If low is bad, is the autofail roll ignored?

[whitelaughter]

I am thinking particularly of the Child Survival roll (p426 base book). On 1-5%, the child dies; this can be modified by Lifestyle and the Fertility Rune. Now, an autofail of 96%+ would make odds of surviving worse as lifestyle improves, so feel safe in ignoring that. If though 1-5% is automatically a fail, then lifestyle is irrelevant, and Fertility Rune cannot help, only make things worse on a failed roll: so am I right in guessing that this is also not the case?

Is there a generic rule here, that if low is bad, the autofail rule doesn't apply?

Thanks.

[hipsterinspace]

It isn't a skill check, it uses a different table. In this case a range of 51-00—which includes the autofail range—is a good thing.

Edited March 27, 2023 by hipsterinspace

[PhilHibbs]

5 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

I am thinking particularly of the Child Survival roll (p426 base book). On 1-5%, the child dies; this can be modified by Lifestyle and the Fertility Rune. Now, an autofail of 96%+ would make odds of surviving worse as lifestyle improves, so feel safe in ignoring that. If though 1-5% is automatically a fail, then lifestyle is irrelevant, and Fertility Rune cannot help, only make things worse on a failed roll: so am I right in guessing that this is also not the case?

As with the "Childbirth" section:

Quote

The Childbirth roll may be augmented by the Fertility
Rune, or reduced by the Death Rune (lower the roll by the
amount of a successful augment), as desired by the player.

So on a normal augment success you roll the dice, add 20 to the roll, and check the table. Any successful augment therefore means that the child is guaranteed to survive.

You could houserule that a 1-5 always gives the worst result, an "automatic success for the forces of evil".

It is a bit messy, trying to shoehorn the augment rule onto a results table, but it doesn't bother me too much.

[PhilHibbs]

5 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

Is there a generic rule here, that if low is bad, the autofail rule doesn't apply?

I don't think so. It's just not a skill roll so there is no such thing as "fail".

[Scotty]

7 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

I am thinking particularly of the Child Survival roll (p426 base book). On 1-5%, the child dies; this can be modified by Lifestyle and the Fertility Rune. Now, an autofail of 96%+ would make odds of surviving worse as lifestyle improves, so feel safe in ignoring that. If though 1-5% is automatically a fail, then lifestyle is irrelevant, and Fertility Rune cannot help, only make things worse on a failed roll: so am I right in guessing that this is also not the case?

Is there a generic rule here, that if low is bad, the autofail rule doesn't apply?

Thanks.

This is a table not an ability roll, there is no auto/fail/success, just outcome. When tables are designed, and bonuses are applied, the more likely outcome is placed at or near the top (or the table extended).  See the family history tables as an example.

Depending on your group you may also want to consider ignoring this table (i have a player whose child has died, and one who has suffered serious illness). Lines and veils  had already flagged this.

[Akhôrahil]

On 3/27/2023 at 1:07 PM, Scotty said:

Depending on your group you may also want to consider ignoring this table (i have a player whose child has died, and one who has suffered serious illness). Lines and veils  had already flagged this.

This (at least the childbirth part, not the child survival roll) can also be handled by a mere two-point Bless Pregnancy, something PCs would often have access to (mine go all-in on the Bless Pregnancies, because as the campaign has gone from 1616 to 1621 already, they're open to the possibility that the kids may one day become PCs).

Edited March 28, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

BTW, the child survival table is really weird. If you're wealthy, survival is automatic. If you're poor, child mortality is absurdly high.

[Squaredeal Sten]

8 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

BTW, the child survival table is really weird. If you're wealthy, survival is automatic. If you're poor, child mortality is absurdly high.

That's not weird in a society in which the wealthy can pay for Rune spell cures for their children.  And the poor are described as often going hungry and living in huts, per the Standard of Living section in RQiG.

But if I recall correctly survival is not automatic if you have a bad harvest roll.

