RQ vs D&D

[Austin]

2 hours ago, GamingGlen said:

sorcery required reading a technical, er, tome of arcana on how to use it.  I like the variability of RQ sorcery, something I wish I could do in D&D (e.g., vary the range and AoE of Fireball).

Case in point, I'm currently working on writing up a comprehensive rules doc for the nasty mess of RQ3, Petersen's Western Sorcery & Tekumel Sorcery, and some oral homebrew that we've been using in my playgroup's "RQ3" game for the last few years, and the document just broke 30,000 words. I'm nowhere close to done.

Now, I love love love the RQ3 approach to sorcery, and it's one of the things which has kept me playing the game for some years. I love this crazy, excessively-complicated tangle of skills and spells and all that, and how flexible everything is. The first time I cast a week-long spell (coming from my 3.x background) was this amazing moment for me, personally. Kind of an, "Oh %#!$, I'm doing real magic!" moment. Plus, actually mathing out all that nonsense feels a bit... arcane.

D&D's more "black & white" magic does work well, I think. My subjective experience has been that it feels about the same as spirit magic does in RQ: do the thing for a stated cost (whether MP or spell slots). D&D just goes to a more well-defined top end. Well, sometimes. There are some moments and spells from D&D which just feel iconic to me, like the first time you splatter an enemy with scorching ray or fireball.

34 minutes ago, soltakss said:

I am convinced by Classes, but not so much about Levels.

Classes = Cults  Or, perhaps Shaman/Priest/Sorcerer? Then again, RQG is starting to introduce more overlap between those paths, so IDK.

(plz no flame!)

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

For many years, RQ fans have said that RQ suits Glorantha better than D&D because Classes and Levels don't work in Glorantha.

I never really had any time for that argument. I think that in general any system with restrictions will inevitably have problems fitting in with a setting that has narratives that are independent of the system, because the author will inevitably have introduced some detail somewhere that is contravened by the restrictions. But the restrictions are only there for the purpose of playing a game, they aren't supposed to be able to emulate every aspect of a functioning universe. I'm sure we can find examples somewhere in Greg's writing where, for example, some magical effect that resembles a rune spell lasts for longer than a year, and yet Extension can't do that, "therefore RQG doesn't work for Glorantha". There are examples of sorcery in the (admittedly ancient, deprecated, non-canon) "Roots of Glorantha" that bear no resemblance at all to any system of sorcery that I have ever read. In fact, there are no examples that do bear any resemblance!

So no, I don't have a problem at all with D&D-related game system being used for Glorantha, I'm just not a big fan of the versions that I have played. I'm picking up my 13G this afternoon, though, and am looking forward to seeing what has happened to D20 since I last played it over 20 years ago (long before the term "the D20 system" became widespread, I think).

And on the subject of forum flames and feeling unwelcome, I remember the old days of bulletin boards, many of them had a section titled "MCIBTYC", "My Computer Is Better Than Your Computer" where people were welcome to argue the toss over the merits of (mostly) Commodore vs Atari, and later on Windows vs Mac, Intel vs Cyrix (I had a Cyrix 486DRX2!). Maybe we need a "MGIBTYG" section. "G" could stand for "Game" or "Glorantha", even.

Edited August 23, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[womble]

I'd disagree that classes and levels work in Glorantha, because I don't think classes and levels work very well even in DnD. This is, naturally, a personal opinion based on what hoops I have to jump through to play the characters that I come up with in my head. Which I don't think are particularly outre or outlandish. There are scores of outre and outlandish character concepts that are covered by the myriad splatbooks, but still you have to find how to dovetail different multiclass options together to get exactly what you want. Which is, in some cases, a satisfying problem-solving exercise, but I always come back to "Why did I have to do all that to shoehorn my idea into the mechanics?"

[Mugen]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

For many years, RQ fans have said that RQ suits Glorantha better than D&D because Classes and Levels don't work in Glorantha. Then 13th Age Glorantha came along and showed that Classes and Levels do work in Glorantha. I am convinced by Classes, but not so much about Levels.

The concept of classes in 13th Age and 4e is slightly different from what it is in AD&D, as it only defines your "combat style" and your way of doing magic.

Skills in 4e and backgrounds in 13th Age help define all other aspects of your character, and are completely divorced from class. Want to play a bookworm fighter, or an athletic wizard ? Just pick the right skills/background.

You can even play a fighter that can cast magic in 4e if you want, as long as it's non-combat, ritual magic. With other versions of the game, you'd need to multi-class to do this.

[simonh]

16 hours ago, Narl said:

I don't blame you at all for starting it. It would be useful for folks new to RuneQuest to understand the actual differences, just without the misinformation and personal biases.

My personal preference is your bias. We're just having a civil and frank conversation.

D&D 5e isn't really to my taste, but I quite happily played a session of it a few weeks ago and had a great time. I'm sure I'll play it again. I've stated my personal issues with RQG many times here, I think it's far too complicated. Specifically skill category modifiers, strike ranks, hit locations, etc - I think there are far simpler and more elegant ways to get the same or similar end results. If I can say that here without becoming a pariah and RQG hater, why can't some of us also talk about some of the things they dislike about D&D 5e, or any other game? Especially as it relates to using those systems in Glorantha.

