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I can't help but think that the Food & Rations rules are unnecessarily harsh. Granted, they're an abstraction, but it just seems like the guy played the early Ultima games too many times, and now you lose Food Points for every square you move. The bookkeeping is just absurd and the price chart seems unusually inflated. A 1st level commoner can't even afford a basic bread and water package!
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Feb 22, 2013 05:20
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Does anyone have a decent kludge for the footwear-wear chart (table 18.5.23, in my copy, but I'm working off of a photocopy in a binder that my QSM screwed up so it doesn't have a title page, credits, or page numbers, so I can't give you edition (sorry))? Having to calculate the "wear vs. step intensity" is simple enough for long distance journeys (Sole Strength (SS) opposed roll with Agility adding and weight + THACOG as a penalty, divided by the distance and rate of speed (ROS) modifier, for those who don't have their copies handy), but when it comes to calculating the wear in any given combat, where often a move versus a run is debatable, not to mention the wear that should occur when bracing against a charge with a polearm, but doesn't for some silly reason. If anything, I'd think bracing against anything would wear even more than regular combat dashing. The QSM is currently treating every combat as a "Light Jog over 5k" for the purposes of FWW, but that seems a bit inaccurate, given that the average tennis player covers about 16k in a match (analogous to a sword-pundit or dagger-dasher flitting about the battlefield, in my opinion), while the average corpulence wizard or timpani maestro won't move from their octagon unless forced, so this really doesn't seem fair. My corpulence wizard shouldn't need to replace the soles of his Boots of Cessation nearly as often as our halfling (nibbler) dagger-dasher. I mean, the guy's soles are even smaller! There's less material on his Slippers of the Amyclaean (note: slippers, not thick heavy boots, as stated in their respective descriptions in the Treasure Tomes of Tyr) not to mention he's moving about a lot more. It's common sense, for Dragynoffsinslyczy's sake! edit: we're using the optional "Kits" rules introduced in the Advanced Thuggery and Theology supplement, so the "classes" I'm listing above are simple configurations of thematic Improvements. It makes character creation easier for new comers, though us more experienced players just use them as shorthand for a given type of build.
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Feb 22, 2013 05:34
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Maxwell Lord posted:I can't help but think that the Food & Rations rules are unnecessarily harsh. Granted, they're an abstraction, but it just seems like the guy played the early Ultima games too many times, and now you lose Food Points for every square you move. The bookkeeping is just absurd and the price chart seems unusually inflated. A 1st level commoner can't even afford a basic bread and water package! Which is fine, since I think that (RAW) a 1st level commoner could be killed in a fight with rations. So much for verisimilitude.
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Feb 22, 2013 05:35
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homullus posted:Which is fine, since I think that (RAW) a 1st level commoner could be killed in a fight with rations. So much for verisimilitude. Obviously you're missing the point! An animated rations set is clearly a Construct (Food, Magical), and should be killing commoners left, right and center! If it's being properly run, it should even have the Separated keyword, so they should be fighting each component as a separate creature.
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Feb 22, 2013 05:44
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homullus posted:Which is fine, since I think that (RAW) a 1st level commoner could be killed in a fight with rations. So much for verisimilitude. I always figured that was an injoke about like, fruitcake or hardtack. The first printing was full of that poo poo. That and those doofy cartoons.
