It is not a condition of playing a Fire Mage, it is the other players desire
to be protected from backfires. PC peer pressure. My Fire Mage, Brandywine
Firehearth, that was her best spell because of the chance of companions
suffering backfires. The Adventurers Book of Lore, or How to Stay Alive,
vol. I, says, "Fire Mages are always in heat.", is based on Brandy. Hot
headed, tempermental, passionate and the only Alchemist foolhardy enough to
create Clinging Hellfire and grenadoes that combine Clingfire and Methane
Gas. She actually died of old age; didn't believe in life extenion.

The only difference is with Effects: The spell protects the subject by
reducing damage by half from all magical types of fire or fire spells.

So if you have Protection From Magical Fire and make a savings throw, you
can quater the damage suffered, but not get away scott free as the spell is
written. Have you ever had to fight a Troll that has RAW Protection From
Magical Fire? Not fun. Not fun at all.

~Jeffery~

>> Group requirement for Fire Mages, learn Protection From Magical Fires;
>> I've
>> modified the spell so that Fire Mages cannot be rendered useless.
>
> Hmm, I don't like setting conditions like that, to be honest,
> since it takes away some of the sparks (no pun intended) of playing a
> Fire Adept. Mind you, wouldn't mind seeing the modified version of the
> spell...
>
> --
> JohnK
> e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
> web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> In a message of February 18th, 2006, you wrote,
>
>> Magic was not common but over the 150 years there has been a renaissance
>> where it is becoming quite common, though the average citizen is still
>> leary
>> of magic (long world history where magic is concerned). There is one
>> University, which teaches all Mundane and Magical skills; other than that
>> there is a guild system. There is approximately 1 mage per 1,000
>> population
>> in cities in my campaign.
>
> I rather like the way you've handled this, and to be honest, it
> fits nicely in with the feel of the Renaissance-style game. Out of
> curiosity, what's the population sizes of cities in the campaign?

The largest is over 100,000, the second largest is nearing 90,000, the third
is down around 30-40,000. Most mages are apprentices, 0-3 ranks; Jouneymen
are 4-7; Masters 8-10, Grandmasters 11+.

Greater Summoners are rare, never more than one per city (with perhaps one
apprentice). They are illegal, penalty of death by burning.
Other Entity magics are also rare, have to be licensed and pay heavy Guild
Dues.
Unregistered Mages pay heavy consequences if caught practicing magic, but
there are PCs who are unregistered; they feel they have better things to
spend their money on.

~Jeffery~

> Bardic? Binder? (is that the same as Shaping Magics?) Ice
> (Air?) Other? Witchcraft?

One of our players wanted Bards in the game so over the course of a few
years the college was put together, you can see from the list how popular it
was. Binder is a form of Lesser shaper that we came up with (Or the basics
could have been stolen from somewhere Im not sure) they deal with golems and
animating magics. Ice is a breakoff from Air with all the cold stuff while
Air was given a few more Air based spells. Wichcraft is a rewritten Black
Mage, without the pacting stuff.

Oh and Lesser Summoners are no longer a PC college after it was deemed
silly. After a few adventures with general knowledge spell ranking somone
attacked a city by summoning Elephants and Rocs and getting the Rocs to drop
the elephants from a great height.

Mandos
/s

> The fighters were always MA 5, never Elves so they could up strength to
> carry the load.

What? No 26AG combat monsters? The extra actions for 26AG made fighters very
tough.

Mandos
/s

-- "D. Cameron King" <monarchy2000@hotmail.com> wrote:

> >In order not to get flamed I will add
> >
> >the XP system is just the best

I think I would have to agree with that statement.
Although the XP system of DQ looks too simple to be
workable, it always worked splendidly with my groups.
I also agree with the points of rebuttals to follow,
but would like to add some qualifiers of my own...

> Really? Wow. I'm stunned to read that, because I
> would say the XP rules
> are one area that really needed a complete overhaul.
>
> I *love* the idea of earning XP based not on killing
> monsters and/or taking
> their stuff, or "overcoming challenges" (as the
> current incarnation of D&D
> would phrase it), but rather on succeeding or
> failing at some other goal,
> but DQ's rules for XP awards are so vague as to
> amount, essentially, to just
> "give out whatever you feel like giving out, Mr.
> GM." Add in the rules for
> gaining XP by practicing your skills (whatever that
> means), and you have
> (IMO) a barely workable mess.

I think my approval of the XP system comes down to the
same issues already mentioned. It focuses the team on
the -final- goal, rather than a thousand individual
little goals and distractions along the way. It also
encourages role-playing and creativity in avoiding
combat.

As far as GM rewards go, I wonder what other people's
experience with this is? I don't recall a GM ever
gave "bonus xp" for "good rp" or took away "penalty
xp" for "bad rp". I could see that being a problem if
you had either a bad GM who played favorites or a bad
player who complained when he didn't get any bonuses.
Anyone had a problem with that?

As for the practice XP between sessions, I admit that
the first time I read them I thought that they had the
potential to be seriously abused too. In fact, my old
GM told us about an earth mage he had in high school
(ah, high school... the age of loopholes exploited)
whom he played once and then had "practice skills" for
5 years, ranking a bunch of low level general
knowledge spells until he hit hero level along with
the rest of the party. Definitely a worst case
scenario of abuse. However, when we played, the
practice XP was never a problem. In fact, it was a
nice leveler in many ways. Let me explain.

