At Arm's Length: the RPG

[cubist]

Once again, Cubist here. Continuing to ponder the rolegame's skill system (and the rolegame's googledoc continues to be available for all to read and comment on).

This time around, I'm going to translate RuneQuest's skills to their equivalents in the AAL rule-set. Since RQ has gone through a number of different editions from various publishers, I should mention that I'm working with the recent Mongoose Publishing edition (as opposed to the original Chaosium edition or whatever else).

In Mongoose RQ, skills come in two major classes: There are "basic" skills, which every character has just for being alive, and there are "advanced" skills, which are only available to characters of an appropriate Profession and/or Cultural Background. There are also "magic" skills, which are pretty much a numerically-small subset of advanced skills. The RQ notion of basic skills corresponds to what the Hero System rule-set calls "everyman" skills. Whether you call these skills "basic", or "everyman", or "late for dinner", Cubist rather likes this notion…

Anyway, here's the Mongoose RQ skill list, with the equivalent skills in the AAL rule-set. In cases where the RQ skill is explicitly defined as granting bonuses in more areas than any one AAL skill covers, all the relevant AAL skills are listed; in cases where no AAL skill does the job, but some other AAL game mechanic will serve, that game mechanic is listed.

RuneQuest skill	RQ class	AAL equivalent
Artistic Expression	A	Craft (various)
Athletics	B	Motion (various), Body Control (various)
Boating	B	Drive/Pilot (Boats)
Close Combat Weapons	A	Combat (various weapons)
Courtesy	A	Diplomacy (Etiquette)
Craft	A	Craft (various)
Dance	A	Perform (Dancing)
Disguise	A	Disguise
Dodge	B	Combat (Dodge)
Driving	B	Drive/Pilot (various land vehicles)
Enchanting	M	Craft (Magical Item)
Engineering	A	Craft (various), Repair (various), Sabotage, Utilize
Evaluate	B	Appraise
First Aid	B	Medicine (First Aid)
Healing	A	Medicine (various)
Influence	B	Bluff
Language	A	Speak Language (various)
Lore	ABM	Knowledge (various), Knowledge (specific theology)
Manipulation	M	Magic (various metamagic)
Martial Arts	A	Special Ability: Innate Weaponry, Combat (Parry)
Mechanisms	A	Sabotage, Lockpicking
Oratory	A	Diplomacy
Perception	B	Notice
Persistence	B	Focus
Play Instrument	A	Perform (various instruments)
Ranged Weapons	A	Combat (various weapons)
Resilience	B	No equivalent skill. If needed, roll against CN
Riding	B	Ride
Runecasting	M	Magic (various runes)
Shiphandling	A	Drive/Pilot (various big boats)
Sing	B	Perform (Singing)
Sleight	B	Sleight of Hand
Specific Sorcery Spell	M	Magic (specific spell)
Stealth	B	Stealth
Streetwise	A	Streetwise
Survival	A	Survival
Throwing	B	Combat (Thrown Weaponry)
Tracking	A	Survival (Tracking)
Unarmed	B	Combat (Unarmed Combat)
Weapon skills	A	Combat (various weapons)

[tazel]

Hey Cubist, it might not be a bad idea to see if people want to get together for a Skype session to test creating characters, running through test scenarios, etc. It would be informal, but convenient to get you some feedback. If you wish to run one, I'd be more than happy to join in as a tester. I unfortunately don't have the wherewithal to run it with my normal gaming group. I'm afraid they just wouldn't 'get' enchanters.

Tazel

[cubist]

Apr 23, 2016 11:29:48 GMT -5 tazel said:

Hey Cubist, it might not be a bad idea to see if people want to get together for a Skype session to test creating characters, running through test scenarios, etc. It would be informal, but convenient to get you some feedback. If you wish to run one, I'd be more than happy to join in as a tester. I unfortunately don't have the wherewithal to run it with my normal gaming group. I'm afraid they just wouldn't 'get' enchanters.

Skype? Not a bad idea. Anybody reading this who's interested in stress-testing this here RPG thingie, send me your Skype handle in a private email; my address is cubist at aol dot com, and let's see what we can cook up!

[cubist]

Cubist here with the least installment in the series of posts on the AAL rolegame, whose googledoc is right here. This time around, I'm going to focus on combat.

Like most other rolegames, the AAL rule-set believes in melee rounds. There are three kinds of actions a character can take in one MR.

A free action is considered to take no time at all. Players can perform as many free actions in a melee round as their GM lets them get away with. Dialogue is a free action. By default, a skill roll is a free action.

