[Free RPG Review] Quest
Brian Gleichman
missing May.
This time, Lets take a look at Quest found at
http://admin.engr.wisc.edu/quest/. The primary designer was Mike Greenholdt
although Gene Masters and Todd Richmond are the ones who rewrote the system
for distribution.
It is available in PDF, RTF, HTML (download only) and plain text. I
downloaded the PDF for this review. While one downloads one zip file, it
contains seven PDF files within it.
Quest is a huge work coming in at 614 pages in the PDF version.
This size limits me to only covering the most basic elements in this review
leaving out many modifers and substeps. Indeed, this is the first game where
I didn't have time to read every page so I hit what the highlights seem to
be from the table of contents. Let's hope that key rules weren't buried in
odd places.
As usual, I haven't played the game and these impressions are from a read
through only.
Follow-ups set to rec.games.frp.advocacy in order for me to follow any
responses made to the thread.
--
Perceived Goals:
There are no designer notes and neither the introduction in the rules nor
the web site makes the designer's goals clear beyond a desire to allow a
wide range of character concepts.
Since it takes a lot less than 614 pages to allow a wide range of character
concepts, there must have been other goals. Sadly, we have to guess as to
what they actually were.
I'm not above guessing.
This system attempts to cover the entire kitchen sink of rules. There are
rules here for land usage, rules for firearms, rules for religion, rules
for.
Well there are just plain a lot of rules, I almost started to expect to see
rules for rules :-)
This is a game for those who want rules for just about everything.
The division of the PDF files is also telling. There is a player's handbook,
a monster manual, and GM manual and a World book. Sound familiar?
It really looks like someone loved all the information AD&D gave the gaming
world, but just didn't like the details. So here we have Quest, Mike
Greenholdt's idea of what AD&D should have been.
Of course, that's all just a guess mind you.
--
Style Comments:
The rules are presented in an understandable enough way. Although I seen
worse organization, I had to do a lot of page flipping to put together some
basic concepts. This puts it on par with most typical games these days.
I do like the PDF. It allows one great freedom to arrange your work in the
best method for presentation while insuring an accurate printed copy,
something quite difficult in any other format. Reading online is more
trouble due to its fuzzy appearance, but the navigation pane IMO makes up
for this.
However.
The navigation pane is missing. Here we have hundreds of pages and no
navigation pane. No internal hyperlinks either. I was dying for a navigation
pane.
The text is also presented in a single column. Written works of this length
should never use only one wide column for material intended to be printed.
The large font size works to expand the page count but does make it somewhat
easier to read. I didn't check, but I think dropping the font size down to
10 point may halve the page count.
--
General Rules Overview:
CHARACTERS
Characters have nine primary stats: Physical Strength (there's no other
strength stat, why do we need the 'Physical' adjective), Manual Dexterity
(the 'manual' adjective is almost justifiable since some people get
confused, but if they're willing to read these rules shouldn't they be able
to deal with it?), Agility (Wait a minute! What happened to the pointless
adjective? Shouldn't that be Bodily Agility?)...
Ok, enough.
I'm just being silly now. But hey, you try to read 614 pages for a review
and see if you can avoid focusing on the trivial.
Where were we?
On yes, the nine primary stats: Physical Strength, Manual Dexterity,
Agility, Constitution, Intelligence, Magic Talent, Faith, Will and
Leadership.
Each of the stats starts with a value of 14. Race (including the 'real world
' races of Caucasian, African Black, Oriental and N.A. Indian) modifies
these starting values, but gender doesn't (the rules give permission for the
GM to make up his own gender modifiers, however they flatly deny him the
right to do so for dwarves).
I couldn't find exactly where the rules tell me the meaning of these
numbers. It seems that values of 10-12 are average. There is no maximum, but
since I found no way to raise stats after play starts that may not be that
important.
You get to add 1d6+2 points to stats of your choice. You can also move
points around between stats. Raising anything above 18 requires double the
points and something above 20 doubles again. The 1d6+2 points can also be
used for to increase your starting experience or alter your height and a few
other things.
There are rolls you make to determine height and weight (again modified by
race, but not gender) and handedness. You get to pick your age but it should
be noted that Quest includes no age modifiers (apparently age is no more
important than gender in the eyes of the designer).
There are number of calculated stats like:
CR: Combat Rating (3*Manual Dexterity + Agility + Intellect)/20
DR: Defensive Rating (2*Agility) + Will)/15
PR: Parry Rating (3*Manual Dexterity + 2* Physical Strength + Will) /40
BHP: Base Hit Points: Weight in pounds/100 * Constitution.
Skills are broken into seven groups: Cleric, Fighter, Mage, Open, Technical,
Thief and General. A character picks one of these as primary and gains a 10%
learning bonus on any skill within that group.
Everyone gets 3000 experience points to spend on starting skills. The value
of these 3000 points varies depending upon the skills you purchase. Each
skill is controlled by a number of stats that determine your base skill roll
and your learning rate. Learning rates modify the experience cost to
purchase a skill, for example a Learning rate of 115% means one need only
spend 87 experience points to learn a 100-experience point DoM.
Skills are called Disciplines and skill levels are referred to as DoM
(degrees of mastery). Disciplines have varying maximum levels running the
range of 1-11 with some Discipline adding bonuses to others. Advance Melee
weaponry for example adds on top of two-handed edge.
Let's do an example: Edge weapons 1-handed has a learning rate of Manual
Dexterity + Physical Strength divided by two. Assuming you have 16 in each
stat, you end up with a Base Skill Roll of 16 and a learning rate of 16*5 or
80%. If it was your chosen primary skill area, it goes up to 90%.
SKILL RESOLUTION
Resolution is real simple, roll under your Skill Roll (after modifiers) on a
d20. I saw nothing that covered opposing skill tests although it could have
be buried in some spot I didn't look. There was no specific 'how to resolve
skill attempts' section to these rules.
So we have Disciplines like Outdoorsmen that allows you to track, but
apparently does nothing to aid you in covering your tracks.
COMBAT
We have a combat round broken into 30 1-second sub-phases. A character has a
number of 'Blows' determined by his combat skills (The chart shows these
ranging from one to ten) that determine which sub-phases he acts in. Those
familiar with the impulse chart from Star Fleet's Battles or Hero System's
speed chart will recognize the method.
'Blows' are a combat action. Be it attack or parry or other option.
Attacks are resolved by comparing the Attacking CR against the defending DR
and roll d100 on the provided charts. The chart determines both the success
and hit location struck at the same time, a neat trick and a time saving
feature- at the price of requiring a rather dense table.
Damage is a separate roll varying from 1d6-1 to 1d6+6 (there is a strength
bonus of 1 per two points over 12). Armor subtracts damage by 1 to 6 (plate)
points.
If hit, a character may chose to expend a blow parrying. Use PR minus CR to
determine which column to roll his d100 on in order to determine the result.
Damage is light compared a character's hit points. Even one of the rule
examples shrugs off as insignificant a single hit by a bowshot. In general,
it will take multiple hits in the same location to achieve any effect and
the rules go into detail on the cumulative effects of injuries for this
reason.
MAGIC
Magic and Clerical abilities are handled by grouping spells into a number of
Disciplines. In general, you make a skill roll to cast a spell. Targets get
saving throws (roll under a stat on a d20) modified by the spell and the DoM
of the caster.
And there's a spell point system to control how many spells you can cast.
There are a fair number of frills here like overspending spell points to
improve the effect and a fumble chart that tops out with the mage blowing
up.
It should be noted that the cleric abilities are based upon real life
religions: African religions, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism/Tao,
Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Norse, North American Indian, Satanism, Shinto and
Wicca.
MISC
Lots of extras are included. Like 205 pages of monsters, basic land use and
army maintenance (no mass combat rules however), and an entire section on
technology as the game is not limited to the Middle Ages (it has firearms
rules for example), weapon breakage, healing, etc.
--
Rule Comments
For my part, I like complex detailed systems. And one must commend the
effort that was put into this attempt.
But in the end, I'm lukewarm on Quest at best. No forget that, personally I
don't like it at all.
Quest has all the appearance of a homegrown attempt to improve AD&D. In fact
so much of it reminds me of D&D house rules that it's scary.
And like many D&D house rules, many of them are a great deal of fuss for
little effect.
Consider the race modifiers. These are minuses and bonuses to various stats,
but you can move these around at will during character generation. That +1
to Will can go just as easily go into Faith if the player so desires. The
modifiers don't effect assignment or upper or lower limits at all. In effect
the total modifiers for a race is nothing more than a flat bonus to the
total stat points so why not present them as such?
The use of real world races and religions is more than somewhat
disrespectful IMO and their presence is the reason for the low attitude
grade.
One humorous note is that Caucasians are the only race to get no bonuses
whatsoever (although the Norse do get a height bonus and therefore a plus to
BHP making them the best of the Caucasian world). One would have thought we
would have gotten a plus or two for the skill 'destroying other cultures' at
least.
There are 30 sub-phases, but the chart only goes up to 10 Blows. Even Star
Fleet Battles provided impulse charts with fewer sub-phases for those times
when no one was moving that fast.
The damage and armor balance is such that pace of decision (in physical
combat) is far too low for good tactical play in the style I prefer.
Instead we have an almost D&D like result of hit point attrition combined
with spell effects. A worthwhile style of resource management play, but not
something I like.
The Learning Rate rules are intended to protect niches while allowing
freedom of character concept. I imagine for short-term campaigns they will
do so reasonable well, but long-term campaigns that span generations like
mine (with NPCs that have been around for thousands of years) will find them
next to useless. The ceiling in each DoM assures that characters must
broaden into other niches eventually.
--
Closing Comments
Even though I didn't like Quest in the least, it does have value for those
who like elements of AD&D but just can't stand classes and the like. For the
most part, it is an improvement over AD&D covering some shortcomings while
creating new ones.
Some of the concepts are interesting (the tables combining the hit chance
and location into one for example) and the system is one of the most
complete I've even seen in the free RPG world.
It also has a bit of a following on the web, with a handful of sites
offering new rules and expansions.
Additionally it could make a useful resource for the expansion of other
systems.
But IMO, it just falls short. A good effort that doesn't offer enough new or
different to justify jumping whatever ship you're on now. An improvement on
D&D yes, but then again- what isn't?
Grades:
Attitude: D
Short Campaign Characters: C+
Long Campaign Characters: C+
Combat: C+
Magic: C+
Presentation: C-
Originality: C+
Overall: C
--
Brian Gleichman
glei...@mindspring.com
Age of Heroes: http://gleichman.home.mindspring.com/
Free RPG Reviews: http://gleichman.home.mindspring.com/Reviews.htm
Brian Gleichman
news:20000627222508...@ng-cf1.aol.com...
> << Each of the stats starts with a value of 14. Race (including the 'real
world
> ' races of Caucasian, African Black, Oriental and N.A. Indian) modifies
> these starting values >>
>
> Hmmm. Just how do these races modify attributes?
The stated intent is to give the following modifiers:
Caucasian: None (Norse only, +3" height)
African Black: +1 Magic Talent
Oriental: +1 Will (-3" height)
North American Indian: +1 Magic Talent
But the actual end result effect is just a simple +1 to any stat for African
Black,Oriental and N.A. Indian.
The height modifier does have a small impact on final Base Hit Points.
Bokman7757
' races of Caucasian, African Black, Oriental and N.A. Indian) modifies
Warren J. Dew
[Quest] cleric abilities are based upon real life
religions: African religions, Buddhism, Christianity,
Confucianism/Tao, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Norse,
North American Indian, Satanism, Shinto and Wicca.
Confucianism/Tao? Well, maybe the others are real world religions. Combining
Confucianism and Tao is kind of like combining Hinduism and Islam.
Warren Dew
Brian Gleichman
news:20000627232211...@ng-ch1.aol.com...
> Confucianism/Tao? Well, maybe the others are real world religions.
> Combining Confucianism and Tao is kind of like combining Hinduism and
> Islam.
But they're both from the east! :-)
The other fair little better. All are presented as little more than
stereotypes.
The rules actually somewhat state this for what it's worth (not much IMO) .
Peter Knutsen
Brian Gleichman wrote:
>
> This is my second review for the month of June and catches me up after
> missing May.
I'll repost your review to the QuestRPG mailing list.
Maybe it will affect the upcoming v2.2 rules, but don't bet on it,
the current maintainers seems to intend only minor changes from
v2.1->v2.2, as they're quite happy with the current rules. (unlike
me, I've made numerous small changes, tweaking the rules here and
there, to get them closer to what I feel is right. But overall I'd
have given Quest an A+ grade, using your grade system, as I find
it extremely playable with only a few small changes)
> This time, Lets take a look at Quest found at
> http://admin.engr.wisc.edu/quest/. The primary designer was Mike Greenholdt
> although Gene Masters and Todd Richmond are the ones who rewrote the system
> for distribution.
They're also the current maintainers.
And Quest used to be shareware (you downloaded it, and if you
liked it you paid a few dollars to Todd and Gene), but with the
v2.0 rules released in 1997, it became freeware.
> It is available in PDF, RTF, HTML (download only) and plain text. I
> downloaded the PDF for this review. While one downloads one zip file, it
> contains seven PDF files within it.
>
> Quest is a huge work coming in at 614 pages in the PDF version.
>
> This size limits me to only covering the most basic elements in this review
> leaving out many modifers and substeps. Indeed, this is the first game where
> I didn't have time to read every page so I hit what the highlights seem to
> be from the table of contents. Let's hope that key rules weren't buried in
> odd places.
I'll point out the (few) things you've overlooked.
> This system attempts to cover the entire kitchen sink of rules. There are
> rules here for land usage, rules for firearms, rules for religion, rules
> for.
Note that the rules for land usage are actually flawed!
I and Todd Richmond found out that last year, so those rules will
either be removed in v2.2, or be drastically changed.
It seems that no one has used those land usage rules, that's why
they were allowed to remain for so long. An artifact from the
time of Mike Greenholdt, AFAIK.
Also note that the rules for religion are really only rules
for advancing in the religious hiearchy, and for casting
clerical spells.
It seems to me like most characters without clerical skills
will opt for atheism as the default. I require a choice of
religion from all PCs in my campaign, though, because it
fits the setting (alternate history: medieval Europe with
magic. Religion is a major issue, so atheism isn't really an
option, especially not when religious magic works)
> Well there are just plain a lot of rules, I almost started to expect to see
> rules for rules :-)
There aren't any meta-rules for how to change, add or remove rules
from Quest :-)
> This is a game for those who want rules for just about everything.
I use the term fudge-light as a contrast to the common view which
is to praise systems for being rules-light.
> The division of the PDF files is also telling. There is a player's handbook,
> a monster manual, and GM manual and a World book. Sound familiar?
The v2.2 rules will contain only 3 books. They will be of more
symmetrical lengths as the "Operations Manual" (the GM's Book)
will be merged with the World Book (which, incidentally, does
not describe a setting but gives the GM information necesarry
for creating his own) and the Technical Appendix.
Note that the Monster Book also contains guidelines for creating
new monsters. Suggestions on attributes, physiology, attack
methods and such.
> It really looks like someone loved all the information AD&D gave the gaming
> world, but just didn't like the details. So here we have Quest, Mike
> Greenholdt's idea of what AD&D should have been.
Yes, that's always been my impression too. I tend to think of
Quest as "AD&D Done Right", with skills and without hitpoint
inflation.
> Of course, that's all just a guess mind you.
I can't verify your guess, as I wasn't present when Quest was
created[1], but I've heard (from old time players) that once
upon a time it had random attribute rolling. 3d6 per attribute.
It also emulates a lot of AD&D concepts, the most notable one
is the Backstab ability of the AD&D Thief class, which gets its
own skill, Assassin. And of course the distinction between
mage magic and clerical magic, although it's sharper in Quest
than in AD&D.
> --
> Style Comments:
>
> The rules are presented in an understandable enough way. Although I seen
> worse organization, I had to do a lot of page flipping to put together some
> basic concepts. This puts it on par with most typical games these days.
>
> I do like the PDF. It allows one great freedom to arrange your work in the
> best method for presentation while insuring an accurate printed copy,
> something quite difficult in any other format. Reading online is more
> trouble due to its fuzzy appearance, but the navigation pane IMO makes up
> for this.
>
> However.
>
> The navigation pane is missing. Here we have hundreds of pages and no
> navigation pane. No internal hyperlinks either. I was dying for a navigation
> pane.
Yes, the text isn't very quick to nagivate, regardless of what
format it comes in.
I ended up making the Handbook into a HTML hypertext last year,
with toplinks to each chapter and then sublinks to each section
of each chapter.
Not so much because I needed it, once you're thoroughly familiar
with the layout it's easy to find stuff, but because I'm lazy
and impatient, and anything being at the most 1 second away
(figurin 3 clicks each taking 1/3 second) is a luxury :-)
The HTML version you can download from the site isn't very
good for navigation either. IIRC it has too many hyperlinks
(one per DoM of each skill, which is serious overkill!)
> The text is also presented in a single column. Written works of this length
> should never use only one wide column for material intended to be printed.
Also a good point. I've only made printouts of the mage spell
and cleric spell sections, and I changed the layout drastically,
reducing the font to size 8 and introduced 2 columns. That ensured
that each of the two chapters could fit on slightly more than 20
pages.
I also flipped the paper 90 degrees, though. It seems awkward
to use columns on a vertical A4 or Letter-size sheet.
> The large font size works to expand the page count but does make it somewhat
> easier to read. I didn't check, but I think dropping the font size down to
> 10 point may halve the page count.
I'm not quite sure. The RTF (which I converted to Word) version
of the Handbook used a 12 point font, and the Mage and Cleric
chapters each took up about 40 pages. Reducing the font to 8 point
almost halved the page count (I think from 38 to 22 pages per
chapter, or thereabouts)
8 point Times is a bit of an eyestrainer, but not much. Again it
helps if you're familiar with the system, if you're not. I
recommend not going below 10 point Times, or else skimming
the text to look for information gets hard.
> --
> General Rules Overview:
>
> CHARACTERS
>
> Characters have nine primary stats: Physical Strength (there's no other
> strength stat, why do we need the 'Physical' adjective), Manual Dexterity
> (the 'manual' adjective is almost justifiable since some people get
> confused, but if they're willing to read these rules shouldn't they be able
> to deal with it?), Agility (Wait a minute! What happened to the pointless
> adjective? Shouldn't that be Bodily Agility?)...
I tend to be lazy and just write Strength and Dexterity anyway.
> Ok, enough.
>
> I'm just being silly now. But hey, you try to read 614 pages for a review
> and see if you can avoid focusing on the trivial.
>
> Where were we?
>
> On yes, the nine primary stats: Physical Strength, Manual Dexterity,
> Agility, Constitution, Intelligence, Magic Talent, Faith, Will and
> Leadership.
>
> Each of the stats starts with a value of 14. Race (including the 'real world
> ' races of Caucasian, African Black, Oriental and N.A. Indian) modifies
> these starting values, but gender doesn't (the rules give permission for the
> GM to make up his own gender modifiers, however they flatly deny him the
> right to do so for dwarves).
That's because the nonhuman species as portrayed in Quest has a
very mythological feel. Dwarves almost have bodies of stone.
And it's traditional (Tolkien did it too, and Pratchett) to
have very little sexual dimorphism in Dwarves.
Faeries are also hurt by contact with iron - they aren't the
typical fantasy elves.
But I'm not using the nonhuman species as portrayed in Quest,
and neither is Todd Richmond (from what I've heard). They aren't
strongly integrated into the rules system, so it's easy to
change them or forbid them.
> I couldn't find exactly where the rules tell me the meaning of these
> numbers. It seems that values of 10-12 are average. There is no maximum, but
> since I found no way to raise stats after play starts that may not be that
> important.
There aren't any text that explains the meaning of the various
values. I tried writing one last year, but it came out rather bad,
and it's not something I think is good enough for distribution.
The average attribute for a human is indeed 12, but you have to
read a lot of text and perform major deductions to figure it
out. It should have been mentioned somewhere.
And there are rules for raising attributes after play starts,
look unde "Chapter VII: General Discipines" under "Statistic
Improvement"
> You get to add 1d6+2 points to stats of your choice. You can also move
> points around between stats. Raising anything above 18 requires double the
> points and something above 20 doubles again. The 1d6+2 points can also be
> used for to increase your starting experience or alter your height and a few
> other things.
Altering height is almost never worth the effort, as you only
gain 1" per Floater. It's much more beneficial to gain 1
point of CN or DX or MT or any of the other attributes instead.
I ended up making a house rule that said you get 1d6+1" of
extra Height per Floater spent, to make it a viable option.
> There are rolls you make to determine height and weight (again modified by
> race, but not gender) and handedness. You get to pick your age but it should
> be noted that Quest includes no age modifiers (apparently age is no more
> important than gender in the eyes of the designer).
Quest assumes that starting characters will be very young, age
18 to 20 for humans.
I made house rules, last year, to simulate starting a character
one or two levels of maturity higher (about 6-8 years older, about
15-20 years older, respectively).
> There are number of calculated stats like:
>
> CR: Combat Rating (3*Manual Dexterity + Agility + Intellect)/20
> DR: Defensive Rating (2*Agility) + Will)/15
> PR: Parry Rating (3*Manual Dexterity + 2* Physical Strength + Will) /40
> BHP: Base Hit Points: Weight in pounds/100 * Constitution.
>
> Skills are broken into seven groups: Cleric, Fighter, Mage, Open, Technical,
> Thief and General. A character picks one of these as primary and gains a 10%
> learning bonus on any skill within that group.
You can't pick General as your "Primary Skill Class", though.
Quite fair since it only contains 4 "skills".
> Everyone gets 3000 experience points to spend on starting skills. The value
> of these 3000 points varies depending upon the skills you purchase. Each
> skill is controlled by a number of stats that determine your base skill roll
> and your learning rate. Learning rates modify the experience cost to
> purchase a skill, for example a Learning rate of 115% means one need only
> spend 87 experience points to learn a 100-experience point DoM.
Learning Rate doesn't vary much. A low-talent Human with
Strength 10 and Dexterity 10 (human average is 12) will have
a Broadsword LR of 50%, while a very high-talent Human with
Strength 20 and Dexterity 20 will have a Broadsword LR of 100%.
One thing worth mentioning is that characters start with
very few skills. Broad skills, though. The norm seems to
be between 3 and 7 skills, with 7 being rather uncommon,
but as many as 9-19 possible if the player wants a jack-
of-all-trades.
> Skills are called Disciplines and skill levels are referred to as DoM
> (degrees of mastery). Disciplines have varying maximum levels running the
> range of 1-11 with some Discipline adding bonuses to others. Advance Melee
> weaponry for example adds on top of two-handed edge.
There are few cases where you can get a second Discipline to add
on top after you've maxed out in the first one. Meelee Weaponry,
Missile Weaponry, Logos, Enchantments, Runics. I think that's it.
(except for a few religions, where Appeals is followed by Greater
Appeals)
The two spellweaving discpiplines, Mystic Theory and Theology,
doesn't have a max DoM, you can continue to improve them. Same
for the clerical skill Piety.
> Let's do an example: Edge weapons 1-handed has a learning rate of Manual
> Dexterity + Physical Strength divided by two. Assuming you have 16 in each
> stat, you end up with a Base Skill Roll of 16 and a learning rate of 16*5 or
> 80%. If it was your chosen primary skill area, it goes up to 90%.
Most LR formulas are a bit more complex, though. For Bow it's
(Strength+Dexterity+Dexterity)/4, so you have to calculte
weighted averages. It's reasonably fast with a calculator,
and lightning fast with the spreadsheet, though.
> SKILL RESOLUTION
>
> Resolution is real simple, roll under your Skill Roll (after modifiers) on a
> d20. I saw nothing that covered opposing skill tests although it could have
> be buried in some spot I didn't look. There was no specific 'how to resolve
> skill attempts' section to these rules.
There aren't any rules (not even guidelines) for resolving opposed
skill tests.
Also, the few guidelines there are for resolving skill rolls
are in the respective skill descriptions. To see how to resolve
Stealth, look under the Stealth skill. Also, lots of additional
rules are in each of the skill sections. There are rules for
special weapons under the Craftsman skill, for instance.
A short section in the Opsman on how to resolve skill rolls
might have been a good idea.
The Skill Roll system is rather simple, IMO, compared to the
other sections of the rules, and I'm working on adding a little
bit to complexity here, in my house rules.
> So we have Disciplines like Outdoorsmen that allows you to track, but
> apparently does nothing to aid you in covering your tracks.
I got the impression from Outdoorsman that it allowed you to do
just about anythig wilderness-related, which would include
hunting and covering up your tracks (or travelling in such a
way that you leave very faint tracks).
It doesn't say it, in the description, but Quest uses very
broad skills, so you can sometimes (not always) assume that any
activity is covered in one of the skills.
> COMBAT
>
> We have a combat round broken into 30 1-second sub-phases. A character has a
> number of 'Blows' determined by his combat skills (The chart shows these
> ranging from one to ten) that determine which sub-phases he acts in. Those
> familiar with the impulse chart from Star Fleet's Battles or Hero System's
> speed chart will recognize the method.
>
> 'Blows' are a combat action. Be it attack or parry or other option.
>
> Attacks are resolved by comparing the Attacking CR against the defending DR
> and roll d100 on the provided charts. The chart determines both the success
> and hit location struck at the same time, a neat trick and a time saving
> feature- at the price of requiring a rather dense table.
I think the best part is that if two skilled combatants goes up
against each other, you don't get an endless string of "I hit",
"I parry", "I hit", "I parry", which you'd get if you used
skill checks on individual skills (roll under to-hit. Roll
under to-parry...)
Also, the fact that you don't have to be a 97th Dan black
belt ninja to gain more than one attack per round is neat.
It makes it easy to recreate the "heroicness" of a skilled
fighter fending off two or three less skilled opponents.
Look at how much trouble GURPS has with allowing things like
this.
> Damage is a separate roll varying from 1d6-1 to 1d6+6 (there is a strength
> bonus of 1 per two points over 12). Armor subtracts damage by 1 to 6 (plate)
> points.
High Carbon Steel plate mail will subtract 8 points. It's also
fairly easy to cast a defensive spell that gives 2 more points
of damage absorption. And likewise a spell that increases
weapon damage by 2 more points.
Edged weapons can be made with AFT (Advanced Forging Technique)
which adds 1 point to damage, and made of superior steels which
allows them to ignore 1 or 2 points of enemy armour (more for
Titanium Steel and Tungsten Carbide, but then we're far away
from medieval/rennaissance techology).
So while a normal broadsword does 1d6+2 damage, a strong
character (Strength 18 is typical among fighter-type PCs)
wielding an AFT sword made of HCS (High Carbon Steel) and
temporarily improved with a Pushed "Weapon Energize I"
spell, will do 1d6+8 points of damage while being able to
ignore 2 points of enemy nonmagical armour, which in most
cases is the same as being able to do 1d6+10 points of
damage.
If using a greatsword, damage would be 1d6+14.
Likewise, a character wearing HCS plate mail and under the
protection of a "Damage Shield I" spell would have a
damage absorption of 10 points.
So the system scales well. If you want to reward a character
with a better weapon, there are intermediate steps between
the average iron broadsword and the magic broadsword+1.
> If hit, a character may chose to expend a blow parrying. Use PR minus CR to
> determine which column to roll his d100 on in order to determine the result.
>
> Damage is light compared a character's hit points. Even one of the rule
> examples shrugs off as insignificant a single hit by a bowshot. In general,
> it will take multiple hits in the same location to achieve any effect and
> the rules go into detail on the cumulative effects of injuries for this
> reason.
IF you use a high-tech weapon, and/or improves it with temporary
magic to increase damage (as I said, +2 damage is trivial to
achieve), weapons are a bit more dangerous.
