Dare I ask?

[soltakss]

Originally Posted by frogspawner

(PS: I too would welcome any comment you care to make confirming the view that MRQ is the spawn of the Devil and his Mongoose biatches...)

I was actually after an unbiased opinion, so thanks for skewing it already.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by soltakss

I was actually after an unbiased opinion, so thanks for skewing it already.

It isn't skewed until Ray answers it. I would also be interested in Ray's view of things.

[RMS]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

There are two problems with this:

1. Most divine magic users didn't actually have the range of spells to be able to manage close to the boost output of a sorcerer; Slash and Crush weren't things everyone had available, for example, nor the divine attribute boosting spells.

Sure Slash, Crush, True Sword, etc. weren't available to everyone, but that isn't the point. The point is that they completely trump anything available to a sorcery user, straight up. Yes, the sorcerer has some flexibility but the fact is that they can't stand up in a straight fight against such characters. Also, the fact that anyone with a fair amount of those divine spells has an automatic divine intervention that the sorcerer completely lacks can't be underestimated. Also, while those spells aren't available to everyone, they're available to a disproportionate number of PC types. Heck, I don't even think those are the most powerful spell users in the game. The divine followers who also get to become a shaman, getting all the advantages of both can get truly gross pretty easily, but they're still fun. Even a basic shaman can wander around picking up some pretty power divine spells from various spirit cults, not to mention unparalleled access to very powerful otherworld creatures.

In addition, it's not like every sect has every single boosting spell (or similar deal) available. Those are as restricted to certain sects as spirit and divine magic is to certain cults. It's a GM/world problem, not a game problem, if sorcerers are allowed to pick up any and every spell listed without restrictions.

2. It was unlikely any of them had _enough_ of these to be able to produce the equivelent results on the equivelent targets, even _with_ Extension, because that just required a bloody awful lot of Divine Magic. The fact that it stacked with spirit magic didn't help much because one way or another, you couldn't typically have the spell up and recover it to the same degree a sorcerer could.

Of course they can't cause identical results, which is exactly the point of having different magic types. Sure it requires a lot of divine magic, but since it's against a sorcerer (apparently) with a lot of very high skills it seems like a wash there: same time and effort to get to that point. I'm not arguing that the sorcerer isn't powerful, isn't going to most likely be very broad in ability with a lot of options to bring to the table. However, the fact is (from a lot of experience here) that straight up a good number of divine magic users are more powerful. A sorcerer is inherently limited by their INT (max 18 for a human) in manipulations of a spell. A divine magic user has no limits to spell power outside of POW gain. In general, the sorcerer can trade off about 8/10 into intensity and duration to get the best longterm to level tradeoff. It's very easy to get divine magic that trumps that.

In practice it might have been possible to match or exceed the sorcerer, but it probably was only possible to an incredibly dedicated practioner of some specific cult with just the right combination of spells, and I'm not even sure such a cult existed in any published work (maybe one of the Gloranthan Lunar cults; I wouldn't want to say for sure). Even if it did, how often can you throw that sort of opponent at someone before it becomes obvious you've had to distort hell out of what opposition is available just to have a credible threat?

I can think of a dozen or so cults off the top of my head that can easily generate the list of divine magic to do this. That's just combat oriented cults. On a practical level, for the average person in the game world, there are a whole lot of nature affecting cults with very powerful magic that affect large areas or day-to-day lives in a way sorcery has no ability to affect at all. You shouldn't have to do anything special to create powerful divine users to challenge sorcerers. Of course, they shouldn't be the only challenges either. Powerful creatures, other sorcerers, etc. are also threats. In my longterm RQ campaigns (w/ very powerful characters), the threats and scale has generally escalated so that the characters are either being challenged by other "heroes", the characters are dealing with numbers, or often the character have ended up dealing more with political/leadership issues rather than one-on-one combats. However, we've had several very powerful sorcerers with significant support in the games, and in each case powerful divine users were able to deal with them. The only real issue at that kind of level is that combat tends to turn into "all or nothing": whoever penetrates the other's defenses first, deals a killing blow. (I'll reiterate here that the ability to get 1d10 DI is absolutely huge at this point.)

[raymond_turney]

To tell the truth, I did not much care about the decision to license the RQ name to Mongoose. When Mongoose came out with Mongoose RQ, it was what, 25+ years after we did RQ? RQ came out, it had its influence on RPG design; but GURPS was a worthy successor. I got my royalties, nothing lasts forever, life goes on.

Pendragon also had some good points, and Fire and Sword actually started in 1996-97 based on it. I had a system that was better than RQ for my purposes; other people with other purposes had different systems. Mongoose wants to bring out a system called RQ, fine with me. I have downloaded the PDF, and a few of the parts of Mongoose RQ will probably make it into the next version of Fire and Sword. Of course, some of Blue Rose may also make it into the next version of Fire and Sword.

I will note that to the extent that Mongoose bought the RQ name because it and its people wanted to recapture the feeling of the original RQ, that is a little flattering. People still like RQ after 30 years. Sadly, that is not a motivation likely to produce a good new system. You need an idea of what problems the old systems had that you want to solve, and why you adopt the solutions you do. Playtesting is fine, but you better think through what you are trying to do and how you plan to do it first. On the other hand, I have never played Mongoose RQ, probably never will, and for all I know it is great.

