RQ vs D&D

[drablak]

4 hours ago, boradicus said:

Are you referring to Rolemaster?

No, it's really called Hackmaster (https://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/)

[Numtini]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

Does anyone think I'm being grossly unfair in my comparison?

*raises hand*

A load of the stuff you're talking about is something a player deals with and it goes on their character sheet before the game. When I first played RQ, one of the revelations was that virtually the entire game was on your character sheet. That was a huge innovation in 1980 compared to squinting at the endless tables of AD&D. But D&D has caught up. The complexity is not at the table, it's all right there on your character sheet. And for the adjustments that aren't on the character sheet, they tend to be advantage or disadvantage which is easier to deal with than percentage calculations on the skill level which may change the chances of special successes.

Having said that, I don't find RQ particularly difficult mechanically and I don't know why someone would think it is. But making out that D&D is still the mess it was 40 years ago is just not fair.

[boradicus]

That is a great example!  I think when AD&D first came out, the various options for rules that might conflict was such a novelty that it was actually fun to search for that kind of stuff - in a way - because it was exciting to see what you could do in the AD&D game setting.  That was part of its charm.  But once the wonder has worn off a bit, it starts to become a bit tedious - especially, if there is some rule that was overlooked in the moment, and a lively "discussion" ensues.  Ergo, the DM is "always right."  Ideally, I think a game system should be as simple or complex as the DM/GM and players want it to be - sort of like how many of today's college courses are designed to challenge students far beyond the first standard deviation of the normal distribution for ability with the subject matter should they be so challenged.  Currently, no single system handles this variation inherently in either an entirely smooth or satisfying way.  For this reason, we have home-brew systems aplenty.

[boradicus]

3 hours ago, drablak said:

No, it's really called Hackmaster (https://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/)

Egad! Thanks.

[boradicus]

1 hour ago, Numtini said:

*raises hand*

A load of the stuff you're talking about is something a player deals with and it goes on their character sheet before the game. When I first played RQ, one of the revelations was that virtually the entire game was on your character sheet. That was a huge innovation in 1980 compared to squinting at the endless tables of AD&D. But D&D has caught up. The complexity is not at the table, it's all right there on your character sheet. And for the adjustments that aren't on the character sheet, they tend to be advantage or disadvantage which is easier to deal with than percentage calculations on the skill level which may change the chances of special successes.

Having said that, I don't find RQ particularly difficult mechanically and I don't know why someone would think it is. But making out that D&D is still the mess it was 40 years ago is just not fair.

Even though in D&D the rules may mostly now be on a player's character sheet, the DM will want to have all of his player's character sheets in front of him if he wants to run the game properly (and not be beholden to the players, needing to continuously ask them questions about their character's abilities) and that can take up a lot of space behind the DM screen where the go-to rules are supposed to be efficiently organized and summarized.  So, no, in my opinion, pouring the rules into the character sheets is not a substitute for a well thought-out and appropriately streamlined-for-play gaming system.

[g33k]

I find that 3.x / PF (which to many is still "D&D") really suffers from "bonus-itis" as Shiningbrow so amusingly portrayed it.  I find high-level play... tedious, at best.

I have played 5e a bit, but not enough to be sure if it suffers a comparable flaw.  Rolling with Advantage or Disadvantage is the Big Deal in 5e, and I can see a /potential/ issue where you have to tote up a LOT of +Adv's and -Disadv's to figure out if you are rolling one way or the other, or neither.  But maybe that's a rarity even in high level play... ?  I dunno.

 

[Oracle]

13 hours ago, boradicus said:

Oooo... I had friends who had a campaign in the world of Harn.... is Harnmaster related to that???

Definitely yes. Although you could use Harn with any RPG system, Harnmaster was the system, which used Harn as its defined game world.

[Job]

10 hours ago, boradicus said:

Even though in D&D the rules may mostly now be on a player's character sheet, the DM will want to have all of his player's character sheets in front of him if he wants to run the game properly (and not be beholden to the players, needing to continuously ask them questions about their character's abilities) and that can take up a lot of space behind the DM screen where the go-to rules are supposed to be efficiently organized and summarized.  So, no, in my opinion, pouring the rules into the character sheets is not a substitute for a well thought-out and appropriately streamlined-for-play gaming system.

It’s no different than GM have to ask players for the effects of various magics/spells in RQG if he can’t memorize them. And DM can just open their PHB for references behind DM screen. Some even use D&D Beyond app in their tablet for much faster referencing.

I find that it is not a game system issue but a trust issue if you can’t trust your players. I’ve never seen any D&D 5e DM need, generally speaking, more than to know HP, AC, and passive perception of the players to run the game smoothly. 

