Clarity of RQ rules?

[jajagappa]

On 1/15/2021 at 10:37 AM, Stephen L said:

Is rule clarity in RQinG actually an issue, or am I just amongst a small band of whingers?

For me, no.  I've been successfully running RQG games for 3+ years now starting with the QuickStart (currently GMing two and also playing in several run by others).  I've not had issues answering questions from players or finding myself confused about what is presented.  (And while I did run RQ3 for years, I don't find myself going back to that for anything in my games.)

I follow the same basics that @soltakss outlined.  

I need to refer to the combat special/critical results regularly as well as the attack/parry & attack/dodge matrices, but that's not a clarity issue.  

If I'm dealing with spirits, sometimes I need to crosscheck between the RQG core book and the Bestiary, but that's also not a clarity issue.

I like having RBoM now as a quick reference for all the spells.  I'm sure I'll say the same once the Gods book is out.  

[Dissolv]

It's not really an issue.  However I do hold RQII to be pretty much the gold standard for clarity with rules.  RQ:G is simply too long to possibly be as concise, plus they added in flavorful character generation, much more about Glorantha in general, etc. 

Like anything else, when you GM you use the mechanics that you need to tell the story and play the game.  Everything else is nice to have.

[smiorgan]

I've noticed that RQ:G rules become much clearer when I actually read them. 🤣 Rather than half-reading them, half-remembering a mix of rules from RQ2, RQ3 and the BGB.

Jokes aside. There are a few passages that could be clearer but nothing dramatic. Actually, I think this issue has been blown way out of proportion, especially on another well known rpg forum on the net, where some users have created a sort of mythology around that.

I like compact expositions of the rules and I look forward to the forthcoming Starter Set for having my go-to booklet to use at the table for reference on important rules. I already have the Quickstart, which is pretty good, but not 100% final (I gather) in terms of rules.

  

Edited January 16, 2021 by smiorgan

[AndreJarosch]

On 1/15/2021 at 4:37 PM, Stephen L said:

• Is rule clarity in RQinG actually an issue, or am I just amongst a small band of whingers? 
• Is that clarity achievable?  Is that a rules rewrite, an official errata, or the web based services we’ve now got?
• Is that clarity practical?  E.g., we could have a rules rewrite, but at the expense of a pipeline of supplements.
• Is it even desirable, is *requiring* re-reading and internalisation a good thing?

My subjective (and not objective) answer to this: 

I have read and played RQ3, a little bit of RQ2, a little bit of RQ4 (the one that was never published), a little bit of RQ4 (aka Mongoose RQ), played RQ6 aka Mythras, AND CoC 3rd to 6th editions, Stormbringer 3rd to 5th editions, plus BRP Big Golden Book), a little bit OpenQuest, and some other BRPs, and NOW i read and play RQG. 

Yes the rules are not always as clear to me, but most of the time it is not the fault of RQG, but because of myself mixing in all the informations i have in my head from previous editions and related RPGs. 

IMHO a first time RQ GM who starts with RQG as his first game of the big BRP family will have less problems to get all the details of the game system right, than me old fart. 

And we have to acknowlege that RQ has grown from RQ1 to RQ3 to RQG (RQ4 was designed from scratch, but badly. and RQ5/RQ6/Mythras was designed from scratch, but nicely), and RQG FEELS like it has a history as a game system. This ends up sometimes will minor discrepancies in the game system, but feels organic (RQ6/Mythras is almost to perfect as a game system, but doesn´t feels correct for me to use with Glorantha... THAT D100 game has to be RQG). 

Does this help?

[Eff]

As a player (and prospective but not active GM), there are two primary clarity issues with RQG: one is that there are instances (like the Attack and Parry Results table) where there are minor differences of wording in text that create potential ambiguities in how the mechanics are implemented. As this is true of any RPG which has not been reviewed by an ISO specification writing committee, and even many boardgames with a significantly more limited set of potential verbs and more exhaustive scope of playtesting, I would have to rate this as a minor issue. The other one is that it would be nice to have a player-facing product with a set of tables for things like the different augmenting effects from using Skills, Passions, or Runes, where the rules are split up in a reasonable way that nevertheless introduces a mild inconvenience/getting paper cuts when I fumble my Library Use (Role-Playing Games) roll.

For clarity's sake, I have no prior experience with playing or running Runequest or BRP games before RQG.

Edited January 16, 2021 by Eff
Added a minor biographical note.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

On 1/15/2021 at 3:37 PM, Stephen L said:

Is rule clarity in RQinG actually an issue, or am I just amongst a small band of whingers? 

On the whole it’s great, but there have been a few points which I think have all been clarified. In fact I don’t think any RPG rulebook has been scrutinised so closely, a mark of people’s regard for RuneQuest. 

