Stan's QuestWorlds Rules Summary

[Stan Shinn]

My first game is tomorrow night so I put together a concise, one-page QuestWorlds rules summary based on the latest edition of the SRD (from GitHub). Let me know of any feedback or errors! I appreciate your input.

https://dicehaven.com/stan-shinn-rpg-downloads/ (scroll to the 'QuestWorlds' section)

Also, all the text is written in my own words as my interpretation of the rules. I think, given that, that I have the attribution correct, but if there is some other thing I need to add to note that this refers to the SRD, feel free to point this out and I'll make an update to the document 🙂

Edited October 17, 2022 by Stan Shinn

[soltakss]

That looks really good.

Don't you add your Masteries to the number of Successes? So, Player A has 10M and Player B has 18, Player A rolls 11, so scores 0 Successes but add the Mastery to get 1 Success, Player 2 rolls 15 so gets 1 Success, so the result is a tie.

 

[Doug]

21 hours ago, soltakss said:

Don't you add your Masteries to the number of Successes?

Yes. That is covered in Doing Things > Die Rolls. But not under The Basics, which is where I think you were looking.

[groovyclam]

Just want to say "Thank You" for making this.

[Stan Shinn]

On 10/7/2022 at 7:45 AM, soltakss said:

Don't you add your Masteries to the number of Successes? So, Player A has 10M and Player B has 18, Player A rolls 11, so scores 0 Successes but add the Mastery to get 1 Success, Player 2 rolls 15 so gets 1 Success, so the result is a tie.

 

I agree that this could have been more clear in the initial 'Core Mechanics' section so I added it there and put that section into a box since that section is so important. New version is now available using the same link as before. If anyone things of other improvements, let me know 🙂

[Stan Shinn]

I've now added some permanent URLs for the file (since the Google Drive link will expire at some point).

You can get it from my downloads page here (scroll to the bottom): https://dicehaven.com/stan-shinn-rpg-downloads/

Or you can direct link to it here: https://dicehaven.com/?smd_process_download=1&download_id=6260

[Runeblogger]

On 10/6/2022 at 10:12 PM, Stan Shinn said:

My first game is tomorrow night so I put together a concise, one-page QuestWorlds rules summary based on the latest edition of the SRD (from GitHub). Let me know of any feedback or errors! I appreciate your input.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a9s5K6TdZ4YJgwWry-jssOykAeOBQYX7/view?usp=sharing

Also, all the text is written in my own words as my interpretation of the rules. I think, given that, that I have the attribution correct, but if there is some other thing I need to add to note that this refers to the SRD, feel free to point this out and I'll make an update to the document 🙂

Thanks for putting this together.
Now I would like to know how your first game went.  🙂

[JonL]

Love it!

If you're including the QW logo, you may need to add a second page with the SRD license. If you drop the logo, you'd probably be OK to distribute under the Fan Materials Policy. (Note: I'm just an outside contributor. I don't speak for Chaosium.)

Edited October 17, 2022 by JonL

[Stan Shinn]

25 minutes ago, JonL said:

Love it!

If you're including the QW logo, you may need to add a second page with the SRD license. If you drop the logo, you'd probably be OK to distribute under the Fan Materials Policy. (Note: I'm just an outside contributor. I don't speak for Chaosium.)

Thanks for pointing this out! I was going off of what this page said -- https://www.chaosium.com/questworlds-system-reference-document/ -- which didn't reference or have a link to the Fan Policy page, so I didn't know about that policy. I'll update my document accordingly and repost the updated version 🙂

[Stan Shinn]

I updated the rules summary to not include the logo (at least until I get a better understanding of the logo use licensing requirements).

Also, I updated the original link to now point to the permanent home which is on the QuestWorlds section of my blog downloads page:

https://dicehaven.com/stan-shinn-rpg-downloads/ (scroll to the 'QuestWorlds' section)

[Stan Shinn]

On 10/13/2022 at 4:57 PM, Runeblogger said:

Thanks for putting this together.
Now I would like to know how your first game went.  🙂

First game was a lot of fun! The rules were easy to teach and run.