[Job]

10 hours ago, g33k said:

I find that 3.x / PF (which to many is still "D&D") really suffers from "bonus-itis" as Shiningbrow so amusingly portrayed it.  I find high-level play... tedious, at best.

I have played 5e a bit, but not enough to be sure if it suffers a comparable flaw.  Rolling with Advantage or Disadvantage is the Big Deal in 5e, and I can see a /potential/ issue where you have to tote up a LOT of +Adv's and -Disadv's to figure out if you are rolling one way or the other, or neither.  But maybe that's a rarity even in high level play... ?  I dunno.

 

Never experienced anything more than 1 adv or 1 disadv cancel out each other generally. It’s very fast and intuitive. 

[Job]

15 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I'm glad you brought such things up! And, yes, the magic system is exactly the example I wanted to make of the complexity involved.

Let's just take a real good hard look at that "few modifiers" bit...

Let's assume a newbie player is trying out RQ/D&D, and they're given a pre-gen (a few levels up/experience checks), and knows about RPGs in general. They want to cast a healing spell...

RQ

I cast Heal 3 - what do I do?

Roll to see if you cast it, deduct MPs, remove damage.

I roll under my POWx5% - success - how many points do I heal?

Three.

I rolled a crit.

Three.

It says I'm a human...

Three.

I'm healing another human...

Three.

My character is in Chalana Arroy, the healer's cult...

Three.

I'm a priest...

Three.

It says here I have First Aid.

Three

I'm trying to heal their head...

Three.

I have some healing matrix thing...

Three.

I have this 2pt Healing Crystal...

Oh, ok - five.

 

D&D

I cast Heal - how many points do I heal?

(GM starts the inquisition...)

Which spell?

What class are you?

What level?

What level of what class?

What race are you (does it allow any healing modifiers?)

What level spell are you using? (do you have that slot available? Is it level dependant?)

(if you're a cleric) What is your domain?

Does it have a healing modifier? (Can you use it in this situation?)

Do you have a feat that adjusts it?

Does your heal spell have an ability modifier?

Do you have a feat that changes that ability modifier?

Have you changed your modifier?

Have you done an action that has enabled you to modify your spell?

Has someone near you done something that may modify your healing ability?

Does someone nearby have an ability that changes your modifier? (eg Aura) Have they turned it on? is it currently in use? (wait for the arguments about all that!)

Who is your target?

Do they have any modifiers to healing?

Does their race have any healing modifiers?

Do you have any magic items that can change your healing modifiers? (what are they? What do they do? How many can you use at once?)

Are all the above modifiers stackable? Which ones? Which don't count?

 

 

Does anyone think I'm being grossly unfair in my comparison? Because I know I've missed a few things in the D&D comparison... And, obviously, I can do the same for attack rolls... And, what's worse, a lot of those questions/modifiers need to be recalculated not only for every battle/situation, but often within/between combat rounds! (do you still have advantage? Has the enemy moved away? Has your friend moved next to them? Are you considered to be flanking still? Do you have companions who have a feat that is now activated? Do you have a feat that needs them to also have the same feat, and are they now activated?

 

As for other magic... D&D has quite different stats, abilities, and everything else. RQ? Spirit (POWx5 for every, basically same range, all with same duration (well, instant/temporal), variables easy math for MPs). Rune (usually same duration, range, have to sacrifice POW, wipe of RPs for a while, % roll under appropriate Rune). Sorcery - yeah, getting more complex!! I'll pay that. But, it's supposed to be complex, which is part of the reason most characters (not players) don't use it! There's an actual in-world reason associated with the complexity.

So, yes, I think D&D is far more complex and complicated... How many times have those here played D&D and forgotten a bonus/modifier in amongst all the race/class/feats etc etc??

As indicated previously, I don't dislike complex... In some ways, I revel in them. (Personally, I'd like to see a more defined Hit Location table in RQ )

 

I also agree with what's been said before - this debate is somewhat apples and oranges. D&D is "high fantasy" with lots of books telling you what you can do. RQ is fantasy, with a couple of books with a few rules, and you decide where you want to take it within the game world.

 

It has never happened that way in any 5e game I’ve run or participated. 

Player will just say “I cast Heal using xx spell slot to heal Mr. X. It heal him up xxx hp.” Then he roll the dice and that’s the end of it. 

There are not many special bonuses in D&D 5e, it is designed to be much more streamline, fast, with much less bookkeeping than previous editions. And if certain character have any special bonus, they are expected to remind DM or else they don’t get to use it. That is the case in any 5e game I ran, played, or observed. 

