================================================================ || || || DRAGONQUEST Newsletter December 1994 || || || || Volume 1 / Number 10 || ================================================================ The DQ Newsletter is for discussions of the DragonQuest role playing game. The key addresses you need to know are: Philip Proefrock (Editor, Article Submissions, Etc.) psproefr@miamiu.muohio.edu David Nadler (Distribution Coordinator) nadled@uh2297p01.daytonoh.ncr.com Drake Stanton (FTP Site Coordinator) drache@netcom.com All articles are copyrighted property of their respective authors. Reproducing or republishing an article, in whole or in part, in any other forum requires permission of the author or the moderator. The DragonQuest Newsletter also maintains an ftp archive site: [ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/dr/drache] which includes back issues of the newsletter and other articles of interest to DragonQuest players and GMs. ************************** Important Announcement! The site that the Archive is on (Netcom) has reorganized its public ftp directory structure. As a result, the archive has been moved. It is still on the ftp.netcom.com machine, but it is now in the directory: ftp/pub/dr/drache. ^^^ Note the part that has changed I am sorry if this causes any problems. As always, email me with any problems or questions. Sorry for the short notice, but they gave us just as short notice when they changed it. Drake Stanton Archive Coordinator, DQ Archive ************************** ----------------------------------------------------------------- C O N T E N T S ================================================================= Editorial -- Philip Proefrock Letters -- John Kahane -- Dave Selinger -- Jonathan O'Donnell Column: The BEASTIARY Minor Magic Modifications -- Charles Summerhill Complex Cantrips -- Philip Proefrock Column: DQ ARCHIVE ----------------------------------------------------------------- EDITORIAL: ================================================================= One of the other mailing lists which I subscribe to recently had a fairly heated debate over the issue of hardcopy distribution of the digest. Someone was going to print out copies of the digest, make photocopies, and distribute them to people who didn't have Internet access, but who were interested in the topic. The problem arose because this individual was getting money for the distribution. Granted, he is only getting paid to recoup the cost of copies and mailing, but some people were outraged about it. I bring this up because I know that the gaming community is large, and while there are a lot of DQ players on the 'Net, there are others who don't have access. We've thought about making a hardcopy version of the Newsletter available, for which we would have to recoup photocopy and mailing costs. But, if there are objections to this, we will have to reconsider. What do you think of the idea? At this point, the issue is only hypothetical. We don't have a list of people asking about getting the Newsletter by mail. We had a request to make hardcopies of the Newsletter to be distributed (without charge) at a convention, which we agreed to. But there is a fine line here, and I think we need a group consensus and understanding about this. I would like to add a disclaimer to the Newsletter that would allow us to print out hardcopies of it (or to give permission to allow others to print out and distribute copies of specific Newsletters) in order to broaden awareness of DragonQuest and to give more people access to the information. ------------------------_L_E_T_T_E_R_S_-------------------------- ================================================================= {Note: This letter was received before the last newsletter, but due to our size limit, we weren't able to include it in the last issue. Our apologies to John. -- ED} Hullo, Phil! Just thought I'd drop you a note to let you know that I recently received the DragonQuest Netletter v1n8, and was quite pleased by it. I see that you folks are making constant improvements to the Netletter, and hope that this continues. You're doing a really fine job with this, and I like to think that the DQ Netletter will continue to be a regular thing. {We hope so, too. -- ED} Just one question, though...I've noticed that with the exception of me, most of the folks who "subscribe" to the Netletter are doing so through Internet, whereas I do so through Fidonet. I've been waiting for the Internet feed that I'm supposed to get for a while now, and there's been a delay on this. In the meantime, how am I (and other Fidonet subscribers (if any) supposed to access the DQ ftp archives for materials and the like? -- John Kahane (John.Kahane@p5.f198.n163.z1.fidonet.org) {Editors' Reply: {I have been struggling with the issue of how to get Archive material to those without ftp. I am working on trying to set up an automated mail-system, which will automatically e-mail files from the Archive to users. I can't tell you when (or even if) this is going to be implemented. In the meantime, if any user wishes something from the Archive, and cannot get it via ftp, they may mail me and I will mail the material to them. There is obviously a limit on how many users I can do this for, so please do this only if you CANNOT get it via ftp. Thank you, and apologies for any problems. Drake (drache@netcom.com) --Archive Coordinator} ----------------------------------------------------------------- Phil, I meant to write this several weeks ago in response to the letter expressing interest in a DQ character generation program. I wrote one a while ago in Turbo Pascal. It allows the generation of a character by either randomly generating the vital statistics or by choosing them. It then allows the user to modify these points and to choose