Chaosium's Runequest 2 Vs Runequest 3 (Avalon Hill)

[g33k]

7 hours ago, seneschal said:

So, is organization still an issue with the cleaned up, errata-added reprint of RQ2?

Oh, sure!  The issues of "organization" weren't touched at all.  It's a reprint, not a revision.

Layout was changed only enough to include a few new box-text and sidebar materials (mostly from old magazine-columns) with commentary/clarification/etc of the main rules.

Character-generation, for example, can take some page-flipping.  One of the fans produced this useful bit:   http://2ndage.blogspot.com/2016/07/runequest-classic-edition-char-gen.html

 

[BWP]

The only complaints I ever had about most of what came in the RQ3 Deluxe Box (leaving aside issues of physical presentation) was the lack of Glorantha material and the inclusion of the Fantasy Earth material.  The latter could have been worthwhile if it had been developed into ... anything ... but all we got was a large map with no information on it.  Uh, thanks.

In terms of mechanics, organisation, etc. I too thought RQ3 was the bees' knees ... mostly.  There were problems, of course, there always are.  Errata cleared up some of them, questions to Chaosium helped a lot, house rules handled most of the rest.

From my perspective, as a player and a GM, the Character Generation system was pretty much worth the price of entry alone.  Far superior to what we had in RQ2, or just about any other FRPG on the market at the time.  Easily customisable, too.  On the other hand you had Sorcery which was an excellent concept that doesn't seem to have been playtested by real human beings at all.  (Recent revelations that most, if not all, of Chaosium's playtesting involved very experienced PCs as opposed to new characters generated straight from the books go a long way to explain problems like this.  A beginning sorcerer has, in my estimation, virtually no chance of ever becoming anything other than a beginning sorcerer; whereas, of course, an experienced sorcerer is pretty tough.)  There were other similar sounds-good-but-needed-more-work mechanisms like Fatigue.  The sample "encounter tables" wasted several pages of Book 3.  (The revelation that the most likely thing you would "encounter" in, say, rural cultivated land are farms, farmers and farm animals is both obviously true and generally pretty irrelevant to most actual games.)

Note that my Glorantha-related objections concerned the lack of the material, not the separation of it.  I was totally OK with the latter.

 

[styopa]

6 hours ago, Mikus said:

This is what happens to us old people. We like what we like and get set in our ways.   But really, RQ3 is one sweet set of rules.  Other than a few oddities I think it is one of the best rules sets ever.  It sets a very high bar.   Comparing something new to something that has been working great forever is perfectly logical. RQ2 was great as a whole concept but I thought a 5% system using a d100 was a bit odd. A d20 would have been more elegant. I have to believe that RQG is going to find a hard core group of Glorantha fans but most fans of d100 games will use another system.  Just a hunch.

My suspicion is different, only because I have different plans personally.

I think the gaming world of 2018 or so is much different than before - the world of computer games has gotten us more comfortable with total conversions, and we as fans are more interconnected than ever, making communicating such things viable.

I certainly plan to strip RQG of Gloranthiana and then start with a total conversion from there.  (Shrug)

[g33k]

7 hours ago, Mikus said:

... I thought a 5% system using a d100 was a bit odd. A d20 would have been more elegant...

I always thought that was genius, myself -- yes, the 5% increment on d100 was identical to d20... that just made it easier for the d20-centric D&D crowd to understand!  But RQ2 used that finer granularity for the whole crit/special/fumble range, scaling with skill, instead of the fixed 1-or-20 of D&D.  Genius!

[Jeff]

27 minutes ago, g33k said:

I always thought that was genius, myself -- yes, the 5% increment on d100 was identical to d20... that just made it easier for the d20-centric D&D crowd to understand!  But RQ2 used that finer granularity for the whole crit/special/fumble range, scaling with skill, instead of the fixed 1-or-20 of D&D.  Genius!

Also a % system is far more intuitive than a D20 system. D&D players are trained to disagree, but it is way easier for most people to get what you are doing with % of chance than with the various D20 models. Surprising as it may seem, there is actually a surprisingly large block of the RPG market that doesn't play much D&D and maybe even never has.

