So what do you folks think of the MRQ2 game system?

[cthulhudarren]

This board has a rep as being mostly haters, but I'd enjoy hearing some thoughts on the Mongoose RQ 2 system. The various magic systems are a lot better than the game was in the 80s.

[Judging__Eagle]

Not really haters. Just super critical.

I mean.... as much as we hate the bullshit lies propogated the developers of say, 4th edition D&D; it's not like 4th edition D&D doesn't have important mechanics to apply to other games. The ideas of tiered powers, and the discussion of character "roles" are actually good things. A lot of us don't like how they were mishandled in 4e, but the system brings those game ideas to light.

[fectin]

Is there a place it's available online? I'm not familiar and don't have a dead tree source nearby.

[PhoneLobster]

A lot of us don't like how they were mishandled in 4e, but the system brings those game ideas to light.

I've said it of 4e, Saga Edition and d20Modern.

Sometimes a bad game is so bad it takes good ideas and gives them a bad reputation.

The executions of several good sounding ideas in those games are so incredibly bad they make me have second thoughts about how good those ideas were in the first place.

It's kinda sad really. I mean. I never really had the chance to like Action Points... I might have managed to...

[cthulhudarren]

Is there a place it's available online? I'm not familiar and don't have a dead tree source nearby.

Nah, I don't think so, not for free anyway.

[Username17]

Personally, I live in Eastern Europe, and it is super hard for me to get my hands on physical copies of new books. I have not even seen a Mongoose Rune Quest book. So I'm going to take everything that people say about the system in reviews like this one pretty much at face value.

According to that guy, almost all of the shitty late 70s design sensibilities remain. For fuck's sake, roll under? Randomized character advancement? Fumble charts? What the fuck?

Apparently they fixed the part of the game where you were literally encouraged to role play out training montages, but in general it seems to be the same crappy game from the 70s. Rune Quest was a clunky, crappy system in 1981, it's still going to be exactly that in 2011 unless someone does a huge overhaul on it.

-Username17

[cthulhudarren]

Personally, I live in Eastern Europe, and it is super hard for me to get my hands on physical copies of new books. I have not even seen a Mongoose Rune Quest book. So I'm going to take everything that people say about the system in reviews like this one pretty much at face value.

According to that guy, almost all of the shitty late 70s design sensibilities remain. For fuck's sake, roll under? Randomized character advancement? Fumble charts? What the fuck?

Apparently they fixed the part of the game where you were literally encouraged to role play out training montages, but in general it seems to be the same crappy game from the 70s. Rune Quest was a clunky, crappy system in 1981, it's still going to be exactly that in 2011 unless someone does a huge overhaul on it.

-Username17

My group loved the system back in 81! It was a lot better than ADnD. We didn't like the abstract HPs.

What's wrong with rolling under? If I have a 75% chance, why not roll under 75 on d100? It's easy.

I don't understand what you mean by random advancement. Instead of XP, you get a number of enhancement rolls. You can choose what to improve, and the amount of percentage points you get depends on a skill check.

BTW, the magic system is the biggest difference. It really sucked in the original game, but is very interested now. Divine magic requires lots of role-playing.

[Username17]

My group loved the system back in 81! It was a lot better than ADnD. We didn't like the abstract HPs.

Everyone with any self respect in 1981 played a constantly adapting homebrew, where th fact that the game system was riddled with flaws could be constantly addressed by shifting goalposts. The fact that AD&D as printed was also shitty doesn't make Arduin or Runequest a magical wonderland of clever design choices.

What's wrong with rolling under? If I have a 75% chance, why not roll under 75 on d100? It's easy.

It's mathematically exactly the same as Roll-Over with your skill and modifiers added to your die roll and an immovable target number of 100. But it's procedurally inferior because opposed rolls and degree of success are harder to calculate. Also it is much more difficult to add secret modifiers for situations that the Player doesn't know about when attempting an action.

This is the 21st fucking century. The fact that THAC0 and other double-negative systems work at all doesn't mean that they aren't shitty and outdated. Things that can be converted to positive numbers should be.

I don't understand what you mean by random advancement. Instead of XP, you get a number of enhancement rolls. You can choose what to improve, and the amount of percentage points you get depends on a skill check.

