I'm fully aware of the nature of copyright. My intent (which I don't seem
to have made clear enough) was not to state that the copyright no longer
existed, but that TSR/WotC/Hasbro have shown such little interest in the
material that a legal defence of abandonment could legitimately be
employed - especially as they have gone out of their way to ensure that
the material is no longer available for legitimate purchase.

So (as you said at the end of your message) the chances that the existing
copyright will be enforced are extremely low, especially as the breach has
to be noticed before action could be taken.

BTW - iDrive is a kind of Internet "storage locker" where you can put
files. You create the account with a login and password, and you can
upload files to it. If you provide the login and password to others (or if
you 'share' the files) then other people can have access to them for
download. The reason I suggested it was that it would handle the file size
mentioned, and it would make it extremely difficult for anyone to notice
the copyright violation that was occuring (unlike a web site).

Stephen



On Sun, 13 May 2001 18:36:29 +1000, "Stephen Lister"
<slister@twistedreality.com.au> wrote:

> If I might make a suggestion...don't put it up on the web -

create an

>iDrive account, put it up there and send out the login details so that
>others can log in and download it. That would make it easier, and

wouldn't

>expose anyone to copyright problems. (Though I'm not sure that anyone
>would be worried, considering that it is copyrighted to a company that
>doesn't exist anymore...)

Well, there's a couple of problems there. One is that I, for one, have no
idea what you mean by "iDrive" -- but it doesn't matter, if the material
is
copyrighted it's copyrighted, regardless of the medium by which you make
it
available.

Two, just because SPI no longer exists as a separate company has no
bearing
on the validity of the copyrights involved. Copyrights are legal objects
that are "owned" -- they are passed on as required and/or desired. In
SPI's
case, all of SPI's DQ assets were passed on to TSR. The SPI brand-name,
and
many/most of its boardgaming assets, were later passed to Decision Games.
However, all of the roleplaying assets stayed with TSR, which means they
passed on to Wizards of the Coast, which means Hasbro now owns them.

However, copyrights have a "use-by" date; I'm reasonably certain that TSR
never made any use of the "Alusia" name etc. (except possibly mentioned
within the "Shattered Statue" module). It's quite possible that the
copyright on "Alusia" has, or soon will, lapse. *IF* that's true, it will
fall into Public Domain.

I am NOT a lawyer, so don't take ANY of the above as gospel. But in
general
it's safest to assume that the product still belongs to Hasbro, and
*public*
distribution of such would constitute a copyright violation. (That means
it's *illegal*.)

(The issue of whether it can be, or will be, enforced, is quite another
matter.)

----------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Probst bprobst@netspace.net.au ICQ 6563830
Melbourne, Australia MSTie #72759
"Elf tastes just like chicken."
ASL FAQ http://users.senet.com.au/~mantis/ASLFAQ





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Eric,

I really can;t tell you how hard it's going to be to map it. I have
only been able to view a small image of Alusia thus far. I can
estimate that mapping Alusia won't be too difficult or long at all.
If you know which tools and tricks to use the map can be cranked out
fairly quickly. I need to see a larger image though to see the
details and where to place them.
I have to go TDY to Virginia for 3 months so I'll have plenty of down
time to map it, though I'll prob be done in a couple weeks at the
most. This is assuming that I lay my hands on a bigger image of
Alusia.

> Also, someone (too many messages lately, so I didn't track the

name)

> mentionned doing FOA in Campaign Cartographer format. In my

opinion, but

> that is just my opinion, it would take an awful long time to redo

the

> original map, unless I'm missing something faster in the procedure

of doing

> CC maps,

Hello everyone,

As you all know the DQ-rules says nothing about the religions and the deities in the game. The only references to religion I can think of, are the various references to holidays of the powers of light and darkness, and the different pacts of the black magician. Most GM's I've encountered have solved that problem in one of the three following ways:

1. Borrow gods from some other source. It can be from another rpg, or an existing pantheon from earths history, e.g. norse, aztec or roman. This method is fairly easy as it only takes a minimum of effort. You usually don't have to do more than buy another rpg rulebook or supplement, or spend some time searching the net for info.

2. Invent gods of your own. This method is the hardest one, but also probably the most rewarding. If you are low on ideas you can usually quite successfully combine it with the first method; you just borrow a pantheon, change the names and some other stuff and voila; a new religion!

3. This is the method I've used so far: you just ignore the subject of religion. This can work in a campaign-world where religion isn't that important, or at least don't have a large influence. You can still have churches and priests if you want to, you just don't go into detail when the subject comes up. This is (obviously) by far the easiest way out, but also the most boring. I have for a long time planned to do something about it, but In the past, if a player said something like: "I'd like my next character to be a priest", I'd just answer "Oh no, PLEASE don't go there!".

      Until now that is. I have actually started working on a few religions and, hopefully, it will turn out to something that I can use. I still plan to keep the religions rather "low-impact" to keep the feel my players have acquired for the (non-existent) religions in my campaign. It's mainly to put some extra flavour in the game.

The reason for posting this is that I'd like to know you have solved this. I know that the subject of religions come up now and then among DQ players, but I still haven't seen anyone describing how it is handled in their respective campaigns.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
/Anders

The Frontiers of Alusia file is now available for download from my
website. You can get the file from the following link:

http://www.darkrealms.com/~alarian/DQ/Frontiers_of_Alusia.zip

Hope you enjoy it.




Jason Winter
Alarian@uswest.net
http://www.darkrealms.com/~alarian/

Deities isn't really a system thing it's a setting thing. All I've done is converted the deities in the settings I used. I did this in Harn plugging in the stats as applicable. Right now I use an online world's deities located at: http://www.hourglassstudios.com/fargoth/pantheon/

This is a generic world so conversions are still needed. Though in this respect the pantheon is presented in AD&D format due to it's familiarity and ease of conversion.

-----Original Message-----
From:   agustafsson@viewlocity.com [SMTP:agustafsson@viewlocity.com]
Sent:   Friday, May 18, 2001 3:55 AM
To:     dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
Subject:        [DQN-list] Religions

Hello everyone,

As you all know the DQ-rules says nothing about the religions and the deities in the game. The only references to religion I can think of, are the various references to holidays of the powers of light and darkness, and the different pacts of the black magician. Most GM's I've encountered have solved that problem in one of the three following ways:

1. Borrow gods from some other source. It can be from another rpg, or an existing pantheon from earths history, e.g. norse, aztec or roman. This method is fairly easy as it only takes a minimum of effort. You usually don't have to do more than buy another rpg rulebook or supplement, or spend some time searching the net for info.

2. Invent gods of your own. This method is the hardest one, but also probably the most rewarding. If you are low on ideas you can usually quite successfully combine it with the first method; you just borrow a pantheon, change the names and some other stuff and voila; a new religion!

3. This is the method I've used so far: you just ignore the subject of religion. This can work in a campaign-world where religion isn't that important, or at least don't have a large influence. You can still have churches and priests if you want to, you just don't go into detail when the subject comes up. This is (obviously) by far the easiest way out, but also the most boring. I have for a long time planned to do something about it, but In the past, if a player said something like: "I'd like my next character to be a priest", I'd just answer "Oh no, PLEASE don't go there!".

      Until now that is. I have actually started working on a few religions and, hopefully, it will turn out to something that I can use. I still plan to keep the religions rather "low-impact" to keep the feel my players have acquired for the (non-existent) religions in my campaign. It's mainly to put some extra flavour in the game.

The reason for posting this is that I'd like to know you have solved this. I know that the subject of religions come up now and then among DQ players, but I still haven't seen anyone describing how it is handled in their respective campaigns.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
/Anders




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Hi all. Just wanted to drop a quick note and say I have the Frontiers of
Alusia All zipped up and ready to go. There were so many people that
wanted it though, so I'm going to put it up on a website for
download. Problem is at the moment my website seems to be unaccessible via
FTP. I have put in a query to those in charge of the site and hope to hear
back soon (the owner of the company that hosts my site is a friend and he
usually gets back to me asap if he's in the office.).

As soon as I get it resolved, I'll post the link to the file.




Jason Winter
Alarian@uswest.net
http://www.darkrealms.com/~alarian/

On Fri, 18 May 2001 12:55:19 +0200, agustafsson@viewlocity.com wrote:

>The reason for posting this is that I'd like to know you have solved this. I
>know that the subject of religions come up now and then among DQ players,
>but I still haven't seen anyone describing how it is handled in their
>respective campaigns.

Well, in my old long-lost DQ campaign, I have to admit we used method 3 --
i.e., we just ignored it, for the most part. None of the PCs were
"religious", and there was no reason for them to be. We were young <g>.

After umpteen years of playing mostly RuneQuest in the interim, though, the
question of religion is a little more central in my thinking, and I've been
wondering how I'll integrate it into the new Alusia campaign game I'll
shortly be running.

I think the first (I hesitate to say "fundamental" <g>) rule is to decide
what, exactly, are the role of priests in your world? Are they:

(a) like real-world priests -- sources of knowledge, distributors of faith,
etc., but no "powers" or "magic" as such.

(b) like D&D -- a slightly different variety of magic user.

(c) like RQ -- divine magic is very different in practically all respects to
other sorts of magic, and if you want it, you have to show appropriate
faith, make appropriate sacrifices, etc.

Also -- it's a FRPG staple that fantasy worlds have polytheistic societies
-- multiple gods, like the Greeks etc. But maybe *your* world runs better
with a monotheistic background.

Are the gods actually gods? Or are they like the demons, powerful and
(presumably) immortal, but not necessarily invulnerable on the mortal plane?

Lots of questions. Different answers will require different solutions.

FWIW, my current line of thinking is to take approach (c) with a *mostly*
monotheistic background (i.e., humans worship one God, but other races have
other ideas ...). But I haven't fleshed it out at all yet.

