RQ3 and Murphy's Rules

[BWP]

While perusing an old issue of Pyramid magazine I noticed that the "Murphy's Rules" gag page had a bit on RQ3 (that version cited specifically): it said that in an average town of about 10,000 people, every week 3 will typically vanish to the god plane, never to be seen again.  While that sounds kind of amusing, I guess, given the real world probability of people disappearing and never seen again it doesn't sound that strange to me.  I suppose the statement that they are specifically "vanishing to the god plane" and the implication that it's just happening randomly, so it might happen to your character at any time is the source of the humour?

Any way ... what I don't get is where this statistic is coming from?  It's stated as being a part of the RQ3 rules, but I can't think where.  AFAIK the "god plane" is only even mentioned in Book 5 (the Glorantha booklet) and I can't see anything there about random disappearances.  (Although to be honest, random disappearances to the god plane does sound kind of typical for Glorantha, although perhaps not at the rate of 3 in 10,000 per week!)  I flipped through the other books but couldn't spot anything.  Does anyone have any clue as to where this strange statistic has come from?

 

[simonh]

I think it's extrapolating from the encounter tables in the Gamemaster's Book. Characters (and therefore presumably NPCs as well) in an urban environment roll on the Urban Encounters table 1D6 times a day. A roll of 96+ leads to the rural encounters table. A roll on that of 81+ leads to the Wilds encounter table. A roll on that of 81+ leads to the Wasteland encounter table. A roll on that of 96+ leads to the magical terrain table.

Presumably they are classifying some of the magical terrain encounters as occurring on the God Plane, such as 00 - Demonic demigod, 01 - magical ruler of region, etc.

Simon Hibbs

[styopa]

Honestly, given the nature of Glorantha, no, I don't see rate of 3 people per 10,000 per week having a bizarre spirit/god plane encounter as being unreasonable.

Particularly if you factor in adventurers, who have them at an inordinately high frequency, raising the average.

[simonh]

3 hours ago, styopa said:

Honestly, given the nature of Glorantha, no, I don't see rate of 3 people per 10,000 per week having a bizarre spirit/god plane encounter as being unreasonable.

Particularly if you factor in adventurers, who have them at an inordinately high frequency, raising the average.

It means if you live for 30 years, you've got about a 50/50 chance of it happening to you at some point or other. That doesn't seem completely unreasonable for Glorantha.

Simon Hibbs

[BWP]

13 hours ago, simonh said:

I think it's extrapolating from the encounter tables in the Gamemaster's Book. Characters (and therefore presumably NPCs as well) in an urban environment roll on the Urban Encounters table 1D6 times a day. A roll of 96+ leads to the rural encounters table. A roll on that of 81+ leads to the Wilds encounter table. A roll on that of 81+ leads to the Wasteland encounter table. A roll on that of 96+ leads to the magical terrain table.

Presumably they are classifying some of the magical terrain encounters as occurring on the God Plane, such as 00 - Demonic demigod, 01 - magical ruler of region, etc.

There's no "they" involved here.  Somebody ("Lev Anderson") sent this in to Murphy's Rules as an established "fact" about the RQ3 rules.  Nothing in those encounter tables says anything about "you have left the normal plane of existence" (though I agree that is a possible interpretation of the encounter result) and still less about "and you never get to return" (what determines that?).  I also don't see where the "3 in 10,000" (per day the cartoon actually says, not per week as I indicated above) number comes from.  There's a difference between "extrapolation" and "making stuff up and claiming that there's a rule for it".  Mr Anderson appears to have done the latter (perhaps that was his house rule, and then he forgot that it was not a printed rule).  Since the whole point of the cartoon is to show up weird and/or silly rules in games, it seems unfair in this particular instance.

Any way, regardless of how you choose to interpret those tables, there appears to be nothing actually in print that says you can just randomly disappear, which is the only point I was trying to establish.

[simonh]

If it’s 3 per day then that’s easy. If you roll on the Urban encounter table, your chances of ending up rolling on the magical terrain table is 1 in 10,000. Since you get 1D6 encounters per day, on average that’s a bit over a 3 in 10,000 chance.

Murphy’s Rules was just a bit of fun, and working this out was a nice trip down memory lane. IMHO it’s all good.

Simon Hibbs

[Rick Meints]

which issue of Pyramid magazine had this in it?

I have the first Murphy's Rules book (compilation) by SJG and this isn't in it.

[BWP]

3 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

which issue of Pyramid magazine had this in it?

 

Issue #17, p.87.

The text reads "On average, 3 people a day in a typical RUNEQUEST (Avalon Hill) city of 10,000 will be suddenly and mysteriously transported to the 'God Plane', never to return."

It doesn't matter how you slice it, that was simply a grossly inaccurate statement to make about the RQ3 rules, which IMO defeats the purpose of the cartoon: the humour is in finding rules that do seem kind of silly on the face of it, not just inventing silly rules.  (There's another cartoon somewhere that points out that a relatively large proportion of combatants in a RQ battle will decapitate themselves, which is true and actually funny -- especially when you've seen it happen at the gaming table!)  Even the most liberal interpretation of those encounter tables says nothing about being "transported" (although they can be interpreted that way, that's up to the GM, not a statement in the rules), they say nothing about the "God Plane" at all (that's a Gloranthan concept, not a "typical RQ3" concept), and just because you have a weird encounter while walking down a city street does not mean that you have automatically permanently disappeared from existence.  (I don't think I'd play many games with a GM who consistently interpreted things in that way!)

Of course, I never paid the slightest attention to the RQ3 encounter tables.  I always thought them a couple of pages of wasted space.  Not because I dislike random encounters; on the contrary, I'm usually entirely in favour of them.  Those particular tables, however, never impressed me in the slightest.  I've always felt that they were written under protest to fulfill the (perceived) obligation of having encounter tables in the rules, as opposed to something that might actually enhance the game with some random spice.

 

[Rick Meints]

You can see the actual "comic" with that wording on the SJ Games website: http://www.sjgames.com/murphys/art.html

Because they don't really provide any specifics, it's hard to know exactly how they came to that conclusion. The RQ3 rulebook encounter tables as cited in previous replies prove that the math to wind up going to a "magical place" is sound, but that doesn't equate to ending up being the victim of a random permanent one-way trip to the God Plane. 

It didn't pan out, but I did look through the extensive encounter tables published in the RQ3 supplement RuneQuest Cities, published by Avalon Hill, but there was no result even close to ending up on the god plane, or any other plane or spirit world for that matter.

In the end, I'll just chalk this one up to comedic license.

[jajagappa]

54 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

It didn't pan out, but I did look through the extensive encounter tables published in the RQ3 supplement RuneQuest Cities, published by Avalon Hill, but there was no result even close to ending up on the god plane, or any other plane or spirit world for that matter.

That was my thought as well, and went through, but didn't find anything there either.

[Steve]

On 5/21/2018 at 11:20 PM, BWP said:

 Mr Anderson appears to have done the latter

Are you sure it's the God Plane that they're disappearing into? Maybe the creation of Time was all an illusion and mortals are part of an elaborate construct while their real bodies are somewhere else ...