A normal action takes up half a melee round. A player can perform two normal actions in one melee round, plus however-many free actions. Moving half of your full MV is a normal action. Most combat maneuvers are normal actions.

A full-round action takes up the entire melee round. A player can perform 1 (one) full-round action in a melee round; a player cannot perform a full-round action plus a normal action in one melee round. As you might expect, a player can perform however-may free actions in the same round as one full-round action. Moving your full MV is a full-round action. If you take one melee round worth of extra time when making a skill roll, that skill roll is a full-round action. Some combat maneuvers are full-round actions.

Here's the list of available combat maneuvers, with some of the game-mechanical details:

Maneuver	Description	Game-mechanics
Hit	A simple attack; a punch, a kick, bashing 'em with your shield, whatever.	Normal action. No die-roll modifiers
Assault	An attack that puts extra effort into hurting the target.	Normal action. +10 to user's attack roll. Cannot use any defense maneuver in same melee round.
All-out Assault	Hurting the target takes precedence over self-preservation.	Full-round action. +20 to user's attack roll. -10 to user's defense. Cannot use any defense maneuver in same melee round.
Feint	Fake out the target.	Normal action. Roll Feint skill vs target's DX to create -10 penalty on the target's defense against all attacks the user makes in the same melee round.
Setup	Maneuver the target into leaving openings for everybody to exploit.	Full-round action. Roll Setup skill vs target's DX to create -10 penalty on the target's defense against all attacks anybody makes in the same melee round.
Dodge	Attack while making some effort to not be hit.	Normal action. User gets -5 on all attack rolls they make, and +5 on all defense rolls they make, in the same melee round.
Evade	When not getting hit is more important than making an attack.	Normal action. +10 on all defense rolls the user makes in the same melee round. Cannot use an attack maneuver in same melee round.
All-out Evade	Trying exceptionally hard to avoid getting hit.	Full-round action. +20 on all defense rolls the user makes in the same melee round. Cannot use an attack maneuver in same melee round.
Block	Incoming attack hits whichever implement was used to block it, not the user.	Normal action. Make standard attack roll w/ +10 Block bonus+10 to attack roll, to have the attack affect the implement instead of the user. Cannot use an attack maneuver in same melee round.
Parry	Block an incoming attack without the blocking implement taking damage.	Make a Block roll with -5 penalty, and the blocking implement isn't affected by the attack.
Grab	The target can't use their arms, because you've grabbed said limbs. Results may vary depending on how many arms the target has.	Normal action. Make a standard attack roll to Grab; ST-vs-ST roll to escape. A Grabbed target stays Grabbed until the user releases them, or they escape the Grab.
Trip	Make the target lie down on the ground.	Normal action. Make a standard attack roll, with penalty if the target has too many legs.
Disarm	Remove a thing from the target's hands.	Normal action. Roll the user's DX vs the target's ST to get physical custody of whatever-it-is.
Throw	The user, well, throws whatever object.	Normal action. Standard attack roll vs whatever the user is aiming at. If the user it trying to damage their target, add the user's ST bonus to damage done.

I think this list covers pretty much everything a character might want to do in combat, but as ever, I am open to comments and criticism and like that…

[cubist]

Cubist here with the least installment in the series of posts on the AAL rolegame, whose googledoc is right here. Again, the focus is on combat—specifically, combat skills.

As detailed in the post just previous to this one, the current version of the AAL rule-set knows about 14 combat maneuvers. In future I may add or subtract a couple of maneuvers, but right now, I'm satisfied with what's there. Anyway, the 14 combat maneuvers are:

• Hit
• Assault
• All-out assault
• Feint
• Setup
• Dodge
• Evade
• All-out evade
• Block
• Parry
• Grab
• Trip
• Disarm
• Throw

You can spend your points to buy skill in any one of these maneuvers. Any such skill is a Combat skill of narrow scope, and all narrow-scope skills cost 1 point per +1 of skill.

Likewise, you can buy a Combat skill for any kind of weapon. Like single-maneuver Combat skills, any single-weapon-kind Combat skill is of narrow scope, and therefore costs 1 point per +1.

Yes, there are Combat skills whose scope is wider than narrow. Combat (Strategy), aka Strategist, is of expansive scope, and so is Combat (Tactics), aka Tactician. Either of those skills costs 5 points per +1.

