GM's Handbook - training questions and comments

[Deleriad]

In the GM's handbook it states that the cost of training is:
"10 SP per 1% of increase in Basic skills".

For example, is this meant to mean that if I increase a skill by 2% that it costs 20SP?

Is training really meant to get easier as you get more skilled?

For example, as I understand it: If my skill is 30% and my teacher's skill is 200% then odds are that I'll fail my roll but my teacher will make it, meaning that I increase by 2% whereas if my skill is 100% then my skill will probably increase by 4%. i.e. the better I am, the faster I improve. This seems counter to how every RQ system has ever understood skills.

Clearly the limiting factor behind training is the skill of teacher, but under this system, a teacher with 300% in a skill can take someone from 100% to 150% in four months. Seems rather at odds with the rest of the system.

 

[Loz]

If you have a teacher at, say 300% and a pupil at 100% (the minimum differential for someone at 100%), I think you have to pose a number of questions.

1. How often is one going to come across a teacher at that level of skill? It should be extremely difficult to find a teacher who is THAT good.

2. If you do find a teacher who is 300% in something, he's clearly going to have a lot to teach someone who is 'merely' at 100% in the same skill.

3. If you've achieved a certain degree of competence in a skill or subject, there's no reason why learning from someone who has something to teach (rather than simply through one's own practice and experience, as simulated by the IRs) should be inhibited at all. It all depends on the teacher, and the maturity of the pupil.

At high skill levels, its going to become very difficult to improve in a skill over 100% simply by relying IRs. Thus, to achieve any measurable improvement you're going to need to find an extremely good mentor. And a good teacher can always bring out hidden depths in even an expert.

I think its important to separate the rationale behind improving through personal experience, which the IR roll is designed to do, and training with a dedicated teacher, which is what the system in the GMs' Handbook is designed to do. So yes, a teacher with 300% in a skill can take someone from 100% to 150% in four months, but the teacher is clearly superior in his knowledge of the skill to be able to impart such a level of knowledge, and the student is so mature in his skill that's he receptive to that transfer of knowledge.

 

[Deleriad]

If you have a teacher at, say 300% and a pupil at 100% (the minimum differential for someone at 100%), I think you have to pose a number of questions.

1. How often is one going to come across a teacher at that level of skill? It should be extremely difficult to find a teacher who is THAT good.

That is the flip side of the issue. The problem is that MRQ seems to have no guideline for the frequency of skills. As far as I can see, 150% is the legendary threshold. Robin Hood, Elric, Fafhrd seem like legendary characters to me. Fafhrd at his peak is 170% in sword skill. The very best characters in the Elric book are around 120% skill levels. Let's do something standard. New PC, fresh out of char-gen. Townsman joins a mercenary company (+25% sword) and has 25% base chance. Really likes his sword as PCs tend to so adds +30 points. Starting novice character with 80% sword, around the age of 19. Journeys to far off Farovia to meet the legendary, grizzled, swordsman, Gruss, 150% with a sword. "Gruss takes one look at him and says sorry, you can learn nothing from me, you are too good."

I think its important to separate the rationale behind improving through personal experience, which the IR roll is designed to do, and training with a dedicated teacher, which is what the system in the GMs' Handbook is designed to do.

And that's the gripping hand. The IR system is simply way too slow once you get to 100% in a skill. Playing RAW you would something like 300 IRs to go from a novice character to a legendary one. IRs themselves make no sense - they are supposed to represent learning through experience yet you have to spend downtime to use them and it takes longer, costs more and gets you less than not gaining experience.

E.g. Mr Novice (80%) finds a trainer (200%) in sword skill. Spends 1 week and gains an average +4% for a cost of 40SP.

Or Mr Novice kills a dragon with his sword and gets 3 IRs. Heads to town to find a mentor using the RQ rulebook. Finds same trainer as above. This will take him 8 days, cost him 1600SP and he has a 40% chance of gaining d6+1% and 60% chance of gaining 1%.

The lesson for Mr Novice - don't try to learn through experience.

 

[RosenMcStern]

I cannot see the problem here. Houseruling the parts of downtime activity that you do not like is totally harmless: you will not have any problem of "playing a different game at convention" because you do not get to play downtime in convention scneario. Just make out your system and be sure that player characters are of the power level you would like to handle. Personally, I just give away IRs whenever a character has enough time and money to do some practice/research/training/whatever - and that's all.

 

[Deleriad]

I cannot see the problem here. Houseruling the parts of downtime activity that you do not like is totally harmless...

The problem is that it is a game that you pay money for. At the most basic level you expect the internal logic of the game to be consistent and the numbers to add up under normal circumstances.