> THEN there was the whole "race to get 8 skills to
> Rank 4 as soon as
> possible--no, it doesn't matter *which* 8 skills,
> just get them to Rank 4
> ASAP!" thing, which encouraged the taking of totally
> lame-ass (but extremely
> cheap) skills and discouraged the use of certain
> other, cool but
> rules-mechanically inferior weapons...

This is why our group seemed to avoid thess issue...

1. When asked about this, the GM was very clear about
something. We could, if we wanted, find the cheapest
weapons, skills, spells, etc. we could find to quickly
rank up to Adventurer and then Hero. However, as our
parties average Ranks in skill progressed, he was
progressing our challenges as a party accordingly.
And he was quite clear that our opponents would -not-
be Ranking cheap useless skills.

The idea of facing off against a warrior with Rank 6
Estoc when you have Rank 6 Dagger as your mightiest
weapon is daunting. The idea of facing off against an
Adept with Rank 6 Dragon Flames when your most
offensive spell is Rank 6 Herbal Lore is truly
frightening.

Note, he was also perfectly willing to work with
characters who wanted to Rank "cheap" skills for
-good- reasons. He was ok with a character who had 8
skill in language, for example. It just meant that
this character's job was a linguist/translator, and he
expected the party to seek jobs (and would give us
adventures) where travel to foreign countries,
communication with others, and diplomatic role-play
would play a crucial role in our success. This never
came up, but it was the example he used. He was
making it clear that he would suss out the spirit and
intent of which skills we were ranking and.. ahem..
throw things at us accordingly.

From the stories he told of his high school group, I
got the distinct impression he had seen every loophole
the game had to offer and had his metaphorical
whack-a-mole hammer out to deal with them.

2. Party gots to eat. Practice time is all well and
good, but he was very stringest about the "cost of
living per week" rules. Also, he kept a very tight
rein on how much money the party managed to get their
hands on when we were lower rank. We didn't even
approach being comfortably wealthy until we hit Hero.
A rumbling belly managed to keep us on the road quite
nicely. I've seen a lot of campaign in other systems
ruined by not keeping the party money modest.

3. He strictly enforced the rule on only being
allowed to Rank skills by one per campaign. Also, we
weren't allowed to Rank anything we hadn't actually
used or at least attempted in a meaningful situation
-during a campaign-. We could spend forever building
XP in town "practicing", but it was XP we could never
use if we didn't go on adventure and use our skills.
This of course feeds back into 1., as people using
useless skills during campaign and combat tended not
to survive long enough to return to town.

4. Have you ever noticed that weapons and skills take
weeks to Rank, but spells take days? Have you also
noticed that weapon and skill XP costs increase in a
roughly linear scale, but spells increase in cost
geometrically? Something we realized pretty quickly
was that this discrepancy actually allowed Adepts to
keep pace in terms of Ranks with their warrior
comrades. The Adepts in the group would have quickly
fallen behind without "practice XP" as a buffer built
up while the non-Adepts were busy ranking their
skills.

5. Whenever the party got a little lazy, and just
decided to hang around town long after we had finished
ranking, a "crisis" always seemed to show up that got
us off our practicing duffs.

Anyway, in the end, I never saw any examples of abuse
of the XP rules in my groups. It was the rather
subtle interaction of the XP rules with three other
sets of often-overlooked rules that seemed to form a
functioning system. GM experience and impatience
probably affected it too. From things I've read on
this board, I get the impression others may have had
much more trouble with it. In my experience, the XP
system worked very well.

Mort

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

That is an exceedingly excellent point about magical
weapons. I had forgotten that stats could be used as a
qualifier. Brilliant. Take that, fighter with an MA
of 5! :D

The thing that always kept magic items low in our
party was cost. Given the amount of time it took
Shapers to make items, the personal cost in health
often involved, and their scarcity in a world where
you were competing with nobility for commisions, they
were simply too bloody expensive. Our game's Shapers
would also never even remotely cut costs on their
work. Every magic item was also a piece of art. And
pretty obvious to thieves and clever opponents as
something worth stealing. :)

--- John M Kahane <jkahane@comnet.ca> wrote:

> Hullo, Jeffery,
>
> In a message of February 18th, 2006, you wrote,
>
> > The fighters were always MA 5, never Elves so they
> could up strength to
> > carry the load.
>
> See, one of the things that I loved in ARCANE
> WISDOM was the fact
> that Shapers could create items so that they could
> only be used by
> beings with a certain Magical Aptitude or higher.
> Still have the game
> stats for the sentient broadsword that can only be
> used by a fighter
> type with an MA of 8 or more... :)
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Very few, certainly less than five. They always went with the "tank"
mentality. Asorbed a lot of damage and deal out a lot of damage. Even had
a couple of giants who were the ultimate "second story" theives. Some fun
stories with PC giants.

~Jeffery~

>> The fighters were always MA 5, never Elves so they could up strength to
>> carry the load.
>
> What? No 26AG combat monsters? The extra actions for 26AG made fighters
> very
> tough.
>
> Mandos
> /s
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----

From: John M Kahane

To: dqn-list@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 8:40 AM

Subject: Re: [DQN-list] Old hands at DQ

       Hullo, JohnR,

In a message of February 18th, 2006, you wrote,



     Ooh, excellent... perhaps the old Townhall lists, which were quite
extensive? :)

> One of our players wanted Bards in the game so over the course of a few
> years the college was put together, you can see from the list how popular
> it
> was. Binder is a form of Lesser shaper that we came up with (Or the basics
> could have been stolen from somewhere Im not sure) they deal with golems
> and
> animating magics. Ice is a breakoff from Air with all the cold stuff while
> Air was given a few more Air based spells. Wichcraft is a rewritten Black
> Mage, without the pacting stuff.
>
> Oh and Lesser Summoners are no longer a PC college after it was deemed
> silly. After a few adventures with general knowledge spell ranking somone
> attacked a city by summoning Elephants and Rocs and getting the Rocs to
> drop
> the elephants from a great height.

