RQ vs D&D

[HreshtIronBorne]

What does -75% matter if you have something like 500ish % after modifiers. Blade sharp 6 is +30, a simple success on an augment is 20, so even without BA Humakti magic darkness can be compensated for pretty well. Not to mention 1 of light on a shield or some such. 

 

Don't get me wrong here. I freaking LOVE the new power level and feel of RQ:G. The availability and reusability of rune magic really opens up the game like you could only ever really see when you got to Rune-Levels before. 

[Ian Absentia]

4 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

I freaking LOVE the new power level and feel of RQ:G. The availability and reusability of rune magic really opens up the game like you could only ever really see when you got to Rune-Levels before. 

You got to Rune-Levels before?  I remember friends talking about their 20+ Level AD&D games, too. 😿

!i!

[Bill the barbarian]

3 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

What does -75% matter if you have something like 500ish % after modifiers. Blade sharp 6 is +30, a simple success on an augment is 20, so even without BA Humakti magic darkness can be compensated for pretty well. Not to mention 1 of light on a shield or some such. 

 

You misunderstand me. There you are with an 85% chance of a special, whilst blindfolded, perhaps, or lost in a totally dark trollland, sans torch, lantern or spell. Consider that, hmmm...

[HreshtIronBorne]

1 minute ago, Ian Absentia said:

You got to Rune-Levels before?  I remember friends talking about their 20+ Level AD&D games, too. 😿

!i!

Actually we had a couple batches of characters go completely from ZERO to HERO. We have played through the Argrath campaign from beginning to end, winging a ton of it, twice. We had a different person play the Argrath-to-be PC each time. The whole party were eventually Rune-Lords and Rune-Priests, each party also had a shaman. DAKA FAL protect us, we have done some messed up things with shamans over the years. There have been other, less epic campaigns, like the Lunars that killed the Red Emperor and the Already Dead campaign. 

[Bill the barbarian]

7 minutes ago, Ian Absentia said:

You got to Rune-Levels before?  I remember friends talking about their 20+ Level AD&D games, too. 😿

 

Alas, I had not the chance of either pleasures, Oh course the Humakti PC came close to Sword in my RQ3 campaign and the highest level module for D&D I ever wrote was mid level 7-12 and the highest I ever played was 6th lvl druid. So sad, I have never written a RQ module ( sandbox? tome?).

Edited September 26, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[g33k]

2 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Oh kind and good sir, if I might... I would like one of those... you know a duck with a 500% all specials, please. He or she could be rich or poor, no worries but if you could see your way... (flutter of eyelashes above big beautiful brown eyes!)... hmm?

Thank you in advance

I gotcher Duck Special right here, Bill <gestures at platter>

And stop makin' eyes at the waitstaff!

[Bill the barbarian]

7 minutes ago, g33k said:

I gotcher Duck Special right here, Bill <gestures at platter>

 

To quote Howard the Duck! Many times! Many comics (one movie, sigh).

Waugh!

[PhilHibbs]

7 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

You misunderstand me. There you are with an 85% chance of a special, whilst blindfolded, perhaps, or lost in a totally dark trollland, sans torch, lantern or spell. Consider that, hmmm...

It's like magic, isn't it!

[PhilHibbs]

Getting back to the "vs D&D" thing, I remember a guy whose D&D character was so good at blind-fighting that when the going got tough he put a bag over his head to improve his chance to hit. Rat-bagging at its finest. Unfortunately this meant that he didn't realize when the rest of the party had run away and left him on his own...

Edited September 26, 2019 by PhilHibbs

[Atgxtg]

20 hours ago, Jeff said:

Sometime contests don't resolve. They stalemate.

Yes that is fine sometimes, but it shouldn't be the most common result outside of tic-tac-toe and master level chess. 

Quote

And that's perfectly fine and that stalemate moves the story along.

The stalement doesn't necessarily move the story along. In most cases it does the opposite, leaving the situation unresolved.

Quote

A tie is not "nothing" - a tie is no clear-cut winner.