For example, I can see house-ruling how IRs work so that you alter the frequency of distribution and don't require PCs to spend downtime in order to "spend" them. That's fine. It's a judgement call. That's what house-rules are for.

There are breaks in the IR system such as not explaining how to start new advanced skills. You fix breaks with house-rules while you wait for the official fix. The break is still not fixed.

Then there are gaps in the system - what if you want to have campaigns featuring a lot of down time. The new training system in GM's Handbook is supposed to address this gap but it doesn't seem to sit alongside the IR system and neither sits alongside the char gen system.

I expect when I pay my money to get a system that works pretty consistently across its constituent parts. I expect to use house-rules to tweak it to my preferences. I don't expect to have this many problems with what ought to be simple. Fortunately, all the MRQ stuff I have run to date has been one-shot or extremely episodic where downtime is ignored. Eventually I want to run campaigns.

In theory, boards like these are very useful for companies because they're full of feedback from play in the real world. The response - "it's not a problem because you can use your own houserules" is not useful to anyone.

 

[Loz]

Then there are gaps in the system - what if you want to have campaigns featuring a lot of down time. The new training system in GM's Handbook is supposed to address this gap but it doesn't seem to sit alongside the IR system and neither sits alongside the char gen system.

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here. The GMH training system is designed to handle training with a teacher/academy/mentor in addition to the IR rules, which handle improvement through personal experience. The idea is therefore that both are used to help characters improve, not for training to replace IRs. In some cases it will be easier for skills to advance through experience (IRs) than through dedicated training, and vice-versa. But the two systems are designed to work together. So, your Mr Novice can kill his dragon, gain his 3 IRs, improve whatever skills he chooses, and still seek-out training during downtime and spend money on improving additional skills, if he so chooses (and the GM permits it, of course).

The training system is deliberately different to that used for IRs because its simulating a different way of learning.

How this system doesn't sit alongside char gen needs further elaboration, because I'm afraid that I don't understand what you mean. I'm more than happy to debate this topic, but I really want to understand your areas of concern properly so I can address the issues fully.

 

[Deleriad]

The training system is deliberately different to that used for IRs because its simulating a different way of learning.

I understand that it is meant to be different. I have several problems. Some are philosophical and some are technical. I'll try to separate out the ones that I think are problems with the game and ones which are issues of preference.

My problem with IRs is that you gain them through experience but have to spend downtime to cash them in. This makes the process far more fiddly than it needs to be. The IR system isn't "broken" but I don't personally like its downtime requirement.

My problems with the training system in GM's Handbook.
1. You need a teacher with 150% skill to teach someone who comes out of chargen with 75% in a skill. Training requires the teacher to be too superior to the student. You need to be a legendary talent just to teach a talented novice. As someone who teaches, this is plain wrong.

2. If you do allow teachers with 200%+ in skills to be found, the rate of progression is completely out of synch with the rest of the game.

3. The monetary costs are out of synch with teaching through IRs. (That said, the costs in RQ Deluxe are massively out of synch with the income table in that book).
3a. The monetary costs for training are payment by results. E.g. If the student doesn't make their roll but the teacher does then the student only pays 20SP not 40SP. My students would love to pay half-fees on the basis that they had a hangover that day and didn't learn as much.

4. We now have two incompatible systems for teaching (mentoring and training) in the same game.

5. In order to balance out training with IRs you have to make teachers so rare that you're routinely forced back onto IRs once you get much above 50% in a skill. You could claim that this is a feature of the system. However scarcity of an in-game resource is something that should be setting specific, not part of a generic rules set.

At the most basic level, what I want is a single, simple system that handles improvement through experience and downtime. In an ideal world you would even be able to look at the char gen system and say - "3 years of working as a mercenary in the char gen system actually generates about the same amount of improvement as 3 years of sending your character off to join the mercenaries." Now, RQ has never successfully managed this in the past but it would be nice if MRQ did. I'm not criticising MRQ for not managing that.

For the record, my houserules are:
* IRs don't require downtime, practice, or research. You roll them when you get them and you always spend them straight away. Can't improve the same skill more than once in a single session. Can be used to learn a new advanced skill or improve a Stat if there is a rationale from the session/story.
* Practice and research don't require IRs. You spend the relevant time and money, hire a mentor if you can afford one, and make the appropriate roll at the end.

 

[RosenMcStern]

I think your houserules are the most sensible way of handling the matter, Deleriad. Stick with them and you do not need any extra contribution.