[Mugen]

9 hours ago, Mikus said:

RQ2 was great as a whole concept but I thought a 5% system using a d100 was a bit odd.

I've always thought it was because skills were originally an extension of thieves abilities in OD&D.

When you look at how those abilities are modified by DEX in older editions of D&D and how characteristics interact with skills in RQ2, it's very similar.

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Also a % system is far more intuitive than a D20 system. D&D players are trained to disagree, but it is way easier for most people to get what you are doing with % of chance than with the various D20 models. Surprising as it may seem, there is actually a surprisingly large block of the RPG market that doesn't play much D&D and maybe even never has.

I agree it's very easy to understand the concept of having a percentile chance to succeed at a task.

On the other hand, having a percentile after a skill rating may be misleading, as people tend to think 100% represents a maximum value in a skill. See how often people don't get why a skill could go over 100%, or a fighter with a 50% skill is an "average" fighter.

Edited April 10, 2018 by Mugen

[Jeff]

6 minutes ago, Mugen said:

I've always thought it was because skills were originally an extension of thieves abilities in OD&D.

When you look at how those abilities are modified by DEX in older editions of D&D and how characteristics interact with skills in RQ2, it's very similar.

I agree it's very easy to understand the concept of having a percentile chance to succeed at a task.

On the other hand, having a percentile after a skill rating may be misleading, as people tend to think 100% represents a maximum value in a skill. See how often people don't get why a skill could go over 100%, or a fighter with a 50% skill is an "average" fighter.

I think that is a case of overthinking. Even my 8 year old son has no trouble understanding having "better than 100%" chance. Strictly speaking that may be nonsense, but as language is actually used, it is pretty easy to grasp.

[TrippyHippy]

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

Also a % system is far more intuitive than a D20 system. D&D players are trained to disagree, but it is way easier for most people to get what you are doing with % of chance than with the various D20 models. Surprising as it may seem, there is actually a surprisingly large block of the RPG market that doesn't play much D&D and maybe even never has.

This is true, and accentuated by the fact that D&D was built on the entirely counterintuitive, inverted THACO (To Hit Armour Class 0) system that required extensive table referencing at the time when RuneQuest first hit the roleplaying market. The whole 'D20' system as we know it only really came about with the 3rd edition of D&D, which was lead-designed primarily by Jonathon Tweet - a noted RuneQuest aficionado - who largely rebuilt the D&D/D20 system by integrating ideas established through games like RuneQuest. While they stuck with a D20 rather than % dice, they reversed the target numbers lines so they were more transparent, introduced a fully integrated skill system, included 'meta-magic' feats and opened up multi classing to de-emphasis the reliance of niche-restricted Classes. All of these things can be seen through the lens of RQ's influence. 

Edited April 10, 2018 by TrippyHippy

[Psullie]

40 minutes ago, Mugen said:

On the other hand, having a percentile after a skill rating may be misleading, as people tend to think 100% represents a maximum value in a skill. See how often people don't get why a skill could go over 100%, or a fighter with a 50% skill is an "average" fighter.

they are not percentiles, which looks at the full range (and can result in bell curves similar to the 3d6 distribution) but a flat chance of success. 50% is not therefore average, just a 50/50 chance of success. 

4 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

This is true, and accentuated by the fact that D&D was built on the entirely counterintuitive, inverted THACO (To Hit Armour Class 0) system that required extensive table referencing at the time when RuneQuest first hit the roleplaying market. The whole 'D20' system as we know it only really came about with the 3rd edition of D&D, which was lead-designed primarily by Jonathon Tweet - a noted RuneQuest aficionado....

If I recall THACO was a major simplification of the combat system - I only played 1st & 2nd and the d20 was core then too - it only became known as the D20 system to market the licence variants of other games: Star Wars, Delta Green etc.