But Quest states somewhere that combat is on purpose slightly less
dangerous than in the real world.
And you have a point regarding arrows. I'd like them to be a bit
more lethal (also spears), but I haven't found out a good way of
doing it yes. A rule similar to GURPS, where impaling weapons
do more damage if they manage to penetrate armour, maybe. I'm
thinking of 33% more damage.
But I'm not sure it's a good idea. And IMO meelee weapons
and spell damage is okay. Longbows aren't too bad either.
They do 1d6+3 damage, likely to be improved to 1d6+5 due
to Strength Damage Bonus from the archer, and using AFT
arrowheads.
> MAGIC
>
> Magic and Clerical abilities are handled by grouping spells into a number of
> Disciplines. In general, you make a skill roll to cast a spell. Targets get
> saving throws (roll under a stat on a d20) modified by the spell and the DoM
> of the caster.
Or to clarify: Quest uses sequential spell lists, somewhat
similar to those found in MERP and Rolemaster. (It wouldn't
surprise me if that's where Mike Greenholdt got his inspiration
from).
IMO it's easier to have to select a few spell lists, instead of
having to micromanage the learning of dozens of individual
spells. The only problem is that you can't just add a new
spell, or remove one. If you add a 4th DoM spell to the Fire
magic list, you have to remove the existing 4th DoM spell. Or
allow the DoM to contain two spells, which is rarely done
because it's messy.
The rules for casting spells are also a bit more detailed than
the rules for using other skills. In fact it would be fair to
say that Quest has three resolution systems.
One for resolvig combat attacks and parries
One for resolving spell casting
One for resolving use of noncombat/nonspell skills
> And there's a spell point system to control how many spells you can cast.
And the number of SPP goes up as you become more skilled. I've
found it a problem in many spell point systems that your PC
tends to be stuck with the number of Spell Points he starts
out with, or at most can increase the number very slowly.
> There are a fair number of frills here like overspending spell points to
> improve the effect and a fumble chart that tops out with the mage blowing
> up.
>
> It should be noted that the cleric abilities are based upon real life
> religions: African religions, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism/Tao,
> Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Norse, North American Indian, Satanism, Shinto and
> Wicca.
One of the coolest features in my opinion. Instead of dealing
with shallow madeup religions, you get to work with ones that
has a lot of meat on them, a lot of philosophical baggage. It's
much more fun being a Wiccan cleric than a priest of Luthineera.
> MISC
>
> Lots of extras are included. Like 205 pages of monsters, basic land use and
> army maintenance (no mass combat rules however), and an entire section on
> technology as the game is not limited to the Middle Ages (it has firearms
> rules for example), weapon breakage, healing, etc.
As I said earlier, the rules for land use (="economy") are
flawed badly. As far as I know, none of the other rules are
downright flawed (as in: producing insane results just about
every time you apply them)
Rules for Mass Combat are on Todd Richmond's wishlist, but he
hasn't had time to make some good ones yet. Chances are they'll
be in a future version of Quest, but probably not v2.2.
And while Quest has been used for modern and futuristic
campaigns (not by me, but by Todd, Gene, and others), I'd
say it works best for fantasy. Or Space Opera. You could do
a pretty good Star Wars or Dune with Quest. But not serious
science fiction, IMO.
> --
> Rule Comments
>
> For my part, I like complex detailed systems. And one must commend the
> effort that was put into this attempt.
>
> But in the end, I'm lukewarm on Quest at best. No forget that, personally I
> don't like it at all.
>
> Quest has all the appearance of a homegrown attempt to improve AD&D. In fact
> so much of it reminds me of D&D house rules that it's scary.
It's more like D&D torn down to rubble and then rebuilt, really.
I detect D&D, but I haven't found any of the detestable stuff
in Quest. Things are done in ways that are more flexible,
logical, intuitive and realistic than in D&D.
> And like many D&D house rules, many of them are a great deal of fuss for
> little effect.
>
> Consider the race modifiers. These are minuses and bonuses to various stats,
> but you can move these around at will during character generation. That +1
> to Will can go just as easily go into Faith if the player so desires. The
> modifiers don't effect assignment or upper or lower limits at all. In effect
> the total modifiers for a race is nothing more than a flat bonus to the
> total stat points so why not present them as such?
Yes, that is a problem. I've ended up having such modifies
affecting the treshhold values, the values at which it costs
more to improve attributes.
So if a player wants to create a Dwarf character (which is not
likely, as I prefer PCs to be Human), and Dwarves gets a +2
Constitution modifier, then they can also improve Constitution
up to 20 at normal cost, then up to 22 at double cost and
up to 24 at quadruple cost.
And I'm not sure if something like that is the spirit of
the rules already. It isn't stated clearly, but it seemed
like it to me, early on. Only it can't be intended, because
if you have a "Very Light" Build, you gain +4 Agility. If
you're also a Halfling (a halfbreed Human/Faerie, in Quest)
you gain an additional +2 Agility.
So should this move the Treshhold for Agility up from 18 to
24? It seems easy to abuse to me, and according to Todd
Richmond modifiers from Build should not work that way.
But I've ended up moving the Treshhold halfway, so someone
with a Light Build gets an Agility Treshhold of 19, and
someone with a Very Light Build gets a Treshhold of 20.
At the same time, the Strength Treshhold is lowered by
1, respectively 2 points..
> The use of real world races and religions is more than somewhat
> disrespectful IMO and their presence is the reason for the low attitude
> grade.
The realworld races are a lot more trouble than they're worth,
and chances are they won't be in the v2.2 rules (I brought it
up on the mailing list), but the realworld religions are fun.
They will offend someone, but I like having a vast amount of
philosophical baggage to play with, something that is
nonexistent in the average made up fantasy RPG religion.
Quest also shows how different clerics can be, and GMs can create
their own religions, taking inspiration from those presented in
the Handbook. It's a lot of work, though, creating new spell
lists and Hierarchies and such, so I assume the default is that
people who play Quest will just use the existing religions,
even if they play in a madeup world (I don't, I play in an
alternate history medieval Europe, something Quest lends itself
well to)
> One humorous note is that Caucasians are the only race to get no bonuses
> whatsoever (although the Norse do get a height bonus and therefore a plus to
> BHP making them the best of the Caucasian world). One would have thought we
> would have gotten a plus or two for the skill 'destroying other cultures' at
> least.
There is a catch to playing a Norse character, although it isn't
mentioned in the rules (Gene Masters told me on the mailing list,
last year). If you're of Norse heritage (regardless of whether
you follow the Norse religion, Christianity, or what), when you
die, your soul goes to the death realm (either Odin or Hel,
depending on whether you've been brave and manly or a coward)
and you can't be raised from the dead. Characters of the other
four human "races" does not have this effect.
I don't play with races at all in my campaign. If a player wants
to have a negroid character from North Africa, then he follows
the same rules as for Caucasians.
The reason for having racial distinctions is that Caucasians
have access to comparatively high technology (in GURPS terms
TL 3 tech, even some TL 4 tech), while the Afrians and
Indians are much more primitive, when it comes to technology.
So it's an advantage to be a Caucasian (being able to start with
technical skills like Craftsman, Chemistry/Metallurgy), and to
balance the races, a bonus was given to non-Caucasians.
It's still messy, and I hope v2.2 will treat the race/culture
issue in a more sensitive matter, even though the current
racial rules doesn't offend any save the most PC-sensitive.
> There are 30 sub-phases, but the chart only goes up to 10 Blows. Even Star
> Fleet Battles provided impulse charts with fewer sub-phases for those times
> when no one was moving that fast.
Each subphase represents one second, so it makes timing things
easier. Also, the movement rules are reasonably realistic (in
terms or what a person can run or sprint), and many spells
takes 30 or 60 or 90 seconds to cast, so removing the blowfree
subphases is not a good idea.
I've made an inverse-blows table, though. For each number of
blows from 1 to 10, I've listed the suphases in which they
occur. Then each player (and each NPC) can write on the
character sheet for each weapon: "blow at suhpbase 15" or
"blows at subphases 8 and 23" and so on. Basically you
check how many blows you have (say, 4), and then look up
in the inverse table which suphases they occur on.
> The damage and armor balance is such that pace of decision (in physical
> combat) is far too low for good tactical play in the style I prefer.
> Instead we have an almost D&D like result of hit point attrition combined
> with spell effects. A worthwhile style of resource management play, but not
> something I like.
What happens is bodypart hitpoint attrition, though. Fights
tend to end when one combatant has lost the use of an arm or
a leg, rarely from blood loss or loss of total body hitpoints.
> The Learning Rate rules are intended to protect niches while allowing
> freedom of character concept. I imagine for short-term campaigns they will
> do so reasonable well, but long-term campaigns that span generations like
> mine (with NPCs that have been around for thousands of years) will find them
> next to useless. The ceiling in each DoM assures that characters must
> broaden into other niches eventually.
Yes, you get Experience even when performing routine work.
A smith doing smith things, even if they are trivially easy for
him (a master smith and metallurgist forging bronze arrowheads)
gets 5 EP per day. Over the short term (a few years, maybe half
adventuring half non-adventuring) it doesn't matter, but if you
play with year-long intervals between adventures (or decades)
then characters will tend to max out in their skills.
Nothing prevents a character from training a skill, day after
day, gaining 15 EP per day. Or being taught by a more skilled
character, to gain 30 EP per day (assuming he can pay for
tuition, or the teacher is willing to work for no pay)
I plan on introducing short downtime intervals in my campaign,
a couple of months or so, where the characters can train or
perform work, between adventures. But if you go generational,
you have to have players who are really heavy on psychological
realism ("my character would rather read poetry than practice
his longbow skill") to avoid them getting too powerfull.
And I can't expect such things of players. I mean, if a
character is aware that, at some point, he is going to go
up against an evil lich or a master demonologist, and he knows
that his Broadsword or Theology skill is lacking, then isn't
it realistic that he's spend much of his time honing that
skill?
> --
> Brian Gleichman
One thing you seem to have overlooked is that the Leadership
attribute is far less usefull than the other eight.
Quest does a good job at balancing the other eight, but
Leadership is just plain less useful, so players will tend
to lower it, to get more poins to put in other attributes.
At one point, there was talk on the QuestRPG mailing list
about removing Leadership from the next version of the rules,
but I managed to stop that (IMO the Diplomat is a viable
character concept). I've also made a bunch of house rules
to make Leadership more significant in my campaign, so that
players can feel free to lower it, knowing that they're
making a balanced choice rather than getting free points.
And one final note: You can find additional support material
for Quest via my link collection
http://www.knutsen.dk/quest.htm
The second site on the list is particularly interesting,
because it's there you can get the latest version of the
Quest character creation MS Excel spreadsheet.
--
Peter Knutsen
[1] in 1985, according to a friendly e-mail I recieved a
few days ago. I've long been curious about the exact
age of Quest, but I falsely estimated its age to be
18 or maybe even 20 years, instead of 15.
Brian Gleichman
news:3959E8BD...@knutsen.dk...
> I'll repost your review to the QuestRPG mailing list.
Ok. Is there any way I can follow any resulting discussion (assuming there
is one)?
> Note that the rules for land usage are actually flawed!
Can't same I'm surprised. I haven't seen any rules for that area that didn't
actually fall apart with used. In general, I think the best idea is to give
an rough idea of the resources that can be called on instead of attempting a
complete sim.
Although I'm always interested in any attempt and I think Warren has some
stuff along this line if he ever manages to complete his html write-up.
I almost started to give them a once over, but I had enough as it was for
the review. For the same reason I passed over during a detail write up of
the combat tables.
On a related subject, do you know the source (and accuracy) for the creature
weights given?
> It seems to me like most characters without clerical skills
> will opt for atheism as the default.
It certainly wouldn't matter if they did or not.
And what happen to the concept of a Knight needing a high Faith? According
to the old traditions in some lines, that's rather important.
> There aren't any meta-rules for how to change, add or remove rules
> from Quest :-)
Yes there! One anyway.
You *can't* impose gender modifiers on dwarves! :-)
> Yes, that's always been my impression too. I tend to think of
> Quest as "AD&D Done Right", with skills and without hitpoint
> inflation.
I can see that description be applied.
> I can't verify your guess, as I wasn't present when Quest was
> created[1], but I've heard (from old time players) that once
> upon a time it had random attribute rolling. 3d6 per attribute.
That makes sense and explains the racial modifiers better. And the reason
for the rather silly- start all stats at 14 rule (it should be: split
128+1d6 points as you wish).
Carry over from other methods. Stat modifiers work with random rolling.
Point assignment however requires difference min/max and costing rules.
> And there are rules for raising attributes after play starts,
> look unde "Chapter VII: General Discipines" under "Statistic
> Improvement"
So stat improvement is a skill. Makes sense in a way given how the system
works. Never would have thought to look there though.
> There aren't any rules (not even guidelines) for resolving opposed
> skill tests.
A major oversight really. There's no plans to change this?
> > So we have Disciplines like Outdoorsmen that allows you to track, but
> > apparently does nothing to aid you in covering your tracks.
>
> I got the impression from Outdoorsman that it allowed you to do
> just about anythig wilderness-related, which would include
> hunting and covering up your tracks (or travelling in such a
> way that you leave very faint tracks).
It doesn't say anything about covering your tracks although I'd toss it in
under that skill if the question ever came up. Of course if it did, I'd have
no idea how to determine if the tracking outdoorsmen was fooled or not.
> I think the best part is that if two skilled combatants goes up
> against each other, you don't get an endless string of "I hit",
> "I parry", "I hit", "I parry", which you'd get if you used
> skill checks on individual skills (roll under to-hit. Roll
> under to-parry...)
The impulse mechanic is a good method to avoid this. And even more complex
one is Action Points.
Or you can use with modifiers to one's hit and parry chances such that you
avoid the 98% hit, 98% parry problem completely.
> Also, the fact that you don't have to be a 97th Dan black
> belt ninja to gain more than one attack per round is neat.
> It makes it easy to recreate the "heroicness" of a skilled
> fighter fending off two or three less skilled opponents.
> Look at how much trouble GURPS has with allowing things like
> this.
Hero is good at this, but uses a similar method. RuneQuest manages it to
some degree by the use counter attacks if the attack rolls missing by enough
(skilled defenders will be missed more) but drops the ball in other ways.
> > And there's a spell point system to control how many spells you can
cast.
>
> And the number of SPP goes up as you become more skilled. I've
> found it a problem in many spell point systems that your PC
> tends to be stuck with the number of Spell Points he starts
> out with, or at most can increase the number very slowly.
Rolemaster (similar in both spell points and spell lists in many ways) has
vast increases in spell points, as have many such systems I've looked at.
> One of the coolest features in my opinion. Instead of dealing
> with shallow madeup religions, you get to work with ones that
> has a lot of meat on them, a lot of philosophical baggage. It's
> much more fun being a Wiccan cleric than a priest of Luthineera.
Says you.
I'd rather not have my religion portrayed as a stereotype and I'd rather not
view others through those same limits. Your games may well go beyond the
limit of the systems write-up, but I can't see your game.
In any can, while it may work well in specific campaigns, but I don't think
such a approach should be pushed off on people looking for a non-world
specific ruleset.
> It's more like D&D torn down to rubble and then rebuilt, really.
>
> I detect D&D, but I haven't found any of the detestable stuff
> in Quest. Things are done in ways that are more flexible,
> logical, intuitive and realistic than in D&D.
I had major 'Blackmoor' flash backs on the hit location rules and the skill
are so close to a breakup and reassemble of the D&D class abilities that it
was overwhelming at times.
Rubble and rebuilt? I guess I can agree with that, but than again I think
that can be said of many house rule D&D campaigns I've seen.
> It's still messy, and I hope v2.2 will treat the race/culture
> issue in a more sensitive matter, even though the current
> racial rules doesn't offend any save the most PC-sensitive.
I was somewhat offended and I'm far from PC.
> Each subphase represents one second, so it makes timing things
> easier. Also, the movement rules are reasonably realistic (in
> terms or what a person can run or sprint), and many spells
> takes 30 or 60 or 90 seconds to cast, so removing the blowfree
> subphases is not a good idea.
Reduce the chart to 3 second pulses, change your spell timing to 10, 20 and
30 pulse casting requirements. Done.
> What happens is bodypart hitpoint attrition, though. Fights
> tend to end when one combatant has lost the use of an arm or
> a leg, rarely from blood loss or loss of total body hitpoints.
Reference my comment on _Blackmoor_ flashbacks.
I don't really see bodypart attrition being a improvement. Why not just use
hitpoints and a table to determine the after effects depending upon how
negative you are?
The end result (if the battles end as you claim above) would be identical
and time and effort would be saved. Plus I'm not left with the mental image
of two three mighty blows being need to put an arm out of action.
In general, I think hit locations should only be used in system that have a
high chance to disable on a single hit.
> One thing you seem to have overlooked is that the Leadership
> attribute is far less usefull than the other eight.
True, but I'm will to pass on this somewhat since the mass combat rules were
missing. I assumed that it would be a stat of primary importance there and
that the fact that army maintenance rules existed indicated that such rules
were on the way.
I may have been too optimistic.
Scott Barrie
Note my .sig for bias. (:
>From: "Brian Gleichman" <glei...@mindspring.com>
>CHARACTERS
>Each of the stats starts with a value of 14. Race (including the 'real world
>' races of Caucasian, African Black, Oriental and N.A. Indian) modifies
>these starting values, but gender doesn't (the rules give permission for the
>GM to make up his own gender modifiers, however they flatly deny him the
>right to do so for dwarves).
Human race differences will be gone in the next edition, or so I hear.
I didn't remember the rule about female dwarves. Damn strange, that.
:/
>SKILL RESOLUTION
>
>Resolution is real simple, roll under your Skill Roll (after modifiers) on a
>d20. I saw nothing that covered opposing skill tests although it could have
>be buried in some spot I didn't look. There was no specific 'how to resolve
>skill attempts' section to these rules.
>So we have Disciplines like Outdoorsmen that allows you to track, but
>apparently does nothing to aid you in covering your tracks.
The absence of skill vs skill (or stat vs stat) rules are especially
annoying considering how easy they would be (were) to add to the
system.
>COMBAT
>Damage is a separate roll varying from 1d6-1 to 1d6+6 (there is a strength
>bonus of 1 per two points over 12). Armor subtracts damage by 1 to 6 (plate)
>points.
>
>If hit, a character may chose to expend a blow parrying. Use PR minus CR to
>determine which column to roll his d100 on in order to determine the result.
>
>Damage is light compared a character's hit points. Even one of the rule
>examples shrugs off as insignificant a single hit by a bowshot. In general,
>it will take multiple hits in the same location to achieve any effect and
>the rules go into detail on the cumulative effects of injuries for this
>reason.
In my experience, a single blow is frequently enough to eliminate a
combatant with light armour. Arms tend to have from 3 to 5 hit points,
so without heavy armour it's quite easy to incapacitate an arm. The
head has the same HP as an arm, but an attack which does only half
the head's hit points will still "Stun" the recipient. A stunned
fighter rarely gets to recover unless they have competent friends.
It's also easy to stun with a torso hit.
>MAGIC
>
>Magic and Clerical abilities are handled by grouping spells into a number of
>Disciplines.
Note that the modular nature of spell lists makes it trivial to ban
some types of magic and to introduce your own spell lists.
>Rule Comments
>
>For my part, I like complex detailed systems. And one must commend the
>effort that was put into this attempt.
>
>But in the end, I'm lukewarm on Quest at best. No forget that, personally I
>don't like it at all.
>
>Quest has all the appearance of a homegrown attempt to improve AD&D. In fact
>so much of it reminds me of D&D house rules that it's scary.
I agree absolutely. It's a D&D replacement, but without bad D&D legacy
rules. It isn't boldly claiming new territory for RPGs, it's
solidifying our hold on the heartland.
>Consider the race modifiers. These are minuses and bonuses to various stats,
>but you can move these around at will during character generation. That +1
>to Will can go just as easily go into Faith if the player so desires. The
>modifiers don't effect assignment or upper or lower limits at all. In effect
>the total modifiers for a race is nothing more than a flat bonus to the
>total stat points so why not present them as such?
The upper stat values of 18 and 20 are modified by race, build, etc.
At least that's how I've interpreted it. :) Hopefully next edition
will make this clear.
>The use of real world races and religions is more than somewhat
>disrespectful IMO and their presence is the reason for the low attitude
>grade.
Human race differences will be gone in the next edition, or so I hear.
>There are 30 sub-phases, but the chart only goes up to 10 Blows. Even Star
>Fleet Battles provided impulse charts with fewer sub-phases for those times
>when no one was moving that fast.
Agreed. In fact, most players won't go above 4 blows. That's why I hid
the speed chart from my players for the first six months of play. :)
>The damage and armor balance is such that pace of decision (in physical
>combat) is far too low for good tactical play in the style I prefer.
>Instead we have an almost D&D like result of hit point attrition combined
>with spell effects. A worthwhile style of resource management play, but not
>something I like.
This happens with heavily armoured fighters only, in my experience.
Even then single head shots have turned entire combats around.
>The Learning Rate rules are intended to protect niches while allowing
>freedom of character concept. I imagine for short-term campaigns they will
>do so reasonable well, but long-term campaigns that span generations like
>mine (with NPCs that have been around for thousands of years) will find them
>next to useless. The ceiling in each DoM assures that characters must
>broaden into other niches eventually.
Agreed. Quest does not suit generational campaigns.
>--
>Closing Comments
>
>Even though I didn't like Quest in the least, it does have value for those
>who like elements of AD&D but just can't stand classes and the like. For the
>most part, it is an improvement over AD&D covering some shortcomings while
>creating new ones.
>But IMO, it just falls short. A good effort that doesn't offer enough new or
>different to justify jumping whatever ship you're on now. An improvement on
>D&D yes, but then again- what isn't?
Why pick up Quest? If you secretly enjoyed D&D campaigns, but just
didn't like the rules, Quest is a fine alternative and is considerably
cheaper than D&D 3E.
I picked it up because many people in my gaming group wanted to play
D&D, but I didn't want to run it. Quest was a compromise which paid
off well (although I'd still rather be playing Over the Edge). Of
course, this success is now sabotaging my efforts to introduce new
game systems...
>Grades:
> Attitude: D
> Short Campaign Characters: C+
> Long Campaign Characters: C+
> Combat: C+
> Magic: C+
> Presentation: C-
> Originality: C+
>
>Overall: C
I'd give it a B- overall, but I suspect that the next edition will
bump that up to a B+ by fixing many of the problems (like human
races).
FYI, I plan to place a one page "How to Play Quest" document on my
webpage around Friday which will summarize how to use the rules. No
more hunting around to learn how to conduct combat, resolve a skill or
cast a spell. Not that my webpage should affect this review in any
way.
Scott B. Barrie Physics Grad Student
Quest Free RPG -AD&D flavour, but without
the annoying parts. And I didn't write it
http://trollsden.physics.uwo.ca/quest.htm
Scott Barrie
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>"Peter Knutsen" <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote in message
>news:3959E8BD...@knutsen.dk...
>And what happen to the concept of a Knight needing a high Faith? According
>to the old traditions in some lines, that's rather important.
Knighthood isn't directly covered in Quest. However, it is safe to
assume that a knight would require a certain DoM in Christian
Hierarchy, which is based partially on Faith. Theology may also be
necessary.
>> I can't verify your guess, as I wasn't present when Quest was
>> created[1], but I've heard (from old time players) that once
>> upon a time it had random attribute rolling. 3d6 per attribute.
>
>That makes sense and explains the racial modifiers better. And the reason
>for the rather silly- start all stats at 14 rule (it should be: split
>128+1d6 points as you wish).
>
>Carry over from other methods. Stat modifiers work with random rolling.
>Point assignment however requires difference min/max and costing rules.
Yep. That's the logical way of handling it.
>> One of the coolest features in my opinion. Instead of dealing
>> with shallow madeup religions, you get to work with ones that
>> has a lot of meat on them, a lot of philosophical baggage. It's
>> much more fun being a Wiccan cleric than a priest of Luthineera.
>
>Says you.
>
>I'd rather not have my religion portrayed as a stereotype and I'd rather not
>view others through those same limits. Your games may well go beyond the
>limit of the systems write-up, but I can't see your game.
>
>In any can, while it may work well in specific campaigns, but I don't think
>such a approach should be pushed off on people looking for a non-world
>specific ruleset.
It would be nice if the religions were rewritten with generic names,
with a section added pointing out possible relations between the
generic religions and real world religions. I think many people would
find that easier to swallow.
>> It's more like D&D torn down to rubble and then rebuilt, really.
>>
>> I detect D&D, but I haven't found any of the detestable stuff
>> in Quest. Things are done in ways that are more flexible,
>> logical, intuitive and realistic than in D&D.
>
>I had major 'Blackmoor' flash backs on the hit location rules and the skill
>are so close to a breakup and reassemble of the D&D class abilities that it
>was overwhelming at times.
>
>Rubble and rebuilt? I guess I can agree with that, but than again I think
>that can be said of many house rule D&D campaigns I've seen.
At least Quest doesn't list a "bend bars" chance. (: So many free RPGs
seem to consider that important...
>> It's still messy, and I hope v2.2 will treat the race/culture
>> issue in a more sensitive matter, even though the current
>> racial rules doesn't offend any save the most PC-sensitive.
>
>I was somewhat offended and I'm far from PC.
I've noticed some anti-PC reactions to the idea of changing the race
rules on the ML, which are no less annoying than PC reactions. Still,
I understand that they will be changed.
>In general, I think hit locations should only be used in system that have a
>high chance to disable on a single hit.
Quest actually is such a system.
Peter Knutsen
Brian Gleichman wrote:
>
> "Peter Knutsen" <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote in message
> news:3959E8BD...@knutsen.dk...
>
> > I'll repost your review to the QuestRPG mailing list.
>
> Ok. Is there any way I can follow any resulting discussion (assuming there
> is one)?
You're welcome to subscribe to the mailing list if you want to,
and read the postings, even participate if you like. If you
subscribe you an also use the www.egroups.com website to read
older postings.
But I pointed out, when I posted your review, that criticism
of your review (which I suspect you will get) is better posted
here on usenet.
Still, your review will probably generate "internal" discussion
that is of little interest to the public.
To subscribe to the list, send an e-mail to
mailto:QuestRPG-...@egroups.com
QuestRPG-...@egroups.com
And to unsubscribe again you can send an e-mail to
mailto:QuestRPG-...@egroups.com
QuestRPG-...@egroups.com
And on http://www.egroups.com/group/QuestRPG
you can read both new and old postings, but IIRC only if
you're a subscriber. I advice not trying to read old
postings, because there are lots of them.
There's also a Quest FAQ on
http://admin.engr.wisc.edu/quest/files/faq.htm
but it's quite old and rather in need of updating. I've thought
about making an alternative FAQ myself, quicker to accept
questions and provide answers, but never gotten around to it.
> > Note that the rules for land usage are actually flawed!
>
> Can't same I'm surprised. I haven't seen any rules for that area that didn't
> actually fall apart with used. In general, I think the best idea is to give
> an rough idea of the resources that can be called on instead of attempting a
> complete sim.
Probably a good idea. Still, I suspect it's possible to produce
rules that are much less flawed than Mike Greenholdt's old ones :-)
> Although I'm always interested in any attempt and I think Warren has some
> stuff along this line if he ever manages to complete his html write-up.
>
> I almost started to give them a once over, but I had enough as it was for
> the review. For the same reason I passed over during a detail write up of
> the combat tables.
What combat tables? The effects of injury tables? Maybe you should
have spent a minute perusing them, so you'd have found out that
limb fractures and limb incapacitation is rather common.
> On a related subject, do you know the source (and accuracy) for the creature
> weights given?
