Sorcery spell Tap(Characteristic) from Companion

[Banned Beetle]

Sandy perterson did some rather cool addtions to the sorcery rules for the various orders of the west which seemed to fix a lot of the bugettes in the old sorcery, well worth a look if you can find them.

Very easy and playable rules, but sorcerers became extremely powerful very fast with Sandy's sorcerer rules.

Trif.

 

[CharlieMonster]

Sandy perterson did some rather cool addtions to the sorcery rules for the various orders of the west which seemed to fix a lot of the bugettes in the old sorcery, well worth a look if you can find them.

To be fair, from what I understand he did help put quite a few of them in there in the first place. Sorcery was very much Sandy's baby and I seem to remember him producing a first draft as an article in Wyrm's Footnotes. How much of the RQ3 is Sandy's work I couldn't say for certain, because I no longer have the original article.

 

[Gnarsh]

I believed at the time and still believe that the state of the sorcery rules in RQ3 had a lot to do with conflicts among the principles involved in writing the rules. ... Certain individuals who shall remain unamed hate dwarves and never wanted them in Glorantha to begin with so they got "the treatment". Sometimes it really is that simple...

I have personally heard Greg and Sandy, several times, state that AH had no say or influence in the contents of RuneQuest 3. AH didn't even ask them to make it a generic system, with Glorantha as an add-on. That was a Chaosium decision as they'd already decided to work on some historical sourcebooks which became Land of Ninja and Vikings. There's no way the Chaosium authors would have worked on those projects just because AH wanted them to, they had a genuine interest in the material.

It was their decision, but it was a decision that was somewhat forced by the ownership issues involved in the deal between them and AH. Chaosium sold the rights to the game system of RQ to AH. They retained the rights to the game world of Glorantha. Keeping those two things somewhat separate through the material was a result of that arrangement. AH may not have told them "keep these separate", but their hands were pretty much tied by the legal realities of the situation. If they'd tied the two together, they would have lost reprinting rights for much of the IP they generated related to Glorantha itself.

If Chaosium had had the funds to do RQ3 on their own, you can bet that sorcery would never have appeared (ok. It *might* but I'll cover that later) and Gloranthan material would have been intertwined into the core rules and all expansions. The non-Gloranthan specific stuff would have been far more of an exception then it ended out being. Certainly, you'd not have seen the whole "fantasy earth" stuff at all...

Did you think it was a coincidence that every single book released under the RQ3 logo was either generic or Gloranthan? There was virtually zero overlap between the two.

Sorry, nice theory but the evidence is against it. As for Mostali - you really think that the people hostile to them were taking time away from projects they actually liked and deliberately screwed it up (what's wrong with it anyway?). What were the 'pro' Mostal people doing all this time? Presumably working on the projects the anti-Mostali people liked and deliberately screwing those up instead because you know, everybody much prefers working on projects they hate and screwing them up instead of actually, you know, working on the things they like. What a bizzare world view you've got there.

Dwarves in RQ (Mostali specifically) fell under the "Gloranthan" side of the table. Greg's dislike for Dwarves is legendary to anyone not wearing Fanboi-tinted glasses. The progression from "Dwarves will be detailed later", to "Mostal is dead and the dwarves a dying race" (complete with Greg's statement that he didn't like Dwarves, never intended them to be in Glorantha, and had no intention of *ever* detailing them), to the abomination that appeared in the Gods of Glorantha book (is there anyone who didn't scratch their heads and thinkg "WTF?" when they read that section?), is pretty clear evidence of this. He basically took something he didn't like and after much fan pushing and proding kinda went "You want Dwarves! Ok. I'll give you something utterly unplayable and unenjoyable just to shut you all up".

Ok. I'm paraphrasing, but it's not like this isn't obvious. He doesn't like Dwarves. He's never liked dwarves. That's his right as creator of Glorantha of course, but let's not ignore this fact when discussing how it affects the words that end up written in the game releases that he has influence on.

