I also recall the Troll "Elves count as salad" thing from TrollPak. Plus Mostali get Uz drunk. Haven't seen the web page you mentioned, but there was a lot of odd information about Elves put out by Chaosium. I think some of it was in Elder Secrets and also in Genertela: Cruciable of the Hero Wars.

As far as I know, all living things possess hit points rather than (or in addition to) armor points. Trees might have Aps, but they'd have HPs too. The difference may be that an object can be broken, but only a living thing can be killed. Undead…special case, I guess. But if you want to use AP instead, go for it! Let us know how it goes!

Bolster your weaknesses. I'm not great on puzzles and traps, so if I need some I dig them up from obscure books. Which reminds me: don't be afraid to steal ideas from anywhere. You can't be sued for a game. For your first time, I'd suggest A) be with friends, B) relax, and C) be ready to punt the game if necessary. Your first few times GMing are learning experiences. But they can still be fun. I made up the Bottle in the Items section on the fly during the first game I ever ran; just made it up off the cuff.

Haven't had a chance to roleplay at all for weeks, so I haven't anything new to post; my mind's been pretty much shut down since the coup d'etat election. I'm stunned and furious.

I'll be at the Arisia science fiction convention this coming weekend, January 12-14. Look me up if you'll be there! You can recognize me on Friday - look for the tallish bald bearded fat guy in white tie, tails, and glasses. :) Been whiling away my sick hours playing Diablo and Hellfire. I'm hooked. Bad. And Teri's caught the game bug, too. :) Fear not, this site shall rise again!

Sorry, had to be said. Hey, I'm making a evaluating system for characters in Runequest. I use a base-20 system instead of percentile for skills, which should make the following clearer. I add the top ten skills, number of spells (points /3 for Spirit Magic), max damage with main weapon and double armor points to get a point value for characters to kind of compare and make monsters with. Anything I'm really missing? What was the old Treasure Ranking system from 1st ed? Any suggestions? I remember poison was listed, too.

Finally, just found out that Pavis is a town of 5,000 people only... Not really enough to support the almost 20 temples I had there. Anything else I missed? Is there an online site that tells a bit more about the town? What temples are there? How much trade? Who are the leaders? How big is the Black Fang cult? I'm not ready to spend $70 on the hardcover book yet...

I'm signing up for both events (maybe I can moderate the "RIP" panel). Is anyone else going to be there? If you're in the area, I'd definitely recommend the con. Attendance is usually in the 2,000 person range, I believe, and it's quite varied and friendly. It would be great to meet you guys in person!

In fairness I should say that the NPC record sheets are not particularly glamorous or polished -- they were just quick conversions, as I recall. One thing I've wondered is if I should add an NPC section to the Chaos Project. What do you think?

I believe I did give Ian Thomson permission to use the Grey Company,
although I hope I won't have any problem if I ever want to publish it myself sometime. I need to take a look at his web site; last time I checked I don't think he had my new URL, and I remember darn well that he misspelled my name. Which is easy to do, of course. :-)

'Preorder'? What? From where?

I'd love to hear the details of your TGC run, if you ever have the time!

The site is still on my Fav. list, though I admit mostly to steal ideas, cos the power level here is too high for my campaigns (I prefer grungier low-level stuff).

And now, time for me to sleep the sleep of the very tired. :-) WOO HOO!

Also, a major update for the site is just about to happen: new main page, navigation, even some content. I'm having fun!

I'll need to re-arrange the site a bit, but that shouldn't be too big a job. HeroQuest Skills will be folded into Alternate Rules, and The White Horse HQ will be added to Scenarios. The historical list of updates will not be on the main page, and I'll add an RPG Vote icon in a prominent place.

If you get a chance, let me know what you think of it. This isn't a huge change, and I know that more probably needs to be done, so any suggestions would be great. Incidentally, it's at http://www.maranci.net/rq2.htm.

But there's a whole different issue I've run across: the Name: of the site. "Pete's RQ Page!" is fine (sort of), but it probably repulses non-RQers -- and that's the vast, vast, vast majority of the gaming world. I won't stop supporting RQ, but I wouldn't mind adding more general FRP material. I think a lot of the stuff here would be useful for almost any FRP system or setting, anyway. But how can I make that clear in the site name? Perhaps "Pete's RuneQuest & Roleplaying Page!"?

As far as the Tower of Dread, I can tell from your writings that you are an intelligent chap, and I think...that this is a parody of excess not to be taken at face value. Kinda like your TIAC page (man that was great) it's the humor that can only come from the grimmest experience. The plot reminded me of my old D&D days, where we would play in various retellings of the Old Man Parker Mansion; they check in but they don't check out etc. I did however like the part where the Gods live on the 6th floor (roof). Now you can literally Take

Actually, I think I might add the rating link to my main page, just for the heck of it.

Speaking of the main page, boy does that need an update! I tried working one up, but it's hard to get graphics together for it -- all I've got are black & white ones. Oh well. I'm thinking of using some frames, but I'll have to figure out how to use them.

So did I go over the top with "Dread Tower", or what?

For , the destination server said: delivery error: dd This user doesn't have a yahoo.com account ([email protected]) - mta403.mail.yahoo.com (from yahoo.com:216.136.129.16)

I'll probably expand the email and post it in Chatter soon.

I could also number the found items and chaos features. We're already over 100 in each of those categories anyway. Of course I'll keep all personal information with each entry, so that everyone gets proper credit. What do you think?

The magic items look great -- thanks a ton! It's always hardest to come up with interesting MIs. I noticed that you included divine magic imbuement, which I hadn't worked out but which probably resembles the spirit magic system. I can see that it also can add a lot of flexibility.