No, but my educated guess is that they're based on encyclopedia
research. If you mean the authentic animals, that is.
If you're asking about mythological creatures, then I have
no idea but you're welcome to ask on the mailing list.
> > It seems to me like most characters without clerical skills
> > will opt for atheism as the default.
>
> It certainly wouldn't matter if they did or not.
True. Only a subset of the spells requires the recipient to be
of a specific religion. The Christian "Appeals" and "Protections"
spell lists, but not the Healing list (regardless of religion).
Scott Barrie suggested on the mailing list that Healing
spells could work better or worse according to the Faith
attribute of the recipient. So you'd get a Faith Effect
Bonus similar to your Strength Damage Bonus. I don't think
he's using it, though. But it's something to work with,
possibly to tweak the rules to that Healing works best if
the cleric-type character and the recipient is of the same
faith.
On the other hand, I think it's better to deal with it
socially, say that NPC clerics will only heal PCs of their
own religion, or that they charge money for healing infidels,
or that they charge money normally but charge a very high
price to heal infidels.
Or healing could be accompanied by some sort of spiritual
lesson. "Listen to me, and stand in awe as the migthy
powers of Allah cures your wounds, Christian man. Consider
the truth in the Koran, whether it might not be best for
your spirit to convert to the faith of Mohamad..." and
things like that. Limiting clerial spells so that they work
only on people who are already of the cleric's religion sort
of makes it hard to be a missionary.
> And what happen to the concept of a Knight needing a high Faith? According
> to the old traditions in some lines, that's rather important.
I think that can be handled if the Knight wants to learn
clerical magic. Of course a character who focuses solely
on combat skills will be better at it than one who splits
his attention between martial and clerical training, and
it also makes it possible to play a nonreligious knight.
Also, even if a knight-type character wouldn't want to learn
magic, there are social benefits from joining the religous
hierarchy. Of course those aren't rules-grounded so the
player has to know/trust that the GM will give benefits
for the EP investment.
> > There aren't any meta-rules for how to change, add or remove rules
> > from Quest :-)
>
> Yes there! One anyway.
>
> You *can't* impose gender modifiers on dwarves! :-)
That's a limitation on what rules you can changem it's not a
general meta-rule. It's not even a specific meta-rule. So
it doesn't count. Nyyaahhh!! (sp?)
> > Yes, that's always been my impression too. I tend to think of
> > Quest as "AD&D Done Right", with skills and without hitpoint
> > inflation.
>
> I can see that description be applied.
>
> > I can't verify your guess, as I wasn't present when Quest was
> > created[1], but I've heard (from old time players) that once
> > upon a time it had random attribute rolling. 3d6 per attribute.
>
> That makes sense and explains the racial modifiers better. And the reason
> for the rather silly- start all stats at 14 rule (it should be: split
> 128+1d6 points as you wish).
There is one difference.
You get those 14*9 points in attributes, and they have to stay
there.
You then get 1d6+2 floaters that you can spend on many things,
such as
A) improve attributes further (Quest PCs will easily have
multiple attributes of 18, tending towards heroicness...)(
B) Purchase extra Experience Points, 500 EP per Floater
C) Purchase Saving Throw Bonus, +1 to all STs per Floater
D) Alter Build, increase or decrease one step per Floater
E) Increase Height, add 1" per Floater
(To this I've added dozens of house rules, so-called "Floater
Options" that allows the purchase of extra starting wealth,
improved social status, more language points (cheaper than
buying languages as skills) and so on, but that's not too
important).
But you can't "take out" points from your attributes and then
use those points as floaters. If you could, you could make a
character with 25000 Experience Points in skills and slightly
lowered attributes. As it is now, you're limited to the 1d6+2
Floaters you roll.
> Carry over from other methods. Stat modifiers work with random rolling.
> Point assignment however requires difference min/max and costing rules.
True. Todd (or possibly Gene) reported a major shift in the
power of beginning PCs when they went from rolling 9 * 3d6
to having averages of 14 and being able to shift points
about.
> > And there are rules for raising attributes after play starts,
> > look unde "Chapter VII: General Discipines" under "Statistic
> > Improvement"
>
> So stat improvement is a skill. Makes sense in a way given how the system
> works. Never would have thought to look there though.
It doesn't behave much like a skill, really, save that you pour
EPs into it.
It's not clear to me whether you can (or should) gain EPs in
in attribute from adventuring. It could easily be unfair if
the GM can declare "Hey, Peter, your character has been
thinking so much that 250 of the EPs he earned are going
towards improving his Intellect". But it's clear that a
character can consicously decide to train an attribute during
downtime. And I'd also allow a player to request that part
of the EPs earned from adventuring goes towards increasing
an attribute.
> > There aren't any rules (not even guidelines) for resolving opposed
> > skill tests.
>
> A major oversight really. There's no plans to change this?
I don't know, but it seems pretty obvious how it's done, to
me. Just roll 1d20+Skill and compare with 1d20+Skill.
Or use a lowe dice if you want less randomness.
In general, I don't think Quest is the kind of game
where opposed skill checks happens a lot. It may sound
strange, but there doesn't seem like a big need for them.
> > > So we have Disciplines like Outdoorsmen that allows you to track, but
> > > apparently does nothing to aid you in covering your tracks.
> >
> > I got the impression from Outdoorsman that it allowed you to do
> > just about anythig wilderness-related, which would include
> > hunting and covering up your tracks (or travelling in such a
> > way that you leave very faint tracks).
>
> It doesn't say anything about covering your tracks although I'd toss it in
> under that skill if the question ever came up. Of course if it did, I'd have
> no idea how to determine if the tracking outdoorsmen was fooled or not.
I think I'd resolve that as a succesfull use of the "cover tracks"
ability (part of the Outdoorsman discipline) would give anybody
trying to track you a -4 Skill Roll penalty. Or something. Or
make the tracks age twice as fast (although Quest doesn't
provide rules for how old tracks are harder to follow than
fresh ones).
I don't have any real influence over how official Quest
develops, but I tend to post a huge amount of suggestions on
the mailing list, most of which are made into house rules for
my campaign. But I did manage to get a single suggested
rules modification squeezed into the Illusion rules for v2.2,
since the old v2.0/v2.1 rules were a bit unbalanced.
> > I think the best part is that if two skilled combatants goes up
> > against each other, you don't get an endless string of "I hit",
> > "I parry", "I hit", "I parry", which you'd get if you used
> > skill checks on individual skills (roll under to-hit. Roll
> > under to-parry...)
>
> The impulse mechanic is a good method to avoid this. And even more complex
> one is Action Points.
I don't see how an impulse mechanic (if that's what you're
saying Quest has) helps in itself.
What Quest does is to resolve combat as "opposed skill rolls",
really. There's an optional rule for GURPS to resolve combats
in a similar fashion, to avoid the endless string of hits
countered by parries.
> Or you can use with modifiers to one's hit and parry chances such that you
> avoid the 98% hit, 98% parry problem completely.
Those modifiers won't always be in force, though.
> > > And there's a spell point system to control how many spells you can
> cast.
> >
> > And the number of SPP goes up as you become more skilled. I've
> > found it a problem in many spell point systems that your PC
> > tends to be stuck with the number of Spell Points he starts
> > out with, or at most can increase the number very slowly.
>
> Rolemaster (similar in both spell points and spell lists in many ways) has
> vast increases in spell points, as have many such systems I've looked at.
Quest also contains magic items that drops the SPP cost of
spells. An item that drops SPP cost by -30% is common, and
it's possible to have an item that reduces SPP costs by
-90%, with the result that you can cas a 10th level spell,
Pushed, while using Logos, for the cost of 4 SPP instead
of the normal 40 SPP cost.
After sufficient adventuring, spellcasting characters will
rule, but as far as I can see, it happens later than in most
other RPG rules systems.
> > One of the coolest features in my opinion. Instead of dealing
> > with shallow madeup religions, you get to work with ones that
> > has a lot of meat on them, a lot of philosophical baggage. It's
> > much more fun being a Wiccan cleric than a priest of Luthineera.
>
> Says you.
>
> I'd rather not have my religion portrayed as a stereotype and I'd rather not
> view others through those same limits. Your games may well go beyond the
> limit of the systems write-up, but I can't see your game.
If you make a fantasy world, and populate it with madeup
religions, they'll either be all the same (which IMO is
very bad) or they'll be stereotypes.
But the problem is, they'll tend to *stay* stereotypes. The
religions are total unknowns save what exists in the game.
Using realworld religions, they may start out as stereotypes,
but they're highly knowable. You can do research on
Christian saints, or famous bishops and popes, or Moslem
caliphs, and through that research you can learn that
the religion in question is very nuanced, rather than a
bunch of people all thinking exactly the same way. In many
cases you don't even have to do research, you can just listen
and watch television, and maybe remember stuff from history
class.
There's a chance players will break out of the stereotypes,
if realworld religions are used. Players comes to the game
with different ideas about what Wicca is, for instance.
So if two players creates Wiccan characters, they'll play
them differently. The GM might have a third opinion, so
you'll get three different views of Wicca all within the
same campaign.
If you come to a campaign and are told that the religions
existing in the campaign are Needrona, Tarrihl and Regsh,
and you have to choose one of those, you can only get
the information that the GM provides you. You can't go
to other sources to get a different view of Needrona, for
instance. And you certainly won't be accidentally exposed
to a different side of Needrona while watching the news
or travelling on the subway.
> In any can, while it may work well in specific campaigns, but I don't think
> such a approach should be pushed off on people looking for a non-world
> specific ruleset.
It's a bit of a stretcher, but the presented religions can be
seen as examples of how religions are made.
Presumably everybody who reads Quest will know what Christianity
is. So the rules shows you how you can achieve a Christian-
style cleric. By analyzing the rules, you can deduct the
methods and tools used, and create your own religions.
As far as I know, every active person on the QuestRPG
mailing list (Todd, Gene, Mark, Scott, Steve, me and
a 7th person whose name I can't remember) makes use of the
existing religions, although some of them may be using
them alongside madeup religions.
Another problem is that the religions aren't balanced.
The cooler, more detailed and powerfull a Quest religion
is, the more players have been using it, researching it
and adding rules for it. Shinto, for instance, is extremely
bland, while Confucianism/Tao seems extremely colourfull.
Judaism is probably the most powerfull, as it helps with Mage
magic a lot (through the Kaballah discipline), but if
religion is taken seriously in the campaign, rather than
just viewed as a source of magic, then players will choose
the religion that best fits the personality of their
character.
> > It's more like D&D torn down to rubble and then rebuilt, really.
> >
> > I detect D&D, but I haven't found any of the detestable stuff
> > in Quest. Things are done in ways that are more flexible,
> > logical, intuitive and realistic than in D&D.
>
> I had major 'Blackmoor' flash backs on the hit location rules and the skill
> are so close to a breakup and reassemble of the D&D class abilities that it
> was overwhelming at times.
>
> Rubble and rebuilt? I guess I can agree with that, but than again I think
> that can be said of many house rule D&D campaigns I've seen.
Just about all the *D&D house rules I've seen still uses
character classes and levels as a primary factor in deter-
mining character ability. Quest goes fully skill-based.
IMO a big difference. Also, the tear-down-and-rebuild means
that a lot of illogic from *D&D could be gotten rid of.
The typical *D&D house rule set is a bunch of patches on
a leaking house.
> > It's still messy, and I hope v2.2 will treat the race/culture
> > issue in a more sensitive matter, even though the current
> > racial rules doesn't offend any save the most PC-sensitive.
>
> I was somewhat offended and I'm far from PC.
OK, that's a data point.
> > Each subphase represents one second, so it makes timing things
> > easier. Also, the movement rules are reasonably realistic (in
> > terms or what a person can run or sprint), and many spells
> > takes 30 or 60 or 90 seconds to cast, so removing the blowfree
> > subphases is not a good idea.
>
> Reduce the chart to 3 second pulses, change your spell timing to 10, 20 and
> 30 pulse casting requirements. Done.
But it's sometimes an important factor that a combatant gets
his Blow a single subphase before another combatant (because
1st combatant has more Blows). It's not just a question about
how many times you can strike per round, but also how early
you get to strike.
You can always pull one blow forward, but only one.
So if Albert has two blows and Curt has one blow, then they
can both use one blow in subphase #1. Since they both
strike, we have to compare DX and possibly weapon-weight
to determine who strikes first (but this is usually
trivial), but let's say that Albert wins. He attacks and
scores a hit (abdomen, maybe). Curt uses his one blow
to parry and succeeds. Now, Curt will reganare a Blow
(you can only hold a single Blow in storage) at
subphase 15, but Albert will regenerate his Blow at
subphase 8, so he can strike a blow which Curt can't
parry.
> > What happens is bodypart hitpoint attrition, though. Fights
> > tend to end when one combatant has lost the use of an arm or
> > a leg, rarely from blood loss or loss of total body hitpoints.
>
> Reference my comment on _Blackmoor_ flashbacks.
>
> I don't really see bodypart attrition being a improvement. Why not just use
> hitpoints and a table to determine the after effects depending upon how
> negative you are?
>
> The end result (if the battles end as you claim above) would be identical
> and time and effort would be saved. Plus I'm not left with the mental image
> of two three mighty blows being need to put an arm out of action.
That's not what happens either.
Example time.
You roll 5d6+50 inches to determine your height. Average
result is 67", and with 5d, the distribution is quite
belled.
We'll assume Build is Normal, so there's no modifier there.
Since Height is between 60" and 72", Weight is equal to
Height * 2.5 lbs/inch, or 168 lbs.
We'll also assume average CN for Humans, 12, so Hitpoint
Total is equal to (Weight/100)*CN, or 1.68 * 12 = 20.
Average person has 20 hitpoints.
Here's the bodypart hitpoint allotment table, given in
percentages of total HP (aka BHP), and also three examples
PART HP EX1 EX2 EX3
Head 15% 3 4 7
Chest 40% 8 12 18
Abdomen 30% 6 9 14
Groin 20% 4 6 9
Leg 20% 4 6 9
Arm 15% 3 4 7
Blood 100% 20 29 46
The average broadsword does 1d6+2 damage. We'll assume no
Strength Damage Bonus (even though it's very easy to get a
+1 bonus from 14 Strength) and we'll assume that the weapon
is not made with Advanced Forging Technique even though this
technology is only mid-tech (between lowtech and hitech)
as even the half-barbaric Norsemen can make AFT weapons.
Average damage is 5.5, rounded down to 5 (we'll be conservative
today). A bodypart requires only 100% damage, cumulative, to be
incapacitated. So the average broadsword blow takes out your
arm or your leg, assuming no armour. Even assuming light
armour (leather) it takes out your arm or leg, as leather
armour only gives 1 point of protection on the limbs.
A limb fracture occurs if a limb takes 150% damage in a single
blow. To fracture an arm, you'd need 5 hitpoints of damage.
Surprise: The average broadsword blow will not only incapacitate
your arm, it will break it (simple fracture, a compound frac-
ture requires 200% damage in one blow). If you wear armour,
it takes of 1 point of damage and you avoid the bone fracture.
100% damage to the head, cumulative, will render you unconscious
(no saving throw). 150% damage in one blow gives you a skull
fracture. 200 damage to the head cumulative kills you (you
go into coma and die in 3 rounds).
A broadsword has a 33% chance of doing 6 or more points of
damage, enough to kill the average human outright if it's
a head hit (full damage. Half-damage head hits are also
possible). A similar hit on an arm will compound fracture
it. Or fracture a leg. His legs are unlikely to be
fractured (it would require 9 hp of damage, 10 assuming
he wears leather armour, 11 or 12 assuming he wears metal).
Now, let's look at the typical toughened up adventurer.
Instead of 67" tall, he's 70" tall. He also has a Heavy
Build (increase weight 10%), and he has Constitution 15.
That gives him a weight of 193 lbs and a hitpoint total
of 29. Or kill the "adventurer" with a head hit.
But we could give him a bigger challenge. A broadsword
made with AFT (+1 damage) and wielded by someone who
has a +1 damage bonus. Now damage is 1d6+4. Again legs
are taken out by a single blow, or at the most two.
Final example is a huge warrior-type PC, 75" tall, with
a Very Heavy build, and Constitution 18. That gives him
46 hitpoints. His legs almost can't be fractured by the
average sword (no Strength bonus, no AFT, straight 1d6+2).
His arms probably won't be fractured either, although
it's possible. The best way to take down this guy is
through attrition.
Or send in a comparable tank-type PC. Let's assume Strength
16 (+2 damage bonus) on a Bastard Sword used two-handed
(1d6+4 native damage), an AFT sword (+1 damage) with a
temporary spell on it to increase damage by +2. Total
damage 1d6+7. Easily within reach of a warriormage combo
PC. Any hit by this sword will compound fracture (and
slightly mangle) an arm or a leg on the average person.
People have different damage-taking capacities. What Quest
does is to allow highly trained, capable and well equipped
adventurers to mow down minor enemy-NPCs, using one or
two attacks per foe. Also, a wimpy PC or NPC (height 61",
Light Build, Constitution 9) is very fragile, and it takes
little damage to give him a long-term problem such as a
bone fracture.
I think you must have overlooked the damage effect table, so
here is a link to it:
http://admin.engr.wisc.edu/quest/OPS/ops55.htm
> In general, I think hit locations should only be used in system that have a
> high chance to disable on a single hit.
Quest does, in certain circumstances. Trained, equipped warrior PC
using greatsword against unarmoured civilians. Extremely gory.
> > One thing you seem to have overlooked is that the Leadership
> > attribute is far less usefull than the other eight.
>
> True, but I'm will to pass on this somewhat since the mass combat rules were
> missing. I assumed that it would be a stat of primary importance there and
> that the fact that army maintenance rules existed indicated that such rules
> were on the way.
>
> I may have been too optimistic.
I don't know. Todd Richmond seems very enthusiastic about
getting some mass combat rules, and do epic a-few-heroes-
influences-the-outcome-of-a-major-battle sessions, but he's
fussy about what kind of rules he'll accept.
I'm sure the mass combat rules will appear at some point, but I'd
guess not in the upcoming v2.2.
> --
> Brian Gleichman
--
Peter Knutsen
Scott Barrie
wrote:
>Brian Gleichman wrote:
>Scott Barrie suggested on the mailing list that Healing
>spells could work better or worse according to the Faith
>attribute of the recipient. So you'd get a Faith Effect
>Bonus similar to your Strength Damage Bonus. I don't think
>he's using it, though. But it's something to work with,
>possibly to tweak the rules to that Healing works best if
>the cleric-type character and the recipient is of the same
>faith.
Not using them. My Blessed Item rules are a better motivation to give
PCs a bit of religion.
>It's not clear to me whether you can (or should) gain EPs in
>in attribute from adventuring. It could easily be unfair if
>the GM can declare "Hey, Peter, your character has been
>thinking so much that 250 of the EPs he earned are going
>towards improving his Intellect". But it's clear that a
>character can consicously decide to train an attribute during
>downtime. And I'd also allow a player to request that part
>of the EPs earned from adventuring goes towards increasing
>an attribute.
That level of detail in giving experience is up to the GM. I picked up
my habits wrt this playing "Dragon Quest".
>> > There aren't any rules (not even guidelines) for resolving opposed
>> > skill tests.
>>
>> A major oversight really. There's no plans to change this?
>
>I don't know, but it seems pretty obvious how it's done, to
>me. Just roll 1d20+Skill and compare with 1d20+Skill.
>
>Or use a lowe dice if you want less randomness.
>
>In general, I don't think Quest is the kind of game
>where opposed skill checks happens a lot. It may sound
>strange, but there doesn't seem like a big need for them.
You know, even though I suggested the above method, I've only gotten
to use them once. Ironically, it was when a character wanted to cover
his tracks with Outdoorsman.
>As far as I know, every active person on the QuestRPG
>mailing list (Todd, Gene, Mark, Scott, Steve, me and
>a 7th person whose name I can't remember) makes use of the
>existing religions, although some of them may be using
>them alongside madeup religions.
But I'm playing in a historical earth setting, only with less orcs. (:
>> In general, I think hit locations should only be used in system that have a
>> high chance to disable on a single hit.
>
>Quest does, in certain circumstances. Trained, equipped warrior PC
>using greatsword against unarmoured civilians. Extremely gory.
More importantly, I've seen PCs disabled by a single hit from an
overlooked opponent.
>I don't know. Todd Richmond seems very enthusiastic about
>getting some mass combat rules, and do epic a-few-heroes-
>influences-the-outcome-of-a-major-battle sessions, but he's
>fussy about what kind of rules he'll accept.
>
>I'm sure the mass combat rules will appear at some point, but I'd
>guess not in the upcoming v2.2.
FYI, I've created a mesoscopic combat system for battles involving
~100 people, which heavily relies on Leadership. Someday I'll expand
it into a true mass combat system. I should put it on the webpage as
well.
Scott Barrie
wrote:
>Scott Barrie wrote:
>> >From: "Brian Gleichman" <glei...@mindspring.com>
>> Human race differences will be gone in the next edition, or so I hear.
>
>My impression is that they'll be replaced with guidelines for how
>the GM can populate his campaign world with various cultures in
>such a way that the cultures are balanced (one culture might
>be high-tech (like the v2.1 Caucasians) while another culture
>is more in tune with magic (like the Africans in v2.1, getting
>+1 Magic Talent)
I still like my idea that PCs from mysterious lands get the +1 Magic
Talent, since they're, like, mysterious and all.
>> >SKILL RESOLUTION
>
>> The absence of skill vs skill (or stat vs stat) rules are especially
>> annoying considering how easy they would be (were) to add to the
>> system.
>
>Maybe that's why they aren't there? They're so obvious to
>improvise on the fly that there's little need for them.
To paraphrase Coca Cola, I doubt that Todd is either that smart or
that stupid.
>I also strongly advice the players in my campaign to wear
>armour. One wears plate mail (a regular tank-type PC, but
>he's also got leadership skills), one wears chain mail
>(ordinary metal armour) and one currently wears nothing
>but since his swashbuckler-type character is tired of
>having his arm compound fractured I'm sure he'll wear
>leather armour from now on :-)
You let your PCs afford plate? *tsk tsk*
>> >Rule Comments
>
>> >Quest has all the appearance of a homegrown attempt to improve AD&D. In fact
>> >so much of it reminds me of D&D house rules that it's scary.
>>
>> I agree absolutely. It's a D&D replacement, but without bad D&D legacy
>> rules. It isn't boldly claiming new territory for RPGs, it's
>> solidifying our hold on the heartland.
>
>I think I agree with you more than Brian. It's not trying to
>improve AD&D, it's trying to do what AD&d does but in a better
>way.
That's pretty much the same thing, Peter.
>> >The use of real world races and religions is more than somewhat
>> >disrespectful IMO and their presence is the reason for the low attitude
>> >grade.
>>
>> Human race differences will be gone in the next edition, or so I hear.
>
>By the way, how do you handle religions in your setting? I've
>written on the list about how I do them, and Mark also wrote a
>bit some months ago, but I'm curious about your campaign...
In my campaign religions are deeply held beliefs about the nature of
man and the world, practiced by large numbers of people. Oh, and they
give you magic.
If a PC can explain why their character in 1205 pseudo-Germany
practices a certain religion, they may do so. Else, not.
>> >The damage and armor balance is such that pace of decision (in physical
>> >combat) is far too low for good tactical play in the style I prefer.
>> >Instead we have an almost D&D like result of hit point attrition combined
>> >with spell effects. A worthwhile style of resource management play, but not
>> >something I like.
>>
>> This happens with heavily armoured fighters only, in my experience.
>> Even then single head shots have turned entire combats around.
>
>The tank-PC got stunned early on in my campaign, despite wearing
>plate mail armour, having a VH build and having a good CN (14 or
>16, I don't recall). The chainmai-wearing PC also got stunned,
>despite being good about wearing a helmet and having a reasonably
>warrior'ish physique (he's a warriorpriest).
>
>So disabling certainly does happen, even when you (or I)
>least expect it. I have to admit, though, that the PC party
>fled from the battle (3 skeletons and a zombie), waited
>a few rounds so that the stun went away, and then they
>want back in and the tank-type PC destroyed all the
>skeletons and zombies without trouble (after killing
>a dozen skeletons, I allowed him to auto-kill the last
>2-3 of them, since he was using a carefull tactic
>against extremely fragile and mindless undeads...)
That's just goofy. Weren't there penalties for running away? Even a
skeleton should be allowed to pull his next attack forward to hit
someone who's turned their back on it.
Scott Barrie
wrote:
>Scott Barrie wrote:
>> Not using them. My Blessed Item rules are a better motivation to give
>> PCs a bit of religion.
>
>Really? I don't recall them working much that way, so I'll
>have to take a second look at your house rules.
They're made by clerics, and require a Faith roll to activate.
>I've had zero opposed rolls so far (when the inebriated
>boatbuilder/vikingraider PC tried to steal from the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I wacky-parsed that to "bodybuilder/goatraider". I think that would be
a fascinating character concept.
>> More importantly, I've seen PCs disabled by a single hit from an
>> overlooked opponent.
>
>Haven't happened to me yet. Oh, well, Hansi from Stralsund,
>the nasty assassin, did ambush the PC party with a crossbow,
>but that only managed to hit the swashbuckler PC in the leg
>once, then the mage-type PC fried Hansi's groin with a
>lightning bolt.
Any RPG which allows groin shots is going to be better than one
without. I just wanted everyone out there in Usenetland to know that.
The moniker "The Nasty Assassin" sounds like a pro-wrestler working
the independent circuit, btw.
>I was a bit worried about the sneak-crossbow bolt being
>lethal, but it turned out allright, only causing a slow
>bleeding as well as incapacitating the leg. The only
>way it could have killed would have been a head hit,
>which was unlikely.
I can't decide if the problem is you're too cowardly to fake a roll,
or you're too cowardly to use a bigger crossbow. :)
>> FYI, I've created a mesoscopic combat system for battles involving
>> ~100 people, which heavily relies on Leadership. Someday I'll expand
>> it into a true mass combat system. I should put it on the webpage as
>> well.
>
>Didn't you post about that at one point? I remember reading it,
Yes, I posted it to the mailing list.
Mike Harvey
>
> I think I agree with you more than Brian. It's not trying to
> improve AD&D, it's trying to do what AD&d does but in a better
> way.
I would suggest that it does "what you want D&D to do" better. But to
me D&D has always been about extreme fantasy, the really unrealistic
bizarre type like you'd find in a Michael Moorcock novel (or Gygax
novel - heh). D&D is really lousy for realistic pseudo-historical
fantasy. OTOH, Quest seems to be well suited for the historical style
fantasy, but I can't really imagine using it to play in Newhon or the
Dying Earth or Greyhawk.
I am curious about what you found was broken with the economics rules.
I have been working on some rules of my own, drawing heavily on the
data from Juuso's web page and other sources, and I was intrigued to
see that Quest was already doing something similar. It is very tricky
trying to get this sort of system balanced, while staying flexible
enough to handle a variety of situations, so it is helpful to know
where previous attempts ran into stumbling blocks.
Mike
Brian Gleichman
> And on http://www.egroups.com/group/QuestRPG
> you can read both new and old postings, but IIRC only if
> you're a subscriber.
Looks like it's open to the public (for reading) which is nice.
> What combat tables?
The ones that combine the hit/miss of the attack with the hit location
struck. Those are the best feature of Quest as far as I'm concerned.
But I'm uncertain as to their balance and would need to do some math to
determine if I really do approve of them.
> The effects of injury tables?
Those I read.
> > And what happen to the concept of a Knight needing a high Faith?
> > According to the old traditions in some lines, that's rather important.
> I think that can be handled if the Knight wants to learn
> clerical magic.