When I talked about "principles", I was not just talking about AH v Chaosium either. There was always (and continues to be) a considerable amount of disagreement amoung Sandy, Greg, and Steve with regards to how different things should "work" in RQ/Glorantha. Greg has always had very specific images of the world of Glorantha, the relationship of various groups, and how they all fit together. Unfortunately, he's never been very good at building consistent rulesets to define how players could enter that world in an enjoyable manner. Sandy loves making rules for every occasion, but has an amazing penchant for making the rules as complex and complete as possible (and in some cases virtually unplayable as a result). Steve Perrin was the one that could take the two dreamers down to earth and put their ideas into structures that were both playable and enjoyable to those who played them.

The issue with sorcery is that (presumably) this was originally Sandy's baby in RQ3. I'd lay good money that Greg had no interest in it at all (and you'll note that no Gloranthan material released under RQ3 actually included sorcery in any form approaching what appeared in the actual rulebook). The mistakes and multiple changes clearly stemmed from both Sandy's trend towards over-complex rules and Greg's lack of interest in including it at all. I'm not sure to what degree Steve was able to hold those two in check during the various expansion releases during that time period, but judging by the hit or miss quality of some of those releases, I'd say only about 50%. And after the deal between AH and Chaosium fell apart, that was pretty much it in terms of consistent rulesets. Both Sandy and Greg went off in different directions and produced lots of material, most of which was predictably difficult to actually use in a real game world.

Overly critical? Perhaps. But I followed all of this in real time as it happened. I remember watching as Greg produced change after change and revision after revision on the "cannon" of Glorantha, released in a dozen different formats in a dozen different sources. I remember the Gloranthan faithful trying to keep up. I remember most players with active games pretty much giving up since what they needed for a playable game world was a consistent backround, not stuff that changed every month with new "revelations" that reversed earlier stuff. Don't get me wrong. Greg is amazingly gifted in terms of his vision of his world. His problem is that he keeps thinking of new cool stuff and sometimes doesn't start with the foundation set first. He's a dreamer, and the world needs dreamers, but I've long since given up on trying to actually model any sort of long term game campaign more then indirectly off his work.

Sandy is equally gifted. But the same kind of thing applies here. I recall following his ideas for changes to sorcery and heroquesting. I also recall realizing very quickly that his rules ideas were so "out there" in terms of playability as to be unusable. Like Greg, he has a habit of needing to make the things he describes "just right". But where Greg goes off on literary clouds with his ideas, Sandy falls into a pit of mathmatical equations and tables and complex rules. There's a point in game rules where too much is too much. And there's nothing at all wrong with saying "The GM is free to make up X, Y, and Z...". The more detailed the rules got, the more limiting they became. And that's never good. I don't think I *ever* implemented a single rule idea Sandy came up with post RQ3. Some of the ideas were good. But the mechanics as written went about 5 steps too far in complexity.

I'm not saying all of this to bash anyone. I'm just laying out the history of RQ as I know it, and my perception of how the personalities of the people involved have influenced the resulting product(s). There's no "this is good, this is bad" here. Just my impression of the process and my understanding of *why* certain things end up working well in RQ, and certain other things end up not working well. The are some pretty clear-cut patterns in product results based on who is working on the product and what constraints they are working under. I've seen this pattern clearly for the last 25 years. I don't think it's "wrong" to simply observe that these things exist and that they do have an effect on what ends up being published, even today.

 

[simonh]

Haven't looked at Chaosiums WOW for years but wasn't RQ3 sorcery just Worlds of Wonder magic system polished up for Glorantha.

WOW magic was RQ2/3 Rune Magic, but with a skill to cast it. If you learned a stackable spell, you could increase it's points value and keep the same casting skill.

Re. Mostali. Greg dislikes Mostali because they are unimaginative slaves of the machine; he didn't make them unimaginative slaves of the machine because he dislikes them.

They are a logically essential part of the metaphysical and psychological models Greg used to build Gloranthan mythology.

 

[barasawa]

A duration of "concentration" means that the spell requires concentration for its full duration and can be interrupted at any time, not just when being cast. It does not imply any sort of growing or increasing effect over time.

For reference, MPG 8100 page 67, and more importantly MPG 8104 page 28.

