Beyond Professions

[Utgardloki]

I've been meaning to start this thread for a while. The motivation is that I plan to start a thread on converting D&D classes to Runequest, but in order to do justice, I think I need to go beyond professions, as it were.

I've long been on the record of saying it would be better to instead of having players choose a profession, to give PCs an extra 50 skill points and telling the players to create their own profession with these. Defined professions can be used as a guide, as well as being useful for quick NPCs.

Instead of professions, I intend to use the concept of character "concepts". Instead of giving distinct bonuses, a concept is more of a guide to where to put your character's skill points. Thus, a PC can have as many concepts as they want: a "barbarian" would be a woodsman warrior, while a "ranger" would be a woodsman military warrior.

One thought I had for NPCs would be to define skills associated with a career path, and give a randomly generated NPC 1D10 times 1D10 % skill in these skills. Thus, a randomly generated military officer would have between +1% and +100% skill with a sword, although most would have a low bonus like +25% and few would have a high bonus.

I'm not sure how to handle "naming" groups like "Druids". A "Druid" would be perhaps an "expanded profession". A character would need certain skills to become a "Druid", and would, upon completing the entry requirements, gain access to the divine magic available to the cult. In game mechanics, becoming a "druid" would be like becoming a priest of another cult. Normally, I'd say "druid" is a "profession", but I wouldn't be using that term the way that it is normally used in the Runequest context, so I am kind of at a loss for a good term.

 

[weasel_fierce]

Giving more skill points is an easy way to let people pick what makes sense for them. Or do the COC/SB way, and let the player pick say, 8 skills, to spend his points on.

I kinda like the professions as they are, but they can easily be modified, expanded or done away with, as appropriate

 

[richaje]

As I understand it, "Barbarian", "Townsfolk", and so on, represent cultural backgrounds. This may well be refined in the Players Guide to Glorantha.

So for example, traditionalist Orlanthi (the Hendrikings, Talastarings, Bilinings, Aggari, Sylilings, Lankstings, Saugites, Delelans, Brolians, Chargites, and Golarosings as well as those remaining in Safelster, Saird, Holay, and Dragon Pass) will either be Barbarian or Peasants or even Townsfolk (City Orlanthi). Certain Orlanthi regions will be more likely to be Barbarians (e.g., the Hendrikings) and others Peasants (e.g., those in Saird or Dragon Pass). Obviously, any Orlanthi raised in a city will be a Townsfolk.

Then the characters will get the appropriate cultural background skills such as regional Lore and the appropriate Language (Heortling for the Hendrikings, Dragon Pass, Holay, Saird, and Aggari; Vestmonstran for the Lankstings, East Ralian for the Saugites and Delelans, Talastaring for the Talastarings and Bilinings, and so on).

Then, folk get appropriate professions for that culture - hunter, farmer, warrior, poet, thane, god-talker, whatever. That gives some other appropriate skill points and opportunities to start out as an initiate of an appropriate god (frex, male Orlanthi farmers could initiate to Orlanth Thunderous or to Barntar as part of their character creation). Then you get 100 additional skill points. Pretty easy and very flexible.

Jeff

 

[duncan_disorderly]

I've been meaning to start this thread for a while. The motivation is that I plan to start a thread on converting D&D classes to Runequest, but in order to do justice, I think I need to go beyond professions, as it were.

I don't know how familiar, (if at all) you are with Hero Quest, but it strikes me you are looking for something like the Keyword concept, tweaked for the RQ rules set.

In HQ, a character starts off with (usually) three "keywords" - Cultural, Professional and Magical - these "define" the "core concept" of the character and provide the basic skills that "everyone" who has those keywords should have. You can use them as a short-cut to describing NPC's by appending a rating to the keyword - a Bison-Rider 19, Warrior 5W who worships Storm Bull 1W will have all the skills in the Bison Rider Keyword at 19, and all the Warrior ones at 5 Mastery.

So for (M)RQ in the setting of your choice, you would start by listing all the appropriate cultures - these might be broad strokes (Civilised, Barbarian) or more specific (specific Nations, regions or even cities, depending on your setting). For "bog standard" D&D these would probably just be the races (human, elf, dwarf etc etc). For each culture, list the skills that would be improved above the base starting scores.

