From: rowe@soda.berkeley.edu (Eric Rowe)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: RQ: River of Cradles (*Spoilers*)
Date: 27 Jan 93 03:53:53
Organization: UCB Integrative Biology
	<1k1d35INNj0a@beethoven.cs.unc.edu> <1993Jan26.004137.14713@netcom.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: akuma@netcom.com's message of 26 Jan 93 00:41:37 GMT

Following the switch from the current River of Cradles supplement to the old
RQ2 in Big Rubble I felt a few things should be replied to.

In article <1993Jan26.004137.14713@netcom.com> akuma@netcom.com (Steven Elliott Barnes) writes:

   I went through the original version of this scenario; I don't
   know what the new version is like, but I had some major gripes
   about the RQ II version.

As has been noted, this scenario is not in the RQ3 supplement, but all your
gripes are in error anyway.

   Basically, the entire scenario seemed to be a giant flow-chart,
   with things contrived so that the players couldn't possibly
   deviate from The Plan.  First off, they specified that no
   rune-level characters were allowed.  Naturally, we ignored
   this and brought along a couple priests and lords.  However,
   the forces thrown against us were so overwelming that it
   didn't make much difference.

You must have missed this part...."This scenario is dangerous. It could kill
80% or more of the player-characters. It is a good place for Rune Lords and
Rune Priests to fight, and they will need all their stored POW."  As to
being a big flow-chart. That was part of the point. The characters are not
heros, and cannot affect the big picture in a great way, but they can help it
along.  As to deviating, there were many ways, though admittedly most meant
leaving the cradle and exiting the adventure. I see no problem with that
route as it was clearly the rational thing to do at several points.

   In one scene, the boat is being stormed by mercenaries.
   As my initiate struggled to help defend the boat, I just
   looked at things, and thought "Why are we doing this?
   there is no way we can win."  Sure enough, events forced
   us to hide in the interior of the boat.  Of course, my
   Humakt initiate died before this happened.  In hindsight, 
   we should have just ran for the hold as soon as we saw trouble.

If your character did not understand why he was probably giving his life
away to save the baby he had no business on the boat in the first place.

   An interesting note was that it was raining in that scene;
   I believe the Lunars were dumping burning oil on the
   cradle.  The scenario had a note that any Yelmalio
   initiates with the geas "never seek shelter from storm"
   had to stay on deck!

Yeah, so.  Geas' are like that.  A smart Yelmalio jumps ship at that point.

   Finally, things looked grim; we were hosed; there was nothing
   we could do.  But wait, Argrath the Hero shows up to save
   our asses.  Talk about un-satisfying.  Basically, our entire
   effort was irrelevant.

Oh, so your characters have to be the heros all the time.  Had you not been
there the lunars would have killed the baby before Argrath arrived.  That
shows that you contributed, but that there are still things you can't do.

   Lastly, as our reward, we got: all the gold we could carry.
   This seemed pretty arbitrary, and unsatisfying.  I mean,
   here we are on a boat filled with awesome magic goodies,
   and they give us gold?  Aren't giants darkness creatures?
   What about us low-strength characters?  I ended up with
   11 STR * 100 gold; the rune lord, on the other hand,
   got 21 * 100 gold, plus he loaded up his sky bull ally
   with so much gold it couldn't fly.

First, it was strength * 150, and recall a gold is worth 20 silver, no mean
sum.  Does it surprise you Rune levels tend to be stronger and deserve
better rewards?  Also, he should not have been allowed to load the bull.
That is just one more error upon the GM's part, not the scenario's. As to
giving the great magic treasures, guarding them was the point of the
adventure. Perhaps with your attitude you should have been on the side of
the Lunars.

   But there was a final indignity waiting for us.  The scenario
   had a note, something to the effect that:  "now that your 
   characters are so amazingly wealthy, they should retire; 
   besides, you don't want all that gold to unbalance your campaign".

Boy, you shouldn't read so fast, you miss things. That is one of many
options and definately not a 'should'. This is the list as given. 1: Lugging
all that gold back up the river will make an interesting adventure. 2: The
players better be discreet about spending the new found wealth in Lunar
occupied Prax. 3: The reed boat folk are happy to mention Casino Town, a
gambling city in the Holy Country. 4: The gold can be used to buy any training
the players wish, or hire people to do things they don't want to learn. 5:
They may retire from active life. 6: Gamble, pay off debts, or donate the
gold to a temple and be broke again tomorrow.

I can't seem to call this a 'final indignity' myself.

   My group considers this to be part of a greater pattern; the 
   chilling influence of Sandy Peterson on RQ.  We call it: Call 
   of Runequest.  Basically, an attitude that characters must be 
   kept weak and ineffectual.  But that is the subject of a 
   different flamewar...

Ignoring of course that this was primarily written by Gregg Stafford. Perhaps
it is his style you dislike.  When we ran this years ago the PC's all came
to realize the world did not revolve around them, and that there was a bigger
picture in the world of Glorantha.  Instead of driving them into a "we are so
weak and ineffectual" state, they realized the potentials they could aspire
to if they were true to their gods and worked very, very hard. Of course, you
could just be confused because you misread all the rules.

eric

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