RQ vs D&D

[Rob Darvall]

On 9/26/2019 at 1:04 PM, g33k said:

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

And stop makin' eyes at the waitstaff!

Would that be a Duck Billed Platterpus then?

[styopa]

19 hours ago, styopa said:

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.

Amusingly, I stumbled upon this thread in another RPG forum - https://www.enworld.org/threads/what-is-the-essence-of-d-d.666859/page-71#post-7814435 

Many many pages, in which I see Runequest is mentioned at least a dozen times.  Frankly (and correctly, IMO) they're essentially swirling around the question of branding as shorthands for other gaming systems..

In ironic opposition to our commentary here, much of theirs seems to be about the LACK of any core ethos or IP that uniquely identifies D&D as a thing.  That is, unquestionably, the spectral opposite of RQ.  We're practically drowning in memetic archetypes.

[Qizilbashwoman]

5 minutes ago, styopa said:

memetic archetypes

sorry I just

sorry, i live on twitter and i can't help myself

Edited September 27, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[soltakss]

On 9/26/2019 at 2:41 AM, Ian Absentia said:

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

We got to Rune Levels and beyond in RQ2. It is relatively easy, especially with good access to Healing and Resurrection.

[styopa]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

We got to Rune Levels and beyond in RQ2. It is relatively easy, especially with good access to Healing and Resurrection.

It's not nearly as hard as some suggest.  Just different campaign styles.

[styopa]

Haha, I like how this got shifted to  Home >  Other Stuff  > Alastor's Skull Inn.  Pretty sure it didn't start there,

 

I mean, it's not even listed under "chaosium forums" now (how are these NOT Chaosium forums, generally?)... sure, it's for 'other discussion' and not at all where we'd like to see threads die.

 

 

[Atgxtg]

On 9/27/2019 at 12:40 PM, Qizilbashwoman said:

sorry I just

sorry, i live on twitter and i can't help myself

Aha! So all those strange pictographs and writings aren't about religion or ancient aliens, but just ancient GMs notes for their RPG campaigns. That actually makes sense.  

[Lloyd Dupont]

On 4/18/2019 at 11:47 PM, boradicus said:

Although I have only played CoC thus far, I love Chaosium's game system.  As for the skills, what immediately occurred to me as an enhancement, would be a skill "tree" by era.  In other words, some skills are related to each other in such a way that there might be enough in common between them that they could provide some cross-over capabilities. 

Check out Revolution D100

While it doesn't have a skill tree, it has skill and "traits and stunt" which, in effect, give you general skill in an area with in depth expertise in some more pointed area.

 

EDIT, long rambling on Revolution D100 skills, traits and stun

The skill system lock you into 2 values for skills, the general skill value (i.e. close combat) and the expert version (sword), which is +30%. I sometimes find that annoying and want more variation.

Although where variation is desired, it might easy to come by with many stunts (stunts are skill augmenter, which don't change the percentage of success but change anything else that you can think of and is appropriate, like, with one sword, more damage, easier special effect, better initiative) and the more stunt the better the specialist feels.

Also I like this trait and stunt. it's plain English, it's open ended, people might plan ahead their character development and build anticipation. Character creation with that is the easiest and most meaningful of all D100 variant I have seen.
Though, while character creation is the easiest of all, combat is even more involved than Mythras! 😮

Edited September 30, 2019 by Lloyd Dupont

[soltakss]

On 9/30/2019 at 4:17 AM, Lloyd Dupont said:

The skill system lock you into 2 values for skills, the general skill value (i.e. close combat) and the expert version (sword), which is +30%. I sometimes find that annoying and want more variation.

I use +10% and multiple Traits in my current game and that works really well for us. My Players love to add the Traits up to get a high skill, like they used to do in HeroQuest. We also play that a Stunt gives you +10, if applicable. None of those are official Revolution rules and Paolo would definitely not approve, but it works for us.

[Lloyd Dupont]

Yeah, I guess you did from reading your past posts  , and I was still contemplating undecided if I wanted to do that too or not...

