Moving again (and again (and again...))

Antalon said:
Perhaps a point to note: are there in fact engagement zones based on weapon length? If I have to move directly past someone with M or greater size weapon, should I be considered engaged, and need to 'change distance' in order to get past them?

Not in the RAW. Besides, with 8m movement allowance, moving around the engagement zone is easy, if the rules allow you to spend all your move allowance and then attack with the same CA.
 
Blimey. Do the rules really do that? I have to say I'm with Da Boss on a light touch to application of movement rules. But that situation in my game would go like this:

Player - on my SR I move round the Orc and hit the Wizard.

GM - you can't; the Orc is in your way and he knows you are coming. You have to go through him.

My players would live with that and would not try to hit me with iffy RAW exploits. If he pushes it:

GM (being a softie perhaps) - OK, make an Evade roll to skip past him before he can react, but that will cost you a CA, and the Orc will be behind you when he does get to act.

The point is, irrespective of the abstraction of SRs, to hit the wizard the PC has to accomplish something (slip past the Orc) in which there is an obstacle and therefor a challenge. RAW or not, I don't call it GM handwaving to demand the player make a skill test, spend a CA or whatever.
 
duncan_disorderly said:
Really? I thought that it was the default position for a RPG as opposed to the "Everything that is not explixitly allowed is forbidden" approach of boardgames. You can't possibly hope to write rules to cover every single situation that might arise in a RPG, and the answer to the question "Can I do <plausible thing> should never be "Sorry, It's not in the rules".

IME, it's the exact opposite. I've always preferred playing to GMing but since I was always the one who bought the rules that duty usually fell on me.

The oldest excuse for players trying to pull the most outrageous crap, going all the way back to OD&D, is saying, "But the rules don't say I can't do that." There are a near infinite number of things the rules don't say you can't do but that's a poor excuse for thinking you can do something.

An rpg, unless it's focused mainly on narration and storytelling which tends to imply a lot of GM Fiat right off the bat, requires rules that are crisp, clean, well-explained, and provide clear examples. RQII does none of these things; not to my satisfaction anyways. When you can't even get your own combat example to match up with your combat rules, that's just sloppy writing. Unfortunately, though I wish them the best with Wayfinders, with the departure of Glorantha and Conan, Mongoose is publishing nothing to hold my rpg interests anymore (for reasons which I won't bother with here, I find RQII to be a medicore system at best and without Glorantha Wayfinders means nothing to me).

I am curious to see what types of boargames they put out and whether they can stay strong in a market that, at least in the US, has been strongly held by FFG, Z-Man Games, Days of Wonder, Mayfair and Rio Grande Games. (As for minis, I need another non-skirmish level minis game like I need a hole in my head; unless it's all you play, that part of the industry has gotten way too expensive).

So, good luck to eveybody while I lurk around waiting for Lone Wolf to finish!

jolt
 
No rules system written is perfect or covers every conceivable action or situation, it's just not possible.

Point 1. If forum threads on any rule engender this kind of debate, then they (the rules) need to be revised, explained or re-written to be clear and concise. As I stated earlier, having movement split into combat and non-combat rules would aid immensely. The same goes for charging; the rules should be written for mounted and unmounted charging. At the moment they are written from a mounted perspective that does not easily translate into unmounted charges.

Point 2. Situations will arise that are not covered implicitly in the rules (see the above). It is up to the players and GM in these cases (with the GM having the final word) to agree what is 'reasonable' and 'doable' either by extrapolation of civil discussion.
 
Simulacrum said:
Blimey. Do the rules really do that? I have to say I'm with Da Boss on a light touch to application of movement rules. But that situation in my game would go like this:

Player - on my SR I move round the Orc and hit the Wizard.

GM - you can't; the Orc is in your way and he knows you are coming. You have to go through him.

My players would live with that and would not try to hit me with iffy RAW exploits. If he pushes it:

GM (being a softie perhaps) - OK, make an Evade roll to skip past him before he can react, but that will cost you a CA, and the Orc will be behind you when he does get to act.

