Your House Rules & Fixes

[Dead Blue Clown]

This thread isn't about whether you think MRQ is eminently perfect, eminently customisable, or just eminently broken beyond sane belief. It's a thread aboout your chosen house rules. The ones you would use and the ones you do use.

Here's the deal.

Very soon I'll be starting a RuneQuest campaign with one of my regular groups, which is no massively unusual event, admittedly. However, this one is different in that it's looking to have all the hallmarks of a very in-depth and long-lasting chronicle. No 8-sessioner, here.

The game world is not set, yet. It might be Glorantha, it might be Lankhmar, it might be something generic that I work on in my spare time, or it might be the first real run-through for a samurai setting that I plan to formally pitch to my Mongoose bosses in a few months. Either way, for the purposes of this post, the setting isn't important.

I've run the game straight from the book and I've run it with my own tweaks here and there. The premise behind this thread is to take the core rulebook as it is, and add the suggested house rules from this thread - and only this thread - to supplement what we use in the book. I'm not interested in scouring the wiki for potential tweaks and adjustments. I'd rather make a comprehensive Word.doc out of the suggestions in this thread, from posters here that I trust well enough to know what they're talking about when they say something RQ-related.

I'll then gather these rules changes, put them in an Errata document for my group, and hand out copies before we start playing. I plan to essentially play all of my MRQ games from now on with these rules if they go down well enough.

At some point I also hope to host a decent, comprehensive collection of MRQ house rules (that I use, rather than general ones) on my blog or on the website I keep promising myself I'll make, so if you'd like more credit than "I didn't write most of these rules, the guys & girls on the MRQ forum did" then let me know just in case. But as it stands, I'm hoping to make a neat and sweet errata/fixup/house rule document for my group, for the time being. I'd like to think it'd spread as a popular 'potential errata' document, but there's no sense hoping for anything wild at this stage.

If you can't be bothered or aren't up to helping out on this score, no hard feelings. It's a bit of a chore, after all. If you do decide to commit something, then thankya kindly in advance. I'll of course give feedback on how things are working out when I get my campaign update thread started in a few weeks.

I was thinking anything suggested should be marked in one of two ways:

Mark up any rules you've personally used with a [PLAY] header. Mark up any ideas you've had but haven't tested out in a real game with an [IDEA] header.

F'rex:

[PLAY]
I reduced the damage of the Divine Yoghurt spell to 1D20 + the number of fruit lumps.

[IDEA]
Integrating runes should alter your physical appearance slightly, so Shadow runes make your shadow move in eerie ways, and so on.

 

[iamtim]

Just as a generic reply, check out the MRQ Wiki at http://mrqwiki.pbwiki.com -- it's already got a pretty decent collection of house rules and whatnot. When you're done with your comprehensive document, feel free to use the MRQ Wiki as your distribution method.

That said...

[PLAY]
http://mrqwiki.pbwiki.com/ArmorUseSkill -- the armor use skill, a decent way to manage armor skill penalties while still using the "stock" MRQ numbers.

[PLAY]
http://mrqwiki.pbwiki.com/AttackRolls -- a much more RQ3-like take on attack and defense rolls in combat.

[IDEA]
http://mrqwiki.pbwiki.com/CharacteristicSkillRolls -- get rid of Resistance, Persistence, and Brute Force as skills and make them more like charactersitic rolls. In my game the characters were recently converted to use this, we just haven't had the occasion to use it.

Enjoy!

 

[Rurik]

Do I see a DBC/Tim Mr Qwiki vs Errata smackdown? (one can always hope).

Seriously though, I think Divine Yoghurt is underpowered as is, not overpowered, considering the difficulties in obtaining Broos Milk.

O.K., here goes:

[PLAY] Instead of halving skills reduce both skills by [highest skill - 100].

For example, 120 vs 80 becomes 100 vs. 60. 150 vs 125 becomes 100 vs. 75.

[IDEA] Change rolls that the player may not know the results of (as in perception tests) to opposed rolls vs a target difficulty. For example a secret door could be rated as difficulty 75.

The reason for this is that the player can roll, and the GM can roll in secret. The player cannot tell whether his roll succeeds or fails because he does not know what the GM rolls. The GM does not have to roll the players perception tests for them. He can also 'fudge' results for that 'one roll that must be made to complete the scenario' type situation.

Existing Scenarios can be converted by using 50 as a base difficulty. A Difficult -20% Spot instead would be an opposed roll vs 70, etc.

That is a start. I'll post more when I have time.

