Subject: RQ Discussions 31 First Distribution: February 18, 1992 ====================================================================== From: groucho!jablow@enterprise.itd.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Jablow) Subject: Comments on RQ discussion 30 Subject: Alchemy Mark Wallace gives the interesting idea that potions must be brewed over a long period of time, requiring many skill rolls. Let's test this to destruction. Suppose the originator of the art of alchemy, the godling who wrested it from Mostal (Arroin?), wanted to brew a POT 20 potion. Assume his skill is 2000%. Thus, he criticals on a roll of 01-95, fails on a 96-99, and fumbles on a 00. Let's not consider Steve Maurer's HQ skill rules here. He wants to brew a POT 20 scorpion venom antidote. This requires ceil(20/3) = 7 weeks to perform, and 7 skill rolls. His probability of success is .95^7, which is approximately 69.83%. Interesting, but not unreasonable. Arroin doesn't have to worry about Time, after all. I found the RQ2 Alchemy rules unsatisfying because they came without social context. How much does a lab cost in Pavis, or in Ralios, or Safelster? What materials must the alchemist obtain to brew his potions? Who does he learn his recipes from? There might not be a Alchemist's Guild in his city or culture. How does he research a new type of potion? By Heroquesting only? It seemed too mechanical for me. Subject: Skill Systems There are two dual problems with the RQ skill systems. One is skill inflation; characters gain skills > 100% and become unbeatable. The other is that characters can improve any one skill but once on an expedition, and they go into "Skill Check Frenzy" to make up for it. If we change the meaning of high skills, and we encourage characters to specialize, we can solve the first problem. If we modify the skill improvement rules to encourage players to stay in character, we can solve the second. Subject: Rune Lords, Skill Training, and Skill Specialization I find the RQ rules on training limits reasonable. Yes, it means that Lhankor Mhy temples can train Rune Lords. On the other hand, Lhankor Mhy temples don't have Rune Lords any more. Andrew Bell's point is still valid; a character should perform special missions for his cult to gain Priestly or Lordly rank. Perhaps we're missing something here. There are civilized and uncivilized cults. Storm Bull rites are much less formal than Yelm services. However, I have never seen any references in any RQ rulebooks or scenarios to any requirements that a character know any "canon law" or be familiar with any religious rituals to become a Priest. Cults require Initiates and Priests to know Ceremony, but Ceremony is a very generalized skill. A character can develop a Ceremony of 95%, move to a new region, work with a temple for a season or so, be Initiated, and become a Priest just a couple of years later if he is lucky. Compare this to Earth. I would guess that it takes about 15 years of study and training for a Catholic to become a Priest or a Jew a Rabbi. Learning starts in adolescence, and continues through a college and seminary. Earth is different from Glorantha, but Glorantha seems awfully loose to me. I'd like to suggest that each cult require its Initiates, Acolytes, Priests, and Lords to know certain specialized cult skills. Let's create for each religion the skills of Law, Ceremony, and Lore. People born into the religion tend to pick up this skills in childhood, while outsiders need to work at it. (Sorry. I just took a course on C++.) Actually, we have the wrong idea about skills. One unappealing aspect about RQ3 is that all skills are equally trainable. Given equal skill bonuses, skill levels, and access to training, one character expects to learn Long Bow Attack at the same rate his twin learns Hide. This is unreasonable. English Longbowmen practiced for years to gain their skills, while any fool can learn to use a shovel or wear camoflage clothing. Not all skills are equally learnable. Furthermore, people specialize in skills. My skill in Mathematics may be 100% on one scale, but my skill in Complex Analysis may be 150% on the same scale. (Or 50 and 75, or 80 and 120; what scale should we use?) You may have Computer Programming at 94, but Computer Programming at 130%, and Computer Programming at 32%. RQ characters don't have Ceremony 50, Ceremony 76, and Ceremony at 03. Some of this can be represented by role-playing and referee decisions, but some cannot. The game Ringworld had the idea of forcing specialization in sciences; no general science skill could be learned past 25%, to go past 25%, only specialized versions. The example given in the rules had a character learn Exobiology at 25%, and do a major research project to learn Mud Troll Biology at a higher skill. Let's adapt this. Let's call the skills in the RQ books _general_ skills. Each general skill has an associated learning rate; this may differ across cultures. For example, the learning rate for Long Bow Attack may be 1.0 for elves and 1.6 for Pavis humans. A character must train or research for (Current skill) * (Learning rate) hours to be eligible for a skill increase roll. A character may learn a specialized version of a general skill. Elf Bow Attack is a specialization of Long Bow attack. Ceremony is a specialization of Ceremony. When a character first decides to learn a special version of a skill, the GM should decide his starting skill value based on the character's background. A Storm Buller trying to use an Orlanthi ceremony might have a starting skill of Ceremony - 25%, while a newly apostate dwarf might have one of just 5% + Magic bonus. Learning rates may be different. A specialized skill may also be an advanced version of a regular skill. Consider the sequence Ride --> Dressage --> Show Jumping. Consider First Aid --> Medicine --> Surgery --> Orthopedic Surgery. A character starts each skill at a level of the previous skill minus a constant; A character with Computer Programming at 75% may start his skill at 75% - 50% = 25%. Once he has done so, his skills increase separately. A character may also learn subsidiary skills. For example, suppose a character knows Sword Attack well. He can learn the following two skills: _Teach Sword