From: Loren Miller (LOREN@marketing.wharton.upenn.edu)
Date: Tue 08 Jun 1993 - 02:35:24 EEST
Here's the second bunch of them.
EXPERIENCE METHODS
i tried using the experience methods given in the new rules and must say
of course, this also would force a change in the easy/medium/hard/very hard
On reflection, I'd like to see only one difficulty level for skills. Get
This done, you may suggest that when rolling for skill increases you can
SKILL CHECK FRENZY
i don't particularly like them. i never had a problem with check frenzy,
which is the problem that the two experience methods are supposed to fix,
so i don't see the need for them. i also don't like experience point systems,
which is basically what the new systems are. finally, i don't think it's a
good idea to make such a total break from the earlier experience systems in
rq 1-3. i would prefer if the new rules used the old experience system,
with suggestions on how to avoid skill check frenzy, and perhaps gave one
of the new methods as an option.
skill structure. Perhaps they should simply have extra bonuses or penalties
to skill rolls, like steve maurer's idea in maurer heroquest?
rid of all the multileveled skills and all the skills that encompass
other skills. This is not elegant, guys. This is a mess.
only roll for 10 skills or so. I think that my objection to a limited
number of skill increase rolls sprang from the overly restrictive number
and from the "rules weenie feel" I got when this rule was combined with
the multiple level of difficulty rule.
Frankly, I don't have a big problem with skill check frenzy. I would
prefer if the RQ4 draft rules gave a couple options for GMs so that they
could use the old fashioned skill check rules if they wanted or the new
ones, with X checks at the end of the adventure, if that's what they
wanted. However, I think the number of skill increases recommended in
the rules is far too low. A single increase roll for a hard skill (costs
3 experience points) after a short adventure is far too little a reward
for some campaigns. In some campaigns you want the characters to advance
very quickly, because their beginning threats are dangerous but the
ultimate opponents are awesome, so you want them to advance more quickly
than the "one skill roll per week" norm. Also, from the GM's POV I hate
experience point systems. I want experience to be mechanical. That's one
of the primary reasons I run RQ rather than some other game. The others
are the POW vs POW table and the SR system, hit locations, and the use
of SIZ.
MODIFICATION, CONTESTS OF SKILL, THE AGON
The rules in the second playtest version are a good start. The problem
I see with them is they are statistically almost identical to the
following, except they require an extra roll. So why not strike a blow
for elegance and cut out the extra roll with the following rules? I
can't find the actual rules in the draft right now, so please expand
to "officialese" language.
Sometimes one character must pit his skill against a skilled opponent
who wants to prevent him from succeeding. For instance, Cormac may want
to hide from the senator's guards who are searching the villa grounds
after a hue and cry alerted them to an assault in the street outside, or
Nikolas may want to pick a lock devised by a master locksmith. In all
such situations the "contest of skills" is resolved by rolling for
success for both sides. If one side succeeds and the other doesn't, or
if one side has a better level of success than the other (special versus
normal success, critical versus special, etc) then the side with the
better level of success (or failure) prevails. If the contestants
succeed equally, both succeeding, criticaling, or failing, then the one
who succeeds by more, or fails by less, is the winner. Ties go to the
active skill, not to the resistive one. In case of special or critical
success, count the margin from the chance to attain a level of success,
not from the total skill.
Example
For instance, Cormac is hidden behind a hanging in a chamber when a
guard sticks a torch in and peeks into the room. Cormac's Hide skill
is 49 and he rolls a 23 for a success with a margin of 26. The guard
Scans the room and rolls 1 against his skill of 57---a critical
success. A critical success is a higher level of success than a normal
success, and so the guard wins the contest of skills. The guard spots
Cormac and orders him out. Is this the end for our Celtic friend?
Later, after having escaped from the guard, Cormac finds himself in
the garden and must hide once again from a team of five guards who are
scouring the villa for him. He ducks into some bushes and rolls a 3,
which is a special success. The guards search the garden and luckily
none of them roll special successes. Cormac breathes in relief as they
march out. But then they march back in with a captain at their head.
He orders them to search the garden again, and scans for any sign of
an intruder. Once again the rank and file fail to find Cormac, but the
captain rolls a 11 against his Scan skill of 78, a special success.
Now we must check the margins of success. Cormac's chance to roll a
special success was 10%, so he had a margin of 7. The captain's chance
was 16, giving him a margin of 5. Cormac wins the contest of skills
and the guards leave the garden to search for him elsewhere. His
nerves shot, Cormac climbs over the wall, cutting his hands on the
embedded glass, and runs away.
end Example
When an active character is trying to overcome a skill that has already
been used, the referee should determine the total skill of the person
who made the item and roll, or simply decide on the level of success and
the margin. For instance a lock may be of Special 7 quality, meaning
that the lockpicker must beat a special success with a margin of 7 to
pick the lock. This will add lots of non-magical but still exceptional
items to the wise referee's campaign.