There' always something to learn from other games. 13th Age may well be basically a D&D variant, but I've learned a lot from it. The success of D&D 5e has a lot of lessons for us too. Back in the 80s I came across a table at a convention playing AD&D in which someone had ported across some of the RQ2 combat system. I forget the details, but each class got a % chance to hit based on level. How awesome is that?

[Austin]

14 minutes ago, simonh said:

Specifically skill category modifiers, strike ranks, hit locations, etc - I think there are far simpler and more elegant ways to get the same or similar end results.

What would you suggest? I personally find all three of those things something which adds to the charm of the system (although we use a different method for SR than RAW), but I'm curious how you think would be a simpler way to do it, especially for hit locations.

[womble]

A lot of game system design decisions revolve around where you want to draw the line that divides abstraction from simulation. For damage, RQ draws it at the limb/location, for example, with damage variability serving as an abstraction for damage to critical subsystems (tendons, bones, muscles, nerves, organs etc) of the location, and whether it's high or low down on the location being left to 'fiat'. If you want to add 'detail' back into an abstracted level, you probably need a table, and you're looking at Rolemaster...

I've played/seen some systems recently that tried to simplify things by having the one roll deal with everything, and they sound great in principle but, IMO, fail and fail quite badly, because the spreading of the information conveyed by the dice over several features (whether a hit landed, how hard it hit and where it hit, say) meant firstly that the detail/fineness of graduation of each element was reduced, and secondly that certain combinations weren't feasible, and unlikely combinations became mandatory (anything that manages to hit at long range is automatically a head shot, for example).

[simonh]

53 minutes ago, Crel said:

What would you suggest? I personally find all three of those things something which adds to the charm of the system (although we use a different method for SR than RAW), but I'm curious how you think would be a simpler way to do it, especially for hit locations.

Category modifiers - just too fiddly. CoC and many other BRP games ditched them to no great loss. Elric had packages of skills that get a +20% bonus depending on whether you're a cerebral, energetic, etc type of character (I forget the actual categories).

I prefer the DEX rank system in Elric. It's not quite as flexible as strike ranks, mainly because you mostly only get to do one thing each round. You can't mix actions like cast a spell then engage in combat in the same round. In missile combat you just get e.g. one shot per round with a bow, reloading is just assumed to happen and not modelled as a separate action. Conversely you get none of the complexities and ambiguities seen in the dual-wield thread we had a while ago. The spot rules for Elric is also a great way to package up special cases into succinct nuggets of rules, but is only really possible because the core melee system is a bit simpler.

Instead of locations I prefer dice for armour, again from Elric. So you might have a suit of armour that gives you 1D6+1 armour points, which you roll if you take a hit. If you take half your general hit points or more in a hit, you roll on a major wound table that includes disabled limbs and such. So you get almost the same detail of outcome from radically more succinct and straightforward rules. Determine if the hit is significant first, then generate the extra detail if required, instead of generating all the extra detail then seeing if it actually mattered.

None of these are major issues. It's just personal preference. Taken together, I find as a GM the game flows a lot more smoothly.

Edited August 23, 2018 by simonh

[RosenMcStern]

5 minutes ago, simonh said:

I prefer the DEX rank system in Elric. [ ...]

Instead of locations I prefer dice for armour, again from Elric. So you might have a suit of armour that gives you 1D6+1 armour points, which you roll if you take a hit. If you take half your general hit points or more in a hit, you roll on a major wound table that includes disabled limbs and such. So you get almost the same detail of outcome from radically more succinct and straightforward rules. Determine if the hit is significant first, then generate the extra detail if required, instead of generating all the extra detail then seeing if it actually mattered.

None of these are major issues. It's just personal preference. Taken together, I find as a GM the game flows a lot more smoothly.

It is worth noting that the BGB tries - albeit the implementation is not perfecct in many points - to leave the door open for using either option, locations or variable armour/major wounds, or DEX Rank vs. Strike Rank, with little or no impact on the rest of the rules. RQ2, RQ3 and RQG, instead, "choose for you", stating that you should use locations and Strike Ranks, unless you want to do a huge amount of houseruling. To be honest, I fail to understand why the option of putting this choice in the hands of players was not chosen when the new "RuneQuest married with Glorantha again" was designed. Neither of these options is fundamental for the Gloranthan feeling of the game: as the conversion rules for PendragonPass of the '90s said, "If King Arthur can fight without Strike Ranks and Hit  Locations, so can Prince Argrath." YGWV (and YCWV*).

Oh, and maybe we have gone a little bit off topic.

* Your Camelot Will Vary

[simonh]

28 minutes ago, RosenMcStern said:

To be honest, I fail to understand why the option of putting this choice in the hands of players was not chosen when the new "RuneQuest married with Glorantha again" was designed. Oh, and maybe we have gone a little bit off topic.

