Finally I got the book and I have read about 30 pages and skimmed thorough whole book. I must say, I'm impressed. I'd like congratulate you Jake, excellent work.

Spiritual attributes are great and other mechanics are good too. One thing which confused me first was skill rolls. I'm used to think that higher number, better skill. In tRoS it's different so I had to thought about it and I rolled a few times to see how it works. It worked just fine and I got realistic results.

I'd like to get better encumbrance rules because there is not exact weight limits how much is mildly encumbranced or moderately encumbranced. How much can ST 5 character carry? I cannot find it, only how much he can lift. This is not big problem and I can make these rules by myself. Also item weights would be nice.

One text on backcover sticked to eye. "No annyoing Player Guide and GM Guide". Blue Planet has these both, but in ONE book has 256 pages and it costs $19.95 (softcover, hardcover was about 4 dollars more expensive). In tRoS has 260 pages and it costs $34.95. You get 512 pages with price of about 40 dollars. Paying 5 dollars more you get almost double of pages. So if book costs almost same than Player's Guide and GM's Guide together, I rather buy them both if I get more stuff. Of course there is books which have both and they cost lot more, but also books which don't. I think this was bad advertisement statement.

I post more comments when I read more, but I think it was worth of my money :) (though it cost me 46.90 euros).

Janne

Janne Halmetoja wrote:
I'd like to get better encumbrance rules because there is not exact weight limits how much is mildly encumbranced or moderately encumbranced. How much can ST 5 character carry? I cannot find it, only how much he can lift. This is not big problem and I can make these rules by myself. Also item weights would be nice.

One text on backcover sticked to eye. "No annyoing Player Guide and GM Guide". Blue Planet has these both, but in ONE book has 256 pages and it costs $19.95 (softcover, hardcover was about 4 dollars more expensive). In tRoS has 260 pages and it costs $34.95. You get 512 pages with price of about 40 dollars. Paying 5 dollars more you get almost double of pages. So if book costs almost same than Player's Guide and GM's Guide together, I rather buy them both if I get more stuff. Of course there is books which have both and they cost lot more, but also books which don't. I think this was bad advertisement statement.

I post more comments when I read more, but I think it was worth of my money :) (though it cost me 46.90 euros).

Janne

Are you planning on adding up everything someone is carrying, really? How much does weight have to do with encumbrance when compared to shape and dimension? What is the benifit of the "how much can you carry" bit? I'm not saying that there aren't any, but are they worth it?

First I like a _lot_ of details. Yes, I'm planning on adding up everything, but first I will try game without my own rules. If it works fine with printed rules, that's fine and I will not make my own rules.

I understand your view of point. I think too that it is robbing, so only game which I have bought with Player's Guide and GM's Guide is Blue Planet (It was worth of it). D&D 3rd Edition Core Rulebooks cost nowadays $29.95, they have gone up 50%(!) and you have to buy three of them. That's is robbing at it's best.

I complained some time ago for my friend that everything today is D20 or similar crap. Classes, restrictions.. uh I hate it. Nice to see that there is still people who make realistic, unique worlds and rules.

I have read 40 pages more and I must say I love tRoS. Everything seems to be done right (which is very rare thing). I'm looking for Flower of Battle and Of Men and Beasts with excitement. Are you planning to release more info about Weyrth?

Janne

Sorry, about confusing text. Quotes didn't work as I thought :/. I hope you still understand it :).

Janne

Welcome to the Group.

I've been playing RPG's for ~24 years now. I have never seen a book more complete from a rules standpoint for playing the game. Everything NEEDED is there. Ok the spell system is not defined and regimented into 150-400 spells.

while the Book is compact... the force of the punch it packs is incredible.

Permanent Magic Creation Rules, Logical (shudder) and Consistent(double shudder) magic. No pansy spell casters here... but logically reluctant to use thier magic... and not good in close quarted combat except for 1 spell attack which leaves them magic empty, if consious.

A melee system I find unparalelled for it's realism AND playability after experiencing a dozen + games. All the basic weapons are there.

A brief and very well rounded chart of goods and services.

Great charachter creation in the SA's that helps the Seneschal (Sen. herafter) draw the players into the experience buy setting "personal Objectives" of various sorts for thier charachters that..Help the Sen. provide fun adventures, establises how they advance, and REWARDS them instantly for persuing Goals with instant +dice on thier rolls, AND charachter advancement durring play.

To top it off we have 50 pages of nicely laid out campaign setting rivaling what i have seen some people offer as complete boxed supplements in the past...(world of greyhawk was of similar scope I believe... but not as well done.. more countries I think with less useful information) Again he strikes a delicate balance here... the Rulers are generaly undefined, but clearly typed, Internal struggles, Highlighted Economics, even religious tensions available for use. I doubt you could find this type of detail in a suplement for less than $10 A smattering of exotic and natural creatures to keep the flow going.. Yeti and Ogre like as well as base stats for the lions, boars, and Bears..(oh my)

To me there is little challenge, other than willpower and endurance for breaking all these things into tiny pieces and going into too much detail just to push sales. The true challenge of almost all art is to distill the mass of noise into its essential parts. tRoS has all it's essential parts for long campaigns of roleplaying in just one book.