[TrippyHippy]

28 minutes ago, Psullie said:

If I recall THACO was a major simplification of the combat system - I only played 1st & 2nd and the d20 was core then too - it only became known as the D20 system to market the licence variants of other games: Star Wars, Delta Green etc.

THACO was an attempt in AD&D 2nd edition to provide a single mathematical cue instead of having to reference lots of 'To Hit' tables. The actual maths were no different, however, it just simply assumed that players could count backwards from the 0 to determine what target number to roll. 

The D20 die was core to the combat system 'To Hit' rolls, although the other dice were more irregularly used throughout the rest of the game. Percentile tables, for example, were pretty normal as well as using percentiles in feats of Strength and the like.  Initiative was normally based on a D6 roll. The 'D20 system' was indeed a marketing tool, although its also true that 3rd edition did a lot to standardise dice rolling towards a D20 as default. 

Edited April 10, 2018 by TrippyHippy

[simonh]

I dreaded getting into this thread, but actually it's quite interesting. I started with RQ2 and soon after moved on to RQ3, then switched to running Gorantha using the Elric game system with RQ3 magic.

I agree with Jeff that the core game system in RQ2 is superior to that in RQ3. It's simpler, more concise and easier to use in play. On the other hand it's missing a lot of options and ancillary rules that really hamper using it in practice. Just look at the skills list. RQ3 is a much more capable system, but in the process of making it more rounded they also complicated it unnecessarily. If I had to choose one or the other right now, for a one-off or short run game I'd go with RQ2 but for a campaign I'd use RQ3. I am hoping that RQG will balance this out by going back to the simpler core system, but with the expanded capabilities a modern game needs.

On skill category modifiers, I couldn't care less. CoC doesn't have them, Elric and Stormbringer didn't have them, and none of those games suffered in the slightest. The RQ2 method is the simplest to use, so it gets my vote just on that basis if we have to have one at all.

On using the new RQ as a generic S&S system, I think it will be highly usable. The runes are really an add-on to they system that look very easy to drop. I think the only point at which they link into other mechanics is as the chance to cast rune magic, and that's easy enough to house rule. The cultural details used in character generation would take a bit of work for a new setting, as would cult write-ups or an alternate way to gain rune and spirit magic, but that's always been an issue with RQ so it's not like it's a new problem. 

Simon Hibbs

Edited April 10, 2018 by simonh

[Mugen]

36 minutes ago, simonh said:

 CoC doesn't have them, Elric and Stormbringer didn't have them, and none of those games suffered in the slightest.

StormBringer 2nd edition had skill modifiers. And, given only less than a handful of skills had a base value, most of your skills were eqaul to their modifier.

[Mugen]

3 hours ago, Psullie said:

If I recall THACO was a major simplification of the combat system - I only played 1st & 2nd and the d20 was core then too - it only became known as the D20 system to market the licence variants of other games: Star Wars, Delta Green etc.

The difference is that there was no "core system" in either AD&D 1e or 2e.

-Combat was roll 1d20+Str bonus > THAC0 -AC,
-Saving throws was straight d20 over a number depending on your class & level,
-Skills used roll 1d20 under Ability +modifier +skill rank,
-Most class abilities used a straight percentage chance of success,
-When no other method worked, you could roll dice under an ability value.

After D&D 3.0, all those subsystems were replaced by a single system, using 1d20 +attribute bonus +experience bonus > difficulty threshold, which was the basis for the d20 system.

 

[Mikus]

5 hours ago, Jeff said:

I think that is a case of overthinking. Even my 8 year old son has no trouble understanding having "better than 100%" chance. Strictly speaking that may be nonsense, but as language is actually used, it is pretty easy to grasp.

 

Do you think your 8 year old gets "roll 5% or less of your skill of 67 on a die 100" easier than "roll 1 on a d20"?    I get what your saying but.....more than 100% is not the point.  I don't buy 15% of 111 is easier for your child than roll under or under 3 on a d20.

[styopa]

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

The difference is that there was no "core system" in either AD&D 1e or 2e.