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Feb 22, 2013 05:44
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Winson_Paine posted:That and those doofy cartoons. Oh man, the cartoons! How could we forget? (my photocopy, unfortunately, had all the art replaced with LotR screencaps and generic fantasy art, but I was able to flitch the QSM's original into the scanner for a little while before he told me about the prohibition Quigly set against any kind of "paperless" gaming, which I fully respect, but I think the cartoons Quigly didn't draw himself are fair game, right?).     And of course, the classic 1.75 introduction comic that accompanied Quigley's foreward about his conversion back out of Zoroastrianism, that properly stated every reaction every Cleric player had upon reading the rules: 
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Feb 22, 2013 06:11
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Winson_Paine posted:I always figured that was an injoke about like, fruitcake or hardtack. The first printing was full of that poo poo. That and those doofy cartoons. The cartoons really helped illustrate the rules, in my opinion. I mean, I got the surprised wizard fire rule, but the comic that went along with it really helped hammer it in, you know?  Speaking of Quigley's art, I was going through The Dragynrealm Travelogue: J'ockkanda and I think it might have some of his best art, outside of Liber Pallida, the second of twelve spell compendiums that Quigley would release over the original Quest Squires run. Even though the second run had the spells much more organized, it came at a higher price, both literally and figuratively. Look at this page spread of the J'ockk King and his concubines. I was lucky enough to see the Work in Progress (that's WiP in short) and again it's a shame that the printing company refused his colored versions. The one looking away had red hair, and I think represents the woman he had fallen in love with during the making of the book. I suppose it represents that although she be with the J'ockk King right now, she is really waiting for a powerful sorcero-knight to come save her.  Note the clouds at the top. He used waterpaints, a medium he was not well acquainted with, to do that. He really wanted to get across that the J'ockk King is a bad dude. All of the J'ockkanda pictures are really foreboding and you know right when you see them that these are bad dudes that so few people will stand up to. Can the party stand up to them? On rec.games.qs.misc Quigley mentioned that he wanted to write a full campaign arc where a party of five brave adventurers would have to go confront the J'ockk King, but he never got the inspiration to finish it. Quigley is really more of an artist than a game designer, and Quest Squires might be his greatest piece.
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Feb 22, 2013 06:14
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Comrade Gorbash posted:There's a good time to learn one of your group has a pregnancy fetish? There are better times, but, in general... No. Mikan posted:I can confirm this one; the rules for casting without a spellbook don't work, and if you look at the first letter of each sentence there is a fairly insulting message about keeping your spellbook safe. Mother fucker.
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Feb 22, 2013 07:18
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xiw posted:Also my QM took the Questmaster Oath stuff pretty seriously, so he never told us how the gently caress you got the Bloodsword out of the iron pincers on level two of the Delve - we cleared out most of the place but never found any of the keys or the other dial. Was it even possible? How you get the Bloodsword out of the iron pincers is pretty straightforward. You don't. The pincers are were forged as part of the Bloodsword. The sword and pincers have to be wielded as one single unit. And if you did some how manage to remove the Bloodsword from the pincers (for example, by using the Un-forge of the Dwarven Anti-God), all you would do is destroy the sword's enchantments. Oh, and release the soul of Haemotolux, the Vampire Deity back into the Material Plane. That's what you get for being obstinate, though.
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Feb 22, 2013 09:30
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Maxwell Lord posted:I can't help but think that the Food & Rations rules are unnecessarily harsh. Granted, they're an abstraction, but it just seems like the guy played the early Ultima games too many times, and now you lose Food Points for every square you move. The bookkeeping is just absurd and the price chart seems unusually inflated. A 1st level commoner can't even afford a basic bread and water package! This is a problem a lot of players run into that's more due to approaching the game with preconceived notions that are at odds with the game itself. The thing to bear in mind is that Quest Squires never actually defines what a "square" represents. "Square" is simply QS shorthand for "a unit of distance," but Quigley never establishes any sort of hard-and-fast rule for what that distance is supposed to be, leaving it up to QMs and players to infer that based on context. For example, in battle a square is typically assumed to be somewhere between 5 and 15 meters (there are examples in the combat and spellcasting chapters that support both, occasionally both at once), but when, say, exploring the wilderness then a square can represent an area encompassing miles of terrain, including entire dungeons, villages, or settlements. This is where a lot of the complaints that "martial characters are overpowered" comes from, by the way, because with cheap and easy access to Improvements that allow for bonus squares of movement some groups mistakenly think this means that characters with those Improvements can travel cross-continent in the span of a single day. So if you keep that in mind the Food & Rations rules make a bit more sense when you consider that the average peasant may never venture outside the square they were born in (leading to the situation where peasants actually don't need to eat since only moving between squares provokes Hunger Checks, so someone who remains within a single square can technically go an indefinite amount of time without food or water). When you're operating using "dungeon measurements" the implication is that PCs naturally burn more calories than the average denizen of Dragynrealm and thus need a constant intake of nutrients and energy in order to quest effectively. Hence why every item listed on the Victuals and Comestibles table in the equipment guide has a calorie rating next to it...by rules-as-written you're actually supposed to be keeping track of that in your Quest Log, but a lot of groups simply skip all of that bookkeeping and use "food packages" instead.
