SimpleQuest Zero Edition

[Newt]

Howdo

Just in time for Continuum, here is SimpleQuest Zero edition!

Basically this is a pre-release, with the main core rules (Chapters
one - nine) missing the Creatures, Setting and Adventure chapters (all
in various stages of completion) and art work using a very basic DTP
format.

Go grab it off the d101games.co.uk site

The final edition should be out Sept/Oct again as a free PDF and as a print on demand version from lulu.com

[Trifletraxor]

Great! Will you be running it at Continuum?

SGL.

[Newt]

Oh yess!

Myself and Neil Ford will be running the following over the weekend.

Life and Death
A SimpleQuest game for six players by Newt Newport

Miraz the Golden is sees itself inheritor of the old Lion Empire. It is an oppressive military police state which seeks to dominate its neighbours. Some say the wrath of the gods has been brought down because of its hubris and it is currently stricken by a plague. Its Tyrant looks on from his remote palace as the victims of the plague shuffle round the streets as newly risen zombies. While his heirs fight amongst themselves to see who will succeed their father, when he is toppled by the rebellion that is fermenting in the streets.

Into this madness step the adventurers out to make a fortune and a name for themselves.

Dead Pot County
A SimpleQuest game for six players by Newt Newport

Some Merchant's son got lost in the BadLands. Perhaps in the worst part of this desolate wilderness, Dead Pot County. A place crawling with the hungry dead of a long dead civilisation and terrors much worse!

Good job there's a large reward for the return of the lad and the chance to pick up all that treasure buried with the deadies!.

SimpleQuest is a D100 Fantasy game, based upon BRP/RuneQuest.

Times

Deadpot Country: Friday afternoon 2pm, Saturday morning 10pm Sunday morning 10am
Life and Death: Saturday afternoon 2pm, Sunday afternoon 2pm

[deleriad]

Nice work. I haven't had a chance to look over much of it yet but I do like the way you've simplified the skills list in an attempt to make every skill impoart. The things I've noticed are:

you have either removed the throwing skill but forgot to remove references to it in the weapon skills or you've accidentally omitted Throwing. Personally I would include throwing in athletics and treat athletics as the "olympics track and field" skill.

You don't seem to have an acrobatics skill. You might be using characteristic rolls though I haven't actually seen them yet. If you are not, I think you probably do need it as it is good to differentiate between runners and gymnasts. If not, you probably need to indicate how to resolve things like balancing, squeezing through small spaces and so on.

Unarmed - this is mentioned in the combat skills table but not actually defined as far as I can see. Technically it should be a basic skill. It might make sense to call it "Brawling" and use it to include any sort of unarmed attack, grapple or act of picking up rocks and hitting people with them. It's a simplification that works for me.

Grappling: there appears to be a missing table or the descriptions are fu-barred.

Hope this is useful.

[deleriad]

Battle Magic: you could fairly easily simplify this further.
For example:
all spells with a limited duration have the same duration (either a fixed amount such as 10 minutes or equal to the caster's POW).
Make all spells ranged. After all, the idea is to keep things simple and keep extraneous information off the sheet.
All spells are progressive unless otherwise stated and are Magnitude one unless otherwise stated. It means that you can make the spell descriptions much cleaner.

So, for example Bladesharp would read
Bladesharp
This spell can be cast on any weapon with a blade. For every point of Magnitude, it increases the chance to hit with the weapon by +10% and deals
one point of extra damage. ...

Befuddle
Fixed Magnitude 2, Resist (Persistence).

You also might have a problem with spells like Coordination that add bonuses to characteristics which break the big modifier rule. E.g. Coordination 1 adds +2% to all combat skills (except, oddly, unarmed...) They go against the ethos of your system.

[AikiGhost]

As regards bladesharp. I've always wondered what the logic behind having separate spells to enhance the damage of sharp weapons and bludgeoning weapons was, it is supposed to be magic. Id just wrap them all up into a single "Damage Boost" or "Magic Weapon" spell.

[DirkD]

The rules look good at first glance.

