New RQ design questions

[Flesh Man]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

No, I am using Communication (it is in RQ2) and adding Magic as well.

The main difference is how it is calculated. RQ3's system of point by point granularity for Primary, Secondary, and Negative skills adds a LOT of time, is real finicky (especially since POW goes up and down a lot) and gets you very little for that 2 to 3 points of added granularity. RQ2 just has you add +10%/5%/0/-5% for a characteristic within a range. It is much quicker and gets you to the same place.

Is learning by experience back to 5% again as well?

[Jeff]

11 minutes ago, waltshumate said:

Is learning by experience back to 5% again as well?

By 1D6% increments (although you can always pick 3%). Even though it was disadvantageous to the characters, players universally preferred to roll.

[Mankcam]

I think that's a good option for Skill Check gains, the PCs having a choice of a +1D6% random roll or a flat +3% gain. I used to play RQ3 and CoC that way and it worked good in practice.

I think having Communication and Magic Cat Mods is a good move. I also prefer the way Skill Cat mods are calculated as flat bonuses in RQ2, its just more simple, more 'clean' in char gen.

I know that it may be far too late in design development to suggest to increase the importance of Characteristics from their standard RQ2/RQ3 roles, but this is one area where the MRQ line did do reasonably well. 

However instead of doing it like MRQ, it could easily be done by just ditching the individual Skill Base chances altogether, and calculate double ( or ? triple) the standard RQ2 Skill Cat Mods. In my experience it would just play better for untrained skills, and it makes the core Characteristics more meaningful. 

I also think perhaps that Characteristics also could have a role in the number of beginning skill points for different occupational backgrounds, just like in CoC 7E. It's just another way of increasing the importance of those core Characteristic scores.

Anyway, just just random ideas here (although they do come from 30 years or so of playing the system). It's just how I would of tweaked it. Pretty much everything else I have read is pretty agreeable to me however, so there's certainly no complaints from me in how RQ is shaping up 

Edited June 21, 2016 by Mankcam

[Mankcam]

4 hours ago, waltshumate said:

It was also used for grapple, knock down knock back and poison so that would make it pretty much a  general resistance table.

Yeah RQ2 was not organised the best. The RES Table showed up in the Basic Magic chapter in regards to casting Battle Magic, yet had other applications such as POT resist for poison, STR resist for grappling, etc. It should have been in a General Mechanics chapter. The same goes for some skills, such as many of the Perception, Agility, and Stealth skills which I remember show up under the trainable Thievery Skills section, rather than in a general chapter.

I guess that is the charm of the age of the book, and organisation with BRP rule books was much better from RQ3 onwards.

[TrippyHippy]

4 hours ago, ItsNags said:

I hope that doesn't apply to combat and most opposed checks. The bonus/penalty die and opposed rules seem like a much more elegant and modern solution. 

Personally, I find the bonus/penalty die and opposed rules from CoC7E to be incredibly clunky by modern standards. 

[Mankcam]

Initally I hated the notion of replacing numerical modifiers with a bonus/penalty dice. It just seemed wrong for BRP, a rule imported from another system.

However I have really grown to like it now, as it is so simple and it covers the same ground in purpose. Its also quite a fun bit of gamism at the table, so I finally see it as an improvement to how I run the game.

[Jeff]

We experimented early on with using characteristics (multiplied, added, etc) as the base for the skills and ultimately rejected that. It was too wiffy and too cumbersome. And the RQ2 system has the virtue of being easy AND already in place.

[skoll]

12 hours ago, Jeff said:

By 1D6% increments (although you can always pick 3%). Even though it was disadvantageous to the characters, players universally preferred to roll.

How so? Average of 1D6 is 3.5, so in the long run it makes sense to roll.

[Jeff]

If there is a long run. Sure the law of averages say you should get 3.5 gain on average, but the downside of rolling only a "1" is that your character effectively didn't go up in that skill - and it may be quite a while before the GM allows you another experience roll. My experience is that *most* players (particularly newish players) always prefer to roll for characteristics, experience gain, etc.

[Mugen]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

We experimented early on with using characteristics (multiplied, added, etc) as the base for the skills and ultimately rejected that. It was too wiffy and too cumbersome. And the RQ2 system has the virtue of being easy AND already in place.

I have played with skill category base values set to the sum of 2 characteristics for years, and I disagree with you.

[Blacktoad]

Will movement and measurement of distances be based in Metric or US Standard? Feet/Miles fit better for the anachronistic setting but Metric seems to be used more often than not for most RQ versions.

[Joerg]

4 minutes ago, Blacktoad said:

Will movement and measurement of distances be based in Metric or US Standard? Feet/Miles fit better for the anachronistic setting but Metric seems to be used more often than not for most RQ versions.