I've heard this story. That's where creative GMing comes in. But then I'm
the GM that has a Dragon that likes cosmetics (this is long before Shrek),
was raised by a Suarime family and believes the whole family was cursed to
be scaley. The way a PC put it, "The whole family was cursed, even the
dog!"

~Jeffery~

----- Original Message -----

From: John M Kahane

To: dqn-list@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 8:49 AM

Subject: Re: [DQN-list] Old hands at DQ

     Oh, very nice. :)

     So, any chance of seeing the old Townhall material this way? :)

--- In dqn-list@yahoogroups.com, "Mandos Mitchinson" <mandos@...>
wrote:

>
>
> > The fighters were always MA 5, never Elves so they could up

strength to

> > carry the load.
>
> What? No 26AG combat monsters? The extra actions for 26AG made

fighters very

> tough.
>
> Mandos
> /s
>

Lightly armored elves with high TMR and glaives were a popular fad
with our group for a while.

Hullo, David,

In a message of February 19th, 2006, you wrote,

> JRR_Talking asked what the weaknesses of DQ were, this is what I think
> is good

Ooh, do tell... :)

> The basic stats, they're well thought out

This is something that I've always loveed about the DRAGONQUEST
system. Six characteristics that are well-defined, each of which has a
use in the game system.

> The feel of the magic system, it's genuinely creepy at times

I've never thought of the magic system as creepy, except in regards
to Necromancy and Black Magics, and to some degree Greater Summonings,
but I adore the magic system's inherent logic and philosophy.

> The lethality of combat

Definitely a strength, even if most players don't think of it that
way. :)

> The modularity, things can be added or removed

Yep. This is based on the wargame design of the rules, one of
SPI's strengths, and a lot of current game systems could use ssomething
along these lines.

> No new supplements that a munchkin can buy and tell you you're doing
> it wrong

Well, that's not necessarily a good thing, and the only reason
there are no new supplements is because SPI went under. Mind you, with
all the Hosue Rules and other materials floating around out there these
days, I wouldn't want to be a new GM coming to the game and having to
decide what material to use to run it. <g>

> Most of all; you guys, a friendly group with no flaming, excellent

No arguments here. A definite plus! This group, and the dq-rules
and dqnewsletter folks (most of whom are the same) are some of the
friendliest and most rational and well-thought of by me in my time on
the net. :)

> I guess it has more things I like than I don't

See, I knew you had the pros vs. cons thing going on here! :)

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, David,

In a message of February 19th, 2006, you wrote,

> 1) I think the biggest weakness from a practical playing point of view
> is the amount of maths that has to be done. For example the to hit roll
> SC- defence, most of the time with a good roll you can say that hits,
> but when it's borderline, an Endurance or GI you have to do some quick
> mental maths.

To be honest with you, for those of us who have been running the
game consistently over the last 20+ years, the maths in DRAGQONQUEST are
not all that difficult. The basic Strike Chance always the character's
SC - DEF of the defender. Figuring out the 5% value or the 10% value is
not all that difficult, and besides the GM Screen has the chart on it
for doing these Endurance and Grievous Injuries, so the math is done for
the players and the GM.

> Similarly the skill/magic success values are not something you can
> calculate on the fly. does anyone have any strategies to get round
> this? For the to hit I make defence a roll, so the PC says "I hit!"
> (without having to do any maths), then I say "he made his defence, you
> don't". For combat and magic I make it 5% bonus per rank

I'm not sure what you mean here... Most of the players I know do
all the maths and put the final value for success chances and the like
on their sheet, both for weapons and spells and the like. They only
change those values when the Ranmk of the ability changes or when a
Characteristic changes. With skills, the players do crib sheets in
advance with me for all the Skills they have, and the formulae/final
values for the abilities covered under each one.

I think that players have to work a bit more at this stuff in
DRAGONQUEST than in most fantasy rpgs, but it's not a big deal.
Planning ahead works best in this regard.

> 2) Also the rules could be better laid out and more reader friendly,
> I'm fed up thnking I saw a rule about that where was it?

I don't think the rules are badly laid out, since they come in the
form of a wargame style of numbering and counting. Makes the modularity
of the game much easier to deal with, too. What is definitely missing
is a comprehensive Index to the game at the back of the book.

> 3) The absence of a religious system

For me, this has always been a strength, although I knew that there
was going to be a supplement covering this at some point down the road -
which never came to being with the demise of SPI. Religion is such a
personal topic, and the folks running the game, whether DQ or any other
fantasy system, will have their own ideas of how to implement this
material.

Besides, the main DRAGONQUEST rulebook doesn't present a game
world at all, although it has some of the philosophy behind what was to
be the world of DRAGONQUEST, and thus putting a religious system into
the main book that didn't have a game world would have made no sense.
An Alusian supplement on religion would have been much better.

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, Jim,

In a message of February 20th, 2006, you wrote,

> My thought is this...
> The web is an exercise in supply and demand. Supply creates its
> own demand. If you put them up, people will come to look at them.

Wiser words were never said by anyone to me.

