General questions

[Rulandor]

In the Nineties I had some experience with 3rd edition RuneQuest, and our group had several problems with it.

Problem 1: The hit location system. After one adventure, all adventurers were disabled, either hopping around on one leg or waving their one arm left.

Problem 2: Preparation work for the game master was awful with all the location hit points and the skills of NPCs and monsters.

How is MRQ in these regards? Somebody on this forums called MRQ combat more gritty than 3rd edition, which sounds shocking to me. Discouraging senseless combat is all well and good, but players and game master really afraid of the next combat situation is quite another thing and not ideal in roleplaying IMHO.

How is ease of play and game preparation in MRG? Are stripped-down stats possible for encounters who are not so important?

 

[Sinisalo]

Problem 2: Preparation work for the game master was awful with all the location hit points and the skills of NPCs and monsters.

Yep I'm writing up some NPCs now and its taking me hours. God awful. I've always looked with envy at Warhammer and DnD with their 3 lines for each NPC. And they still seem to have a lot of fun. I was dead chuffed when Herowars came along and NPCs could be written up with two keywords and that was it.

How is MRQ in these regards? Somebody on this forums called MRQ combat more gritty than 3rd edition, which sounds shocking to me. Discouraging senseless combat is all well and good, but players and game master really afraid of the next combat situation is quite another thing and not ideal in roleplaying IMHO.

How is ease of play and game preparation in MRG? Are stripped-down stats possible for encounters who are not so important?

Its really pretty much what you remember except there are a few different mechanics that can save players from the cold reality of RQ

 

[weasel_fierce]

In the Nineties I had some experience with 3rd edition RuneQuest, and our group had several problems with it.

Problem 1: The hit location system. After one adventure, all adventurers were disabled, either hopping around on one leg or waving their one arm left.

Problem 2: Preparation work for the game master was awful with all the location hit points and the skills of NPCs and monsters.

MRQ is far less gritty than 3rd. Characters have more HP per location, and the total HP are gone, so its quite hard to die compared to 3rd (which mostly works the way you'd expect things to work in real life)


As far as prep uh.. why on earth would you do all that work ?
Most NPC's will only ever roll one or two skills. I just assign them a generic "Skill" of say 40% for a guard. If they need to roll something that they propably have training in, they roll against that.

 

[Deleriad]

How is ease of play and game preparation in MRG? Are stripped-down stats possible for encounters who are not so important?

MRQ combat is far less lethal than older versions of RQ.

GM prep. Depends on what kind of a GM you are. If you're creating hordes of monsters then you need to do some sort of mook rule. My implicit rule is "one hit and you're out" for a mook. Basically, said mook has a parry chance, and X number of APs. Any hit that does at least 1 point of damage is enough to knock the mook out of the fight.

Clearly more important NPCs need statting thoroughly but even then you can just take the average example from the rulebook and copy it. The simplest way is to just give it a fixed percentage at its skills. E.g. a 50% troll warrior is basically 50% in all the things it's good at.

Key NPCs can be fully statted but even that shouldn't take that long.

One thing about MRQ that is a time-saver is that the NPCs tend to have a LOT less magic than older versions. This makes statting and running them a lot easier.

Typical mook stat block for me.
STR 10, CON 11, DEX 10, SIZ 13, INT 13, POW 11, CHA 10
SR: 11, DM: 0, MOVE: 4, APS: 2, SKILL: 40%
WEAPON 1: DAM
WEAPON 2 DAM

Mooks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc

Minor NPC.
As above except I add locational HP. So a minor NPC looks like

NPC 1 NPC 2
5 5
5 5
6 6
7 7
4 4
4 4
5 5

Hope that helps

 

[soltakss]

I always use identikit NPCs for squaddies now. Gone are the times when I carefully rolled up the stats for 40 broo, 30 scorpionmen and 50 ogres, with different armour, weapons, skills, spells and chaos features. It just isn't worth it.

RQM is as gritty as previous RQ versions, but the absence of Total Hits makes it harder to die. It also has Resiliance as a skill which keeps PCs on their feet for longer.

As for people losing limbs left, right and centre, that is possible, but with reasonable armour and normal weapons it is not that likely. Also, RQM PCs are rolled up with better stats, so they have more HPs to start off with and they can use Hero Points in combat.