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Feb 22, 2013 10:27
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Maxwell Lord posted:A 1st level commoner can't even afford a basic bread and water package! Ok, I really need some clarification here because it appears that my group has apparently been playing a different game than the rest of you. Due to water appearing in the Dangerous Substances table with the "drowning" condition, the Merfolk statblock mentioning that they are immune to water, and the thirst rules saying that a character has to drink often but not specifying that he has to drink water, our QM assumed that water in Dragynrealm was poisonous, the bread and water package was an assassination kit, and people only drank milk, juice or alcohol. And of course, since you can't keep milk or juice from going bad after a few days, any significant dungeon delve ended up with the party trying to fight against a Crocolitch or an Ancient Kobold Lord while completely inebriated. Was the water safe to drink after all?
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Feb 22, 2013 11:12
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Someone should do a write-up of this in F&F, it sounds amusingly terrible.
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Feb 22, 2013 12:24
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Rexides posted:Ok, I really need some clarification here because it appears that my group has apparently been playing a different game than the rest of you. Due to water appearing in the Dangerous Substances table with the "drowning" condition, the Merfolk statblock mentioning that they are immune to water, and the thirst rules saying that a character has to drink often but not specifying that he has to drink water, our QM assumed that water in Dragynrealm was poisonous, the bread and water package was an assassination kit, and people only drank milk, juice or alcohol. And of course, since you can't keep milk or juice from going bad after a few days, any significant dungeon delve ended up with the party trying to fight against a Crocolitch or an Ancient Kobold Lord while completely inebriated. Was the water safe to drink after all? It varies from group to group. A straightforward interpretation of the rules places most groups firmly in your camp, but some of the QMs that weren't afraid of/fellating Quigley said that was stupid and of course water was safe to drink. Quigley himself never said, since as was previously stated he had a fundamental objection to errata. Some QMs split the difference and had the water be poisonous, but let any caster with a Nature Deity or Water Deity Improvement purify water. My group's QM was one of those, and we happened to get in major trouble with the brewing guild of a major city by going around offering people clean drinking water. Which in turn led to getting in trouble with the government because of the "vomit caustic bile" shenanigans I mentioned previously. e: Also, I just remembered a trick you could pull. A High Halfling caster with the right Improvement (I forget what it was called. Festive something? There were like a dozen that started with that, though.) could turn inebriation penalties into bonuses. Mostly to THACOG, but a few were useful in combat. Although it was unclear whether the penalties disappeared, or the bonuses were just added on and yo ustill had the penalties.
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Feb 22, 2013 13:41
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Dareon posted:A High Halfling caster with the right Improvement (I forget what it was called. Festive something? There were like a dozen that started with that, though.) could turn inebriation penalties into bonuses. The Improvement you're thinking of is Festive Labours of the Hairfoot Clan. And it wasn't just casters that could take it. As long as you declared your High Halfling character as Hairfoot on the distaff side, you could take that Improvement with any class. Edit: Obviously that option was only open when initially generating a character's background. Quest Squires really requires that you think ahead when creating a character.
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Feb 23, 2013 00:43
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Don't forget that the part about high Halflings also benefiting from those Improvements isn't a misprint, at least last I heard.
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Feb 23, 2013 01:43
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That explains the large variety of dreamweed available.
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Feb 23, 2013 02:02
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Personally, and I know this is a niche opinion, but I thought the 2.20 rulesets switch from hex based maps to triangular based battle-boards was and innovation I was sad to see go. It also meant that half the movement and range rules (as well as the connected Metal Strength rules, natch) made no sense RAW in 2.4-3.4.
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Feb 23, 2013 18:38
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I got Squiring Magazine for while when my mom gave a subscription to me as a birthday present, and boy howdy, was it a mixed bag. Game-ified ecologies of the molds you could find in your refrigerator, new broken classes (like the "Meatbringer" in SM#89), articles on still-more realistic falling damage with charts of drag coefficients by armor type, and the occasional editorial article by Quigley himself (which is the first place I saw the word fane in a sentence, the guy wanted to be Gygax so badly). There were also some "comics" in the back, with recurring characters and plotlines that could only be followed by longtime readers.