Not what I meant at all. I was thinking of the classic grail quest and other
round table tests of Knighthood. One of the classic concepts is that a
knight who is true has God on his side in battle and will triumph.
There is actually little in Quest to make one even think of that line of
play, but the inclusion of a Faith Stat made my mind go straight to it.
> > That makes sense and explains the racial modifiers better. And the
reason
> > for the rather silly- start all stats at 14 rule (it should be: split
> > 128+1d6 points as you wish).
>
> There is one difference.
Picky now aren't we? :-)
Ok, state it as 126 stats points plus 1d6+2 character option points, the
latter spendable on a list of items including more stat points.
> It doesn't behave much like a skill, really, save that you pour
> EPs into it.
I still haven't found it. What book and page is it on?
> In general, I don't think Quest is the kind of game
> where opposed skill checks happens a lot. It may sound
> strange, but there doesn't seem like a big need for them.
Yes, it does sound strange.
> I don't see how an impulse mechanic (if that's what you're
> saying Quest has) helps in itself.
It runs the defender of blows when he's battling against a far more skilled
opponent.
> What Quest does is to resolve combat as "opposed skill rolls",
> really.
Lots of games do that now days.
> There's an optional rule for GURPS to resolve combats
> in a similar fashion, to avoid the endless string of hits
> countered by parries.
Oh really, they finally did something about that? What's the rule?
> > Or you can use with modifiers to one's hit and parry chances such that
> > you avoid the 98% hit, 98% parry problem completely.
>
> Those modifiers won't always be in force, though.
They are if they're skill based.
> Quest also contains magic items that drops the SPP cost of
> spells.
And Rolemaster includes items that increase your number of Spell Points. The
end result is almost the same.
> If you make a fantasy world, and populate it with madeup
> religions, they'll either be all the same (which IMO is
> very bad) or they'll be stereotypes.
That's entirely dependent on the players and GM. I'll say that it's not an
issue in my campaigns.
And again, the fact that YOU don't play them isn't due to the rules, it's
due to you. There nothing in the rules helping anyone to avoid the
stereotypes in the least.
> Just about all the *D&D house rules I've seen still uses
> character classes and levels as a primary factor in deter-
> mining character ability.
One of the very first (if not the first) house rule I saw was the removal of
character classes. Wasn't balanced, but it was still there.
> But it's sometimes an important factor that a combatant gets
> his Blow a single subphase before another combatant (because
> 1st combatant has more Blows).
That wouldn't rarely be an issue with a 10 pulse chart. If two characters go
on the same pulse, the one with the higher blows goes first. If they have
the same number of blows, the 30 pulse chart isn't going to help as they're
tied anyway.
They might be a rare interaction of multiple characters that would turn out
different in the 30 pulse as opposed to a 10 pulse chart, but it would be so
rare that only the most micro-detailed person would care or even see it.
About the damage rate of weapons...
Let's use your typical character numbers...
> PART HP EX1
> Head 15% 3
> Chest 40% 8
> Abdomen 30% 6
> Groin 20% 4
> Leg 20% 4
> Arm 15% 3
Put him in what I would consider typical armor, 4 points of protection all
around.
Shoot him with a typical recurved bow or hit him with a broadsword. The
damage is 1d6+2.
Here the breakdown of the chance of hitting specific hit locations between
equals:
Head 1.5%
Head (half damage) 3%
Chest 11%
Abdomen 8%
Groin 6%
Legs 25%
Arms 17%
Arms (half damage) 27%
It doesn't add up to 100% due to some heavy rounding.
The first thing that comes to mind is that these are silly percentages. A
50% better chance to hit the groin than the head? Are people leading with
their privates? A few of other numbers look odd too...
Whatever, let's go with this and assume a maximum damage roll 8 points, 4
points after armor.
He can take out a body part of the average 20 BHP man if he hits in the Head
(full damage), Arm (full damage), Leg or Groin. Not quite half of his hits.
Of those only 15% (7.5% of the total) is to a non-limb.
Not very impressive for a maximum damage hit. If he rolls a five instead of
a six, he can only get the Arm (full damage) or head (full damage) which is
less than 19% of his hits.
Let's move off the center. Give the oppoents a 14 Strength and 14 Con. The
bonuses to damage and BHP equal out for a 168 lbs character and things
remain the same.
How about a 16 Strength and 16 Con, again keeping things equal? Now strength
pulls ahead and a roll of five disables on half the hits while a four gets
19% of them.
Let's move up to an 18 Strength and 18 Con, again keeping things equal for
our 168 lbs combatants. Here the con bonus bumps the hit points again and
things remain as they were for our pair of sixteens.
It's only when we hit a 20 Strength and 20 Con that we reach the point where
half of the hits are disabling. Before this on odds, it takes multpile hits
to take out a location.
Now as you point out, the system gives lots of magical and improved tech
weapons. So do many other systems. I always base my starting analysis on 'no
magic' as some campaigns are just that- low or no magic.
I also base my starting analysis on equal opponents. Something else that may
or may not occur in a campaign. Again, it depends on who is playing.
After that, I look at extremes of magic, armor and tech with an eye towards
warning people if the system breaks at any point. In the case of Quest, I
didn't see anything at the extremes that need mentioning although there are
some downsides to the magic that I could have pointed out.
Now there may be a sweet spot of weapon/armor/magic that works nicely. But I
can't assume all campaigns will run in that spot, indeed I think it unlikely
as many people couldn't even determine what it was.
Also in the case of Quest, these damage bonuses are a concern to me as such
things tend to rapidly make certain types of characters unsurvivable.
However, since Quest is a 'replacement' for D&D, these are most likely not a
concern to the designer as they follow the same original style.
> > In general, I think hit locations should only be used in system that
have a
> > high chance to disable on a single hit.
>
> Quest does, in certain circumstances. Trained, equipped warrior PC
> using greatsword against unarmoured civilians. Extremely gory.
That would do it.
In fact Quest looks to be heavy weapon and heavy armor dominant. Again just
like D&D.
Brian Gleichman
news:colkls0dv9dbi37a6...@4ax.com...
> In my experience, a single blow is frequently enough to eliminate a
> combatant with light armour.
It didn't work out that way for my 'typical equal combatant test'. I covered
this in another post.
I do think Quest is almost there. It wouldn't be too hard to adjust.
> Why pick up Quest? If you secretly enjoyed D&D campaigns, but just
> didn't like the rules, Quest is a fine alternative and is considerably
> cheaper than D&D 3E.
But will it have the support 3E D&D will have?
The answer is without a doubt no, although Quest does have far better
support than most free rpgs.
It will be interesting to see if Quest can maintain its advantages over the
new D&D. From what I've heard, there is some threat.
Brian Gleichman
> It would be nice if the religions were rewritten with generic names,
> with a section added pointing out possible relations between the
> generic religions and real world religions. I think many people would
> find that easier to swallow.
That would make it better, yes.
Even better I think would be to have perhaps a Norse religion write-up in
the main rules (it's dead as it was once practiced and only a few modern
pagans could complain) and hold off the rest for a 'cleric's supplement'.
That way one could pass on it and still get the rules.
> At least Quest doesn't list a "bend bars" chance. (: So many free RPGs
> seem to consider that important...
:-)
Brian Gleichman
> Yup, you can add and ban on a spell-list-by-spell-list basis,
> but adding or banning individual spells is a lot harder.
>
> (not that I view Brian's above remark as criticism...)
It wasn't.
Brian Gleichman
> Any RPG which allows groin shots is going to be better than one
> without. I just wanted everyone out there in Usenetland to know that.
I used to have them in Age of Heroes, but I took them out.
It wasn't heroic to go around hitting orcs with low blows, and it certainly
wasn't heroic to be hit by orcs there either. Besides, it always disrupted
the game as everyone cringed in sympathy...
Scott Barrie
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>"Peter Knutsen" <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote in message
>news:395A734E...@knutsen.dk...
>> What combat tables?
>
>The ones that combine the hit/miss of the attack with the hit location
>struck. Those are the best feature of Quest as far as I'm concerned.
>
>But I'm uncertain as to their balance and would need to do some math to
>determine if I really do approve of them.
I'd like to hear your analysis. I'm far too lazy to tinker with it
myself.
>About the damage rate of weapons...
>
>Let's use your typical character numbers...
>
>> PART HP EX1
>> Head 15% 3
>> Chest 40% 8
>> Abdomen 30% 6
>> Groin 20% 4
>> Leg 20% 4
>> Arm 15% 3
>
>Put him in what I would consider typical armor, 4 points of protection all
>around.
That's mail, which I would consider heavy armour. Your campaign may
vary, of course. :) Typical armour in my campaign tends to be 3 points
(ring mail), since that's the last point before Agility penalties come
into play.
>Shoot him with a typical recurved bow or hit him with a broadsword. The
>damage is 1d6+2.
>
>Here the breakdown of the chance of hitting specific hit locations between
>equals:
>
>Head 1.5%
>Head (half damage) 3%
>Chest 11%
>Abdomen 8%
>Groin 6%
>Legs 25%
>Arms 17%
>Arms (half damage) 27%
>
>It doesn't add up to 100% due to some heavy rounding.
>
>The first thing that comes to mind is that these are silly percentages. A
>50% better chance to hit the groin than the head? Are people leading with
>their privates? A few of other numbers look odd too...
Or people cover their heads better. I suspect that's the logic being
used, accurate or not.
>Whatever, let's go with this and assume a maximum damage roll 8 points, 4
>points after armor.
>
>He can take out a body part of the average 20 BHP man if he hits in the Head
>(full damage), Arm (full damage), Leg or Groin. Not quite half of his hits.
>Of those only 15% (7.5% of the total) is to a non-limb.
>
>Not very impressive for a maximum damage hit. If he rolls a five instead of
>a six, he can only get the Arm (full damage) or head (full damage) which is
>less than 19% of his hits.
The hit locations don't work the same as in Runequest. Doing half the
location's HP to the head or torso Stuns the target, which is pretty
sweet. 75% to a torso location also gives some nice results (1/2
combat effectiveness until healed, plus Bleeding). Therefore full
damage anywhere but to a leg is almost certainly going to win a
one-on-one combat. And if you did hit the leg you can then withdraw
safely.
Scott Barrie
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>"Scott Barrie" <sba...@julian.uwo.ca> wrote in message
>
>> In my experience, a single blow is frequently enough to eliminate a
>> combatant with light armour.
>
>this in another post.
That was between two warriors in chain mail and battle helms. Pretty
well equipped fighting men; I wouldn't expect a single blow from a
cheap broadsword to drop one very often (try a morningstar). A single
blow will stun one relatively often, though, which exposes them to
killing blow.
>I do think Quest is almost there. It wouldn't be too hard to adjust.
>
>> Why pick up Quest? If you secretly enjoyed D&D campaigns, but just
>> didn't like the rules, Quest is a fine alternative and is considerably
>> cheaper than D&D 3E.
>
>But will it have the support 3E D&D will have?
No, but what will? Quest will still be a fine alternative for the
discriminating player. (:
>The answer is without a doubt no, although Quest does have far better
>support than most free rpgs.
>
>It will be interesting to see if Quest can maintain its advantages over the
>new D&D. From what I've heard, there is some threat.
Perhaps. I'm not switching because I'm cheap, though.
Brian Gleichman
> >But I'm uncertain as to their balance and would need to do some math to
> >determine if I really do approve of them.
>
> I'd like to hear your analysis. I'm far too lazy to tinker with it
> myself.
I did a partial breakdown of the equal CR/DR column in the post you just
replied to.
Can't say that I like the resulting distribution of hit locations, but it's
still a neat idea. Looks to be rather difficult to adjust properly and I'm
not sure it's possible...
> The hit locations don't work the same as in Runequest. Doing half the
> location's HP to the head or torso Stuns the target, which is pretty
> sweet.
When I first read the rules, I thought the 1d3 rounds of stunning was
measured in pulses. That meant it was only of importance if one was the
target of multiple attackers. And I thought, ok- that works for me as I
could see being unbalanced for a couple of seconds...
Upon seeing your comment, I went back and found out that was actually 1d3
entire rounds of 30 seconds that the poor jerk's defense are halved and he's
unable to attack.
That's so unrealistic and unbelievable that I can only say I'm stunned. A
boxer floored and knocked completely silly will often recover in less than a
ten count, but these guys can't suck up a little cut in less than thirty
seconds no matter that real world information indicates that most injuries
won't even be noticed until after the battle.
What wimps.
Well, the system never claimed realism...
Let's see... just ballpark the numbers here...
For values of 14s or 10s you're still looking at only slightly more than 1
in six of your hits stunning your foe (or disabling a limb), so the typical
case is still the requirement of multiple hits.
At values of 16s, it goes up to a something a bit better than one in three
still leaving the typical case at multiple hits
At 20s it raises to something over half and I'd consider that a reasonable
break point where a single hit is now the typical event.
So I still feel justified in whining about hit point attrition, and I get to
add a big whine about the stunning rules (which only realism fans who know
what realism is will actually care about).
I don't think stunning really changes the pace of decision all that much.
The victim still needs to be finished off while he's at a disadvantage and
that will take one or two blows at least (if not more). More than enough
time for his teammates to decide how to handle the lost of their friend (or
even to come to his aid).
And I also get to point out that it's all but impossible to kill someone in
battle so we have the grand parade of after action throat cutting! I left
that out of the original interview :-)
Actually I need to adjust the original review before archiving it in order
to mellow the attrition issue (pointing out that it only occurs at certain
weapon/armor break points) and to add in the additional issues of stunning
and the impossibility of killing anyone outright. I intended to point out
the latter, but forgot in all the writing.
Peter Knutsen
Scott Barrie wrote:
>
> Note my .sig for bias. (:
>
> >From: "Brian Gleichman" <glei...@mindspring.com>
>
> >CHARACTERS
[Human races]
> Human race differences will be gone in the next edition, or so I hear.
My impression is that they'll be replaced with guidelines for how
the GM can populate his campaign world with various cultures in
such a way that the cultures are balanced (one culture might
be high-tech (like the v2.1 Caucasians) while another culture
is more in tune with magic (like the Africans in v2.1, getting
+1 Magic Talent)
> I didn't remember the rule about female dwarves. Damn strange, that.
> :/
It's there allright :-)
> >SKILL RESOLUTION
> The absence of skill vs skill (or stat vs stat) rules are especially
> annoying considering how easy they would be (were) to add to the
> system.
Maybe that's why they aren't there? They're so obvious to
improvise on the fly that there's little need for them.
I'm not really defending the lack of such rules, adding them
would improve Quest FRP (as the new name seems to be), but
I don't see the lack as a real problem.
> >COMBAT
> >Damage is light compared a character's hit points. Even one of the rule
> >examples shrugs off as insignificant a single hit by a bowshot. In general,
> >it will take multiple hits in the same location to achieve any effect and
> >the rules go into detail on the cumulative effects of injuries for this
> >reason.
>
> In my experience, a single blow is frequently enough to eliminate a
> combatant with light armour. Arms tend to have from 3 to 5 hit points,
> so without heavy armour it's quite easy to incapacitate an arm. The
> head has the same HP as an arm, but an attack which does only half
> the head's hit points will still "Stun" the recipient. A stunned
> fighter rarely gets to recover unless they have competent friends.
> It's also easy to stun with a torso hit.
True. The traditional advice given on the mailing list is to
have at least 4 hitpoints in the head, which requires a hit
point total of at least 24.
I also strongly advice the players in my campaign to wear
armour. One wears plate mail (a regular tank-type PC, but
he's also got leadership skills), one wears chain mail
(ordinary metal armour) and one currently wears nothing
but since his swashbuckler-type character is tired of
having his arm compound fractured I'm sure he'll wear
leather armour from now on :-)
Protective spells are also very useful, as are weapon-damage-
increasing spells.
> >MAGIC
> >
> >Magic and Clerical abilities are handled by grouping spells into a number of
> >Disciplines.
>
> Note that the modular nature of spell lists makes it trivial to ban
> some types of magic and to introduce your own spell lists.
Yup, you can add and ban on a spell-list-by-spell-list basis,
but adding or banning individual spells is a lot harder.
(not that I view Brian's above remark as criticism...)
> >Rule Comments
> >Quest has all the appearance of a homegrown attempt to improve AD&D. In fact
> >so much of it reminds me of D&D house rules that it's scary.
>
> I agree absolutely. It's a D&D replacement, but without bad D&D legacy
> rules. It isn't boldly claiming new territory for RPGs, it's
> solidifying our hold on the heartland.
I think I agree with you more than Brian. It's not trying to
improve AD&D, it's trying to do what AD&d does but in a better
way.
> >Consider the race modifiers. These are minuses and bonuses to various stats,
> >but you can move these around at will during character generation. That +1
> >to Will can go just as easily go into Faith if the player so desires. The
> >modifiers don't effect assignment or upper or lower limits at all. In effect
> >the total modifiers for a race is nothing more than a flat bonus to the
> >total stat points so why not present them as such?
>
> The upper stat values of 18 and 20 are modified by race, build, etc.
> At least that's how I've interpreted it. :) Hopefully next edition
> will make this clear.
I'm not sure whether it's supposed to be interpreted like
that, but I play mostly that way (except I don't let
VL Build shift the AG limit all the way up to 22, only
to 20)
> >The use of real world races and religions is more than somewhat
> >disrespectful IMO and their presence is the reason for the low attitude
> >grade.
>
> Human race differences will be gone in the next edition, or so I hear.
By the way, how do you handle religions in your setting? I've
written on the list about how I do them, and Mark also wrote a
bit some months ago, but I'm curious about your campaign...
> >There are 30 sub-phases, but the chart only goes up to 10 Blows. Even Star
> >Fleet Battles provided impulse charts with fewer sub-phases for those times
> >when no one was moving that fast.
>
> Agreed. In fact, most players won't go above 4 blows. That's why I hid
> the speed chart from my players for the first six months of play. :)
In the fights I've done so far (in-campaign fights, trial
combats to familiarize myself with the rules doesn't count)
no one had more than 2 Blows. The tank-type PC will reach
3 Blows soon, though.
> >The damage and armor balance is such that pace of decision (in physical
> >combat) is far too low for good tactical play in the style I prefer.
> >Instead we have an almost D&D like result of hit point attrition combined
> >with spell effects. A worthwhile style of resource management play, but not
> >something I like.
>
> This happens with heavily armoured fighters only, in my experience.
> Even then single head shots have turned entire combats around.
The tank-PC got stunned early on in my campaign, despite wearing
plate mail armour, having a VH build and having a good CN (14 or
16, I don't recall). The chainmai-wearing PC also got stunned,
despite being good about wearing a helmet and having a reasonably
warrior'ish physique (he's a warriorpriest).
So disabling certainly does happen, even when you (or I)
least expect it. I have to admit, though, that the PC party
fled from the battle (3 skeletons and a zombie), waited
a few rounds so that the stun went away, and then they
want back in and the tank-type PC destroyed all the
skeletons and zombies without trouble (after killing
a dozen skeletons, I allowed him to auto-kill the last
2-3 of them, since he was using a carefull tactic
against extremely fragile and mindless undeads...)
> >--
> >Closing Comments
> >
> >Even though I didn't like Quest in the least, it does have value for those
> >who like elements of AD&D but just can't stand classes and the like. For the
> >most part, it is an improvement over AD&D covering some shortcomings while
> >creating new ones.
>
> >But IMO, it just falls short. A good effort that doesn't offer enough new or
> >different to justify jumping whatever ship you're on now. An improvement on
> >D&D yes, but then again- what isn't?
>
> Why pick up Quest? If you secretly enjoyed D&D campaigns, but just
> didn't like the rules, Quest is a fine alternative and is considerably
> cheaper than D&D 3E.
>
> I picked it up because many people in my gaming group wanted to play
> D&D, but I didn't want to run it. Quest was a compromise which paid
> off well (although I'd still rather be playing Over the Edge). Of
> course, this success is now sabotaging my efforts to introduce new
> game systems...
I became fascinated with the idea of a medieval (not just
like-medieval, but real medieval-set-in-Europe) campaign
in 1998 when I got the chance to enter a GURPS campaign.
It turned out the GM would allow a slight presence of the
supernatural, so I ended up making a character who was 25%
Faerie 75% Human, but who thought he was a 50/50 mix. The
campaign never got to start, but the character is now an NPC
in my Aerth campaign world, where the supernatural influences
are a bit more pronounced than in the GURPS-driven campaign
the GM had envisioned.
Some months after the campaign-idea died, I decided I would
make my own campaign. Fantasy-genre campaing worlds always
tends to have one culture that is slightly viking-like,
one that is slightly Holy Roman Empire-like, one that is
slightly Wicca-like and maybe one that is Moslem-like.
Some will even have a scattered people that is slightly
like Jews. I had found Quest FRP in 1997 (or possibly
late 1996, but I don't think so), and initially I was
only fascinated with the spell list system and the
various religion-differentiated magics, but the idea
of using Quest to drive a medieval-Europe-with-magic
campaign grew on me. Instead of making up cultures
that were imitations of historical cultures, I'd
use the authentic cultures, and the authentic
religions.
> >Grades:
> > Attitude: D
> > Short Campaign Characters: C+
> > Long Campaign Characters: C+
> > Combat: C+
> > Magic: C+
> > Presentation: C-
> > Originality: C+
> >
> >Overall: C
>
> I'd give it a B- overall, but I suspect that the next edition will
> bump that up to a B+ by fixing many of the problems (like human
> races).
Using Brian's grading system, Quest gets a straight A from me
(not an A+ as I said earlier, as I have actually tweaked a lot
of the rules).
> FYI, I plan to place a one page "How to Play Quest" document on my
> webpage around Friday which will summarize how to use the rules. No
> more hunting around to learn how to conduct combat, resolve a skill or
> cast a spell. Not that my webpage should affect this review in any
> way.
I'm looking forward to reading it.
> Scott B. Barrie
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Scott Barrie wrote:
>
> On Wed, 28 Jun 2000 23:51:10 +0200, Peter Knutsen <pe...@knutsen.dk>
> wrote:
> >Brian Gleichman wrote:
>
> >Scott Barrie suggested on the mailing list that Healing
> >spells could work better or worse according to the Faith
> >attribute of the recipient. So you'd get a Faith Effect
> >Bonus similar to your Strength Damage Bonus. I don't think
> >he's using it, though. But it's something to work with,
> >possibly to tweak the rules to that Healing works best if
> >the cleric-type character and the recipient is of the same
> >faith.
>
> Not using them. My Blessed Item rules are a better motivation to give
> PCs a bit of religion.
Really? I don't recall them working much that way, so I'll
have to take a second look at your house rules.
> >In general, I don't think Quest is the kind of game
> >where opposed skill checks happens a lot. It may sound
> >strange, but there doesn't seem like a big need for them.
>
> You know, even though I suggested the above method, I've only gotten
> to use them once. Ironically, it was when a character wanted to cover
> his tracks with Outdoorsman.
Yeah :-)
I think Quest FRP just lacks counterskills. You got a Stealth
skill, but no Spot Hidden or Hear Noise skill. There isn't
really much to oppose, really.
I've had zero opposed rolls so far (when the inebriated
boatbuilder/vikingraider PC tried to steal from the
severely drunk swashbuckler PC, I just let him do it
without rolling. The trial subsequent trial conducted
by the merc/officer PC was also resolved without any
use of skills at all, so it was pure roleplaying. And,
honestly, if the player playing the judge-PC had tried
using anything resembling playerskill I'd have clamped
down on him. But he didn't)
> >As far as I know, every active person on the QuestRPG
> >mailing list (Todd, Gene, Mark, Scott, Steve, me and
> >a 7th person whose name I can't remember) makes use of the
> >existing religions, although some of them may be using
> >them alongside madeup religions.
>
> But I'm playing in a historical earth setting, only with less orcs. (:
And IIRC a bit later than me. I'm doing 997 AD, your campaign
sounds a bit more like high medieval.
> >> In general, I think hit locations should only be used in system that have a
> >> high chance to disable on a single hit.
> >
> >Quest does, in certain circumstances. Trained, equipped warrior PC
> >using greatsword against unarmoured civilians. Extremely gory.
>
> More importantly, I've seen PCs disabled by a single hit from an
> overlooked opponent.
Haven't happened to me yet. Oh, well, Hansi from Stralsund,
the nasty assassin, did ambush the PC party with a crossbow,
but that only managed to hit the swashbuckler PC in the leg
once, then the mage-type PC fried Hansi's groin with a
lightning bolt.
I was a bit worried about the sneak-crossbow bolt being
lethal, but it turned out allright, only causing a slow
bleeding as well as incapacitating the leg. The only
way it could have killed would have been a head hit,
which was unlikely.
> >I'm sure the mass combat rules will appear at some point, but I'd
> >guess not in the upcoming v2.2.
>
> FYI, I've created a mesoscopic combat system for battles involving
> ~100 people, which heavily relies on Leadership. Someday I'll expand
> it into a true mass combat system. I should put it on the webpage as
> well.
Didn't you post about that at one point? I remember reading it,
but I didn't pay close attention as I'm not personally
interested in mass combats.
Peter Knutsen
Scott Barrie wrote:
>
> On Thu, 29 Jun 2000 00:11:20 +0200, Peter Knutsen <pe...@knutsen.dk>
> wrote:
> >Scott Barrie wrote:
> >> >From: "Brian Gleichman" <glei...@mindspring.com>
>
> >> Human race differences will be gone in the next edition, or so I hear.
> >
> >My impression is that they'll be replaced with guidelines for how
> >the GM can populate his campaign world with various cultures in
> >such a way that the cultures are balanced (one culture might
> >be high-tech (like the v2.1 Caucasians) while another culture
> >is more in tune with magic (like the Africans in v2.1, getting
> >+1 Magic Talent)
>
> I still like my idea that PCs from mysterious lands get the +1 Magic
> Talent, since they're, like, mysterious and all.
I'm not objecting to that idea. But it should be a part of
a larger whole, like... a rules system for building cultures.
Each cultural trait has a certain point cost, and then you
assume the GMs will create cultures of equal "value".
> >I also strongly advice the players in my campaign to wear
> >armour. One wears plate mail (a regular tank-type PC, but
> >he's also got leadership skills), one wears chain mail
> >(ordinary metal armour) and one currently wears nothing
> >but since his swashbuckler-type character is tired of
> >having his arm compound fractured I'm sure he'll wear
> >leather armour from now on :-)
>
> You let your PCs afford plate? *tsk tsk*
An artifact of my Wealth Floater Options. (IIRC he took
Wealthy for 1 Floater, or Very Wealthy for 2 Floaters).
But walking around in plate does attract attention, so
there isn't much of a problem. Whenever there's need for
a warrior, people will come running to him and plead him
to help them, probably in broken Latin.
(wearing two scimitars, not broadswords but Middle Eastern-
style scimitars, strapped on his back helps too...)
> >> >Rule Comments
> >
> >> >Quest has all the appearance of a homegrown attempt to improve AD&D. In fact
> >> >so much of it reminds me of D&D house rules that it's scary.
> >>
> >> I agree absolutely. It's a D&D replacement, but without bad D&D legacy
> >> rules. It isn't boldly claiming new territory for RPGs, it's
> >> solidifying our hold on the heartland.
> >
> >I think I agree with you more than Brian. It's not trying to
> >improve AD&D, it's trying to do what AD&d does but in a better
> >way.
>
> That's pretty much the same thing, Peter.
No it isn't.
One thing is to try to apply patches to the existing *D&D
rules. The other thing is to build a new system from
scratch, working towards the same goals as *D&D has.
