strike ranks explained visually, and questions

[radmonger]

I wrote this blog entry to try and capure the current RQ:G strike rank rules as well possible. It left me with many questions:

- are there any rules errors in the explanation at that link?

- what happens in combat if you have a magically-boosted MOV of more than 12?

- is there any rules support for saying 'I will not dodge, parry pr attack, so I can run faster?'

- is there actually a difference between using a shield bash attack and the 2 weapon use rules?

- is it actually allowed to cast a Rune spell after making an attack?

- is the intent of the focus rules to say 'if you haven't worked all this out in advance and written it down on your character sheet, you can't do it?'

 

 

 

[Aurelius]

I tried to read your blog post but ... yeah. It serves as proof that the SR system is a relic from a bygone era that surely was ground-breaking in the late 70s, but in the ripe age of 46 it reflects ancient ideas of how initiative systems should be built. 

In short: The complexity of the system does not successfully contribute to player agency, MGF, or realism.

I would start any houseruling project from burning it down and rebuilding something else. 

Personally, I'd take the concepts of "full actions", "quick actions" and "free actions" from some edition of A Competing Role-Playing Game and go from there. I'm considering running a RQ campaign in near future, and since fatigue points were luckily not invented yet for RQ2, the strike ranks will be the first to go instead. 

I know this is a passive-aggressive "don't do what you want to do, do what I want you to do" kinda answer, but I just genuinely feel that very few people coming to Glorantha in 2024 or later will want to do the kind of mental gymnastics you do in your commendable blog post. 

[Jason Farrell]

Personally, while I think there are lots of problems with strike ranks, at least in the way they're explained in the official rules, I also think that D&D is even worse.  I would not use that as a base for anything unless you want the thing you're building to be equally lopsided and broken. 

There are other initiative systems in lots of other games.  Use one of those.

I'll never give up on the core idea of strike ranks: that different things take different amounts of time to do, that you don't act in the same order every round of a combat no matter what, and that a random roll shouldn't account for most of the variability.   It would be nice if someone at Chaosium would acknowledge that there are fatal gaps in how strike ranks are explained and work to fix them, but I doubt that will ever happen.

Edited 5 hours ago by Jason Farrell