From memory the main points that stood out for me were:

• Two weapon fighting - issue being rules not updated for new RQG combat rules, in particular the new parry rules.

• Parry/Dodge not fully explained as being interchangeable. But hey I guess this may be down to personal taste. The official clarification is that you can interchange them in defence but the -20% cumulative applies to both regardless.

• Confusion on damage to limbs. Issue example error, and lack of an explanation for why limbs have different damage limits. Why the extra crunch? etc

• Special Crush damage lacking clarity. Turns out both damage bonus’s are “special damage” so both are maximised.

• One-Use Rune Magic. In process of being clarified in the new Red Book of Magic.

There may have been a few other example errors, but on the whole the book reads fine, and is 100% playable.   

[DreadDomain]

On 1/16/2021 at 1:37 AM, Stephen L said:

• Is rule clarity in RQinG actually an issue, or am I just amongst a small band of whingers? 
• Is that clarity achievable?  Is that a rules rewrite, an official errata, or the web based services we’ve now got?
• Is that clarity practical?  E.g., we could have a rules rewrite, but at the expense of a pipeline of supplements.
• Is it even desirable, is *requiring* re-reading and internalisation a good thing?

• Yes, it is not a fatal flaw and it doesn't make the game unplayable by any means but rule clarity is an issue. Others games (GURPS, HERO, Mythras and I am sure others) are written in a more consistent, integrated way so it's not like it's an unreasonable expectation.
• It is acheivable. Most of the time it is a matter of writing a section slightly differently or editing a sentence.
• It does not look like integrating the errata in a third printing would be more involved than what has already been done for the second printing. Granted, I have no clue how hard it was to update the second printing.
• I believe it is. Rule clarifications is unavoidable but I have rarely seen, on the other forums I visit once in a while, so many rule debates about the meaning of what is written, what is the intent of the rule and what is the in-game justification of the rule. If we could cut through all that noise, we would spend more time on fun stuff. 

Edited January 18, 2021 by DreadDomain

[SachaGoat]

I'm a newbie but already a big fan of RQG. But I bounced off the game originally on launch because I struggled with the rules. I was new to BRP games, which didn't help.

It wasn't until running Pendragon, typing up summaries of the RQG rules in my Notion (note-taking app) and running another 10 sessions, did I start to get the intent behind some confusing elements (wound levels, strike rank, combat actions per round, attack-parry matrix, armour layering, seasonal advancement). Once you understand the intent, you don't have to clutch onto the official rules as tightly.

I hope the starter set will streamline the core rules. And erratas and forums are great. But I assume I'll be sticking to my system to make it easier. 

[DreadDomain]

On 1/16/2021 at 3:21 AM, PhilHibbs said:

Taking the Species Maximum discussion as an example, I've been imagining what would have happened back in 1984, before forums like this.

I'd have read the rules, noticed that there were two different systems for calculating the maximum characteristic, and decided that one was a mistake. It really would not be a big deal, I'd mention it to my group, we'd come up with an answer that we all agreed on, and that's that. I think we had our own rule for Species Maximum that was subtly different to the standard one anyway.

Until the topic was brought up and clarified in the Q&A, this is exactly what I did. I simply assumed that "minimum rollable" was an inconsistent way used to describe exactly the same thing described under species maximum. For human it gives the same result and reading "minimum rollable" too literally was opening up non-sensical results for non-human. If not for the forum, I would not have ever known that the non-sensical approach is actually the official one. Thankfully it is a edge case easily ignored.

1 hour ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

On the whole it’s great, but there have been a few points which I think have all been clarified. In fact I don’t think any RPG rulebook has been scrutinised so closely, a mark of people’s regard for RuneQuest. 

From memory the main points that stood out for me were:

• Two weapon fighting - issue being rules not updated for new RQG combat rules, in particular the new parry rules.

It is still not 100% fixed in the second printing

1 hour ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

• Parry/Dodge not fully explained as being interchangeable. But hey I guess this may be down to personal taste. The official clarification is that you can interchange them in defence but the -20% cumulative applies to both regardless.

This is one case where I thought it was self-evident but clarity is good. Personally, I am more annoyed by the fact that the Attack/Parry matrix and the Attack/Dodge matrix do not have the same orientation. Everytime I have to confirm if Attak is on the side or at the top.

1 hour ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

• Confusion on damage to limbs. Issue example error, and lack of an explanation for why limbs have different damage limits. Why the extra crunch? etc

Errors in examples are vary damaging to comprehension. Thankfully, it is easily errataed.

1 hour ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

• Special Crush damage lacking clarity. Turns out both damage bonus’s are “special damage” so both are maximised.

Wait, What?

1 hour ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

• One-Use Rune Magic. In process of being clarified in the new Red Book of Magic.

There may have been a few other example errors, but on the whole the book reads fine, and is 100% playable.   