So when it comes to the statement about just one book... I agree... Expansions... supplements.. sure some of those are coming. If thier quality follows the examples Jake set in the main book... They'll sell and be usefull in the odd situations, or specialized campaigns where someone wants something different like fighting armies against each other, or a players doesn't want to make up his own spells. Read through this forrum you'll find i want to help make a supplement based around Gladiators... Game doesn't NEED it... but the system is so WONDERFUL for it.

Well i need to climb off my soapbox.... read the whole book before you decide about that addvertisement ... then read it again... then think of a challenge for the system and watch the solution probably fall right in your lap from the book, or from this forum.

I've even sketched out rules to run a 85% of a baseball game with tRoS combat system. Then I got on the gladiator thing, I'm not a baseball fan anyway, I was trying to learn the thrown weapons... By the time I post this I will have only had the system 13 days.

sorry you posted while i was writing mine. I'm glad you think it's worth it :-)

I absolutely agree with Viking, so there's not a great deal for me to add.

Basically, it comes down to films and books. Roleplaying was an opportunity to be those heroes from the stories (or villains....or cameos even) and to experience the atmosphere and tension derided from such high adventure.

Previous to this game, on the whole RPGs have catered to the powermonger, to playing onwards only for the sake of scrounging that next scrap of XP. Finally there comes a system that when it feels right for a PC to get away with it, the odds are that much more in his favour. Rather than relying on the fact that a hero now has more Hit Points than a small third world country, it makes sense why the good guy wins (again, or bad guy).

Imagine Indigo Montoya from Princess Bride announcing his vow to kill his father's murderer only to die from the first thrown knife. It might make sense statistically, but no fucking way! Indigo is gonna get that bloke whatever the cost.

So...ermm...yeah...(enuff waffling)...nice one Jake.

I unfortunately don't currently own a book, or even have access to one, Lyrax has the book i saw and he went back to school. but i can tell you Riddle is the most intresting system i have played, and i absolutely love the freedom of the vagaries system. no longer do i have to collect individual spells, like fireball and shocking grasp, instead i get general knoledge and apply it to any situation i want, movement for fireballs, and also for grabbing that key thats just out of reach. no new spells, just a new use. Also none of that annoying Paradox that White wolf uses, closest magic system to riddle that i know of. so good job on the magic system Jake.

I have some questions now.

First I'd like to know Profiency rating explanations. 1 means of course novice but how about 5 or 8? I'd like to get some explanations on that. Also, is 10 maximum profiency for human or can it be 15 or even 20?

Also attribute rating explanations would be nice. Someone posted them but I don't remember where.

Also I'd like get success chances. Someone posted these too, but again I don't remember where.

Janne

4 is "average" all the way around in the system. There's no ceiling for proficiencies (but there is for vagaires). Book one should explain most of your questions pretty well.

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: 4 is "average" all the way around in the system. There's no ceiling for proficiencies (but there is for vagaires). Book one should explain most of your questions pretty well.

Jake

Human limit is 10 (average 4, as you said). However, other creatures can go well above ten in some cases (just look at a giants strength, for example).

Brian.

thats what I thought, just not how the table is written... I may have missed something from another area of the book. A dwarf for instance might go to ST or TO 11 as a PC I guess at a cost of 25 SA

SAs top out at 5, unless a character's nationality bonus says otherwise. Some nationalities declare that the Faith SA may raise to 7, but must never drop below 3, or other such exceptions to the rule.

Thats what I thought, But when I looked through the book the only ruling i found was for during Charachter Creation. So I wasn't sure.

Jake,or anyone else for that matter,I'm running a RoS set in Moorcocks Melnibone. Do you have any suggestions how I can portray sorcerors as conjorers. If you are familiar with the stories,noone cast spells per se, they sommon or conjour demons and or elementals to do majical effects or tasks. Also if anyone remembers the old Stormbringer( also an often deadly and realistic system),maybe a suggestion on how to incorporate Elan into Riddle?

Bladesinger wrote:
Do you have any suggestions how I can portray sorcerors as conjorers.
...
they sommon or conjour demons and or elementals to do majical effects or tasks. Also if anyone remembers the old

Bladesinger wrote: how to incorporate Elan into Riddle?

Temporal and Mental's go to 10.
SA's go to 5.

There are racial and cultural exceptions, many of which make the progression chart's 10-to-11 part fuctional.

Jake

ok, there you have it... profiecency maximum of 26 .. though some cultural adjustments and almost all wise and balanced playing will prevent this :-)

That then would mean that the max combat pool is about 36. Scary!