A tie is no-winner at all, clear cut or other wise. And that leave both parties is essentially the same situation as they started.

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And something that happens in stories and in life.

Yes, sometimes that happens. But do they  happen at the same frequency that they do in RQG? 

Edited September 26, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Atgxtg]

19 hours ago, Crel said:

I think the more important factor is whether or not the resolution system should have tie results.

I think that it is okay for a resolution to have tie results, but not at frequency of RQG. 

 

[styopa]

20 hours ago, lordabdul said:

It does but, like I said, such stat scores are for NPCs, as far as I can tell -- I don't see these scores being reachable when the human max scores are around 21-ish, even with a few extra points granted by your deity somehow. And if we're talking about NPC vs NPC, I don't tend to roll, I just narrate. But sure, it could happen... just probably not in my games. The reality is that problems with RPG systems not scaling well down to insect level, or up to superhero/god level, is not exactly new... if anything it's vastly more common than not. Even generic systems have some problems scaling, so I bet that RQG rules don't really care about that because they assume the PCs are going to be humans (exceptional, heroic humans, yes, but still human), so one side of the equation is "always" going to be below mid-20s.

I think you're getting into the weeds taking the specific numbers way too literally.  They're examples.  They're just blown up to big numbers to highlight subtleties in the mechanics.

Maybe this is easier to wrap your head around: should a 6 vs a 5 (ie 55% success) be the same or different as a 12 vs 10 (60% success) or 18 vs 15 (65% success) or 24 vs 20 (70% success)?  They're all the same ratio of A:B, so why do they resolve differently?  Opposed rolls (the true system, where high roll wins ties-of-success-level) have no scaling issues resolving such.  By the linear exposition of the resistance table, tiny differences in large numbers remain as potent in determining success as tiny differences in small numbers.  To me, that's contrary to reality - the 'noise' of any system (what we're black-boxing with our dice rolls) scales with the inputs.  It doesn't remain absolute.

[Lordabdul]

17 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

A tie is no-winner at all, clear cut or other wise. And that leave both parties is essentially the same situation as they started.

Interestingly enough, the CoC 7ed rules have a couple paragraphs about "Avoiding Nothing Happening When Both Sides Fail Their Fighting Skill Roll" (p125). While I didn't find that section particularly well written, it does spark a few interesting thoughts.

A tie doesn't have to be "everything stays the same" or "nothing happened". It means "nobody got the upper hand", and that can be interpreted in different ways. For instance, it could be that "the 2 contestant both progressed equally towards their goal". If it's a race, a tie would NOT mean both runners stayed in place! No, they kept moving, but at roughly the same speed. The end of race drew nearer, so the situation after the roll isn't the same... there's less time left to win! If the task was somehow dangerous, maybe both contestants hurt themselves (or each other!) in a similar manner (1d4 damage each!)... again, the situation changed a bit, as there's now attrition coming into the equation, in addition to wasting potentially precious time if the task is time-sensitive. That's actually what happens in Spirit Combat! (RQG p368: if there's a tie, both combatants take Spirit Combat damage!)

Another interpretation is that the conflict that sparked the roll is now moot. It's like the Gordian Knot of task resolutions. If it was a tie between 2 affinities/passions, it means that either the player is free to choose whatever they want (advancing towards a decision), or that the character surprisingly removes themselves from whatever debate it was, because of a clear conflict of interest (so again, the situation changed as a result of the roll).

[styopa]

7 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Getting back to the "vs D&D" thing, I remember a guy whose D&D character was so good at blind-fighting that when the going got tough he put a bag over his head to improve his chance to hit. Rat-bagging at its finest. Unfortunately this meant that he didn't realize when the rest of the party had run away and left him on his own...

One of the glaring flaws of the advantage/disadvantage rationalizing 5e uses.  If you're somehow disadvantaged in a combat, just have your own mage drop darkness on BOTH of you.  If your target is blinded, you have advantage on them.  But they have advantage on you, and so all advantages and disadvantages cancel, leaving you both with a normal chance to succeed where before only you were handicapped.  Dumb.  