The point is, irrespective of the abstraction of SRs, to hit the wizard the PC has to accomplish something (slip past the Orc) in which there is an obstacle and therefor a challenge. RAW or not, I don't call it GM handwaving to demand the player make a skill test, spend a CA or whatever.

This for me too.

I fear that any attempt to make the movement rules greatly more formal than they are now will lead to just as many situations where the outcome seems irrational, while undermining the GM's authority to say "This is what happens" by giving more ammunition to rules lawyers to say "But the RAW say this other thing".
 
For the record, coming from running Pathfinder a lot over the last few years, I have imported some of the combat/movement rules from that.
I didn't deliberately do it, it sort of evolved in gaming sessions as holes in the combat rules were discovered.

An example is if you want to attack someone, but have to run past an enemy first.
I just said make an opposed acrobatics or athletics vs an attack roll of the enemy to get past.
The enemy has to use a CA to get an attack tho.
If the enemy doesn't bother to try and attack, then you go right past and attack the other enemy as stated.
If you fail the opposed roll, the enemy you tried to run past uses his die result as an attack on you. You may well still get to run past him or not depending on the combat maneuvre he chooes.
If you succeed the roll, you can attack the other enemy as stated.
The acrobatics/athletics roll doesn't use a CA and you can't do this if you're charging.
If you DO choose to charge past an enemy, then they can choose to attack you and you can use a CA to evade, but you might not be albe to complete your charge depending on what happens when you get hit.

I quite like the rules really, there's a lot missing for tactical combat, but I'm comfortable enough with tactical combat to adapt the MRQ2 rules as we go along.
A combination of these adaptions and the core combat rules makes a really nice game for me.
I love the MRQ2 Combat maneuvres, CAs etc. the tactical rules are very light.
I love the Pathfinder tactical rules, but I hate the feat requirements (meaning you have to be pretty high level (to get more feats) to be able to do anything but stand and hit people as a fighter) and just rolling damage and that's it pretty much.
But the combination of the 2 works really well for me.
I don't use all the PF tactical rules of course, just little bits here and there that are compatible and clearly are needed due to lack of rules in MRQ2.
 
Ye Gods....

Well maybe RAW is unclear - i have to say that i use the move rate only as a relative measure (between species). In combat i simply assume you can move up to (roughly) your move rate without spending a ca while doing everything else. If concentrating, your move is 4. If you declare move as an action it is just because you are not doing anything else and want to flag you aren't just standing there like a lemon. If you need to move further or faster then there is a ca involved. Sprint rules kinda cover it, but give you the max movement in a round. If you start sprinting late, the gm takes a view on how far you will/can get, or when in the next round you reach your destination or can act again. This last is tricky if you are playing on a precise grid. But i never have. You must always use gm discretion to moderate between abstractions and common sense or you may as well simply demand rpg rules stand up to servicing a head to head wargame.

To those here such as Deleriad. Phil Hibbs and Vagni who clearly run frequent sessions, has movement ever been a problem in actual play - or the arguments here simply about what the rules could be interpreted to mean and whether pete and loz should try harder next time?
 
DamonJynx said:
No rules system written is perfect or covers every conceivable action or situation, it's just not possible.

I agreee, Pathfinder attempts to do this and makes the tactical rules just too complex.
But I do like to draw bits from it into MRQ2.
 
Simulacrum said:
Ye Gods....

Well maybe RAW is unclear - i have to say that i use the move rate only as a relative measure (between species).

I think this is the difference between you and some of the posters in this thread. I for one use a battlemat, I think it makes for more creative an interesting combat.
I think a lot more people use battlemats or measured grids or whatever these days, But MRQ2 really isn't optimised for that, it has the feel of combat mechanics written for more abstract combat.
Thus why some here have suggested changes to bring it more inline with tactical combat.

I think it might be an idea for Wayfarer to offer 2 modes of combat rules Tactical rules and abstract rules, where really the main difference is movement etc.

Just my 2 cents worth though, I'm happy to mod the combat rules myself for my games to bring it inline with my tastes.
 
Simulacrum said:
To those here such as Deleriad. Phil Hibbs and Vagni who clearly run frequent sessions, has movement ever been a problem in actual play - or the arguments here simply about what the rules could be interpreted to mean and whether pete and loz should try harder next time?