Incidentally, there was some ill-defined divine background in the "Enchanted
Woods" module. The "god" who plays a prominent part in that module is more
of a powerful spirit than a "god" ... so maybe there are several "ranks" of
gods, too. Hmm ....

----------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Probst bprobst@netspace.net.au ICQ 6563830
Melbourne, Australia MSTie #72759
"Elf tastes just like chicken."
ASL FAQ http://users.senet.com.au/~mantis/ASLFAQ

On Fri, 18 May 2001 07:52:15 +1000, "Stephen Lister"
<rpg@twistedreality.com.au> wrote:

>I'm fully aware of the nature of copyright. My intent (which I don't seem
>to have made clear enough) was not to state that the copyright no longer
>existed, but that TSR/WotC/Hasbro have shown such little interest in the
>material that a legal defence of abandonment could legitimately be
>employed - especially as they have gone out of their way to ensure that
>the material is no longer available for legitimate purchase.

But you're not advocating a "legal defence". You're advocating theft on the
grounds that probably no-one will notice.

>So (as you said at the end of your message) the chances that the existing
>copyright will be enforced are extremely low, especially as the breach has
>to be noticed before action could be taken.

So, if nobody notices you committing a crime, you're not committing a crime?
I'll bet that one stands up well in court.

It's only human nature to want to "get away" with things like this,
especially when the risk is so tiny. I'm not rebuking you for that. Just
don't be "righteous" about it; theft is still theft. Acknowledge it (to
yourself I mean), and move on.

(It's possible, incidentally, that the rights do not belong to Hasbro; they
may have reverted to the original author, i.e., Rudy Kraft. Depends on the
details of whatever contract he originally signed and so on.)

----------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Probst bprobst@netspace.net.au ICQ 6563830
Melbourne, Australia MSTie #72759
"Elf tastes just like chicken."
ASL FAQ http://users.senet.com.au/~mantis/ASLFAQ

Thanks Jason. Your efforts are much appreciated. This will greatly help me map it in CC2. I'll definitely be needing some eyes to proof it since some of the text on the map are a very faded grey meaning it will be easy to possibly overlook something.

-----Original Message-----
From:   Jason Winter [SMTP:Alarian@uswest.net]
Sent:   Friday, May 18, 2001 9:13 AM
To:     dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
Subject:        [DQN-list] Frontiers of Alusia

The Frontiers of Alusia file is now available for download from my
website.  You can get the file from the following link:

http://www.darkrealms.com/~alarian/DQ/Frontiers_of_Alusia.zip

Hope you enjoy it.






Jason Winter
Alarian@uswest.net
http://www.darkrealms.com/~alarian/





 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

>The reason for posting this is that I'd like to know if you have solved
>this. I know that the subject of religions come up now and then among DQ
>players, but I still haven't seen anyone describing how it is handled in
>their respective campaigns.

/Anders



Personally, I use a skill called Priestcraft, which augments a character's
relevant skills (ie a priest of the god/goddess of hunting has a bonus to
bows, a priest of the sun has a bonus to casting Fire college spells, a
priest of the god of thieves has a bonus to Thief skill, etc.). However, I
let my priest characters get away with a lot more than what it sounds like
you're going for -- mine are capable of performing a "miracle", which is
essentially whatever the priest desires, but it always comes with a price.

As far as the campaign is concerned, its a polytheistic world with every
aspect of life having a god governing it. In fact, the gods actually ARE
the things they represent. If for some reason, the world was robbed of its
metals, the gods involving metal would immediately disappear. The gods are
really just powerful beings living "elsewhere" who are opposed to most
demons (which are a set of rival extra-dimensional beings who fight with the
gods over acquiring the souls of mortals), and aligned with titans (who are
the first generation of ALL lifeforms on the planet -- the "Titan" in the
rulebook is the 'humanoid/Titan' template, and there are also beastly
titans, faerie titans/kings, etc.).

Within the context of the campaign, the gods are capable of minor miracles
(ensuring good weather, well-made clothes, or whatever their particular
portfolio requires), but explicitly incapable of performing major miracles
without using the conduit of a living being who believes in them. They
subsist and REQUIRE the worship of the faithful, who devote a little bit of
their living energy (explicitly NOT magic) to the gods with every invocation
and ritual. Without this living energy to sustain them through the Age of
Men (see earlier post for more on Ages in my campaign) and later through the
Age of Beasts, they die off and miss out on the fun of the Age of Gods
(though this Age is outside the scope of my campaign), when the boundary
between the realm of the gods and the world is weak, and the gods can again
walk the earth throwing their weight around (think Greek myth).

Most people relate to the gods on a familiar basis, and respect priests.
However, only important gods are universally worshipped, like the god of
crops, his wife the goddess of rain, and the god of the sea (or travel,
depending on your geographical location). All races agree on the existence
of the gods. The races call them by different names, though it is
universally recognized that even though the orcs worship Mogo the
Slaughterer, and the humans worship Aberon Lija the Warmaster, they are
actually the same being and the priests recognize each other as such --
essentially, they relate as do the various Protestant factions (with some
more rabid and fervent than others, but sharing basic beliefs and generally
respecting each other while believing they are the only ones who got it
exactly right). This holds across all gods, with some races sharing names
and attitudes about gods, some not sharing, but in the end realizing that
there is only one god of rain, no matter what you call it.

On a final note, there is a Creator God. The Namers all worship it, but its
not a god like the others. The Creator destroyed itself to create the gods
and the universe and the demons and everything, and is now the essence of
life. This makes for no real restriction on Namer morality, since good
helps life along, and evil returns it to the fold of the Creator.

Hope this wasn't too in-depth.

Peter
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

Hi everyone,

Maps of an area extending north of Frontiers of Alusia are available on my site at:

http://www.iosphere.net/~eric/dq

Snafaru

-----Original Message-----
From: Snafaru [SMTP:eric@iosphere.net]
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 10:57 PM
To: 'dqn-list@yahoogroups.com'
Cc: 'Sebastien'
Subject: [DQN-list] Frontiers of Alusia - extended map

Hi everyone,

To answer the last few posts about Frontiers of Alusia.

My bro did a hand-made, full-colour, map of a region north of the Frontiers
of Alusia. It is two (2) sheets of 8.5" x 11".

I know some of you are working on FOA materiel, I think it would be a nice
addition, I'll ask my brother permission to put it on the net for you
guys/gals to see it. It will be done in the next few days if he agrees.

Also, someone (too many messages lately, so I didn't track the name)
mentionned doing FOA in Campaign Cartographer format. In my opinion, but
that is just my opinion, it would take an awful long time to redo the
original map, unless I'm missing something faster in the procedure of doing
CC maps, time may be best used on new materiel. For example converting my
brother's map could be a great start. Someone could write up the text that
goes with it in just the same fashion as the original booklet that came
with the original map.

Did I miss something? Did someone already create new extended maps?? I
think I saw that somewhere, but just can't remember where just right now
(my brains are marshmellow from studying a bunch of computer exams).

Snafaru
eric@iosphere.net




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Hi all;
I have been lurking in the background of this list for a while. I have been
running a DragonQuest Campaign in New York City for 5 years now. Any
players in New York City? I would welcome one or two more player.
You can contact me at mailto:elgiem@mindspring.com
Regarding gods, none of my player characters are very religiously inclined.
I do have a couple of religions in the game but they are kept at a minimum
impact. So far I have the following religious orders.
The priests of the Creator - These are a kind of true neutral order. They
are concerned with the balance of elemental forces in the world (dark and
light included). Their symbol is a quarterstaff carved with symbols of the
elements surmounted by a mighty tree. They include mages of all colleges.
The Creator in their view is like the Tao in Taoism, it is not a being but
the totality of what is.
The priests of Yormar - Yormar was and elflord who became obsessed with
power and eventually tried to become a Demon Lord. A previous group of
adventurers stopped Yormar before he could fulfill his ambition but the
religion still goes on, worshiping various demons and supplying themes for
adventures occasionally. They are aligned with the powers of darkness.
The Ascetes - They are a kind of monk, much like the Buddhists monks of
today. They live in self-sufficient communities and practice mediation and
renunciation of worldly attachments. On joining the order they are given a
magnificently embroidered robe. This is the only garment they will ever
wear, so with time they have to 'let go of its splendor' as they themselves
'let go of the world'. They are trained in healing, magic and martial arts.
The northern human tribes worship animal totems; their shamans are mages
with a twist as they get extra benefits from their totem, including shape
change. I have also colleges of black magic and white magic that in some
cultures function as religions. Every nonhuman race has it's own religion
(often based in Demon lord worship) and shamans.
I hope to get some time to type and post some of the adventures I have send
my guys in but I can promise anything.

On Fri, 18 May 2001 07:52:15 +1000, "Stephen Lister"
<rpg@twistedreality.com.au> wrote:

>I'm fully aware of the nature of copyright. My intent (which I don't seem

>to have made clear enough) was not to state that the copyright no longer
>existed, but that TSR/WotC/Hasbro have shown such little interest in the
>material that a legal defence of abandonment could legitimately be
>employed - especially as they have gone out of their way to ensure that
>the material is no longer available for legitimate purchase.

But you're not advocating a "legal defence". You're advocating theft on
the
grounds that probably no-one will notice.

I'm pointing out that, since this material has been made public before (in
breach of copyright) and no legal action was taken, the material can now
be considered to be abandoned and therefore legally in the public
domain.In the case of someone "noticing it" (as you put it) and taking
some form of legal action, that a legal defence of abandonment would be
likely to succeed. And, if the defence succeeds, then no crime has taken
place. QED.

>So (as you said at the end of your message) the chances that the existing

>copyright will be enforced are extremely low, especially as the breach

has

>to be noticed before action could be taken.