Anachronistic measurements would be cubits and stadia. Personally (coming from SI units), I don't care whether I see yards or meters, but I dislike feet for distances and heights.

[Mankcam]

5 hours ago, Jeff said:

We experimented early on with using characteristics (multiplied, added, etc) as the base for the skills and ultimately rejected that. It was too wiffy and too cumbersome. And the RQ2 system has the virtue of being easy AND already in place.

I understand not adding two Characteristics for base skill chances like the MRQ line. I'm guessing that is the 'whiff'notion referred to (as in it 'stinks' and it is a 'left-over' from a different development line). However I agree that it's not in keeping with classic BRP games, and I don't think it should be done like that in the next edition of RQ if it goes against the design thread.

My suggestion is not to follow the MRQ line, but more about streamlining the original RQ/BRP approach - It's just that I'ld prefer having no individual skill bases anymore, as they feel too fiddlly and cumbersome these days.

I think the same result could be more easily achieved by just having Skill Category Modifiers as the base chance for ALL skills within that particular category. It may not be quite as granular, but it certainly feels cleaner and simpler.

However to be useful the Skill Cat Modifiers would need to be double (or possibly triple ?) the modifier scores from RQ2/RQ3.

Anyway it's just an idea, although it is probably not original and it's likely that the design team may have already thought of something like this.

 

 

Edited June 21, 2016 by Mankcam

[TrippyHippy]

Would there be a way of having a Gloranthan system of measurement to downplay any metric vs imperial discussion.? Measurements, like currency, can be completely abstract anyway.

With regards to having skill categories vs Char+Char, I can see the argument. For one it would be quicker to calculate the five or six scores rather than a list of about 20 or so skills. The big thing that needs to change, however, is making the Characteristic scores actually influencing the skills through the modifiers a bit more. I've rolled up Classic RuneQuest characters where they hardly influence them at all. 

 

Edited June 21, 2016 by TrippyHippy

[Mankcam]

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

With regards to having skill categories vs Char+Char, I can see the argument. For one it would be quicker to calculate the five or six scores rather than a list of about 20 or so skills. The big thing that needs to change, however, is making the Characteristic scores actually influencing the skills through the modifiers a bit more. I've rolled up Classic RuneQuest characters where they hardly influence them at all. 

 

I'm not totally against Char + Char ( that's fine, but it can be left in the MRQ line of games), however having Skill Mods as base chances is more simple I think, although the scores need to be larger to be more meaningful, otherwise the impact of Characteristics is also minimal.

Looking at some of my old RQ3 and CoC characters, and there is a big disconnect between their Characteristics and their Skills, with Characteristics having little role beyond being an indication for a narrative descripton of the character (other than HP and MP calculation, etc).

In a 'crunchy' game like RQ, the Characteristics need to have more direct impact on game play, otherwise they are almost near-useless artifacts from an earlier system. In that case we might as well not even have Characteristics listed at all - just keep everything skill based with some skills perhaps receiving bonus or penalty modifiers for non-numerical narrative character descriptors like 'large, 'strong','weak', 'small', 'clumsy', 'cunning', 'smart', etc

That works reasonably well, although it flys in the face of the classic BRP stat block. For the sake of consistency the stat block should remain the same as it always has, which means that Characteristics are listed as numerical values. It's only logical that these numerical values have a bigger impact on game play.

That's the thing with a classic rpg like RQ - people have played the system for such a long time  and many can see what mechanics could possibly be improved and what mechanics should perhaps be left untouched. The impact of Characteristics is just one of those things that keeps coming up throughout various BRP discussion threads over the years, so I think it is an area some many would like to see get a little more attention at times.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Mankcam

[DreadDomain]

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

We experimented early on with using characteristics (multiplied, added, etc) as the base for the skills and ultimately rejected that. It was too wiffy and too cumbersome. And the RQ2 system has the virtue of being easy AND already in place.

... and the drawback influencing skills insignificantly unless at very high characteristics value. I personally believe that looking at the tables in the books way more cumbersome than adding two CHAR. I would have preferred to have skill categories based on 2 CHAR.

[Mugen]

2 hours ago, TrippyHippy said:

With regards to having skill categories vs Char+Char, I can see the argument. For one it would be quicker to calculate the five or six scores rather than a list of about 20 or so skills. The big thing that needs to change, however, is making the Characteristic scores actually influencing the skills through the modifiers a bit more. I've rolled up Classic RuneQuest characters where they hardly influence them at all.

Fact is, you don't have to assign a different skill base for each skill. You can have one per category. For instance:

Agility (STR+DEX)

Communication (CHA+INT)

Knowledge (INTx2)

Perception (CON+INT)

Stealth (DEX+INT)

I would not put POW in any of those, given this characteristic is subject to many changes...