No the rules are not a problem in actual play because I don't use the rules as written and don't measure distances beyond "yes, no or yes if you succeed at an Athletics roll." I suspect that if I actually tracked the distances moved that I would be breaking the rules.

I suspect that the most common way most people (mis)play the game is that you can move a small amount as part of an action. If you spend a CA you can move up to your move rate. So if you want to move say 15m it would take a couple of CAs. If you want to run flat out you can use the sprint rules. To the best of knowledge this is how Pete & Loz roughly ran the game.*

The problem then is for new players who pick up the book and try to use it. Especially the first time they try to use the charge rules. At that point their heads explode and those who survive post questions.

*For example, this is a reply I got from one of the authors when I asked how movement worked after I was included in the final (beta) round of playtests for RQII.
Does movement use up CAs? If so how many?

Yes, and it depends on how far the person is moving and to what end. A CA on its own is too short a period for decent measurement, so go by the whole round and distance. At a walking pace a character can move up to 8m and up to 40m if running and not slowed down by armour per combat round. So if I want to close 40m to attack an archer, it will cost me all my CA to close that gap. If however, the gap is 20m you can reasonably say that it will cost me 2 CA.
 
Ok, a little confused by all this, being the second (or third?) thread on movement. In the rule book, on page 84, is a list of the activities a character can attempt by spending 1 combat action during their turn, and on that list is move. So if your are human, you can spend 1 CA to move your 8 metres.
Why is this confusing people?
Am i missing some thing, or do i play rune quest/wayfarer different from every one else here on this board?

Not trying to sound hostile, just a little puzzled by this thread.
 
Oldtimer:
I think the main question about it is can you move a bit and attack at the same time.
Most people seem to say (As far as I can tell) that for a combat action you can move up to 4 metres and still get an attack, but the total movement in metres can't add up to more than your max movement per round.

For example say I have 4 CAs at the start of a round move 2 metres upt o an enemy, hit him, lets say it takes him down.
Next time it comes around to my turn to spend a CA, I spend another CA to move 4 metres to another enemy and hit him, lets say I kill him.
Next time It's my turn to spend a CA I move another 2 metres to attack another enemy.
This is all ok as it adds up to no more than my movement rate of 8.

Alternatively I could move 8 metres using a CA (or more if I sprint, run etc).

But honestly for me I found some of the answers for charging and stuff just too convoluted and just use my own interpretations of charging, movement (not THAT different than RAW really).
 
HalfOrc HalfBiscuit said:
This for me too.

I fear that any attempt to make the movement rules greatly more formal than they are now will lead to just as many situations where the outcome seems irrational, while undermining the GM's authority to say "This is what happens" by giving more ammunition to rules lawyers to say "But the RAW say this other thing".
I understand what you and Simalcrum mean. That kind of rules lawyering is one of the reasons I got fed up with D&D.

All we're saying is that the rules need to be clarified to avoid confusion, not re-written to the point where they become stifling. For example:

Combat Movement

Combatants can move up to their movement rate per round, for most humanoids this is 8 metres. This movement may be spread however they wish over their CA's for the round with following notes:

If their movement for a CA is equal to, or less than half their movement rate they may combine moving with a single other action. Otherwise, all they do this CA is move, GM's at their sole discretion may allow defensive actions subject to situational modifiers.


Withdraw

Combatants wishing to withdraw from melee combat may do so by first succeeding on an opposed Evade roll to change distance (as per closing and disengaging) and then moving at twice their movement rate. This action costs their full allotment of CA's for a round, for example if you have 3 CA's and begin the withdraw action on you 3rd CA of the round, your withdrawal finishes on your 2nd CA of the following round. GM's at their sole discretion may allow defensive actions subject to situational modifiers.

Something like that anyway.
 
DamonJynx said:
All we're saying is that the rules need to be clarified to avoid confusion, not re-written to the point where they become stifling.

Well that's well enough, and I wouldn't disagree that there is room for some clarification (and for making sure the examples are consistent with the rules). However, I get the impression (perhaps wrongly) that some of the participants in the thread want "clarifications" of such a great extent that it will result in a stifling, rules-lawyer-friendly, rooted-in-the-battlemat paradigm.