The one thing I need to think through is how to adjudicate ties during a combat-type contest. Ties seemed to come up a lot. I suspect there will be examples and advice in the core rules once they come out to help me with this.

[jajagappa]

On 10/17/2022 at 10:13 AM, Stan Shinn said:

The one thing I need to think through is how to adjudicate ties during a combat-type contest. Ties seemed to come up a lot.

The typical ties are: success vs. success or fail vs. fail.  I don't remember if handling them has changed in the SRD, but in HQG the mechanism to break the tie was high roll wins producing a Marginal Victory for one or the other.  Using this method, ties become fairly rare - and my approach with a true Tie is that no one wins/loses - they can either try the same approach again (perhaps with higher stakes for success or failure) or try an alternate approach.

With the Marginal result, the hero gets either a Marginal Victory (Yes, succeeded, But...) or Marginal Defeat (No, failed, But...).  The question then is what didn't go right.  If they are sneaking into something, yes they got in, but something made a sound and now the guard is investigating...  Or they are trying to impress the Clan Chief but made a gaffe that upset the chief who denied the request, but one of the Thanes was secretly pleased, and is willing to help them....  Etc.

[Stan Shinn]

2 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

The typical ties are: success vs. success or fail vs. fail.  I don't remember if handling them has changed in the SRD, but in HQG the mechanism to break the tie was high roll wins producing a Marginal Victory for one or the other.  Using this method, ties become fairly rare - and my approach with a true Tie is that no one wins/loses - they can either try the same approach again (perhaps with higher stakes for success or failure) or try an alternate approach.

With the Marginal result, the hero gets either a Marginal Victory (Yes, succeeded, But...) or Marginal Defeat (No, failed, But...).  The question then is what didn't go right.  If they are sneaking into something, yes they got in, but something made a sound and now the guard is investigating...  Or they are trying to impress the Clan Chief but made a gaffe that upset the chief who denied the request, but one of the Thanes was secretly pleased, and is willing to help them....  Etc.

Oooh! I like that approach. I don't recall if that was in the SRD or not but that sounds like a fantastic way to handle it 🙂

[Stan Shinn]

Quote

SRD Rules:

2.3.7.3 Confusing Ties

Your GM will describe most tied outcomes as inconclusive standoffs, in which neither of you gets what you wanted.

In some situations, ties become difficult to visualize. Chief among these are contests with binary outcomes, where only two possible results are conceivable.

Your GM can either change the situation on such a tie, introducing a new element that likely renders the original prize irrelevant to both participants, or they can resolve the ties in your favor as a victory.

2.3.7.4 Victory at a Price

Your GM may treat zero degrees of victory as ‘victory at a price’ and zero degree of defeat as ‘defeat with a boon’. The ‘price’ is a cost that the victor pays for obtaining the prize, a ‘boon’ is something positive the loser takes away. Your GM may ignore this option, and simply award you or deny you the prize, if they cannot think of a dramatically interesting reason to provide a ‘price’ or ‘boon’. Your GM may use consequences to represent a ‘price’ and benefits to represent a ‘boon’, see §2.8. Your GM may also decide that the ‘price’ or ‘boon’ is represented by the narration.

• PC one success vs. Ath’Zul one success, the PC has the higher roll, zero successes difference, and zero degree of victory: Ath’Zul tries to shake the PCs, his hover bike, weaving in and out of traffic, but the PCs are always on his tail, and catch him at the lights on Bradbury Junction, by ramming their pursuit car into Ath’Zul’s bike, damaging both vehicles. The GM may award a consequence (see §2.8) to represent the damage to the PC’s car, injuries from the crash, or displeasure from their commander for damaging more police property.

Above is what the latest SRD says regarding ties. Here's the text I'm thinking of adding to my 'Rules Summary' doc:

Quote

Proposed Rules Summary Text: The GM can describe ties (zero degrees of victory or defeat) as inconclusive standoffs (neither side gets what they want), as a 'victory at a price' (often a consequence) or ‘defeat with a boon’ (often a benefit).