 

[canology]

[IDEA/SOME PLAY] Instead of the odd "roll as high as you can while still rolling under your skill" way of handling opposed rolls, just go with a more natural feeling "low=good" paradigm and just compare who rolls the most under their skill.
No halving issues at all.
Skill 140% vs skill 50%, both players roll 40, the first character wins because he made his roll by 100% and the other made his by only 10%.
Critical successes trump non-critical successes, therefore in the same example if the second player rolled a 5 he would win the contest because he critted, even though he only succeeded by 45%.

 

[iamtim]

[IDEA] Instead of the odd "roll as high as you can while still rolling under your skill" way of handling opposed rolls, just go with a more natural feeling "low=good" paradigm and just compare who rolls the most under their skill.

Dude. Not so much of an [IDEA] since I've been using that in [PLAY] -- they game you're playing in, actually.

(Which means I should have put it in my reply above as a [PLAY] option, but I plum fergot.)

 

[canology]

[IDEA] Instead of the odd "roll as high as you can while still rolling under your skill" way of handling opposed rolls, just go with a more natural feeling "low=good" paradigm and just compare who rolls the most under their skill.

Dude. Not so much of an [IDEA] since I've been using that in [PLAY] -- they game you're playing in, actually.

(Which means I should have put it in my reply above as a [PLAY] option, but I plum fergot.)

True, but we haven't seen it actually get used enough to qualify as "playtested", so I decided to leave it in the theoretical category.
I'll edit it to say [PLAY/IDEA] if you like

 

[iamtim]

True, but we haven't seen it actually get used enough to qualify as "playtested", so I decided to leave it in the theoretical category.

True, but only for above 100% skills. That's what I've been using for opposed checks all along, though. I don't think I've ever used the "roll high but under skill" rule. Even on the first session, where I said I was going to play by-the-book. That was the one thing that I read in MRQ that immediately gave me a "WTF?" reaction.

 

[simonh]

I'll then gather these rules changes, put them in an Errata document for my group, and hand out copies before we start playing.

That's essentialy what my MRQ fan site is - selected rules and resources about which I'm very confident, rather than a catter-gun collection of ideas. I only put a rule or option in there if I would be prepared to use it my own game, or recommend others to use it. In fact there are several areas of the rules I would change, but I haven't come to a definitive view on how to tackle them yet, or I am awaiting further material from Mongoose, so there's nothing on the site about it yet.

You can get to the site through the link in my SIG.

The Wiki is a useful resource, but while a lack of editorial controll can aid freedom of expression and idea exchange, it inevitably involves a sacrifices in the signal to noise ratio.

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

I'll then gather these rules changes, put them in an Errata document for my group, and hand out copies before we start playing.

That's essentialy what my MRQ fan site is - selected rules and resources about which I'm very confident, rather than a catter-gun collection of ideas. I only put a rule or option in there if I would be prepared to use it my own game, or recommend others to use it. In fact there are several areas of the rules I would change, but I haven't come to a definitive view on how to tackle them yet, or I am awaiting further material from Mongoose, so there's nothing on the site about it yet.

You can get to the site through the link in my SIG.

The Wiki is a useful resource, but while a lack of editorial controll can aid freedom of expression and idea exchange, it inevitably involves a sacrifices in the signal to noise ratio.

I've had several emails asking all of the house rules that I, personally, use. I'm compiling a cohesive and complete answer to that question, taken from the ideas I like best on here. I've got my own changes, but I wanted to gather a few more suggestions before I set it in stone and hand it out to anyone.

Your fansite is very worthy of attention, but it's more of an epic endeavour than I'm planning, with character sheets, scenarios, new legendary abilities, and other broad RQ matters, etc. Linking to that for my group still presents loads of other stuff for them to read, dig through, or secondary considerations, which don't tie into what I need. In that sense, it's no different from clicking around the Wiki for information.

My idea lacks the scope of a fansite. When I'm done, I'll have a couple (or a few, at most) pages of the changes I use in the game, that I can show to anyone who wonders how this particular RQ writer house-rules things. This document's main focus will be to tell my group (and anyone wanting to play with the same rules) exactly what to change, in one easily printable thing. Clean and simple, no more and no less, like the Player's Guide .pdf that patches the problems, only...hopefully...better received.

 

[Richard]

Dear Clowny, Before our group decided to stick with RQ3 (Please forgive us...) a couple did buy the core book and set upon it with feverish, if ,as we felt later, misplaced, excitement. 10 pages of carefully worked out and balanced adjustments (And some personal grit over munchkinism preferences) later I gave up the ghost. I briefly haunted these forums and I've passed them on to a few other interested parties. They're yours (or anyone else's) if you drop an e-mail to richardgorman@blueyonder.co.uk
Happy Questing!

 

[Sigtrygg]

[play]Intent to attack triggers a reaction, then the rolls are made.