So, if nobody notices you committing a crime, you're not committing a
crime?
I'll bet that one stands up well in court.

Se my message above - I am pointing out that it is quite possible that *no
crime is taking place*. The legal concept of copyright abandonment is well
established and has been tested and won in many cases worldwide.

It's only human nature to want to "get away" with things like this,
especially when the risk is so tiny. I'm not rebuking you for that. Just
don't be "righteous" about it; theft is still theft. Acknowledge it (to
yourself I mean), and move on.

I'm not being righteous in any way - I'm trying to educate you in some of
the basics of copyright law. To maintain a copyright you *MUST* defend any
and all breaches of it. Even one failure can be sufficient to erase your
ownership. (It's usually not - common sense still does apply in law
sometimes.) But there has been no - I repeat, *NO* attempt to pursue any
breach of the DragonQuest copyright, by TSR/WotC/Hasbro.

If anyone is being "righteous" (IMHO) it's you. Don't presume to lecture
me on legality, morality or ethics, hmmm? Especially as you pointed out
yourself that you are not a lawyer, and know nothing about this
whatsoever. You are speaking from your own assumptions, which I was trying
to point out are false ones.

(It's possible, incidentally, that the rights do not belong to Hasbro;
they
may have reverted to the original author, i.e., Rudy Kraft. Depends on
the
details of whatever contract he originally signed and so on.)

It doesn't matter where the copyright resided (note past tense). As it has
not been <QUOTE> vigorously defended <UNQUOTE> then it has been abandoned.


Stephen Lister

The talk about theft is too heavy-handed. There is the letter of the law,
and the spirit of the law. This is a company that was bought to borrow a
few ideas, and then put down to keep it from competing. It no longer
exists, and nobody cares.

p.s. If enough people start copying and using Alusia, TSR will reprint it.
We can all buy copies to expunge our sins at that time.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Probst
To: dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 5/18/01 8:17 AM
Subject: Re: [DQN-list] Digest Number 35

On Fri, 18 May 2001 07:52:15 +1000, "Stephen Lister"
<rpg@twistedreality.com.au> wrote:

>I'm fully aware of the nature of copyright. My intent (which I don't

seem

>to have made clear enough) was not to state that the copyright no

longer

>existed, but that TSR/WotC/Hasbro have shown such little interest in

the

>material that a legal defence of abandonment could legitimately be
>employed - especially as they have gone out of their way to ensure that

>the material is no longer available for legitimate purchase.

But you're not advocating a "legal defence". You're advocating theft on
the
grounds that probably no-one will notice.

>So (as you said at the end of your message) the chances that the

existing

>copyright will be enforced are extremely low, especially as the breach

has

>to be noticed before action could be taken.

So, if nobody notices you committing a crime, you're not committing a
crime?
I'll bet that one stands up well in court.

It's only human nature to want to "get away" with things like this,
especially when the risk is so tiny. I'm not rebuking you for that.
Just
don't be "righteous" about it; theft is still theft. Acknowledge it (to
yourself I mean), and move on.

(It's possible, incidentally, that the rights do not belong to Hasbro;
they
may have reverted to the original author, i.e., Rudy Kraft. Depends on
the
details of whatever contract he originally signed and so on.)

----------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Probst bprobst@netspace.net.au ICQ 6563830
Melbourne, Australia MSTie #72759
"Elf tastes just like chicken."
ASL FAQ http://users.senet.com.au/~mantis/ASLFAQ





Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

On Sat, 19 May 2001 23:39:32 -0700, Loki Freyr <loki@faralloncapital.com>
wrote:

>The talk about theft is too heavy-handed.

Is there a light-handed way of talking about a committing a crime?

>p.s. If enough people start copying and using Alusia, TSR will reprint it.
>We can all buy copies to expunge our sins at that time.

Well, I bought a copy when it was originally released, but that was just a
matter of right place, right time. You're living in a fool's paradise if
you believe that "sufficient activity" will prompt Hasbro to invest
considerable $$$ in reprinting an item that a tiny percentage of a tiny
percentage of a niche group are actually interested in buying. The more
*likely* result is that letters from lawyers would follow, not a new DQ
release!

Did anyone wanting to participate in these criminal proceedings even
*contemplate* asking Hasbro for *permission*? Or did they feel it was
better to try and stay in the shadows, and hope no-one noticed? The answer
to these questions may be very revealing about character ....

----------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Probst bprobst@netspace.net.au ICQ 6563830
Melbourne, Australia MSTie #72759
"I love the girl ... but I want the hand!"
ASL FAQ http://users.senet.com.au/~mantis/ASLFAQ

The religion in my game evolved during play from several different
elements. In the beginning of the game I included a "Pyramid of the
Creator" which was a monument to the creator of the world. No real
religious significance ever arose out of that artifact.

During the course of play, I introduced a female NPC that exhibited
some dragon-like powers and/or very advanced skills. One of the
players invented a religion around that character, created a skill
write-up similar to a magic college, invented religious practices,
and developed a complete mythology. Given the amount of work that
was put into the creation, the "Temple of the Lady" became the
religion in the game.

At a later time, I dropped a meteor on the planet. To my surprise,
one of the Bishops of the Church (a PC) decided to investigate the
meteor. During the course of the investigation, the PC had some
prophetic dreams where the meteor spoke to the character. This
resulted in a religious schism with the PC leading a new revised
religious movement involving the meteor. He couldn't get the
Archbishop (head of the church) to recognized the legitimacy of the
prophetic dreams, so he split from the church and created his own
religion.

So the short answer to the question was that the game began with very
little in the way of a religion and ended with a two player created
religions.

Well, if Bruce wants to talk about "crimes" why doesn't he go and ask TSR
about the lifetime's worth of issues of Strategy & Tactics that they owe a

whole pile of people - bought and paid for but never supplied and no
refunds even offered.

And he continues to miss my whole point - that no crime would be being
committed. Bruce - read this very carefully,

COPYRIGHT NO LONGER EXISTS IN RESPECT TO "FRONTIERS OF ALUSIA" OR ANY
OTHER SPI OR TSR DRAGONQUEST PUBLICATION.

(With the specific exception of the DragonQuest name, as a different
product was released under that name, with the sole purpose of maintaining

the name's copyright. Notice that it was published, sold very briefly, and

then disappeared.)

And before you say another word I suggest that you go and consult with a
competent copyright lawyer. Until you do I also suggest that you shut up
about it, as it is increasingly obvious that you

a) don't know squat about it, and

b) aren't bothering to read the messages that are being posted unless they

agree with you.

Stephen Lister




-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Probst
To: Loki Freyr; dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 5/20/01 9:02 PM
Subject: Re: [DQN-list] Digest Number 35

On Sat, 19 May 2001 23:39:32 -0700, Loki Freyr
<loki@faralloncapital.com>
wrote:

>The talk about theft is too heavy-handed.

Is there a light-handed way of talking about a committing a crime?

>p.s. If enough people start copying and using Alusia, TSR will reprint

it.

>We can all buy copies to expunge our sins at that time.

Well, I bought a copy when it was originally released, but that was just
a
matter of right place, right time. You're living in a fool's paradise
if
you believe that "sufficient activity" will prompt Hasbro to invest
considerable $$$ in reprinting an item that a tiny percentage of a tiny
percentage of a niche group are actually interested in buying. The more
*likely* result is that letters from lawyers would follow, not a new DQ
release!

Did anyone wanting to participate in these criminal proceedings even
*contemplate* asking Hasbro for *permission*? Or did they feel it was
better to try and stay in the shadows, and hope no-one noticed? The
answer
to these questions may be very revealing about character ....

----------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Probst bprobst@netspace.net.au ICQ 6563830
Melbourne, Australia MSTie #72759
"I love the girl ... but I want the hand!"
ASL FAQ http://users.senet.com.au/~mantis/ASLFAQ

Okay...

I think we know where everyone stands on this issue, and I don't think
that anyone's attitude towards the matter is going to be changed.

If you'd like to discuss this further, feel free to take it into
personal, direct e-mail, but I'm going to reject any further posts on
the topic if things keep going towards flamewar...

Cheers,

Your Friendly Moderator

Sounds cool to me :-)

I'd still like the person with the full-size version of the FoA map to
contact me please. Off-list would probably be better, to avoid offending
people's sensibilities:-)

Stephen Lister





dqn@bignet.net
22/05/2001 10:08
Please respond to dqn-list


To: dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
cc:
Subject: [DQN-list] The Alusia Thread

Okay...

I think we know where everyone stands on this issue, and I don't think
that anyone's attitude towards the matter is going to be changed.

If you'd like to discuss this further, feel free to take it into
personal, direct e-mail, but I'm going to reject any further posts on
the topic if things keep going towards flamewar...

Cheers,

Your Friendly Moderator




Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

My world has an empire with a myriad of gods (analogous to Norse/Greek/Roman
pantheons). The basic belief throughout the empire is that if one lives a
mostly ethical life, and most importantly, receives a proper burial, s/he
will go to the halls of his/her deity after death. This causes tension with
the realm to the east (analogous to India), where bodies are burned after
death. The rivalry really helps to define the culture and history of the
gameworld.

As a storyline, I have introduced a group called the Church of All Gods.
They claim that all the gods should be equally honored, so no particular god
should be worshipped by name, lest the others be offended. They have
frequent but ambiguous rituals, and preach a relaxing of the usual social
moral codes for their adherents. There is a rigid hierarchy, much like the
Catholic Church. Many wealthy city-dwellers profess this faith, and the
Emperor himself is said to be sympathetic. They are sending missions to
start churches in every city of the empire. The problem is that they
advocate cremation! The northern kingdoms are very resistant to the idea,
and it might eventually break up the empire.

Much like the recent presidential election was an obsession for citizens of
the U.S., everyone in the gameworld is talks frequently about the Church of
All Gods, which makes my job running NPCs a lot easier.