Agreed

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

40 minutes ago, DreadDomain said:

It is still not 100% fixed in the second printing

True.

 

40 minutes ago, DreadDomain said:

Wait, What?

Yep

[Stephen L]

10 hours ago, jajagappa said:

For me, no.  I've been successfully running RQG games for 3+ years now starting with the QuickStart

A very good point.

I have had *no* issues with understanding the rules that have affected game play.

I get the impression with the RQinG, is that a lot of thought has gone into how Glorantha is presented to a new player, and I think it really succeeds with that.

However, I'm not sure RQinG succeeds quite as well with how the system is presented to a new player:

7 hours ago, SachaGoat said:

I'm a newbie but already a big fan of RQG. But I bounced off the game originally on launch because I struggled with the rules

 

10 hours ago, jajagappa said:

starting with the QuickStart

Again, a very good point.  If the concern is how new players pick up the rules, and become as wowed with them as they really should, then perhaps its the clarity of the QuickStart that really matters. 

Are they issues with that?  I only recall falling in the completely-wowed category. 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

On 1/17/2021 at 8:27 AM, Stephen L said:

Are they issues with that?  I only recall falling in the completely-wowed category. 

Quick start is a brilliant way into RQG. To my mind it’s easy to follow. Obvs by its nature it’s abbreviated. IIRC there are tiny differences in presentation of some combat rules, but it’s minor stuff * and the gist is all there.

It just goes to show how some of these things are a matter of taste, and I’m sure many make these sort of house rules. It all works, nothing is broken. Brilliant little adventure too.

 

 

* Edit: On closer inspection really really minor differences from the core rules. Some rules are necessarily abbreviated like special types of damage. Differences in the presentation of remaining rules are as follows :-

• Dodge is described as usable against all attacks from one source. In the core it’s applicable against attacks from any source.

• Parry Normal Success vs successful attack - Parry weapon takes 1 hit-point. Core rules - parry weapon only takes hit point if dam exceeds weapon hit points. 

• Parry normal success vs unsuccessful attack - if attack failure, parry weapon does normal rolled damage breaking it if it exceeds the weapons hit points. In the core rules, this is toned down to only inflicting 1 hit-point on the attacking weapon.

• Two weapon fighting spot rule is incorrect and makes the same mistake the core rules did in 1st printing regarding number of parries.

So in general the parry results are a bit harsher on a couple of results in the QuickStart, with a bit more chance of weapon breaking.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by Paid a bod yn dwp

[Brootse]

On 1/15/2021 at 5:55 PM, Akhôrahil said:

I think it's pretty bad (but then I also have membership in that band). I don't think I have ever seen a game that is this good in all the other aspects while having this poor consistency and rules-editing. The rules look like they've been slapped together through copy&paste from different products.

Agreed. At times I've felt like a haruspex looking at entrails when trying to understand RQG's rules, but the official Q&A threads have been useful. And these days the response time is very fast.

[Kloster]

26 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Agreed. At times I've felt like a haruspex looking at entrails when trying to understand RQG's rules, but the official Q&A threads have been useful. And these days the response time is very fast.

Yes. The real problems is for new players/GM, that will not automatically go to a Q&A thread on a forum: They buy and try to use the rules as they (try to) understand the rules, especially when they are not native english speakers (most of my players don't speak english, and are thus unable to search this forum).

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

1 minute ago, Kloster said:

Yes. The real problems is for new players/GM, that will not automatically go to a Q&A thread on a forum: They buy and try to use the rules as they (try to) understand the rules, especially when they are not native english speakers (most of my players don't speak english, and are thus unable to search this forum).

Yes I agree that future printings should aim to incorporate all the clarifications for a consistent experience, it’s only going to help the game. 

Making sure rules are consistent across products like quickstart, starter set, and core is desirable and helpful in removing barriers to comprehension.

[Akhôrahil]

7 minutes ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

Yes I agree that future printings should aim to incorporate all the clarifications for a consistent experience, it’s only going to help the game. 

I think it could be great if an editing push for clarity and consistency is made for the Starter Set, which is after all targeted at new players who can't lean on old editions and decades of play for their understanding. Then those improvements could get folded back into future printings/editions of the main rules.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

Well I’ve picked through the QuIckStart with knowledge of what we now know to be the correct core rulings. A few more inconsistencies around the attack and parry results which I’ve added to the quickstart errata thread as I don’t think they were mentioned previously.
Hopefully as others have said in future there can be a consistent experience across the quickstart, starterset, and core rules:

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Paid a bod yn dwp

[Orlanthatemyhamster]

On 1/16/2021 at 1:50 AM, Whizbang said:

The index has not helped me even once

That's because it's not very good.

[Aprewett]

Thank you Paid.