What I'm still not sure I'm getting right is how you differentiate a  ‘victory at a price’ versus a ‘defeat with a boon’.  A tie would seem to me to be both zero degrees of victory and zero degree of defeat, unless there is some other rule like comparing the d20 roll or something. Hmmm. Hopefully the core rules when publish will make this more clear.

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Stan Shinn

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Stan Shinn said:

What I'm still not sure I'm getting right is how you differentiate a  ‘victory at a price’ versus a ‘defeat with a boon’. 

Yes, they can be tough to differentiate.

Let's look at the example you referenced.  Ath’Zul tries to shake the PCs, his hover bike, weaving in and out of traffic, but the PCs are always on his tail, and catch him at the lights on Bradbury Junction, by ramming their pursuit car into Ath’Zul’s bike, damaging both vehicles. 

Victory at a price:  Ath'zul's hover bike is clearly damaged, but before the PC's can grab him, the Guardian Watch arrives to investigate the accident - Ath'zul declares to them that he is an Emissary in a hurry and the PC's have caused him delay.  The PC's have stopped the pursuit, but have a new issue.

Defeat with a boon:  Ath'zul's throws a switch on his hover bike and it rises up on extra hover jets into the air catching the PC's by surprise (and their pursuit car damaged).  But their friend Comrade S unexpectedly arrives on her hover craft and offers them a lift.  Ath'zul has escaped the immediate pursuit, but there's opportunity for further pursuit.

[Stan Shinn]

So my remaining question is, how do you determine if it is a ‘victory at a price’ versus a ‘defeat with a boon’? I can figure out how to narrate both outcomes, but is it a GM fiat decision on it being a ‘victory at a price’ versus a ‘defeat with a boon’? Or does something mechanical drive which option to pick, like who had the higher natural d20 roll?

[jajagappa]

16 hours ago, Stan Shinn said:

but is it a GM fiat decision on it being a ‘victory at a price’ versus a ‘defeat with a boon’? Or does something mechanical drive which option to pick, like who had the higher natural d20 roll?

Mechanical - the Higher natural d20 roll.

[Stan Shinn]

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Mechanical - the Higher natural d20 roll.

Awesome! That makes sense. I believe the SRD is vague on this, so I'll be using this rule to differentiate tie outcomes. Hopefully the final product will make this more clear 🙂

[jajagappa]

5 hours ago, Stan Shinn said:

Awesome! That makes sense. I believe the SRD is vague on this, so I'll be using this rule to differentiate tie outcomes.

The original HQ actually used low roll, but most people found this counter-intuitive, and in HQ2 or HQG it was switched to high roll.  I've found high roll makes sense and works fine.

[JonL]

On 10/19/2022 at 10:06 AM, Stan Shinn said:

What I'm still not sure I'm getting right is how you differentiate a  ‘victory at a price’ versus a ‘defeat with a boon’.  A tie would seem to me to be both zero degrees of victory and zero degree of defeat, unless there is some other rule like comparing the d20 roll or something. Hmmm. Hopefully the core rules when publish will make this more clear.

HW & HQ were a bit more fine grained in the mechanics around close results than QW has become, sacrificing a bit of specificity for the sake of simplicity. What it's now describing as ways the GM might interpret close rolls were specific outcomes in the earlier result matrix. Both approaches have their merits, and the older approach is still available for implementers to use in their games should they find it a better fit for their specific play-style goals. 

[soltakss]

On 10/20/2022 at 8:49 PM, jajagappa said:

The original HQ actually used low roll, but most people found this counter-intuitive, and in HQ2 or HQG it was switched to high roll.  I've found high roll makes sense and works fine.

Roll Low works well with Criticals on 1s, but Roll High works well with Criticals on Target Number.

 

[jajagappa]

7 hours ago, soltakss said:

Roll Low works well with Criticals on 1s, but Roll High works well with Criticals on Target Number.

I never bothered to use crits on target number, just the Roll High.  I found remembering that 1 is always a Crit easier.