From: Paul Reilly (paul@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu)
Date: Tue 12 Nov 1991 - 09:56:33 EET
I have some proposals for variant rules that I'd like people to discuss. I
will only introduce a few and will see what people think; first I'll give
a "theoretical background and then the rule change.
Consider each rule separately or in combination
1. Power Gain
In standard RQ, while various people start with varying POW, the crucial
"probability of POW gain" is the same for everyone, so those with high POW
just have a bit of a "head start".
In most of the fantasy literature and also in the mythic sources (both Earth
and Glorantha) their is apparently quite a bit of variation in people's
magical ability, which stays with them all their lives. Thus the youngster
who shows great potential and eventually becomes a great mage/hero/etc. has
become a stock character of the genre.
A rule change to reflect this: Change the Pow gain roll from
(Species Max - Current POW) * 5%
to
(Starting POW - Current POW + 10) * 5%
Thus a character born with an 11 POW will have the same POW gain roll as
in the standard rules, while one born with a 15 POW will have the same chance
of improvement as a RQ II Priest.
In RQ II, the personal gain roll of a character would not change when he
attained Priest status; instead Priests would tend to be recruited from those
with naturally high POW (say 13 or greater.) This would tend to separate
characters into "Priest Track" and "Lord Track" quite a bit sooner, which
might tend to cut off a bit of the "Jack-of-all-Trades" syndrome. It means
that some people will be naturally good magicians and others just won't.
Obviously shamans and sorcerors would seek out apprentices of naturally
high POW under this system.
This change makes the starting POW stat into something really special, as
important as INT, say, rather than the relatively unimportant stat it is now
for characters who will be in play for a while.
If one wants a group of Heroic PCs, one might give some insurance that the
POW stat under this system won't be too low, under the rationale that low-POW
people are generally too weak-willed to become Adventurers.
2. Magic Point rate recovery
This is something that I've thought about alot lately and come to no firm
conclusion. I am interested in a bunch of variants, but I'll just give one
now and get some comments on it, hopefully.
People with long duration spells (sorcerors) feel they should use all their
MPs before going to bed or they are wasting them.
The simplest variant: Make Magic Points recover at the rate of one/day.
This has a slight evening-out effect on character's Power, and it means that
the mightier magicians take longer to recharge fully and thus may be chary of
using their full powers unless it is The Big Crisis of the Scenario.
Well, more later on this subject,
paul reilly
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EDICT [Ed.] The latest hot gossip.
HOLIDAY GLORANTHA: "Three Ribbons and Five Chambers" [Mark Galeotti]
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SARTAR TRIBES MAP [Walter Moore] Based on an original by Greg
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SEVEN FAVOURITE FOODS [Tom Duttar] Pig out with our Gloranthan Food
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THE CULT OF MARAN GOR [Greg Stafford & Sandy Petersen] The official
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INSPIRATION? [MOB] Where does Greg Stafford get his ideas? An
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CORWEN'S SAGA [Steve Thomas] The Lunars come to Greydog Village in a
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>From paul@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly)
Subject: Re: RQ discussion 23
Michael O'Brien asks if he can publich some RQ Digest articles, including
some of mine. The answer in my case is of course YES; I don't have an e-mail
address for Michael, so if you are out there please write me directly at
paul@bondi.phyast.pitt.edu
Otherwise I will get in touch via physical mail.
I have been busy with some other things lately, so I haven't written too
much RQ in the past few months. Some ideas for discussion:
How many people out there have played PENDRAGON? This game is clearly
RQ-descended, retaining such concepts as experience checks and training,
but it also adds a few. The ppersonality system is much like that in
an old RQ article, possibly in Wyrm's Footnotes but possibly elsewhere. I
think that Heroquesting might be possible to run using Pendragon-style
mechanics.
Another idea that I had for variant RQ is loosely based on folklore and
"common sense". This is to have "spirit magic" learned as in RQ II with
most spells Unfocussed on Self and Focussed on Others, with Focussing as a
separate skill. Spells like Bladesharp would be Unfocussed on Weapon in Hand.
In this variant the average tribe member starts out with abilities like
becoming Fanatical without necessarily thinking of these as spells; a person
with the right personality would be able to become Fanatical just by
concentrating (and spending willpower = magic points) without going through
spell learning. I myself can become Befuddled, for example.
This system could fit in well with a personality system as described above.
Thus a Brave individual could easily learn Fanaticism (and eventually how
to affect others with it), but, having rarely felt Fear himself, would have
great difficulty in using Demoralize.
More later,
Paul Reilly
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