This game is on my wish list for this year, but I don’t have the time to catch all fixes.

So a list of all the bugs to watch for is gold. I did not get to read any further, as I wanted to post this straight away. Hopefully there is a good list of these with page numbers to help out a noob to the rules.

‘Thanks.

[Shiningbrow]

On 1/18/2021 at 9:30 PM, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

Yes I agree that future printings should aim to incorporate all the clarifications for a consistent experience, it’s only going to help the game. 

Making sure rules are consistent across products like quickstart, starter set, and core is desirable and helpful in removing barriers to comprehension.

I'll go a step further, and say that not fixing errors, clarifying things that have obviously been an issue for players*, and not being consistent across products is a sign of care-lessness (as in, couldn't care less), and would be extremely unprofessional.

I understand that there may be constraints and limits, eg layout, but not fixing those things that clearly need fixing is basically telling fans "we don't really care about you - just give us your money".

(I'm not specifically referring to Chaosium - but any product in general)

 

(*I don't necessarily mean each and every little nit-picky thing that comes up, but those things that are significant and a large number of people have confusion over).

[French Desperate WindChild]

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

but not fixing those things that clearly need fixing is basically telling fans "we don't really care about you - just give us your money".

I cannot agree, it is a moral judgment.

some other hyptohesis :

"we consider that only few people need to fix these points and more people needs other material, so we focus on other material, that is a matter of prioritization"

"we plan to publish another version but if we communicate, few people will request a date anf if we are late it will be another drama"

"we would like to have a better version but it costs a lot of money and whe don't have enough to secure the economic future of the company"

"we don't see these  issues as true issues so we don't care. When we are facing a true issue we fix it as soon as possible"

"our strategy is based on other dimensions (artistic, backround, ...) and we hope that customers are able to manage these issues by themselves and like our strategy"

"we have some contractual constraints with suppliers / economic partners so we have to leave this point aside"

et caetera...

 

 

 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

7 hours ago, Aprewett said:

Thank you Paid.

This game is on my wish list for this year, but I don’t have the time to catch all fixes.

So a list of all the bugs to watch for is gold. I did not get to read any further, as I wanted to post this straight away. Hopefully there is a good list of these with page numbers to help out a noob to the rules.

‘Thanks.

Yeah like I said before. It still plays fine as a quickstart, despite a few minor inconsistencies with the main rules, it’s by no means game breaking. Though for the purpose of learning the game and internalising it, it helps if those inconsistencies are ironed out, rather then having two similar, but different rulings. For example having alternative attack and parry results.

iirc the quickstart was put out when they were still finalising some the minor things in the rules, so it’s not surprising there are a few differences. It’s still a great little product and introduction to RQG as is. But if you want to start playing it with the core rules straight, those points pointed out in the errata thread should help. 
 

Edit: The Easiest fix for rules alignment is to use the attack and parry results table in the core also available with the Gms screen. 
 

Edited January 26, 2021 by Paid a bod yn dwp

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I cannot agree, it is a moral judgment.

some other hyptohesis :

"we consider that only few people need to fix these points and more people needs other material, so we focus on other material, that is a matter of prioritization"

"we plan to publish another version but if we communicate, few people will request a date anf if we are late it will be another drama"

"we would like to have a better version but it costs a lot of money and whe don't have enough to secure the economic future of the company"

"we don't see these  issues as true issues so we don't care. When we are facing a true issue we fix it as soon as possible"

"our strategy is based on other dimensions (artistic, backround, ...) and we hope that customers are able to manage these issues by themselves and like our strategy"

"we have some contractual constraints with suppliers / economic partners so we have to leave this point aside"

et caetera...

 

 

 

I can understand there will be many reasons for not publishing a new version. That wasn't my point.

My point is - if a new version is put out, then such fixes ought to be made. (Otherwise, what's the point of putting out the new version???)

While not quite the same, I'm sure you'd agree that if a book is printed with lots of spelling and grammar mistakes, you'd expect any updated version to have them fixed (once their pointed out). Such things are usually very quick and easy to fix, and have little impact overall (ie, layout).

[French Desperate WindChild]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

I'm sure you'd agree that if a book is printed with lots of spelling and grammar mistakes, you'd expect any updated version to have them fixed (once their pointed out).

of course

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

Such things are usually very quick and easy to fix, and have little impact overall (ie, layout).

don't know, I m not in this business

 

my point is just about what I quoted : "they don't care people, just want money". Of course I love quality, but I know, as "producer" (program computer) and "entrepreneur" (same business) that when things are not enough good for a customer, it is not always because the seller is a bad guy (moraly or skill or any thing). Sometimes yes, sometimes no. that was my point

[PhilHibbs]

Chaosium did a very large print run of the second printing, so that is locked down for a while. Right now they are concentrating their resources and attention on getting more material out.