 

[Akhôrahil]

11 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

That's not weird in a society in which the wealthy can pay for Rune spell cures for their children.  And the poor are described as often going hungry and living in huts, per the Standard of Living section in RQiG.

Child mortality to 15 for poor people going by the table is 96%. This is like nothing in history.

(For Free, it's around 50%, which is probably roughly historical.)

12 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

But if I recall correctly survival is not automatic if you have a bad harvest roll.

Potentially, if you can't maintain your SoL.

[Squaredeal Sten]

But I agree with you thst the cumulative child mortality seems excessive.  It would imply that Hsunchen must die out.

What would you suggest as an adjustment?

I would think that in conjunction with the childbirth table and considering the violence and predators, we would want to come out with at least 2.5 surviving children per fertile woman if we don't want and exoect population to decline.

 

 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
Spelling

[Akhôrahil]

33 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

What would you suggest as an adjustment?

Smaller modifiers would do it, but then, modifiers of just a few percent feel tiny in a BRP context.

[Bren]

Is the table intended to be applicable to the population as a whole or is this aimed only at births connected to a player character?

[Squaredeal Sten]

1 hour ago, Bren said:

Is the table intended to be applicable to the population as a whole or is this aimed only at births connected to a player character?

Mechanically, it;s births connected to a player character.

But the intent regarding the population as a whole is very ambiguous: the issue is just not addressed.

Personally, I would say it's not MGF for even he imaginary kids to die at a rate greater than the general population.

 

 

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Personally, I would say it's not MGF for even he imaginary kids to die at a rate greater than the general population.

It might have been a more playable design if both this table and the random yearly event table generated a crisis rather than an outcome. The child will die unless. Raids cause an economic loss unless. And so on.

[French Desperate WindChild]

another option is that family is so highly, in my opinion, a background point (allowing players to build their characters, their passions, their changes during the play) that i would not recommand to use any dice to determine what happens.

 @Akhôrahil's word "outcome" is really appropriate. And it shows exactly what I dislike when discussing about named npc (family, gods, protectors...)

No problem to roll how many people die or live in Pavis, or any tribe, or what the fields will provide (after all if there is a crisis, it is good to let the players solve the crisis) but for 3 people, without option ("the dices said this person is dead this year, so... next )... sssssss 🙂

 

That doesn't mean there is no crisis with named npc, just that these crisis should happen because there is (for the players) something to play. A human decision to start something.

 

 

[whitelaughter]

20 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Child mortality to 15 for poor people going by the table is 96%. This is like nothing in history.

Poverty though is almost impossible. 15L for poor, 60L for Free.

The only professions with a base income below Free below that are:

20L Assistant Shaman,

30L Thief

40L tenant farmer, hunter

Except for tenant farmer, these are going to be single individuals. A special success is enough to push tenant farmers and hunters up to Free. Typically though young tenant farmers will know that they can't afford to get married, so are spending 15L a year for a poor lifestyle, and saving 25L, so for each year they save, can afford 1 year at Free. Without magic, that means marrying at at 30, using up savings to have Free lifestyle to 45, then dropping back to Poor - with the savings going towards helping their children marry earlier.

Magic though will be the norm: Bless Crops can almost ensure a special success.

Something I looked into was whether the Orlanthi could take out the Crimson Empire by simply using Cloud Clear to create a permanent drought. It isn't enough; treating it as either famine or Cursed, you are only forcing the tenant farmers down to failed Farming rolls, so they can still get half their income, which is enough for Poor lifestyle and save a bit (probably loan to siblings with children,to ensure child survival). They need to fumble their risk being destitute - and even then, the fertility Rune can save many children.

[PhilHibbs]

9 hours ago, Bren said:

Is the table intended to be applicable to the population as a whole or is this aimed only at births connected to a player character?

Virtually everything in the rules is applicable only to adventurers. It's common to use the same skill and combat rules for NPCs, although I often simplify things for them to reduce my workload. Greg once famously said "remember, monsters get experience rolls too" or something like that, but personally I doubt that he was rolling dice for his NPCs during their downtime.