[boradicus]

2 hours ago, Job said:

It’s no different than GM have to ask players for the effects of various magics/spells in RQG if he can’t memorize them. And DM can just open their PHB for references behind DM screen. Some even use D&D Beyond app in their tablet for much faster referencing.

I find that it is not a game system issue but a trust issue if you can’t trust your players. I’ve never seen any D&D 5e DM need, generally speaking, more than to know HP, AC, and passive perception of the players to run the game smoothly. 

Trust is not the issue.  The DM necessarily maintains a fourth wall throughout the game, and there are often times when due to the DM's creative license, it would be helpful to have knowledge about the particulars of the players' characters, and the DM might not always want to broadcast what he is doing by asking his players questions.  Although broadcasting that something is going on is certainly a tool in the DM's toolbox, it really isn't much of a tool if you are doing all the time.  This really has a lot more to do with play style and having the room to orchestrate things for the players in such a way that they have a great game.  Sometimes, in order to achieve the desired effect, the DM might not ever want any of the players to know what went on behind the curtain, or he might only want a few to have some gleaning.

Combat is a little more opaque - but combat is not the end-all, be-all of the rules. When combat takes place, the players are obviously aware of various sorts of events, effects, actions, etc.  But even during combat there might be things you don't want your players to know about - such as an enemy rogue sneaking to a certain part of the room (a passive perception check).  There also many kinds of passive checks that could potentially have a list of various bonuses added to them.  An app would would probably help a lot if it was written in such a way to account for all such cases.  Otherwise, it is probably best to just get a succinct stat block for each player's character which will cover all of the necessaries.

[Job]

2 hours ago, boradicus said:

Trust is not the issue.  The DM necessarily maintains a fourth wall throughout the game, and there are often times when due to the DM's creative license, it would be helpful to have knowledge about the particulars of the players' characters, and the DM might not always want to broadcast what he is doing by asking his players questions.  Although broadcasting that something is going on is certainly a tool in the DM's toolbox, it really isn't much of a tool if you are doing all the time.  This really has a lot more to do with play style and having the room to orchestrate things for the players in such a way that they have a great game.  Sometimes, in order to achieve the desired effect, the DM might not ever want any of the players to know what went on behind the curtain, or he might only want a few to have some gleaning.

Combat is a little more opaque - but combat is not the end-all, be-all of the rules. When combat takes place, the players are obviously aware of various sorts of events, effects, actions, etc.  But even during combat there might be things you don't want your players to know about - such as an enemy rogue sneaking to a certain part of the room (a passive perception check).  There also many kinds of passive checks that could potentially have a list of various bonuses added to them.  An app would would probably help a lot if it was written in such a way to account for all such cases.  Otherwise, it is probably best to just get a succinct stat block for each player's character which will cover all of the necessaries.

You can do all those things by knowing just passive perception/insight/investigation. Most people just use PP, that’s why they later remove PIns, PInv from the char sheet. There is not a bunch of bonuses to be added in 5e. This is not 3.5e.

[Shiningbrow]

20 hours ago, Numtini said:

*raises hand*

A load of the stuff you're talking about is something a player deals with and it goes on their character sheet before the game. When I first played RQ, one of the revelations was that virtually the entire game was on your character sheet. That was a huge innovation in 1980 compared to squinting at the endless tables of AD&D. But D&D has caught up. The complexity is not at the table, it's all right there on your character sheet. And for the adjustments that aren't on the character sheet, they tend to be advantage or disadvantage which is easier to deal with than percentage calculations on the skill level which may change the chances of special successes.

Having said that, I don't find RQ particularly difficult mechanically and I don't know why someone would think it is. But making out that D&D is still the mess it was 40 years ago is just not fair.

I confess to a bit of hyperbole - however, I still stand by the assertions - and the possible modifiers etc I listed.

While some (many) of those modifiers will be on the character sheet - some will be coming from other characters and their sheets. And those sheets aren't going to be 1 page... (unless you've remembered all the spells - possible ...I'm a bit like that - you're either going to have them printed out (eg, cards) or have the book handy). Now, I also confess to not having looked at the character sheet to recently (mostly because I wasn't incredibly enthused about D&D), but as I recall, some of those modifiers I just mentioned are going to be all over the place. And, as has been said, in many cases, if you forget a modifier, you lose it. The last D&D character I had done up was 4 pages with lots of columns of info (including various bonuses) in small font. Some auto-completed, some did not ... and some were conditional/situational.