I guess it comes down to whether or not I put the set of webpages
up or not. So we'll see what happens later this week, I guess. :)

> Just my two copper farthings,

Worth a silver penny, in my humble estimation. Thanks. :)

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, Cameron,

In a message of February 20th, 2006, you wrote,

>>>Based on the comments on this group that I've read over the years, my
>>>group was perhaps the most "by the book" bunch to ever play the game.
>>
>> I'm actually curious as to what you mean here by "by the book"...
>> Do you mean adhering strictly to the DQ Rules books and the like and
>>no House Rules, or something else?
>
> I mean strictly adhering to the rules as written. No house rules. (I'm
> sure we had one or two, but I honestly can't recall what they were. For the
> most part, we followed the published rules to the letter.)

Ah, yes, I see what you mean... I have to say that other than
adding new Colleges of magic (9 of them) and a bunch of new Skills
(about 12 of them, iirc), I run the game by the rules as written, and
don't use any real House Rules at all myself. Other than a few
inconsistencies here and there in the rules, more because of the way
some stuff is written than anything else, there's no real problems with
the material. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and all that. :)

>> This raises another point of course... The implication here of
>>having so many Mages in the party relative to non-Adepts seems to
>>reflect on the sheer amount of magic and number of Adepts in the game
>>world in question. So the question becomes:
>>
>> How prevalent is Magic in the campaigns that folks run?
>
> Our DQ campaigns were the lowest-magic fantasy RPGs I've ever participated
> in. Adepts were even rarer among NPCs than PCs, and since we had no real
> rules for permanent magic items, they almost didn't exist. (There, that was
> one "house rule" we had. My PC actually had a magic claymore that added 10%
> to his Strike Chance and could loose a Bolt of Fire once/day. No one else
> in that campaign had a permanent magic weapon until we ran Starsilver Trek.)

Actually, that's a rather nice claymore, and well within the
acceptable limits of the magic item rules found in AECANE WISDOM, even
if most people didn't have that back when the game first came out and all.

Magic is very rare in my campaign, the Lyra one a bit moreso in
many ways, simply because I find that magic items in quantity tend to
unbalance campaigns badly, and because I prefer "low magic" campaigns a lot.

>> For myself, magic is not all that common in Alusia, and Shaping
>>Mages are extremely rare and difficult to find (there are something like
>>3 of these on the continent, all told). Heck, I've even had parties
>>that didn't have Adepts in them at all.
>
> Shaping Magics were just legendary for us, since we had no access to Arcane
> Wisdom back then.

Well, I got my first copy of ARCANE WISDOM during the playtest
phase of that, since I knew a couple of people involved with the game at
SPI at the time. However, Shaping Magics are pretty much unknwon in my
game world (legendary is a good way to put this), and truly powerful
magical items are about as common as purple moons (and there's no air
pollution to allow for those in my game world!).

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, Jeffery,

In a message of February 20th, 2006, you wrote,

> It is not a condition of playing a Fire Mage, it is the other players desire
> to be protected from backfires. PC peer pressure.

Which makes it a condition of playing a Fire Mage in the gaming
group. That's just semantics, but I do understand their logic.

>My Fire Mage, Brandywine Firehearth, that was her best spell
>because of the chance of companions suffering backfires. The
>Adventurers Book of Lore, or How to Stay Alive, vol. I, says,
>"Fire Mages are always in heat.", is based on Brandy. Hot
> headed, tempermental, passionate and the only Alchemist
>foolhardy enough to create Clinging Hellfire and grenadoes
>that combine Clingfire and Methane Gas. She actually died of
>old age; didn't believe in life extenion.

Sounds like a cool (pardon the pun) and interesting character. :)
Any chance of seeing game statistics and a character background of her?

> The only difference is with Effects: The spell protects the subject by
> reducing damage by half from all magical types of fire or fire spells.

Out of curiosity, how did this modify the BC, the EXM, and the
like of the spell?

> So if you have Protection From Magical Fire and make a savings throw, you
> can quater the damage suffered, but not get away scott free as the spell is
> written. Have you ever had to fight a Troll that has RAW Protection From
> Magical Fire? Not fun. Not fun at all.

True, but then a decent party of characters should have trouble
taking on a troll, even without any modifications. They are one of the
more "fun" basic beasties in the rules, even if one shouldn't encounter
them everywhere one goes, of course.

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, Jeffery,

In a message of February 20th, 2006, you wrote,

>>>Magic was not common but over the 150 years there has been a renaissance
>>>where it is becoming quite common, though the average citizen is still
>>>leary >of magic (long world history where magic is concerned). There is one
>>>University, which teaches all Mundane and Magical skills; other than that
>>>there is a guild system. There is approximately 1 mage per 1,000
>>>population in cities in my campaign.
>>
>> I rather like the way you've handled this, and to be honest, it
>>fits nicely in with the feel of the Renaissance-style game. Out of
>>curiosity, what's the population sizes of cities in the campaign?
>
> The largest is over 100,000, the second largest is nearing 90,000, the third
> is down around 30-40,000. Most mages are apprentices, 0-3 ranks; Jouneymen
> are 4-7; Masters 8-10, Grandmasters 11+.

Sounds *very* nice, and is something along the lines of what I've
got for Mages and Adepts in cities and the like. I have a few cities
that have higher populations than that, not many though.

> Greater Summoners are rare, never more than one per city (with perhaps one
> apprentice). They are illegal, penalty of death by burning.
> Other Entity magics are also rare, have to be licensed and pay heavy Guild
> Dues.

So, you have magic set up along the lines of a Renaissance-style
Guild? Good stuff. Rather like this. :)

> Unregistered Mages pay heavy consequences if caught practicing magic, but
> there are PCs who are unregistered; they feel they have better things to
> spend their money on.

