Since I was there, let me note that RQ had a number of design objectives:
a) to adopt a simple, reasonably simple rule mechanic, in which people thought of skills, not "character classes", to replace the arbitrary character class system.
b) to create a combat system where the SCAers {I wasn't in the SCA, but the other three had all been king of the Northern California region at some point} could actually visualize combat. That was what led to the relatively complex system of strike ranks and hit locations
c) to bring monsters into the same system as humans, so they could be played
d) to create a system with multiple magic systems, so that choice of magic system would devolve to the player not the GM, and to let everyone run a magic user {everyone I ever knew wanted to play a magic user, this made for unbalanced parties, I just wanted to give people what they seemed to want}. This objective was important to me, but I doubt it was important to the others.
e) To write a set of rules which were well enough written so that people from different groups who got together at conventions would not have to spend an hour learning the rules set the GM used. In the early D&D days, there were an amaing number of interoperability problems created by the fact that 1st edition D&D was a great idea, but it was so badly written that people from different groups were likely to be in effect playing different games. This was a big deal to Steve Perrin and the DunDracon committee, if only because they ended up hearing complaints from frustrated players about this problem, who assumed that the DM's reading of the rules was wrong and their character should not have been killed:-).
f) To give Greg the set of rules he wanted, since Glorantha had very little Tolkien influence the rules needed to be different from traditional High Fantasy.
These objectives had little to do with rolling D100 instead of D20; in fact I'm convinced that rolling one die rather than two speeds up the game, so going to D100 was probably a mistake. I now think the best compromise between minimizing the number of dice you have to roll and read and maximizing granularity is probably D30; but my house system Fire and Sword {available as a PDF on this site, which I encourage people to look at} uses D20 most of the time. D100 vs D20 in a system was a relatively minor issue then, and I'm inclined to think it is not a big deal now.
The current version of AD&D is an interesting offering, in some ways closer to RQ I than to D&D first edition. It might not be what you want, but some of the design objectives of RQ I are in my view met by 3,5 D&D and Forgotten Realms; possibly better than they were met in RQ I.
- Ray
Quote:
Originally Posted by Enpeze
Well, maybe you are right, but was the intention to create RQ not because of beeing unsatisfied with the D&D rule system? And after RQ release Perrin and his companions abandoned D&D completely, no?
AFAIK Mongoose has never been stated to be unsatisfied with d20. And I am sure a lot of them are still favoring this awful rule system for their private games. Thats why I said the Mongoose guys are coming from a "different roleplaying culture" than RQ and are still embraced by it.
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