[Atgxtg]

1 minute ago, lordabdul said:

Interestingly enough, the CoC 7ed rules have a couple paragraphs about "Avoiding Nothing Happening When Both Sides Fail Their Fighting Skill Roll" (p125). While I didn't find that section particularly well written, it does spark a few interesting thoughts.

A tie doesn't have to be "everything stays the same" or "nothing happened". It means "nobody got the upper hand", and that can be interpreted in different ways.

No a tie doesn't have to be that way, but look at what happens with a tie in RQG. 

1 minute ago, lordabdul said:

For instance, it could be that "the 2 contestant both progressed equally towards their goal". If it's a race, a tie would NOT mean both runners stayed in place! No, they kept moving, but at roughly the same speed. The end of race drew nearer, so the situation after the roll isn't the same... there's less time left to win!

And if someonbody won on the first roll they won the race? That doesn't hold up well if it was supposed to be a long race, nor does theopposite situation orf a series of ties hold up well if it the race were supposed to be a short one. After a point you'd have to conclude that the racers just weren't trying very hard. And what about situations with some sort of time limit? 

1 minute ago, lordabdul said:

If the task was somehow dangerous, maybe both contestants hurt themselves (or each other!) in a similar manner (1d4 damage each!)... again, the situation changed a bit, as there's now attrition coming into the equation, in addition to wasting potentially precious time if the task is time-sensitive. That's actually what happens in Spirit Combat! (RQG p368: if there's a tie, both combatants take Spirit Combat damage!)

IMO that, or somethingglike it is required. Maybe even increasing the difficulty of the task by applying a modifer to the skills on ties.

1 minute ago, lordabdul said:

Another interpretation is that the conflict that sparked the roll is now moot. It's like the Gordian Knot of task resolutions. If it was a tie between 2 affinities/passions, it means that either the player is free to choose whatever they want (advancing towards a decision), or that the character surprisingly removes themselves from whatever debate it was, because of a clear conflict of interest (so again, the situation changed as a result of the roll).

Rather unlikely to happen in play. Ususally if a situation is important enough to warrant an opposed roll, it isn't going to just go away or become moot. 

[Lordabdul]

1 minute ago, styopa said:

I think you're getting into the weeds taking the specific numbers way too literally.  They're examples.  They're just blown up to big numbers to highlight subtleties in the mechanics.

Yes but my point was that if you use big blown up numbers, you can break pretty much every RPG system around. Some might break earlier than others, sure, but it often has to do with whether that given system made more assumptions than another (for instance, a system where you're supposed to all play FBI agents in modern day USA, vs. a system where you're playing super heroes).

4 minutes ago, styopa said:

Maybe this is easier to wrap your head around: should a 6 vs a 5 (ie 55% success) be the same or different as a 12 vs 10 (60% success) or 18 vs 15 (65% success) or 24 vs 20 (70% success)?  They're all the same ratio of A:B, so why do they resolve differently? 

And that's a totally fair flaw to point out, yes. My guess is that it's because offsetting numbers (addition/subtraction) is way easier and faster to do than scaling numbers (which includes multiplications and divisions). But, assuming that one contestant is always of human levels, and also assuming you actually don't want resolution to be linear (as in: you actually want 150% vs 75% to be "easier to win" than 60% vs 30% because you want percentiles' "effectiveness" to curve up to help with scaling against big monsters), then yes, some of the peculiarities of the table are actually by design.  But sure, yes, I understand your point.

[Atgxtg]

5 minutes ago, styopa said:

One of the glaring flaws of the advantage/disadvantage rationalizing 5e uses.  If you're somehow disadvantaged in a combat, just have your own mage drop darkness on BOTH of you.  If your target is blinded, you have advantage on them.  But they have advantage on you, and so all advantages and disadvantages cancel, leaving you both with a normal chance to succeed where before only you were handicapped.  Dumb.  

