Two queries/niggles

[durulz]

I'm really pleased the combat matrices are sorted out. Good news.
But here's another couple of things that niggle at me. One won't appear in everyone's game, and the other is quite important.
Firstly, vampires. This is important to our game because there a major NPC is a vampire. RQM vampires appear to be substabtially weaker than the old RQ3 versions. Magically, mainly. In RQ3 vampires had no POW, but had magic points. Although they could not use spirit magic or divine magic, they could become sorcerors. Not any more. RQM vampires have no magic points and consequently no magic ability. Also, have you noticed how vampires DON'T have the 'vampiric touch' monster trait?
Secondly, and more important is the concept of 'Dedicated POW' for divine magic users. On the surface it seems clear enough. Now, let's assume a character has a POW of 18 and dedicates 2 points of that to divine magic. Dutifully, the PC crosses off the 2 points. But whilst gaming the PC regains 5 POW, taking them up a POW of 21 - species maximum. But then they cast their two points of divine magic. That POW should be returned, but they are already at species maximum. OR is it the case that POW can be no greater than 21 (or species maximum) MINUS dedicated POW? If the latter case then this makes priest extremely vulnerable, even more so when you consider no one is allowed multiple castings of a divine spell.
The rules do not make it clear which is correct. Either way, it's an extremely poor rule because it seriously limits what should be an experienced character (if you remember, early editions of RQ stated it was called RuneQuest because PC quested to master the runes - this took the form of becoming either a runelord or runepriest. As such, priest shoul be seen as the epitome).
There is so much I like about RQM. It was a breath of fresh air for me. But now we've started play silly things keep coming up where the rules don't work. It's not the rules so much - if I was to run a fantasy RPG I'd be more than happy to play RQM. It's just they don't represent Glorantha very well - either second or third age. When I have these dilemmas I just say to myself, 'I'll do it the old RQ3 way'. So it's starting to make me think, 'why bother with RQM, why not go back to RQ3.' Of course, I may only be thinking this as a long-time (over 20 years!) player of Glorantha. I imagine any newcomers to the world will not be feeling like this. It's not even an unwillingness to explore new ideas (roleplayers are an open-minded and imaginative bunch. Mostly. It just doesn't work.
Has anyone else encountered these problems, and what did you do?

 

[gamesmeister]

Yep, the problem with Divine Magic has been discussed at length on these boards.

Personally, I allow (or will when they get there) PCs to sacrifice POW for permanent Divine Magic once they are Rune Priests, just as in the old rule. However, dedicated POW works extremely well for initiatives, as they finally get to use Divine Magic without the horrendous cost of previous versions.

I've also finally come to like the new way of gaining experience i.e. by Improvement rolls, however I do allow an attempt to increase POW using only one improvement roll rather than 3 (although only once per session). Unlike other characteristics, there are so many ways to lose permanent POW (runes, enchantments, fetishes, allied spirits etc) that players also need a way to regain it.

 

[Halfbat]

I run with a Divine Dedicated POW - that is, POW dedicated to the storage of Divine spells from a particular god. The Divine Spells are stored in that "pool" as per the current MRQ rules (that is, once cast, a different set can be taken), but it doesn't count towards the character's POW other than as a way of storing Divine spells.

When a character succeeds at a POW gain roll* they have an option of putting POW into this pool for their god, or adding to their own POW. Character's can still dedicate their own POW to Divine spells as the RAW should they wish to do so.

If they stop worshipping that god, though, they are unable to access that Divine Dedicated POW pool (a bit similar in effect to old style Divine spells).

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* Like gamesmeister, I think 3 Improvement rolls for one chance are bit too much, but have implemented a "three chance" roll - not too sure of its impact, yet.

 

[durulz]

Yup - good ideas. But both responses rather prove my point: too much of RQM needs 'tweaking'. I'm all in there for a rules change, but only where I think it's needed. Seems like rather a lot of RQM needs a fiddle.
I run a Gloranthan campaign with a friend, and we both bought (buy?) into RQM bigstyle. But now we've started play we find the rules have several holes. Holes which, let's be honest, shouldn't be there. Our current thinking is to import the bits we like from RQM (Runes as objects that can be found - NOT as a pre-requisite for magic, fatigue and...er...er...oh yes, CHA rather than APP, Resilience and Persistence as stat-derived abilities rather than improvable skills) back into RQ3. Not so much a RQM/RQ3 hybrid as a RQ3+.
I've bought an awful lot of the RQM stuff and do feel a tad disappointed with it now I've started playing. But, to be honest, if I was to play non-Gloranthan fantasy I would happily use RQM, as is. It's just not Glorantha.

 

[weasel_fierce]

It may all function better for other fantasy stuff than Glorantha specifically, though we've been pretty happy with it.


Note that as per the players update friday (or whenever it was), which you can download, Persistance and resilience are now capped out at POWx5 and CONx5 respectively


Personally, I like the new divine magic better. Tying up POW temporarily sounds better to me than sacrificing it permanently.

 

[durulz]

Yeah, I saw they were now derived from Stats rather than skills - that's where we got the idea.
But that update is just it. It seems there are some fundamental errors in RQM. If it's not one thing being updated, it's another. And we are talking about major rules mechanisms: combat and magic.
Don't you feel these things should have been spotted at game development/play test stage? What if someone has the rules but either doesn't know about this forum or does not have internet access? How can they address these solecisms?

 

[Loz]

Yeah, I saw they were now derived from Stats rather than skills - that's where we got the idea.
But that update is just it. It seems there are some fundamental errors in RQM. If it's not one thing being updated, it's another. And we are talking about major rules mechanisms: combat and magic.
Don't you feel these things should have been spotted at game development/play test stage? What if someone has the rules but either doesn't know about this forum or does not have internet access? How can they address these solecisms?

Persistence and Resilience were always derived from stats and still are skills. They just have a stat multiplier ceiling value now. They can still be trained and improved like any other skill.

 

[weasel_fierce]

Yeah, I saw they were now derived from Stats rather than skills - that's where we got the idea.
But that update is just it. It seems there are some fundamental errors in RQM. If it's not one thing being updated, it's another. And we are talking about major rules mechanisms: combat and magic.
Don't you feel these things should have been spotted at game development/play test stage? What if someone has the rules but either doesn't know about this forum or does not have internet access? How can they address these solecisms?

You seem to be making the mistake that the game was somehow unplayable before. These are, ultimately minor tweaks. We've played it, as written in the books for a while now, without any issue whatsoever.

 

[Sinisalo]

Many of the problems were problems that would appear when you get to high levels. Thankfully they now have a scalable solution that doesnt involve dividing 239 by 2 twice. I have a dislexic player and another with problems I won't insult by naming on the net. Not all rpg players have university educations and the new soultions are scalable and elegant enough for ordinary folk like us.