* Your Camelot Will Vary

I think I'd rather each game made it's own choice, otherwise it just creates confusion. I'm quite happy RQG has Strike Ranks and such, I know a lot of people like it that way. Meanwhile I still have my copy of Elric and my house rules marrying it to RQ magic are still gogoglable if a little outdated.

A split, off-topic thread going off topic? Oh my!

[seneschal]

RuneQuest vs. Dungeons & Dragons???  Bah!  I send my Classic Traveller mercenaries to bring civilization to your miserable TL 1 mud ball of a world.

"What was that, Corporal?  Squadron B was just eaten by a WHAT?"  😱

[Austin]

5 minutes ago, seneschal said:

RuneQuest vs. Dungeons & Dragons???  Bah!  I send my Classic Traveller mercenaries to bring civilization to your miserable TL 1 mud ball of a world.

"What was that, Corporal?  Squadron B was just eaten by a WHAT?"  😱

True Dragons v. Starships when??

[Richard S.]

1 minute ago, Crel said:

True Dragons v. Starships when??

*Tarrasque v. Starships 

[Austin]

29 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

*Tarrasque v. Starships 

Someone get Michael Bay on the phone.

[tedopon]

1 hour ago, Richard S. said:

*Tarrasque v. Starships 

If that design made it through committee, they need to fire the entire R&D department. Tarrasques eat everything. Even trailed by a blimp full of air wizards or pushed along by a megabeast like the Crimson Bat, it wouldn't work. The Tarrasque would be eating the ropes and/or balloon while they filled it with floaty air. The only way this idea would work is if you tranquilized the Tarrasque during outfitting and transit. 

[Richard S.]

53 minutes ago, tedopon said:

If that design made it through committee, they need to fire the entire R&D department. Tarrasques eat everything. Even trailed by a blimp full of air wizards or pushed along by a megabeast like the Crimson Bat, it wouldn't work. The Tarrasque would be eating the ropes and/or balloon while they filled it with floaty air. The only way this idea would work is if you tranquilized the Tarrasque during outfitting and transit. 

It was something someone on /tg/ photoshopped. It's a joke.

[seneschal]

Tut, tut.  It’s been done:

 

 

[tedopon]

48 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

It's a joke.

Thanks for the clarification.

[The God Learner]

Personally, I have enjoyed RQ and Glorantha for a long time, but I fairly soon found that RQ required too much bookkeeping for my taste. (Which led to simplifications and some house rules.) I think my ideal level of complexity is somewhere around the level of Stormbringer or Pendragon, getting most of the benefits without the pedantry of tracking hit points and armor per location for five scorpion men.

If there was a nice way to unify such simpler rules with the HQ conflict mechanics, it might be even better. 

[lawrence.whitaker]

Slightly off-topic, but my favourite incarnation of a class/level/skill/social system remains FGU's 'Bushido', which successfully marries class and level-based character creation and advancement, with a sophisticated percentile and d20 based skill system (as in Pendragon or HeroQuest, one rolls skill or less on d20. The score of the skill is figured on a 01-100+ scale and divided by 5 to provide the resolution target number). There are experience points for killing things, for acting honourably, and for certain social functions too. The level/XP system is neatly divorced from the skill advancement system, but still influences it, so that there's a satisfying blend of skill driven advancement, with the visceral satisfaction of gaining another level (there are only 6 levels, with one's level providing a straight +n bonus to the d20 skill. So a 4th level warrior may have a sword skill of 14, with level giving him an effective 18 or less to roll on d20 for success).

Years ago, I hacked Bushido and HeroQuest together to run a Griffin Mountain campaign, and it was superb fun. I think 'Bushido' remains one of the best examples of elegant, nuanced game design. The rules aren't necessarily easy to parse (he writing is highly technical, and the rule books have a strange structure), but the mechanics are rock-solid, surprisingly flexible, and offer a perfect blend of class/levels/skills/d20/d100, built-in task resolution, XP, and social advancement that was surprisingly ahead of its time. I still enjoy the system.

[seneschal]

I agree.  Bushido is all about gaining and maintaining "Face" -- a reputation for honorable (although not necessarily moral) conduct.  A character who loses Face actually decreases in level, assuming he doesn't have to commit ritual suicide to wipe out the shame he's caused his family.  It's a whole different thing than collecting gold or glory for experience points.

[Richard S.]

1 hour ago, tedopon said:

Thanks for the clarification.

I think I misread your original comment and may have responded inappropriately.

[tedopon]

6 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

I think I misread your original comment and may have responded inappropriately.

HA, it's all good!

...but not for the idiots who designed that Tarrasque Transport Unit. Burn them all at the stake, then feed them to the beast.

[The God Learner]

Just now, tedopon said:

...but not for the idiots who designed that Tarrasque Transport Unit. Burn them all at the stake, then feed them to the beast.

Everyone knows you carry a Tarrasque by the scruff of its neck.

 

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, seneschal said:

Tut, tut.  It’s been done:

 

LOL! I wonder how Kong will travel in the "remake"?