RMS Posted October 15, 2008 Share Posted October 15, 2008 So, if I wanted to create shamanic rules for BRP then I wouldn't necessarily start from RQ2 or RQ3. Instead I'd start from first principles. I'd list what powers and abilities a shaman should have, how a shaman interacts with his people, how shamanic worship should work, how shamanic people deal with their surroundings and so on. Then I'd work out simple game mechanics to model/mimic those. I'd actually agree with this in general. I'd also like to figure out a new take on spirit combat. RQ had a wonderful, evocative combat system that was easy to mold to a variety of different tactical approaches. Spirit combat OTOH was long, drawn out, and extremely uninteresting: POW vs. <something> over and over and over until someone breaks. RQIV tried to add something more interesting here, but as I recall it got over complicated. Maybe we should start another thread and figure out a new spirit combat system! (No, the MRQ way of making it all physical combat is not the answer!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightshade Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Ah. I took the table to be a generic random encounters table, not something to be used every time the shaman entered the spirit realm. I tied spirits to locales just like other encounters in the parallel Given the specific mechanical influence of the shaman's POW on the results, I'm afraid I can't view it that way; it appears to me it was indeed intended to generally be used for such things, and in any case, something like it was to be used; you can certainly make an argument that it wasn't out of keeping to do a custom tables for certain areas, but it certainly appears that finding specific sorts of spirits was supposed to be somewhat random and time consuming. material world, so a shaman with sufficient experience would know roughly where to find certain (individual) spirits: the spirit of the old dryad is always That appeared to already be factored into the rule about POW influence to me. at the same grove of oaks, the spirit of the river is accessible anywhere in the river but more likely at certain locations, etc. Most of this is driven by luck rolls, if nothing else. However, I'd argue that this is exactly how RQ3 was intended to be run (though I won't argue the point). I don't believe any of the tables in the game were ever intended to be used as gospel, but were there as guides for when you needed something quickly and didn't have the details figured out See my comments above; even if true, I don't think it changes my point about the design intent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMS Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 See my comments above; even if true, I don't think it changes my point about the design intent. No problem. Now should we design a shaman from the ground up, ignoring the old rules, and see where it gets us? I really was serious about spirit combat. The rules are broken, and in fact work very well, but for the amount of rolling that went on it was one of the lease pleasurable parts of RQ to me. (Maybe just doing a single roll, like SB1-4 did is the simplest and best answer.?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightshade Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 No problem. Now should we design a shaman from the ground up, ignoring the old rules, and see where it gets us? I really was serious Well, I was personally only interested in commenting on the limitations of using the RQ2/3 version, but I'm sure the original poster and others would find it potentially useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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