That would be a random advancement system, yes.

BTW, the magic system is the biggest difference. It really sucked in the original game, but is very interested now. Divine magic requires lots of role-playing.

We are on the same page as regards the fact that the magic system in old Rune Quest sucked monkey dick. However, telling the players to magical teaparty their cleric's interaction with their god doesn't really solve anything. Basically you're telling the people who bought your game that you don't know whether and can't figure out how to balance the divine spellcasting, so the players have to wing it. That isn't really a system at all.

-Username17

[cthulhudarren]

This is the 21st fucking century. The fact that THAC0 and other double-negative systems work at all doesn't mean that they aren't shitty and outdated. Things that can be converted to positive numbers should be.

That would be a random advancement system, yes.

We are on the same page as regards the fact that the magic system in old Rune Quest sucked monkey dick. However, telling the players to magical teaparty their cleric's interaction with their god doesn't really solve anything. Basically you're telling the people who bought your game that you don't know whether and can't figure out how to balance the divine spellcasting, so the players have to wing it. That isn't really a system at all.

-Username17

I am a fan of "random" advancement then. You improve what you want. Personally I would only allow improvements to skills that were actually used. So MRQ2 is not perfect at all, house rules are needed. I haven't played a system where they weren't needed.

What you are describing for Divine magic isn't correct, the mechanical aspects of casting are not improvised. The role-playing is involved with learning new spells and advancing in the cults. The system works.

Balance is another question altogether.

[Username17]

I am a fan of "random" advancement then.

Ugh. It's very 1970s. Also: not good.

There are lots of forms of random advancement, and random skill advancement is amongst the worst. Random advancement pretty much by definition causes discrepancies between the increase in power level of one character and another. That's fine for a roleplay heavy boardgame like Arkham Horror that will be over and done with in one evening whether anyone gets screwed or not, but it's pretty shitty for a game you're supposed to play for weeks or months or years. Some forms of random advancement have the capacity to "even out" - like found magic items in AD&D. Sure the fighter who gets the +3 Longsword at 2nd level is going to be awesome, but in the long run you also find awesome shit that goes to other players like robes of eyes. But random skill advancement doesn't do that. If you roll poorly on some skill advancements that's just that, the other players can't and won't comp you down the line with the next big skill advancement roll.

This is the 21st century. Even D&D finally figured out that random hit point rolls and stat assignments were stupid.

Personally I would only allow improvements to skills that were actually used.

So far I have discovered one unambiguous concession to table top gaming theory advances in the last 30 years in the descriptions of the new RQII. And that is the fact that they got rid of the inane requirement that you roleplay out your character's training montages. And you want to put that back in? What the fuck man?

What you are describing for Divine magic isn't correct, the mechanical aspects of casting are not improvised. The role-playing is involved with learning new spells and advancing in the cults.

Uh... so that stuff you said about needing to roleplay for divine magic actually isn't true at all and there isn't anything hard coded there at all.

The system works.

That is a bare assertion that will not be accepted without evidence. What does the system actually do. I don't mean "does it have roleplaying hooks you personally find appealing?" Nor do I mean "are the pieces of flavor text on the magical effects well written?" Those are important, but they actually have fuck-all to do with whether the system works.

The old Chaosium magic system was a sheep bladder full of rat feces, and the descriptions from you and that guy I linked to don't highlight any meaningful differences.

-Username17

[Prak]

Is there a place it's available online? I'm not familiar and don't have a dead tree source nearby.

Nah, I don't think so, not for free anyway.

no, even torrent doesn't have the current stuff. It's notoriously difficult to find.

As regards the magic in runequest, the spells probably aren't any more or less balanced than most other systems'. The magical tea party roleplaying comes in when you want to get a new spell, since you aren't carrying around the grimoire you cast from, or anything, really, for the non-sorcery types. Deists hit up the temple and pray for their spells (literally. Sane gms let you just pick so long as you can cast the spells by the rules. Different deities have different spell lists), shamans go find some crazy hermit and do shit for them all karate kid style and learn a new spell from them. Sorcerers find another sorcerer that knows the same grimoire, when they don't have to learn another grimoire (which is another skill you have to learn and improve, unless you're part of a setting specific society). Magic in runequest is a pain, but it's saving grace is that anyone can go learn it.