I am also testing a priest class. The priest can pick any college, but must
choose a deity somehow related to the college from a polytheistic pantheon
to serve. The player gets all general knowledge spells, rituals and talents
at rank 1, and must spend xp's normally to advance. Player adds her MA into
basic cast chance, instead of +/- due to MA being over/under 15. Player can
only cast each spell once per day, but no chance of backfire. She must
complete a quest that advances the cause of the deity in order to be awarded
the special knowledge spells. In addition to the usual circumstantial
modifiers to cast chance, the player will have up to a +/-10% to cast, based
on how her current actions are in alignment with the deity's purposes. I
try to keep this simple. The primary action is to work praise of the god
into one's speech as much as possible. Example for an air mage: "Look at
that storm.... Behold the power of almighty Ventus; truly, he is the
greatest of gods!"

Furthermore, the character can give up some spells from her college, and on
a one-for-one basis, trade them for generic spells from the College of Black
Magic (bless crops, minor curse, evil eye and so on).

We've only used it for two sessions so far, but it seems sound.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ramon Negron
To: dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 5/19/01 11:20 AM
Subject: [DQN-list] Gods

Hi all;
I have been lurking in the background of this list for a while. I have
been
running a DragonQuest Campaign in New York City for 5 years now. Any
players in New York City? I would welcome one or two more player.
You can contact me at mailto:elgiem@mindspring.com
Regarding gods, none of my player characters are very religiously
inclined.
I do have a couple of religions in the game but they are kept at a
minimum
impact. So far I have the following religious orders.
The priests of the Creator - These are a kind of true neutral order.
They
are concerned with the balance of elemental forces in the world (dark
and
light included). Their symbol is a quarterstaff carved with symbols of
the
elements surmounted by a mighty tree. They include mages of all
colleges.
The Creator in their view is like the Tao in Taoism, it is not a being
but
the totality of what is.
The priests of Yormar - Yormar was and elflord who became obsessed with
power and eventually tried to become a Demon Lord. A previous group of
adventurers stopped Yormar before he could fulfill his ambition but the
religion still goes on, worshiping various demons and supplying themes
for
adventures occasionally. They are aligned with the powers of darkness.
The Ascetes - They are a kind of monk, much like the Buddhists monks of
today. They live in self-sufficient communities and practice mediation
and
renunciation of worldly attachments. On joining the order they are
given a
magnificently embroidered robe. This is the only garment they will ever
wear, so with time they have to 'let go of its splendor' as they
themselves
'let go of the world'. They are trained in healing, magic and martial
arts.
The northern human tribes worship animal totems; their shamans are mages
with a twist as they get extra benefits from their totem, including
shape
change. I have also colleges of black magic and white magic that in
some
cultures function as religions. Every nonhuman race has it's own
religion
(often based in Demon lord worship) and shamans.
I hope to get some time to type and post some of the adventures I have
send
my guys in but I can promise anything.







Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

A priest CLASS? *shudder* that is the entire reason why I like DQ, no
classes, more roleplay.


Loki Freyr <loki@faralloncapital.com> wrote:
My world has an empire with a myriad of gods (analogous to Norse/Greek/Roman
pantheons). The basic belief throughout the empire is that if one lives a
mostly ethical life, and most importantly, receives a proper burial, s/he
will go to the halls of his/her deity after death. This causes tension with
the realm to the east (analogous to India), where bodies are burned after
death. The rivalry really helps to define the culture and history of the
gameworld.

As a storyline, I have introduced a group called the Church of All Gods.
They claim that all the gods should be equally honored, so no particular god
should be worshipped by name, lest the others be offended. They have
frequent but ambiguous rituals, and preach a relaxing of the usual social
moral codes for their adherents. There is a rigid hierarchy, much like the
Catholic Church. Many wealthy city-dwellers profess this faith, and the
Emperor himself is said to be sympathetic. They are sending missions to
start churches in every city of the empire. The problem is that they
advocate cremation! The northern kingdoms are very resistant to the idea,
and it might eventually break up the empire.

Much like the recent presidential election was an obsession for citizens of
the U.S., everyone in the gameworld is talks frequently about the Church of
All Gods, which makes my job running NPCs a lot easier.

I am also testing a priest class. The priest can pick any college, but must
choose a deity somehow related to the college from a polytheistic pantheon
to serve. The player gets all general knowledge spells, rituals and talents
at rank 1, and must spend xp's normally to advance. Player adds her MA into
basic cast chance, instead of +/- due to MA being over/under 15. Player can
only cast each spell once per day, but no chance of backfire. She must
complete a quest that advances the cause of the deity in order to be awarded
the special knowledge spells. In addition to the usual circumstantial
modifiers to cast chance, the player will have up to a +/-10% to cast, based
on how her current actions are in alignment with the deity's purposes. I
try to keep this simple. The primary action is to work praise of the god
into one's speech as much as possible. Example for an air mage: "Look at
that storm.... Behold the power of almighty Ventus; truly, he is the
greatest of gods!"

Furthermore, the character can give up some spells from her college, and on
a one-for-one basis, trade them for generic spells from the College of Black
Magic (bless crops, minor curse, evil eye and so on).

We've only used it for two sessions so far, but it seems sound.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ramon Negron
To: dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 5/19/01 11:20 AM
Subject: [DQN-list] Gods

Hi all;
I have been lurking in the background of this list for a while. I have
been
running a DragonQuest Campaign in New York City for 5 years now. Any
players in New York City? I would welcome one or two more player.
You can contact me at mailto:elgiem@mindspring.com
Regarding gods, none of my player characters are very religiously
inclined.
I do have a couple of religions in the game but they are kept at a
minimum
impact. So far I have the following religious orders.
The priests of the Creator - These are a kind of true neutral order.
They
are concerned with the balance of elemental forces in the world (dark
and
light included). Their symbol is a quarterstaff carved with symbols of
the
elements surmounted by a mighty tree. They include mages of all
colleges.
The Creator in their view is like the Tao in Taoism, it is not a being
but
the totality of what is.
The priests of Yormar - Yormar was and elflord who became obsessed with
power and eventually tried to become a Demon Lord. A previous group of
adventurers stopped Yormar before he could fulfill his ambition but the
religion still goes on, worshiping various demons and supplying themes
for
adventures occasionally. They are aligned with the powers of darkness.
The Ascetes - They are a kind of monk, much like the Buddhists monks of
today. They live in self-sufficient communities and practice mediation
and
renunciation of worldly attachments. On joining the order they are
given a
magnificently embroidered robe. This is the only garment they will ever
wear, so with time they have to 'let go of its splendor' as they
themselves
'let go of the world'. They are trained in healing, magic and martial
arts.
The northern human tribes worship animal totems; their shamans are mages
with a twist as they get extra benefits from their totem, including
shape
change. I have also colleges of black magic and white magic that in
some
cultures function as religions. Every nonhuman race has it's own
religion
(often based in Demon lord worship) and shamans.
I hope to get some time to type and post some of the adventures I have
send
my guys in but I can promise anything.







Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/





Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/




____________________________________________________________________
Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1

I understand CLASS has negative connotations...but I had to call it
something, and "skill" didn't seem the best choice. Even without D&D-like
classes, DQ players still tend to lean strongly towards certain identities
such as fighter, wizard, thief, assassin, and so on. What do you think is
the best term for such an identity? Perhaps "template"? Anyone have an
ideas?

-----Original Message-----
From: Mitchell Harris [mailto:heneryville@usa.net]
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 4:02 PM
To: dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [RE: [DQN-list] Religion/Gods]

A priest CLASS? *shudder* that is the entire reason why I like DQ, no
classes, more roleplay.


Loki Freyr <loki@faralloncapital.com> wrote:
My world has an empire with a myriad of gods (analogous to Norse/Greek/Roman
pantheons). The basic belief throughout the empire is that if one lives a
mostly ethical life, and most importantly, receives a proper burial, s/he
will go to the halls of his/her deity after death. This causes tension with
the realm to the east (analogous to India), where bodies are burned after
death. The rivalry really helps to define the culture and history of the
gameworld.

As a storyline, I have introduced a group called the Church of All Gods.
They claim that all the gods should be equally honored, so no particular god
should be worshipped by name, lest the others be offended. They have
frequent but ambiguous rituals, and preach a relaxing of the usual social
moral codes for their adherents. There is a rigid hierarchy, much like the
Catholic Church. Many wealthy city-dwellers profess this faith, and the
Emperor himself is said to be sympathetic. They are sending missions to
start churches in every city of the empire. The problem is that they
advocate cremation! The northern kingdoms are very resistant to the idea,
and it might eventually break up the empire.

Much like the recent presidential election was an obsession for citizens of
the U.S., everyone in the gameworld is talks frequently about the Church of
All Gods, which makes my job running NPCs a lot easier.

I am also testing a priest class. The priest can pick any college, but must
choose a deity somehow related to the college from a polytheistic pantheon
to serve. The player gets all general knowledge spells, rituals and talents
at rank 1, and must spend xp's normally to advance. Player adds her MA into
basic cast chance, instead of +/- due to MA being over/under 15. Player can
only cast each spell once per day, but no chance of backfire. She must
complete a quest that advances the cause of the deity in order to be awarded
the special knowledge spells. In addition to the usual circumstantial
modifiers to cast chance, the player will have up to a +/-10% to cast, based
on how her current actions are in alignment with the deity's purposes. I
try to keep this simple. The primary action is to work praise of the god
into one's speech as much as possible. Example for an air mage: "Look at
that storm.... Behold the power of almighty Ventus; truly, he is the
greatest of gods!"

Furthermore, the character can give up some spells from her college, and on
a one-for-one basis, trade them for generic spells from the College of Black
Magic (bless crops, minor curse, evil eye and so on).

