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However tbh I don't quite get the worked example of square-cube

Assumption: double length = cube mass

Exhibit A length = 6mm, mass = 0.000003kg

Exhibit B length = 600mm

therefore approx. massb = massa x (lengthb/lengtha)^3

approx = 0.000003 x (600/6)^3

approx = 0.000003 x (100)^3

approx =3 kg

3kg ain't SIZ 55!

Where am I going wrong?

Where you are going right is realising that 1000 milligrams = 1 gram and 1,000,000 milligrams is 1 kg. I think that Atgxtg missed the milligram reference.

So, your calculations are right. It also feels right, which is more important.

As to the general point, whenever I am writing up creature stats, I normally think of how big the creature is in relation to other written up creatures and choose a SIZ/STR range accordingly. It's not very scientific but it works for me.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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If you want giant spiders then have a look at some RQ bestiaries. RQ Trolllpack has stats for giant spiders that eat horses. I can't remember off hand if the RQM SRD has stats for giant spiders, it probably hasn't but is worth a look anyway.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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As to the general point, whenever I am writing up creature stats, I normally think of how big the creature is in relation to other written up creatures and choose a SIZ/STR range accordingly. It's not very scientific but it works for me.

Another very good technique

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I never realized the Runequest 4 book was available as a free SRD download. Glancing through it and the Monsters SRD I think I may be better of using Runequest instead of the basic BRP book. There are still some parts of basic BRP I'll use (I like the rules for Magic Powers better than the magic systems used in Runequest), but overall Runequest looks very promising.

The Monster SRD even has stats for goblins and giant spiders (3 different sizes of giant spiders actually! Small SIZ 13 ones, medium SIZ 26 ones, and large SIZ 39 ones). With it and the Monsters 2 book I should have enough critters to last me a while :)

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Do you mean RQ 4 or Mongoose RQ? I'd like to avoid any game influenced by D&D.

Mongoose RuneQuest (often abbreviated at RQM) is the one inspired by D&D. The never actually published RuneQuest:Adventures in Glorantha (abbreviated as RQ:Aig) was inspired by GURPS and was much more of a wargame.

Amusingly of course D&D3 was massively inspired by RuneQuest. So RQM was inspired by D&D3 was inspired by RQIII was inspired by RQI was inspired by D&D 1st edition.

Now I'll go on record as saying that the RQM playests left a bad taste in my mouth, some of their public utterances I find to be arrogant and insulting, I despise Mongoose's publishing strategy and some of their business practices.

BUT if you have already found some of their rules to be a good fit for you (and you are happy to play that favourite of BRP sub-games, picking and choosing which rule to take from which game) then I would not let their family history concern you unduly.

Al

Rule Zero: Don't be on fire

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Do you mean RQ 4 or Mongoose RQ? I'd like to avoid any game influenced by D&D.

Mongoose RQ is the D&D-influenced one. It departs significantly from previous versions of RuneQuest - too much so, IMHO.

RQ4 - "RuneQuest - Adventures in Glorantha" (or RQ4:AiG) was a never-published version much more true to the RQ tradition. PDF copies of it are around, and it has good & interesting ideas, plus a fair number of creatures (with their SIZes).

Edited by frogspawner
Ninja'd!

Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi.

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Strange, I've been reading through RQM and I don't find it to be much like D&D, and I've been playing D&D since Red Box. In fact it looked almost exactly like BRP with one or two very minor changes (like actions per round instead of DEX ranks). What about RQM do you guys find to be "D&D inspired"? How does it deviate so significantly from previous versions of Runequest? Were earlier versions of Runequest not based on the BRP system?

Edited by Shadowdragon
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First remember that MRQ is compared more often to RuneQuest than to BRP, since that's what it purports to be. The amount that MRQ is like D&D is probably a question of degree, since it is still more like RQ than D&D. But many people thought that the changes introduced by MRQ were implemented to draw in some of the 3.5 crowd and make it more palatable to them, rather than improvements or refinements to the rules as they were. One of the reasons it isn't called RQ4 (or RQ5, whatever) is that many people did not think it followed in the footsteps of previous editions enough to be a successor - that it was in fact a different game, not just a different edition.

It's been a while since I looked at the MRQ ruleset, but from memory, these were my beefs...

1. MRQ removed the RQ strike rank system and replaced it with another system (also called strike ranks) that was really just a D&D initiative system by another name.

2. MRQ removed the resistance table and the usefulness of many stats in the process (no more STR vs SIZ rolls). CON rolls and resistance to magic were replaced with 'saving throw'-like skills (such as Persistence).

3. MRQ added legendary abilities which smelled like D&D feats.

4. They tried to introduce a more obvious and direct relationship to runes through Rune Magic, which seemed somewhat ill thought out. This doesn't necessarily make the game more D&D-like though, I don't think.

5. The number of combat actions seemed to favour DEX too much as a stat and ignored one's level of skill with a weapon. This is also not a D&Dism as far as I can tell.

6. Free attacks were added, which seemed a lot like D&D opportunity strikes.

There are probably more. In general, MRQ also doesn't have the same feel that older versions had and it left people with the feeling that Mongoose had missed the point.

Now, to be fair you've so far only heard one side of the story. There are people here who are also active on Mongoose forums which, I assume, means they've come around to like the game. Hopefully one of them can give you a more balanced (and informed!) opinion than I can.

