SteveMND said:
I mentioned elsewhere that you could drop the d20 resolution mechanic straight in and everything else would still work like RQ. All IMO of course.
I agree it could work just as well with a d20 mechanic as opposed to a d100, but I think that fact that it
did use d100 was what made it "RQ."
You could probably drop in a d20 mechanic by dividing everything by 5 and running things the same way, but so what. It's the same thing except for the kind of dice you roll. However, this should not be confused with dropping in a D20 mechanic, where you add your skill to the roll and try to beat an imaginary moving target established by someone else. What I liked about the D% system was that you rolled under your own ability to determine your result and could thus shout out an emphatic "Made it!" or "Aaaarrgghhh!" without having to consult someone about whether you succeeded or not. I found that this contributed significantly to the narrative of the game. True, there might be modifiers to the D% roll, but in my games at least they were stated up front before the roll was made.
Yah, I would consider MRQ, based on what we've seen, to be "RQ-ish," but by no means a linear descendant of the RQ system.
Not a big fan of the combining of attack and parry into one skill, though. of all the changes, that really grates.
I agree pretty closely with Steve on this (and most) points. My thoughts on what made RQ what is was are as follows:
1. Siz and Pow as stats are distinct. I always saw Cha and App as being different names for the same things, and Str, Dex, Con, and Int are ubiquitous to roleplaying in general.
2. Hit locations
3. Strike Ranks, dependant on your dex, reach, and weapon selection. Also that these were based on actual fragments of time, rather than simply the order of players/oponents
4. Magic, especially spirit magic, and it's availability to all
5. Armour as something that prevented damage, but didn't prevent being hit.
6. The ability to defend yourself from attack by parry or dodge. This made combat so much more interesting because you could still act during an oponents turn to defend yourself from specific harmful attacks - players felt they had more of a stake in what was happening during combat.
7. Criticals and fumbles, which added to the variability of combat and also to the combat narrative. I refer back to my combat narrative in an old post wherein a broo raider defended himself with Steve's severed arm after dropping his shield in a fumble. Let's face it, this just didn't happen as easily in other games.
8. Skills and their advancement through usage.
9. No classes, no xp, no levels, and no ALIGNMENT - all of which seemed like artificial constructs to me in my early D&D (and Paladium) days.
10. Gods that players could relate to and could find information on how to worship instead of stats on how to kill.
I do not specifically associate RQ with Glorantha, so Glorantha does not become a part of the definition of RQ for me. However, I do accept some of what most consider to be 'Gloranthan' qualities (ie. magic, treatment of gods, etc.) as being part of RQ. I still used these things, but not in a Gloranthan context.
I also do not really equate RQ with other so-called BRP derivatives. In my mind, RQ came first, BRP was derived from it, and all other so-called BRP derivatives came from that. I see BRP derived games as being related to RQ, but not necessarily that closely. This is why I'm glad this forum has adopted the monicker 'MRQ' - a cousin but not a direct descendant of RQ.
Cobra
Ha! 