Some observations regarding the document-style:
- Is it possible that you didn't use Heading 1-5 for the chapter- and section-headings? You often have column-breaks between the heading and the section (and that shouldn't be the case if you used headings instead of just changing the font.)
- Table-headings are sometimes bold and sometimes normal and sometimes they end with a dot.
(It's generally a good idea to define headings for every type needed in the document and use them consistently.)
- I would use a little bit more space between the line at the top of the document and the text. It looks a bit like the header and footer are pressing the text-body together.

[Newt]

you have either removed the throwing skill but forgot to remove references to it in the weapon skills or you've accidentally omitted Throwing. Personally I would include throwing in athletics and treat athletics as the "olympics track and field" skill.

Yup I've removed Throwing - in 20 odd years of running RQ/BRP I've never had need to use it. But like an idiot I've not removed the references to it! I like your idea and will fold it into Athletics.

You don't seem to have an acrobatics skill. You might be using characteristic rolls though I haven't actually seen them yet. If you are not, I think you probably do need it as it is good to differentiate between runners and gymnasts. If not, you probably need to indicate how to resolve things like balancing, squeezing through small spaces and so on.

Acrobatics is included in Athletics. Dodge almost went the same way on the suggestion of another reviewer, but I thought this would make the skill too powerful.

Unarmed - this is mentioned in the combat skills table but not actually defined as far as I can see. Technically it should be a basic skill. It might make sense to call it "Brawling" and use it to include any sort of unarmed attack, grapple or act of picking up rocks and hitting people with them. It's a simplification that works for me.

Grappling: there appears to be a missing table or the descriptions are fu-barred.

Opps. I'll have to put Unarmed back in under Basic Skills.

Where's the reference to the Grapple table. I thought I had purged all mention of it. Thanks for highlighting this. I had a tough time sorting out the Grappling rules, and it appears they are still borked.

Hope this is useful.

Definatly. Pure driven gold. This is why I released Zero Edition.

[Newt]

Battle Magic: you could fairly easily simplify this further.
For example:
all spells with a limited duration have the same duration (either a fixed amount such as 10 minutes or equal to the caster's POW).
Make all spells ranged. After all, the idea is to keep things simple and keep extraneous information off the sheet.
All spells are progressive unless otherwise stated and are Magnitude one unless otherwise stated. It means that you can make the spell descriptions much cleaner.

So, for example Bladesharp would read
Bladesharp
This spell can be cast on any weapon with a blade. For every point of Magnitude, it increases the chance to hit with the weapon by +10% and deals
one point of extra damage. ...

Befuddle
Fixed Magnitude 2, Resist (Persistence).

I like this idea, personally I find all the fiddly spell traits a bit much. I'll take this on board for the final version.

You also might have a problem with spells like Coordination that add bonuses to characteristics which break the big modifier rule. E.g. Coordination 1 adds +2% to all combat skills (except, oddly, unarmed...) They go against the ethos of your system.

Another exception to point out in the aside on p56, OR such Characteristic boosting spells only give the immediate big benefit - for example Coordination 1 would only give a +1 to DEX, handy in a fight, and not the +2% to Dex based skills.

[Newt]

As regards bladesharp. I've always wondered what the logic behind having separate spells to enhance the damage of sharp weapons and bludgeoning weapons was, it is supposed to be magic. Id just wrap them all up into a single "Damage Boost" or "Magic Weapon" spell.

Its a kind of a historical one from RQ1/2, different named spells differentiated between different cultures, since weapons were/are very culturally based in Glorantha. So your Troll warrior wielded a Troll maul with Bludgeon 2 on it and a Human warrior had his sword with Bladesharp 2 on it. Both spells do exact the same thing, but having them separate means that the Troll can't just pick up a sword and be a badass with it, because both his cultural skill and magic wouldn't let him.

I understand your point, since this is the route RQ Sorcery and Savage Worlds, whose no nonsense cut the flab philosophy was a big influence on SQ,
takes, but I've left it in so SQ is compatible with historical and current versions of BRP/RQ.