-Combat was roll 1d20+Str bonus > THAC0 -AC,
-Saving throws was straight d20 over a number depending on your class & level,
-Skills used roll 1d20 under Ability +modifier +skill rank,
-Most class abilities used a straight percentage chance of success,
-When no other method worked, you could roll dice under an ability value.

After D&D 3.0, all those subsystems were replaced by a single system, using 1d20 +attribute bonus +experience bonus > difficulty threshold, which was the basis for the d20 system.

 

Yes, THAC0 was intended as a 'simplification' of the to-hit tables from AD&D (IIRC a creation of TSR UK actually), but what always struck me was how nobody apparently noticed that they actually broke a pretty important feature of those original tables.  Yes, for the bulk of the tables, it was correct that if a character needed a 14 to hit AC4, they would need a 13 to hit AC5 and a 15 to hit AC3....but the original tables had a key feature in that "20" was repeated IIRC 6 times.  That is, if you needed a 19 to hit AC1, and a 20 to hit AC0, that same 20 would also hit AC-1 to AC-5.  THAC0 wrecked that, making better AC's much harder to hit.

 

[Jeff]

6 minutes ago, Mikus said:

 

Do you think your 8 year old gets "roll 5% or less of your skill of 67 on a die 100" easier than "roll 1 on a d20"?    I get what your saying but.....more than 100% is not the point.  I don't buy 15% of 111 is easier for your child than roll under or under 3 on a d20.

I've tried to teach him D20 and he finds roll 5% or 20% of 67% much easier than constantly having to explain what 1 on 1D20 means. 

This is the problem with D20 games - the rules are abstract in a way that if you aren't really interested in the rules, it is hard to fudge your way through unless the GM or other players basically do all the work for you. Which they always have to do for me whenever I play D20 games. But if your character sheet says you have a 60% chance of success of Orate, you have a pretty good understanding of what your basic odds are without further explanation (or even further understanding of the rules). 

[Psullie]

31 minutes ago, Mikus said:

Do you think your 8 year old gets "roll 5% or less of your skill of 67 on a die 100" easier than "roll 1 on a d20"?    I get what your saying but.....more than 100% is not the point.  I don't buy 15% of 111 is easier for your child than roll under or under 3 on a d20.

I don't think its the dice rolling but how you gauge the difficulty and the linguistics of explaining chance. It is easier to explain that you has a 25% chance of success than saying you have a 5 in 20. Also statements like 125% chance are understood, where as 25 on a d20 will lead to confusion. 

[Mugen]

42 minutes ago, styopa said:

Yes, THAC0 was intended as a 'simplification' of the to-hit tables from AD&D (IIRC a creation of TSR UK actually), but what always struck me was how nobody apparently noticed that they actually broke a pretty important feature of those original tables.  Yes, for the bulk of the tables, it was correct that if a character needed a 14 to hit AC4, they would need a 13 to hit AC5 and a 15 to hit AC3....but the original tables had a key feature in that "20" was repeated IIRC 6 times.  That is, if you needed a 19 to hit AC1, and a 20 to hit AC0, that same 20 would also hit AC-1 to AC-5.  THAC0 wrecked that, making better AC's much harder to hit.

You're not completely right : the DMG specified that the 5 results above the first "20" above 19 required a "natural 20" to hit. Same for 21, 22 and other values above 20.
So, you had a flat 5% chance to hit those 5 AC values, no matter what to-hit bonus you had.

I think we're going far off-topic...

[Psullie]

13 hours ago, BWP said:

From my perspective, as a player and a GM, the Character Generation system was pretty much worth the price of entry alone.  Far superior to what we had in RQ2, or just about any other FRPG on the market at the time. 

Yep that was gold - and with the Glorantha box set it made is easier roll up characters for novice players - I also preferred rolling for the skill increase amount rather than the +5%

[g33k]

35 minutes ago, Psullie said:

... I also preferred rolling for the skill increase amount rather than the +5%

I expect to continue my own process of tweaking/massaging the skill-increase rules, with RQG; though of course I'll wait to see what they actually ARE (I believe them to be very very RQ2-like).  