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Feb 23, 2013 19:04
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homullus posted:I got Squiring Magazine for while when my mom gave a subscription to me as a birthday present, and boy howdy, was it a mixed bag. Game-ified ecologies of the molds you could find in your refrigerator, new broken classes (like the "Meatbringer" in SM#89), articles on still-more realistic falling damage with charts of drag coefficients by armor type, and the occasional editorial article by Quigley himself (which is the first place I saw the word fane in a sentence, the guy wanted to be Gygax so badly). There were also some "comics" in the back, with recurring characters and plotlines that could only be followed by longtime readers. OK, wait, back up. Is Sue using some kind of variant on Desperately and Darkly Dreaming Reversal of Incalculable Fate here, or is it literally just a daydream? Because Pookie clearly understood it taking place, and the comic from a few issues earlier (#36.7?) stated that he forsook his access to Calico Dreamviewer in order to get his Garfieldian Speaking of Bubbles without having to balloon over 100 pounds and lose his THACOG entirely.
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Feb 23, 2013 19:55
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homullus posted:Squiring Magazine I loved Squiring Magazine. I have a bunch of back issues around here somewhere, I'll try to scan them in once I find them. My scanner kinda sucks though. Do you guys remember the Skip Johnson articles? He was obsessed with Quest Squires, but the guy was crazy. He'd submit all these custom classes and monsters and adventures but there was always something goofy about them. This was one of my favorites, a class he called the "Vampire Hunter". There's a part that is just so very Skip, I don't want to point it out, but once you see it you'll know what I mean. Sorry about the quality, my scanner sucks and Squiring Magazine is pretty old by now, this is from back when it was called Spires Magazine. 
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Feb 23, 2013 20:37
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Mikan posted:Quest Spires: Underground Adventures: The Lairs of the Dragon Fish Man, these and others like it are why people keep confusing Spires and Squires. Quest Spires was the original adapted-from-wargame ruleset Squigley and his partner Tom Prowley developed into a proto-rpg, and Quest Squires was the actual designed-as-an-rpg game. Of course, it didn't help that Squigley and Prowley kept referring to "Quest Spires" in the actual Squires supplements, or when Squigley declared that you couldn't ever talk about Prowley in his presence or you'd be banned from play forever which of course meant you could never ever confuse the two when gaming with him.
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Feb 23, 2013 20:48
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They also called the magazine Spires Magazine for about 20 issues, so you're right it's definitely not just a fan issue. But  Lairs of the Dragon Fish is a Spires supplement, it includes rules for fielding undersea armies.
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Feb 23, 2013 20:50
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Mikan posted:I loved Squiring Magazine. I have a bunch of back issues around here somewhere, I'll try to scan them in once I find them. My scanner kinda sucks though. Oh, so THAT is how you manage to make a character for a high-level campaign play who enters play dead. A friend of mine was trying to figure out how you possibly get a Revengeful Dracomancer (sub: Lich) into a campaign when one of the requirements is a dead party member to make their Scalelactory out of, but they must be created alongside everyone else. So, the trick is that you have to be starting a level 15+ campaign, and somebody has to "martyr" themselves to the campaign by statting out a Vampire Hunter. By definition, they have to kill all Level 12+ vampires and vampire-related beings (as errata'd in Temple of Elemental Jamming: Anti-Meridian, the one labelled ToEJ:AM on the spine)... which includes THEMSELVES. So that player is no longer allowed in the campaign any longer, but their friend now meets the requirement of having a dead ally.
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Feb 23, 2013 21:05
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Wasn't there a module about playing as some of the Squigley's iconic monsters? I remember a dude tried to cheese the game by making a Half-Peeker Corrosion Creature with enough Monk levels to intercept flying arrows and corrode them in midair, and when the GM sent magic-users against him, he just used his Magic-Nullifier eye at them.
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Feb 23, 2013 21:20
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The best part of the ToEJ:AM errata was that the Vampire changes allowed Druidic Liches to become full Vampires without losing any spells or control levels. Sun vulnerability? What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of my Chlorophylactery converting all light and solar-based effects into delicious grove energy and temporary HP.  Though RAW, that same errata also changed Undead/Plant Control to Undead Plant Control. They never answered my letter about whether that was intentional or not.  Still, if you can make it to level 14 like that and get Create Greater Golems, it's within budget to make one that's half-Acid-Spitting Flytrap and half-Lesser Bone Dragon as long as you're willing to burn a couple hundred grove energy. At least you'll have plenty of uses of Undead Plant Control for it!