> >So disabling certainly does happen, even when you (or I)
> >least expect it. I have to admit, though, that the PC party
> >fled from the battle (3 skeletons and a zombie), waited
> >a few rounds so that the stun went away, and then they
> >want back in and the tank-type PC destroyed all the
> >skeletons and zombies without trouble (after killing
> >a dozen skeletons, I allowed him to auto-kill the last
> >2-3 of them, since he was using a carefull tactic
> >against extremely fragile and mindless undeads...)
>
> That's just goofy. Weren't there penalties for running away? Even a
> skeleton should be allowed to pull his next attack forward to hit
> someone who's turned their back on it.
They did retreat in an orderly fashion, and the skeletons were
stupider than dirt, slow to react and all. A turnabout flight
would have triggered an attack-of-opportunity, but that
wasn't what happened.
Hey, now that I think about it the skeletons did actually
ambush the PCs. They were lying on the floor, looking like
very old corpses, and the PCs entered the room which
triggered the activation of the skeletons ("stop pretending
to be dead and start attacking whatever life is in sight").
That's also a good explanation for how the two combatant PCs
got so seriously stunned early on.
Warren J. Dew
My impression is that they'll be replaced with guidelines for how
the GM can populate his campaign world with various cultures in
such a way that the cultures are balanced (one culture might
be high-tech (like the v2.1 Caucasians) while another culture
is more in tune with magic (like the Africans in v2.1, getting
+1 Magic Talent)
Why do cultures need to be balanced? Seems to me the reason why caucasians,
and not native americans, are dominant in North America is because the cultures
are not, in fact, balanced at all.
Balance for the individual characters I can see. In a point system, it seems
to me the appropriate way to do that, when cultures are not balanced, is to
explicitly identify and charge for the cultural advantages. For example, you
could require modern Western Europeans to pay for a technical savvy skill or
something, and require magic using aborigines to pay for magical aptitude.
Warren
Rupert Boleyn
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>"Scott Barrie" <sba...@julian.uwo.ca> wrote in message
>news:ki1llsctb93o35h03...@4ax.com...
>
>
>> Any RPG which allows groin shots is going to be better than one
>> without. I just wanted everyone out there in Usenetland to know that.
>
>I used to have them in Age of Heroes, but I took them out.
>
>It wasn't heroic to go around hitting orcs with low blows, and it certainly
>wasn't heroic to be hit by orcs there either. Besides, it always disrupted
>the game as everyone cringed in sympathy...
Heh. Try the optional rules in GURPS. They make the groin as easy to
hit as all the other vitals put together, and it's pretty much a
guaranteed stun on anything male that's not at least as tough as an
Ogre. I don't use the optional hit locations because of this. What's
worse is that they're part of the combat section in Compendium II,
which is now considered part of the core rules set.
--
"Rupert Boleyn" <rbo...@paradise.net.nz>
A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.
Rupert Boleyn
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>And I also get to point out that it's all but impossible to kill someone in
>battle so we have the grand parade of after action throat cutting! I left
>that out of the original interview :-)
Though actually that's realistic :) Just not often desired in fantasy
rpgs.
Lev Lafayette
On Thu, 29 Jun 2000, Rupert Boleyn wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Jun 2000 20:14:38 -0500, "Brian Gleichman"
> <glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> >"Scott Barrie" <sba...@julian.uwo.ca> wrote in message
> >news:ki1llsctb93o35h03...@4ax.com...
> >
> >
> >> Any RPG which allows groin shots is going to be better than one
> >> without. I just wanted everyone out there in Usenetland to know that.
> >
> >I used to have them in Age of Heroes, but I took them out.
> >
> >It wasn't heroic to go around hitting orcs with low blows, and it certainly
> >wasn't heroic to be hit by orcs there either. Besides, it always disrupted
> >the game as everyone cringed in sympathy...
>
> Heh. Try the optional rules in GURPS. They make the groin as easy to
> hit as all the other vitals put together, and it's pretty much a
> guaranteed stun on anything male that's not at least as tough as an
> Ogre. I don't use the optional hit locations because of this. What's
> worse is that they're part of the combat section in Compendium II,
> which is now considered part of the core rules set.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought in GURPS all vitals (including the
groin) were lumped (pardon the pun) under one hit location.
Of course in Aftermath!, with its thirty-six hit locations, the groin was
the area with the greatest chance to be hit. Ouch!
Lev Lafayette.
l...@student.unimelb.edu.au http://www.student.unimelb.edu.au/~lev
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
Brian Gleichman <glei...@mindspring.com> spake:
>This time, Lets take a look at Quest found at
>http://admin.engr.wisc.edu/quest/. The primary designer was Mike Greenholdt
>although Gene Masters and Todd Richmond are the ones who rewrote the system
>for distribution.
I'm a bit surprised you didn't mention what I thought was the most
interesting bit in the skill system: every skill level provides a new
ability or different set of bonuses, instead of just being a slightly
higher chance of succeeding.
>The use of real world races and religions is more than somewhat
>disrespectful IMO and their presence is the reason for the low attitude
>grade.
What's disrespectful about representing the real world? I take it
you'd give Ars Magica or Pendragon an equally low grade? Or, for that
matter, any modern RPG?
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
Disclaimer: I do not have an orbital mind control laser; you are free to post
your own opinion, but be prepared to back it up, because I *will* call you on
it if I think it's bullshit. That's how the Internet, and life, works.
Brian Gleichman
news:395abdd1...@news.paradise.net.nz...
> >And I also get to point out that it's all but impossible to kill someone
in
> >battle so we have the grand parade of after action throat cutting! I left
> >that out of the original interview :-)
>
> Though actually that's realistic :) Just not often desired in fantasy
> rpgs.
Actually 'impossible' isn't realistic as historically as men were killed in
full plate with things as wimpy as wooden weapons- it just wasn't common for
instant battlefield kills (as condition that is true even in modern battle).
As you state real life lingering death, ineffectiveness and routine killing
of the battlefield wounded isn't something one generally considers a plus
for most RPGs. Although I imagine those that run vampires might consider
this a good thing...
Brian Gleichman
news:slrn8llqq7....@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu...
> I'm a bit surprised you didn't mention what I thought was the most
> interesting bit in the skill system: every skill level provides a new
> ability or different set of bonuses, instead of just being a slightly
> higher chance of succeeding.
Having played DragonQuest for years, it looked typical and common to me.
But you're right, it isn't and I overlooked it because of a personal blind
spot. I'll add it to the archived version.
> What's disrespectful about representing the real world? I take it
> you'd give Ars Magica or Pendragon an equally low grade? Or, for that
> matter, any modern RPG?
I've only seen the first edition of Pendragon and while it contained some
representations of Christianity, it was very much as seen through the
Arthurian viewpoint. That is something I would expect of a 'genre' game.
Ars Magica is also something of a 'genre' game, although enough less so that
I don't think it matters much. I've only read the core book of the last
edition and yes there were elements I didn't care for but at least it stated
that it was based upon Europe and thus one must expect religion to be
addressed.
Quest bills itself as a generic ruleset independent of setting suitable even
for sci-fi campaigns. Such a critter should leave world specific items like
religion for supplement books.
Rupert Boleyn
<l...@student.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought in GURPS all vitals (including the
>groin) were lumped (pardon the pun) under one hit location.
Not in the expanded hit location rules.
>Of course in Aftermath!, with its thirty-six hit locations, the groin was
>the area with the greatest chance to be hit. Ouch!
IIRC it was thirty, and the chances were even (almost, anyway) for
all. Neat game, that.
Dr Nuncheon
> the GM can populate his campaign world with various cultures in
> such a way that the cultures are balanced (one culture might
> be high-tech (like the v2.1 Caucasians) while another culture
> is more in tune with magic (like the Africans in v2.1, getting
> +1 Magic Talent)
>
>and not native americans, are dominant in North America is because the cultures
>are not, in fact, balanced at all.
>
>Balance for the individual characters I can see. In a point system, it seems
>to me the appropriate way to do that, when cultures are not balanced, is to
>explicitly identify and charge for the cultural advantages. For example, you
>could require modern Western Europeans to pay for a technical savvy skill or
>something, and require magic using aborigines to pay for magical aptitude.
Just be careful to only charge (or give points back for) the stuff that
affects an individual PC (or taking it a bit farther, the stuff that is
likely to affect an individual PC in that game). GURPS tended to have
this problem, with things like 'Early Maturity' (sure it's an advantage
for the race, but what does it do for a PC?) and 'Dying Race'.
Cultural/racial advantages and disadvantages are not always the same as
personal ones...
J
--
"Boy, you lose one measly continent and people | Jeff Johnston
just won't let you forget about it." - Kenneth Hite |
"Suppressed Transmissions", _Pyramid_ 5/12/00 | jeffj @ io.com
Warren J. Dew
On a related subject, do you know the source (and accuracy) for
the creature weights given?
Peter Knutsen posts, in part:
No, but my educated guess is that they're based on encyclopedia
research. If you mean the authentic animals, that is.
I'd also be interested in specific sources.
I've found that it's very difficult to find complete sets of statistics on this
kind of thing. I have half a shelf of books on animals, and few of them give
weights for all the animals listed. Typically you'll get a weight in an
article on one animal, but another animal will be described in terms of length
or height, and you end up scattered information that isn't all that useful for
animal attributes for a roleplaying campaign.
One exception is one of my books on cetaceans, which gives a set of statistics
for every cetacean species. Now if I could just get more of my players'
characters to learn spells of waterbreath or dolphin shape, I could use that
information....
Warren Dew
Warren J. Dew
There's a chance players will break out of the stereotypes,
if realworld religions are used. Players comes to the game
with different ideas about what Wicca is, for instance.
So if two players creates Wiccan characters, they'll play
them differently. The GM might have a third opinion, so
you'll get three different views of Wicca all within the
same campaign.
This does not strike me as good for the campaign: it seems to me this is
likely to become a major source of assumption clash. Where I've seen player
world religions used in campaigns, things have always been discovered about the
player world religion that are inconsistent with things that have been
established about the game world version of the religion. Eventually, the
gamesmaster has always had to resort to, "well, this religion is named the
same, but it isn't really the same religion". At that point, the only
difference from a completely fictional game world religion is a misleading
religion name.
I suppose this might be different for religions that the gamesmaster is
actually a member of, or better yet, a priest of. But for some reason, that
never seems to happen.
Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software
Warren J. Dew
grace to die quietly from blood loss, infection, or exposure.
Warren Dew
----
Subject: Re: [Free RPG Review] Quest
From: <A HREF="mailto:rbo...@paradise.net.nz ">rbo...@paradise.net.nz </A>
(Rupert Boleyn)
Date: Wed, Jun 28, 2000 11:10 PM
Message-id: <395abdd1...@news.paradise.net.nz>
On Wed, 28 Jun 2000 21:55:54 -0500, "Brian Gleichman"
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>And I also get to point out that it's all but impossible to kill someone in
>battle so we have the grand parade of after action throat cutting! I left
>that out of the original interview :-)
Though actually that's realistic :) Just not often desired in fantasy
rpgs.
--
"Rupert Boleyn" <rbo...@paradise.net.nz>
A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.
Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software
Mary K. Kuhner
Warren J. Dew <psych...@aol.com> wrote:
[game-world religions diverge from real-world religions]
>I suppose this might be different for religions that the gamesmaster is
>actually a member of, or better yet, a priest of. But for some reason, that
>never seems to happen.
I don't know about other religions, but it would be no help with Wicca:
even if everyone in the gaming group were a Wiccan priest or priestess,
you probably would still encounter vigorous disagreement about the history,
doctrine, and boundaries of the religion.
Our space opera campaign has Islam and (less prevalent) Christianity, but
at 800 years' distance in time I don't worry too much over the accuracy
of our portrayals. I haven't seen any Wiccans, despite the GM being
(roughly) Wiccan; it's not an easy religion to envision in a space
habitat.
I'd actually be mildly unhappy to see Wicca as a game-world religion in a
game I was playing in, because I think real-world agendas and arguments
might creep into the game and detract from it. The idea that the GM might
show some forms of ritual as efficacious and others as futile, for
example, is a bit offputting--it's like having a GM favor his real-life
political orientation in a modern-day campaign. The less personally
involved I am with the religion depicted, the less distracting I find it,
so I don't really mind the Islamic and Christian aspects of _Radiant_.
For our Ars Magica not-fantasy-Europe campaign we came up with a religion
loosely inspired by Mithras and Zoroaster, but with some gender-role
differences. Given a long campaign it's possible to get a fair level of
depth, though as it turned out our magi were not, most of them, conventionally
religious. I didn't want to get run up against my ignorance (as GM) of
medieval Christianity; I was also rather tired of the stock Church-vs-mages
thing.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Scott Barrie
>> The hit locations don't work the same as in Runequest. Doing half the
>> location's HP to the head or torso Stuns the target, which is pretty
>> sweet.
>
>When I first read the rules, I thought the 1d3 rounds of stunning was
>measured in pulses. That meant it was only of importance if one was the
>target of multiple attackers. And I thought, ok- that works for me as I
>could see being unbalanced for a couple of seconds...
>
>Upon seeing your comment, I went back and found out that was actually 1d3
>entire rounds of 30 seconds that the poor jerk's defense are halved and he's
>unable to attack.
>
>That's so unrealistic and unbelievable that I can only say I'm stunned. A
>boxer floored and knocked completely silly will often recover in less than a
>ten count, but these guys can't suck up a little cut in less than thirty
>seconds no matter that real world information indicates that most injuries
>won't even be noticed until after the battle.
Realism shmealism. First, I think that the main problem here is the 30
second round, which I won't defend. :) (How many rounds would it take
to cross a football field?)
Playing with a 5-10 second round (like I do), the Stunning rules lead
to a nice heroic system where one combatant gains the upper hand and
has a very real chance to finish their foe. Not that that should have
an impact on your review.
>Let's see... just ballpark the numbers here...
>
>For values of 14s or 10s you're still looking at only slightly more than 1
>in six of your hits stunning your foe (or disabling a limb), so the typical
>case is still the requirement of multiple hits.
I suspect that you're still looking at chain mail clad foes. Yes, they
will take a bit of battering to finish - that's the reason they've
covered themselves in metal. Use a better weapon, like a mace (1d6+3)
or a broadsword made with advanced forging techniques (1d6+3). 30% of
hits then become critical, and that's assuming you bother to count 1/2
damage arm hits. That's frequent enough to justify hit locations.
Then consider opponents with light or no armour.
>I don't think stunning really changes the pace of decision all that much.
>The victim still needs to be finished off while he's at a disadvantage and
>that will take one or two blows at least (if not more). More than enough
>time for his teammates to decide how to handle the lost of their friend (or
>even to come to his aid).
Well, good. Lots of players enjoy the chance to make decisions during
play.
Then again, they may not get the chance to help their friend. The next
attack against him is at +2, and his parry ability is hosed. Besides a
flat +15% chance to hit, the relative chance to hit each location
becomes:
Head 4%
Head (half damage) 6%
Chest 15%
Abdomen 9%
Groin 6%
Legs 22%
Arms 19%
Arms (half damage) 21%
giving a better chance to land an effective blow.
>And I also get to point out that it's all but impossible to kill someone in
>battle so we have the grand parade of after action throat cutting! I left
>that out of the original interview :-)
All blows which end combat either cause Bleeding or leave the victim
mobile, which completely eliminates the need for throat cutting. Well,
except for a simple fracture to the leg (oops). /:
Ironically, I bet if you used realistic weights with the heights given
in Quest you'd find the balance you'd like. (:
Rupert Boleyn
>Of course, in the player world, the wounded on the losing side often have the
>grace to die quietly from blood loss, infection, or exposure.
IME players seldom actually want to hear about what they're actually
allowing to happen when they just leave their shocky and unconcious
opponents lying where they fell. Basically they're quite willing to
kill, sometimes even murder in cold blood, but not when the victim is
someone you've just rendered helpless.
This isn't always true, though. There was a RQ game where killing
those enemies who couldn't get away was normal behaviour for that
world. I'm not sure what it was about that campaign, but the players
didn't have a problem with it, even though in other games there
would've been problems.
Brian Gleichman
news:20000629102844...@ng-cg1.aol.com...
> Of course, in the player world, the wounded on the losing side often have
> the grace to die quietly from blood loss, infection, or exposure.
Given the screams, moans and cries for help so common on battlefields in the
player (i.e. the real world), I don't think grace or quiet has much to do
with it.
But a mook rule handles the problem well enough for a rpg world. A simple,
unnamed characters who drop are dead option is a great thing for those who
want a 'heroic' air to their game.
Luke Campbell
> Responding to Brian Gleichman:
>
> On a related subject, do you know the source (and accuracy) for
> the creature weights given?
>
> Peter Knutsen posts, in part:
>
> No, but my educated guess is that they're based on encyclopedia
> research. If you mean the authentic animals, that is.
>
> I'd also be interested in specific sources.
>
> I've found that it's very difficult to find complete sets of statistics on this
> kind of thing. I have half a shelf of books on animals, and few of them give
> weights for all the animals listed. Typically you'll get a weight in an
> article on one animal, but another animal will be described in terms of length
> or height, and you end up scattered information that isn't all that useful for
> animal attributes for a roleplaying campaign.
See if you can find a copy of Walker's Mammals of the World. It is a bit pricey,
but well worth it. It describes every mammal known to science down to the genus
level, with notes on known species, including length and, yes, mass.
Greg Paul's Predatory Dinosaurs of the World has estimated masses on all known
species of non-avian theorpod dinosaur known at the time the book was written
(1980's). It also has great artwork. Unfortunately, it is out of print.
Most reptiles are so small that accurate masses are not necessary from a game
standpoint (oh, no! we're being attacked by a house gecko!). The Komodo monitor,
a.k.a. the Komodo dragon, is between 30 and 80 kilos as an adult on an empty
stomach, with males larger than females and anything over 55 kilos is very
unusual. Note that the dragons commonly eat up to around 40% of their body mass
in one sitting, and in one case, ate up to 80% of their body mass - this will
significantly increase their total mass. Typical mid-size monitors run about 1 to
2 kilos for females, 4 to 5 kilos for adult males, up to 10 kilos for very large
males. Note that some populations of salvator monitor grow much larger than this,
and can approach 30 kilos in mass. Large iguanas and tegus are about the same
size as mid size monitors. The very largest salt water and Nile crocodiles get up
to nearly a 1000 kilos, but this is rare. 200 to 500 kilos is more common for
these giant crocodillians, most other large crocodillians probably top out at
around 500 kilos, and rarely get above 200 kilos. Leatherback turtles can get to
800 kilos. The largest giant constrictors are about 200 to 250 kilos, most never
get that large. I don't have any data at the moment on the giant Aldabra or
Galapagos tortoises, but sulcata tortises (the world's 3rd largest) get to about
50 kilos (typical for large males) with extremes of around 100 kilos. This
information is assembled from a variety of sources, including Auffenberg's
Behavior Ecology of the Komodo Monitor, articles in Reptiles magazine, zoo
statistics on their captive pythons, books on caring for sulcata tortoises, and
weighing my own pet monitors.
Amphibians are, once again, so small that accurate weights or game statistics are
usually not important.
The largest flying birds (harpy eagles, albatrosses, condors, kori bustards) are
all around 10 to 15 kilos (although the extinct Argentinavis grew to an estmated
mass of 80 kilos, and still flew!). This information is pulled from The Dynamics
of Dinosaurs and Other Exctinct giants. I don't have any data at hand for the
ratites (ostriches, emus, rheas, moas, etc.).
I haven't done much research on fish, so I can't help you there.
Luke
Brian Gleichman
> I suspect that you're still looking at chain mail clad foes.
Of course.
After all chainmail clad foes are common in my fantasy campaigns. The norm.
(Actually I used full plate when I did the numbers for the review in the
first place. I've come down to what I consider 'minimum rational armor given
the system' for this comparison.)
I don't consider this unreasonable in the least.
After all, to quote Quest itself: "is designed to be an open-ended game
system in which you, the Player, design your own Character conception".
My character conception happens to be such that armor exists and is used
without magical or tech enhancement for the common case. There is no reason
why I should be forced into 3 points of armor or less. That is not my
character conception.
What one discovers upon a close examination of Quest is that the range of
weapon effects is too wide for the target hit point range. There are 'sweet
spots' in the system where things work well, but it is all too easy to move
out of them as a result of the conception of either the character or the
world.
Outside those 'sweet spots', we have either hit point attrition of bodyparts
(when armor exceeds equals or exceed half the max damage range) or any hit
is in effect a win (for those cases when max damage triples the armor).
That's a very narrow line to force users of the system to walk. This is not
a 'any conception' combat system and it would take some work to make it one.
Now if Quest wants to claim that the rules are actually world specific (like
_The FRP Project_ which had a similar problem) that I wouldn't judge it
quite so harshly. But the problem still needs to be pointed out.
> Then consider opponents with light or no armour.
They're screwed and unless they avoid melee combat are better off staying in
bed.
> Then again, they may not get the chance to help their friend. The next
> attack against him is at +2, and his parry ability is hosed.
Doesn't really matter that much. Damage hasn't change and it will still
likely take two or more hits in the same location to down him (assuming he's
wearing the armor in the example). The additional outrageous stun effects
will make him into a punching bag though with no significant chance of
recovery.
Nice and heroic that, El Cid would have been a dead man (of course he was
anyway in the end, but hey- it was a Charleston Heston movie. What did you
expect?).
> All blows which end combat either cause Bleeding or leave the victim
> mobile, which completely eliminates the need for throat cutting. Well,
> except for a simple fracture to the leg (oops). /:
That's nice. I get to watch my opponents run away or watch them die in agony
rather than put them out of their misery. Yes, that's an improvement.
> Ironically, I bet if you used realistic weights with the heights given
> in Quest you'd find the balance you'd like. (:
I used a 168 lb. for the typical man. That's just about as realistic as it
comes given a pound or two.
Scott Barrie
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>"Scott Barrie" <sba...@julian.uwo.ca> wrote in message
>news:uh8nlsgacspsng9op...@4ax.com...
>What one discovers upon a close examination of Quest is that the range of
>weapon effects is too wide for the target hit point range. There are 'sweet
>spots' in the system where things work well, but it is all too easy to move
>out of them as a result of the conception of either the character or the
>world.
>
>Outside those 'sweet spots', we have either hit point attrition of bodyparts
>(when armor exceeds equals or exceed half the max damage range) or any hit
>is in effect a win (for those cases when max damage triples the armor).
Yes, combat has variable flavour depending on the balance of armour to
weapons. It is not always hit point attrition as I believe was your
original worry.
>That's a very narrow line to force users of the system to walk. This is not
>a 'any conception' combat system and it would take some work to make it one.
I'm not convinced that having more than one possible combat style is a
bad thing in an RPG. Whiffle bats in plate armour combats take longer
than Axe of Doom in thongs. I think the question is what you think the
midpoint is, and where you think it should be, not whether it exists
at all.
>> All blows which end combat either cause Bleeding or leave the victim
>> mobile, which completely eliminates the need for throat cutting. Well,
>> except for a simple fracture to the leg (oops). /:
>
>That's nice. I get to watch my opponents run away or watch them die in agony
>rather than put them out of their misery. Yes, that's an improvement.
<shrug> The system lets the losers die. The GM can add as much or as
little detail as they wish. The PCs aren't required to cut throats,
but they may save lives if it's that sort of game.
Brian Gleichman
> Yes, combat has variable flavour depending on the balance of armour to
> weapons. It is not always hit point attrition as I believe was your
> original worry.
It's not always hit point attrition upon examination, but I believe that a
good group of gamists would rapidly turn it into one in practice (assuming
that there is an armor bonus to match every weapon bonus, something that may
not be true- one would have to go through every spell and tech item to
determine that.)
The benefits of heavy armor are too great given the low random range for
damage. Any gamist would seek out the heavier armor in order to protect his
character together with a weapon good enough to deal with the typical armor
he encounters.
At this point the game master can accept the hit point attrition as the cost
maintaining the weapons dispersion of a typical world, or he can start
handing out Great Axes and Two-Handed swords to the orcs. While not
completely successful (unless the typical orcs has a Str of 16), it will at
least help.
But my, is that really the image we wanted?
The other choice is to restrict armor to 3 points at max, or even less. The
same solution as the designers of _The FRP Project_ in effect chose. That is
a non-mechanical solution to a mechanical break, but a very workable one.
Now since I hate the idea of body part attrition (considering it unjustable
under nearly any conditions), I consider Quest to have a seriously broken
damage mechanic. It doesn't avoid that attrition over the range of weapons
and armor I desire in my games.
That of course doesn't mean it's broken for everyone. The body part
attrition might well seem like a good thing to some people, others may never
desire to take the system onto 'unstable' ground.
> <shrug> The system lets the losers die. The GM can add as much or as
> little detail as they wish. The PCs aren't required to cut throats,
> but they may save lives if it's that sort of game.
That's actually an easy fix. Add a house mook rule. Far easier to do in
Quest than, say Hero System as the image of stun damage isn't in the way.
More important to my mind is the fact that it is impossible for a typical
combatant to kill a PC with single hit (unless heavy magic is used). Some
will like that script immunity feature of the rules, I don't.
Scott Barrie
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>"Scott Barrie" <sba...@julian.uwo.ca> wrote in message
>news:5eonlsctugbgmkho3...@4ax.com...
>
>> Yes, combat has variable flavour depending on the balance of armour to
>> weapons. It is not always hit point attrition as I believe was your
>> original worry.
>
>It's not always hit point attrition upon examination, but I believe that a
>good group of gamists would rapidly turn it into one in practice (assuming
>that there is an armor bonus to match every weapon bonus, something that may
>not be true- one would have to go through every spell and tech item to
>determine that.)
Note that wearing heavy armour does have some penalties in Quest. One
player bought some nice plate for his character, only to discover his
DV dropped to 1 while wearing it. A high Strength character would have
had fewer penalties, though. This doesn't change to hit point
attrition factor, though.
>Now since I hate the idea of body part attrition (considering it unjustable
>under nearly any conditions), I consider Quest to have a seriously broken
>damage mechanic. It doesn't avoid that attrition over the range of weapons
>and armor I desire in my games.
Alright, I'm satisfied now that you're damning the game for what it
truly is. So when's your next review?
>That of course doesn't mean it's broken for everyone. The body part
>attrition might well seem like a good thing to some people, others may never
>desire to take the system onto 'unstable' ground.
>
>> <shrug> The system lets the losers die. The GM can add as much or as
>> little detail as they wish. The PCs aren't required to cut throats,
>> but they may save lives if it's that sort of game.
>
>That's actually an easy fix. Add a house mook rule. Far easier to do in
>Quest than, say Hero System as the image of stun damage isn't in the way.
Exactly. Pay no attention to the dying mooks.
>More important to my mind is the fact that it is impossible for a typical
>combatant to kill a PC with single hit (unless heavy magic is used). Some
>will like that script immunity feature of the rules, I don't.
Impossible's a strong word. PCs do die with one hit, but they can
certainly minimize the chance of that happening.
Brian Gleichman
> Alright, I'm satisfied now that you're damning the game for what it
> truly is.
Damning is too strong of a word. Just pointing out likely results (and
saying I don't like- but anyone we disagrees with me will be on your side as
it were).
> So when's your next review?
Sometime this month. Mabye in a couple of weeks.
> Impossible's a strong word. PCs do die with one hit, but they can
> certainly minimize the chance of that happening.
I can't see how a typical opponent (ST 12 with a broadsword) doing only
1d6+2 can kill someone in plate with one hit. At most, it's 3 or 4 points of
damage (I've forgotten the armor value for full helm, not worth looking up
right now).
Stefano Bartoletti
from Italy. I happen to play the Italian version of Quest
(which, in case you're wondering, is not yet available for
downloading and is different from the original, to the point
that they do not have the same name. The main rules are still
the same, though).