We've only used it for two sessions so far, but it seems sound.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ramon Negron
To: dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 5/19/01 11:20 AM
Subject: [DQN-list] Gods

Hi all;
I have been lurking in the background of this list for a while. I have
been
running a DragonQuest Campaign in New York City for 5 years now. Any
players in New York City? I would welcome one or two more player.
You can contact me at mailto:elgiem@mindspring.com
Regarding gods, none of my player characters are very religiously
inclined.
I do have a couple of religions in the game but they are kept at a
minimum
impact. So far I have the following religious orders.
The priests of the Creator - These are a kind of true neutral order.
They
are concerned with the balance of elemental forces in the world (dark
and
light included). Their symbol is a quarterstaff carved with symbols of
the
elements surmounted by a mighty tree. They include mages of all
colleges.
The Creator in their view is like the Tao in Taoism, it is not a being
but
the totality of what is.
The priests of Yormar - Yormar was and elflord who became obsessed with
power and eventually tried to become a Demon Lord. A previous group of
adventurers stopped Yormar before he could fulfill his ambition but the
religion still goes on, worshiping various demons and supplying themes
for
adventures occasionally. They are aligned with the powers of darkness.
The Ascetes - They are a kind of monk, much like the Buddhists monks of
today. They live in self-sufficient communities and practice mediation
and
renunciation of worldly attachments. On joining the order they are
given a
magnificently embroidered robe. This is the only garment they will ever
wear, so with time they have to 'let go of its splendor' as they
themselves
'let go of the world'. They are trained in healing, magic and martial
arts.
The northern human tribes worship animal totems; their shamans are mages
with a twist as they get extra benefits from their totem, including
shape
change. I have also colleges of black magic and white magic that in
some
cultures function as religions. Every nonhuman race has it's own
religion
(often based in Demon lord worship) and shamans.
I hope to get some time to type and post some of the adventures I have
send
my guys in but I can promise anything.







Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/





Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/




____________________________________________________________________
Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1




Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

On 23 May 2001 17:02:16 MDT, Mitchell Harris <heneryville@usa.net> wrote:

>A priest CLASS? *shudder* that is the entire reason why I like DQ, no
>classes, more roleplay.

Actually, looked at objectively, the DQ Skill system *is* a "class" system.
It's a very flexible and open system, to be sure, but the concept of
"classes" still exists at its core.

Each "skill" in DQ is really more of a profession -- a collection of related
abilities -- rather than a "skill" as they are normally defined in RPGs.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Probst bprobst@netspace.net.au ICQ 6563830
Melbourne, Australia MSTie #72759
"You're not my real father!"
ASL FAQ http://users.senet.com.au/~mantis/ASLFAQ

We did different things - players could pick their characters'
religion (or decide not to have one). If they wrote up some
thing or played it I as the GM went along with it unless it
broke the world...

I also shamelessly borrowed various historical religions
and made up a few dozen more so that different cultures
the PC's ran into could have distinctive religions. I had
one region that was based on the norwegian regions
and another that was more 'balkan', etc.

And if I lifted material from a module somewhere and
it had religion and I liked it I often left the whole module
and all it's background in the world forever ... I would
place the modules on the map and then do out the
area around them in a consistent way and is such a way
as to build something coherent for the region.

If it was good and usable but didn't mesh well with other
stuff 'around' I just set it futher away.. islands, further
continents, etc.

I had actually did the world map out roughly before
I ever started my campaign and then did detail maps
of the areas around the campaign cities... then just
added more detail maps as the players got near any
area.

Over the years I ended up with a real lot of very
detailed maps of the world...

The world was I think 44 maps each that was broken
down into 16 maps of hex paper with 18.4 miles/hex
at this level then I'd do only occaisional more detail
maps than that (seldom needed them) other than particular
scenario maps like a 'map to hand to the players'. Since
these were supposed to be hand drawn they often didn't
have detail scale.

But I had plenty of room for places with different
religions. And I probably only did about half
the worlds' breakdown maps so I had plenty
of room left! The fun thing was to do detailed
City maps. One of my former GM's used to
do really neat ones so I started... I probably
did a few dozen but they were too much
work to keep doing so I mostly borrowed
them from modules and such or just kept
lists of what was in any given city and didn't
do maps for most of them.

DMU

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Probst" <bprobst@netspace.net.au>
To: <dqn-list@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: [DQN-list] Religions


> On Fri, 18 May 2001 12:55:19 +0200, agustafsson@viewlocity.com wrote:
>
> >The reason for posting this is that I'd like to know you have solved
this. I
> >know that the subject of religions come up now and then among DQ players,
> >but I still haven't seen anyone describing how it is handled in their
> >respective campaigns.
>
> Well, in my old long-lost DQ campaign, I have to admit we used method 3 --
> i.e., we just ignored it, for the most part. None of the PCs were
> "religious", and there was no reason for them to be. We were young <g>.
>
> After umpteen years of playing mostly RuneQuest in the interim, though,
the
> question of religion is a little more central in my thinking, and I've
been
> wondering how I'll integrate it into the new Alusia campaign game I'll
> shortly be running.
>
> I think the first (I hesitate to say "fundamental" <g>) rule is to decide
> what, exactly, are the role of priests in your world? Are they:
>
> (a) like real-world priests -- sources of knowledge, distributors of
faith,
> etc., but no "powers" or "magic" as such.
>
> (b) like D&D -- a slightly different variety of magic user.
>
> (c) like RQ -- divine magic is very different in practically all respects
to
> other sorts of magic, and if you want it, you have to show appropriate
> faith, make appropriate sacrifices, etc.
>
> Also -- it's a FRPG staple that fantasy worlds have polytheistic societies
> -- multiple gods, like the Greeks etc. But maybe *your* world runs better
> with a monotheistic background.
>
> Are the gods actually gods? Or are they like the demons, powerful and
> (presumably) immortal, but not necessarily invulnerable on the mortal
plane?
>
> Lots of questions. Different answers will require different solutions.
>
> FWIW, my current line of thinking is to take approach (c) with a *mostly*
> monotheistic background (i.e., humans worship one God, but other races
have
> other ideas ...). But I haven't fleshed it out at all yet.
>
> Incidentally, there was some ill-defined divine background in the
"Enchanted
> Woods" module. The "god" who plays a prominent part in that module is
more
> of a powerful spirit than a "god" ... so maybe there are several "ranks"
of
> gods, too. Hmm ....
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Bruce Probst bprobst@netspace.net.au ICQ 6563830
> Melbourne, Australia MSTie #72759
> "Elf tastes just like chicken."
> ASL FAQ http://users.senet.com.au/~mantis/ASLFAQ
>
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

On Thu, 24 May 2001 17:24:33 -0700, Loki Freyr <loki@faralloncapital.com>
wrote:

>I understand CLASS has negative connotations...but I had to call it
>something, and "skill" didn't seem the best choice. Even without D&D-like
>classes, DQ players still tend to lean strongly towards certain identities
>such as fighter, wizard, thief, assassin, and so on. What do you think is
>the best term for such an identity? Perhaps "template"? Anyone have an
>ideas?

I like "profession".

----------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Probst bprobst@netspace.net.au ICQ 6563830
Melbourne, Australia MSTie #72759
"Bow down! Bow down before me Jor-El!"
ASL FAQ http://users.senet.com.au/~mantis/ASLFAQ

At 02:12 PM 5/26/01, you wrote:

>On Thu, 24 May 2001 17:24:33 -0700, Loki Freyr <loki@faralloncapital.com>
>wrote:
>
> >I understand CLASS has negative connotations...but I had to call it
> >something, and "skill" didn't seem the best choice. Even without D&D-like
> >classes, DQ players still tend to lean strongly towards certain identities
> >such as fighter, wizard, thief, assassin, and so on. What do you think is
> >the best term for such an identity? Perhaps "template"? Anyone have an
> >ideas?
>
>I like "profession".

I use profession as well in my campaign.



Jason Winter
Alarian@uswest.net
http://www.darkrealms.com/~alarian/

>I understand CLASS has negative connotations...but I had to call it
>something, and "skill" didn't seem the best choice. Even without D&D-like
>classes, DQ players still tend to lean strongly towards certain identities
>such as fighter, wizard, thief, assassin, and so on. What do you think is
>the best term for such an identity? Perhaps "template"? Anyone have an
>ideas?

This must depend on how you tend to play DQ, because in our
campaigns, the characters really haven't leaned towards class-like
identities at all. And I agree with the guy who shudders over the
idea of a "priest class"--that's what I have always loved about
DQ, that it frees you up to be anything at all. The problem I
have with words like "template" or "class" is that it suggests
similarities between individuals that are, in DQ, merely
superficial. For example, we both have the ability to cast
spells. In some sense, you can say we are both "wizards." But
so what? Does that mean we both tend to be poor fighters? No.
In my favorite campaign, our best Adept was also one of our
best "fighters." Does it mean we both tend to be scholarly?
Nope. Does it mean we both have high Magical Aptitudes, even?
Not in DQ!

In short, the problem I perceive is that thinking in terms of
"classes" and "templates" can (and usually does, in my experience)
lead to fitting the character into the template, rather than
having the character be whatever he is and then sort of realizing
that a certain template fits *him*.

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

Hullo, Mitchell,

On 23 May 2001 17:02:16 MDT, Mitchell Harris wrote:

>A priest CLASS? *shudder* that is the entire reason why I like DQ, no
>classes, more roleplay.

Actually, DQ does use a form of "class" system in that the
various skills in DQ (such as Thief, Military Scientist, etc.) are
actually occupations per se (or classes), not skills, since each has
a group of skills related to the occupation under them. However,
most of us don't consider this to be a Class-based system, simply
because one doesn't improve the overall Rank of the class, but the
individual skills themselves. Of course, some may just consider
this all a bunch of semantic mumbo-jumbo. :)

... These mindless ramblings have been brought to you courtesy of much caffeine.