Actually it does imply an increasing effect over time, at least with this spell.
If it's a "wam bam you're toast" spell, why bother with concentration, since it states that the drain is permanent, and the magic points don't go away unless they are over your normal max, and then only at a rate of 1 per minute once the spell is finished.
Why bother concentrating (chanting, etc) from round to round for that?
Your only benefit would be extending the life of the bonus magic points by mere seconds while being pretty much useless for anything else.
It would be rather silly and anticlimactic to me.
(Yeah, fred was chanting for two hours before the heroes showed up, but when he tried to cast the big spell to fry them, he got laryngitis. Then he got very dead.)

As to a growing or increasing effect, that isn't the only way to view it. If it drains 1 point per round (if it's magnitude is high enough and the victim failed to resist and it doesn't drain below 1) then it is like an unchanging continuous damage. Not much different than smother in execution, except it's not checking for then doing suffocation, instead it's perma-draining characteristics.

This method I've listed doesn't disagree with the written descriptions. It's easy to handle in game. And it fits nicely with the ritual sacrifice idea.

And yes, I agree that since it is a touch spell, the caster would have to remain in contact with the victim for the entire concentration time period.

Of course, everyone is free to run it however they like. And I still wouldn't suggest letting the PCs run rampant with Tap spells. Though it can be good for a rapid recharge if you have a sacrifical goat (or something/someone) handy.

Thanks for listening and commenting >^_^<

 

[Adept]

Dwarves in RQ (Mostali specifically) fell under the "Gloranthan" side of the table. Greg's dislike for Dwarves is legendary to anyone not wearing Fanboi-tinted glasses. The progression from "Dwarves will be detailed later", to "Mostal is dead and the dwarves a dying race" (complete with Greg's statement that he didn't like Dwarves, never intended them to be in Glorantha, and had no intention of *ever* detailing them), to the abomination that appeared in the Gods of Glorantha book (is there anyone who didn't scratch their heads and thinkg "WTF?" when they read that section?), is pretty clear evidence of this. He basically took something he didn't like and after much fan pushing and proding kinda went "You want Dwarves! Ok. I'll give you something utterly unplayable and unenjoyable just to shut you all up".

That's just bizarre. I've never gotten that vibe off Greg on the subject of Dwarves. Neither in his writings, nor when talking about the little buggers live at an english convention.

They are the ultimate materialists (while Greg is pretty much the opposite), but they have a clear place in the Gloranthan canon.

 

[CharlieMonster]

IMHO You have to look at Dwarves (and indeed Trolls & The Empires) in the context of a not so subtle satire on our own modern culture & society. Greg does I believe, after all live in California. Joking aside, like any good story many of the themes in Glorantha are reflections of our own world. A lot of the misunderstanding probably stems from the subtitle of Greg's first article about Mostali in Wyrm's Footnotes, which was: "Why I Dislike Dwarves" but was a pretty good background for Mostali as I recall. I have never got the impression that Greg included anything because people said it "should" be there. Although I gather Ducks were a source of some contention. (Don't see why myself, they are delicious!)


Mostali live lives surrounded by technology, isolated and estranged from the world, performing mindless repetitive tasks and living on tinned, processed food.

Trolls are the ultimate consumers, devouring all planting nothing and laying waste to the world around them in a desire to sate their endless hunger and indulge their every apetite.

Lastly we have the Empires, educated, enlightened and organised. They "know" what is best for the world and will do what is best for the world whether the world likes it or not (Anglo-American Foreign Policy anyone?). They all inevitably lose track of the difference between knowledge & wisdom.

Of course I might be completely wrong.

or

I may have been right in the past but am wrong now and this post has since been "Gregged" :shock:

 

[weasel_fierce]

From the earlier stuff, it seems pretty obvious that Greg heavily disagree's with how the dwarves are, nad live, being antithesis to how he lives, however, that has nothing to do with their inclusion or suitability in game material (and even his baby Heroquest has dwarf pictures in it)

 

[Gnarsh]

Hah. Didn't intend to make a big deal out of any of that stuff. Just making the observation that at least to *me*, there's a correlation between game mechanics/ideas that ended up not working well and/or being more difficult to play/use and those things that were not fully agreed upon by all members of the "team" back in the day. And yeah, most of that stuff did get sorted out over time, but (for example) the contrast between the beautifully outlined and defined Troll culture and the virtually zero detail or advancement on things like Mostali and sorcery stand out to me.