Note that as expansive skills, both Strategist and Tactician apply to any form of conflict whatsoever. If you want to specialize—like, say, Cavalry Strategy or Submarine Tactics—a specialized version of either skill would be no more than wide scope, and therefore only cost 3 points per +1. Depending on how narrow you want your expertise to be, the resulting specialized skill might possibly end up being of medium skill (2 points per +1, or, conceivably, even narrow scope (1 point per +1). If you go there, your GM will have to make that call.

Now, a number of other rolegames include such things as fighting styles in their game-mechanics. In principle, the AAL rule-set can accommodate fighting styles easily; a character with a "fighting style" has a medium-scope Combat skill which applies to a certain number of combat maneuvers, and a certain number of weapons. A character who's studied a number of different fighting styles could have a number of different Combat (Name of Fighting Style) skills, or if they can persuade their GM to allow it, they could even have a wide-scope Combat skill which covers all of the fighting styles they've studied.

Now I need to work up at least one or two Combat skills of the 'fighting style' persuasion, so that players will have concrete examples to work with…

[doomreaver]

I was recently re-reading a section and glanced at the comments to see this! Hello! I always enjoy interesting P&P ideas. I haven't had time to read everything yet but I did glance at a few things and am curious about 2 things.

Firstly looking over race options I was curious if you had plans to include a... mutation? Baleful polymorph? option. Basically an option to be a mundane that has been magically altered. There are several chars in the comic that started as mundane furs and became something else due to magical experiments on them. This being about Enchanters going out and fighting evil there are many chances for them to run into NPC's or PC's that have been heavily altered by the villains.

Secondly I joined the TSA about 3 years ago (geez that long?) and there was a Cubist who wrote some fun stories set in the Tales From the Blind Pig universe. I was curious if you were the same person; if so I really enjoyed reading your stories!

[darkwingdork]

Oct 7, 2016 22:42:30 GMT -5 doomreaver said:

I was recently re-reading a section and glanced at the comments to see this! Hello! I always enjoy interesting P&P ideas. I haven't had time to read everything yet but I did glance at a few things and am curious about 2 things.

Firstly looking over race options I was curious if you had plans to include a... mutation? Baleful polymorph? option. Basically an option to be a mundane that has been magically altered. There are several chars in the comic that started as mundane furs and became something else due to magical experiments on them. This being about Enchanters going out and fighting evil there are many chances for them to run into NPC's or PC's that have been heavily altered by the villains.

Secondly I joined the TSA about 3 years ago (geez that long?) and there was a Cubist who wrote some fun stories set in the Tales From the Blind Pig universe. I was curious if you were the same person; if so I really enjoyed reading your stories!

Hey, this is DWD poking in, but yes, it's the same fellow who worked on TFTBP.

[cubist]

Oct 7, 2016 22:42:30 GMT -5 doomreaver said:

…looking over race options I was curious if you had plans to include a... mutation? Baleful polymorph? option. Basically an option to be a mundane that has been magically altered. There are several chars in the comic that started as mundane furs and became something else due to magical experiments on them. This being about Enchanters going out and fighting evil there are many chances for them to run into NPC's or PC's that have been heavily altered by the villains.

As far as the game-mechanics are concerned, sure—why not go for 'baleful polymorph'-type characters? You'll want to give such a character a set of disads (and possibly special abilities?) appropriate to their mutated form, and you're good to go. But aside from game-mechanics, there's also the question of whether or not a 'baleful polymorph'-type character will fit into the sort of campaign the GM wants to run. If there's any sort of conflict there, you and your GM would have to work it out between yourselves.

Secondly I joined the TSA about 3 years ago (geez that long?) and there was a Cubist who wrote some fun stories set in the Tales From the Blind Pig universe. I was curious if you were the same person; if so I really enjoyed reading your stories!

Yep; that's me, alright. You may be interested to know that I've got an archive of my stories up on the net here. If you didn't already know about that, well, enjoy!

[doomreaver]

I meant to reply to this last week but stuff happened and I forgot. Having finished reading the rules and thought about it more magically altered characters are totally doable as is, but there would have to be DM discussion to do it. Some of the chars from the comic could just be represented as regular furs with unusual traits (Ian, the deertaur sisters) while others would probably need a higher starting pool to show their augmentations (the 3 girls turned into gladiators in the arc I can't find at the moment).

As for you site, yes I was aware of it! I read all of your Blind Pig stories way back when, and I've read a few of the others, but have yet to binge read everything on the site (which is a thing I do so it'll happen eventually).

EDIT:
Found it!  Catch Scratch Fever is the name of the arc, 3 normal furs are turned into super-powered gladiators to fight the main characters.

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