JohnK
jkahane@comnet.ca
http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

I like the term, 'occupation.' Every character's job needs to be defined a
bit when the players are building a party. Those who are chosen for their
melee weapon skills, my group refers to as "the muscle."

D&D is clearly a more east-coast type of game. DQ is very
Californian--players can really manifest and actualize themselves, without
rigid hierarchical labels.

--A San Franciscan

-----Original Message-----
From: John M. Kahane
To: dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 5/27/01 1:09 AM
Subject: [DQN-list] DQ "Classes" (Was: Re: Religion/Gods)

Hullo, Mitchell,

On 23 May 2001 17:02:16 MDT, Mitchell Harris wrote:

>A priest CLASS? *shudder* that is the entire reason why I like DQ, no
>classes, more roleplay.

Actually, DQ does use a form of "class" system in that the
various skills in DQ (such as Thief, Military Scientist, etc.) are
actually occupations per se (or classes), not skills, since each has
a group of skills related to the occupation under them. However,
most of us don't consider this to be a Class-based system, simply
because one doesn't improve the overall Rank of the class, but the
individual skills themselves. Of course, some may just consider
this all a bunch of semantic mumbo-jumbo. :)

... These mindless ramblings have been brought to you courtesy of much
caffeine.

JohnK
jkahane@comnet.ca
http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane





Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

To simulate Dwarvish, I have been using a sort of backward German. For
example, River City, in Deutsch 'Fluss Stadt,' became Su'ulf Tdasht. 'Go
back'--gehen zuruck--became 'neheg kuroos,' etc.

I'm going to be needing something to simulate Dragonish, and I wonder if
anyone has a useful trick s/he has used in the past? (Backward German would
have been perfect, but I've already used it. One of my players is a
language professor, and would think me lazy.)

btw, backward Spanish sounds vaguely Egyptian or Arabic. 'Ayav nok so-eed.'

Hi

How many people found that investment got out of
hand in long-term (5+ year) campaigns filled with
lots of wizzards (probably applies only to large
player groups)?

I liked investment... but it clearly gets out of hand.

I was always looking for some way to tone it down.

For a couple of years we tried the "reduces the %
by a certain %". We tried I recall 20%. Helped
but still really didn't fix the problem.

Other things I've seen is having them 'wear out'.

The problem then is that since the system really
doesn't 'want' to be a D&D like system with
other permanent magic items, at least not many,
that removes the "ancient item" thing from scenarios
that are too much a part of the genre.

So...

Thoughts?

Problems?

I recall one fight in a campaign I was in
where the PC's were going after a dragon.

The Fire mage handed out rings of high rank
DragonFlames to each of the members of the
group.

The dragon never had a chance!

My solution to that minor specific problem was
to make all dragons inherently immune to
all types of fire, including magical, and up
their Magic resistance in general. But it
didn't solve the problem in general of the
PC's walking around with bags of rings...

One though was to keep the $$ low in
a campaign an make investing expensive.

This fails in the long run - it's the typical
D&D problem of the sword that is play
unbalanced but needs a 18/00 strength
to weild. Once you have that strength
the sword is usable and even more
unbalanced. So then if a character has
lots of $$ they are even more unbalanced...

I have now run for the 2nd time after
a many year break... I'm only planning
on occaisional but am thinking of splitting
the casting of investment to 'short term'
and 'long term' where the items take
hours to cast but the investment fades
in weeks or months, and days to cast
but the investment lasts months to a
year...

Then to get it to last longer you'd need
some sort of binding spell cast by a
'shaper' that also takes weeks and
lots of $$.

Thoughts on this?

DMU

This has been an idea that for a while I have been interested in. I have seen
two ways to solve this. One includes making having these investment standard,
as a result the enemies we fight are by no means normal. They tend all to
have an immunity and do at least +10 damage with mutliple strikes. The other
solution that I use in my campign is, magic is very rare so the $$ spent is
huge and their are generaly no mages with high enough rank to invest the
instant kill or high damage spells. Also people have a tendency to act
hostily to any magic users. I find that if played right, this counters the
use of magic investments quite well.

"David Union" <dunion@tiac.net> wrote:
Hi

How many people found that investment got out of
hand in long-term (5+ year) campaigns filled with
lots of wizzards (probably applies only to large
player groups)?

I liked investment... but it clearly gets out of hand.

I was always looking for some way to tone it down.

For a couple of years we tried the "reduces the %
by a certain %". We tried I recall 20%. Helped
but still really didn't fix the problem.

Other things I've seen is having them 'wear out'.

The problem then is that since the system really
doesn't 'want' to be a D&D like system with
other permanent magic items, at least not many,
that removes the "ancient item" thing from scenarios
that are too much a part of the genre.

So...

Thoughts?

Problems?

I recall one fight in a campaign I was in
where the PC's were going after a dragon.

The Fire mage handed out rings of high rank
DragonFlames to each of the members of the
group.

The dragon never had a chance!

My solution to that minor specific problem was
to make all dragons inherently immune to
all types of fire, including magical, and up
their Magic resistance in general. But it
didn't solve the problem in general of the
PC's walking around with bags of rings...

One though was to keep the $$ low in
a campaign an make investing expensive.

This fails in the long run - it's the typical
D&D problem of the sword that is play
unbalanced but needs a 18/00 strength
to weild. Once you have that strength
the sword is usable and even more
unbalanced. So then if a character has
lots of $$ they are even more unbalanced...

I have now run for the 2nd time after
a many year break... I'm only planning
on occaisional but am thinking of splitting
the casting of investment to 'short term'
and 'long term' where the items take
hours to cast but the investment fades
in weeks or months, and days to cast
but the investment lasts months to a
year...

Then to get it to last longer you'd need
some sort of binding spell cast by a
'shaper' that also takes weeks and
lots of $$.

Thoughts on this?

DMU





Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/




____________________________________________________________________
Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1

We played in one campaign where each fantasy language
was a real world language. Dwarvish Was German,
Dragonish was Chinese... etc.

DMU

----- Original Message -----
From: "Loki Freyr" <loki@faralloncapital.com>
To: <dqn-list@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 28, 2001 6:16 AM
Subject: [DQN-list] Language


> To simulate Dwarvish, I have been using a sort of backward German. For
> example, River City, in Deutsch 'Fluss Stadt,' became Su'ulf Tdasht. 'Go
> back'--gehen zuruck--became 'neheg kuroos,' etc.
>
> I'm going to be needing something to simulate Dragonish, and I wonder if
> anyone has a useful trick s/he has used in the past? (Backward German
would
> have been perfect, but I've already used it. One of my players is a
> language professor, and would think me lazy.)
>
> btw, backward Spanish sounds vaguely Egyptian or Arabic. 'Ayav nok
so-eed.'
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

The campaign that I play in has log troubled with this problem. The
solution that we have come up with that seems to work resonably well is the
following.

1) A mage can only have as many investments currently active as they have
rank in the investment ritual, i.e. your rank 10, that give you 11
investments with 11 charges each, (0 counts as rank). This has a tendancy
for mages not want to give out investments to everybody they meet as they
will soon not be able to make anymore. In our campagn we can buy
investments from mages at great cost, plus a depost that will be returned if
the investment is used with-in a specified time period -- one month.

2) Investment can only be placed in an item that is equal to or greater
then 1000 sp x rank of spell x number of charges, This also has the effect
of rasing the price of purchasing investments.

3) Investments found on kills tend to either get sold, discarded, or used
quickly because the mages that created them might just come looking for
them. A mage always knows the direction in which an investment is in. (Hmm
wonder who made all those R20 investments..... can you say Deamon.... )

Todd Coy

---- Original Message -----
From: "David Union" <dunion@tiac.net>
To: <dqn-list@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 28, 2001 8:55 PM
Subject: [DQN-list] Investment

> Hi
>
> How many people found that investment got out of
> hand in long-term (5+ year) campaigns filled with
> lots of wizzards (probably applies only to large
> player groups)?
>
> I liked investment... but it clearly gets out of hand.
>
> I was always looking for some way to tone it down.
>
> For a couple of years we tried the "reduces the %
> by a certain %". We tried I recall 20%. Helped
> but still really didn't fix the problem.
>
> Other things I've seen is having them 'wear out'.
>
> The problem then is that since the system really
> doesn't 'want' to be a D&D like system with
> other permanent magic items, at least not many,
> that removes the "ancient item" thing from scenarios
> that are too much a part of the genre.
>
> So...
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Problems?
>
> I recall one fight in a campaign I was in
> where the PC's were going after a dragon.
>
> The Fire mage handed out rings of high rank
> DragonFlames to each of the members of the
> group.
>
> The dragon never had a chance!
>
> My solution to that minor specific problem was
> to make all dragons inherently immune to
> all types of fire, including magical, and up
> their Magic resistance in general. But it
> didn't solve the problem in general of the
> PC's walking around with bags of rings...
>
> One though was to keep the $$ low in
> a campaign an make investing expensive.
>
> This fails in the long run - it's the typical
> D&D problem of the sword that is play
> unbalanced but needs a 18/00 strength
> to weild. Once you have that strength
> the sword is usable and even more
> unbalanced. So then if a character has
> lots of $$ they are even more unbalanced...
>
> I have now run for the 2nd time after
> a many year break... I'm only planning
> on occaisional but am thinking of splitting
> the casting of investment to 'short term'
> and 'long term' where the items take
> hours to cast but the investment fades
> in weeks or months, and days to cast
> but the investment lasts months to a
> year...
>
> Then to get it to last longer you'd need
> some sort of binding spell cast by a
> 'shaper' that also takes weeks and
> lots of $$.
>
> Thoughts on this?
>
> DMU
>
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

On Mon, 28 May 2001 20:55:05 -0400, "David Union" <dunion@tiac.net> wrote:

>How many people found that investment got out of
>hand in long-term (5+ year) campaigns filled with
>lots of wizzards (probably applies only to large
>player groups)?

