[Runequest] Advice Sought re Damage & HP

[Lev Lafayette]

On Tue, 2008-05-27 at 15:37 +0930, David Cake wrote:
> At 9:42 AM +0800 27/5/08, Gary Sturgess wrote:
> >2008/5/27  <devinc at aol.com>:
> >>  The lethality of RQ combat encourages players to try to find other ways to
> >>  solve problems beyond hacking and slashing.
> >
> >The thing is, nothing in the RQ rules says anything about "this is a
> >game where combat is supposed to be de-emphasised".
> 
> 	It isn't. Its a game in which combat is dangerous.
> 
> 	RuneQuest PCs don't, generally, decide to solve their 
> problems by non-violent means much more than PCs in any other game.

There are competing influences here, as game systems influence the type
of game that is played. RuneQuest did somewhat better than other major
game systems at its time because of the general availability of skills
(including social skills like Oratory and Fast Talk) as well as the
social relations (e.g., cultic affiliation and, if you played them,
guild associations).

OTOH the basic magic was very much combat influenced ("Battle Magic"!)
and of course a fair component of the game system was combat-orientated.
A clever gamer might avoid combat because of their realisation of its
general lethality, but their was an emphasis towards combat in the
system. However, once again I do think it was somewhat less than its
contemporaries.

> 	And occasionally, when these fail, or when the injury is too 
> vicious and quick to be dealt with, they die horribly. It IS a more 
> lethal game. Personally, I think it adds to the game, but it can be a 
> shock to someone used to D&D (where, after the level at which Raise 
> Dead becomes easily affordable if not castable, a character is almost 
> never lost) to have a well established character suddenly killed and 
> realise they aren't coming back.

*nods* Very true indeed. In fact an argument could be made that the more
experienced the character (and usually the player) the less likely they
would be to adopt a violent path to conflict resolution. D&D certainly
did not do that and it is arguable that the opposite was the case,
especially against "low level" opponents.

> >
> >I think it might be significant that of all the BRP descended games
> >(Mongoose RQ, Elric, Call of Cthulu) AND Glorantha descended games
> >(HeroQuest, Pendragon Pass, and of course Mongoose gets in here as
> >well), ALL of them have made combat less lethal than it is in RQ2 and
> >3 (if only by removing hit locations).

In terms of situation and probably opponents Call of Cthulhu is probably
much more dangerous and Stormbringer/Elric not far behind. Mongoose RQ
is possibly a little less dangerous although the reason is the reverse;
they dropped general hit points, not locations (something which I've
been using in RQ3 just to speed things up a little).


> >
> >RQ3 is one of my all time favourite games, but I've run enough
> >beginning level games over the years to convince myself that it is
> >broken at that level - YMMV.
> 
> 	I largely agree. High level RQ combat is, indeed, quite 
> broken, and its always, IMO, been a problem with the system.

Oh, now there's a difference. One says low-level games is "broken" and
the other says high-level.

Personally, I think "broken" is more than a little harsh. A "broken"
game is where the system gives results which are game-wreckers. This is
not the case with RQ at low or high levels. 

At a low level RuneQuest combat is, imo, extremely dangerous and at a
high level has the problem of epic combats taking an epic period of time
(which isn't necessarily a bad thing, vis-a-vis the famous battle
between Sir Percivale and Sir Ector.

All the best,



Lev