As for the matter of paying for a set of rules that you are not going to use, that is a different matter. Two possible solutions are:

a) do not buy any more books unless they receive a positive review stating they contain rules you can use; this is not guaranteed to make you happy, (but if it is practiced on a regular basis by everyone it is certainly guaranteed to make Soltakss rich :wink: )

b) have loz buy you a drink at next Tentacles or Continuum, one for each rule you cannot or will not use; this is not guaranteed to make every player happy, but it is certainly an additional excuse to drink beer at conventions (as if we needed one....)

 

[Loz]

b) have loz buy you a drink at next Tentacles or Continuum, one for each rule you cannot or will not use; this is not guaranteed to make every player happy, but it is certainly an additional excuse to drink beer at conventions (as if we needed one....)

And conversely, you can buy me a beer for every rule that you do use. As can everyone else...

 

[Deleriad]

And conversely, you can buy me a beer for every rule that you do use. As can everyone else...

Was hoping to come down to concrete cow this year but am in the middle of selling a house, which is a shame. MRQ is full of good ideas and a fair few of them have been well implemented. I didn't put on my house rules because they're better but to help clarify my position.

On the non-alcohol related-point, do I actually have the rules right for the cost of training (10SPs per skill point gained). If so, can I respectfully suggest that there'll be no beer for this. For example, if the student makes no progress (or goes backwards) do they pay nothing/get a refund?

I would personally suggest that teachers charge what they think they're worth for a week's tuition. Something that roughly equates to the wealth tables in RQ would be SPs per week equal to their skill, doubled if their skill is over 100% (and doubled again if over 200%).

Also, while I'm at it, on page 89 under the alchemy rules:

If the Alchemy test is a critical success, then the amount of gold created at the end of the process is one kilo higher than expected.

My emphasis. I suspect that this is meant to be one gram.

 

[weasel_fierce]

My problem with IRs is that you gain them through experience but have to spend downtime to cash them in. This makes the process far more fiddly than it needs to be. The IR system isn't "broken" but I don't personally like its downtime requirement.

Theres only a downtime requirement if you want to raise a skill you didnt use in gameplay.

Neither is it something new really. RQ2 states you get your improvement rolls after a "week of meditation"

In both cases, we have never ever found this to be a problem. Adventure is over "allright, it'll be a couple of weeks in-game before the next session"

 

[Deleriad]

Theres only a downtime requirement if you want to raise a skill you didnt use in gameplay.

That may be your house rule but it is not in the rules as written in the book. According to the rules, you gain IRs through experience and then you have to spend them through research or practice (with or without a mentor).

Personally I ignore the rules as written at that point.

 

[Loz]

Also, while I'm at it, on page 89 under the alchemy rules:
Quote:
If the Alchemy test is a critical success, then the amount of gold created at the end of the process is one kilo higher than expected.

My emphasis. I suspect that this is meant to be one gram.

You're right. And you know what? Someone else pointed this out before I submitted the book and I said to myself, 'Better correct that' and, somehow, forgot to. I guess I owe you a pint just for picking up on that one.

 

[Loz]

Was hoping to come down to concrete cow this year but am in the middle of selling a house, which is a shame. MRQ is full of good ideas and a fair few of them have been well implemented. I didn't put on my house rules because they're better but to help clarify my position.

That is a shame, but I've been through that, and know what the stresses are like. Good luck with it. Perhaps we'll meet at the next Concrete Cow or Continuum (?)

On the non-alcohol related-point, do I actually have the rules right for the cost of training (10SPs per skill point gained). If so, can I respectfully suggest that there'll be no beer for this. For example, if the student makes no progress (or goes backwards) do they pay nothing/get a refund?

That's a fair enough point. If a student makes no gain or drops points, any rebate would depend on the reason for failure to progress. Trainers are paid for their time as much as their expertise and sometimes the fault of the lack of progress lies with the student (as some of my teachers liked to patiently explain in various school reports of mine) and not with the teacher. So if the trainer bungles his skill roll whilst training, yes, a refund or rebate might be in order. But if only the student does - well, the trainer would be within his rights to say 'Well, if only you hadn't been messing around or oggling that barmaid...'

I would personally suggest that teachers charge what they think they're worth for a week's tuition. Something that roughly equates to the wealth tables in RQ would be SPs per week equal to their skill, doubled if their skill is over 100% (and doubled again if over 200%).

Yep, no issue with that. Good call.

 

[Rurik]

Theres only a downtime requirement if you want to raise a skill you didnt use in gameplay.

That may be your house rule but it is not in the rules as written in the book. According to the rules, you gain IRs through experience and then you have to spend them through research or practice (with or without a mentor).

Personally I ignore the rules as written at that point.