[play]Criticals trump normal successes on an opposed test. If both critical then highest roll wins. If both fail the winner is the one who rolled nearest to their target number.
A failure beats a fumble, if both fumble then lowest roll wins.

 

[Sigtrygg]

[play]Initiative is determined only on the first turn, after that it is up to combat results to change things. I've found it speeds things up.

On certain results the initiative can switch.

Both fail, nearest to their target number wins initiative for next action.

Both succeed, highest roll has initiative for next action.


[play]"counter-strike" as a new defensive reaction option.

[play]Fighting Retreat allows the defender to convert an action to a reaction.

[play]The Delay action allows the character to select his next action as a reaction or action.

 

[JohnLokiBeard]

Bearing in mind that changing one rule can easily have a domino effect on other rules [especially when you start fiddling with combat] I suspect quite a few of us will be making very long or multiple posts here! I'll try to keep to a maximum of one per day... or at least make sure they're all on a similar theme.

[PLAY] If in Melee with an opponent of more than 2 times your SIZ, you get +5% per SIZ point over.

[PLAY] If in Melee with an opponent of at least 3 times your SIZ, you can usually only hit the location nearest to you [as per Behemoth in RQMonsters].

[PLAY] Hit Location is decided before Attack & Damage are rolled, so characters have to decide whether they'll risk taking a hit on the helmet [and so save a Reaction] before they know how hard that hit is going to be…

[PLAY] When attacking a target within (Target SIZ/2)metres, you choose which location to hit with no need for Precise Attacks. Targets outside this range, or attacked with Free Attacks (such as Riposte), are hit randomly unless Precise Attack is used, as per the RAW.
Melee combat usually occurs in the 0m to 2m range, but can be up to 4m with whips or pikes.
NPC mooks can still roll randomly for where they're aiming, as vital locations tend to be better armoured than limbs so it's a reasonable tradeoff between target areas as to what might be considered the more effective choice. Fixed-INT critters should also roll randomly unless they have a natural instinct to aim at certain areas e.g. a spitting cobra will always aim for [what it perceives to be] the eyes/head.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

[IDEA]
As professions give skill gains in multiples of 5, assume that the listed profession gains equate to 5 years Previous Experience, and build an RQ3-alike Previous Experience system from that. Drop free skill points.

 

[Trifletraxor]

[IDEA]
As professions give skill gains in multiples of 5, assume that the listed profession gains equate to 5 years Previous Experience, and build an RQ3-alike Previous Experience system from that. Drop free skill points.

Or, decrease the free skill points and restrict them to non-combat skills.

SGL.

 

[Adept]

[PLAY] If in Melee with an opponent of more than 2 times your SIZ, you get +5% per SIZ point over.

What D&D strangeness is this? What is the sense of rules that make it easier to fight guys that are bigger than you? That's pretty far removed from reality.

 

[Rurik]

[PLAY] If in Melee with an opponent of more than 2 times your SIZ, you get +5% per SIZ point over.

What D&D strangeness is this? What is the sense of rules that make it easier to fight guys that are bigger than you? That's pretty far removed from reality.

More in line with favoring the small fast guy over the big strong guy. That is why they have weight classes in boxing you know - to protect those heavyweights from taking a beating from the featherweights.

 

[Adept]

More in line with favoring the small fast guy over the big strong guy. That is why they have weight classes in boxing you know - to protect those heavyweights from taking a beating from the featherweights.

Heh Thanks. I had that all backwards.

 

[JohnLokiBeard]

[PLAY] If in Melee with an opponent of more than 2 times your SIZ, you get +5% per SIZ point over.

What D&D strangeness is this? What is the sense of rules that make it easier to fight guys that are bigger than you? That's pretty far removed from reality.

More in line with favoring the small fast guy over the big strong guy. That is why they have weight classes in boxing you know - to protect those heavyweights from taking a beating from the featherweights.

Er, bigger targets are easier to hit? But damage tends to be less effective point-for-point against them.
Though I guess SIZ can also be taken as an indication of reach [sorry to use another D&D term - can I claim to be using it in a CONAN context?] so OK, maybe that's not a great rule option...

 

[gamesmeister]

[Play] Use a random number of CAs per round, as follows.

Each player rolls percentage dice against a target of their SR Modifier x 5%, with the following results.

Fumble: 1CA
Fail: 2CAs
Success 3CAs
Critical 4CAs

Makes combat much more dynamic and interesting, as well as removing the artificial divide of DEX greater than or less than 13. Normally you'll end up with either 2 or 3, which seems to be what the game is designed for, but occasionally things get much better/worse.

To speed things up, I also use the singles D10 to determine SR.

[Play] Almost forgot...change 1D2 damage die to 1D3. Don't like 1D2's... :?