Secondly, 3.0 - the biggest, most munchkinest, cheesiest version of the game (with all of the above modifiers) came out in 2000.... only 19 years ago.3.5 in 2003. And bucketloads of books, scenarios, add-ons, handbooks etc in the years since. So,  "Is that fair?" Well, it's still a very popular version of D&D (perhaps because of the cheese - death to serious min-maxxers!!!) However, the thread is about D&D in general... not a specific edition of it (so, again, I stand by my assertion - RQ is less complex than D&D).

 

Ironically (well, I see it as ironic!), the need to seriously calculate the special/crit table is going to happen much less than 20% of the time.... That is, the number of times a roll is made that is both close to the border of the special/crit, and yet obviously has some uncertainty. Rolling a 12 on 85% is clearly not going to be a Crit, and is clearly going to be a Special... Rolling a 02 on almost any skill is going to be a Crit (unless you have a really low skill... and, even then, most of the time, it's going to be somewhat irrelevant).   (and, talking of character sheets you mentioned above - the old RQ sheets had the Special/Crit scores on the weapons tables).

[Shiningbrow]

I just wanted to talk about one thing about the difference between D&D & RQ and one of the reasons I like RQ.

It's been mentioned about levelling in D&D, and how that affects players and their relationship to the world and NPCs. Vs RQ, where it's a very flat progression (ie, not exorbitant HPs, or usually god-killers at level 20, etc).

But, going a little more in detail... creatures (enemies) are levelled in D&D. WE know that. A level 20 character can look at a kobold, and there's a 1 in 10,000 chance the kobold is going to kick the character's butt. The other 9,999 times, that kobold is toast (possibly literally with the right spells!)

OTOH, in RQ, due to the effects of Chaos, a superhero like Harrek (if he was ever in his right mind) might just think he has a 50/50 chance of either wiping the floor with a certain broo he sees... or getting Total Party Wiped.

Most creatures aren't readily identified by CR (Challenge Rating) so you know whether you're likely to defeat them or not. (obviously, some are... looking at you Crimson Bat, Cragspider, most giants, etc). No two broos are alike (well, you know what I mean). Chaos features means individuality, and that means uncertainty, and for me, that means more fun and excitement.

 

(I do, however, get that lots of people prefer to know exactly what they're getting in for...).

 

Chaos rules!

[boradicus]

I agree with you.  Even though I have not actually played RQ, per se, I have played CoC, and the basics of the Chaosium system, per my understanding, are essentially the same.  Game play is much smoother and realistic: and this is because Chaosium's game system is designed to be that way.  Rather than an amalgamation of rules that eventually sort themselves into something more playable, the Chaosium system was designed with playability in mind from the very beginning - or so I have read.  Although even the 5e system of D&D has become more streamlined in some ways, it still comes from a bottom-up game design tradition, rather from than an integrative top-down approach. 

I think a lot of the spirit of D&D's agglomerative design approach can be seen in the way that enthusiasts would create new character classes, and expansions of the rules, which would then be shared with the community through Dragon Magazine, White Dwarf Magazine, etc (in the early decades of the game's history).  There is nothing wrong with this - in fact, it has been an earmark of the game's creativity.  But it can make the game more difficult to streamline for ease of play.  

I honestly don't know if Chaosium has publications where game enthusiasts add new classes with various bonuses and special abilities that are not already somewhere accounted for in the Chaosium system or not; neither do I know whether or not Chaosium supplements, and milieu expansions are written in such a way as to avoid the pitfalls of trying to add disparate sets of rules and character archetypes together, but I do suspect that Chaosium is much better at this than WotC, if only for the reason that the artifice of the "character class" does not exist for the Chaosium system.  In fact, I would say that D&D's class system is simultaneously a creative inspiration for describing special abilities hitherto not described, and a continual source for departure from any centralized rule-set.  If we rest our case for Chaosium's system being simpler than that of D&D's on this one factual difference between the two, I think the argument is a reasonably strong one.

[boradicus]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I just wanted to talk about one thing about the difference between D&D & RQ and one of the reasons I like RQ.

It's been mentioned about levelling in D&D, and how that affects players and their relationship to the world and NPCs. Vs RQ, where it's a very flat progression (ie, not exorbitant HPs, or usually god-killers at level 20, etc).

But, going a little more in detail... creatures (enemies) are levelled in D&D. WE know that. A level 20 character can look at a kobold, and there's a 1 in 10,000 chance the kobold is going to kick the character's butt. The other 9,999 times, that kobold is toast (possibly literally with the right spells!)

OTOH, in RQ, due to the effects of Chaos, a superhero like Harrek (if he was ever in his right mind) might just think he has a 50/50 chance of either wiping the floor with a certain broo he sees... or getting Total Party Wiped.