Perhaps "hate" is a strong word. Maybe "not interested in as much so it's waaaaaaay down the list of things to work on" would be a better way to describe it. Whatever. Not super relevant to the issue at hand.

Actually it does imply an increasing effect over time, at least with this spell.
If it's a "wam bam you're toast" spell, why bother with concentration, since it states that the drain is permanent, and the magic points don't go away unless they are over your normal max, and then only at a rate of 1 per minute once the spell is finished.

Except that magic in RQ is always a "hit or fail" type. There just plain aren't spells that have an effect over time. Ok. A few, but extremely rare (I can only think of smother from RQ3 for example, and the "effect" was constant, it just caused a growing effect due to how the suffocation rules worked).

But there are many spells that require concentration. In the case of tap, the concentration is required to retain the magic points gained. At least that's how it worked in RQ3. I imagine the intent of the spell in MRQ was supposed to be the same, but due to changes in the game system, the correlation between the two doesn't quite work right.

Why bother concentrating (chanting, etc) from round to round for that?
Your only benefit would be extending the life of the bonus magic points by mere seconds while being pretty much useless for anything else.
It would be rather silly and anticlimactic to me.

Yes. As written, it's a somewhat silly thing. As the spell worked in RQ3, it made a lot of sense. The "tap" part of it was instant. The target lost the stat points immediately, the caster gained the magic points immediately. Needing to concentrate in order to keep the extra magic points was critical to the spell due to how duration worked in RQ3. If you didn't make it an active spell, then any sorceror with tap could effectively run around with massive amounts of personal magic points all the time, making them brutally powerful. Making tap an active spell prevented this abuse. You had to use the spell just prior to doing whatever it was you needed the extra magic points for. That was the point of the spell in RQ3.

I really do think that the conversion to MRQ was just done poorly in the case of this spell. Don't read too much into it beyond that. They made it require concentration because it was an active spell previously. In MRQ, given the reduced effect of duration (no casting spells that last for years at a time), and the reduced benefit of gaining magic points (they no longer increase your chance to hit someone with a spell), the need to make this spell require concentration is pretty much gone.

I think there's a lot more problems with tap as written in the MRQ rules then just the fact that it's a concentration spell. And yeah, you *could* keep the concentration and allow it to have an effect over time, as you propose. I'm not sure that's the best solution though. There are still problems with regards to the return of magic points in relation to the cost of magic points. There's also the problem that magic points alone aren't as huge of a deal in MRQ as they were in RQ3. Obviously, there's little point to the spell if you can't gain more mp then you spend. However, you don't want to make it effectively a "get all your mps back for free!" spell either.

I guess my main problem with the idea of having an effect over time is that it makes the spell a little too powerful when used out of combat. Not that tap isn't already powerful, but effectively allowing a sorceror to tap all of a stat and gain tons of mps from a single casting of the spell might be a bit much. Having a harder "cost/return" ratio might work better IMO.

I also don't like it because it just seems to me like the effect over time idea exists purely in order to justify why the spell requires concentration rather then because the effect "makes sense" on its own. I'm much more of the opinion that the concentration bit is a leftover from the earlier rules then something that was thought through carefully. And if we're to assume that, then it makes more sense to assume that the concentration has the same purpose in the new rules (you must concentrate to retain the magic points gained until you use them). Of course, it would help terrifically if the amount of mps gained was actually defined correctly in the spell description. Without that, we're all pretty much just guessing at how it should work.

I think the most important thing when considering how to address a spell like tap is that you have to make sure that the spell "works" both in the case when it's used in a combat situation *and* when it's used non-combat. That's why the active component existed in the RQ3 rules, so something similar kinda needs to be in place in the MRQ varient.