Yet Another One More SR Clarification

[claycle]

(Preamble: I was looking for the thread of SR discussion and replies from Scotty from about a week ago, but I can't seem to find it, even looking at Scotty and mine's profiles to see if the posts appeared. I had one more question that I tried to post, but I wasn't logged in at the time and I am not sure what happened to it. So...one more question...)

The discussion began with the notion that (my) players "always" declare an action pattern like "I draw my sword and cast Bladesharp on it, then I charge across the field, and then I swing my axe at his head!" in the first round of "every" combat and we, as a group, always struggle to simulate these declarations with the RQ SR RAW (and let's please forego the "do your own thing at your own table" handwaving, please, as we all want to understand the intent of the rules right now, because none of us can agree on them).

My last question was a sort of "have we totally misunderstood this all along"? Because after I shared Scotty's responses with the group, all 6 of us were confused.

Namely, suppose (and these numbers are just imaginary), a player with a bow has the ability to fire the bow twice in a round (S/MR), and we'll say on we calculate that the first possible SR could be 6.

The question arose in our gestalt, "Are Strike Ranks just determining when it's your turn to act?" (based on something very specific Scotty said in his reply). Thus, with the above archer, his first possible shot could be on SR 6, but if he wants to take two shots, his last possible shot is on SR 11. Thus, his turn for that round occurs on SR 11, and all his actions (both bow attack rolls) occur on SR 11, because SR is simply a method for determining order of action.

[Lordabdul]

50 minutes ago, claycle said:

(Preamble: I was looking for the thread of SR discussion and replies from Scotty from about a week ago, but I can't seem to find it, even looking at Scotty and mine's profiles to see if the posts appeared. I had one more question that I tried to post, but I wasn't logged in at the time and I am not sure what happened to it. So...one more question...)

The Q&A thread here on BRP is a special threads: Scotty regularly "prunes" it and moves all the questions and answers to the Well of Daliath website. So you may vaguely recognize some of your questions over there, although of course Scotty heavily edits and trims these questions to keep the WoD pages minimal and more easily parsed.

 

50 minutes ago, claycle said:

The question arose in our gestalt, "Are Strike Ranks just determining when it's your turn to act?" (based on something very specific Scotty said in his reply). Thus, with the above archer, his first possible shot could be on SR 6, but if he wants to take two shots, his last possible shot is on SR 11. Thus, his turn for that round occurs on SR 11, and all his actions (both bow attack rolls) occur on SR 11, because SR is simply a method for determining order of action.

SRs are just weird. Some people are saying "SR is simply a method of determining order of action" because they want to avoid people from going down the road of RQ3/MRQ/Mythras which evolved the SR system into a full blow action economy system, where each SR is one second and you have to reason about it as a time partitioning thing where actions take a certain number of seconds (SRs). So.... well... don't go down that route with RQG (otherwise rules stop making sense and you have to replace some rules with other editions' rules... which some people do).

So, for example: an aimed blow happens on SR12. This does not mean that it takes everybody 12 seconds exactly to aim, and that the strike happens in a split second just before the start of the next round! It just means that everybody who tries to aim will invariably strike after anybody who is not trying to aim. Two opponents might strike at each other one way on SR3 and then the other way on SR12. This doesn't mean there's a large "time gap" between the blows either... they might "in reality" happen just one after the other. SRs are just a way to order things, and the "distance" between the SRs doesn't mean anything about time elapsed. It's just to figure out order. Does that make sense?

Now back to your example: determining order doesn't exclude acting twice. Someone with a high weapon skill might split their attack and attack twice. An archer might have time to lose an arrow twice. So you need to determine the order of each of these actions (SRs determine order of action, not order of players playing). So I think you did it right: if the archer can attack on SR 6 and SR 11, then that's what they do. It's just that these numbers don't represent seconds elapsed -- they represent a vaguely plausible order for when this archer attacks while other people are doing other things. Does that also make sense?

[Psullie]

Don't get too hung up on precision, SR's are just there to simplify the order of things.

The way I do it is: ask for everybody's statement of intent, I respond with a 'okay you go on 4' or 'you cast Bladesharp on 3 then strike on 8'. Once everyone has their slot I count up from 1-12 and the players jump in accordingly, sometime's as lordabdul said, stuff only happens at certain SR's, this doesn't mean there is a perceivable gap

Edited March 20, 2021 by Psullie

[claycle]

26 minutes ago, Psullie said:

stuff only happens at certain SR's, this doesn't mean there is a perceivable gap

It's not that we're hung up, we're just trying to understand the intention of the rules as groundwork. The SR RAW - and people's wildly varying interpretations of them - are confounding us.