ALTERNATE RULES FOR COMPLEMENTARY SKILLS
I also think that RQ needs a way to combine skills, so that if you're
good at Scout City and Human Lore then the Human Lore can add to your
Scouting skill when you have a chance to combine it. Such a rule has
been included, the 1/5th rule.
Likewise, we need a way of combining the skills of multiple characters
when doing something on which they could cooperate. For instance, when
crafting a shoe the master could work on the upper while he instructs
his apprentice on how to make the sole. A better example is a
ceremony---Nikolas conducts a ceremony with Signy and Cormac helping so
that his next enchantment, in which he was planning to spend five Power,
doesn't fail. The referee decides that any number of people up to the
oratory skill of the leader can assist in a ceremony. Nikolas's Oratory
is 38, so he can lead a ceremony with up to 38 participants.
The current rules don't have any way of handling the above situations.
My suggestion is as follows:
Use the 1/5 rule. I originally had a more complex suggestion, but the
players seem to like the 1/5 rule. However, encourage people to use it
not only with complementary skills, but also with cooperative efforts to
do things. Encourage the GM to decide how many people can combine their
skills at a task and then determine the task leader. If it succeeds,
maybe everybody gets a skill check, and if you keep the experience point
rules then it doesn't get abusive either.
SUGGESTIONS FOR A CHARACTER SHEET
[My version of the RQ4 character sheet does all these things. --LJM]
Combination hit location and encumbrance chart. By putting them together
you can save space and have a nice visual reference to where your
character is stuffing all those extra daggers or whatever. I think this
should definitely be in the final sheet. It also allows you to note the
strength multiples for encumbrance and fatigue roll determination.
Got rid of old style HP and MP charts. With negative HPs possible under
the new rules they wouldn't all fit anyway. I'd rather leave a good bit
of space for people to write out their wound descriptions than take much
more space and fill it with text.
Put spaces for important stuff like weapon information, fatigue roll,
move, damage bonus, fatigue levels and strike ranks on front sheet. We
really need a one page sheet for all the good information. Any game that
requires two sheets is too complex, like Chartmaster. Keep it simple.
Got rid of a few skills. Note I updated read/write to script as per our
discussion on AOL. I also combined throw and catch, I don't see why they
should be different. One thing I would like to do is cut back
drastically on the number of skills, especially those skills that are
included in higher level skills. GMs always have the opportunity to add
new skills. We shouldn't force them to use skills like treat poison and
treat disease when we can use a more general term like physicker or
physician to describe the same activities. Also, the propogation of new
skills just adds needless complexity to the game, like the huge piles of
new skills added to RoleMaster by every companion. RM is already too
complicated, and those skill lists are ridiculous. I hope and pray that
the same thing doesn't happen to RQ4. Once again, we need to make sure
that the necessary skills can be on a one page character sheet along
with everything else that is necessary for the numeric part of the game.
JONATHAN TWEET ON SKILLS AND LEVELS OF DIFFICULTY
Yes, I hear that the proposed rules complicate skills with different levels
Tell me if this system is workable: when rolling for experience, you add
And for training, have training time based on the number of points you are
Note that I mean the PC's personal base chance, not the base chance for the
of difficulty. I empathize with the desire to make some skill more difficult
to learn than others, but RQ needs a clean system to simulate this.
your BASE CHANCE to the roll. Like normal, you gain points by rolling over
your skill level. This means that you'll be able to increase faster with an
easy skill (that has a high base chance, like Jump) and more slowly with a
hard skill with a low base chance.
above your base chance.
skill.
This system allows one to learn a skill faster if that skill is one you are
gifted with (high bonus for that skill category), allows you to progress more
quickly with easy skills.
Is it worth passing on to the folks behind RQ4?
Alternate system: Skills that are particularly easy have a bonus assigned to
them, like +5 of +10. This number is added to experience rolls and deducted
from your "effective" skill level when determining how long training takes.
Hard skills can have -5 or -10. Just write it on the character sheet, and it
just slips right in unobtrusively without cluttering up the system.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
[These combine my comments with Bryan Maloney's comments on them. --LJM]
First, LANGUAGE
The Speak Language skills make sense to me. I'd prefer to call them
simply "Language" skills, however, and call the read/write skills
"Scripts" instead. This clarifies that one allows you to speak and
understand the language, and the other allows you to recognise the
symbols, read them as words and sentences, and write them so they make
sense to others.
"Scripts" should apply to the use of a single alphabet, regardless of
the languages. This is to reflect the simple fact that standard
orthography (spelling) simply did not exist until well after the advent
of the printing press. In the hand-written days of writing, one spelled
things however one wished (in an alphabetic system). This means that,
for example, someone who could write in Latin could also write in
German, English, etc. with comparable facility, provided their spoken
fluency permitted them to do so. This would mean that one could "write"
a language in an inappropriate alphabet if one only spoke it but was not
familiar with the correct alphabet--kind of like transliterating Russian
or Japanese. For example, I can "write" the following:
Ohaio godaimasu.