Dumb, but not entirely wrong. The problem is not so much having your own mage cast darkness but in continuing the fight in the dark. And that's because D&D made blind-fighting a big thing due to all the times and ways darkness/blindness/obscured vision can crop up in a D&D adventure. Sadly the same tactic does work in RQ to some extent., although the reducdtion to parry tends to offset the advantages. 

[Atgxtg]

4 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Yes but my point was that if you use big blown up numbers, you can break pretty much every RPG system around. Some might break earlier than others, sure, but it often has to do with whether that given system made more assumptions than another (for instance, a system where you're supposed to all play FBI agents in modern day USA, vs. a system where you're playing super heroes).

Yup. All games were designed to work in a particular "sweet spot" and tend to break down if you push the envelope far enough from the "sweet spot." I have to give HeroQuest credit for mostly getting around that problem by universally using a core game mechanic that is based upon the relative skill of the characters, and scales infinitely. But generally if the values are high enough the system starts to break down. 

 

[Atgxtg]

19 minutes ago, styopa said:

Maybe this is easier to wrap your head around: should a 6 vs a 5 (ie 55% success) be the same or different as a 12 vs 10 (60% success) or 18 vs 15 (65% success) or 24 vs 20 (70% success)?  They're all the same ratio of A:B, so why do they resolve differently?

Yes. I think it comes down to just what the difference between those skills really mean. Is it the ratio between skills that is important or the difference between skills. That is does 50 vs. 100 equate to 25 vs 75 or 25 vs 50. Consider how skills over 100% cause a bump down, I'm inclined to assume the latter. 

[Atgxtg]

On 4/19/2019 at 6:28 PM, Numtini said:

Maybe I'm daft, but I see D&D 5E as making the best use of stats of any game I can think of. Gods know, old D&D they had little or no effect at all. So many rolls in 5E are based on a stat roll plus proficiency if you have it in the skill. 

I can think of a few that make better use. For example Cublice7s Doctor Who RPG rates stats on a lower scale and just adds the stat to the die roll, eliminating the need to track stats and a stat bonus. It's not alone either. Several RPGs make each point of stat significant. 

[Richard S.]

Gods whenever I finally think this topic is dead for good y'all come right back at it a few weeks later

[Bill the barbarian]

1 minute ago, Richard S. said:

Gods whenever I finally think this topic is dead for good y'all come right back at it a few weeks later

It’s all your fault, doncha know.

[styopa]

2 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Gods whenever I finally think this topic is dead for good y'all come right back at it a few weeks later

Honestly, it's not surprising.

D&D is the dominant paradigm in the tabletop gaming world.  That's simply fact.  RQ isn't.

Nevertheless, I expect that most of us prefer (at least a variant of) RQ better, so we like to discuss why we prefer mango-flavor when it seems everybloodyone else likes chocolate.

I expect in Peugot forums, there are recurrent threads about what are interesting about Peugot and (generally) why "we" like them better than all those dullards who enjoy Toyota/Honda.

*or '67 Impalas.

Edited September 26, 2019 by styopa

[Bill the barbarian]

Mmm, mango chocolate!

[Lloyd Dupont]

A quick answer from work... 
I feel like I want to pitch in but I just saw that thread and I haven't read it all yet (will do that at home)

Anyway I played D&D a lot (the Basic, Expect, Companion, Master boxes, as GM), as well as a lot of AD&D 1, 3, Pathfinder (as player).
As well as RQ3, Mythras, Classic Fantasy, BRP and, last but not least, RevolutionD100 some (as GM).
Most of them in homebrew adventures and campaigns.

I like the AD&D atmosphere and feeling around level 5-15, and magic impact.

I love the freeform "class" (in fact, no class) and no level of all D100 games.

I am very wary of most D100 magic implementation. It's all too often OP and too easy, with most advice revolving around "this spell is rare".
(granted this is hard to balance when in most game rule set you got like 5 HP per location and magic effect scaling up exponentially per magic point).
 

Edited September 27, 2019 by Lloyd Dupont