Jake

If I have had the Same # of SA's to spend as the munchkin with a 36 CP he doesn't have a chance lol

It'll NEVER reach combat. ok there will be like a 1% chance he could get it to combat.

about the SA cap, I found it was more fun to actually ignore it. I had a player who once had 17 points in one SA that made it a lot of fun to watch when hegot in a fight. it just takes carefull storytelling and quick thinking on the seneschals part to make unlimited sa's work.

I like the SA cap. It makes spending SA's worth it. Of course, one can always mess around with it and make it higher or lower...

I too agree with the cap idea... if not on the individual SA's then i think the 25 total SA cap should be maintained. >5 SA's should only be allowed on a NARROW SA. +20 SA for drive be the best swordsman, is too strong. By narrow, i mean so narrow people call the player a fool for building it up. Now +20 SA for Refusing to die till i kill the 6 fingered man who killed my father..... That i can live with (notice they don't help attack).... they will be a lot of fun to watch. And should be difficult to get to the final battle... Campaign metaplot conclusion difficult.

hmmm... a 25 total cap could work, I just think that sometimes a characters drive SA "drives" him in a campaign and if you max out with 5 in drive halfway through the session or campaign but are waiting to turn that 7 into an 8 then its sucks to force the player to suddenly turn some other SA into the "main" sa just to get that point. If a characters main SA is pivotal to the plot, capping it hurts the storytelling. plus, as jake said, "its fun to roll huge hands full of dice" and not capping the SA's can lead to that.
Having played without caps I can testify that it is a lot of fun and I recommend at least trying it.

I see where you're going with the cap pros and cons. My thinking is that if there was no cap, then players could get away with catering to only one SA and "to hell with the other 4." That kills so many great options. Additionally, what does the cap represent? Not much, really. You can spend those points off at any time and keep racking them up.

Jake

I have now read most of the text. Combat rules and most of the other rules are very good, as I said earlier. There is a lot of things which are like taken directly from GURPS (That's just fine thing). Weapon damage is based on strenght not on weapon, which is usually biggest problem with RPGs. Different damage types (cutting, crushing and point), which are usually ignored in many RPGs. Defaults, they're usually ignored too in RPGs. Weapon damage modifiers are also almost same as in GURPS. A lot of nice things, which I get used to in GURPS are taken to tRoS and that's very good thing.

I have been a one problem with high toughnes. It is like armor in RQ and when I played RQ it was very big problem when monster or even animal had a 10 point armor and your above average didn't get any hits through. I played with Combat Simulator a battle where was giant against guy with spear. It was really frustrating, even guy had 15 dice in combat pool. This leads to problem that why giant should even try to parry because its toughness blocks almost always all damage? It is really hard to get even little wound to giant. Better one would be that you can make wounds to giant much easier but giant would take lot of punishment before it falls (think cave troll in LOTR movie).

I haven't read too much about Weyrth, but I can say it's okay. Though there is a lot better worlds in markets (ie. Harn, Glorantha). The biggest problem is that there's too little information about Weyrth. Maybe someday I will begin campaign in Weyrth, now I use tRoS in HarnWorld.

I think this was enough for now, more next time :).

Janne

Janne Halmetoja wrote: I played with Combat Simulator a battle where was giant against guy with spear. It was really frustrating, even guy had 15 dice in combat pool. This leads to problem that why giant should even try to parry because its toughness blocks almost always all damage? It is really hard to get even little wound to giant. Better one would be that you can make wounds to giant much easier but giant would take lot of punishment before it falls (think cave troll in LOTR movie).

Janne Halmetoja wrote: I haven't read too much about Weyrth, but I can say it's okay. Though there is a lot better worlds in markets (ie. Harn, Glorantha). The biggest problem is that there's too little information about Weyrth. Maybe someday I will begin campaign in Weyrth, now I use tRoS in HarnWorld.

Don't forget that it's a giant, for crying out loud! Of course it's hard to kill!

Does the giant's toughness lead to very aggressive strategies? Yes. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so.

Incidentally, the easiest way to kill a giant (that I've seen) is a Heavy Lance + Charger/Destrier. All you really need to do is hit.

Lyrax wrote: Don't forget that it's a giant, for crying out loud! Of course it's hard to kill!

Does the giant's toughness lead to very aggressive strategies? Yes. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so.

Incidentally, the easiest way to kill a giant (that I've seen) is a Heavy Lance + Charger/Destrier. All you really need to do is hit.

I like Harn because it is well supported. You can find kingdom module of every kingdom and they're mapped really really good. Harn is propably the best described and mapped fantasy world in markets.

Glorantha has always been one of my favorite fantasy worlds. Myths are really great thought out and it's very intresting world. It is high fantasy without feeling unrealistic or otherwise stupid. I have thought about using Riddle in Glorantha, but I'm not really sure how well it would fit.

I have some ideas for Weyrth, so I think I will begin campaign this year. Let's see then how much people liked Weyrth and how well campaign gone.

Janne