This is one of the cultural changes that has taken place in RuneQuest since the '80s: the GM isn't expected to do quite as much work. Or to put it another way, the kind of work the GM is burdened with has changed - I don't have to roll as many dice, but I have to make that judgement call on how detailed the world simulation is, and occasionally I might have to justify that to my players if they think I'm cheating. Maybe calling it a cultural change is strong, because it was and still is not that explicit.

If you're going to use the RuneQuest rules as an entire world simulator, such as for economics or demographics, then you're going to run into problems that were not anticipated by the designers.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, whitelaughter said:

20L Assistant Shaman,

30L Thief

40L tenant farmer, hunter

60L is unlikely to be able to support a Free SoL post-taxes/tithes/failed income rolls, and Fishers and Herders are listed with Poor Standard of Living in their professions, which is what we use for this table. Free SoL starts with 80L income for the professions.

Cottars are going to be a substantial minority of the clan, probably secondary only to Free farmers.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, whitelaughter said:

Except for tenant farmer, these are going to be single individuals. A special success is enough to push tenant farmers and hunters up to Free. Typically though young tenant farmers will know that they can't afford to get married

BTW, I disagree about this - tenant farmers are a (semi)permanent underclass with families and kids, IMG.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Squaredeal Sten]

4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

BTW, I disagree about this - tenant farmers are a (semi)permanent underclass with families and kids, IMG.

Yes: for the Advenurers to be awarded five hides of land is to say that they need the services of at least four tenant farmers, or of herders who are also at Poor SOL, in order to get income from that land.  We usually hand wave finding these tenants.  It is most reasonable to assume that there are many people looking for the job of tenant farmer, and / or that the land already has tenants.  

So the Poor are not exceptional, and although the Adventurer may be born poor and find social mobility in your campaign, there is no way that tenant farmer or herder can be just a "starting job" for most NPCs, (as fast food jobs are in certain RW mythology, and I will end that mental thread of RW politics now.)

To me the major differences  between a Poor tenant farmer and the Free SOL farmer are (1) obviously the tenant splits the harvest with the landlord but also (2)  that the Free have more extended family who live together in a longhouse and probably also own cattle and are socially equal members of the local clan, while the Poor have less support network and struggle to own a few sheep.    

If you examine Apple Lane as  presented in the GM Screen Pack,, you will find that the example tenant farmers have short biographies and families.  These are canon examples of the social background in Sartar. Some of these tenants have come as refugees, so they have no social network, are not part of the local clan, and have no expectation of being assigned land directly by the Earth temple (which would give them all of the harvest before tithes, making them Free.)

By the way one path to generating adventures that is indicated in the Weapons & Equipment book is to give the Adventurer hides of land that are not already in agricultural production and so do not have tenants.  This land may not even be suitable for farming, though herding is an alternate use.  The Adventurer may have to Improve it to actually get income. 

Maybe the Adventurer will start a mine and have to find miners, who will be another category of half-free worker.  In this case the GM may have the Adventurer role play the recruitment process instead of hand waving it.  As with RW  sharecroppers the Adventurer would advance the miners food and tools so they don't starve before any ore is produced.  Now you essentially have peons.  

This is getting off the original topic of whether non skill tables have auto fail rolls.  Though the original question did also deal with economic class.  Perhaps it deserves its own thread or its own title.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
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[Akhôrahil]

18 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Yes: for the Advenurers to be awarded five hides of land is to say that they need the services of at least four tenant farmers, or of herders whi are also at Poor SOL, in order to get income from that land.  We usually hand wave finding these tenants.  It is most reasonable to assume that there are many people looking for the job of tenant farmer, and / or that the land already has tenants.  

Agree - there are enough landless people that even a cottar job isn’t unattractive.  By historical standards, 40% off of 80 acres isn’t terrible - Roman peasants might have 10-15 acres and making it up by labor for the landowner, although the level of rent+tax in the system we’re presented with is extremely high.