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Feb 23, 2013 21:20
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Ariamaki posted:Oh, so THAT is how you manage to make a character for a high-level campaign play who enters play dead. You almost have it, but you forgot about the reaction roll. Since the Vampire Hunter loses its powers if it is nice to a vampire, you have to roll on the Self-Reaction table and hope the Vampire Hunter has low enough self-esteem to not treat himself with respect. Otherwise the Vampire Hunter loses his powers, including the part where he turns into a vampire, and no longer needs to hunt himself. The character then enters play as a first level Nobody.
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Feb 23, 2013 21:31
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Chaotic Neutral posted:The best part of the ToEJ:AM errata was that the Vampire changes allowed Druidic Liches to become full Vampires without losing any spells or control levels. Sun vulnerability? What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of my Chlorophylactery converting all light and solar-based effects into delicious grove energy and temporary HP. Lamentably intentional. I was at a local (Ohioan here) con game where somebody had a Canon Binder. The first and last pages were both triple-laminated and written, in 60s-era Crayola "Skin Pink", by The Man himself, and what do you know? "Undead Plant Control is, totally and absolutely, to be used on things that are both undead and plants. This includes mulch. Not, like, mulch golems. I mean actual mulch." Apparently, because of the thermal growth dynamics of a well-maintained mulch heap, it counts as a Naturally-Raised Conservator, with levels based on how well-tended, diverse, and large it is, as well as and how long it has been kept. He was thinking (in the margins of the page) about making an order of druids who maintained, lived in, and worshiped a centuries-old mulchheap the size of a city. Thanks to all of those factors, it had attained both sentience and deity-level powers.
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Feb 23, 2013 23:20
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Ariamaki posted:Lamentably intentional. I was at a local (Ohioan here) con game where somebody had a Canon Binder. The first and last pages were both triple-laminated and written, in 60s-era Crayola "Skin Pink", by The Man himself, and what do you know? I think that's an unfair thing to bring up, partly because mulch golems are one of Quigley's favorite races. I was in a campaign he QM'ed and the wonderful QMSI (Quest Master Stand In) that lead us through our journeys Quigley told me was his personal favorite, M'ulhc M'nn. Quigley told us that M'ulhc was the most like himself in terms of characterization, and that our journey was just as much his journey. It was a really touching story that I can't tell because of the NDA regarding all used plotlines since Quigley hopes to put them into a novel someday. You may remember M'ulhc M'nn from the classic Stand Ins of Dragynrealm.  e: My point is that mulch golems aren't really an applicable example because they held a position seperate from plant or undead in the first place as The Chosen Race in Dragynrealm lore.
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Feb 23, 2013 23:45
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I got into a huge fight with my QM over the Vampire Hunter's detect vampire ability. I said that the chances were wrong, he insisted that his own ever increasing vampiriness was interfering with the detection ability, go figure. At least he was too stupid to realize that I had to kill myself at level 12 if we played it RAW.
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Feb 24, 2013 00:44
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Rexides posted:I got into a huge fight with my QM over the Vampire Hunter's detect vampire ability. I said that the chances were wrong, he insisted that his own ever increasing vampiriness was interfering with the detection ability, go figure. At least he was too stupid to realize that I had to kill myself at level 12 if we played it RAW. Your QM was right though and frankly I'm not sure any real Squire would have played it the way you're suggesting. Having to kill yourself at level 12 is part of the built in character arc of a Vampire Hunter.
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Feb 24, 2013 06:16
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I think Skip Johnson intended it as a sort of mandated system mastery requirement, like how his Pistol Monk needs to take at least two tactics from a non-Asian class bracket in order to be able to afford the equipment to use any of his class features. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to make sure you hit all the other requirements for the "Self-Impaling Saint of Yeshua Prime" Signifier Class before you hit level 12. That way, when you do kill yourself, you retain all your combat tactics and spellcasting and gain a bunch of other bonuses as well so long as by killing yourself, you also killed a creature designated unholy by the Edict of James Pontifex. You would become one of the most powerful characters in that Player Rating bracket I know of.
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Feb 24, 2013 06:28
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MiltonSlavemasta posted:I think Skip Johnson intended it as a sort of mandated system mastery requirement, like how his Pistol Monk needs to take at least two tactics from a non-Asian class bracket in order to be able to afford the equipment to use any of his class features. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to make sure you hit all the other requirements for the "Self-Impaling Saint of Yeshua Prime" Signifier Class before you hit level 12. That way, when you do kill yourself, you retain all your combat tactics and spellcasting and gain a bunch of other bonuses as well so long as by killing yourself, you also killed a creature designated unholy by the Edict of James Pontifex. You would become one of the most powerful characters in that Player Rating bracket I know of. Well, besides the Bone-Number class, in any case.