Uh... so that stuff you said about needing to roleplay for divine magic actually isn't true at all and there isn't anything hard coded there at all.

Just in spell acquisition, as mentioned above.

So far I have discovered one unambiguous concession to table top gaming theory advances in the last 30 years in the descriptions of the new RQII. And that is the fact that they got rid of the inane requirement that you roleplay out your character's training montages. And you want to put that back in? What the fuck man?

Usually it's not really roleplaying out training montages, just a simple "ok, I'm going to go practice swording outside with my downtime." and you get to roll for advancement at the end of the session.

Now the randomized advancement is bullshit. Especially for people like me who usually roll the complete opposite of what they need. It's really shitty to need to advance your skill because you keep rolling over your rating, but never be able to because you roll under it when trying to advance (when rolling to advance a skill, you need to actually fail a skill roll. Guess what happens 90% of the time when I try to advance.)

That is a bare assertion that will not be accepted without evidence. What does the system actually do. I don't mean "does it have roleplaying hooks you personally find appealing?" Nor do I mean "are the pieces of flavor text on the magical effects well written?" Those are important, but they actually have fuck-all to do with whether the system works.

well, the game I played in was fairly stable until we got into some of the higher tier stuff with hero-questing (second only to Mage in "We're going to let you do anything you can get past your gm" capabilities).

[cthulhudarren]

Prak got it correct, as far as how I see it. Except I don't mind the advancement system.

[TheFlatline]

The problem is that the advancement system isn't predictible, especially for power levels. Which is stupid when you're expected to actually oppose monsters.

It works sort of okay in something like Call of Cthulhu because even if you have max'd out stats, you're only going to be actually capable of standing up to the very minor most minions. You're expected to run away, freak out, or drop a fucking car on anything else.

So if you have one person rolling shitty consistently for their advances and one person who rolls awesome, you're going to eventually have wildly different power levels, which is fucking shit.

From a player standpoint, unequal rewards for equal effort for something as long term as character development is a fucked up relic from the early days of RPGs.

Edit: Oh dear god it's based on the Chaosium system? Yeah, this is a terribad system. It only worked for CoC because while you occupy power levels in the range of 1-10, most bad guys you were going to face was "over 9000". It didn't matter if you rolled a ten or a two on advancement, you're still fucked.

[cthulhudarren]

The problem is that the advancement system isn't predictible, especially for power levels. Which is stupid when you're expected to actually oppose monsters.

It works sort of okay in something like Call of Cthulhu because even if you have max'd out stats, you're only going to be actually capable of standing up to the very minor most minions. You're expected to run away, freak out, or drop a fucking car on anything else.

So if you have one person rolling shitty consistently for their advances and one person who rolls awesome, you're going to eventually have wildly different power levels, which is fucking shit.

From a player standpoint, unequal rewards for equal effort for something as long term as character development is a fucked up relic from the early days of RPGs.

It's easy enough to house-rule a skill % bump if you want.

The system DOES need some house rules, for example: recovering from fatigue takes two hours to advance one step on the fatigue track. If you start swinging a sword in combat you can get fatigued in relatively few rounds but by the rules it takes 2 hours to recover. That is retarded.

[hogarth]

So if you have one person rolling shitty consistently for their advances and one person who rolls awesome, you're going to eventually have wildly different power levels, which is fucking shit.

That wasn't my experience with Stormbringer, Ringworld or Call of Cthulhu (I never played RQ). Generally, you started off pretty competent at your favourite abilities and rarely got much better. More often you would improve at something you sucked at, but who cares? You would still mostly suck at it.

[cthulhudarren]

So if you have one person rolling shitty consistently for their advances and one person who rolls awesome, you're going to eventually have wildly different power levels, which is fucking shit.

That wasn't my experience with Stormbringer, Ringworld or Call of Cthulhu (I never played RQ). Generally, you started off pretty competent at your favourite abilities and rarely got much better. More often you would improve at something you sucked at, but who cares? You would still mostly suck at it.