Thalaba

"Tell me what you found, not what you lost" Mesopotamian proverb

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Mongoose RuneQuest (often abbreviated at RQM) is the one inspired by D&D. The never actually published RuneQuest:Adventures in Glorantha (abbreviated as RQ:Aig) was inspired by GURPS and was much more of a wargame.

Al

Huh, never got this feeling with AiG. Always seemed a way to redo things to bring them more back into line with RQII, and to add updates for modern games.

SDLeary

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Huh, never got this feeling with AiG. Always seemed a way to redo things to bring them more back into line with RQII, and to add updates for modern games.

SDLeary

Top of me head

Insane starting equipment rules which actually started as quite a clever high level system and then gets fiddlier and fiddlier before one's eyes

Easy, Medium, Hard skills

LOTS of extra Lores including 'Area' Lores a la GURPS

Adding PenDragon style combat styles (good) as a separate skill for each style (bad)

Groovy flavoursome cult writeups replaced by a list of cults each with a list of game terms and not much else.

Making Sorcery even more complex (no mean feat)

Which is NOT to say that I don't like ANY of the new rules, as some of them are rather good. And the IDEA of giving background info and character gen rules for in and around Dragon Pass is a winner.

Al

Rule Zero: Don't be on fire

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Strange, I've been reading through RQM and I don't find it to be much like D&D... What about RQM do you guys find to be "D&D inspired"? How does it deviate so significantly from previous versions of Runequest? Were earlier versions of Runequest not based on the BRP system?

Objectively, MRQ is much more like BRP than it is like D&D. But the changes Mongoose made were in the direction of D&D. Not at all what old-time RQ fans hoped for in a long-awaited new release of "RuneQuest"!

Thalaba's 'beefs' sum it up well, though I now notice I've made some similar changes myself (1, 3, 6 in particular) - though I hope more sensitively than Mongoose. The one that really rubbed me up the wrong way about MRQ, though (even though I use a more D&D-like magic system!) was...

4. They tried to introduce a more obvious and direct relationship to runes through Rune Magic, which seemed somewhat ill thought out. This doesn't necessarily make the game more D&D-like though, I don't think.

Well, I think it does. It makes MRQ more D&D-like in attitude. (Much more so than any game calling itself RuneQuest should be). The contemptible "kill-things-and-take-their-stuff" D&D-style approach was built-in to the MRQ Rune Magic system. Instead of Runes being spiritual ideas your characters would strive for, oafish Mongoose made them physical objects you had to kill for and take. Yuk. :mad:

Yep, Mongoose missed the point alright. Their failure to even understand their error is emblazoned on the MRQ books covers! >:->

RQ:AiG may not have been perfect, but it was certainly no wargame. It would've been a much better RuneQuest than MRQ - which doesn't deserve the name, IMHO.

Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi.

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Instead of Runes being spiritual ideas your characters would strive for, oafish Mongoose made them physical objects you had to kill for and take.

However I did find it rather sad that RuneQuest 3 had very little to do with Runes.

I created a modification to Sorcery where I had a Runic Lore skill. I assigned one or more of the Gloranthan Runes to each spell (for example Palsy was Death and Stasis, Cast Back was Magic and Moon, Apprentice Bonding was Mastery and Man).

Every 5% of Runic Lore taught the character understanding of one more Rune. However, if you understood one of a pair of Power runes, it would take 10% to learn the other one of the pair.

Understanding the Runes, didn't teach you the spells, you still needed to learn the spells (some combinations of Runes were used by multiple spells).

Runic Lore was a Knowledge skill. If the skill increase was gained by studing under a teacher then only the Runes known by that teacher could be taught. If it was increased through study of ancient texts, then other Runes could be learnt. When a character improved their Runic Lore skill, I (as GM) always had the final say as to which Runes they could gain understanding of. Naturally Infinity (used mainly for Immortality) was on the generally restricted list.

The system had its issues, but my players liked it because it put the Runes back into Runequest.

I've always been a bit of a b*stard as a GM, and certainly no character is going to make it to Priest or Runelord status without a high Cult Lore skill and Shaman require a high Spirit Lore skill, so the Runic Lore skill requirement didn't disadvantage sorcerers (Wizards in my camaign)

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I've created a new thread http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/basic-roleplaying/1486-why-rqm-not-like-d-d.html#post24279 for why RQM is/is not like D&D, rather than confusing the Missing Table thread.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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I like the idea that SIZ is mass only. You can work out the body shape of a character with the help of STR, CON and DEX.

SGL.

One RQ2 related RPG, Privateers & Gentlemen, did just that, even going so far as to calling it MAS.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Is the table reference mentioned in the OP fixed in the PDF version of BRP or in the Print version or neither?

I wasn't sure which version was being referenced.

Officially, the table isn't fixed. Unofficially, I did post a fixed SIZ table that corrects the metric values to match the Imperial ones. I also posted a "Revised & Expanded" SIZ table that gives values for all SIZes up to 330 (after that SIZ is 1/19th the weight in tons).

I think Rosen used the revised SIZ table in BRP MEcha, too.

Mechashef, posted a link to the thread: http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/basic-roleplaying/1368-brp-siz-table-metric-corrected-2.html

I suppose I should check it for errors, clean it up, make it into a nice PDF, and make it available in the downloads section.:o

I should try emailing it off to Chaosium and see if they want to use it for an Official fix. :cool:

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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