Isn't that always the case? :)

That was the one element of Alusia that all my players can agree on
- they dislike the Adventurer's Guild business with a passion, yet seem
to have no problem with the craft, merchant, and so forth guilds.
<grumble, grumble> Players, sigh... <grumble, grumble>

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, Steven,

In a message of February 20th, 2006, you wrote,

>>In order not to get flamed I will add the XP system is just the best
>
> I think I would have to agree with that statement.
> Although the XP system of DQ looks too simple to be
> workable, it always worked splendidly with my groups.

I saw the post by some of the others, notably the one about the XP
system having all kinds of problems associated with it, and have to say
that I agree with you totally on this one. I have never had any real
probems with the DRAGONQUEST Experience system, and the players love the
flexibility of it and the manner in which it encourages "non-D&D behaviour".

<snip>

> I think my approval of the XP system comes down to the
> same issues already mentioned. It focuses the team on
> the -final- goal, rather than a thousand individual
> little goals and distractions along the way. It also
> encourages role-playing and creativity in avoiding
> combat.

I agree with this statement 100%.

> As far as GM rewards go, I wonder what other people's
> experience with this is? I don't recall a GM ever
> gave "bonus xp" for "good rp" or took away "penalty
> xp" for "bad rp". I could see that being a problem if
> you had either a bad GM who played favorites or a bad
> player who complained when he didn't get any bonuses.
> Anyone had a problem with that?

There have been players in my DQ campaigns who have not been good
roleplayers or who are inconsistent roleplayers at times. Bonus XPs and
penalty XPs for roleplaying are something that work for me when I need
to reinforce the character's personality, as established by the player
previously - and work wonders for providing both positive and negative
reinforcement of roleplaying, rather than dice rolling.

> As for the practice XP between sessions, I admit that
> the first time I read them I thought that they had the
> potential to be seriously abused too.

I think the practice XPs business does have the potential for
abuse, except of course, that since you can only inmprove abilities that
have been used on adventure, and can only improve one Rank at a time,
all those XPs just sit and languish in your bank, and while you're
practicing whatever it is you practice, you still have daily issues like
food, accommodation, and the like to deal with. The players have always
considered this to be the "great balancer" in my gaming groups.

Your other comments were highly insightful in this regard, and
brought back memories of some my older gaming campaigns and game sessions.

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, Steven,

In a message of February 20th, 2006, you wrote,

> That is an exceedingly excellent point about magical
> weapons. I had forgotten that stats could be used as a
> qualifier. Brilliant. Take that, fighter with an MA
> of 5! :D

Yep, this is one of those nice "balancing act" rules the game
system has, but without ARCANE WISDOM, a lot of GMs and players don't
know about this one.

I had a mercenary type character in one of the games I ran, Samir
Olagsson, who found a wonderful sword with a permanent Rank 6 Spell of
Dragon Flames on it that required a minimum MA of 10 and a minimum PS on
it as well - so only a fighter type could use the sword, not a mage and
not a thief and the like. You should have seen the frustration on his
face at this, notably when he realised that none of the other party
members could use the sword, since he was the only one who met the PS
requirement! Spent years acccumulating the EPs to bring his MA up to
the minimum required! <g>

> The thing that always kept magic items low in our
> party was cost. Given the amount of time it took
> Shapers to make items, the personal cost in health
> often involved, and their scarcity in a world where
> you were competing with nobility for commisions, they
> were simply too bloody expensive. Our game's Shapers
> would also never even remotely cut costs on their
> work. Every magic item was also a piece of art. And
> pretty obvious to thieves and clever opponents as
> something worth stealing. :)

Yes, cost on the creation of magic items by a Shaper can be a
major hassle and consideration. The one player in my campaign who took
a Shaper found this out the hard way, especially in regard to the
permanent Endurance costs, especially at the higher Shaping Index.

And of course, if one created a very high Shaping Index item, it
only made sense to have the Mage who put their spell/whatever into the
item to also place a nice ward on it, and then...well, you get the
picture. <evil g>

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hello.

Glad to see some people still play one of my favourite fantasy RPG. Fact is I've been
playing DQ more than ten years after TSR killed it. And I thought, at the time, we were like
the Last of the Mohicans...

So we were wrong.

Ebay provided me the "New Improved Second Edition" (25 years later ^^), and I've found
the combat rules very good (We only used the first edition boxed set, with the
"wargaming" combat system, cause the other was pretty hard to find, in France, back in
1982). Everything is so modern, in this game, it still amazes me.

Then I found this dqn list. And I realized I wasn't alone.

Now I'm lucky enough to have some ooooold time DQ fan friends still lurking around, and
you know what? I convinced them we could start a new campaign! Two playing sessions
per month.

Couldn't imagine that a few weeks ago!

I'm gonna be busy reading everything on this list and maybe ask for some help with the
rules.

R.IV

John,

I appreciate the sentiment, but it's not so much wisdom as economic
theory applied to a real world situation. And, proof that my parents
didn't waste their money on my education.

Thanks though, and good luck,
Jim

John M Kahane wrote:

> Hullo, Jim,
>
> In a message of February 20th, 2006, you wrote,
>
>
>>My thought is this...
>>The web is an exercise in supply and demand. Supply creates its
>>own demand. If you put them up, people will come to look at them.
>
>
> Wiser words were never said by anyone to me.
>
> I guess it comes down to whether or not I put the set of webpages
> up or not. So we'll see what happens later this week, I guess. :)
>
>
>>Just my two copper farthings,
>
>
> Worth a silver penny, in my humble estimation. Thanks. :)
>

----------
Quote of the day:
"I am all that ever went with evening dress!"
-"The Song of the Dead" by Rudyard Kipling
-----

I congratule you on your new gaming group!