<U> starts underlining in HTML, </U> turns it off. For italics, replace the U with an I. Likewise, boldface with a B. You can do more than one at a time, i.e. <U> <I> will boldface and italicize, and </U> </I> turns it all off.

By the way, ComputerHope is an excellent online reference for HTML and many other programs. I use it often.

The rules weren't totally complete, but he did have weapons, armor, and psionics written up. As I recall spaceships and world design remained to be done. I have no idea where he is, though I know that about eight or nine years ago he lived in this area. Haven't seen him since, can't find him online.. He still owes me about $500 from our college days, actually.

In answer to your question, I've used RQ for a LOT of different worlds. Back in college we did even more. Let me see...any number of custom worlds, including one in which there was no gravity nor flat ground (the Floating Isles, which I still use sometimes), a cool world of a high fantasy-Victorian city on mile-high stilts with steam trains on raised tracks and huge dark machines below (that one included the Eternal Champion), a world using many AD&D cultural elements, many science fiction settings (I still have a set of RQ rules a roommate re-wrote for SF), a reverse-Christianity world (wierd!), CoC's Dreamlands...never straight Fantasy Europe, though.

Jeremy, good point about the US take on Asia -- mixing Japanese and Chinese cultural elements is ridiculous, but 99 out of 100 wouldn't have a clue why. The Ugly American lives.

Imbue will work differently for Divine magic, and it probably won't mix with Spirit imbuements. Sorcery...as I said elsewhere, it may be redundant given the Duration skill. It would probably be more different than Spirit-Divine.Re Fireblade: good point. Jeeze. Although it might be awkward carrying around a constantly flaming sword...you'd need a metal sheath, and it would get hot.

The surprising thing to me is that the ideas are coming so easily -- don't know if I'm just in a creative mood, or if I could have been doing this all along if I'd just had an easy way to post ideas. Weekends will be harder, since I'm really busy then.

I'm also designing a Chinese (not Japanese or an Oriental hybrid) world to play in right now. Its strange how much we (from the US) tend to blend Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc. culture together.

BTW, thanks for the answers on magical protection. It matches what I was planning on, though I think crits are going to be 'max damage' OR 'ignore armor'.I also like the Imbue idea - would that be for Spirit Magic only, or could Priests and Sorcerors use it? Would you have to imbue each intensity of a spell, too? And wouldn't Imbuing a Fireblade be a little powerful? I like to look for potential problems before players get to...

There are several things I need to get done -- including HTMLing an AD&D adventure for the site -- and I'm trying to get them done one at a time. In the meantime, I haven't done anything more on Fear the Night, much less A Breath of Evil. Sigh.

Fortunately there's the rare rush of inspiration that produced the new Imbue rules. If you don't read the RuneQuest Rules Digest, you missed something interesting: some people objected to the Imbue rules because they offended Gloranthan sensibilities. Others disagreed, fortunately.

Anyway, I'd love to see any side adventures that anyone comes up with, and I'd be very glad (honored, in fact) to post them on the site or link to them elsewhere. ->Peter

Okay, admittedly this doesn't make a lot of sense, and might encourage nudity in combat in some weird situations. :-) However, the rules were always pretty adamant that a crit would bypass Protection and even Shield. HOWEVER, I seem to recall that Damage Resistance is not bypassed! Go figure.

First of all, a question: Crits are supposed to ignore armor. Does that include magical protection like Shield or Protection spells? Is there something I missed in the books, or what are the house rules about this?

Finally, I got 3rd ed and a whole bunch of stuff through the net for US$50. A friend sent it on, but I think he found it amongst the news groups. You might want to check there for people selling off games, or at least ask around

I thought it was spelled "birk"? I learn something new every day.I knew what you meant by "sad" -- we use it the same way here, sometimes. All part of the vast trans-Atlantic uniculture, at least for those of us here who've memorized Monty Python, the Young Ones, and the Goodies. But now I'm dating myself. :-)

I hope you're right about new people in the hobby!
->Peter

I also probably shouldn't disillusion Glenn's friends, but as can be seen in Chatter, I can't deny that I am "fat" and "greying". As for the "sad" thing, it depends on where the US Presidential polls are. Right now I'm feeling moderately upbeat. ;-)

6 months later that scenerio has proved the most memorable of my games master career. It is a fantastic concept, particularily when you introduce rival orders etc. Seeing a player go from a naive initiate of the order, through 100's of hours of roleplaying, to become the order's leader and a hero of great renown was a fantastic experience. Another placid, sweet natured character evolved into a cynical, bloodthirsty warrior as the, often horrific, experiences faced by the 'young' Gray Company took their tool. I think I'm a pretty good GM and encourage character development and realistic interaction with NPC's. However this is the most fertile campaign setting for character development and self-perpetuating excitement I have ever found. Thank you.

With heavy armor, that could still result in a long combat without result. Also, how would you determine a special or critical? By the initial roll? But would it take effect if the the other person won the "skill/roll difference" test?

Hmm. This could be very hard on an unarmored character who relies on Dodge. Is that okay?

By the way, you can use HTML tags here -- including paragraph breaks, which I would demo if I could. :-)

Re using differential success to speed up combat: I wonder if asking people to subtract their rolls from their skills might be too much work or too complicated? At least for newbies? I'm fantasizing about a simplified set of rules that could be printed in 10-pt. text on a single page, yet retains the basic essence of RQ (and is "expandable" to full RQ).

Sometimes I try to figure out what the end result should be, and try to develop the rules backward from there. So how long should an average 1-in-1 combat take? How many rolls? Based on what? My guess: 5 minutes, five rolls for each side total (in other words, including damage), and skill & armor should still make a major difference. Of course, the problem is making sure RQ-Lite is different from Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing system.