Brian Gleichman wrote:
> Perceived Goals:
[CUT]
> This system attempts to cover the entire kitchen sink of
> rules. There are rules here for land usage, rules for
> firearms, rules for religion, rules for.
My rule regarding rules: if you don't need a rule, don't
use it. But if you need one, it's better if somebody already
wrote it. :-)
> It really looks like someone loved all the information
> AD&D gave the gaming world, but just didn't like the
> details. So here we have Quest, Mike Greenholdt's
> idea of what AD&D should have been.
Agreed. Well, sort of. I'd rather say "...Mike
Greenholdt's idea of what a fantasy rpg should be". Which is
the reason for which people create homebrews, after all.
>--
> Style Comments:
>
> The rules are presented in an understandable enough way.
> Although I seen worse organization, I had to do a lot of
> page flipping to put together some basic concepts.
True. I re-arranged almost every chapter.
> CHARACTERS
[CUT]
> Each of the stats starts with a value of 14.
...which is way too much, as far as I'm concerned. I
usually allow players to start at 12, although I give them
six more "floaters" to increas their stats.
> There are rolls you make to determine height and weight
> (again modified by race, but not gender)
I added some race modifiers and altered the height/weight
formula, which seems not to work very well for particularly
short or tall people.
> SKILL RESOLUTION
>
> Resolution is real simple
Which is definitely good. :-)
> I saw nothing that covered opposing skill tests
True as well. And that's surprising, since opposing skill
test are fairly common and their rules is extremely simple. A
few words, and there they would be.
> COMBAT
[CUT]
> Damage is light compared a character's hit points.
My players required a +1 damage to all weapons, and I must
admit they were right in doing so. I wonder if a more serious
damage bonus would help in avoiding the bodypart attrition
you've noticed.
> Rule Comments
[cut]
> Quest has all the appearance of a homegrown attempt to
> improve AD&D. In fact so much of it reminds me of D&D
> house rules that it's scary.
Wellll... I don't think Quest is merely an "ADnD done
better". After all, many key concepts of the *DnD games are
not present at all (thank God). I'd simply say that Quest is
better that ADnD, since it has more logical rules and no
class/level restrictions. This doesn't imply, of course, that
Quest is the "ultimate" game, just taht in my opinion it's
fairly good.
> Consider the race modifiers.
True, that single-stat modifiers rules are obviously
wrong. I suppose their meaning is what Peter pointed out, and
that's another thing which would require no effort to be
corrected.
> The use of real world races and religions is more than
> somewhat disrespectful IMO
I strongly disagree on this, but it has been already
discussed in the mailing list and, since I don't use them (I
play in a fictitious world), this seems of little importance
to me.
> The Learning Rate rules are intended to protect niches
> while allowing freedom of character concept. I imagine for
> short-term ampaigns they will do so reasonable well, but
> long-term campaigns that span generations like mine (with
> NPCs that have been around for thousands of years)
> will find them next to useless. The ceiling in each DoM
> assures that characters must broaden into other niches
> eventually.
Well, if you're talking nearly-immortal beings, I suppose
that you want them to be powerful. For mortal, "normal"
characters, which have a "normal" lifespan (even considering
elves), learning rates seem definitely good.
> But IMO, it just falls short. A good effort that doesn't
> offer enough new or different to justify jumping whatever
> ship you're on now.
It depends on the ship. If it's *DnD, it surely does. If
it's C&S, probably not. If it's Rolemaster, then you like more
complex games and don't need Quest. But if you need a free
fantasy rolegame, it's the more complete out there.
> An improvement on D&D yes, but then again- what isn't?
Ah. I see we all like it, uh? ;-)
Stefano Bartoletti
-------------------------------------------
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http://www.extracomics.com/comicdom/
Il punto di partenza per i comics sul web !
Stefano Bartoletti
> Quest does not suit generational campaigns.
Why?
[Brief, but clear.] :-)
--
Stefano Bartoletti
-------------------------------------------
Webmaster COMICDOM - JLA CENTRAL - HELLBOY
Stefano Bartoletti
Stefano Bartoletti
> If two characters go on the same pulse, the one
> with the higher blows goes first. If they have
> the same number of blows, the 30 pulse chart
> isn't going to help as they're tied anyway.
It's a little more complex, actually. If you look at the
30-pulse chart, it may happen that two characters with
different number of blows are to strike in the same instant.
When it happens, adjusted manual dexterity (AMD) comes in
hand. It not only represents the character's dexterity, but
also his strenght and the encumbrance of the weapon he's
using. I understand that a 10-pulse chart would be simpler,
but it would not be able to reproduce the 30-pulse sequence of
strikes. Anyway, since the two methods seems to compensate
each other, I'd offer choice to the players. No, wait, I
_will_ offer choice to the players.
> Also in the case of Quest, these damage bonuses are a
> concern to me as such things tend to rapidly make
> certain types of characters unsurvivable.
Uhm. Interesting. Would you please explain your thougt?
Damage. Arrows: I agree with Peter, they're undervalued.
How about granting more damage?
Stefano Bartoletti
>> It seems to me like most characters without clerical
>> skills will opt for atheism as the default.
>
> It certainly wouldn't matter if they did or not.
Depends on the campaign setting.
> You *can't* impose gender modifiers on dwarves! :-)
After all, male and female dwarves are indistinguishable
in mithology, then it makes some sense. :-)
Anyway, the point is that, although it may not seem so,
Quest has some degree of campaign-specificity (look at how
faires are represtend, for instance). Now that I think of it,
every game has some degree of campaign-specificity, apart
frome rulelights and extremely generic (see Fuzion and GURPS -
not GURPS Fantasy).
> So stat improvement is a skill.
No, it isn't. It's just in the wrong chapter.
Brian Gleichman
news:8jtkmj$bb4$1...@nslave1.tin.it...
> Hello, everyone.
Hi Stefano. Glad you stopped by.
Did you hear of the review in the quest mailing list?
> I happen to play the Italian version of Quest
> (which, in case you're wondering, is not yet available for
> downloading and is different from the original, to the point
> that they do not have the same name. The main rules are still
> the same, though).
What are the differences?
> Agreed. Well, sort of. I'd rather say "...Mike
> Greenholdt's idea of what a fantasy rpg should be". Which is
> the reason for which people create homebrews, after all.
True. It's the layout, writing style and coverage more than anything that
reminded me of D&D.
> ...which is way too much, as far as I'm concerned. I
> usually allow players to start at 12, although I give them
> six more "floaters" to increas their stats.
There's no reason to even have a starting stat value given the ability to
shift points around. It should just be a flat number of points plus
floaters.
The linear purchase cost of the stats do trouble me as I think high values
should be rare, and not just the result of a stat or two being average
(which is the way things currently work in Quest).
> > Damage is light compared a character's hit points.
>
> My players required a +1 damage to all weapons, and I must
> admit they were right in doing so. I wonder if a more serious
> damage bonus would help in avoiding the bodypart attrition
> you've noticed.
It would in the case of heavy armor, which is where bodypart attrition
occurs. But it comes at a price I'll speak of later in another post.
> Wellll... I don't think Quest is merely an "ADnD done
> better". After all, many key concepts of the *DnD games are
> not present at all (thank God).
Classes, inflating hit points, alignments, etc.
The stuff the normally bites the dust in house rule versions. Many homebrew
rules are a reaction to D&D and as such, they carry interesting baggage with
them.
Quest has the same book layout, duplicates many of the D&D class skills with
within it's skill lists (the quest version of backstabing is most telling
here), the lack of straight skill rolls without an opposing test is also
almost pure D&D 'hide in shadows' time', and the breakdown of body location
hit points could have been reprint out of _Blackmoor_.
There is so much there in common with D&D, that I was left with a such a
strong feeling of 'dumb stuff changed', that it was overwhelming.
> Well, if you're talking nearly-immortal beings, I suppose
> that you want them to be powerful.
Actually no. I want them to be what they are, and a master of everything is
not what they are within my campaign.
> For mortal, "normal" characters, which have a "normal" lifespan (even
> considering elves), learning rates seem definitely good.
Elves are immortal in my campaigns. And a quick attempt to write up, say
Gwydion (Dunedain human character who's seen 50 games years of adventuring)
from the sister campiagn in Quests, shows a vast increase in the number of
skills reaching across too many areas.
He is not recognizeable under the advancement system given in quest. His
niche has expanded to include too much while his primary areas have been
maxed. Not a good thing for Generation Campaigns.
> It depends on the ship. If it's *DnD, it surely does. If
> it's C&S, probably not. If it's Rolemaster, then you like more
> complex games and don't need Quest. But if you need a free
> fantasy rolegame, it's the more complete out there.
The Guide to Adventure matches it in completeness (i.e. in detailing
mechanically the same areas, coming short in some but pulling ahead in
others). And that's just off the list of games that I've reviewed.
Such games exist out there, they just make up a small percentage of the free
rpg world. Quest is not as alone as it things (although it does have the
highest page count, due in part to its large font, that I know of).
> > An improvement on D&D yes, but then again- what isn't?
>
> Ah. I see we all like it, uh? ;-)
Nah, we just all hate D&D :-)
Brian Gleichman
> It's a little more complex, actually. If you look at the
> 30-pulse chart, it may happen that two characters with
> different number of blows are to strike in the same instant.
> When it happens, adjusted manual dexterity (AMD) comes in
> hand.
Do the same on the 10 pulse chart. Ties are determined by blows first, and
than AMD.
> I understand that a 10-pulse chart would be simpler,
> but it would not be able to reproduce the 30-pulse sequence of
> strikes.
I can't see why not.
Could you give an example of a case where the 30-pulse chart would produce a
different result?
> > Also in the case of Quest, these damage bonuses are a
> > concern to me as such things tend to rapidly make
> > certain types of characters unsurvivable.
>
> Uhm. Interesting. Would you please explain your thougt?
Consider the idea of a weapon doing 1d6+4 damage against the typical
chainmail wearer. There is no issue of bodypart attrition under the typical
case as there is more than a 50% chance of a disabling hit or stunning hit.
But there is nearly almost an 100% chance of disabling or stunning an
unarmored opponent.
How likely now is it that characters will willing go into battle without
armor like Connan, Taran or other fantasy characters do in the source
material for so many campaigns?
By over doing weapon damage (to fix the problem bodypart attrition), every
character concept of the 'lightly armored' warrior is dealt a death blow.
As a general rule in game design, the modifier to a die should never exceed
half the max value (a rule sometimes broken to good effect, but rarely). To
do so, is to undermine the value of the random factor making the bonus
overwhelming.
Such is the case with damage in Quest.
> Damage. Arrows: I agree with Peter, they're undervalued.
> How about granting more damage?
Warren J. Dew
I don't know about other religions, but it would be no help
with Wicca: even if everyone in the gaming group were a Wiccan
priest or priestess, you probably would still encounter
vigorous disagreement about the history, doctrine, and
boundaries of the religion.
Well, I did say gamesmaster, not players.
But even so, these disagreements could reasonably be expected to exist in the
game world, as well. My problem is with gamesmasters with only a shallow
knowledge of the religion portraying it in a way that is clearly viewed as
incorrect by all members of the religion. This problem can be exacerbated when
the portrayal is unsympathetic, as in my experience is often the case with, for
example, game world portrayals of Christianity by non-christians.
The less personally involved I am with the religion depicted,
the less distracting I find it ...
Yes. For a published game, though, it seems to me that this rather militates
against including any large player world religions.
Stefano Bartoletti
> Did you hear of the review in the quest mailing list?
Yes, although I already knew your reviews from the
Hephaestus website.
>> I happen to play the Italian version of Quest
>
> What are the differences?
Too many to mention. For example, considering the
introductory chapter:
1) Pages devoted not to rules, but to gaming suggestions
concering interpretation and rules handling. Useful for both
players and masters.
2) Character creation. The height/weight formula didn't work
well, so I replaced it with a "subtract THIS from your height
to obtain standard weight" (which is then modified by body
frame). This also means a little gender distinction. Height is
rolled in a slightly different way and also gets a big gender
modifier.
3) Perception as a d20 stat.
4) Stamina as a varying index [(CON*2)+WILL]/3. People tend to
get tired even when they're not bleeding.
5) Stats have a 12 starting value, although 6 more floaters
are granted. I like playing with "normal" people, and Quest
has rules for enhancing your stats during play.
6) No real world races, nor real world religions: the clerical
disciplines are still there, but as "templates" of religion
which the master can adapt to his/her campaign (with suggested
analogies to real ones, if need be).
7) Opposing tests. Both with stats and skills.
Layouts has also been radically changed. Two columns
format, smaller font size, some rules turned into tables
instead of sentences. Organization has been changed as well.
A first rulebook contains everything it's needed to play a
pseudo-European medieval system (all the rules except magic,
martial arts and hi-tech). A second book comes in hand if the
master wants magic in his campaign, and thus contains clerical
lists as well. A third book starts describing a sample
setting, with non-human races and the whole monster
extravagantia. Martial arts (and oriental equipment) will be
there too, since I've got an oriental culture in my campaign.
I've got plans to bring back hi-tech in a separate book, for
those who want a beyond-medieval campaign.
> It's the layout, writing style and coverage more than
> anything that reminded me of D&D.
I can agree with that.
> here's no reason to even have a starting stat value given
> the ability to shift points around. It should just be a
> flat number of points plus floaters.
It's not precisely the same, but I can see your point.
Anyway, if I had to shift around "1d6+128 points", the first
thing I would do to get a grasp of the problem would be to
calculate the average stat value, and then start altering
it... so I think I'd get to the same place eventually.
> The linear purchase cost of the stats do trouble me as
> I think high values should be rare, and not just the
> result of a stat or two being average (which is the way
> things currently work in Quest).
Fine. With a 12-point starting value, high values are
rare. Oh, and remember the doubled cost after 18. I also rule
that, for starting charachters, no stat can go over 20.
>> Well, if you're talking nearly-immortal beings, I
>> suppose that you want them to be powerful.
>
> Actually no. I want them to be what they are, and a
> master of everything is not what they are within my
> campaign.
Okay. But why someone with such an enormous lifespan
should stop learning? In more than a thousand years, a normal
person would be able to learn almost everything, provided he
has the possibility.
> a quick attempt to write up, say Gwydion (Dunedain
> human character who's seen 50 games years of adventuring)
> from the sister campiagn in Quests, shows a vast increase
> in the number of skills reaching across too many areas.
This depends on how experience is given as well. The more
experienced the character is, the less experience he should
get, simply because "he's seen a lot of things". I understand
it's not written anywhere in Quest, but I already said I had
some differences.
Stefano Bartoletti
> Do the same on the 10 pulse chart. Ties are determined
> by blows first, and than AMD.
Fine, but that's not the same...
> Could you give an example of a case where the 30-pulse
> chart would produce a different result?
Subphase 1-3 --> pulse 1. Charachters with 5 to 10 blows
can strike. Ties are not always determined by "more blows
first" and not always by AMD. Almost every "pulse", if you
look at the three correspondent subphases, would have a
similar problem. Not that it's a huge problem, but the two
methods are different.
> Consider the idea of a weapon doing 1d6+4 damage against
> the typical chainmail wearer. There is no issue of
> bodypart attrition
[CUT]
> But there is nearly almost an 100% chance of disabling or
> stunning an unarmored opponent.
...which is not that bad, considering that an unarmored
opponent, if hit by a mace or a broadsword, would probably end
up stunned or disabled.
> How likely now is it that characters will willing go into
> battle without armor like Connan,
Uhm. That's quite realistic, to be true. I definitely
think that bodypart attrition is a bigger problem!
> As a general rule in game design, the modifier to a
> die should never exceed half the max value (a rule
> sometimes broken to good effect, but rarely). To
> do so, is to undermine the value of the random factor
> making the bonus overwhelming.
>
> Such is the case with damage in Quest.
Uhm. Elseworlds time. If Quest a was a d100-system instead
of a d20-system, how would things change? CON would be *5, so
BHP would be *5 and bodypart hitpoints would be *5. Armor
would reasonably be multiplied by five as well, and so damage.
But we could play with it a little: in order to recover
the random factor and reduce the "fixed" amount of damage
every effective blow does, we could state that the typical
1d6+3, instead of becoming 5d6+15, could become 6d6+9, or even
7d6+3. (I do understand it's not the same, statistically
speaking. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing it.) I can see a
flaw or two in doing this, but let's see where it leads. Would
that do?
Brian Gleichman
> > Did you hear of the review in the quest mailing list?
>
> Yes, although I already knew your reviews from the
> Hephaestus website.
They started echoing the reviews last month. An interesting site with good
goals, but they don't update often and are in danger of being ignored for
that reason. I think they are planning some changes though. Hopefully good
ones.
I looked into the public archive of the Quest mailing list. I must say I'm
disappointed in Todd Richmond's reaction. His attitude is similar to saying
that one must first drive off a cliff before claiming that it's a dangerous
thing to do.
> >> I happen to play the Italian version of Quest
> >
> > What are the differences?
Sounds like good changes for the most part. Pity that more of the house
rules don't find themselves in the official product, many of them are
excellent ideas.
> It's not precisely the same, but I can see your point.
> Anyway, if I had to shift around "1d6+128 points", the first
> thing I would do to get a grasp of the problem would be to
> calculate the average stat value, and then start altering
> it... so I think I'd get to the same place eventually.
Of course, that was the point.
But doing it as 126 points plus 1d6+2 floaters would show clearly that the
racial modifiers weren't doing the intended job. The need for rules covering
racial min/max levels would then be obvious.
> Fine. With a 12-point starting value, high values are
> rare. Oh, and remember the doubled cost after 18. I also rule
> that, for starting charachters, no stat can go over 20.
Sadly on this point and a couple of other you make, I can only say that I
must review the published rules and not people's modifications.
I do think that many of Quest's problems could be easily fixed, at which
point it would turn in a grade of a solid B or even B+.
> Okay. But why someone with such an enormous lifespan
> should stop learning?
Why do people in real life slow in their learning? If a talented person
truly applies themselves, they should be able to master a new skill to
nearly world class level every two to four years.
But people don't in real life, and even more important- they don't in the
fictional source material many games are based upon.
In fact, many people lose skill. Others never gain any of note.
The assumption that one can learn without limit is unfounded in reality or
even within most fiction.
In a game setting, such an assumption is a killer for game balance. I have
NPCs in my campaign who were alive before the sun burned in the sky. A
player can walk down the street and talk with them. They can be impressive,
but they can't be what Quest would make them.
Now this problem doesn't apply to a great many campaigns. Mostly because
such time spans don't pass before the final curtain is drawn on the setting.
Obviously Quest presents no problem for such groups.
Brian Gleichman
> > Do the same on the 10 pulse chart. Ties are determined
> > by blows first, and than AMD.
>
> Fine, but that's not the same...
Explain.
As far as I can see, any method used to determine the order of action in
those first 3 pulse can be used to determine the order of action in a single
pulse.
> ...which is not that bad, considering that an unarmored
> opponent, if hit by a mace or a broadsword, would probably end
> up stunned or disabled.
Can't people be nicked by heavy weapons? What difference is there from a
shallow slash with the tip of a knife and a shallow slash with the tip of a
two-handed sword? None in concept or in reality, but the former is possible
in Quest and the latter is not.
> > How likely now is it that characters will willing go into
> > battle without armor like Connan,
>
> Uhm. That's quite realistic, to be true. I definitely
> think that bodypart attrition is a bigger problem!
Realistic? Some gamers don't care about realism. They want to play Howard's
Connan or any of countless other worlds where an unarmored fighter is a
playable character.
Realism isn't the be all end all.
But if it was, explain this about Quest: why can't a typical man take down
a typical unarmored man with a single maximum damage knife thrust to the
chest (most of the time you won't even stun him)? Realism states that people
often die with a single knife thrust to the body, but it doesn't happen
here.
Realism cuts both ways. Before invoking, it be careful of the backswing.
> > As a general rule in game design, the modifier to a
> > die should never exceed half the max value (a rule
> > sometimes broken to good effect, but rarely). To
> > do so, is to undermine the value of the random factor
> > making the bonus overwhelming.
> Uhm. Elseworlds time. If Quest a was a d100-system instead
> of a d20-system, how would things change? CON would be *5, so
> BHP would be *5 and bodypart hitpoints would be *5. Armor
> would reasonably be multiplied by five as well, and so damage.
>
> But we could play with it a little: in order to recover
> the random factor and reduce the "fixed" amount of damage
> every effective blow does, we could state that the typical
> 1d6+3, instead of becoming 5d6+15, could become 6d6+9, or even
> 7d6+3. (I do understand it's not the same, statistically
> speaking. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing it.) I can see a
> flaw or two in doing this, but let's see where it leads. Would
> that do?
The use of multiple dice raises the minimum possible result. Consider 1d20+1
against 5d4+1. That could cause real problems depending upon the damage
thresholds.
I'm also concerned about the heavy bell curve lots of dice produce which in
effect removes extreme results from practical play.
One would have to play with the exact numbers. Ideally, the full range of
expected results would be possible across all weapon and armor combinations.
Thus we need a dagger to be capable of killing an unarmored man (no matter
his size unless he's not human any longer) while the biggest weapon can
still cause a nick.
And that range of results should still be possible across a wide range of
character strengths and hitpoints.
Once you got that, you can factor in armor to produce the desired protection
(while in most cases avoiding bodypart attrition).
Really, the old D&D 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 damage ranges for weapons
isn't a bad starting place for this. You have to put up with funny dice, but
you get a good wide range of results for it.
Scott Barrie
<neh...@geocities.com> wrote:
> Scott Barrie:
>
>> Quest does not suit generational campaigns.
>
> Why?
No rules for aging and no rules preventing a single character from
learning every discipline given enough experience. There's never a
reason to stop playing an aging character.
Peter Knutsen
Hi, I was going on a vacation, so I decided to postpone further
participation in the Quest-review debate since Thursday or so. Now
I'm back and will jump into the fray again.
> > You *can't* impose gender modifiers on dwarves! :-)
>
> After all, male and female dwarves are indistinguishable
> in mithology, then it makes some sense. :-)
>
> Anyway, the point is that, although it may not seem so,
> Quest has some degree of campaign-specificity (look at how
> faires are represtend, for instance). Now that I think of it,
> every game has some degree of campaign-specificity, apart
> frome rulelights and extremely generic (see Fuzion and GURPS -
> not GURPS Fantasy).
But the beautiful thing is that the campaign-specificity can
be taken out of Quest FRP (the new name that Todd Richmond
seems to have given to the system, since Quest is just too
damn generic), very *not* like AD&D.
Campaign specificity s only a problem is it's welded into the
rules. And if that was the case in Quest, I wouldn't be using
it.
> > So stat improvement is a skill.
>
> No, it isn't. It's just in the wrong chapter.
Stat improvement doesn't work like a skill. In fact, none of the
General Skills do.
> --
> Stefano Bartoletti
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Stefano Bartoletti wrote:
> It's a little more complex, actually. If you look at the
> 30-pulse chart, it may happen that two characters with
> different number of blows are to strike in the same instant.
> When it happens, adjusted manual dexterity (AMD) comes in
> hand. It not only represents the character's dexterity, but
> also his strenght and the encumbrance of the weapon he's
> using. I understand that a 10-pulse chart would be simpler,
> but it would not be able to reproduce the 30-pulse sequence of
> strikes. Anyway, since the two methods seems to compensate
> each other, I'd offer choice to the players. No, wait, I
> _will_ offer choice to the players.
I had a thought some days ago: If you can compress the combat
to 10 pulses per round instead of 30, maybe it becomes possible
to use some kind of discretely divided playing map with miniatures
on it, a hex or square board.
That's simply not doable as Quest FRP is now, because a
character might be able to run Agility (in ') per second,
and might have an AG of 13 or some other awkward number.
I like the fact that your attributes govern how fast you
move (although simple encumbrance rules would have been
neat in addition to this), but combat is slightly abstracted
in that if there's a chase or ranged combat you have to
write down the distances as they change - the numbers are
too high (like 94 feet and so) for a divided-into-tiles
playing board to be of any use. I do use miniatures on
a paper drawn map to represent combat, but it's a bit
fudgy when it comes to positioning.
> Damage. Arrows: I agree with Peter, they're undervalued.
> How about granting more damage?
That will make arrows even better at penetrating armour, and
I don't want that. A longbow arrow does 1d6+3 (plus half
Strength bonus, i.e, 1d6+5 for a PS 18 character[1]), against
plate which might protect for 6 points.
Increasing weapon damage improves armour penetration, and while
an increase might be desirable in case of meelee weapons, I
don't like the idea of doing it with missile weapons.
A method, similar to GURPS, is a bit more complex but also more
realistic. First you check if unmodified damage can penetrate
the armour, if yes then you subtract the absorded damage and
then you modify the remaining damage.
The way GURPS does it is to multiply damage that has not been
absorbed by 1.5 if it's from an edged weapon and by 2 if it's
from an impaling weapon.
If we do that in Quest FRP then things will go to hell, so a
milder solution is necesarry. First I thought about a
multiplier of 1.5 for impaling weapons, but it still sounds
a bit high, so I thought of 4/3, except it's awkward to
work with.
Or is it? You add 33% and round to the closest
1 stays 1 (1.33)
2 becomes 3 (2.66)
3 becomes 4 (4.00)
4 becomes 5 (5.33)
5 becomes 7 (6.66)
6 becomes 8 (8.00)
My idea is this this only happens to torso and head hits,
not limb hits.
I'll also have to check out the Effects of Damage table to see
how it would work.
> --
> Stefano Bartoletti
--
Peter Knutsen
[1] Maybe this is why Strength was given the superflous name
Physical Strength? To get an acronym that is not ST? But
that doesn't explain why MD is not DX or even DE.
Peter Knutsen
Brian Gleichman wrote:
>
> "Stefano Bartoletti" <neh...@geocities.com> wrote in message
> news:8jtkmj$bb4$1...@nslave1.tin.it...
>
> > Hello, everyone.
>
> Hi Stefano. Glad you stopped by.
>
> Did you hear of the review in the quest mailing list?
He does subscribe to it, so probably yes. And you might want to
visit the eGroups website now, because there has been some
discussion in the last week or so, of the review.
> > I happen to play the Italian version of Quest
> > (which, in case you're wondering, is not yet available for
> > downloading and is different from the original, to the point
> > that they do not have the same name. The main rules are still
> > the same, though).
>
> What are the differences?
I'm looking forward to hearing about them as well, Stefano is
not very vocal on the mailing list (he has seen how Todd gets
upset whenever I share my house rules, I suppose)
> > Agreed. Well, sort of. I'd rather say "...Mike
> > Greenholdt's idea of what a fantasy rpg should be". Which is
> > the reason for which people create homebrews, after all.
>
> True. It's the layout, writing style and coverage more than anything that
> reminded me of D&D.
When you compare it to D&D, people might get the impression that
you are stating that Quest FRP has a quality of rules similar
to D&D (i.e. rock bottom).
> > ...which is way too much, as far as I'm concerned. I
> > usually allow players to start at 12, although I give them
> > six more "floaters" to increas their stats.
>
> There's no reason to even have a starting stat value given the ability to
> shift points around. It should just be a flat number of points plus
> floaters.
Starting with some kind of average, like GURPS, is neat.
Also, getting both APs and Floaters to distribute would be
clumsy.
> The linear purchase cost of the stats do trouble me as I think high values
> should be rare, and not just the result of a stat or two being average
> (which is the way things currently work in Quest).
But high attributes doesn't give a very big advantage. Quest FRP
is very much unlike GURPS in that regard.
It's common, and not the least abusive, for a warrior-type PC to
have ST 18, DX 18, CN 18, or a mage-type PC to have IT 18, WL 18,
MT 18. No problem with that.
Or rather, I'd actually wish that Quest rewarded high
attributes a little bit more. There's really no way you can
make a Quest character that performs in the same way as a
GURPS character with DX 15 or IQ 15.