Taking this a step further regarding no perceivable gap:

If we determine Allen's action is on SR 5 and Barbara's action is on SR 6 (and Allen and Barbara are trying to kill each other with axes): if Allen decapitates Barbara on SR 5 and there is no perceivable gap between SR 5 and 6, does Barbara still get an attack roll?

[Lordabdul]

11 minutes ago, claycle said:

If we determine Allen's action is on SR 5 and Barbara's action is on SR 6 (and Allen and Barbara are trying to kill each other with axes): if Allen decapitates Barbara on SR 5 and there is no perceivable gap between SR 5 and 6, does Barbara still get an attack roll?

Nope, Barbara lost her head.

Psullie didn't say there was not perceivable gap -- just that it doesn't mean there is always one 😉   Which I guess is another way to say "between SR5 and SR6 there might have been just a split second, or there might have been 10 seconds".

[Psullie]

12 minutes ago, claycle said:

If we determine Allen's action is on SR 5 and Barbara's action is on SR 6 (and Allen and Barbara are trying to kill each other with axes): if Allen decapitates Barbara on SR 5 and there is no perceivable gap between SR 5 and 6, does Barbara still get an attack roll?

No, Barbara does not attack as she was killed on SR5. 

No perceivable gap meant that if Allen kills Barbara on SR5, and Colin's spell goes off on SR9, the the spell would simply go off after Barb is killed. 

[soltakss]

2 hours ago, claycle said:

The question arose in our gestalt, "Are Strike Ranks just determining when it's your turn to act?" (based on something very specific Scotty said in his reply). Thus, with the above archer, his first possible shot could be on SR 6, but if he wants to take two shots, his last possible shot is on SR 11. Thus, his turn for that round occurs on SR 11, and all his actions (both bow attack rolls) occur on SR 11, because SR is simply a method for determining order of action.

I am not sure what you mean here.

It would help to link the original post, although I suppose you can't if you can't find it.

First of all, if someone takes out an arrow and prepares it then they could probably shoot on SR6. Then taking out another arrow they can shoot on SR11.

So, the order of events is:

• SR 1: Take out an arrow
• SR 6: Fire the arrow and take out another arrow
• SR 11: Fire the second arrow

If he does not fire the first arrow then there is no point taking out a second arrow and firing that.

The two shots do not go off at SR 11, but at SR 6 and 11.

The archer's round starts on SR1, like everyone else's.

 

[Scotty]

2 hours ago, claycle said:

(Preamble: I was looking for the thread of SR discussion and replies from Scotty from about a week ago, but I can't seem to find it, even looking at Scotty and mine's profiles to see if the posts appeared. I had one more question that I tried to post, but I wasn't logged in at the time and I am not sure what happened to it. So...one more question...)

It's at the end of The Melee Round (page 191)

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

Scotty regularly "prunes" it

Mods and Admins see all the hidden items, it's currently 8 pages long (you only see 1), so when another page fills for us,  I move it over to the RuneQuest Glorantha Corrections and Q&A. 

[French Desperate WindChild]

2 hours ago, claycle said:

because SR is simply a method for determining order of action.

try this sentence

SR is simply a method for determining order of each action

 

the concept of "order" is to say :

 you have done some actions, and you want to do another one but this last one cannot occur in the 12 SR, then you cannot. And the order is reinitialized next round

 

taking your values

 

round 1: SR 6 => first shoot is done (if it kills someone, the dead cannot do anything SR7 or +)

round 1: SR 11 => second shoot is done

and if the bowman wants to shoot a third arrow ?

in the rules he has to wait the second round and redo

round 2: SR 6 => third shoot

round 2:  SR 11 => 4th shot

 

that's why it is said "order", that is not a question of "second"

 

if you where in an "time / action points" system, the arrows would be shooted at 6 / 11 / 16 / 21 / 26 / 31 / 36 (so one more arrow than rules as written [6 / 11] / [18 / 23] / [30 / 36] )

the raw simplify the table management (but lose simulation) : you call SR1 who can do something, SR2 etc. SR12.... ok end of the round, next round, who can do something SR1, etc...) it is easier than each players and gm have their counts (but I prefer  the actions points, if players are efficient to work with this)

 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

Yes as mentioned SR’s in RQG are just a way to sort the order of actions, not a literal measurement of time.

It may help to consider the different system in RQ3:

In contrast RQ3 turned them into a more specific measurement of time, mostly because they introduced movement into and throughout the melee round engagement. RQG like RQ2 doesn’t do that. Movement is only calculated in RQG as a means to find out at what point you arrive at the fight, after which the melee round is a more abstract engagement, and there’s no further need to calculate movement by SR. 
RQ3 continued to measure movement by SR throughout the melee engagement, therefore SR’s became a continual measure of time and distance. This is not what RQG does, SR’s are just to sort the order of the abstracted combat round, no need to measure time and distance. It’s simply sorting the initiative order.