I also worry that with both Pete and Loz having departed from Mongoose, the "clarifications" may be written by someone who may not fully understand what they're "clarifying".

So on balance I favour leaving things as they are, and letting individual GMs sort it out to the taste of their groups.
 
Simulacrum said:
To those here such as Deleriad. Phil Hibbs and Vagni who clearly run frequent sessions, has movement ever been a problem in actual play - or the arguments here simply about what the rules could be interpreted to mean and whether pete and loz should try harder next time?

No problems for me to report. But then I'm very much a 'wing it if it works' kind of GM and prefer to keep the game flowing without too much references back and forth to the RAW. Scales and rulers are for Architects! :lol:
My players are old hands too and are happy with this approach.

I also allow Hero Points to be used to perform slightly over the top actions or manoeuvres that I would normally disallow as stretching it a bit. As a somewhat tongue-in-cheek Jackie Chan example, in the orc situation mentioned above a player may burn a HP to run and slide under the orc warriors bandy legs with an Acrobatics roll and then leap up to attack the sorcerer while the orc warrior is still wondering what just happened, all taking perhaps 2 or 3 CA's to perform.

The unpublished 'Adventures in Glorantha' (also known as RQIV) had a Manoeuvre skill specifically for combat movement and resolving positioning etc., but I feel this is more than elegantly taken up in MRQII by using Athletics or opposed Evade/Attack rolls as appropriate.

I do agree that the RAW on movement do need a tidy up and a bit of work though, mainly to help newer and less experienced players and GM's and set the 'official line' as a base for us all. The addition of a line or two about using common sense and that the GM has final say on any movement issues wouldn't hurt as well, at least for more 'challenging' players the GM could point to this bit in the rules and say 'the rules say I get to decide!' :lol:
 
HalfOrc HalfBiscuit said:
However, I get the impression (perhaps wrongly) that some of the participants in the thread want "clarifications" of such a great extent that it will result in a stifling, rules-lawyer-friendly, rooted-in-the-battlemat paradigm.

I for one use a battlemat all the time in RPGs, but probably only from since I played Pathfinder (I got it a month or 2 after it was released).
Previous to that I did use battlemats, but didn't bother with tactical rules for movement much, the battlemat was used to give a vague idea where everything is.

I'd personally be happy enough or the combat rules to stay as they are and maybe an addendum for those interested in more precise definitions who use battlemats.
I really don't think the RAW need changing much anyway.

I also worry that with both Pete and Loz having departed from Mongoose, the "clarifications" may be written by someone who may not fully understand what they're "clarifying".

If the rules go OGL I think MRQ2/Wayfarer will do really well with fan support.
I DO think Mongoose is moving the focus away from MRW2/Wayfarer anyway, their statement about "Having tried out the fantasy RPG" and focusing on miniatures etc sort of infers that.

So on balance I favour leaving things as they are, and letting individual GMs sort it out to the taste of their groups.

Apart from some clarifications, I for the most part agree.
 
In my opinion, if you use a battlemap/battlegrid then you are forcing yourself to think in terms of hexes, driections and movement in little chunks.

If you just put figures on a table without a battemap/battlegrid then you think in a freer manner, allowing movement to be more fluid.

In my opinion.

The way I handle movement is to let the players move their figures at the same time as NPCs, that way movement is done in a fluid and simple manner. If someone can't move as far or whatever then their figure stops and others can move around it.

If someone has an attach and parry then decides to move to the next person and has time to do it, then fine.
 
@danskmacabre, thanks for the clarification.
I dont have a problem with the way the move rules works, as i tend to run my games without a battle map, and have a more 'fluid' approach to combat and movement, concentrating on the drama of the fight, not the tactical manoeuvring that i feel battle maps tend to encourage.
When it comes to charging, one CA is used to reach the target, as i dont worry about the exact distance covered, i just use common sense, which i assume is the intent of the rule.
This, is of course, simple my way of doing things in RQ/wayfarer, and the beauty of the system is that it allows different ways of doing things in combat.
 
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