Attack_: This is the skill of teaching Sword Attack to another, less skilled, character. Follow the rules in an old DW; in order for a student to learn from a course of teaching, the teacher must succeed with his Teach roll, or the student must succeed with an experience roll. More general versions of this skill exist; there can be Teach Combat Skills, or even simply Teach. A character's starting ability with the Teach X skill should be his Communication bonus + the maximum of (X skill - bonus in category of X - 50%) and 25%. Having a high Attack bonus does not make a character a good teacher of Sword Attack. _Evaluate Sword Attack_: This is the skill of determining how well an opponent or student is with his Sword Attack. In general, the user must see the target fight for at least one minute. A simple success tells him whether the target is much worse (by 25% or more), sightly worse, about the same (within 10%), slightly better, or much better. A special success tells him some fact about the opponent's style; is he overconfident, timid, educated in a certain style, etc. A critical fact tells something important about the target. For example, Daphne Duck watches the Masked Quacker fight for a few rounds, hacking a path through a trollkin mob. She criticals her Evaluate roll, and realizes she's seen him before; he's Duck Twacy in disguise! A character gains an Evaluate Skill whenever he reaches what I call Journeyman level with a skill; that's 50% with a minimum increase of 20% from base. In fact, here's my skill level chart. Players should use the verbal descriptions rather than telling people their skills in number form. Should a Storm Kahn say "I'm 130% with sword!"? I hope not. Some Evaluate Skills can be learned by non-users of the skill: Pauline Kael has Evaluate Cinema 235%, and Roger Angell has Evaluate Baseball 255%. Skill Level Increase over base Title <25% or <10% Novice >=25% and >=10% Beginner >=50% and >=20% Journeyman >=75% and >=30% Expert >=100% and >=40% Master >=125% and >=50% Cultural Master >=150% and >=60% Intercultural Master >=175% and >=70% International Master >=200% and >=80% Grandmaster (Apologies to FIDE, The New Yorker, and Warner Brothers. Many ideas stolen from GURPS.) In general, only the general skills count for cult rank. Subsidiary skills are rarely taught. Also, some Evaluate Skills are culture specific. Evaluate Sing is different from Evaluate Sing. Subject: Skill Advancement and Skill Checks To avoid the role-playing disease of skill check frenzy, we should reiterate the following basic rule: The Gamesmaster may allow or disallow skill checks at will. No player shall protest, under penalty of expulsion from the campaign. Each player will portray his or her character as a real person. Remember, a character may deserve many skill checks from a battle, even if he is played reasonable, with no action taken purely to gain an artificial, rule-based reward. A Carmanian Knight may start a fight with sword and shield. When his sword breaks, he may switch to a hand-axe, toss it at an opponent, and draw a dagger. He may kick an opponent trying to pass him, and end up grappling another opponent. He might earn 13 skill checks in all: attack and parry for sword, shield, axe, and dagger, attack for thrown axe and dagger, kick, grapple, and dodge. As a player, I'd be satisfied with that. To balance the shallowness of the character's gains, however, I would suggest the following rule. When a character is in a stressful situation (liberally defined), after he has earned a skill check for a skill, each success he makes shall be considered the equivalent of 1 hour of skill research, with no upper limit. After he rolls for his skill check, if he has more saved research hours than his current skill, he makes a research roll. For example, Joe Novice has Broadsword attack 32, and hits 70 times in a long series of battles. He gets one skill check, and 69 research hours. He makes his EXP roll, and increases his skill to 34. He uses 34 research hours (leaving 35), and fails to advance. He uses 34 more, and succeeds, raising his skill to 36. He has 1 free research hour left. Actions of long duration in stressful circumstances, such as hiding in a troll mansion, or crossing the Deadly Desert, count as research time. Actions of long duration related to a character's job count only fractionally. GURPS uses the rule that job work only counts as research time on a 4:1 basis. For example, Robyn Hud hides in a troll palace for 5 full days. Assuming she was awake for 16 hours each day, she was actively hiding for 80 hours. Since this was very difficult, the GM awards her 3 * 80 = 240 hours of research time, split among Hide, Sneak, and Conceal. Subject: Spirit Ecology I don't think shaman-hood is appropriate for a PC. However, shamans aren't as powerful as you make them out to be. They have responsibilities. They expend POW for enchantments for other tribe members, and for their khans. They obtain, use, and release spirits for no personal gain. Don't let PC shaman evade their responsibilities. I made those suggestions about shaman-spirit combat because I don't like the attitude that spirits have well-defined and well-understood capabilities. If I wanted chess-pieces, I'd play chess. Which makes for a better story--the shaman loses in combat to a Fire Elemental, and the Elemental just leaves, or the shaman loses and the Elemental attacks his body? DISCLAIMER: I am not in a RQ campaign now; and have not been for a few years. My ideas may be impractical. Are there any other RQers in the DC/VA/MD area? Eric Jablow "What's that?" asked Mr. Hennessy? Metron Inc. "That is," said Mr. Dooley, "no matther whether th' 11911 Freedom Drive constitution follows th' flag or not, th' supreme Suite 800 coort follows th' iliction returns." Reston, Virginia 22090 --Finley Peter Dunne Phone: (703) 787-8700 (O) Phone: (703) 435-2981 (H) email: jablow%groucho.uucp@enterprise.itd.nrl.navy.mil ====================================================================== The RuneQuest(tm) mailing list is a courtesy of Andrew Bell. All opinions and material above are the responsibility of the originator, and copyrights are held by them. 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