Well, one way you could "curb" it, if you feel that it needs to be curbed,
is to put the user of an investment under the same restrictions as general
magic users -- i.e., no contact with cold iron.

That will immediately have most of the "fighter" types saying "thanks, but
no thanks" when the invested items are being passed around.

Another, more drastic way of curbing them is to use the 3rd edition
investment rules -- which require that investments may only be placed in an
item specially prepared by a Shaper for that purpose.

In general, however, I like investments. They help to balance out the weak
points in a party. Powerful spells still tend to have low cast chances and
therefore high backfire chances, so having a bunch of them available is kind
of a mixed blessing.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Probst bprobst@netspace.net.au ICQ 6563830
Melbourne, Australia MSTie #72759
"Kids come a-runnin' for the great taste of raw goat."
ASL FAQ http://users.senet.com.au/~mantis/ASLFAQ

At 11:43 PM 05/28/2001 -0600, you wrote:

>"David Union" <dunion@tiac.net> wrote:
>
>How many people found that investment got out of
>hand in long-term (5+ year) campaigns filled with
>lots of wizzards (probably applies only to large
>player groups)?
>
>I liked investment... but it clearly gets out of hand.

Waaaay back when I first started playing in HarnWorld, we used DragonQuest
for the rules set. During that time, investment got way WAAAAAAAAAY out of
hand in my opinion. Our group, of about 8 players had about 3 or 4 magic
users. I forget which College of magic, but one of them had a flying
spell. Well the mage in our group who had that spell invested it in enough
items that the whole group sold off their horses. We never rode or walked
much of anywhere ever again.

I thought that was OUT OF CONTROL. And that was just one of many invested
items that mage made for the group. I don't know, maybe I was a bit more
self-centered, but my maged didn't GIVE away ANYTHING.

I'd always ask, "how much you willing to pay?" after all, it took at least
an investment of time for these things to happen. And my mage always
considered his time valuable.

Then again, my character did seem to be more of a mercenary than a magic
user. ;-)

Until later,

Al Lowe - ICQ 16532469
grandpoobah@harnmaster.com
http://www.harnmaster.com
ListOwner of the "other Harnlist"
HarnList-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

I've actually tried both of these.

1 - making magicians 'untrusted' wouldn't work with
most of the players that like to
a) Play magicians
b) play the good guys, the heroes.

That can't work if people think of magicians as 'bad guys'
all the time.

2 - Letting all the opponents have investment too.

The problem with that is that people die fast. Most of my
players like building their characters up long term.

A couple of luck die rolls if too many spells are going
around and people will start to die as the damage is
scaled up and the FT and EN are not.

So though I've tried these, they never worked with
any group I've been a player in or a GM for.

But more thoughts are welcome and your experiences
with how this worked long term (years) is also interesting
to me.

At one point a magician will get powerful enough
to invest safely.

It may take him longer if magic is rare... but he will.

If you play regularly (1/week) then after 3-4 years
I can't see any campaign not getting there unless
people have either made it so hard for the Magician
to find Investment that he simply doesn't have it.

3 -
that's option 3 - remove it from the game. The GM
that did that in our group added back the permanent
type magic items - the campaign was very much
more "d&d" feeling in that way than DQ and I didn't
think it was sufficiently balanced that it would be
anything I'd ever run.

So how did either of these approaches work
in the 4th and 5th year of the campaign? Or do
you have high character turn-over so no characters
get very advanced?

Thanks,
DMU

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mitchell Harris" <heneryville@usa.net>
To: <dqn-list@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 1:43 AM
Subject: Re: [[DQN-list] Investment]


> This has been an idea that for a while I have been interested in. I have
seen
> two ways to solve this. One includes making having these investment
standard,
> as a result the enemies we fight are by no means normal. They tend all to
> have an immunity and do at least +10 damage with mutliple strikes. The
other
> solution that I use in my campign is, magic is very rare so the $$ spent
is
> huge and their are generaly no mages with high enough rank to invest the
> instant kill or high damage spells. Also people have a tendency to act
> hostily to any magic users. I find that if played right, this counters
the
> use of magic investments quite well.
>
> "David Union" <dunion@tiac.net> wrote:

> Hi
>
> How many people found that investment got out of
> hand in long-term (5+ year) campaigns filled with
> lots of wizzards (probably applies only to large
> player groups)?
>
> I liked investment... but it clearly gets out of hand.
>
> I was always looking for some way to tone it down.
>
> For a couple of years we tried the "reduces the %
> by a certain %". We tried I recall 20%. Helped
> but still really didn't fix the problem.
>
> Other things I've seen is having them 'wear out'.
>
> The problem then is that since the system really
> doesn't 'want' to be a D&D like system with
> other permanent magic items, at least not many,
> that removes the "ancient item" thing from scenarios
> that are too much a part of the genre.
>
> So...
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Problems?
>
> I recall one fight in a campaign I was in
> where the PC's were going after a dragon.
>
> The Fire mage handed out rings of high rank
> DragonFlames to each of the members of the
> group.
>
> The dragon never had a chance!
>
> My solution to that minor specific problem was
> to make all dragons inherently immune to
> all types of fire, including magical, and up
> their Magic resistance in general. But it
> didn't solve the problem in general of the
> PC's walking around with bags of rings...
>
> One though was to keep the $$ low in
> a campaign an make investing expensive.
>
> This fails in the long run - it's the typical
> D&D problem of the sword that is play
> unbalanced but needs a 18/00 strength
> to weild. Once you have that strength
> the sword is usable and even more
> unbalanced. So then if a character has
> lots of $$ they are even more unbalanced...
>
> I have now run for the 2nd time after
> a many year break... I'm only planning
> on occaisional but am thinking of splitting
> the casting of investment to 'short term'
> and 'long term' where the items take
> hours to cast but the investment fades
> in weeks or months, and days to cast
> but the investment lasts months to a
> year...
>
> Then to get it to last longer you'd need
> some sort of binding spell cast by a
> 'shaper' that also takes weeks and
> lots of $$.
>
> Thoughts on this?
>
> DMU
>
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
> Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

In my campaign I adapted the Basic Magic Resistance (BMR) rules from
Chivalry and Sorcery (C&S). In C&S, every object has a BMR ranked from 0
to 10. Before an Adept can invest an item, he must first reduce it's BMR
to 0 (0 means it has no resistance anymore to the forces of magic. For a
low skilled adept, it could take a year or more to reduce the BMR of 1
item, and even with more powerful Adepts, it may still take a month or so
to reduce it. This makes the Adepts in my campaign much more reluctant to
give away items as (and I don't remember if this is a DQ rule or one of my
home rules) if the person that uses the item isn't the Adept that invested
the item, the object is used up in the casting. If the Adept uses the
item, he may reinvest it at a later date. I've been running DQ since the
80's with this rule, and it has worked very well. This includes a campaign
I ran while in the US Navy that lasted for 2 1/2 years where we played 5
nights a week the entire time. (Talk about stretching the DQ rules to the
limit!)



At 08:55 PM 5/28/01, you wrote:

>Hi
>
>How many people found that investment got out of
>hand in long-term (5+ year) campaigns filled with
>lots of wizzards (probably applies only to large
>player groups)?
>
>I liked investment... but it clearly gets out of hand.
>
>I was always looking for some way to tone it down.
>
>For a couple of years we tried the "reduces the %
>by a certain %". We tried I recall 20%. Helped
>but still really didn't fix the problem.
>
>Other things I've seen is having them 'wear out'.
>
>The problem then is that since the system really
>doesn't 'want' to be a D&D like system with
>other permanent magic items, at least not many,
>that removes the "ancient item" thing from scenarios
>that are too much a part of the genre.
>
>So...
>
>Thoughts?
>
>Problems?
>
>I recall one fight in a campaign I was in
>where the PC's were going after a dragon.
>
>The Fire mage handed out rings of high rank
>DragonFlames to each of the members of the
>group.
>
>The dragon never had a chance!
>
>My solution to that minor specific problem was
>to make all dragons inherently immune to
>all types of fire, including magical, and up
>their Magic resistance in general. But it
>didn't solve the problem in general of the
>PC's walking around with bags of rings...
>
>One though was to keep the $$ low in
>a campaign an make investing expensive.
>
>This fails in the long run - it's the typical
>D&D problem of the sword that is play
>unbalanced but needs a 18/00 strength
>to weild. Once you have that strength
>the sword is usable and even more
>unbalanced. So then if a character has
>lots of $$ they are even more unbalanced...
>
>I have now run for the 2nd time after
>a many year break... I'm only planning
>on occaisional but am thinking of splitting
>the casting of investment to 'short term'
>and 'long term' where the items take
>hours to cast but the investment fades
>in weeks or months, and days to cast
>but the investment lasts months to a
>year...
>
>Then to get it to last longer you'd need
>some sort of binding spell cast by a
>'shaper' that also takes weeks and
>lots of $$.
>
>Thoughts on this?
>
>DMU
>
>
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Jason Winter
Alarian@uswest.net
http://www.darkrealms.com/~alarian/

We encoutered a problem with mages sitting down for the day and mass
producing investments.

We changes the duration to change the investment.
If the spell to be invested was equal or less then your rank in
investment it took one day per item. Otherwise it too a number of
days equal to the rank of the spell being invested (although I would
have prefered spell rank - investment rank days).

Additionally, there was a limit to the number of charges a character
could carry. Ignoring the game rational, this mechanic stopped player
carrying the kitchen sink when it came to investeds.