The rulebook (though not the SRD) clearly states that:

Practise
While adventuring, characters will use their skills against
enemies and adversities, as well as fi nd the time to
practise specifi c techniques while camping or during a
long voyage. As long as a character can feasibly practise
their skill during an adventure, it is safe to assume they
have. Many skills, especially Basic and Weapon skills,
will be repeatedly practised throughout the course of a
typical RuneQuest adventure, as the characters leap over
crevasses and duel deadly villains.

And in the box on lore skills requiring research it goes on to add that:
Perhaps the easiest Lore skill to research is Lore (World). As long as a character has journeyed suffi ciently
in the preceding game sessions, or has encountered foreign items or people, or can listen in on a taproom’s
conversation in the city’s docks, they may attempt to increase their Lore (World) skill.

So it is really not that different than before. If you use a weapon skill, or even can have practiced a skill while on adventure, you can be considered to have practiced it without needing additional downtime, and depending on the skill 'research' can be as simple as travelling the world for Lore(World).

The experience change in MRQ was to put the rate of improvement in the GM's hands, not the players. In earlier editions the experience system was firmly in the players control - they could use as many skills as possible just to get checks and could have 12 hour a day 7 day a week training regimens. Not every GM/Play group had these problems, but it is a common criticism of the system. As I see it the MRQ experience system just says that the GM has control over the rate of improvement.

What I do is give IR's out for adventures, and if there is significant downtime and a character has access to study/practice may give addional IR's to reflect that.

 

[Rurik]

On the beer note, are there any RQ/Gloranthan events on this side of the pond? They all seem to be in the old country. :?

 

[Deleriad]

'Better correct that' and, somehow, forgot to. I guess I owe you a pint just for picking up on that one.

Ideally there would be a critical involved somewhere which would have the pint increase 1000 times in volume. Or else someone likes the idea of buying a 3-bedroom semi-detached cottage in an East Midlands village.

Time to get back on topic now.

Re: Rurik. I think it's something of a stretch to interpret the SRD as meaning that characters effectively needno downtime but I also suspect that 90% of all players either ignore the downtime requirement or simply aren't aware of it. The few people I know simply hand out the IRs at the end of a session.

Signs of a dodgy rule.

 

[Rurik]

Re: Rurik. I think it's something of a stretch to interpret the SRD as meaning that characters effectively needno downtime but I also suspect that 90% of all players either ignore the downtime requirement or simply aren't aware of it. The few people I know simply hand out the IRs at the end of a session.

Those quotes are from the rules, not SRD, but clearly state if you used a skill in a game you can be considered to have practiced it. I interpreted that on first reading way back when. Is there any other way it can be interpreted?

 

[RosenMcStern]

The experience change in MRQ was to put the rate of improvement in the GM's hands, not the players. In earlier editions the experience system was firmly in the players control - they could use as many skills as possible just to get checks and could have 12 hour a day 7 day a week training regimens. Not every GM/Play group had these problems, but it is a common criticism of the system. As I see it the MRQ experience system just says that the GM has control over the rate of improvement.

The system was in the players' hand only if the GM was not skilled enough to handle his players. I experienced the "Cast Disruption at fleeing enemy to increase POW" tactics, too, but a simple "Since you can afford to make these pointless actions, this is no longer a stress situation for you, and you make no experience check for this." can stop it. In any case, as I noted in the OOC section of your PBEM, I prefer the new approach, even though it takes away some of the thrill.

As for unlimited downtime, it depends on whether you enforce realistic costs in your campaign. If your character is not focused on earning his living, the money he made in his last adventure will run out quickly, so he is limited in the amount of time he can use in his training. Unless he gives up buying that fancy armour and spends his money by simply living his own life of adventuring.

What I do is give IR's out for adventures, and if there is significant downtime and a character has access to study/practice may give addional IR's to reflect that.

Agreeable, and not so different from Deleriad's mechanics. Now let's see how this is applied to my little flamethrowing pet...

On the beer note, are there any RQ/Gloranthan events on this side of the pond? They all seem to be in the old country.

We can send you some ale bottle. Assuming there is some left. Last year we must have sucked up some 20-30 big boxes of them in Bacharach. What's the official figure, Fabian? Ok, I do not really want to know :roll:

 

[duncan_disorderly]

On the beer note, are there any RQ/Gloranthan events on this side of the pond? They all seem to be in the old country. :?

The last New World Gloranthacon was Gloranthacon VIII held March 7-9, 2003 in Toronto, Canada. The organiser was Jeff "Voirof" Kyer. I'm afraid you might be a bit late for this one!