Next list all the professions/classes/occupations you will be using. For "bog standard" D&D these would be the Character classes, In another setting some of these might be limited to characters from a certain culture (in an "Elric" setting, only Melniboneans can be Dragon Riders, for example). Again, list the skills that this profession will increase over and above the starting baseline. You might also want to set minimum levels on some skills here (either as a flat %age or a mandatory increase).

Finally the "Magic" keyword. For RQ as written this would be the Cult the character belongs to (which will give bonuses to Cult skills and which sorts of magic and spells the character is likely to have). For "Bog Standard" D&D where Gods are less important and few classes have magic you might dispense with this keyword, or use it to provide "packages" to refine the core character.

For Character Generation give Players a number of points to spend in each keyword - These could be a flat rate for everyone if you think everyone getting "the same" points to spend is important, or based on age or other characteristics if you prefer to mix things up more. You will have to determine the exact numbers depending on both what your lists look like, and how competent you want the characters to be.


For quick, generic NPC's list the keywords and a flat bonus which you apply to every skill in the keyword. (so for a character approximately equal to starting PC's in power this bonus would be (Number of points given to starting PCs)/(No of skills in the keyword) - For more powerful NPC's just up these bonuses.

 

[soltakss]

Thinking about it, you can very easily mimic character classes in RQ, but with a few differences.

In RQ, people are not restricted by what they do, so even a sorcerer can learn Mechanisms and open locks. That means that some of the AD&D-style reestrictions don't apply (I know nothing about D20 so I may keep harping back to AD&D as the only class-based system I am familiar with)

But, you have the idea of the Guilds, present since RQ2 and ever-present in fantasy settings. I think that Guild Membership can lead a PC down a certain path without needing character classes as such.

So, imagine three PCs. One is strong and tough, another is clever and powerful, the third is clever and quick. The first joins the Mercenaries, the second becomes apprenticed to a wizard, the third is a street urchin and falls in with the Thieves' Guild.

After spending several years in their respective groups, they end up as a seasoned mercanary, a trained wizard and a master thief. When they start campaigning together, they have these backgrounds. So far, so RQ.

Now, because they are still members of their own guilds, they are constrained in what they can do. There;s nothing to stop a wizard becoming a master swordsman, but if he has to spend time keeping up his wizardly skills, being on guild duty, researching spells and making magical potions, then he won't have much time for non-wizardly things.

The same applies to the other people.

In RQ terms, the thief might be a Runelord-Priest of Lanbril, or the equivalent thief god, and might have many thielfy divine spells, the soldier might be a Runelord-Priest of Ares and have many war spells and the sorcerer might be a priest of Hermes and have his divine spells as well. That doesn't make them all magic users, even though they have access to spells. What it does is make the thief a better thief, the soldier a better warrior and the sorcerer more powerful magically.

With the limited experience point system of RQM, you are encouraged to focus on the skills you find interesting or important, rather than the old free for all tick-frenzy where everyone became good at everything. So, in that way RQM positively encourages de facto character classes.

So, in RQ, character classes are profession-driven rather than professions being character class-driven. They don't necessarily restrict magic use or skill use, although they could, but restrictions are cultural, social and professional rather than rules-based.

Which, thinking about it, is probably how it should be.

So, I welcome character classes in RQ.

Now, how do we cope with Alignment?

 

[soltakss]

There are some conversion notes to classic RQ by Peter Brink at http://recipes.rollspelshornan.se/Conversions/DungeonsAndDragons, although he doesn't go into much detail regarding character classes.


Steve Lieb has a conversion for the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, whatever that is, at http://www.rollspelshornan.se/files/scenarios/C1-Tamoachan.zip, which are conversion notes for an AD&D scenario and presumably has some converted NPCs, so if you have the original you can compare them. I don't, so I can't.

 

[ninthcouncil]

The motivation is that I plan to start a thread on converting D&D classes to Runequest, but in order to do justice, I think I need to go beyond professions, as it were.