> Quest has the same book layout, duplicates many of the D&D class skills with
> within it's skill lists (the quest version of backstabing is most telling
> here), the lack of straight skill rolls without an opposing test is also
Yes, the Assassin discipline is a very visible clue.
> almost pure D&D 'hide in shadows' time', and the breakdown of body location
> hit points could have been reprint out of _Blackmoor_.
>
> There is so much there in common with D&D, that I was left with a such a
> strong feeling of 'dumb stuff changed', that it was overwhelming.
I still see it as dumb stuff replaced with smart stuff.
> --
> Brian Gleichman
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Brian Gleichman wrote:
>
> "Stefano Bartoletti" <neh...@geocities.com> wrote in message
> news:8jtkod$bd5$3...@nslave1.tin.it...
> > > Also in the case of Quest, these damage bonuses are a
> > > concern to me as such things tend to rapidly make
> > > certain types of characters unsurvivable.
> >
> > Uhm. Interesting. Would you please explain your thougt?
>
> Consider the idea of a weapon doing 1d6+4 damage against the typical
> chainmail wearer. There is no issue of bodypart attrition under the typical
> case as there is more than a 50% chance of a disabling hit or stunning hit.
>
> But there is nearly almost an 100% chance of disabling or stunning an
> unarmored opponent.
>
> How likely now is it that characters will willing go into battle without
> armor like Connan, Taran or other fantasy characters do in the source
> material for so many campaigns?
Quest FRP does make the lightly armoured (even the nonarmoured)
combatant viable (unlike D&D) because there is no loss of DR
(corresponds to AC in D&D) when you don't wear armour.
And a character with Agility 18 (and Conan might have 19 or 20)
does get a decent DR.
Still, I've thought about finding a way to increase the penalties
for wearing armour slightly, to make it a more balanced choice
whether to wear armour or not. (a skill I've invented, called
"Broadsword Fencing" or "Swashbuckling", ought to improve the
situation further)
But you do seem to want armour to be of trivial importance - I
got an impression like that when AoH was discussed in here
earlier.
> By over doing weapon damage (to fix the problem bodypart attrition), every
> character concept of the 'lightly armored' warrior is dealt a death blow.
>
> As a general rule in game design, the modifier to a die should never exceed
> half the max value (a rule sometimes broken to good effect, but rarely). To
> do so, is to undermine the value of the random factor making the bonus
> overwhelming.
I haven't heard of that rule, but I was actually trying to
implement something similar in a minor tweak of the rules for
Enhancing and Inscribing items (making them magical). One item
you can make is an item that gives a bonus per dice of healing
effect. There are healing spells that heals 1d6, 2d6+2 and 4d6+8
hitpoints, so the bonus would be +x, +2x and +4x respectively.
In Quest FRP v2.1, bonuses can go up to +10 (in v2.0 they could
go up to +7, in v2.2 they will stop at +5 which is fine with
me) so you could trivially make an item Enhanced to a +4 bonus
to healing dice, so that a Simple (Self-) Healing spell would
heal 1d6+4 hp - heal any wound in one shot.
Another thing you can do is to Enhance on the effect of an
Inscribed spell. So you could Inscribe a simple spell like
"Weapon Energize I" (Battle Magics, 1st DoM), which adds +1
damage to a weapon, and then Enhance the effect with +3,
+4 or even higher.
My limit was that the Enhanced bonus could not exceed the
normal effect of the spell. The exact average for a random
effect (heal or do damage) and the normal effect for a non-
randomized spell (a Force Field protects for 4 points, so it
can be Enhanced with up to +4, for a total of 8, and no
higher).
> Such is the case with damage in Quest.
That's because Quest uses only 1d6+x for damage (where x can be
negative). I didn't like it at first, but now it seems nice that
you have some kind of minimal-damage guarantee (if you have a
damage roll of, say, 1d6+5) unlike in systes where you get
1d10+1 or 1d12. Nicks and scratches can't occur easily, but
they do appear when a half-arm-damage hit is rolled.
Brian Gleichman
news:39646F48...@knutsen.dk...
> He does subscribe to it, so probably yes. And you might want to
> visit the eGroups website now, because there has been some
> discussion in the last week or so, of the review.
Not that I saw. Todd blew off the review with the classic 'if you haven't
played it, you can't review it' stance.
As if game mechanics were something mythical like a dream quest instead of
formal concepts ruled by mathematics.
> I'm looking forward to hearing about them as well, Stefano is
> not very vocal on the mailing list (he has seen how Todd gets
> upset whenever I share my house rules, I suppose)
He's sounding more and more like Dave Nalle...
> When you compare it to D&D, people might get the impression that
> you are stating that Quest FRP has a quality of rules similar
> to D&D (i.e. rock bottom).
A lot of people like D&D you know.
Even I hold it in some degree of respect. As a game, it has a great number
of advantages. There are worst systems out there.
> Starting with some kind of average, like GURPS, is neat.
Nah, GURPS sucks :-)
> But high attributes doesn't give a very big advantage. Quest FRP
> is very much unlike GURPS in that regard.
Come now.
Strength is incredible. A ST of 18 gives a damage bonus equal to half the
damage range in the game. CN's affect on hit points (when measured with
armor added in) is also immense.
You're only looking at the skill impact with your statement.
> It's common, and not the least abusive, for a warrior-type PC to
> have ST 18, DX 18, CN 18, or a mage-type PC to have IT 18, WL 18,
> MT 18. No problem with that.
I'll point one problem out.
The fact that stats like these are common and easy to buy is one reason why
you made the statement "high attributes doesn't give a very big advantage".
Getting that 18 is easy and rational. Since lots of people have them, the
advantage of having them isn't visible. All good fighters have a ST 18, DX
18, CN 18.
If all D&D fighters had a Strength of 18-76, a 18-00 wouldn't seem like such
a huge deal after all. On top of this give all D&D fighters CON and DEX of
16 and see how that changes one's perception of the value of stats.
Going above an 18 in Quest is costly. Going above a 20 is really costly. So
the cost effective option is to go to an 18 on everything that's important,
and then determine if you don't need a stat or two in order to push
something you think is cool into 20+.
Very GURPS like.
I think Quest could be improved by using a stat purchase method similar to
Simplex, perhaps with different scales for each stat.
> Or rather, I'd actually wish that Quest rewarded high
> attributes a little bit more. There's really no way you can
> make a Quest character that performs in the same way as a
> GURPS character with DX 15 or IQ 15.
I'll side with the Quest designers here. The overwhelming dominance of stats
in GURPS is hands down its worse feature, destroying whatever balance was
there was to be had from its point purchase system and creating nothing but
'me too' characters.
I'd rate the character generation system in AD&D better than I'd rate GURPS.
Peter Knutsen
Brian Gleichman wrote:
>
> "Stefano Bartoletti" <neh...@geocities.com> wrote in message
> news:8juoaf$ap4$1...@nslave2.tin.it...
> I looked into the public archive of the Quest mailing list. I must say I'm
> disappointed in Todd Richmond's reaction. His attitude is similar to saying
> that one must first drive off a cliff before claiming that it's a dangerous
> thing to do.
You must also drive off a cliff before you can invent a good safety
belt. Todd really doesn't approve of me proposing (and using)
optional rules for Quest FRP, but after a lot of unpleasant arguing
we settled for the compromise that Todd will just withhold comment
when I post them on the list.
> > Okay. But why someone with such an enormous lifespan
> > should stop learning?
>
> Why do people in real life slow in their learning? If a talented person
> truly applies themselves, they should be able to master a new skill to
> nearly world class level every two to four years.
>
> But people don't in real life, and even more important- they don't in the
> fictional source material many games are based upon.
>
> In fact, many people lose skill. Others never gain any of note.
That's psychological realism. Which I find as important as
physical realism in my roleplaying.
If a character spends an hour a day practicing his fencing,
that's fine with me, but if he wants to travel thousands of
kilometers across Europe to meet the great fencing master and
spend 18 months training under him, then I'd ask the player why
his character wants that. If I get a good reason, I'll let him.
> The assumption that one can learn without limit is unfounded in reality or
> even within most fiction.
The way I see it, people tend to value different types of skills
differently. So even if you have all the time in the world,
some categories of skill won't be picked up by you simply
because you don't want them. Either you don't see the need
for them, or you consider them impure or offensive.
> In a game setting, such an assumption is a killer for game balance. I have
> NPCs in my campaign who were alive before the sun burned in the sky. A
> player can walk down the street and talk with them. They can be impressive,
> but they can't be what Quest would make them.
>
> Now this problem doesn't apply to a great many campaigns. Mostly because
> such time spans don't pass before the final curtain is drawn on the setting.
> Obviously Quest presents no problem for such groups.
My setting is is intended to be used for a couple of centuries.
One fully Human NPC is also intended to get quite old (she'll
survive into the second age, maybe the third as well) and pick
up numerous skills along the way. But there's things she won't
learn.
Initially, I wrote her up with a fairly good Magic Talent (16),
but since I only wanted her to learn Fire Magic, I decided to
implement a house rule about skill talents, where you get a
LR bonus to specific skills or skill subcategories (like
Healing magic, or Elemental magic, or Fire magic, or trickster-
magic or Illusion magic), so she now has a major talent with
Fire magic and otherwise a fairly modest Magic Talent (I
haven't decided yet but somewhere between 11 and 13 would be
appropriate). Another optional rule, Spell List Specialization,
gives her a good chance to actually cast the spells.
She could learn more magic, but she won't. She sticks to her
Fire magic, and then a little bit of General Mage and Wards &
Shields magic.
Thief skills are also a somewhat blind spot. She could learn
to work with traps and locks, and a little bit of Stealth
is always useful, but apart from that she doesn't want to
learn. So she'll end up with DoM 2 Stealth and probably maxed
out (8th DoM) in Security Systems, the later happening only
after numerous adventures.
Her physique isn't suited for any kind of heavy combat, so
she sticks to Martial Arts Blows and MA Holds/Throws as
backup skills and Swashbuckling (a.k.a. Sword Fencing) as
her primary skill. And since she knows the secret of
gunpowder, her primary ranged weapon is a gun or rifle.
Usually she doesn't wear armour but once in a while she
dons a Fire Shield, or leather armour if she expects
heavy fighting.
It's more a question of having a character concept and a
character personality/motivation in mind. If you treat your
character as a playing piece in a board game, then yes,
eventually he or she will pick up every skill there is.
Rules should reflect reality, but so should character
behaviour.
I tend to argue for strongly motivated personalities in PCs.
They should be driven people. Not stereotypes, but neither
as quiet and flexible as everday people. Somewhere in
between.
The character above has a rather powerfull motivation, though.
She's originally from Earth, but for reasons unknown to her,
she one day woke up and found that she was someplace else.
She survived a lot of hardship and once she got on top of
things (made friends, and learned how to apply her Karate in
authentic life-and-death situations) she started searching
for a way to get back to her home planet. After a couple
of decades she'll probably figure out it's more fun to stay
on Aerth and try to modify some of the more patriarchal
societies. She'll be less motivated for this goal (I mean,
if you wanna go home, you're totally motivated, there's
really very few other motivations that can be as strong
as that one) and so her "skill development" will slow
down.
As she grows older, some of her skills *will* deterioate.
Her Agility will drop a lot, her Dexterity slightly, and
she will be more of a thinker and inventor than an action-
woman. Lack of use will cause her to loose DoM's in Martial
Arts Blows and MA Holds/Throws. She will also loose DoM's
in Broadsword and Swashbuckling, but slower because these
are her primary combat skills. The high DoM that she will
probably reach in Non-Bow Weapons (pistol and rifle) will
be maintained for long although it may drop slightly when
she's more than a century old.
I don't mind the allowance for continued character development,
but having some aging rules would be good. I just can't see a
good way of doing them. I would like to have aging effects
be somewhat random (to make them scarier), while Todd wants
them to both (A) be fixed modifiers and (B) be balanced in
the sense that as you loose physical ability you gain mental
ability.
I can't agree with point B. You don't grow noticeably smarter
with age unless your line of work is mentally taxing. And if
you do grow smarter from that type of work, why can't your
character pay for it in Experience Points? The first +1
increase of any given attribute costs only 500 EPs. The second
+1 costs 1000 EP. I can't see why Magic Talent or Faith should
change, whether up or down. What happens to Leadership is
largely culture-dependant. I don't see why Will should change
either, other than that a life of adventuring and victories
tends to make you more confident (the female NPC mentioned
above does end up with a very high WL, provided she survives
for long). As you grow older, you can either become weaker,
mentally, or stronger (and more stubborn).
What would you suggest? And what does AoH do?
Brian Gleichman
> But the beautiful thing is that the campaign-specificity can
> be taken out of Quest FRP (the new name that Todd Richmond
> seems to have given to the system, since Quest is just too
> damn generic), very *not* like AD&D.
I don't see that Quest has any advantage here.
Campaign specifics such as races, religions, and such are no harder to
ignore in D&D than are in Quest. If anything, I find them easier to deal
with in D&D.
D&D does have very specific ideas on 'reality' in a fantasy settings. Hit
Points, falling damage, classes, etc that restricts one's campaign. Quest
has different, but in the end every bit as restrictive, ideas.
The latter is the case with any design, the former should be removed from
any game intended to be generic.
> Campaign specificity s only a problem is it's welded into the
> rules. And if that was the case in Quest, I wouldn't be using
> it.
It's there, but you like what's there and so you don't notice it.
Brian Gleichman
> I had a thought some days ago: If you can compress the combat
> to 10 pulses per round instead of 30, maybe it becomes possible
> to use some kind of discretely divided playing map with miniatures
> on it, a hex or square board.
Sounds like a good idea. I like hex maps, very practical.
The way Quest is written one would either freestyle movement (common these
days, at least on this newsgroup) or use mini style movment by ruler (1 foot
= 1mm or something).
> That will make arrows even better at penetrating armour, and
> I don't want that. A longbow arrow does 1d6+3 (plus half
> Strength bonus, i.e, 1d6+5 for a PS 18 character[1]), against
> plate which might protect for 6 points.
Quest needs to learn how to round down for things like that. Talk about
freebies :-)
The longbow also gets a penetration bonus as a recall. It, like the
two-handed sword is one of Quest's ultimate weapons.
I think the main concern for arrows is the lack of threat from typical bows
used by common opponents. Not the 18+ monsters that PCs tend to be.
Each point of damage bonus in Quest counts for a LOT, making anyone with
near average stats helpless in comparsion.
Brian Gleichman
> You must also drive off a cliff before you can invent a good safety
> belt. Todd really doesn't approve of me proposing (and using)
> optional rules for Quest FRP, but after a lot of unpleasant arguing
> we settled for the compromise that Todd will just withhold comment
> when I post them on the list.
What in the world is his objection?
House rules are the best feedback I can think of. And some of the ones
suggested for Quest are quite good.
> She could learn more magic, but she won't.
The example you gave relies almost completely upon the player not to improve
skills and stats.
I find systems that rely upon such willingness and the concept of "but she
won't" very unsatisfying.
From a character perspective, it means that they have to say things like
"Yes, I know that learning more skills would make me better and thus
increase my chance of success against the ultimate evil about to destroy the
world, but darn it- I just don't want to".
First, "just don't want to" isn't the only possible reason. People stop
improving because they reach a personal limit. No one really understand why
they hit that limit, but they do in real life and fiction- they should in
the game.
Second, "just don't want to" wrecks many a character concept. The character
wouldn't say that (even if, in the darkness of his mind it was true) and the
system shouldn't make him say that.
In short, I want a hard mechanical system to control and protect my
character concept without forcing me out of it. Something the voluntary
limits can't do.
> I can't agree with point B.
Nor do I. If such was true, many a bright man who changed the world in his
youth would have done even greater things in his old age. Such is not the
case.
A great deal of common sense is gained, but that doesn't translate well into
skills (and also has a downside as 'thinking outside the box' becomes
harder).
> What would you suggest? And what does AoH do?
Any aging modifiers in a system that allows stat increase after play (and
stat purchases at the start) is very difficult. I've never seen it work well
as negitive modifiers are just brought off if desired.
Age of Heroes doesn't use stat improvement (they are assumed to start at the
character's top potential already- trained to that level before beginning
play along with the learning of your initial skills).
It also doesn't allow you to purchase stats and instead requires that you
roll them. This was more for the 'you can't choose the stats of your
children effect' and 'we want more variety in characters' reasons than
aging, but it helps there as well.
My aging modifiers are all negative values. It's all downhill with the
characters level standing in for the common sense and respect that comes
with age.
Todd Richmond
>>
>> I looked into the public archive of the Quest mailing list. I must say I'm
>> disappointed in Todd Richmond's reaction. His attitude is similar to saying
>> that one must first drive off a cliff before claiming that it's a dangerous
>> thing to do.
I like to think it's more like "You have to see the play before you
criticize the actors".
In article <396479CC...@knutsen.dk>, Peter Knutsen
<pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote:
>You must also drive off a cliff before you can invent a good safety
>belt. Todd really doesn't approve of me proposing (and using)
>optional rules for Quest FRP, but after a lot of unpleasant arguing
>we settled for the compromise that Todd will just withhold comment
>when I post them on the list.
Okay, I've held off commenting before but I can't let this one slip by.
The reason I don't really approve of all of Peter's optional rules is
because often I don't think he's really played the "official" rules
enough to see if they work. He perceives a "flaw" and "fixes" it before
he really knows whether or not it's broken. A lot of play-testing and
modification has gone into the system to try to achieve a certain
measure of game balance and playability. Peter's comments make it seem
like I'm some sort of tyrant who rants every time he posts a suggestion
(for what it's worth, I didn't view it as unpleasant arguing from my end
- must be my Midwest upbringing). The truth of the matter is that I most
of the time I don't see the need or the point. I prefer more
constructive comments/suggestions like "In the campaign we're running,
we've run into a problem with magic items being too powerful and we've
found the best solution is ..."
I'm sure Brian, and in fact anyone who has ever worked on a role-playing
system, can sympathize with me - every time I hear the dreaded words -
"I like your system but ... " I take a deep breath, let it out slowly
and say "Yes?" After awhile, no matter how good natured you are, this
begins to get on your nerves. (In my case, I've been playing Quest for
13 years). I realize as much as anyone that Quest has it's flaws. But
like it or not, it's a workable system that has been played and enjoyed
by a number of people over the last 15 years. It's evolved over that
time, and it will continue to evolve. It will never be the system for
everyone. But it's the system we like and it's free. I like to think it
has some advantages over some of the other systems out there, but I
prefer to let other people do the cheerleading. My comments are always
going to be biased (and more emotional), and I'd rather play the role of
detached observer. So with that - I'm done. Stepping off my soapbox and
back to real work.
--
Dr. Todd Richmond
Carnegie Institution of Washington
260 Panama Street Email: to...@andrew2.stanford.edu
Stanford, CA 94305 Homepage: http://cellwall.stanford.edu/todd
Scott Barrie
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>"Peter Knutsen" <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote in message
>> I had a thought some days ago: If you can compress the combat
>> to 10 pulses per round instead of 30, maybe it becomes possible
>> to use some kind of discretely divided playing map with miniatures
>> on it, a hex or square board.
I could have sworn I suggested something like that six months ago. :)
>> That will make arrows even better at penetrating armour, and
>> I don't want that. A longbow arrow does 1d6+3 (plus half
>> Strength bonus, i.e, 1d6+5 for a PS 18 character[1]), against
>> plate which might protect for 6 points.
>
>Quest needs to learn how to round down for things like that. Talk about
>freebies :-)
>
>The longbow also gets a penetration bonus as a recall. It, like the
>two-handed sword is one of Quest's ultimate weapons.
A two-handed sword isn't that great. Sword and shield works better
IMHO. The Shield Bash discipline gives you extra Blows for more
parries, keeping the combatant alive longer. Two-handed swords are
great when they connect, but leave you very open when you miss.
Scott Barrie
wrote:
>Todd really doesn't approve of me proposing (and using)
>optional rules for Quest FRP, but after a lot of unpleasant arguing
>we settled for the compromise that Todd will just withhold comment
>when I post them on the list.
That's news to me, must have happened though private e-mail. Todd
certainly criticizes most new rules which appear on the list, but
that's a good thing. Heck, that's half the reason _for_ posting house
rules.
Brian Gleichman
> Quest FRP does make the lightly armoured (even the nonarmoured)
> combatant viable (unlike D&D) because there is no loss of DR
> (corresponds to AC in D&D) when you don't wear armour.
If you purchase a ST of 18 (very easy and common to do as you agreed), there
is no DR lost for fully Full Plate (which only gives a -2 1/2 points with a
Full Helm). Throw in a Kite Shield and his DR ends up at +3 from some
directions.
He does suffer some small modifiers to Agility and Dexteriy. No enough to
affect his CR or DR in any but certain cases of rounding (as they come to a
tiny -.45 toCR and -.13 to DR.
BTW: Having to recalulate these numbers only to find they don't often affect
anything is a major pain by the way and one of the less eglant features of
Quest. We already have armor modifiers listed, they should include these
effects).
He could blow off the Kite Shield in order to use a two-handed weapon, and
suffer only the -.13 to his DR. Round of course will almost always make that
modifier meaningless.
Not that a -2.5 DR was anywhere near a match for 6 points of armor in the
first place. The chance of a hit at the 0 column is 63%, at the +2 it's
73%.
Even for poor ST 10 characters, I don't think much sweat is needed to opt
for of taking six points of damage (dropping even the heaviest weapon 50%)
off every hit while increasing the hit percentage of one's foe a mere 16%
And this doesn't take into account parries, which aren't meaningfully
reduced by the armor modifiers or the General Fighter Skill which also
reduces these penalties at one point.
> Still, I've thought about finding a way to increase the penalties
> for wearing armour slightly, to make it a more balanced choice
> whether to wear armour or not.
You can try.
> (a skill I've invented, called
> "Broadsword Fencing" or "Swashbuckling", ought to improve the
> situation further)
Perhaps that would be the best option.
Quest already includes something like this with it's Fencing and Martial
Arts skills. They don't go far enough to really manage it (I love the idea
of a guy in Full Plate ripping up the lightly armored peasants with his
fencing rapier- something quite possible and effective in these rules as
they stand) and they aren't suited to campaigns that don't have fencing or
martial arts.
> But you do seem to want armour to be of trivial importance - I
> got an impression like that when AoH was discussed in here
> earlier.
For my own campaigns, yes I prefer armor to be a manner primarily of style
together with non-dominating advantages/disadvantages. From that starting
point, someone wanting heavy armor to rock needs only to remove penalties- a
*much* easier task.
I don't know of any game that really does that (outside of AoH) and I have
little reason to slap a game for failing to do so. Although games like
Rolemaster do offer trade-offs that are significant, if not balanced.
Besides, dominance of armor is acceptable in many campiagns.
But one can go too far and increasing the weapon damage in a way the
increases the minimum damage is a certain method to turn armor dominance
into complete and total tyranny.
> That's because Quest uses only 1d6+x for damage (where x can be
> negative). I didn't like it at first, but now it seems nice that
> you have some kind of minimal-damage guarantee (if you have a
> damage roll of, say, 1d6+5) unlike in systes where you get
> 1d10+1 or 1d12. Nicks and scratches can't occur easily, but
> they do appear when a half-arm-damage hit is rolled.
Nicks and scratches are part of the image for heroic battle. I would hate to
see them disappear.
And why in the world are only the arms subject to half damage in Quest?
Does everyone puff his chest out to make sure any hit is for full damage?
And I though leading with one's groin was a bad idea...
Brian Gleichman
news:2uk9mss64m8bbvmd1...@4ax.com...
> A two-handed sword isn't that great. Sword and shield works better
> IMHO. The Shield Bash discipline gives you extra Blows for more
> parries, keeping the combatant alive longer. Two-handed swords are
> great when they connect, but leave you very open when you miss.
Depends upon the armor of your foe. Smart fighters in Quest (in a classic
fantasy setting) all wear plate.
Rupert Boleyn
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> Or rather, I'd actually wish that Quest rewarded high
>> attributes a little bit more. There's really no way you can
>> make a Quest character that performs in the same way as a
>> GURPS character with DX 15 or IQ 15.
>
>I'll side with the Quest designers here. The overwhelming dominance of stats
>in GURPS is hands down its worse feature, destroying whatever balance was
>there was to be had from its point purchase system and creating nothing but
>'me too' characters.
There was a recent thread in the GURPS newsgroup about mini-maxing
where all this was pointed out. BTW, DX15, IQ15 isn't optimal. DX14,
IQ14 and 40 points on advantages works much better.
--
"Rupert Boleyn" <rbo...@paradise.net.nz>
A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.
Brian Gleichman
news:todd-D961C5.0...@nntp.stanford.edu...
Hi Todd.
> I like to think it's more like "You have to see the play before you
> criticize the actors"
I'm not review your gaming group, your GM style or any of the other
countless factors that make up a campaign.
I'm reviewing your rules. And there, I've seen all the play has to offer.
There is nothing magical about gaming rules. They all follow the same logic
and math. In the same way that I can calculate the velocity of bullet before
the trigger is pulled, I don't need to play in a campaign to understand the
rules.
There is however something magical about playing in a campaign. Troublesome
points in the rules are avoided at the instinctive level or accepted after
time without thought. Thus D&D hit points seem to be nothing but logical to
many long-term players, because they are- to them. Thus the broken effects
of heavy armor in _The FRP Project_ don't exist- because nobody wears any.
Not seen by the players, the problems and rule breaks are forgotten. The
players have become blind to the system. This is a good thing, as the game
becomes truly playable at that point.
And this is the reason why so many truly bad systems have followers of such
hardcore faith. In this way, every system can be justified as great and
worthwhile.
Designers are especially prone to this blindness, and like any writer need
the help of outside eyes to 'proof' their work. Assuming of course, that
they actually want their work 'proofed'.
I don't see the avoidances that make your rules playable. I'm not limited by
campaigns realities put in place to make the rules workable. I'm
unrestrained and the resulting analysis is as cold and factual as a chemical
workup.
I sent over 24 hours reviewing and playing examples sets for Quest.
Mathematically, there is nothing left to discover. The numbers are there,
the words written in black and white. Both torn away from your influence and
looked at independently.
It is more than likely than not that this version of the game has never been
seen by you or any of your players. You're version of the game will not be
the one that people see when it's downloaded- they will see mine colored by
their own eyes.
> I'm sure Brian, and in fact anyone who has ever worked on a role-playing
> system, can sympathize with me - every time I hear the dreaded words -
> "I like your system but ... "
I've been there. But only at the gaming table where it's more of a problem
as it impacts a ongoing (and twenty year) campaign.
If I was to receive such suggestions in the format you have access to, I'd
most likely archive many of the suggestions on a 'house rules' page together
with my comments and leave the final decisions up to the reader.
After looking at them a number of times and getting the views of others, I
might even make some of them official *if* they suited my style and needs.
But I've never had the chance as no one (rightfully so I think) outside my
groups has ever attempted the rules.
I'm amazed at your reluctance.
Stefano Bartoletti
> I looked into the public archive of the Quest
> mailing list. I must say I'm disappointed in
> Todd Richmond's reaction.
Me too, actually. But you could've already read that as
well.
>>>> I happen to play the Italian version of Quest
>>>
>>> What are the differences?
>
> Sounds like good changes for the most part. Pity that
> more of the house rules don't find themselves in the
> official product, many of them are excellent ideas.
Thank you very much.
>> Fine. With a 12-point starting value, high values are
>> rare. Oh, and remember the doubled cost after 18. I also
>> rule that, for starting charachters, no stat can go over
20.
>
> Sadly on this point and a couple of other you make, I
> can only say that I must review the published rules and
> not people's modifications.