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Feb 24, 2013 06:59
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GorfZaplen posted:I think that's an unfair thing to bring up, partly because mulch golems are one of Quigley's favorite races. I was in a campaign he QM'ed and the wonderful QMSI (Quest Master Stand In) that lead us through our journeys Quigley told me was his personal favorite, M'ulhc M'nn. Quigley told us that M'ulhc was the most like himself in terms of characterization, and that our journey was just as much his journey. It was a really touching story that I can't tell because of the NDA regarding all used plotlines since Quigley hopes to put them into a novel someday. Yeah, I wasn't discussing golems in the first place- I was just quoting the errata he wrote verbatim, where he mentioned them as an exception. And speaking of QMSI, did anyone ever figure out what the appropriate penalty chart was for players who have, in previous campaigns under a different QM than their current one, who is a player in this campaign, killed their QMSI? I can clarify the situation if need be, that whole week was a bit of a cluster-f.
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Feb 24, 2013 10:53
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Ariamaki posted:And speaking of QMSI, did anyone ever figure out what the appropriate penalty chart was for players who have, in previous campaigns under a different QM than their current one, who is a player in this campaign, killed their QMSI? We ended up referring to that chart a lot in my group. We went through more QMSI than Spinaltap went through drummers.
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Feb 24, 2013 16:29
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Chart 22.5.1 in Appendix C. Killing the QMSI of a fellow player who was your former QM is considered a Type II Offense, along with not chipping in for pizza, arguing with the QM over a character death, and bringing up an ex-girlfriend of the QM (or ex-spouse if the divorce was >10 years ago). It gets bumped to a Type III if the QMSI was a former player character of the QM in question. Oh, wow, my... My copy cuts off precisely after Chart 21.6 Did somebody mangle my copy, or is there a misprinted core rules version from 2005 that isn't in the Big Ol' Index Of Quest Squires Editions (BI-QSE)?
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Feb 24, 2013 18:55
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Ariamaki posted:Oh, wow, my... My copy cuts off precisely after Chart 21.6 Sounds like you got one of the really rare so-called 'Dog Eared' volumes. So called because they were got mauled by Quigley's dog F'rax'dor back when he got rabies, before he could mail them out. Its a bannable offence to even admit to its existence in the same room as Quigley, that time of his life is obviously very sad, but that edition is actually worth quite a bit in some circles. That should also explain the various drool marks on pages 503-653, and the missing bottom of Chart 11.3.
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Feb 24, 2013 19:13
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I've emailed Theo a few times and the only response I got was:quote:The key to literacy is reading from the first word to the last period. I need some clarification on the Corruption rules. I understand a Squire gains the "Debased" status if their "Corruption>Spirit+Wisdom+(.5xFORT)". Last week one of my players, Ted, failed a Justice roll and is now "Debased". (Seriously, he let his Mount die while stopping the Cart of Gnomesh Death. It's like he didn't even read the rules.) On page 249 of QS:A it says I need to convene a trial for Ted's Squire with a jury of 3 player's who are not in my game, which I located at our local shop. Do the jury member's need to make new Squires or should they bring the ones from their existing game? Can Ted's Squire try to kill the jury? Also, Appendix U-6 says a convicted Squire's player gains the "Exiled" template and as QM I must permanently remove the player from my game. This seems overly harsh, but if I don't eject Ted from the game I would be banned from the "Living: QS" circuit.
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Feb 24, 2013 20:16
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Wasn't there a supplement with rules that allowed you to ban an effigy made out of straw and character sheets instead of the actual player? Although I don't know for the life of me if that is "Living: QS" compliant or not. The L:QS OverSquires were always stingy with supplement use. They would even ban some specific reprints of the core rules even if the only thing that changed was the placement of tables or dog bitemarks on different pages. However, what I KNOW for sure is that back in '92 there was a case with a banned player who was able to get back into the L:QS games by legally changing his name. Even though, according to page 14 of the core rules, the character sheet is an actual binding contract between the player and the Quest Master, the 'isolationist' nature of the rules explicitly state that "any rules not appearing in an official Theodore Quigley Publications book or magazine have no effect in any official or unofficial game of Quest Squires" and the character creation chapter only mentions that you need to show a valid ID, which in the context of the game only matters until the QM signs the character sheet, someone who changes his name and produces a new valid ID essentially becomes a new person for the purpose of creating a new character. It doesn't even have to be a big change, just "Tod" or "Tehd" should be more than enough for your friend. Grogs hate it, so make sure to always bring a copy of the '92 ruling with you (I'll post a link if I can find it) and it should be fine.