Terry

--- In dqn-list@y..., "David Union" <dunion@t...> wrote:
> Hi
>
> How many people found that investment got out of
> hand in long-term (5+ year) campaigns filled with
> lots of wizzards (probably applies only to large
> player groups)?
>

<snip>

We've had people turn into investment platforms. Prior to DQ3 we tried
making
materials for the various colleges' investment ritual scarce and/or
expensive. With
the appearance of the 3rd edition rules, we misinterpreted the Shaper rules,
thinking
that an investable item had to go through the preparation rituals, applying
the Shaping
Index costs and time. We've since revised that interpretation. We're still
debating
whether to make re-investable items (Bound Charges), that the mage
can recharge himself, permanent items, therefore expensive and time
consuming. An
cheaper non-rechargeable investment would still require the assistance of a
Shaper
in the Investment ritual, allowing the GM some control of the process,
especially
since the Shaper isn't really an adventuring college and is best suited to
NPCs.

Note: With a few exceptions, we've found the 3rd edition rules to be one of
the
worst rule rewrites we've ever seen. About the only things we use are the
last three
colleges (Rune, Shaping, Summoning) and the revision to the Healer's Cure
Disease
ability.

David Union wrote:

> Hi
>
> How many people found that investment got out of
> hand in long-term (5+ year) campaigns filled with
> lots of wizzards (probably applies only to large
> player groups)?
>

<snip>

When I'm in need of a quick packaged adventure I like to use the MERP adventures. They're MUCH more realistic then AD&D and are easy to convert as well.

-----Original Message-----
From:   Michael Wallace [SMTP:son_of_crom@hotmail.com]
Sent:   Tuesday, May 29, 2001 12:41 PM
To:     dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
Subject:        [DQN-list] Dragon Reaches of Marakush

You may want to check out the Dragon Reaches of Marakush for your campaigns.  It is a very nice product with very little Chivalry and Sorcery information attached to it.  I enjoy the C&S Lite rules system, but it could easily be used with DragonQuest.

 
Michael

For us, the Shadow Weaver that decks everyone out in Shadow Wings is a
standard of our DQ campaigns. Its going to happen eventually, given its
usefulness, so I've given in. It does seem a little goofy, but I generally
make them invest them into things like Cloaks, Horseshoes, and Boots. At
least then it looks heroic. A bunch of people with rings on would seem
unambitious.

As far as investing goes, we limit active items to either MA/4, or Rank in
the ritual (can't remember which we're using currently, since we're not
actively playing right now).

And regarding Shaped items, I use the 3rd ed. rules as printed, with a
caveat: that the price listed is simply the base price, and doesn't include
labor costs. At some point in the campaign I know the players will find out
where a badass Shaper is. Then, inevitablly, they will negotiate with him
about the price (usually a lump sum + 30TruSil/month + services rendered),
whereupon they go find a mage badass enough to cast what they need
(25TruSil/month + services rendered), then spend a few months running around
gathering dragon feces (heehee, I love that one, so much more fun for me
than dragon scales would be) and all sorts of other "eye-of-newt" type
things, and occasionally killing someone's rivals, and eventually they get
their Shaped item. In the meantime, the players end up writing my script
for me, and I get a few months real time where I don't need to worry about
my overarching storyline. The players get to empower themselves by acting
for themselves without my placing a story in front of them, the characters
power themselves up with a few nifty trinkets, and I get some time off.
Everybody comes out ahead.

EXCEPT NO ONE GETS TO USE THE RITUAL OF BINDING INVESTMENTS!!! They can
shove that ritual up their ass.


Peter

>I liked investment... but it clearly gets out of hand.

...I forget which College of magic, but one of them had a flying spell.
Well the mage in our group who had that spell invested it in enough items
that the whole group sold off their horses. We never rode or walked much of
anywhere ever again.

Al Lowe
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Yes, this is a problem. My 1st DQ character ('81) was a shadow
weaver. At the time the GM asked "What do you want to play -
you can make what you want in DQ?"

I said, "how about a superhero?" So he said to be
a shadow weaver and be a troubador. The character
dressed up in a costume (required finery for a troubador)
and eventually learned Shadow Wings, Starfire, and
Shadow form - Your typical Flight, Energy Blast, and
Force Field :)

He handed handed out Rings of Shadow Wings to two
of the long term members and would always cast it on
anyone else in the group so that we didn't need to fly,
but at least our group would take our horses and walk
about half the time.

One of the PC's from that campaign decided he liked
the idea and ran a Shadow Weaver in my long term
campaign ... he was more indescriminate about handing
out investment (basically to everyone) and it got out of
hand. The pc's virtually never rode or walked anywhere.
And damage went away via bags of healing rings...

This isn't much worse than a high level air magics
adept summoning/binding air and having it carry people,
which was a solution from another campaign...

For some measure of balance I've actually added
shorter term flight spells to a couple of other colleges.
It lets them get up in the air but doesn't facilitate
long-distance travel so they're less likely to ask
for the 'flight rings'.

But as I start to run agian I'm working on some fixes to
Investment.

Currently My thoughts are
1 - If cast in 'hours' it lasts only weeks to months
and then the magic fades. So people won't
collect bags of them.

2 - To get it to last longer it takes days to cast or
and/more money or/and some sort of binding
ritual on the device that will be very hard to get
someone to cast - maybe only a 'shaper' (In
my campaign I re-wrote this entirely so that it
would be play balanced for long term campaigns)
could do this.

This is still being figured out...

3 - One GM used to say that the magic had a certain
power associated with it so that you could only have
a number of 'spell ranks' of invested magic equal to
your magic ability. This was a custom game system
that pre-dated DQ but borrowed from many different
places, like RQ, and was re-tuned over the years with
ideas from many systems - it had a DQ like feel to it.
Some really good game mechanics but play balance
wasn't that great - you could get powerful really
quickly if you wanted to.

Unfortunately this was all hand-written on wire-bound
notebooks with really neat print and incredible maps that
never saw a computer.

I was thinking of something like this but I think this might
make the investment too restrictive. One DQ GM
used to say # of items = to MA, some used to say
# charges = MA or WP or MA+ WP...

4 - I could lower the % of spells via investment even
more than I already do, making them dangerous to
use. Thus unfortunately just delays the problem
until the PC's get better with their magic.

> Waaaay back when I first started playing in HarnWorld, we used DragonQuest
> for the rules set. During that time, investment got way WAAAAAAAAAY out

of

> hand in my opinion. Our group, of about 8 players had about 3 or 4 magic
> users. I forget which College of magic, but one of them had a flying
> spell. Well the mage in our group who had that spell invested it in

enough

> items that the whole group sold off their horses. We never rode or walked
> much of anywhere ever again.
>
> I'd always ask, "how much you willing to pay?" after all, it took at least
> an investment of time for these things to happen. And my mage always
> considered his time valuable.
>
> Then again, my character did seem to be more of a mercenary than a magic
> user. ;-)
>
> Until later,

When investments started getting out of hand our GM interrupted the ritual
with a pack of annoying low level moistures. Rats, buzzards, brownies,
pixies--that kind of thing. He backed off when we stopped treating
investments like free candy.

----- Original Message -----
From: <terryintransit@yahoo.com>
To: <dqn-list@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 5:43 AM
Subject: [DQN-list] Re: Investment


> We encoutered a problem with mages sitting down for the day and mass
> producing investments.
>

Hi;
I ran a DQ campaign years ago in Puerto Rico where the investment ritual got
a bit a out of hand so when I started my current campaign in New York I took
steps to avoid problems. I am in essence rationing magic. None of the PC
has Investment and the high level NPC's who do have it will not teach it to
them. They do have some very powerful invested items obtained as treasure,
from slain foes, or for services rendered but they will never get the
ritual. Other powerful spells are rationed as well so they will not get use
of them till they are very high level.

I think the a good group of RPGers would automatically balance the game.
Even if I were to hand out permanent flying ability
to to an entire party, that would probably just get them into (and out of)
trouble more often. Instances: a dragon might not
want them to fly in his airspace; they might be seen as a threat to a
country and be caught up with the kings archers ( hundreds
of 'em!). Currently, I play a shadow mage character and I don't want to be
in the air all of the time attracting attention to
myself. Of course, I might be invisible all the time, but that could also
be a false sense of security too - the more powerful
beings would see me anyway, or magically detect me, or ...? In the real
world, airpower has evolved - Air to Ground, then Air
to Air, then coutermeasures...see? Ultimately, I think, the adventurers
should simply move on- or be moved - to greater, more equal chalenges. This
is a mutual challenge of the GM and the PC's. Let the players deserve a few
easy victories - while
they last.


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I'm currently in the midst of doing a `conversion work` for the AD&D
`Birthright` setting. I've had a fascination for it for years, a brilliant
setting (exploding gods et. al.), hampered of course, only by the AD&D rules
themselves.

For those not familiar, it plays on several different levels, characters can
control domains (countries), temple and guild holdings, magical sources, and
devive `regency` from those they control... which lets them do.... stuff...
Characters may have bloodlines.... granting them blood abilities (like
Divine Wrath!).
Alternatively, it plays in the typical RPG style.... hack, slash, think,
hack, slash, think, RUN!!!!!!!
It has a very Highlander feel to it `there can be only one!` (although
supposedly when the blooded character is pierced through the heart - first
thing I changed - decapitation just felt more like it!)

Jason Smith

Hi,

How do you guys go about deciding how many experience points you hand out? The
guidelines in the rules are, in my opinion, a bit too vague. The method I use is
that I give out the base amount (the amounts suggested in the rules are also too
small, if you ask me), modified by such things as scenario-length and difficulty
level. Very straight forward and I suppose it works OK, but it is a bit too
simple for my taste. I'm toying with a few ideas, but I hesitate to mess around
with it as no one have complained so far and everyone in my player group seams
quite happy with how it's been handled so far. Some input would be much
appreciated.

/Anders