Although I was thinking +20% like Paolo suggested but that seemed to much.. +10% as you do seems more attractive...

[RosenMcStern]

Hey, the two of you! You are off topic, bring this to the appropriate forum.

Jokes aside, this is something that I do not recommend, not that I do  not approve

The reason is that doing so has the effect of focusing the evolution of the character on one thing only, that is the %age of success. You use two or three levels of improvement on just improving your chance of doing something, without any special focused on one aspect of that "something".

Example: Kurchack the Mongol has 40% Ranged Combat. He takes the Javelin and Bow traits, but obviously wants to specialize in the classic Nomad Bow. If we use different levels of specialisation, he will acquire "Javelin" and "Bow" to use them at 50%, and then "Composite Bow" and "Nomad Bow" or "Horse Archery" to reach 70% with his Mongol bow. This makes his skills with these weapons different, but only in the % of success.

If we focus on Stunts instead, he can acquire Javelin and Bow and become proficient in both at 70%, then he can acquire "Fast Reload" to improve his rate of fire - which is better than improving the skill because he shoots two arrows instead of one in the same time - and "Horse Archery" to fire from a galloping mount. Yes, skills have all the same value, but there are many more details that the game is handling.

[Lloyd Dupont]

Yeah I kind of agree with you.. It's why I am on the lookout for stunt idea... So there is a big difference for merely say 80% in sword and 80% + 3 juicy stunts

[Questbird]

On 9/25/2019 at 6:46 PM, deleriad said:

I did spend a while back experimenting with something this. Using d120 (d12+d10) for "hard skill tests." A fumble was rolling over your skill and rolling 100+ or rolling a natural 120. 116-119 was a failure regardless of result. It might be interesting BRP variant where you modify dice rolled rather than skill value but you really needed a d16 as well. 

 

Fire and Sword by Ray Turney (available here on BRP central) uses a d20 system for skills, but a d10 for 'easy' checks and a d30 for 'hard' ones.

[g33k]

On 9/26/2019 at 10:26 AM, Atgxtg said:

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. 

The oldest RPG (afaik) that does this is Ars Magica.

Normal-ish Stats (like Strength, Quickness).  Stat range from -5 to +5 (+/-3 without special reason), with zero defined as normal/average.  If the roll (1d10, always) needs a Stat involved, just add/subtract it to the roll.
 

Edited August 27, 2021 by g33k

[Atgxtg]

15 hours ago, g33k said:

The oldest RPG (afaik) that does this is Ars Magica.

I doubt that, but it's probably the most well known game to do so early on. I suspect that there were some other RPGs in the late 70s and early 80s that did so but are mostly forgotten today. Even the game mechanics used for WEG's D6 system does something similar, with the attribute actually being the die roll, with the default stat block for NPCs being 2D/4D. 

I think the idea evolved from people playing AD&D where stats below 15 didn't affect game play all that much. When there isn't much difference between a 6 STR and a 14 STR you have to wonder if it is worth the bookkeeping.

 

15 hours ago, g33k said:

Normal-ish Stats (like Strength, Quickness).  Stat range from -5 to +5 (+/-3 without special reason), with zero defined as normal/average.  If the roll (1d10, always) needs a Stat involved, just add/subtract it to the roll.
 

Yeas, and one of the big perks of that approach is that you do not have to track a bunch of "average" stats for NPCs. The stat block for a  group of bandits can be reduced down to Str+1, Dex+1, Sword 2, Survival 1. 

[simonh]

On 8/28/2021 at 3:44 PM, Atgxtg said:

I doubt that, but it's probably the most well known game to do so early on. I suspect that there were some other RPGs in the late 70s and early 80s that did so but are mostly forgotten today. Even the game mechanics used for WEG's D6 system does something similar, with the attribute actually being the die roll, with the default stat block for NPCs being 2D/4D. 