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Feb 24, 2013 20:56
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LongDarkNight posted:I need some clarification on the Corruption rules. I understand a Squire gains the "Debased" status if their "Corruption>Spirit+Wisdom+(.5xFORT)". Last week one of my players, Ted, failed a Justice roll and is now "Debased". (Seriously, he let his Mount die while stopping the Cart of Gnomesh Death. It's like he didn't even read the rules.) On page 249 of QS:A it says I need to convene a trial for Ted's Squire with a jury of 3 player's who are not in my game, which I located at our local shop. Do the jury member's need to make new Squires or should they bring the ones from their existing game? Can Ted's Squire try to kill the jury? That depends on how thoroughly into the status he is. If his actual Debased Total Check Total falls under 13.13, which is thankfully not likely from what you said about the Cart, then one of the jury members actually has to be a player in a current campaign who is using his QMSI from a different campaign which he is running. Otherwise, they should all bring their own current characters-- All of them. RAW spelling intact: "Player juries for Debasement, but not Defilement or Breaking and Entering Into A Basement, must contain all the characters of all teh players on the juri. The defendant (player) cannot leave the room they start the trial in, and the defendant (character) cannot try to leave the square. They may attempt absolutely any action, within there abilities, as long as they follow this." So, the good news for your player is that the RAW does not specify leaving the square they started in, but rather, "try to leave the square". So any outside force acting on them can move them freely, which means if you have a Neurokian Puppetulator involved, they can just use Black (or Pink) Strings Shuffling to shuttle him around the Court'en~house'en so he can take his actions. And even if they're on the jury, this doesn't break their neutrality clause.
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Feb 24, 2013 21:31
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 01:12 |
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So, uh, I need to categorically apologize to everyone who has ever lost a character in Questing Module 19: Diners of Dapthogg. It's probably my fault. One of the unusual things about the first few printings of Quest Squires is that they do not give magic-classes the option of "schools" of magic, just broad class spell lists--a wizard does wizard magic; a knight-ensorcellist does knight-ensorcellist magic; a sorcero-knight does sorcero-knight magic; etc. There's no incentive, beyond character concept, to specialize in fire-spells or illusion-spells or goat-spells. Meanwhile, the options for martial style specialization are incredibly elaborated, with 14 fight-schools in the core rules alone, and a handful added in most sourcebooks. Some of the fight-schools were ridiculously overpowered, "balanced" by things like the narrow selection of races and classes that could take them. This kind of "balance" led--at least at my table--to things like entire parties of Yeti Fighters and Frost-Halfling Barbaribjorns, because Snow Boxing was so powerful. Every barehanded attack deals freeze-type damage, thereby inflicting Shameful Shrinkage? Hell yes. But we would have abandoned Snow Boxing in a second, if we could have used the absolute pinnacle of death-dealing fight-school: Calamitous Cutlery Juggling. Simultaneously wield every knife and dagger you can carry? And attack with each one, every round? Sweet holy gently caress.  But there was a small problem: by the rules, Calamitous Cutlery Juggling was effectively impossible. Per the player book, any character who "holds firmly in hand part of a bird, root, or inanimate thing is treated as grasping it entire". We took the words to heart. Every one of our characters who expected to handle a bladed weapon of any type invested in heavy gauntlets so that they didn't cut off their own fingers, since holding the hilt meant, per the rules, also holding onto the blade. I was delighted, years later, to learn that this was the overwhelming majority interpretation of and in-game reaction to that rule. But to use Calamitous Cutlery Juggling, a character could not be wearing any kind of hand-covering. As far as we could tell, the rules made it impossible for this fight-school to even have been invented in Dragynrealm, let alone for our characters to learn it. It's fair to call Quigley notorious for his nearly absolute refusal to confess the existence of any error in Quest Squires. This would extend to claiming that simple typos, obvious composition mistakes, and quirky mechanical interactions were not only intentional, but were, in point of fact, absolutely