I'm feeling jealous. My old college gaming group is
still trying to get a system running for online gaming
sessions. We tried that for a while several years
ago. It worked, but had some real issues. What with
broadband and programs like Ventrilo for internet
real-time communication, etc., we'd love to try it
again. Nobody can seem to find time these days to get
things up and running though. Sigh. Jealous.

Mort

--- pilum067 <pilum067@yahoo.fr> wrote:

> Hello.
>
> Glad to see some people still play one of my
> favourite fantasy RPG. Fact is I've been
> playing DQ more than ten years after TSR killed it.
> And I thought, at the time, we were like
> the Last of the Mohicans...
>
> So we were wrong.
>
> Ebay provided me the "New Improved Second Edition"
> (25 years later ^^), and I've found
> the combat rules very good (We only used the first
> edition boxed set, with the
> "wargaming" combat system, cause the other was
> pretty hard to find, in France, back in
> 1982). Everything is so modern, in this game, it
> still amazes me.
>
> Then I found this dqn list. And I realized I wasn't
> alone.
>
> Now I'm lucky enough to have some ooooold time DQ
> fan friends still lurking around, and
> you know what? I convinced them we could start a new
> campaign! Two playing sessions
> per month.
>
> Couldn't imagine that a few weeks ago!
>
> I'm gonna be busy reading everything on this list
> and maybe ask for some help with the
> rules.
>
> R.IV
>
>
>
>
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Long-time Lurker here, with a poser for the group.

I am running a PbEM game where a Mage (fairly powerful) has managed to have
the Mind spell "Control Person" cast on her. She wants to use a Talent that
she has bound into an item. I am of two minds about this, since although
Talents are supposed to be "automatic", the person has all their physical
activities "Controlled," which would normally make casting spells out of the
question.

One possibility I've considered is that she could only use Talents that
don't take an action (like touch) and another is that she'd have to make a
WP check to see if she can even do that.

Thoughts?

--Rachel McG
http://www.journalscape.com/rachelmcg

Since the Mind College Control Person spell only
controls physical actions and movements, anything that
was purely mental should be unaffected. For example,
if the Mage in question had ESP (or Telepathy) up, she
should still be able to read surface emotions (or
thoughts). She would still be able to use he
Sensitivity to Danger, but would be unable to
physically do anything about it. If she was an E&E
mage, she could still use (or 'turn off') her
Witchsight...on whatever her eyes were in position to
see. If she is an Earth, Naming, or Celestial mage,
she should be able to activate her Detect Aura to
examine anything in her visual and talent
range...providing her eyes are open. If a magic item
is 'mentally activated', meaning no verbal activation
word is required to be uttered, she should be able to
activate the item on her person. As long as the magic
effect requires no physical control to manipulate or
implement, she should be good to go. Though, since
she is affected by a slowness effect as a part of the
Control, you could say that it takes her longer to
activate / use the talents and magic abilities which
fall into the defined allowable sphere.

All of this is, of course, my opinion.

Mark

> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 07:01:17 -0800
> From: "Rachel McGonagill" <r.mcg@comcast.net>
> Subject: Talents and Control
>
> Long-time Lurker here, with a poser for the group.
>
> I am running a PbEM game where a Mage (fairly
> powerful) has managed to have
> the Mind spell "Control Person" cast on her. She
> wants to use a Talent that
> she has bound into an item. I am of two minds about
> this, since although
> Talents are supposed to be "automatic", the person
> has all their physical
> activities "Controlled," which would normally make
> casting spells out of the
> question.
>
> One possibility I've considered is that she could
> only use Talents that
> don't take an action (like touch) and another is
> that she'd have to make a
> WP check to see if she can even do that.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> --Rachel McG

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

That is impressive, and much appreciated.

Thank you.




I discovered a couple of broken links, both referring to attached
graphics.

http://johnrauchert.brinkster.net/dq/archive/discussions/dq-rules/
gif37VndLh3xJ.gif

http://johnrauchert.brinkster.net/dq/archive/discussions/dq-rules/
jpgWpJhibGKHP.jpg

John,

I seem to recall a lot of good stuff on your site and I would like to
see it back up/ It helps me dream of playing again...

On Feb 20, 2006, at 9:42 AM, John M Kahane wrote:

> Hullo, Jeffery,
>
> In a message of February 18th, 2006, you wrote,
>
>> Until I see it, I really couldn't say.
>
> Not really a matter of content, although I do have a bunch of
> FAQs
> to post up to the website, among other things. The real question is
> whether anyone feels there is a need for another website, even if mine
> was one of the earlier ones in 1997.
>
> However, since no one else has commented on this...
>
> --
> JohnK
> e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
> web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

>
> So, what game are you playing/running these days?