I think part of the problem with core d20 classes is that, despite the claims of D&D to be a generic system, some of the classes enforce a very specific approach which doesn't fit well in many backgrounds outside the "default" D&D type of world. d20 rejigged the thief up quite nicely, and I've often played rogues with next to no thieving skills, but Diplomacy, Sense Motive etc. out the wazoo. But some of the other classes - to be specific: ranger, druid, monk, paladin, cleric - remain rather peculiar game constructs. I don't think its a coincidence that these are the classes which have supernatural or quasi-supernatural abilities other than straightforward flash-bang magic. This is an area that D&D has always handled very poorly, and I wouldn't actually want to convert those classes to RQ without serious surgery.

 

[soltakss]

Of course, the rigorous way to do it would be to list each profession with all the skills/abilities that the profession has, then to list the RQ equivalent skills beside them and use that as a template.

Skill levels can be converted using different algorithms, normally a percentage increase to the base skill depending on level and profession.

AC is just a function of the armour worn, but may be magically enhanced, although dodge can come into it.

HPs depend on stats not level.

Magic items would be converted wholesale, or dropped or you could find an equivalent item.

Spells are difficult to convert as the AD&D spell system is different from RQ, although 3rd edition is closer, with spells by deity type rather than everyone getting the same spells. But, spell casting is still be level and that is tricky to emulate. Perhaps a number of points of divine spells per level would be appropriate. Or Number of Spells at a level x spell level. So, someone with 3 level 1 spells and 1 level 2 spell would get 3x1 + 1x2 = 5POW to spend on Divine Magic, which doesn't sound much at all.

... and so on.

Converting RQ characters to AD&D/D20 is probably a bit harder, though.

 

[weasel_fierce]

I think part of the problem with core d20 classes is that, despite the claims of D&D to be a generic system, some of the classes enforce a very specific approach which doesn't fit well in many backgrounds outside the "default" D&D type of world. d20 rejigged the thief up quite nicely, and I've often played rogues with next to no thieving skills, but Diplomacy, Sense Motive etc. out the wazoo. But some of the other classes - to be specific: ranger, druid, monk, paladin, cleric - remain rather peculiar game constructs. I don't think its a coincidence that these are the classes which have supernatural or quasi-supernatural abilities other than straightforward flash-bang magic. This is an area that D&D has always handled very poorly, and I wouldn't actually want to convert those classes to RQ without serious surgery.

You are quite right. Its often said that while D&D derived from lots of fantasy books, its generally not well at reproducing any fantasy novels, due to the inherent assumptions.

 

[Utgardloki]

I guess the question I have is why use a rule mechanism for character background. A PC wants to be a ranger, he just says "I was a Ranger." In the Iron Kingdoms, a "ranger" would be recognized as a military veteran who specializes in wilderness operations.

If a PC wants to be a priest or shaman, some way of paying for the divine magic is required. What I am thinking for Iron Kingdoms is that beginning PCs who are priests or shamans are at the very beginning of their careers, and therefore have only one or two low magnitude divine spells. As they gain in experience they can gain divine spells as normal. Since divine spells come with divine duties, that should be balanced.

I think most class abilities like those of monks can be bought with hero points and training in an Iron Kingdoms monastery. This training would also carry with it duties and obligations; IK monks don't give out training to any who want to pick up some martial arts.

The main issue I see is terminology. Classes and professions provide identity to the PCs: "I am a sorcerer. I am a ranger." Profession provides a place in the world, and conversion to Runequest opens up a variety of options not available to a D&D character. (e.g. "I am a shoemaker.")

PCs who do not define a profession can be assumed to be scoundrels until proven otherwise.

 

[Magistus]

I guess the question I have is why use a rule mechanism for character background. A PC wants to be a ranger, he just says "I was a Ranger." In the Iron Kingdoms, a "ranger" would be recognized as a military veteran who specializes in wilderness operations.

If a PC wants to be a priest or shaman, some way of paying for the divine magic is required. What I am thinking for Iron Kingdoms is that beginning PCs who are priests or shamans are at the very beginning of their careers, and therefore have only one or two low magnitude divine spells. As they gain in experience they can gain divine spells as normal. Since divine spells come with divine duties, that should be balanced.