[Jeff]

24 minutes ago, Mugen said:

Fact is, you don't have to assign a different skill base for each skill. You can have one per category. For instance:

Agility (STR+DEX)

Communication (CHA+INT)

Knowledge (INTx2)

Perception (CON+INT)

Stealth (DEX+INT)

I would not put POW in any of those, given this characteristic is subject to many changes...

We considered and rejected that approach. 

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, TrippyHippy said:

Would there be a way of having a Gloranthan system of measurement to downplay any metric vs imperial discussion.? Measurements, like currency, can be completely abstract anyway.

"That gap is 16 cubits wide. If you miss the opposite ledge, you will drop half a fathom onto sharp rodks. Do you jump it?"

"What was a cubit? And how deep is half a fathom?"

Hence some need to compare measurements with your personal preferred units. If I see temperatures given in Fahrenheit, I gain no knowledge whatsoever. Same goes for pressures in psi or (even worse) just a weight without any area reference.

 

[K Peterson]

4 hours ago, Mankcam said:

I understand not adding two Characteristics for base skill chances like the MRQ line. I'm guessing that is the 'whiff'notion referred to (as in it 'stinks' and it is a 'left-over' from a different development line). 

I don't think that's the definition of "whiff" he's using in this context. Maybe it's obscure US-slang, but he's using it more to mean hit-and-miss. For example, failing to hit a baseball with a bat, or a golf ball with a club, is referred to as "whiffing", or to "whiff". I don't think it has anything to do with malodorous game mechanics. 

[styopa]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

"That gap is 16 cubits wide. If you miss the opposite ledge, you will drop half a fathom onto sharp rodks. Do you jump it?"

"What was a cubit? And how deep is half a fathom?"

Hence some need to compare measurements with your personal preferred units. If I see temperatures given in Fahrenheit, I gain no knowledge whatsoever. Same goes for pressures in psi or (even worse) just a weight without any area reference.

 

I live and work in Imperial-measures land, and I honestly couldn't care less what measurement system they use.

For my players, we simply parse meters as yards and that works.  Nobody gives a crap about more precision than that anyway.  We try to avoid metric only because it's frightfully anachronistic in conversation but hey if that's your system of choice YGMV.

In terms of larger distances, I tend to use neither miles nor km, but time.   Even today, in our map and precision-centric society, colloquial conversation tends to be time-based.  How far is Chicago?  About 8 hours drive.

If someone in Pavis asks how far it is to Boldhome, *nobody* would say 280km.  The answer would of course be "a hard week's ride for a brave soul, alone; at least a couple of weeks with traders' wagons, assuming you're not stopping with them; or, the rest of your life if you're unwary and the nomads are acting up"

[Blacktoad]

1 hour ago, styopa said:

I live and work in Imperial-measures land, and I honestly couldn't care less what measurement system they use.

For my players, we simply parse meters as yards and that works.  Nobody gives a crap about more precision than that anyway.  We try to avoid metric only because it's frightfully anachronistic in conversation but hey if that's your system of choice YGMV.

In terms of larger distances, I tend to use neither miles nor km, but time.   Even today, in our map and precision-centric society, colloquial conversation tends to be time-based.  How far is Chicago?  About 8 hours drive.

If someone in Pavis asks how far it is to Boldhome, *nobody* would say 280km.  The answer would of course be "a hard week's ride for a brave soul, alone; at least a couple of weeks with traders' wagons, assuming you're not stopping with them; or, the rest of your life if you're unwary and the nomads are acting up"

Very good points. I think sometimes I get too fixated on crunch, especially when setting up overland maps on Roll20 so that measurements are accurate and usable. I will assume measurements will be the same as RQ2.

[SDLeary]

7 hours ago, Mugen said:

Fact is, you don't have to assign a different skill base for each skill. You can have one per category. For instance:

Agility (STR+DEX)

Communication (CHA+INT)

Knowledge (INTx2)

Perception (CON+INT)

Stealth (DEX+INT-SIZ)

I would not put POW in any of those, given this characteristic is subject to many changes...

This would be my preferred method, though a slight disagreement on Stealth, which I have corrected for you! 

SDLeary

[SDLeary]

6 hours ago, Jeff said:

We considered and rejected that approach. 

Why was that Jeff? Points added to skills would start on a base of about 15-30, already significant values if you assume all rolls are based in stressful conditions, and in unstressful conditions or with unlimited time that you multiply skills by 2 or 3, or that anything with a skill of 25%+ automatically succeeds.

SDLeary

[Mugen]

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

This would be my preferred method, though a slight disagreement on Stealth, which I have corrected for you! 

SDLeary

As for myself, I tend to use SIZ diffently, and give bonus or malus to skills if SIZ are really different.

For instance, if a character with SIZ 13 tries to hide from one with SIZ 10, I will not give any bonus or malus. But a SIZ 16 one will have a malus.