Currently, my "tweak" is RQ2 based, but --

• Get a  "+"  tic on successful use OR on a Fumble; recorded as "C" if it's a Crit (can upgrade a + to a C if you get one later)
• When rolling skill-increases, failure-to-increase can be re-rolled if your tic was a "C"rit (though you cannot get two increases; just a backup-chance to learn)
• Roll +2d4% instead of a flat +5% unless it was a "C"rit
• Roll +3d4(minimum5)% if it was a "C"rit
• Pick any TWO skills for which you had no tic's, and take a skill-increase roll for each (if your first roll fails to increase, you can spend your second on the same skill, if desired).

Ummm... I am not actually sure, at this point, if a few of those come from some other iteration of BRP/d100 published elsewhere, or if they are all culled from games & experiences over the years & fan-forums / discussions / etc.

I have some concerns about when over-100% skills become commonplace, and how much the double-roll and +3d4% may impact that; I haven't had any sustained campaigns at such rarified heights!  On the whole, I'm inclined to let it stand:  things are SUPPOSED to be getting a bit eye-boggling when skill mastery is a commonplace of the campaign.

[Mikus]

11 hours ago, Psullie said:

I don't think its the dice rolling but how you gauge the difficulty and the linguistics of explaining chance. It is easier to explain that you has a 25% chance of success than saying you have a 5 in 20. Also statements like 125% chance are understood, where as 25 on a d20 will lead to confusion. 

Having to explain to an 8 year old that you roll two dice, one is the tens and one is the ones.  07 is a 7 and 00 is 100.  If you have a 125% chance a 00, (100), is a fumble. This is by conception easier than a "1-5 on this die is a win, 6-20 not so good". ??   

I love BRP but I think d20 and simple modifiers is easy and if your locked to 5% than sticking to the most simple representation would make sense.  That was all I was getting at.  But I conceded that 1-3 for a crit on a die 100 cannot be accurately represented on a d20.

By the way, don't kids start with number lines, ranges that is, before percentages?  In fact, I think fractions come before percentages, like 1/4, or 5 out of 20.  I could be wrong but that seems to be how I remember learning it so most children would grasp this sooner than percentages.  At least that how I learned math in the good old public education system.

At the end of the day my favoring of RQ3 was largely due to skills ranging from 1-whatever rather than 1-20, (functionally). To my mind this is what made the %d worthwhile over a d20 roll.

[Mugen]

7 hours ago, Mikus said:

I love BRP but I think d20 and simple modifiers is easy and if your locked to 5% than sticking to the most simple representation would make sense.  That was all I was getting at.  But I conceded that 1-3 for a crit on a die 100 cannot be accurately represented on a d20.

It can be done by re-rolling the d20 on a 1 and considering a new success is a crit.

Specials, on the other hand, are more tricky. You can ask for a re-roll on a roll of 2 to 4, but it's less elegant..

And it scales horribly with skills over 100% or 20...

7 hours ago, Mikus said:

Having to explain to an 8 year old that you roll two dice, one is the tens and one is the ones.  07 is a 7 and 00 is 100.  If you have a 125% chance a 00, (100), is a fumble. This is by conception easier than a "1-5 on this die is a win, 6-20 not so good". ??   

By the way, don't kids start with number lines, ranges that is, before percentages?  In fact, I think fractions come before percentages, like 1/4, or 5 out of 20.  I could be wrong but that seems to be how I remember learning it so most children would grasp this sooner than percentages.  At least that how I learned math in the good old public education system.

I remember my father told me that d10s were used for percentages when I was around age 8 or 9, and I didn't have a clue what he meant. I didn't dare asking what percentages were, and he didn't care telling me.

I think I knew how fractions worked at this age, but I can't say for sure.

On the other hand, I understood immediately rolling 4d6 under an attribute.

[Mikus]

3 hours ago, Mugen said:

I remember my father told me that d10s were used for percentages when I was around age 8 or 9, and I didn't have a clue what he meant. I didn't dare asking what percentages were, and he didn't care telling me.