So I'd say, forget about the arguments of the system people {obviously Fire and Sword is the best:-)}. What do you want? I moved back to D20 from D100 because I'd noticed that Pendragon combat was a lot faster than RQ. I did not care about the ability of SCAers to visualize combat, and it was more important to get the fight over in time to break for dinner than to track strike ranks and hit locations. We often do fights of 10-20 a side, and on at least one occasion had 131 monsters versus 40 PC's and followers - and the fights end in an afternoon {a very long afternoon for that last}. D100 offers finer granularity, and if you have a use for the finer granularity that compensates for the fact that reading 600 die rolls is pretty likely to take longer than reading 300; D100 or even D1000 might be right for you.

Likewise, character classes had more merit than we thought when we wrote RQ. If your players stick fairly closely to traditional fantasy archetypes, and have strong character concepts at the beginning which do not change much; character classes can be very good. Over the years, I've had some characters with less definition than you got when you wrote down cleric for the class in D&D first edition. It's a price that I think worth paying, because my characters often start to take shape after they have been run a bit and a few decisions have been made. In RQ {and Fire and Sword} characters can evolve. But I have had a few characters that never evolved into anything; this is definitely a cost of abandoning character classes.

Sorry about the sermonizing, but whether or not a set of rules is good can only be figured out after you have decided on what you want.

So please look at the new rules offered in Fire and Sword and see if they are right for you. Adopting a carefully chosen few will probably enhance your BRP {or Mongoose RQ} game. If your purposes resemble mine, F&S might be a better starting point for your game than either BRP or Mongoose RQ.

Originally Posted by soltakss

I am going to be very cheeky here, so forgive me if I overstep any marks or boundaries.

Ray Turney is one of the authors of the original RQ and I would like to ask Ray a question.

What do you think of the fact that Issaries has licensed Mongoose to make a new version of RQ?

Several people on this forum have expressed the idea that such a move is very disrepectful to the original authors.

As one of the otiginal authors, I would love to know your views/opinions on this?

Of course, you are quite welcome to say "No comment" and we would understand.

[TRose]

One thing as pointed out above was what spell limit did the game put on the sorcerer? Take both summon and control spells. Its pretty much up to each GM to decide what summon spells and control spells that player Sorcerers have access to. For example I would not allow anyone in Glorantha to just summon a Dryad even if its one of the examples in the book , if for no other reason then any Sorcerer knowing such a spell would have to deal with an Army of elves and elf friends showing up at his doorsteps. Same with elementals. Elementals in my opinion where the subject of Various Gods and such Gods took a dim view of Sorcerers enslaving their subjects. So if you really want to bind that Air elemental that has Property of Urox stamped on his forehead, be my guest, he might not notice this time.
And as for control spells. I did have control Human spell around but the powers that be kept it pretty much under control and knowing it with out government approval was a felony in itself. Its always been my belief that any where sorcery is practice, the government is going to keep an eye on Sorcerers and have Sorcerers of its own to do the watching . And as many powerful Sorcerers would be high up in government( If not in control) and high up on the economic ladder ,they would have a vested interest in making sure lower level sorcerers dont muck up things.

[Atgxtg]

Thanks for the view "though you eyes" Ray,

Its nice to see what a designer is thinking. Often gamers looking at rules try to figure out what the designer was thinking/intended and statements like that are very helpful.

[Lord Twig]

Originally Posted by soltakss

Ray Turney is one of the authors of the original RQ and I would like to ask Ray a question.

What do you think of the fact that Issaries has licensed Mongoose to make a new version of RQ?

Several people on this forum have expressed the idea that such a move is very disrepectful to the original authors.

First I want to thank Ray for replying to the question. It was certainly a very well reasoned and reasonable response. Of course there will be no "best" game system, all there will ever be is what is best for you and your group.

As to the original question, for me it was not so much Mongoose showing disrespect for the original authors as it was a shady way of publishing a rule set that belonged to someone else without paying them for it. That is to say, Chaosium still owns the copyright to the RuneQuest rules, but Mongoose isn't paying them a thing for it. Instead they are paying Greg Stafford for the trademarked RuneQuest name and making "The same game with different copyrighted words".

Let me state that I don't think Matt Sprange or Mongoose is evil or anything. I also don't think they 'have it in' for Chaosium. Most likely they just want to make games that people will like and buy. They have a well know strategy of buying licenses for settings and old games and using them to bring in customers. If they would just put a little more effort into making quality games they would probably be even more successful than they already are.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by soltakss

I was actually after an unbiased opinion, so thanks for skewing it already.

Soz. But I didn't really think Mr Turney's considerations would be swayed by my half-baked, half-jocular thruppence-ha'penny worth.

[Kyle Aaron]

And so, with 87 replies to my question, we have established that Mongoose suxxorz.

We have not, however, learned how MRQ differs from ARQ/RQ3.

That was my first question on these forums. Oh well.

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by Kyle Aaron

And so, with 87 replies to my question, we have established that Mongoose suxxorz.

We have not, however, learned how MRQ differs from ARQ/RQ3.

That was my first question on these forums. Oh well.

I take it you haven't actually read any of those 87 posts, then. Or, any of the 135 other posts which Triff referred you to as answer to your initial question:

BRP vs. MRQ & the OGL

Perhaps if it's still unclear, you could download the Mongoose RQ SRD - it's free. It'd be quicker to read that and make your own mind up rather than making snide criticisms...

Indeed, as you say, oh well.