My group is playing D20 at the moment. I would like to get back into
DQ, and have a chance in another established campaign, but have not
been able to make the time

>
> And where's that DRAGONQUEST Adventures website that you've been
> promising for so long? <evil g>

Actually, I may try and get that up and running. In a simplified
version. I think I spent so much time on the details I forgot the
goal. Stay tuned

>
> --
> JohnK
> e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
> web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Hullo, JohnR,

In a message of February 20th, 2006, you wrote,

> Unfortunately all the old posts prior to 2001 on The Townhall list were
>lost as is revealed in this message:

[message snipped]

That is really sad to hear, since I remember some of the debates
over there in the early days were very...energetic. :)

> The following text files is an extant copy of the posting from 2001 until the forum demise in 2003.
>
> http://johnrauchert.brinkster.net/dq/archive/discussions/webrpg_townhall_dqarchive.txt

Still, at least some of that material has survived. Thanks, JohnR. :)

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, JohnR,

In a message of February 20th, 2006, you wrote,

> Since this format is automagically generated and I would have to do the
>Townhall stuff by hand, it is unlikely (but not impossible).

Like you said, unlikely but not impossible. Another project if you
ever have any spare time on your hands and all that good stuff. :)

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo Pilum067,

Hi, there...welcome to the DQ discussion list. Nice to see a new
face here! :)

In a message of February 21st, 2006, you wrote,

> Glad to see some people still play one of my favourite fantasy RPG. Fact is I've been
> playing DQ more than ten years after TSR killed it. And I thought, at the time, we were like
> the Last of the Mohicans...
>
> So we were wrong.

Yes, definitely wrong. :) Some of us still here started playing the
game back when SPI launched it in 1980 or so. In my case, while I've
gotten away from the game for a couple of years at a time here and
there, I always come back to the DQ system, as it remains my favourite
set of rules for fantasy rpg.

> Then I found this dqn list. And I realized I wasn't alone.

Yeah, neat, isn't it? <g>

> Now I'm lucky enough to have some ooooold time DQ fan friends still lurking around, and
> you know what? I convinced them we could start a new campaign! Two playing sessions
> per month.

Excellent news to hear! Bet some of the folks who wish they were
playing DQ around here are envious. :)

> I'm gonna be busy reading everything on this list and maybe ask for some help with the
> rules.

We are here, ready to serve in any capacity... :)

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, Marty,

In a message of February 25th, 2006, you wrote,

> I seem to recall a lot of good stuff on your site and I would like to
> see it back up/ It helps me dream of playing again...

Ah, the selfish reasons and all that, huh? :)

Well, I've been seriously considering relaunching the set of
DRAGONQUEST webpsges, but would like to put material and stuff from
other folks up there as well. Stuff like adventure seeds, characters
and NPCs from campaigns, that sort of thing...and anything else that
folks would like to contribute.

Besides, I really want to put the FAQ files back on-line there, so,
and there's the Fan Poll, and...and..and... Aww, you get the picture! :)

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

If you REALLY want to (as you claim) then go ahead and do it. Nobody
here is likely to stop you.

> I really want to

What do you want? Please. Pretty please?

Hello JohnK

Okay I am in with the DragonQuest adventures site. I am working on
it now as a matter of fact. I am doing a scaled down version, as it
is easy to do simple things using iWeb and my .Mac account

Stay posted. If you are going to re-launch than I will launch too!

John C

On Feb 27, 2006, at 5:43 PM, John M Kahane wrote:

> Hullo, Marty,
>
> In a message of February 25th, 2006, you wrote,
>
>> I seem to recall a lot of good stuff on your site and I would like to
>> see it back up/ It helps me dream of playing again...
>
> Ah, the selfish reasons and all that, huh? :)
>
> Well, I've been seriously considering relaunching the set of
> DRAGONQUEST webpsges, but would like to put material and stuff from
> other folks up there as well. Stuff like adventure seeds, characters
> and NPCs from campaigns, that sort of thing...and anything else that
> folks would like to contribute.
>
> Besides, I really want to put the FAQ files back on-line
> there, so,
> and there's the Fan Poll, and...and..and... Aww, you get the
> picture! :)
>
> --
> JohnK
> e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
> web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

I have a couple of adventures and adventure seeds I could formt up for the web...

John M Kahane <jkahane@comnet.ca> wrote:

      Hullo, Marty,

In a message of February 25th, 2006, you wrote,

> I seem to recall a lot of good stuff on your site and I would like to 
> see it back up/ It helps me dream of playing again...

      Ah, the selfish reasons and all that, huh? :)

      Well, I've been seriously considering relaunching the set of
DRAGONQUEST webpsges, but would like to put material and stuff from
other folks up there as well.  Stuff like adventure seeds, characters
and NPCs from campaigns, that sort of thing...and anything else that
folks would like to contribute.

     Besides, I really want to put the FAQ files back on-line there, so,
and there's the Fan Poll, and...and..and... Aww, you get the picture! :)

--
      JohnK
      e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
      web:  http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

---

Yahoo! Mail
Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail makes sharing a breeze.

I am putting together an adventures site as we speak! Can you send
them my way? john@johncorey.com

JohnC

On Feb 27, 2006, at 10:37 PM, Jason Honhera wrote:

> I have a couple of adventures and adventure seeds I could formt up
> for the web...
>

Sure,  May be a few days as they are handwritten and I used 2 finger advanced hunt and peck.  What format would you like them in?

John Corey <john@johncorey.com> wrote:

I am putting together an adventures site as we speak!  Can you send 
them my way? john@johncorey.com

JohnC
On Feb 27, 2006, at 10:37 PM, Jason Honhera wrote:

> I have a couple of adventures and adventure seeds I could formt up 
> for the web...
>

---

Relax. Yahoo! Mail virus scanning helps detect nasty viruses!