Can you improve your stats in those games? In MRQ2, you can increase stats by spending improvement rolls equal to your current score (up to racial max). If, say, your CHA is 10 and you want to go to 11, you spend 10 improvement rolls. BTW, You typically get 3 improvement rolls per adventure. Improving your stats effects all your skills associated with it.

[hogarth]

Ah...I thought you were just talking about improving skills. I don't think you could improve your stats in Ringworld or Call of Cthulhu. I remember that you could increase (or decrease) your POW score in Stormbringer (at least), but I don't remember how it worked.

[cthulhudarren]

Ah...I thought you were just talking about improving skills. I don't think you could improve your stats in Ringworld or Call of Cthulhu. I remember that you could increase (or decrease) your POW score in Stormbringer (at least), but I don't remember how it worked.

You can also acquire new "advanced" skills. Anyway, I don't mean to say that MRQ2 is the best system or anything, but I certainly think it's better than 3.x and 4E.

Is there a FRPG system that is loved around here? Or all they all irreparably broken?

[JigokuBosatsu]

Is there a FRPG system that is loved around here? Or all they all irreparably broken?

That's the big question, isn't it?

[hogarth]

Is there a FRPG system that is loved around here? Or all they all irreparably broken?

If there's a perfect RPG out there, I haven't heard of it yet.

Note that having a large number of threads talking about a particular game is generally a sign that the game is popular, not that it's unpopular.

[DMReckless]

Oh, and Charisma has been made into the most important stat of the game; High Charisma means you get more chances to advance, while low Charisma means you get less.

So, for instance, if your Charisma is 13 or better, each time the GM gives you advancement rolls, you get 1 extra. If it's 6 or less, you get 1 less than everyone else each time (it gets better once you get past 18 Cha).

So basically, at 13 or better you get 33% more experience than everyone else, and 100% more than the ugly people (based on the suggested average award of 3 advancement rolls.)

Because you're better at begging people to train you. The uggos have to train on their own without help.

Intelligence doesn't figure into it at all.

Chew on that.

[DMReckless]

RE: Degree of success

Frank, in RQ2 they have eliminated some of the math regarding degree of success: If two opposing forces roll the same level of success, the one that rolled highest wins.

So, if you have a 75% chance and your opponent has a 35% chance, and you roll a 12 and he rolls a 27, he wins. Note, I didn't say they fixed the math, just eliminated some of it. (You would get a critical success on 8 or less, him on 4 or less, so if you rolled an 8 and he rolled a 27, you would win, due to the higher degree of success.)

I'm going to running some RQ2 to get a break from Pathfinder for a few sessions. I may post other discoveries here for amusement's sake.

[Prak]

Actually I think it's whoever rolls closest to their rating wins. So one who rolls a 27 under 75 (diff48) vrs one who rolls a 12 under 35 (diff23), the 75% actually loses because their success wasn't as good as the one who has 35%.

Yeah, roll under systems are weird.

[DMReckless]

nope,

In an opposed test both partipants roll their respective skills. The winner of the test is the one who gains the higher level of success; if both participants have the same level of success, then the winner is the one with the higher dice roll within his skill range. If both fail then a stalemate has occured, forcing the opposed test to be rolled again at a later point.

It goes on to give an example 75 stealth vs. 60 perception with respective rolls of 71 to 59 in favor of stealth and 54 to 59 being in favor on perception.

Another example is given where a 35% skill acrobatics check gets a 2 and is a critical, beating out a normal success on a 95% skill acrobatics competitor.

The other interesting types of tests are Team Tests, Sorting Tests, and Large Group tests. In Team tests, you roll once trying to get under the best person's score; success or failure of the whole team hinges on that one roll. In Sorting tests, you still only roll once, and anyone whose skill is higher than that roll succeeds and anyone under it fails.

In Large Group tests, you just assume the percentage of the skill is the percentage of the group that succeeded. The example given is 100 brigands with a 75% swim chance tries swimming across a river near a waterfall and so 25 of them fall off the waterfall while 75 make it across (pity the Bandit group who only have a 10% swim skill)

[Prak]

it's fucking confusing. I can't remember how many times we had to check in my group...