necessary inclusions. If anyone is unfamiliar with it, the most infamous case is probably that of the map-creation guidelines in the first printing of The Tome of the Quest Master, which had the conversion scale backward: as printed, it instructed QMs to draw each inch of territory on ten miles of paper. When not a few people brought this to Tim's attention on the Quest Squires newsgroup--USENET being one of two reliable ways for a member of the general public to interact with him--Tim vehemently insisted that the scale correct, and "necessary to convey the epical scope and grandeur of Dragynrealm", and furthermore that using any other scale would "render the campaign invalid" and any QM he discovered doing so would have their Quest Mastery Commission summarily revoked. (Did anyone here send in the QMC application? If you still have your Charter of Commission certificate, scan and post that thing ASAP.) In the very next printing of the TotQM, of course, the scaling factors were corrected. To explain, Quigley added a footnote saying that "perhaps in some part thanks to" the existing Quest Squires releases, "the sphere of human imagination has finally expanded to the degree that it may now recognize the majesty of Dragynrealm" even if it were mapped at a workable scale. All of this took place a few years before I had any awareness of USENET, and so I only heard the stories much later. Regardless, the tone of the books themselves conveyed the message quite effectively, and that defined how my friends and I played Quest Squires: to the very best of our ability, we used all the rules, exactly as written, to the last detail. Just like God and Tim intended. And so, none of us used any of that sweet, sweet Calamitous Cutlery Juggling. This whole situation bothered me. If the fight-school was in a book, it had to exist in Dragynrealm--and there had to be a way I could make a character who could use it. If no one I knew could figure it out, then I had to take it to the highest source: Tim "Squigley" Quigley himself. As I mentioned, this was some time before I discovered USENET; I had to contact Tim the other, slower way, using the PO box address printed in every Quest Squires book. I wrote a letter explaining the conundrum as I saw it, and asked Mr. Quigley to reconcile it all for my group--we faithful players and our commissioned Quest Master. Five months passed without reply. I had forgotten that I ever sent the letter. My QM, though, must not have forgotten how vext I had been by the Calamitous Cutlery Juggling situation. When he showed up to run our regular game, brand new Quest Module 19 in-hand, he mentioned that I would be especially pleased with it. He refused to explain, or even to hint any further, until we played through--loving Quest Master Oath.  So we played our way through the module, battling all of the horrors of Dapthogg's waitress elementals, dodging perilous falls into bottomless coffee cups, facing Grease-Halfling cook staff. Thanks to some poor decisions, we had to battle the Master of Pies and the Spoonasaur simultaneously, but we eked out a win without any PC deaths. And if we could manage that, then nothing in that diner could kill us, right? Right? That's what we all agreed, before marching our characters confidently into Dapthogg's sanctum. Our QM smiled the poo poo-eating-est,  est grin you can imagine, and read right from the module:"WHO DARES CHALLENGE DAPTHOGG, PUISSANT ON LAND AND 'NEATH WAVE? FACE NOW THE MASTER OF THE ANCIENT ART OF CALAMITOUS CUTLERY JUGGLING!" My jaw must have hit the loving floor. The QM read on, describing Dapthogg emerging from the shadows, revealing that he was a Reverse Mertopus. We had encountered Reverse Merfolk many times, but Dapthogg was the very first Reverse Mertopus to appear in Quest Squires. Where the Reverse Merfolk had always been gentle, trustworthy, allies, Dapthogg was tentacled death on two legs. The key word there being tentacled. That aforementioned rule on holding things? Read it again. Note the "holds firmly in hand". This rear end in a top hat didn't have hands! On top of that, he got a THACOG multiplier from having four limbs for carrying--not only could safely carry blades, but carry a lot of them. And as a Calamitous Cutlery Juggler, he could attack with every one of them, every turn.  The encounter was, of course, a swift TPK for us. Based on Quest Module 19's reputation, I'm guessing that the same encounter was a TPK for most of the groups that played through it. I can never be completely certain, but by timing alone, it seems likely that Dapthogg was, at least in part, a characteristically Quigleyan response to my letter. I'm sorry, everyone, for the monster I helped unleash.
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Feb 25, 2013 04:10
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