Hullo, folks,

Some time ago, one of the folks from the DQ mailing lists was kind
enough to do me up a series of graphics for the Shariana's Guide pages
for my DQ website. If that kind person is still around here, can he or
she please get in touch with me? Thanks. :)

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, folks,

The person who designed the logos for me for the Shariana Guide is
Holwinkle, aka Daniel Allbut. If you're still here Daniel, can you get
in touch with me? (And if he's not, does someone know where I can get
in touch with him?)

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo,Rachel,

In a message of February 22nd, 2006, you wrote,

> Long-time Lurker here, with a poser for the group.

Good to see you posting here. Always willing to help out with a
few answers to questions and the like. :)

> I am running a PbEM game where a Mage (fairly powerful) has managed to have
> the Mind spell "Control Person" cast on her. She wants to use a Talent that
> she has bound into an item. I am of two minds about this, since although
> Talents are supposed to be "automatic", the person has all their physical
> activities "Controlled," which would normally make casting spells out of the
> question.

To be honest, I don't see why the character's being under the
influence of the Controlling Person spell would interfere with using a
Talent bound into an item. The Control Person spell conmtrols the
physical activities of the target of the spell, but because the target
is affected as if by a Spell of Slowness per se (see the description of
the spell), it would take at least one Pulse in combat to use the
Talent, in my opinion. Outside of combat, that would be at the
discretion of the GN, and dependent on the specific Talent in the
object. If I wanted to be really nasty, I would make the character pass
a Willpower check.

Hope this helps. :)

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, JohnC,

In a message of February 27th, 2006, you wrote,

>> So, what game are you playing/running these days?
>
> My group is playing D20 at the moment. I would like to get back into
> DQ, and have a chance in another established campaign, but have not
> been able to make the time

Not making the time to run a game of DRAGONQUEST? For shame,
JohnC, for shame... :)

>> And where's that DRAGONQUEST Adventures website that you've been
>>promising for so long? <evil g>
>
> Actually, I may try and get that up and running. In a simplified
> version. I think I spent so much time on the details I forgot the
> goal. Stay tuned

Definitely will. Looking forward to seeing what comes of this.
Heck, for that matter looking forward to seeing what comes of my own
website for DQ. :)

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, Marty,

In a message of February 27th, 2006, you wrote,

> If you REALLY want to (as you claim) then go ahead and do it. Nobody
> here is likely to stop you.

Well, this is certainly true. :)

>>I really want to
>
> What do you want? Please. Pretty please?

Do I detect a bit of anticipation here, hmm? <g>

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, JohnC,

In a message of February 27th, 2006, you wrote,

> Okay I am in with the DragonQuest adventures site. I am working on
> it now as a matter of fact. I am doing a scaled down version, as it
> is easy to do simple things using iWeb and my .Mac account

Excellent news to hear! :)

> Stay posted. If you are going to re-launch than I will launch too!

Oh, that's right...put the onus on me to do this, too! <g>

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Hullo, Jason,

In a message of February 27th, 2006, you wrote,

> I have a couple of adventures and adventure seeds I could formt up for the web...

Excellent news to hear. Well, given that JohnC is going to launch
the DQ Adventures site, you can send the adventure to him, but please
send the adventure seeds to me at the e-mail address below. Don't need
to format them, since I will take care of that for the pages, but plain
text is the best for this purpose.

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

I have a stack of extended encounters and fuller scenarios in an electronic
form if somebody wishes to host them. They are a bit specific to my campaign
but still adaptable.

JohnD

>From: John M Kahane <jkahane@comnet.ca>
>Reply-To: dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
>To: dqn-list@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [DQN-list] DQ Adventures and Seeds (Was: Re: DQ Website Relaunch
>Thoughts?)
>Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 17:51:46 -0500
>
> Hullo, Jason,
>
>In a message of February 27th, 2006, you wrote,
>
> > I have a couple of adventures and adventure seeds I could formt up for
>the web...
>
> Excellent news to hear. Well, given that JohnC is going to launch
>the DQ Adventures site, you can send the adventure to him, but please
>send the adventure seeds to me at the e-mail address below. Don't need
>to format them, since I will take care of that for the pages, but plain
>text is the best for this purpose.
>
>--
> JohnK
> e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
> web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane
>

Seeing as how we have been targeted as the 'looking for love' crowd a
lot lately, I wonder what our moderator status is and can we get the
new membership stuff changed to keep some of these idiot fishers out?

Marty

Hullo, folks,

I'm looking for someone to help me out and create a set of
graphics for one area of my DQ webpages. I'm not a graphics person, so
I wouldn't be asking for the help if I could do this myself. Anyoen who
is willing to give me a hand with this should get in touch with me at
the e-mail address below.

Thanks in advance. :)

--
JohnK
e-mail: jkahane@comnet.ca
web: http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane

Attachments :

We have our group set so that new members are automatically moderated. Until a poster posts a forum related post they are set to moderated.

Once a first post has been approved, their status is changed to unmoderated. That is why sometimes new member posts are slower to appear (because the moderators still have not approved the message).

If a post is just spam and off topic we delete the message and remove the user. This effectively weeds out spam postings.

The sponsered links at the bottom of posts are Yahoo's and cannot to my knowledge be removed (the price of a free service).

If you are getting spam from this list please forward some examples to me as I do not appear to be getting them.

John F. Rauchert, co-moderator dqn-list, dq-rules, universe-rpg

My apologies - it was the [DragonQuest Online] list.

Hey Folks,

I am working on getting an on-line game started. It is going to be
just me and a one of my pals to start. I was thinking of Open RPG to
start, but boy does it look like a lot of work to get running on my Mac.

Any other tools out there?

I am considering just using AIM and Skype

An input would be helpful.

JohnC