I think the idea evolved from people playing AD&D where stats below 15 didn't affect game play all that much. When there isn't much difference between a 6 STR and a 14 STR you have to wonder if it is worth the bookkeeping.

Both AM and WEG-SW came out in the same year, 1987.

Arguably RQ3 used some stats directly as modifiers for skill categories, albeit you deducted 10 from the stat first so a DEX of 16 gave you +6% on Manipulation.

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, simonh said:

Both AM and WEG-SW came out in the same year, 1987.

Arguably RQ3 used some stats directly as modifiers for skill categories, albeit you deducted 10 from the stat first so a DEX of 16 gave you +6% on Manipulation.

Yeah, the idea was a natural evolution of game design at the time, and probably several people had the idea at  at about the same time. I remember DMs doing opposted attribute rolls to handling things like arm wrestling back in the early-mid 80s. Pendragon used opposed attribute rolls in 85. So I think things were tending that way.

 

I think Metagaming's The Fantasy Trip might be the first RPG to eschew stat bonuses and just use the stat. Melee was released in 1977. I suspect the nature and limitations of a microgame probably led to the direct use of attributes as the simplest way to handle things.

[g33k]

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, the idea was a natural evolution of game design at the time, and probably several people had the idea at  at about the same time. I remember DMs doing opposted attribute rolls to handling things like arm wrestling back in the early-mid 80s. Pendragon used opposed attribute rolls in 85. So I think things were tending that way.

 

I think Metagaming's The Fantasy Trip might be the first RPG to eschew stat bonuses and just use the stat. Melee was released in 1977. I suspect the nature and limitations of a microgame probably led to the direct use of attributes as the simplest way to handle things.

I mean... go back to wargames, and the "combat stat" for a unit was often something like +2 or whatever (in very many of the games) -- the die modifier.  So the antecedents are there in the very roots of the hobby.

 

 

[Atgxtg]

On 9/1/2021 at 2:11 PM, g33k said:

I mean... go back to wargames, and the "combat stat" for a unit was often something like +2 or whatever (in very many of the games) -- the die modifier.  So the antecedents are there in the very roots of the hobby.

Yup. I think what happened was that D&D added some degrees of abstraction to things, and that became the norm for RPGs that followed. Thus attributes and stat bonuses became a thing common to RPGS,  similar to how class and level became a thing common to RPGs.

[g33k]

On 9/4/2021 at 7:47 PM, Atgxtg said:

... Thus attributes and stat bonuses became a thing common to RPGS ...

There's a certain amount of common sense there.  Stronger people tend to hit harder, smarter people tend to figure things out faster, etc...

 

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

There's a certain amount of common sense there.  Stronger people tend to hit harder, smarter people tend to figure things out faster, etc...

Yeah, but there are multiple ways to represent that. D&D went with a 3-18 scale for attributes and separate modifier that was applied to damage, attack rolls, etc. For instance, an Ars Magic style attributes would have allowed for the same thing without the need for a 3-18 attribute, making things a little simpler. 

Of course that's what happens when someone is the first to do something.  I sometimes wonder just what D&D would be like if Gygax and Arneson could have looked into the future and see the games that were to follow. 

 

 

[simonh]

So I'm actually playing D&D 5e at my local games club. We created characters last week, and played our first full session yesterday. It was tons of fun!

Yes it still has some of the jankeyness of older editions, but it looks far superior to any of the previous iterations I've played. My primary criterion of an RPG is that it should give you plenty of cool things you can do on your character sheet to pick from. Well, mission accomplished. I'm playing a fighter and having a blast.

There are basically two approaches to building a fighter, DEX based or STR based. This is a significant departure from my previous recollections in which STR was the only real option. My guy emphasises DEX, carries a rapier and wears relatively light armour. This allows him to use his DEX modifier on his amour class, while heavier armours get bonuses from STR. So he's a fast moving bladesman that manages to be decently effective. Going the STR route might be marginally more effective in raw damage and armour class, but only slightly and having decent DEX gives me other benefits.

