steven@qubix.UUCP (Steven Maurer) (11/01/84)
This is the third letter of corrispondance between Steve Perrin (author of RuneQuest) and myself. This is my response to his rebuttal of my article. Any comments and/or suggestions, are welcome. Steven Maurer {sun,decwrl,ihnp4,ucscc}!qubix!steven Dear Steve, Thank you for your response to my preliminary analysis of RuneQuest 3. It was illuminating, and I have taken the liberty of entering it into the computer, and showing it to my friends. I lament the brevity of your reply, even while I understand the reason; you are a very busy man. However, I could not help but notice in your reply, (since it was pointed out to me several times), a misunderstanding of what my major objections to RuneQuest 3 really are. So to clarify matters, I am sending back your letter with individual responses associated with them -- in true hacker style. >> Dear Steve, >> Thanks for the copy of the writeup on RuneQuest. For the >> most part you make a lot of unwarranted assumptions as to our >> motives for doing things, but since we didn't express our >> movtives in the rules, you have to make whatever assumptions you >> can, assuming that motives have any bearing on the quality of the >> game. Motives obviously mean a lot to you. Motives, to me, are a secondary pleasure to that of seeing a good product out on the market. I am more interested in how much a game reduces my effort as a referee (and player), than the reason for designing it that way. If I am forced to constantly intervene in the game rules for the sake of reality, then this is more effort than I want to make. >> To clarify some things... >> High damage weapons were not given low starting chances because >> they are high damage, but because they are complex to use. Using >> a greatsword or halberd or naginata properly is an art that takes >> practice. Almost a whole WEEK of practice to be exact -- which was the crux of the issue, not your motive for wanting such weapons to be more difficult to learn. A weapon at 5% takes 45 hours to train up to 15%, and thereafter there is no difference whatsoever between a "complex to use" weapon, and an "easy to use" one. Thus, players who want their character's to survive longer, will always take the largest weapons (greatsword being the favorite). Please re-read that section again, if my point is still unclear. >> Lamentably, the Cormac example of the chase and the Climb >> roll is erroneous. Oh well. I didn't write it and it was put in >> because someone wanted an example of fatigue loss and >> misunderstood the rules. Hmmmmm..... well then, just what exactly ARE the rules? I understand that going into melee rounds means that fatigue is counted, but when do you do that? Swimming is listed as costing Fatigue every melee round, but surely you do not mean to imply that this is only Swimming in combat? It seems to me, that if you can't even get it straight among the Chaosium staff, that I am never going to be able to figure out the "correct" interpretation by simply reading the book. (And since it is the RQ 3 book that I am reviewing, after all, this is what I have to base my opinions on). >> For your information, every game played >> with fatigue has worked just fine. It is an excellent game >> mechanic. Which is exactly the problem with the current Chaosium style of play testing: "every game played with fatigue" means every game played by the designers, who do not listen to outside reports, and who did not try to test anything more daring than a SIZ 16 human. I would give you 10 for 1 odds, that nobody tried running any troll ZZ 'bash the Chaos' runs, or the problems with Fatigue would have become blatantly apparent. As I stated in the review, Fatigue/Enc is only an "excellent game mechanic", when you consider the normal. Since 'normal' is not what Fantasy Roleplaying is about, it hardly serves as a viable rule. Not only that, but I also showed why Fatigue/Enc CANNOT be a GOOD system, as currently written up (i.e. not needing melee rounds, and a SIZ equivalency chart as a crutch). >> Think of fatigue as the penalty to your skills for wearing >> lots of Encumbering armor. Does Encumbering armor also reduce Luck then? I would have preferred a straight DEX reduction instead. "Plate reduces your effective DEX by 10...." >> Have you ever fought in closed-in areas with no ventilation? >> I guarantee your fatigue goes down a lot faster. I looked for a while, before I understood what this was in reference to. "Narrow Passageways" does not map to "stuffy air", since it could easily have a draft; a large, but stuffy, room is also possible. (If you mean "no ventilation", please say it.) >> Actually, I didn't like the subtraction of ENC on magic use >> either, but I didn't write the magic section. It's a minor rule, >> and can be ignored easily. However, the fatigue penalty to magic >> use stays. -- The easiest way to ignore a Reality Flaw: ignore it. The only problem with this, is that it takes away one of the biggest selling points of RQ 2: the game was portable. I could take a character from one campaign to another, with at least the assurance that the game system would only differ on minor points. This last variant is NOT a minor point, so I have to check every time before I take in any of my large characters. >> Defense went away to huzzahs from Steve Henderson (Sir >> Steven MacEanruig, one-time king of the West) one of the original >> co-authors who fought its original inclusions tooth-and-nail as >> not realistic. Sir Steven has apparently never fought blind, against a blind opponent (blindness reduces your chance to hit, but also gives your opponent a negative Defense). Sir Steven may have not fought against people using Orential sword arts, who teach avoidance as a proper method of "parry" for some types of blows which come in. And he probably does not have much experience in non-chivalrous fighting at all (Knights seldom do). The current idea around the SCA here is, that "defense" is actually a generic "parry" modification (usually addition), which allows you to differentiate between a blows which hits full on a weapon, and those made harmless or which out and out right miss. Thus, a seasoned fighter (with a good Defense) is going to be inherently better parrying with a chair or similar object, than you or I