Shto? Ah...Dasvedanya--spasebo.
I know what those sentences mean, and I have written them, even though I
may know nothing about reading the language in its correct alphabet.
The ability to write depends upon the ALPHABETS known and possible
associated orthographies rather than upon the languages known.
Next, OTHER COMMUNICATION SKILLS
My players think, and I agree, that there are too many communication
skills right now. I'd like to cut them down to a few, non-overlapping
skills. The problem is that all the skills available right now are
confusing as the dickens. Not only are they redundant, but it's even
hard to remember whether they are communication or knowledge skills
(e.g. administrate).
Get rid of the morass of communication skills and reduce the basic ones
to 3 in number: Oratory, Gossip, and Empathy.
Oratory: the leadership ability, ability to lead a crowd of people to do
what you want. oration, fast-talking, and other stuff where you let the
force of your words and personality overwhelm people to where they
acquiesce to your desires (sometimes debate too) Combines Oratory,
Fasttalk, and Debate from the current rules.
Gossip: the general social ability, ability to get along with people as
long as you aren't totally unfamiliar with their culture, no matter what
they are doing, drinking, playing troll-ball, etc... conversation,
carousing, subtle interrogation, and other situations where you want to
be subtle in your means of persuasion, so that people think they thought
of your ideas themselves, or where you want to find things out without
being obvious.
Empathy: the ability to understand the psychology of others. Rurik is in
a tavern and an oddball starts getting obnoxious with him. He attempts
an Empathy roll to tell if the oddball is just drunk and stupid, or if
he's trying to pick a fight for some more sinister reason. Use like the
psychology roll in Call of Cthulhu. Also used to detect obvious lies.
and then a few specialist ones:
Courtesan: self explanatory
Bargain: the art of bargaining. Buy low, sell high. Also used, with
Empathy, for Bribery.
Finally, something to give those people who get several different social
abilities an advantage over those who only want to buy Oratory or
Intimidate and use it for everything... Contacts. Either modify the area
knowledge type skills to include contacts, or allow one contact per
point, or something like that. Contacts are core part of the newer,
roleplaying intensive point based game systems, and RQ shouldn't ignore
a good idea just because somebody else thought of it first.
Third, SCRIPTS
This is the kind of thing that I would give to my players to explain how
scripts worked. I never wrote it for my Stormbringer game, as the
implications were fairly apparent to the players. I've also put in the
30/60/90 stuff (levels of mastery) we were talking about.
Script: Scripts in use in Genertela include: Western, Pelorian, and Orlanthi.
Any lettered person may use any script in order to write any language
which they know, so a literate orlanthi could use the Orlanthi script to
write Sartar, Tradetalk, Lunar and would be able to read what he had
written. In order to read this, another would need to know both the
script and the spoken language, the script in order to translate the
written symbols into sounds, and the language in order to understand the
sounds. Note that before the advent of the printing press spelling and
punctuation wasn't standardized, it was up to the individual, so reading
will always be more laborious than we moderns might think, and may be
extremely difficult when trying to interpret those with especially
eccentric ideas on spelling and punctuation.
Levels of mastery and abilities (levels of mastery are, apprentice from
30% to 59%, journeyman from 60% to 89%, and master from 90% on up).
30% -- apprentice level script, good enough to work as an apprentice
scribe or copyist but may not be able to understand some texts that have
eccentric choices in spelling and punctuation. When reading a text the
apprentice must read aloud, and often must repeat a passage several
times until the correct pronunciation and emphasis becomes obvious. It
takes twice the usual time to read a text, and a skill roll is
necessary. The apprentice will read long documents slowly. Someone who
knows a script at this level cannot read a texts without vocalizing or
subvocalizing.
60% -- journeyman level script, good enough to work as a scribe or
copyist. can read written text at the usual speed, which would allow
reading of a scroll or book slightly slower than it would be spoken
aloud. They must read texts aloud, unless they are intended to be very
easy to read, but can usually get the meaning of a phrase the first time
through. A journeyman scribe may read without speaking the words at half
speed if he subvocalizes, or at one tenth speed if he refrains from
speaking at all. This may still be useful if the scribe suspects that a
curse lies on those who speak the words of a particular text.
90% -- master level script, good enough to work as a supervisor and
instructor of scribes and copyists. The master may read written text
quickly, more quickly than he may speak it aloud. The master generally
subvocalizes whatever he reads, but familiar or especially easy to read
texts, especially those in a language with which the master scribe has
also mastered, may be read without doing so, and at a vastly increased
speed. The master may read a text that he would normally subvocalize at
half speed if he consciously refrains from speaking the words, for
instance to avert a curse.
--
+++++++++++++++++++++++23
Loren Miller LOREN@wmkt.wharton.upenn.edu
There's a thin line between TQM and Mutiny
0,,
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