I think most class abilities like those of monks can be bought with hero points and training in an Iron Kingdoms monastery. This training would also carry with it duties and obligations; IK monks don't give out training to any who want to pick up some martial arts.

The main issue I see is terminology. Classes and professions provide identity to the PCs: "I am a sorcerer. I am a ranger." Profession provides a place in the world, and conversion to Runequest opens up a variety of options not available to a D&D character. (e.g. "I am a shoemaker.")

PCs who do not define a profession can be assumed to be scoundrels until proven otherwise.

What people don't seem to get is the professions are what the character was before he became what he is now. It's to help define the characters history, to help the player visualize where the roots of the character started just before becoming whatever he will become during play.

 

[weasel_fierce]

thats how I always figured it, and how I explain it to my players.

"this is what you did, untill today"

 

[Utgardloki]

I guess I'd rather call "what you did until today" the character's Background. Was the character a townsperson, or a desert nomad? Did he have military experience? Did she grow up on a farm?

"Profession" I take to be what the character is. Is the character an ordained priest of some religion? A scoundrel looking for any way to make a living besides honest work? A knight looking for a heroic quest? Where does this character fit into society?

One possibility is to create a set of tables to indicate what happened to the character. Was he born to rich parents, or to poor? Was he conscripted to fight in a war, or was he chosen to become an officer? Perhaps he met a mentor who taught him an arcane secret. Perhaps he was able to pick up something interesting as a piece of booty.

I could make the tables optional, although it could be a good way to get an idea of the setting. The problem with many settings is that it players have to understand the setting in order to create characters that fit in the setting. Having background tables allows the players to concentrate on what the character would know ("The Queen of Khador wants to conquer the entire world. And *I* had to try to stop the invasion of Llael, which would have been a lot easier if they had given us decent armor and guns.") instead of trying to understand the entire geopolitical situation.

 

[Magistus]

I guess I'd rather call "what you did until today" the character's Background. Was the character a townsperson, or a desert nomad? Did he have military experience? Did she grow up on a farm?

"Profession" I take to be what the character is. Is the character an ordained priest of some religion? A scoundrel looking for any way to make a living besides honest work? A knight looking for a heroic quest? Where does this character fit into society?

I admit that the Core rule book has a slightly better explanation than the SRD does. The Core Rule books says this under Professions "The following are professions that an adventurer might be expected to perform before becoming an adventurer.", now please notice I bolded the word before so to make clear that the idea of a profession in MRQ is not the same thing as a Character Class in D&D. Though I totally understand where you are coming from, it could have been worded much differently to get the idea across better.

One possibility is to create a set of tables to indicate what happened to the character. Was he born to rich parents, or to poor? Was he conscripted to fight in a war, or was he chosen to become an officer? Perhaps he met a mentor who taught him an arcane secret. Perhaps he was able to pick up something interesting as a piece of booty.

You should check out the Random Generation rules in Sign & Portents #38, but this is a set of rules to roll up a completely random character.

I could make the tables optional, although it could be a good way to get an idea of the setting. The problem with many settings is that it players have to understand the setting in order to create characters that fit in the setting. Having background tables allows the players to concentrate on what the character would know ("The Queen of Khador wants to conquer the entire world. And *I* had to try to stop the invasion of Llael, which would have been a lot easier if they had given us decent armor and guns.") instead of trying to understand the entire geopolitical situation.

Making tables optional are totally your right as GM. Remember the world, even if you are using Glorantha in the end is yours to run as you want it to be run.

 

[soltakss]

And that's the thing. RQM seems to ssume that everyone is an adventurer.

Maybe I don't want to be an adventurer. Maybe I want to be a Wizard, or a Soldier, or a Hunter or some other single-occupation person.

So, a profession can equally well be something that I do as well as something that I did.

OK, so it isn't quite the same as a Character Class, but it is pretty close.

"Hello, what do you do?" "I'm a wizard" is far better than "Hello, what do you do?" "I used to be a wizard but now I'm an adventurer".

It seems as though Adventurer is the new super-profession.