would. (Negative Defense adds to the opponents chance to hit.) Dodge is laughed at. >> Dodge was added to give the fantasy-reality of >> Errol Flynn-style swashbucklers. It works. I doubt you were truly >> dodging when you tried using the Greatswords and dodging. As I >> mentioned before, Greatsword is an art form. All right, please tell me what "Dodge" and Attack (with Greatsword) does look like? I would prefer to believe that Errol Flynn was fighting opponents who were 20%, rather than believe that you can make a seasoned fighter miss a solid blow 4/5ths of the time, and still be putting in an effective attack. I'm sure that good old Mr Flynn did not grab that Candelabra out of sheer show, I figure he thought it might be something to parry with, just in case any of those schmucks actually came close to connecting. (Of course his high Defense might also have had a hand in it). >> Oh yes, you can't carry a horse and not get fatigued >> because, after all, you don't have the STR to pick up the SIZ of >> the horse. I was assuming a light horse (SIZ 22), and a strong man (STR 16). Now I realize that this gives him only a 20% chance of lifting it in the first place, but if he does so, he can carry it just about forever (sans melee rounds) -- which was the point of the example in the first place. >> Glad you liked the fire rules. They were written by Greg and >> Lynn, neither of whom has ever read the Champions rules. Another >> conclusion jumped at by the master. Sometimes great minds just >> work in the same gutter. "The master"? Me? You? The arch enemy of Dr Who? >> You have some good points on species maximum, though I am >> not totally offended by a STR 24 halfling. Assume a half-again >> limit or STR-CON-SIZ limit, whichever is lower. This may even get >> into the errata. I would much prefer no STR-CON-SIZ limit at all, since I cannot imagine any technique which makes only large people more healthy, or only healthy people more strong. Perhaps a STR-SIZ limit might be reasonable, and just let CON go its merry way. I feel somewhat embarrassed to admit it, but this half-again DEX (and now potentially STR & CON) rule in RQ 3, has been proven by a friend of mine to be a reality flaw. I am embarrassed to admit it, because it was my suggestion and only contribution to RQ 3 (though I at least, included a species maximum). So the grade of DEX training in RQ 3 (which was a rating of Poor), is actually a grade of my own rule. >> Mostly we are trying to mirror fantasy reality, but >> sometimes we stray too far into real reality and sometimes we get >> too fantastical. In the final analysis, the game works, to an >> almost universal chorus of huzzahs from old-time players. You are >> far and away the exception according to all the feedback we have >> received. Actually, according to the people that I have talked to, it is more the fact that the people of the Chaosium tend to ignore almost all (even potentially constructive) criticism. The inevitable response to submission of new rules ideas, or an explanation of why the current ones don't work is: "well, you can play it that way if you want to, we don't interfere in other peoples' campaigns" -- entirely ignoring the reason for playtesting in the first place. You are excepted from the above company, Steve. I have always found you to at least listen with an open mind, even if the course you are planning to take is radically different. (The reason that I have respect for games you are the main designer of). However, I have also been recently trading old war stories with other (mostly former) play testers, who have showed me that my frustrations with Chaosium in this area are hardly unique. It also shows in the game designs, since even with an additional year of play, the rules for RQ 3 show serious lack of robustness. >> I don't think there is too much difference between writing >> game rules and software after all, if the testimony of all my >> computer hacker friends who talk about some professional software >> being a pile of crap is taken into account. No they aren't, which is why I find it so hard to forgive an obvious flaw in a game system. If the Chaosium had any reasonable QA (Quality Assurance), such blatant crocks like the Wind rules would never leave in-house. And, if some people did not have such an NIH fever with regards to rules they made up, (regardless of any blatantly obvious holes in them), the rules that they work on would not end up all screwed up. >> This is only a superficial response, but your survey was >> fairly superficial in itself, since you started from the >> supposition that the new game was bad, and looked only for what >> you could damn properly. Who is making unwarranted assumptions about motives now? Actually, I did not start out from the supposition that the new game was bad at all. I was simply persuaded that it would be so by sneak previews, and was (sadly enough) correct. Most of the problems and examples in the review, are not created of my own brain. I only wrote down what I heard, from general comments from my standard playing group. For your information, I was accused of being too nice to the Chaosium in my review, since I didn't even mention things like RQ 3's "Martial Arts", except in passing. As for what I looked for, I started from the beginning of the book, and went through to the end, writing up 17 pages in the mean time. More than a grade of Very Poor was given out, as you well know. Unfortunately what I could "damn properly" turned out to be: Publication Speed, No Backwards Compatibility, Fatigue, Encumbrance, Skill vs Skill, Characteristic Increase and Decrease, Experience Gain Rolls, Research, Basic Weapon Percentages, and Dodge --- not the entire system, just a very large part of it. (I am not even including the magic section, which has its own large brace of Design Errors.) >> I suggest you go over your review and >> look for silly exaggerations like the carrying the horse number >> and excise them before you publish it though the net. Otherwise, >> publish away. Aside from your jumping to conclusions as to our >> motives, we have no problems with your problems. They are, after >> all, your problems. I published it in it's entire uncensored form. I will also be publishing a copy of your response, with your permission. Sincerely, Steven Maurer