Most creatures aren't readily identified by CR (Challenge Rating) so you know whether you're likely to defeat them or not. (obviously, some are... looking at you Crimson Bat, Cragspider, most giants, etc). No two broos are alike (well, you know what I mean). Chaos features means individuality, and that means uncertainty, and for me, that means more fun and excitement.

 

(I do, however, get that lots of people prefer to know exactly what they're getting in for...).

 

Chaos rules!

D&D's CR system is useful.  It is useful for designing modules & scenarios for players to level up while avoiding the unfortunate possibility of being killed by the level-up-machine of combat with "monsters," which were, of course, invented for said purpose.

[Shiningbrow]

10 hours ago, boradicus said:

<snip>

I think a lot of the spirit of D&D's agglomerative design approach can be seen in the way that enthusiasts would create new character classes, and expansions of the rules, which would then be shared with the community through Dragon Magazine, White Dwarf Magazine, etc (in the early decades of the game's history).  There is nothing wrong with this - in fact, it has been an earmark of the game's creativity.  But it can make the game more difficult to streamline for ease of play.  

I honestly don't know if Chaosium has publications where game enthusiasts add new classes with various bonuses and special abilities that are not already somewhere accounted for in the Chaosium system or not; neither do I know whether or not Chaosium supplements, and milieu expansions are written in such a way as to avoid the pitfalls of trying to add disparate sets of rules and character archetypes together, but I do suspect that Chaosium is much better at this than WotC, if only for the reason that the artifice of the "character class" does not exist for the Chaosium system.  In fact, I would say that D&D's class system is simultaneously a creative inspiration for describing special abilities hitherto not described, and a continual source for departure from any centralized rule-set.  If we rest our case for Chaosium's system being simpler than that of D&D's on this one factual difference between the two, I think the argument is a reasonably strong one.

True. One thing I haven't actually said about D&D is that it makes characters seem somewhat more unique for each party. This is, to me, both good and bad (as far as my gameplay is concerned). It's difficult to make a fully competent fighter/mage combo (and by "fully" I mean getting all fighter abilities and all mage abilities with no losses. The system doesn't want to allow for that!) In RQ, you can obviously do both with minimal reduction... in fact, with the current rules settings, you can... Given both weapon skills (the hallmark of the 'fighter') and (most) magic skills (hallmark of some mages) can be learned by anyone, you can have both... experience checks for used skills in adventures, plus up to 4 cult/occupation skills per season. I'd allow that if you've made the right choices, you can get Spirit Dance, Spirit Travel, Spirit Lore, and weapon skills (although, they too can be experience checked up, just as well as the Humakti).

D&D classes does make individuals less expendable.. if you need a mage, you need a mage. If the mage dies, you need a new mage. In RQ, it's obviously much less clear... for better or worse!

 

RE: Chaosium and "new classes"... Obviously, not new classes, but new environments where there are different skills in base occupation and culture, and different magics, cults and Rune Spells. Occaisionally, a new skill would also be introduced, and for a new cult, new spells. However, much more situational. In D&D, a new book can come out with new feats that many could opt for. In RQ, you'd really have to work hard trying to justify the choice, and take all the limitations that come with it.

In regards your last bit - Min-Max forums are replete with "egregious munchkinnery" that leaves RQ to shame (or gloat, depending on how your boat floats).

[Aias]

I'm a little late to this party!

I started with RPGs back in the early 80's (81 or 82) and that was with RQ2. I'd obviously heard about D&D and AD&D as they were at the time, but never played them.

Fast forward a year or two after that and I picked up the D&D Basic set to see what all the fuss was about. 

On reading through I was gobsmacked by the classes and their limitations - a level 1 mage could cast 1 spell a day, could only use a D4 dagger, had no armour and d4 HP!

BUT and it's a BIG BUT...

I found that D&D and then AD&D once I progressed to it, tended to run far smoother and far faster than RQ2. The primary reason being the combat. RQ2's combat is fairly lengthy and detailed, whereas D&D's was very straight forward D20 rolling and just flowed. That said, to make D&D work, you did have to use your imagination a bit to flesh out the combat (something that's not needed in RQ), but it used to be sooo smooth. I can remember having DM'd one session and thinking, darn the 'players got through a huge amount there' - something that never happened in RQ. 

I'm one of those odd fellows that likes both systems but for different reasons. RQ for it's detail, its cults and also the setting - bronze age Glorantha - it's just superb- just feel that culture. A lot of AD&D at the time was set in Greyhawk, which always felt a little bland and unappealing to me. But if I wanted to play something simpler and quick I'd go for D&D. Plus as others have mentioned, TSR had at the time released a LOT of scenario packs. So if you were a little unprepared, you just bought one and went with that.