That wasn't intended to affect your review. :-)
> I do think that many of Quest's problems could be easily
> fixed,
Agreed. But what about combat then?
>> Okay. But why someone with such an enormous lifespan
>> should stop learning?
>
> Why do people in real life slow in their learning?
Because they get weak. Mentally and, most of all,
physically. Since both mind a body of a nearly-immortal
character are obviously different from common people, how
would we able to say that he would stop? Apart from lack of
interest, which of course is not a "rule".
Anyway, I have been thinking about aging rules. I'll
probably consider this problem as well.
> The assumption that one can learn without limit is
> unfounded in reality
We're talking immortals here. :-)
> or even within most fiction.
True, but this doesn't mean it _has_ to be so. Just that
it hasn't been written!
> Age of Heroes: http://gleichman.home.mindspring.com/
One time or another I really gotta write a review of this
one too. <grin> I downloaded it maybe a year ago and find it
very good (although I dislike the idea of character class).
Oh, I've read somewhere about "book 5" and even "six", but can
only get the first four. Is that meant to be so?
Stefano Bartoletti
>>> Quest does not suit generational campaigns.
>>
>> Why?
>
> No rules for aging and no rules preventing a single
> character from learning every discipline given enough
> experience.
The problem is: why a character with an extremely long
lifespan should stop learning, if he still wants to?
Stefano Bartoletti
> As far as I can see, any method used to determine the
> order of action in those first 3 pulse can be used to
> determine the order of action in a single pulse.
Yes, any _one_ method. But, if you delete reduce 3
subphases to 1 pulse, then you'd have to use two methods:
precedence of blows (more blows, strike first) and of AMD
(higher AMD, strike first). Look at subphases 1-3 / pulse 1 in
the table. None of the two methods above can reproduce the
sequence (which is: 10-blows characters, then 9 or 8 depending
on AMD).
> Some gamers don't care about realism. They want to
> play Howard's Connan or any of countless other
> worlds where an unarmored fighter is a playable
> character.
Fine. But why an unarmored fighter would be so effective?
Think of Conan himself. 1) Can take lotsa damage, 2) is very
skilled, so he can avoid being hit. Both can be represented in
Quest.
>> in order to recover the random factor and reduce the
>> "fixed" amount of damage every effective blow does, we
>> could state that the typical 1d6+3, instead of becoming
>> 5d6+15, could become 6d6+9, or even 7d6+3.
>
> The use of multiple dice raises the minimum possible result.
On the contrary. Read again:
1d6+3 (minimum result: 4)
multiply by five
5d6+15 (minimum result: 20, of course)
My hypotesis:
6d6+9 (minimum result: 15)
7d6+3 (minimum result: 10)
> I'm also concerned about the heavy bell curve lots of dice
> produce which in effect removes extreme results from
> practical play.
Now this is true.
Okay, let's view it the other way. Quest's problems with
combat:
1) no armor: too much damage (I'm still not convinced,
but...).
2) heavy armor: not enough damage.
3) random factor in damage.
More?
Stefano Bartoletti
>> Campaign specificity s only a problem is it's welded into
the
>> rules. And if that was the case in Quest, I wouldn't be
using
>> it.
>
> It's there, but you like what's there and so you don't
> notice it.
Apart from player races... where?
Warren J. Dew
The problem is: why a character with an extremely long
lifespan should stop learning, if he still wants to?
His brain fills up.
Seriously. When I was 20, I could read through a set of wargame rules and know
them at the end. Now, faced with a new wargame, I'm constantly looking things
up. The problem is, to learn new things, I have to forget old things, and
that's a time consuming process.
Warren Dew
Warren J. Dew
I don't mind the allowance for continued character development,
but having some aging rules would be good. I just can't see a
good way of doing them. I would like to have aging effects
be somewhat random (to make them scarier), while Todd wants
them to both (A) be fixed modifiers and (B) be balanced in
the sense that as you loose physical ability you gain mental
ability.
For what it's worth, I started with somewhat random aging with my rules 22
years ago, and they have been becoming ever less random since. At this point,
they are completely deterministic. Random aging rules simply permits lucky
people to live to unrealistically high ages and tempts people to cheat.
As far as balance is concerned, it seems to me that as long as characters can
learn, using experience points or skill training or whatever, there is a
certain balance. In my own system, only one ability is affected by aging -
endurance. Endurance can also be gained through experience, a holdover from
older systems. But aging effects accelerate, and experience reaches
diminishing returns, so people reach a peak at some point and then start losing
ground.
Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software
Warren J. Dew
There is nothing magical about gaming rules. They all follow
the same logic and math. In the same way that I can calculate
the velocity of bullet before the trigger is pulled, I don't
need to play in a campaign to understand the rules.
I strongly agree with you that it's foolish to criticize reviews on the basis
that the reviewer hasn't actually used the rules to run a campaign. It already
takes a lot of time and effort to do a review; beyond a certain point, the
reader of the review must go ahead and look at the product himself.
However, I think you go a little too far with the above paragraph, and with the
similar paragraphs in your proposed review FAQ. There can indeed be reasons
for rules sets being the way they are that are not obvious and not easily
calculable from merely reading the rules. For rules sets that have been
developed over 15 or 20 years, it's not reasonable to expect to understand all
the possible implications and interactions of those rules in 15 or 20 hours, or
even days.
I'm not defending Todd's statements here. If a designer wants to take issue
with a review on the basis of greater experience with the rules set, the
designer should be willing to take the time to explain what specific things the
reviewer missed. But I really don't think one can really expect to understand
a rules set perfectly and completely just by reading them; indeed, I think your
reviews acknowledge this limitation when you mention that they are based on a
reading of the rules rather than play.
John Kim
Warren J. Dew <psych...@aol.com> wrote:
>There can indeed be reasons for rules sets being the way they are that
>are not obvious and not easily calculable from merely reading the rules.
>If a designer wants to take issue with a review on the basis of greater
>experience with the rules set, the designer should be willing to take
>the time to explain what specific things the reviewer missed. But
>I really don't think one can really expect to understand a rules set
>perfectly and completely just by reading them;
While the above is sometimes true, I also find that often the
*inverse* is true. i.e. Someone who has been playing a campaign of
a game for a while may not know the rules as well as someone who has
recently read them carefully and critically.
My experience is that long-time players usually play with
a number of house rules -- often to the extent that they do not
distinguish between the published text and their modifications.
GM's with an established style will often use the rules selectively
to match the way they prefer things. Other rules problems are dealt
with simply by avoiding them (i.e. "Oh, I never used that power").
A campaign which has a specific focus could easily never deal in
detail with large swaths of the rules. I have encountered many,
many long-time players of a game system who were mistaken about
fairly basic rules ... that I knew even though I never played
the game.
A campaign with a good GM will hide many weak points of the
system. Further, a good GM will tend to concentrate on the fun
aspects of a campaign -- sidestepping many problems with rules.
Finally, anyone who goes through the *major* effort of running a
full-scale RPG campaign will tend to be biased in favor of the game -
since they went through the trouble of using that game over the
many other choices.
-*-*-*-
In short, I think that a careful and critical reading is
complementary to opinions from campaign experience -- not just a
lesser substitute.
--
John H. Kim | Whatever else is true you
jh...@fnal.gov | Trust your little finger
www.ps.uci.edu/~jhkim | Just a single little finger can
UC Irvine, Cal, USA | Save the world. - Steven Sondheim, "Assassins"
Brian Gleichman
> >> Campaign specificity s only a problem is it's welded into
> >> rules. And if that was the case in Quest, I wouldn't be
> >> using it.
> > It's there, but you like what's there and so you don't
> > notice it.
> Apart from player races... where?
Obviously the religions and cleric abilities. Very much the designers
viewpoint of how they should be represented. I've have to change all of them
if I wanted to base a campaign on real life religions as I don't agree with
them.
Outside those two rather obvious areas?
Why, everywhere else of course :-)
From the weight range for humans to how much landed is need to support
troops to the relative effectiveness of martial arts, fencing and Middle
Ages single sword- value judgements were made in order to make something
suitable for the designers campaign.
Example: I may believe that martial arts are primarily a form of dancing
that people for some reason think is actually useful in combat. That would
be a campaign specific value judgement that would show up in a set of rules
I've designed as I apply negitive modifers to martial arts attempts in
actual battle.
The reverse idea (that Martial Arts are the be all end all of personal
combat) is also a campaign specific value judgement as is any mix of the two
extremes.
--
Brian Gleichman
glei...@mindspring.com
Age of Heroes: http://gleichman.home.mindspring.com/
Brian Gleichman
> Agreed. But what about combat then?
You kept me up past midnight with that question (my mind wouldn't stop
thinking). I have an idea, but it will take more time than I have right now.
Let me answer that in a reply to another post of yours.
> > or even within most fiction.
>
> True, but this doesn't mean it _has_ to be so. Just that
> it hasn't been written!
True, you can run with that concept.
I think the result would be similiar to some 50s sci-fi where a single man
(of course it was alway a man, this was the 50s) knew and did everything
while everyone else watched. Or maybe you have another idea in mind.
> > Age of Heroes: http://gleichman.home.mindspring.com/
>
> One time or another I really gotta write a review of this
> one too.
:-)
That's a lot of work. Heck it's just a lot of work reading the thing. I've
had a couple of people state their intent to do a review of it, but I think
the size and complexity overcame their intentions.
_The Guide to Adventure_ and Quest (both larger than AoH although using the
same font might even that quite a bit) both nearly overwhelmed me.
If you do end up doing this, be sure to check the web site for a more recent
version.
<grin> I downloaded it maybe a year ago and find it
> very good (although I dislike the idea of character class).
Most of AoH character generation rules (including classes) are there for
generational campaigns. I've been consider making an optional appendix of
'class-less' generation for those campaigns not intended to last past a
handful of game years.
> Oh, I've read somewhere about "book 5" and even "six", but can
> only get the first four. Is that meant to be so?
Works yet to be done, in a format that's readable by anyone that is.
Book 5 will start to appear as a loose collection of stuff perhaps later
this year. Assuming I get off my duff and finish the polish write for the
rest of the magic classes...
Brian Gleichman
Brian Gleichman
news:20000707001243...@ng-cg1.aol.com...
> However, I think you go a little too far with the above paragraph, and
with
> the similar paragraphs in your proposed review FAQ. There can indeed be
> reasons for rules sets being the way they are that are not obvious and not
> easily calculable from merely reading the rules.
While I agree that the reasons for the existence of specific rules and
methods are often difficult if not impossible to determine (which is why I
always look for designer notes, but sadly they have yet to be there), the
effect of any rules are clear and present.
I may say that a resolution method produces wide variance in performance.
And it does.
Now the designer may wish to state why he chose such a resolution method. He
may well have a good reason that is perfect in respect to his purpose. But
that doesn't change the resulting wide variance in the least.
Or that may not be the case at all. There may be no good reason. Some
designers never noticed that their chosen method produced a wide variance.
They may even think the opposite due to the system blindness I discuss in
the FAQ. A review of some past threads shows this clearly, one designer
even stated that his combat system didn't use subtraction when it
specifically called for it in multiple places.
It is my hope that my reviews will determine for us and the designer both,
which of these two options is the case.
If it was an unintended effect outside the desires of the author, he knows
he has something to fix.
If it was an intended result that gave the author perceived advantage that I
was unaware of in my review, I can now examine that reasoning and adjust or
update the review on my web site point out the intend (and if in my opinion,
the intent was met).
Now I do think reviews by those who have extensively played the game do have
value, but it is of a completely different type. Both methods have their
place.
Brian Gleichman
> Yes, any _one_ method. But, if you delete reduce 3
> subphases to 1 pulse, then you'd have to use two methods:
No, you use the same number of methods either way, but they are displayed
differently. Perhaps that's justification enough.
> Fine. But why an unarmored fighter would be so effective?
> Think of Conan himself. 1) Can take lotsa damage, 2) is very
> skilled, so he can avoid being hit. Both can be represented in
> Quest.
It does okay as long as Conan has a huge edge in skill (always have the max
+10 over the opponent is good).
But Conan can't always count on that. Always an edge maybe, but not always
that great- not in a rpg. And knowing that, any player of Conan would throw
on the armor as he loses almost no effectiveness and gains a great deal.
Thus the style of Conan is broken.
But that tends to be the case in nearly every rpg anyway.
> > The use of multiple dice raises the minimum possible result.
>
> On the contrary. Read again:
Oops you're right. I was still holding the original quest numbers in my head
for some reason.
> > I'm also concerned about the heavy bell curve lots of dice
> > produce which in effect removes extreme results from
> > practical play.
>
> Now this is true.
Add to the list concerns the idea that we are now dealing with numbers
bigger than many players are comfortable with.
> Okay, let's view it the other way. Quest's problems with
> combat:
>
> 1) no armor: too much damage (I'm still not convinced,
> but...).
> 2) heavy armor: not enough damage.
> 3) random factor in damage.
That root causes, I'll rather look at the end result for the moment:
1. Various armor and weapon combination produces bodypart attrition.
2. Various weapons are not capable of produce a result consistent with SOD
(i.e. a max damage dagger to the unarmored chest will not take a typical man
down and will barely stun him).
3. Stun rules are overwhelming and unrealistic given the time scale.
Now the designer might like all the above effects (he's not talking about it
yet) thinking that they fulfill his unstated goals perfectly, so 'fixing' it
may only be for the case of house rules.
But for me and you, it's still too close to D&D hit point attrition, so it's
an interesting question and I spent some time debating options.
I wanted something that was still very much Quest (thus the solution that
AoH offers is off limits, it would change far too much of the basic Quest
mechanics meaning it would nearly be the same as abandoning one game for
other).
I kept running into major problems with using different die and damage
levels for the weapons and so I put that aside.
And then I started focusing on the one really cool part I found in Quest-
The Melee Missile Chart. That chart uses a single d100 roll to determine if
one hits and where. It's also the same chart used for parries, martial
throws, etc. adding an results column for each action that needs resolution.
Damage is an action that needs resolution...
Click, hmmm, idea.
For those reading, let's recreate the hit/hit location section of the chart
for a CR - DR of zero.
01-03 Weapon Break
04-06 Drop Weapon
07-37 Miss
38-47 1/2 Damage Shield Arm
48-54 1/2 Damage Weapon Arm
55-60 Shield Arm
61-65 Weapon Arm
66-73 Left Leg
74-81 Right Leg
82-85 Groin
86-90 Abdomen
91-97 Chest
98-99 1/2 Damage Head
00 Head
Now as one moves up and down the chart, the numbers on the left change, but
the results on the right do not. With a the exception of the full damage
head hit, all results on the right are always possible.
Now, for a new way of doing damage.
Get rid of the hit points for each body location. The numbers don't scale
and we'd lose some key features of Quest if we made them scale.
Keep the Blood Total but change it to achieve a desired balance.
Add a damage result column to the above table that looks something like this
for the zero column:
01-03 Minor wound- 1 Blood
04-06 Minor wound- 2 Blood
07-37 Minor would- 3 Blood
38-47 Light Wound- 4 Blood
48-54 Light Wound- 5 Blood
55-60 Moderate Wound- 6 Blood
61-65 Moderate Wound- 7 Blood
66-73 Moderate Wound- 8 Blood
74-81 Moderate Wound- 9 Blood
82-85 Severe Wound -10 Blood
86-90 Severe Wound- 11 Blood
91-97 Critical Wound- 12 Blood
98-99 Deadly Wound -13 Blood
00 Destroyed. 20 Blood
Define the effects of each wound on each body part (include stunning). Maybe
split the blood loss over time (half now, half next round maybe).
Now you rate weapons in Damage Strength and targets (that's people) by
Toughness which is a combination of the old BHP and armor one wears.
So a Dagger may have a Damage Strength of say, -2 and a two-handed sword has
one of +6. Add in a PS bonus as well (say one for one for the moment).
Divide BHP by 5 or 10 and add armor to determine Toughness.
Check out the results to see if the desire balance is obtained.
The idea is to offer the full range of effect to nearly any armor and weapon
combo and to resolve it in a method already used by a Quest subsystem.
Something may need to be done to consider damage columns under -10 and over
+10, even if they are listed as ineffective (or maybe step reduction for
every point under -10) or blow through damage (for those over +10).
All the above needs some work. I'm sure the balance isn't right on this
concept draft.
But I think it looks hopeful.
No of course, we've altered the 'Pace of Decision' of Quest. We need to
consider if the strike/parry chances for each of the columns are still
useable.
Change one thing, you effect others and this needs to be kept in mind. The
whole system needs to be looked at again, not just this subsection.
Scott Barrie
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>"Scott Barrie" <sba...@julian.uwo.ca> wrote in message
>news:2uk9mss64m8bbvmd1...@4ax.com...
>> A two-handed sword isn't that great. Sword and shield works better
>> IMHO. The Shield Bash discipline gives you extra Blows for more
>> parries, keeping the combatant alive longer. Two-handed swords are
>> great when they connect, but leave you very open when you miss.
>
>Depends upon the armor of your foe. Smart fighters in Quest (in a classic
>fantasy setting) all wear plate.
Now that's just silly. Smart fighters would all wear plate _if they
could_. Plate's kind of expensive, even in classic fantasy. Yes, big
weapons are better when fighting tin cans, but small weapons plus
shield are better when battling lightly armoured opponents.
Quest does need a rule for armour avoiding hits (eg knife to armpit).
Maybe I'll add that to my all-purpose Brawling discipline.
Warren J. Dew
While I agree that the reasons for the existence of specific
rules and methods are often difficult if not impossible to
determine (which is why I always look for designer notes, but
sadly they have yet to be there), the effect of any rules are
clear and present.
I simply don't think that is always the case.
For example, a number of people - I think including you? - don't like die pool
systems specifically because the effects are not easily calculable.
For another example, Peter Knutsen (I think?) thinks the land use rules in
Quest are broken based on play of the game, which you did not ascertain from
reading the rules. I'm not saying you should have, mind; I'm just saying that
some implications of a rules set are not going to be obvious from even a
careful reading of the rules.
Rules sets can be complex systems, and complex systems can cause results that
would not be anticipated from a straightforward review.
Brian Gleichman
> >Depends upon the armor of your foe. Smart fighters in Quest (in a classic
> >fantasy setting) all wear plate.
>
> Now that's just silly. Smart fighters would all wear plate _if they
> could_. Plate's kind of expensive, even in classic fantasy.
Smart Fighters will find a way to wear plate.
Unless you remove heavy armor from the campaign completely, you risk the ire
of gamists who feel they are stonewalled and the SOD of any simulatists who
realize that it shouldn't be this hard.
A risky road, but one it seems some groups can live with.
John Kim
a rules set. He suggests that some implications of the rules are
not going to be visible from a careful reading -- which can only be
seen from play.
While I admit that this may be possible in theory, I am
hard-pressed to think of examples. By and large, my experience is
that nearly all implications are fairly clear from the rules. In
the exceptional cases, it is at least clear from reading that the
system is unusual and subject to taste.
If you could give more specific examples of complex
interaction, I would be interested. My experience has been that
if I have carefully read the rules in advance, playing it has
confirmed almost all of my conclusions.
Warren J. Dew <psych...@aol.com> wrote:
>Brian Gleichman posts, in part:
>> While I agree that the reasons for the existence of specific rules
>> and methods are often difficult if not impossible to determine
>> (which is why I always look for designer notes, but sadly they have
>> yet to be there), the effect of any rules are clear and present.
>
>I simply don't think that is always the case.
>
>For example, a number of people - I think including you? - don't like die
>pool systems specifically because the effects are not easily calculable.
Hm. I would say that this is a case in favor of careful
reading. The probabilities involved are indeed difficult to calculate,
but this is mainly a problem during play. When one is at leisure
analyzing the system (with a computer handy), then the probabilities
are fairly straightforward to investigate.
For example, I found that many Storyteller players were
surprised by the fact that botch chances often rise with higher skill:
particularly at high difficulties. I found a careful analysis much
more enlightening than my bouts of play with the system.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
>For another example, Peter Knutsen (I think?) thinks the land use rules
>in Quest are broken based on play of the game, which you did not ascertain
>from reading the rules. I'm not saying you should have, mind; I'm just
>saying that some implications of a rules set are not going to be obvious
>from even a careful reading of the rules.
To be fair, my impression was that Brian didn't pay much
attention to the land use rules in his review. Similarly, someone
might easily have played the system for years without significant
use of the land use rules, and thus also miss any problems therein.
I would be interested in any specific examples of rules whose
implications cannot be seen from a careful reading.
Brian Gleichman
news:20000707150945...@ng-ch1.aol.com...
> For example, a number of people - I think including you? - don't like die
> pool systems specifically because the effects are not easily calculable.
Doesn't mean I can't calculate them. Their just a pain and I'd rather use
someone else work than repeat it myself.
> For another example, Peter Knutsen (I think?) thinks the land use rules in
> Quest are broken based on play of the game, which you did not ascertain
> from reading the rules.
No I don't examine in detail each and every rule, contenting myself with
just hitting the major sections (although I almost did do an analysis of the
land rules because it's so rare to see them).
My work is done on the core systems, primarily character generation and
combat. If there isn't much there, I'll look elsewhere for stuff. Time is a
major limit.
Thus there may be any number of troublsome 'chrome' rules left uncovered.
But the exisistence of land rules, broken or not, has no bearing on those
areas I did cover. If by some amazing twist they did, I would hope the
author or another would point me towards them (as was done with the stat
increases for Quest) so that I can amend the review to note the effect.
> Rules sets can be complex systems, and complex systems can cause results
> that would not be anticipated from a straightforward review.
Unless I missed a rule, I don't see that happening in the common case for
the rule sections I do an analysis of.
Tom Knight
Brian Gleichman wrote:
> Everyone gets 3000 experience points to spend on starting skills. The value
> of these 3000 points varies depending upon the skills you purchase. Each
> skill is controlled by a number of stats that determine your base skill roll
> and your learning rate. Learning rates modify the experience cost to
> purchase a skill, for example a Learning rate of 115% means one need only
> spend 87 experience points to learn a 100-experience point DoM.
3000? Jesus fucking Christ! And I thought GURPS was bad.
Steffan O'Sullivan
> This is a reply to Warren Dew concerning the implications of
>a rules set. He suggests that some implications of the rules are
>not going to be visible from a careful reading -- which can only be
>seen from play.
>
> While I admit that this may be possible in theory, I am
>hard-pressed to think of examples. By and large, my experience is
>that nearly all implications are fairly clear from the rules.
Some games "read" well, but don't play well. Others are the opposite.
A recent example from the world of board-gaming: Andromeda by Alan
Moon, published by Rio Grande Games (www.riograndegames.com). This
reads very well - I could hardly wait to play it after reading it!
After a mere three games, however, I sold my copy: it reads well, but
the play is mediocre.
Almost 20 years ago, related to a current thread on rgfmisc, I read
the RPG Melanda and thought, "Bingo! This is it!" Wrong - it read
well, very well. But played poorly.
As for rules the other way around, that read poorly but play well, I
immodestly offer the Min-Mid-Max rules from Fudge. Nearly everyone
that reads these rules say they sound terrible. Nearly everyone who
plays them when I GM them, love them. Often the same people.
And from the world of board/card gaming, the Avalon Hill game Up Front
reads atrociously - heavens! Worse case of legalese you could
imagine. But what a wonderful game! Love it, love it, love it. So
elegant in play! And then there's Entdecker, a German board game I
read the rules to in 1996 and hated - man, those rules read poorly.
The game feels like utter crap just from reading it. I finally played
it for the first time in 1999, with someone teaching me face-to-face,
and now it's one of my favorite games. Same rules, mind you.
So I would contend that no, you can't *always* judge a game strictly by
reading the rules. You really should sit down and play some of them.
And of course, with all that said, I certainly judge many rules just by
reading them, saying there's no way in hell I'll try some of them ...
so it's a very human thing to do. And frankly, some rules really are
so bad you don't have to play them ...
--
-Steffan O'Sullivan | "Perhaps there are not as many stupid things
s...@vnet.net | said as there are set down in print."
Plymouth, NH, USA | -The Goncourt Brothers in 1866,
www.io.com/~sos | predicting the eventual rise of usenet
Scott Barrie
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>"Scott Barrie" <sba...@julian.uwo.ca> wrote in message
>news:fs3cmskj8as8qmed9...@4ax.com...
>
>> >Depends upon the armor of your foe. Smart fighters in Quest (in a classic
>> >fantasy setting) all wear plate.
>>
>> Now that's just silly. Smart fighters would all wear plate _if they
>> could_. Plate's kind of expensive, even in classic fantasy.
>
>Smart Fighters will find a way to wear plate.
Nope, still silly. Do smart young men carefully put aside savings for
their first suit of plate? If you're in the militia/a bandit/leave
your home, you should expect to fight someday.
And how did Fighter graduate to a proper noun?
>Unless you remove heavy armor from the campaign completely, you risk the ire
>of gamists who feel they are stonewalled and the SOD of any simulatists who
>realize that it shouldn't be this hard.
We were discussing your comment that the two-handed sword was the
ultimate weapon in Ques). It's inferior against light armour, but
superior in (one on one) combat with a heavily armoured opponent.
Unless you remove light (and no) armour from the campaign completely,
there is no ultimate weapon.
Jim Davies
> Scott Barrie:
>
>>>> Quest does not suit generational campaigns.
>>>
>>> Why?
>>
>> No rules for aging and no rules preventing a single
>> character from learning every discipline given enough
>> experience.
>
> The problem is: why a character with an extremely long
>lifespan should stop learning, if he still wants to?
You can, within limits:
1) "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." Older people do learn more
slowly. This is especially evident with languages; the difference
happens before age 10.
2) You forget things. I've almost forgotten all my Latin, Greek,
Finnish and Portuguese and most of my German and Italian (I was at
times semi-competent in each of them). I'd make a lousy pilot and a
ropy motorcyclist or scuba-diver, despite licences in all three. And
so on, simply because I haven't done any of them for 5 years or so.
The only game I've seen model this is GURPS Special Ops, but I suppose
some others do too.
Jim Davies
------------------------------------------
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Jim Davies
>But Conan can't always count on that. Always an edge maybe, but not always
>that great- not in a rpg. And knowing that, any player of Conan would throw
>on the armor as he loses almost no effectiveness and gains a great deal.
>
>Thus the style of Conan is broken.
<nitpick>
Conan did wear armour when appropriate. It was usually shredded by the
end of the battle that preceded the story, but he did wear it.
<\nitpick>
Brian Gleichman
> Nope, still silly. Do smart young men carefully put aside savings for
> their first suit of plate?
What has that to do with a gamist player doing everything reasonable to
increase the effectiveness of his character?
> And how did Fighter graduate to a proper noun?
D&D of course. Fighter is a fantasy concept- dedicated warrior who seeks his
ultimate potential for personal combat.
Or just maybe I'm too eager on the shift key.
Take your pick.
> >Unless you remove heavy armor from the campaign completely, you risk the
ire
> >of gamists who feel they are stonewalled and the SOD of any simulatists
who
> >realize that it shouldn't be this hard.
>
> We were discussing your comment that the two-handed sword was the
> ultimate weapon in Ques).
Yes we were. Gamists (and simulationists who's characters also seek an
combat edge) will do everything they can to get heavy armor.
Of course so will their opponents (unless they like being diced by plate
wearing, rapier using walking machines of death) at which point everyone
will grab the biggest weapons around just to have a chance.
So, the two-handed sword rules.
> Unless you remove light (and no) armour from the campaign completely,
> there is no ultimate weapon.
I don't have to. It would happen as a manner of natural progression unless
the GM used unnatural force to stop it or is will to accept the PCs having a
vast edge in combat.
Of course, this assumes skilled players- something that need not be true.