The fighter sub-class I went for emphasises tactical combat. We're starting at 3rd level, so I got to pick 3 manoeuvres I can do. I get 4 "uses" I can spend on these manoeuvres that refresh on a rest. I picked options that let me have another try at a missed attack, try a disarm, and try to knock back an enemy. Some of them can also do extra damage. I also have an ability that gives me one bonus attack between rests, and another that lets me refresh some HP between rests.

I also took options independent of fightyness that means my guy is a master of disguise and good at acting. He has a decent Charisma!

Bottom line is, it's perfectly possible to make fairly capable characters that are interesting to play and have more than just one dimension to them. The rules are also fairly straightforward and consistent. I'm looking forward to the next session.

[Lloyd Dupont]

Hey D&D  can be quite fun, and 5e got the balance and fun mostly better than previous edition!
As a player, if my friend really insist on playing D&D, I can totally have fun with it! 🙂

The few things I don't like about D&D are:
1. it really is a (fantasy) super hero game (I am not into super hero myself)
2. level and are inherently frustrating (you seldom do the level 20 stuff for a few reason: it takes too much time to reach 20, and a level 20 party is mostly unmanageable and out of this world) (but in CoC you can, unfortunately, meet the Great Cthulhu anytime!!!)
2. class are inherently frustrating (I don't want to buy 20 supplements to find the right class for me or my mate, which don't make sense to exists in such number, I prefer a simpler skill based approach)

To be fair, there things that annoy me with BRP too! 😅

Edited October 14, 2021 by Lloyd Dupont

[simonh]

Yep, it's still D&D. The world is a mismatched hotchpotch of elements, the magic system is bonkers, level scaling is still janky. However running a pretty decent game with this thing is really just a matter of being judicious about the extras you bring in, if any, and what peripheral elements you might take out.

One thing it does do quite well is break out of the class straight jacket. It's system of backgrounds and feats, both of which are selected independently of class, give you the option to grow the character in some interesting ways. I decided to take the Actor feat. There are plenty of more combat focused Feats, but I see him as being fairly playful and gregarious, and I had enough points to give him a decent Charisma. I also gave him a proficiency with makeup and costumes, which seems appropriate for someone who's done some acting. I'm looking forward to putting these abilities to fun use.

Mostly the other players took feats and backgrounds that work well with their class, and so might as well have been class options, but you don't have to do that. There is scope for breaking out of the class tropes.

Edited October 14, 2021 by simonh

[g33k]

For me, D&D (and similar) class-and-level systems -- particularly with escalating HP due to HD-per-level -- just don't satisfy.  My suspension-of-disbelief breaks HARD when I look (for example) at a tropic-themed Paladin/Barbarian/etc who has leveled-up and is now riding something like a "war elephant."   My problem is not "war elephant" but that the high-level rider has more HP's than an elephant.

The classic excuse (that the extreme HP's just represent the high-level's ability to better "roll with the punches" and slip-aside so an otherwise solid blow is only a graze) do not satisfy.  A similarly-high high-level should still be able to land a fatal blow.  Max-damage with a nonmagical sword should ALWAYS be disabling.

Similarly, Vancian magic for wizards just calls for me to torque my understanding of "what a spell is" too far.  Wizards are supposed to have spent YEARS of hard study learning magic & spells, and Vancian "fire and forget" spells just feel wrong to me, even re-cast (see what I did there?) as "this is just the trigger for what you prep'ed previously."  That's what items-with-charges are for.  The newer caster-classes like Src & War are what I play, when I play a caster-centric class; I like 5e better, for this reason... but it also feels "the least D&D-like" in many ways (also looking at Tiefling & Dragonborn as core PC races, instead of oddball outliers and "advanced play" options).

I will play and enjoy low-level & mid-level D&D one-shots; I will (as a favor) occasionally run D&D, such as intro'ing RPG's to someone who won't have a chance to join my regular play-group & needs to connect with their local (D&D-centric) RPG scene.  That's... about it, really.

Edited October 14, 2021 by g33k