Fast forward to today and the only RPGs I still play are RQ2/3 and Classic Traveller (though I have just read the Mongoose rules and they look very, very good - but that's another story!). My intent is to buy the latest RQG rules (tomorrow in fact!) - especially as it sounds like they are very compatible with all the RQ2 material I have managed to hoard over the years. But I do have a burning curiosity with regard to D&D 5e. It seems a lot has changed since I last played - even the basics like THACO are now apparently a thing of the past. So it will be interesting...

btw Recombing Glorantha with RQ is the best thing that's happened to it and they should never have been split in the first place. In fact, I honestly thought I'd never see the day when they got back together. I still remember the initial shock I had of RQ3 where it was set on Earth and had replaced Rurik with Cormack. This made me instantly dislike the system, though to AH and GDW's credit they did release a lot of material for it - much of which I still have. RQ3 did eventually grow on me and these days I have found myself using more of RQ3's core mechanics as they are simply more complete than RQ2s. Will be interesting to see how RQG pans out

Edited September 21, 2019 by Aias

[styopa]

If you like D&Ds mechanics and RQs setting, you might want to try 13th age, I believe they're a synthesis of the two.

5e is, I think, a very GOOD rules system, with vastly tighter mechanics than any iteration of RQ (including, sadly, RQG) and a fundamentally-faster resolution speed, if that's your goal.  I think 5e is the closest D&D to the 'feel' of AD&D but with the modern mechanics and sensibilities of an RPG in 2019.  RQG is deliberately *not* a modern game, it's 90% RQ2 with some additional mechanics (passions, runes) bolted on and polished a bit.  If anything, they've improved the setting even further with much more thematic art on-point and a more detailed character/background integration system (as long as you're playing in Dragon Pass, so far; more expansions to other regions are slated)

Yes, in RQ you can run combat for an hour, finish, and then someone cruelly asks "OK so how much time has passed?" and as DM you count it up and go, "Erm, about two minutes" LOL.   That's just RQ, especially with lots of bodies involved.

[Jeff]

25 minutes ago, styopa said:

If you like D&Ds mechanics and RQs setting, you might want to try 13th age, I believe they're a synthesis of the two.

5e is, I think, a very GOOD rules system, with vastly tighter mechanics than any iteration of RQ (including, sadly, RQG) and a fundamentally-faster resolution speed, if that's your goal.  I think 5e is the closest D&D to the 'feel' of AD&D but with the modern mechanics and sensibilities of an RPG in 2019.  RQG is deliberately *not* a modern game, it's 90% RQ2 with some additional mechanics (passions, runes) bolted on and polished a bit.  If anything, they've improved the setting even further with much more thematic art on-point and a more detailed character/background integration system (as long as you're playing in Dragon Pass, so far; more expansions to other regions are slated)

Yes, in RQ you can run combat for an hour, finish, and then someone cruelly asks "OK so how much time has passed?" and as DM you count it up and go, "Erm, about two minutes" LOL.   That's just RQ, especially with lots of bodies involved.

I've found our combats in RQG are over very fast - a combat is long because either both combatants are very powerful and equally matched OR there are a lot of combatants involved.

I don't buy the idea that whatever the current edition of D&D is by definition "what is modern". I think 5e is good at being what it is supposed to be, but I personally find it to be very much a throw-back to the early 1980s in terms of design. Sure, some things are sped up (D&D combat was always attritional rather than dynamic, so it is easier to speed up) or cleaned up (although D&D still uses D12s) but in general, it is basically a cleaned up best of editions 1-3. Which is exactly what it is supposed to be. Its success is not a result of being "cutting edge" but by hitting a comfortable sweet spot for old fans and new. It is not for me but that's totally fine - I'm not its target audience. 

Honestly, I don't know what a "modern game" is anymore. PbtA? Fate? None of those have particularly new and cutting edge mechanics. To me the most cutting edge game is Pendragon, any edition, with RQG and CoC7e close behind. Arguably 4th edition was much more "modern" - that's been dialled back in 5th edition (to its benefit, IMO).

At the end of the day, D&D and the BRP family of games took different design paths a VERY long time ago. Comparing them is like comparing apples and oranges. Both are fruits. If we go back to the Triassic Age we can find they had the same ancestors. But now they are very different games and very different experiences. I "personally" prefer oranges to apples, and I "personally" prefer BRP games to D&D. But that's just a matter of aesthetic taste.

[Sumath]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

although D&D still uses D12s

I have to say, I like D12s.

