Dragon Pass, RunePower & Divine Intervention

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From: David Cheng (drcheng@sales.stern.nyu.edu)
Date: Tue 09 Nov 1993 - 20:04:25 EET


DRAGON PASS

+ Victory = Cities just doesn't work for me. Furthest is
'just another Lunar city,' not Glamour by any standard, and most good Sartarites distrust them dang 'city-folk' in Boldhome anyway.

   Victory points should come from killing heroes, troops, and taking strategic objectives (like sacking the Temple of the Reaching Moon).

+ Add an elf unit or two, to be allied by emissary, but
penalize their combat and magic factors if they leave the Stinking Forest. Let them move thru the SF at 1MP per hex.

+ Add a SF troll unit or two, to be allied by emissary. They
would not be as good as Cragspider's 6-6-6's, however.

+ Add some chaos units that could ooze forth from Snakepipe
Hollow. The Lunars would probably have an easier time getting them.

+ Add emissary counters. They would ignore ZOC, but would
still have to move onto the home of the neutral. Give them names and bonuses: ie Redbird the Sage would be a Sartarite emissary who gets +1 to ally Cragspider, and/or the Stinking Forest Trolls.

+ I'm thinking of deducting a movement point off most units.
I think the game 'moves' too fast.

+ None of this silliness about flying units getting stuck by
ZOC. If you don't want the Stormwalkers smashing the mirrors in the TotRM, garrison it properly! (You'll have plenty of troops to do so - see below)

+ I've got dozens more in my notebook. One of these days I'll
dig them out and try to implement some of these ideas.

This is how I see the diplomatic game:
The Lunars and Sartarites still allocate Diplomacy Points (DPs). Alliances are still handled the same way. However, each neutral has a pre-determined DP modifier. For example, the Tarsh Exiles modifier might be +30 Sartar. Sartar starts the game with 30 DPs already applied to the Exiles, in essence.

The Lunars would _not_ be bidding to gain allies in most cases. Instead, they would bid to keep allies from the Sartarites. Sartar will inevitably get the Exiles, but if the Lunars dump loads of DPs to Tarsh, they can delay the alliance. The Lunar diplomatic game becomes one of "which allies can I afford to let Argrath have early, and which ones must I really try to delay/prevent?..."

To balance, the Lunars get huge unit replacement pools, and even more exotic stuff, like Moon Boats, a Yara Aranis counter, etc.

Sorry to bore 85% of the readership with this, but this is a topic close to my heart. As I've said before, I always like to think of how micro issues will affect the macro picture. I think the RQ <=> Dragon Pass relationship is an especially good one.

RUNEPOWER ABUSE
John Medway asks how you stop a character from using all his Rune Points on a big stacked-Extension spell, and thus letting the spiritual needs of the community go unmet.

As GM, you can't! A hotheaded adventurer gets lots of flexibility to do silly things like this. But, just like intoxication, you pay later with the hangover:

   "Orlanth, you've got to do something about that Siggurd Stormson. He is insulting your glory. He wasn't able to summon up any clouds for my daughter's wedding. Rumour has it he wanted a real long Darkwalk so he could sneak around and look in all the keyholes, watching the womenfolk bed down at night ..."

All these, and more, are arguments for "retiring" PCs who become priests. Their duty to their community is just too great to allow them to run around and do silly 'adventurous' things with their rune points.

[Yes, there are plenty of arguments like "What about Storm Bull kahns, or Humakti?" I would view these more as exceptions. Their 'adventurous' use of divine magic is right in line with their place in society, not contrary to it.]

DIVINE INTERVENTION
The idea that POW you spend on DI is 'stockpiled' for you, to enhance your glory in the afterlife, is kinda neat. But, here's my take. Ideas borrowed liberally from several HeroQuest variants, including Peterson's own.

The gods are barred from liberal interaction with the world by the Great Compromise. Most gods sacrificed all their free will to save the world.

The mortal races can effect change in the world, and do so freely. They have free will.

Most mortals get divine guidance on what kinds of change (or not) they should be striving for. This is worship.

By sacrificing POW to a deity, you can call upon that deity to affect the world directly. If the miracle is a structured one, right in line with the deity's role/runic association/etc, we call it Rune Magic. Rune Magic is an allowable 'bending' of the Great Compromise.

Divine Intervention lacks the strict structure of Rune Magic, however. The worshipper burns off some POW and says "hey, big guy, help me out here!" This intervention by the deity, being less structured, is a bigger violation of the Compromise. To allow this to happen, you've got to sacrifice something: that being POW. Without the loss of POW, the god couldn't intervene at all. Otherwise, the gods would be granting their favorite servants all sorts of miracles.

This concept also explains why some divine spells are non- reusable. Spells that effect a permanent change in the world are frequently penalized like this: restoring a lost characteristic, striking a foe dead, permanently enchanting an item, etc. The gods aren't supposed to change the world directly, and permanent change is an even bigger crime. Thus, the need for a greater sacrifice: permanent POW, one-use.

Enough from me! 

*David Cheng     drcheng@sales.stern.nyu.edu / d.cheng@genie.geis.com
 Ask me about RuneQuest-Con!         (212) 472-7752 [before midnight]

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