[Rq-rules] Playing Using MRQ Rules

[Simon Phipp]

Lev Lafayette:
  
> Attempted Topic:
> 
> Seeming that the MRQ list is in the
> inactive/non-existent phase, is there anyone on this
> list who has used or is using the rules?

  Well, I started off my current RQ campaign using the MRQ V1.4 rules with every intention of working the rules to the death and getting the bugs out. I think we used the full rules for two sessions, then dropped half of the rules in favour of RQ3, then dropped another quarter or so.
   
  We are currently using RQ3 with some things from MRQ. We use the new experience rules, heavily adapted Spirit Magic/Runes and combat options. I'm not particularly impressed with combat options, but my players like them.
   
  All in all, the last version of MRQ I saw was held together with bubblegum and wasn't really playable. I hope it has improved as I intend to buy it when it comes out and I don't really want to be wasting my pennies.
   
  Had the rules been playable, we would have stuck with them, but I had several player revolts against them.
   
  I won't go into specifics, as the old version is now obselete and it would be worthless to complain about it.
   
  Using parts of the MRQ rules, I have noticed a few niggles. 
   
  We use the Combat Options, which allow people to do more in combat than they could before. One option is to aim for a location, another is to aim to ignore armour. Aiming for a location is fine, but I prefer to use SR delays to move the location die. Aiming to ignore armour is potentially campaign destroying. At the moment, our group of 50%-70% PCs can pretty much take out foes with any armour, given time, just by ignoring armour. They went up against a group of Rhino Broos (6 point skin and 6 point rhino cuirboilli) and went through them like a hot knife through butter. In older versions of RQ, giving something a lot of armour seemed to work when you wanted to give the PCs a challenge or slow them down a bit, now that doesn't happen. Maybe I'll get some NPCs to ignore the PCs' armour and show them what it is like.
   
  Experience works very well, a lot better than in RQ2 or RQ3, although we haven't reached post-100% skills yet. We combined Hero Points and Experience Points rather than having two sets of points and never looked back.
   
  Hero Points also work very well, with players using them to:
  1. Reroll failed attacks/parries or NPCs' criticals
  2. Reroll low damage rolls or NPCs' high damage rolls
  3. Reroll failed experience rolls, especially POW gain rolls
  4. Automatically succeed in a skill that only just failed (within 10% of the skill)
   
  They haven't used Hero Points to alter plot points or make things happen, yet, but they will. It brings some of the flexibility of HeroQuest to RQ and makes it a far more flexible and dynamic game. Apparently, they want something similar in DBRP but it doesn't work the same way and doesn't look half as useful.
   
  As for magic, we are using Divine Magic pretty much from RQ3, but we do have a pool or Presence, the concept taken from MRQ but used differently. So, someone with Shield 3 and Orlanth Presence 10 could cast Shield 3 but use Presence instead, thus being able to cast Shield 3 a number of times. We are using the idea of Runes based loosely on MRQ, but made to work. You can collect Runes, attuning a Rune costs 1 POW (no roll), this gives you a Runecasting Skill for that Rune that is used to cast Spirit Magic belonging to that Rune. There are no variable spells, all spells take 1 INT to store and can be manipulated using the Runecasting skill and the number of Runes of that type possessed by the PC. So, you could cast Bladesharp 10 if you had a high enough Runecasting or enough Death Runes, for instance. Spirit Magic spells are tied to Runes, but I am being flexible, so Disruption could be tied to Death, Air, Fire or whatever. Sorcery uses a similar mechanism to Spirit Magic,
 but is not Runic, relying on Arts instead, but nobody in the campaign uses sorcery so it hasn't come up.
   
  The players seem to prefer this approach as they can cast more powerful spells without spending fortunes on buying the spells. It is a heavy drain on Magic Points, though, and they are spending a lot of POW on runes, although I give them a POW Tick if they attune a rune. They are routinely casting Spirit Shield 6, Disruption 6 and Bladesharp 4-6 and the trainee shaman has even made a Spirit Shield 4 matrix herself. Of course, they moan about having to pay 1000L for a Rune and 2000L for a spell, but they moan about everything.
   
  So, MRQ was unplayable, but some parts of it were useful. Hopefully, the new version will be both playable and useful.
   
  See Ya
  
Simon
   
   
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