In terms of number generation they may not be that useful, but aesthetically they are my favourite die. There's just something iconic about a dodecahedron, more so than an icosahedron in my opinion.

[Lordabdul]

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

To me the most cutting edge game is Pendragon, any edition, with RQG and CoC7e close behind.

Well you might already know it but hey, you've got your dream day job

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

Honestly, I don't know what a "modern game" is anymore. PbtA? Fate?

Likewise... I think when people say "modern game" they really mean "a game that includes the latest popular game mechanic trends" (but it can become confusing, or even laughable, given that, with the recent "classic dungeon crawling revival", a lot of the latest trends are actually about going back to old-school tactical/attrition-based/almost-board-game-ish systems). Anyway, whatever the new games are doing, in the immortal combined words of John Wick and South Park, "Greg Stafford did it"

Funny enough, I've been playing RPGs for almost 30 years, and I only ever played D&D once. I actually didn't own any D&D book (out of a library of almost 300 books) until very recently (what can I say, there was a big discount for 5e on Amazon). I started with "L'Oeil Noir", the French version of "Das Schwarge Auge" (known as "The Dark Eye" in anglophone countries). It was a German "copy" of D&D that became so popular in its home country that, supposedly, it outsold D&D there. It was also quite popular in neighbouring countries, including France. One of my friends got the boxed set with a few sourcebooks for Chrismas one year, and we played one-on-one for several months, not knowing that there was, actually, a whole bunch of other such "roleplaying games" out there (the term was written on the cover, but we didn't pay attention, to us it was just another marketing tagline). We mostly played with the "basic" rules which were extremely simple (just a character type/class, and 5 stats).

Later in high-school and beyond, I discovered a bunch of other games... in no particular order: Rolemaster, Cyberpunk 2020 (my first RPG purchase), and Vampire: The Masquerade. Then, Call of Cthulhu. That was pretty much the end, I didn't play many other games for the next 10 years or so. At that point, I had of course heard of D&D but had not seen a lot of people playing it. The French gaming scene was vastly different than the American one, I think... I saw a lot of people playing "weird" fantasy games, like Amber (diceless), "Reve de Dragon" (4th-wall-breaking FRPG), "In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas" (which was a LOT more irreverent and funny than the US adaptation) and other more well-known stuff like Shadowrun, Paranoia, Torg. By the time I looked into D&D, I had spent so much time in class-less systems that I was shocked at how "old" it felt -- "You're limited to a class? you go up in levels and get a fixed set of powers? What is this? A board game?". I didn't pay much more attention to it and dived into GURPS because, hey, remember Rolemaster was my 2nd or 3rd RPG ever, so I'm not afraid of anything!

These days, I can frankly play pretty much anything, the quality of the GM vastly overshadows the pros/cons of the system. As a GM there are only a couple systems I wouldn't use. And sure, there are systems I like better than others. But I think what matters to me is not the system, but the, err, I guess, the mechanics? For instance, I don't care that much between a D20-based or a BRP-based game. What I do care about is, say, the SAN and magic mechanics in CoC. The passions/runic inspiration mechanics in RQG, along with the POW/sacred time mechanics. The magic system in Ars Magica. The Bonds system in Delta Green. The Shock rules in Unknown Armies. If any of those mechanics were well adapted to another system, I could play with either system, going with the one I "like" better... which is why it's great that Glorantha has no less than 3 official systems to play with (I don't think any other setting has this many choices, and that's a testament to how good Glorantha is). Most of the time, there's only one system available, and the reason I'm going to play with that system is the specific mechanic(s) that makes that game feel like "that game". Trying to compare D20 and BRP feels like asking the wrong question, because it tries to compare the base substrate of 2 families of games, without considering the interesting (to me) bits that you put on top (RQG and CoC are both BRP-based but vastly different games, even if you ignore the setting).

As for personal taste, though? Yeah, I'm with Jeff, I'd rather take a class-less system like BRP where you roll 2 or 3 dice together... Rolling a single D20 feels lonely and anti-climactic to me...

Edited September 23, 2019 by lordabdul

[styopa]

6 hours ago, Jeff said:

I've found our combats in RQG are over very fast - a combat is long because either both combatants are very powerful and equally matched OR there are a lot of combatants involved.

I don't buy the idea that whatever the current edition of D&D is by definition "what is modern". I think 5e is good at being what it is supposed to be, but I personally find it to be very much a throw-back to the early 1980s in terms of design. Sure, some things are sped up (D&D combat was always attritional rather than dynamic, so it is easier to speed up) or cleaned up (although D&D still uses D12s) but in general, it is basically a cleaned up best of editions 1-3. Which is exactly what it is supposed to be. Its success is not a result of being "cutting edge" but by hitting a comfortable sweet spot for old fans and new. It is not for me but that's totally fine - I'm not its target audience. 