I think I knew how fractions worked at this age, but I can't say for sure.

On the other hand, I understood immediately rolling 4d6 under an attribute.

Ya.. and even today when I am told 25% I don't think of 25 slices of pie out of 100 slices,  I think of 1/4 of the pie.  Back in the 'old' days we would would have rolled 1d4, but thats because we were stupid fools and did not have specials and critical.   Hell, we did not even have hit locations. I'm talking archaic. You were just one big, fat blob of HP.  When told 1cm I think a little less than 1/2" and a meter is about a yard.  I know this is because I am old, ignorant and set in my ways.  Therefore perhaps todays kids do function differnetly.

If I moved to a 10% critical system with no specials I would kick around the idea of doubles being a critical or fumble based upon if it is a success or failure.  37% chance means 11, 22 and 33 are critical and 44, 55, etc a fumble.  11 is always a critical and 00 always a fumble.  I know this pumps the fumble chance a bit though.  Not sure if there are other downsides.  As for the critical die, yes, 1 = critical, 2 = special, 19 = auto miss, 20 = fumble.  regardless of success or failure but it replaces math with yet another die.

BTW - Is your name from the Black Company?  One of my all time favorite sites of books. Cooks got another one scheduled for release this October. I'm chomping at the bit to read it.

[SDLeary]

4 hours ago, Mugen said:

It can be done by re-rolling the d20 on a 1 and considering a new success is a crit.

Specials, on the other hand, are more tricky. You can ask for a re-roll on a roll of 2 to 4, but it's less elegant..

And it scales horribly with skills over 100% or 20...

You can simplify even further though and simply say 1 is a crit, easy peasy. When choosing to use d20, you have really already blown off anything that doesn't fit in the 5% steps anyway. Specials, for all intents and purposes, are lost.

As for skills over 100%, you can still do it in d20, but you have to adopt Masteries from HeroQuest.

The way I do things, is I use a blackjack model, so your "crit" target is your skill value or modified skill value. In this case a crit would use the effects of RQ's specials. Depending upon your opponent(s) and fighting issues, you can use Masteries to bump successes to criticals (for RQ special effects), or a critical up to give you the armor bypass option. This also mitigates somewhat the issue of really low powered characters or NPCs from getting that really good hit on the Hero and taking him out with a single blow. 

There is no reason that the above should not work if you choose 1 as your "critical" point. 

With something like the above though, you really want to keep experience/training/research progression to 1 point per increase success. 

SDLeary

 

[Mugen]

19 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

You can simplify even further though and simply say 1 is a crit, easy peasy. When choosing to use d20, you have really already blown off anything that doesn't fit in the 5% steps anyway. Specials, for all intents and purposes, are lost.

As for skills over 100%, you can still do it in d20, but you have to adopt Masteries from HeroQuest.

The way I do things, is I use a blackjack model, so your "crit" target is your skill value or modified skill value. In this case a crit would use the effects of RQ's specials. Depending upon your opponent(s) and fighting issues, you can use Masteries to bump successes to criticals (for RQ special effects), or a critical up to give you the armor bypass option. This also mitigates somewhat the issue of really low powered characters or NPCs from getting that really good hit on the Hero and taking him out with a single blow. 

There is no reason that the above should not work if you choose 1 as your "critical" point. 

With something like the above though, you really want to keep experience/training/research progression to 1 point per increase success. 

SDLeary

Yes, there are different ways to do crits and specials, but I was trying here to be as close as possible to RuneQuest 2/3/G chances to get them with a d20.

To do so, and have crit chances different from 5%, you have to rely on the result of a second die.

Old french game Légendes Celtiques was a d20 roll-under game (heavily influenced by RuneQuest and FGU games) using Margins of success. On a 1, the d20 was re-rolled and, if successful, the new Margin of success was added to the first.

In a roll-over variant, you could roll an open-ended d20, add your skill versus a difficulty and count results superior or equal to (difficulty+20) as crits.