 

[Magistus]

But define exactly what an adventurer is? An adventurer is whatever you make of it, so and adventurer can be a Wizard, or a hunter, or whatever.

 

[Utgardloki]

Part of this depends on the setting. In my homebrew of Audor, there were people who called themselves "Adventurers", and the sought wealth and fame by facing dire dangers and going on quests, many of which were suggested by nobles or other wealthy patrons.

However, adventurers were "classed" in terms of what specialties they could possess. Were they wizards? (Sorcerers were treated much as wizards in this setting, and only the wizards and sorcerers themselves made a distinction.) Were they warriors? Clerics? Thieves?

In Iron Kingdoms, characters will probably have a role in the world, whether it is priest, or shaman, or scoundral. This would be the character's current role, not his past role. A "priest" would likely to have always been a priest, not some "barbarian" or "townsman" who became a priest.

What the character "was" might be interesting, in a back story sort of way, but what the players and GM really need to know is what the character is, now.

This may be especially true in a setting like Iron Kingdoms, where a priest, a monk, and a barbarian would have vastly differing skill sets.

 

[simonh]

And that's the thing. RQM seems to ssume that everyone is an adventurer.

Maybe I don't want to be an adventurer. Maybe I want to be a Wizard, or a Soldier, or a Hunter or some other single-occupation person.

I don't see what you would need to change in the rules to achieve this. 'Adventurer is just another word for 'PC' in my book, no more and no less. there's nothing to stop one being a professional Hunter, Soldier, Scholar, etc in play.

BTW there are some problems with idea of just handing out 50 points to spend on 'profession' skills. Essentially you're just giving the player a pool of 150 points to play with as they wish. What's to stop the player putting all 50 points onto Sword skill?

One function of the professions, along with the '+30% max for each skill' limit in the free-spend points is to set a cap on the highest skill level a character can have, and make sure characters have a skill set that is believable in that they have a skill set that they could survive with and actually earn a living.

 

[Utgardloki]

And that's the thing. RQM seems to ssume that everyone is an adventurer.

Maybe I don't want to be an adventurer. Maybe I want to be a Wizard, or a Soldier, or a Hunter or some other single-occupation person.

I don't see what you would need to change in the rules to achieve this. 'Adventurer is just another word for 'PC' in my book, no more and no less. there's nothing to stop one being a professional Hunter, Soldier, Scholar, etc in play.

BTW there are some problems with idea of just handing out 50 points to spend on 'profession' skills. Essentially you're just giving the player a pool of 150 points to play with as they wish. What's to stop the player putting all 50 points onto Sword skill?

One function of the professions, along with the '+30% max for each skill' limit in the free-spend points is to set a cap on the highest skill level a character can have, and make sure characters have a skill set that is believable in that they have a skill set that they could survive with and actually earn a living.

The main concern I have is one of confusion. The rulebook defines "Barbarian" as a profession, while the Iron Kingdoms materials speaks of "Barbarian" as a character class. Players may want to run a "Barbarian" character. Differing expectations between players and the GM may result in unfortunate conflict during game play.

The best way forward seems to be to say that writing "Barbarian" or "Noble" or "Shaman" on your character sheet gets you exactly nothing, and to provide a sheet with suggestions on how to create a "barbarian", "noble", or "shaman" character.

As to the problem of players putting all their skill points into "Sword", well, such a character would be very focussed, but not very well rounded. That could be fatal, although a character who only knows his Sword would fit into the Iron Kingdoms.

However, it is easy enough to put caps on this sort of thing. My plan is to 1) limit how many skill points can be put into one skill at character creation, and 2) limit how many skill points can be put into "attack" and how many skill points can be put into "defense" skills.

For limit 2), I can perhaps divide skills into "Attack", "Defense", and "Other" categories, and say no more than 3/5 of the beginning skill points can go into any category.

 

[Magistus]

The main concern I have is one of confusion. The rulebook defines "Barbarian" as a profession, while the Iron Kingdoms materials speaks of "Barbarian" as a character class. Players may want to run a "Barbarian" character. Differing expectations between players and the GM may result in unfortunate conflict during game play.

Where do you see Barbarian as a Profession? Looking I see it listed as a cultural background.