Honestly, I don't know what a "modern game" is anymore. PbtA? Fate? None of those have particularly new and cutting edge mechanics. To me the most cutting edge game is Pendragon, any edition, with RQG and CoC7e close behind. Arguably 4th edition was much more "modern" - that's been dialled back in 5th edition (to its benefit, IMO).

At the end of the day, D&D and the BRP family of games took different design paths a VERY long time ago. Comparing them is like comparing apples and oranges. Both are fruits. If we go back to the Triassic Age we can find they had the same ancestors. But now they are very different games and very different experiences. I "personally" prefer oranges to apples, and I "personally" prefer BRP games to D&D. But that's just a matter of aesthetic taste.

Yes, RQ combats with multiple combatants are long affairs, as I specifically mentioned.  Throw 12-14 trollkin at a party of 6 and get that combat done in less than a half hour?  As we commonly have an adventuring group of 5-6 and our adventures are combat heavy, encounters can be long affairs PARTICULARLY when you throw complicated or dynamic terrain, and a few spell casters in there.

Yes, I entirely agree that 5e is a "cleaned up" version of AD&D, + 2e, + 3e (and none of the regrettable 4e).  Which is precisely why it's popular.  It gives its consumers precisely what they want: a tighter, cleaner system for playing D&D.  I certainly didn't (and wouldn't) use the term 'cutting edge' for 5e mechanics.   

What I will commend 5e for is their simplification of kludgy inconsistencies in previous editions; boiling down status effects to very simple sets of conditions and impacts on characters.  Advantage/Disadvantage is a brilliant concept (I don't know if they came up with it first, or just ripped it off someone else's game) that radically speeds up the game at only a minor cost of verisimilitude.  They removed the (essential) requirement of a tabletop grid for play, but certainly provided solid mechanics to use it if one wishes.  Simplification/codification of magic systems and mechanics (regrettably, still Vancian, but still...).

Despite this, I'm not here to 'defend' D&D.   After all my game of choice is still basically RQ.

What defines a modern game?  For me (and this is obviously subjective) it's more about specific features: I'd call opposed rolls a 'modern' resolution mechanism (robust, scalable, intuitive) while the resistance table is not (intuitive only within strict bounds, non scaling, non robust).  Easily remembered algorithms are 'modern'.  Tables and charts are not.  I'd call any game with (basically) 3-18 stats old-fashioned (ie both D&D and RQ), while CoC7e made a 'modern'  move to dispense with that canard.  I think Passions are very "modern" as they mechanically support roleplaying in a way older games rarely did.  Just a testament to how far ahead Greg was in his game concepts. 

If you need an example, I'd probably call FATE games like Diaspora "more essentially modern", where the game result is more a synthesis between the players and GM than the classic tabletop-rpg narrative-with-choices.  Not my bag, personally, but with the right group I could see it being fascinating.

IMO you said it yourself many times: your design aesthetic was 90% RQ2, I think that's close to what RQG is.  If I had to make a quick metaphor: 5e is a 2018 Ford Edge SUV: safe, conservative, with modern safety gear, will get you from A to B without fuss but also pretty boring; pedestrian.  RQG is a retuned, detailed 1967 Impala.  Everyone will certainly see/hear you coming down the street, heads will turn.  It won't be for everyone, but it's not trying to be.

And btw d12s are delightful.  Maybe I'm just some sort of dodecahedral atavism.  Platonic solids FTW.  But yeah, I'd consider that modern systems probably are more decimal.  (Still waiting for someone to come up with a reason for d12-ile rolls.  Or d20-ile.)

[Bill the barbarian]

9 hours ago, Sumath said:

I have to say, I like D12s.

In terms of number generation they may not be that useful, but aesthetically they are my favourite die. There's just something iconic about a dodecahedron, more so than an icosahedron in my opinion.

I used D12s (the most useless dice in the boxes) in RQ2 to mark SRs by turning the number up as I called the SR. RQ3 made that redundant, so maybe I will have to bring that back and go out and buy a new one. Nah!

[Qizilbashwoman]

18 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I used D12s (the most useless dice in the boxes) in RQ2 to mark SRs by turning the number up as I called the SR. RQ3 made that redundant, so maybe I will have to bring that back and go out and buy a new one. Nah!

How dare you insult the d12, a hardworking die that isn't responsible for the fact that nobody seems to love her

(seriously, though, a d12-based game would be excellent?)