatted in Signum! (a graphic print program by Application Systems Heidelberg which surpassed most word processors of the time, able to do mathematical formulas etc. in WYSIWYG rather than LateX encryption), the vast majority of my documents were kept as ASCII text format in those years. Including the prototype of my Gloranthan index, for which I invented a mark-up code that could be transformed into regular tags by a PEARL script when I finally went to a database solution. But then, the matrix printers at that time still translated ASCII into PICA type print.

I never grew warm with the database program for the ST, but I used a spread-sheet program that I received as part of my work as student assistant e.g. to create a chargen for RQ3.

Accessing those documents is a pain, though - my 120 MB hard-disk requires an ST to be accessed, and then I probably have to equip an old PC with a serial or parallel port to be able to use the data on a laptop.

 

Edited November 18, 2019 by Joerg

[jajagappa]

12 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I'd advise backing them up onto another device.

Oh, yes! Got those recovered quite some time ago. 

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Oh, yes! Got those recovered quite some time ago. 

Good move. I've lost a few things due to disk/fdrive failure over the years. 

[Bill the barbarian]

9 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Good move. I've lost a few things due to disk/fdrive failure over the years. 

knock on wood the only things i have lost are from lack of software support and companies/programs dying.