If you have to go looking for cottars, there’s no telling who you will get, though. Trouble might easily arise.

18 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

So the Poor are not exceptional, and although the Adventurer may be born poor and find social mobility in your campaign, there is no way that tenant farmer or herder can be just a "starting job" for most NPCs, (as fast food jobs are in certain RW mythology, and I will end that mental thread of RW politics now.)

Herder might be - I think there are three kinds of herders: youngsters (like in the GM pack), pros (people doing it as a long-term profession), and ranchers (herders owning   at least their own flock, which should qualify them for Free SoL).

18 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

To me the major differences  between a Poor tenant farmer and the Free SOL farmer are (1) obviously the tenant splits the harvest with the landlord but also (2)  that the Free have more extended family who live together in a longhouse and probably also own cattle and are socially equal members of the local clan, while the Poor have less support network and struggle to own a few sheep.    

Also, I think the Cottars are subjected to less risk - they get provided their seed, they’re not fully on the hook for bad harvests (they have to pay half of what they get, not half of theoretical field yield), and so on. They’re poor, but their poverty might be less volatile.

Free farmers must at the very least have access to cattle - that’s how they produce the oxen they need to qualify. I tell my players they need 8 cattle to keep this up (can’t remember where I read it).

Edited March 29, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Squaredeal Sten]

9 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

.....

Free farmers must at the very least have access to cattle - that’s how they produce the oxen they need to qualify. I tell my players they need 8 cattle to keep this up (can’t remember where I read it).

That looks like a pretty good rule of thumb on the cattle and oxen.  Plus of course 8 is a fraction of a 20 cow hide and should also pay off in cheese.  I don't know whether you want to get into fractional hides for the year end calculations.

[Bren]

8 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Virtually everything in the rules is applicable only to adventurers.

Exactly. I would think that this rule is only intended only to apply to adventurers.

For adventurers, few of their children will die in any given year since a Free income only requires 60L. How many adventurers won't have the funds to spend 60L on their upkeep? The penalties for the Poor and Destitute income classes for PCs provides an in-game, negative consequence for players whose PCs are too miserly to spend their loot to maintain a reasonable level of upkeep and/or an incentive to go get more loot to maintain a good standard of living.

Granted, a 5% chance of child mortality isn't a lot for a single year. However, a series of 15 rolls* to reach age 15, results in only a cumulative 46% chance of survival for a child. That seems too high given the level of healing magic that is likely to be available to PCs. 

My understanding is that infants and young children have a higher mortality rate than older children. I'd be inclined to decrease the % chance of death in the Child Survival table for older children.

I also agree with those who have suggested that a risk of death (or sickness) based on the die roll is likely to be more fun or interesting than a simple "sorry your child died this year" result. YGWV and all that.

 

* The rules seem to imply that a roll on the Child Survival table is made for the first year of a child's life. Personally I'd be inclined to skip that roll as the Childbirth table already includes a chance for infants that don't survive. This increases the cumulative survival rate to 49%. On the other hand, including the roll for the first year does provide a higher rate of infant mortality which seems to align with the ancient world on earth.

[PhilHibbs]

2 minutes ago, Bren said:

Granted, a 5% chance of child mortality isn't a lot for a single year. However, a series of 15 rolls* to reach age 15, results in only a cumulative 46% chance of survival for a child. That seems too high given the level of healing magic that is likely to be available to PCs. 

I don't think so. Glorantha is said to be a "bronze age" world, and I think that extends to life expectancy. Loads of healing? Sure, but loads of monsters and various magical perils too. These things roughly balance each other out.

[Bren]

What you suggest doesn't seem unreasonable for the general population. But the question is, does that societal rate apply to the PCs? Given that the PCs are likely to have access through direct power or favors to more magic than the average Gloranthan at their standard of living, I would say it probably should not.