From: Tim Leask (tsl@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU)
Date: Wed 02 Feb 1994 - 22:09:22 EET
David Cake writes:
> I don't wish to appear a whining conservative (well, those of you who
Someone also made the (excellent) point that if it ain't broke don't fix it,
Changes to the combat system which retain the %skills as there basis have
enough of my prattling
>
> Can I just say that I like the proposed new mechanic, and I think that
> it is very clever, and PLEASE DO NOT USE IT.
> RQ needs some consistency. Please, just lets stick with
> ' lower is better' , which we all know and understand, and which,
> more importantly, is already the way RQ (and published stuff which we need to
> maintain compatibilty with) does it.
Not that I care that much which system is used I just like to point out a
couple of things. Published material is unaffected to any great extent,
stats are more or less unchanged from existing works - other proposed
changes have far more compatibility problems (e.g. alterations to armor
values, damage bonuses, weapon damage, fatigue , hit locations etc).
I don't really think it is that a big a change to the game system,
after one session people would pretty much have the hang of it (IMHO).
All we are talking about here is how to interpret a dice roll for goodness sake.
Even with the existing system it's not immediately obvious if you have fumbled
or rolled special or critical without consulting a table, especially considering
the frequency with which rolls are modified for some reason or other.
> followed my input know that I am not at all), but on this particular issue I
> feel that it very definately should come down to conservatism - the marginal
> gain is very small, and it is a very big change to the game system (even if
> it looks similar probability wise, it will not go down well with a largely
> conservative RQ2 audience that we are trying hard to win back). RQ4 should
> appear to be a simple and natural transition.
You mean that RQ4 is targeted primarily at the existing RQ2 audience ?
Well if nothing of signficance changes from RQ2 to RQ4 (ignore RQ3) what
makes you think they would bother to buy it ?
I thought the idea was to produce something that was a significant
improvement over RQ2, and that at the same time would appeal to the
majority of the RQ audience whilst maintaining as much compatibility with
published material as possible ( and with some luck attracting new
players to RQ).
the problem is not everyone agrees on what is broken. Some people consider
the current RQ combat system too slow to resolve combat, while others
seem to enjoy an entire evening spent on one combat.
I can appreciate both points of view.
In my undergrad years when I had plenty of time on my hands to play RQ
long combats were fine - now that my playing time is greatly reduced
long combats can be very annoying, especially if they don't advance the plot.
almost zero compatibility problems with published material - since the
basic mechanics are described only in the rule books - which RQ4 would
replace. I'm not saying that the Miller/O'Reilly system is perfect or
necessarily the way to go - but at least we should think about alternatives.
Tim Leask
================================================================================
Department of Computer Science /*\__/\ "Money is something you have in
University of Melbourne < \ case you don't die tomorrow."
Parkville, Vic., 3052, AUSTRALIA \ _ _/ Gordon Gecko.
Phone: +61 3 282 2439 \| --
e-mail: tsl@cs.mu.oz.au
================================================================================
0,,
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Sat 05 Jul 2003 - 20:33:39 EEST