weapons, armor, shields and a magic college. It will calculate the percentage chances for spells and weapons given rank and the primary characteristic for that ability. I have used it to create NPC's, particularly mages. I also have another program which will produce and keep track of the stats for up to ten NPC guard types. At first we used this quite a bit to speed up combats. However, we found that our nights became monotonous. Its biggest attribute is that it will randomly generate a series of similar characters within a range specified by the user. I am willing to deposit the source codes for both programs in the FTP site. {Dave has sent these to the Archive already. See this issue's Archive section for more information about these programs. -- ED} If anyone is interested but does not have Turbo Pascal I would be willing to send them a disk copy of the object code for a few dollars to cover the cost of the disk and mailing. It will run on any IBM PC compatible including the original 8088 machine all the way up to 486 machines. -- Dave Selinger (DSELINGER@MOLBIO.uoregon.edu) ----------------------------------------------------------------- To: Editors Thank you for an excellent magazine. I would really enjoy seeing the collated discussions included in the Newsletter (either as articles or as supplements). I do not read news anymore because it was too hard trying to maintain a kill file, a .newsrc file, keep up with new groups and read the relevant old groups. I just didn't have the time. However, if other people do have the time, I would be quite willing to go with the majority vote. Here's a thought. Would there be enough interest to maintain two lists? That way, Group A could receive the newsletter and Group B could receive the newsgroups supplements, with a large amount of overlap between the two Groups. Both the newsletter and the supplements end up in the archive. I don't know anything about the workload involved, so when I say "...enough interest...", I mean from the editors, not the readers. -- Jonathan O'Donnell (jono@oak.bf.rmit.edu.au) {We got several other responses on the topic of including DQ-related material from the rec.games.frp.misc newsgroup. The responses we got indicate strong support for continuing to collect DragonQuest-related discussions and to include them in the Newsletter. Since the discussion of DQ in r.g.f.m is only occasional, I do not think it will start overwhelming the Newsletter, but if it does, we will have to reexamine things at that time. {All of us have problematic 'Net servers, so some things may slip past us inadvertently. If you are involved in a discussion about DragonQuest, and can keep copies of the discussion thread and forward them to us, we would appreciate it. -- ED} -------------------_The_ _B_E_A_S_T_I_A_R_Y_--------------------- ================================================================= MOREDHEL -- by John Kahane (John.Kahane@p5.f198.n163.z1.fidonet.org) Natural Habitat: Hills, Mountains, Woods Frequency: Uncommon Number: 10-40 (20) Description: The moredhel or dark elf (also called the Brotherhood of the Dark Path) is a lithe humanoid, slightly smaller than man-sized, but like their elven kindred, can also reach heights in excess of humans. Elves and moredhel appear almost identical to the untrained eye. The moredhel have a tendency to dark hair and eyes than their elven cousins. Talents, Skills, and Magic: See DragonQuest, Section 6.5. The moredhel are capable of running for periods of up to six (6) hours without suffering the loss of more than 2 Fatigue per hour as per the normal Encumbrance rules. In addition, the moredhel excel at the use of bows and are automatically treated as if they are Rank 4 with a bow of their choice for the purposes of additional bonuses to Strike Chance, damage, and range with these weapons. If a moredhel takes the Hunter or Ranger skills, he expends one-half the Experience Points necessary to progress Ranks. Those moredhel who are Mages and Adepts will belong to the Colleges of Black Magics, Earth Magics, Witchcraft, and the like. They will not be Star Mages or belong to the College of White Magics. Unlike the elves (also called eledhel), the moredhel only live around 10,000 years or so, not the typical 30,000 years that elves live. Movement Rates: Running: 275 PS: 10-22 MD: 5-23 AG: 6-24 MA: 4-22 EN: 6-28 FT: 8-32 WP: 6-24 PC: 6-24 PB: 8-26 TMR: 6 NA: None Weapons: The moredhel, like their elven cousins, have a preference for bow weapons, and will have Ranks 4-6 with them. They also tend to use spears, slings, knives, and shortswords, and are fond of using nets to trap unwary prey. They are usually Rank 3-6 with these weapons. Comments: The moredhel are the long-lost, banished cousins of the eledhel, who chose to follow the path of the Valheru in ages past. For this reason, they are called the Brotherhood of the Dark Path by humans. Elves and moredhel do not get along, and the moredhel and the dwarves have a great antipathy towards one another as well. They are generally thought to be without mercy and, if no escape is possible, they will fight to the death rather than surrender. There is much more that one could say about the moredhel here, but this is detailed much more in Raymond Feist's novel, _Magician_. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- The Moredhel are based upon the "nice little guys" that are found in Raymond Feist's Midkemia novels and material, and as such are rather interesting when compared to standard elves and the like. You'll also note references to a couple of new Colleges and one new Skill in their description, as well. White Magics was one of the Colleges that was supposed to be part of the original "Arcane Wisdom" supplement for DQ, but got cut when the number of Colleges in the supplement were reduced down to three. The College of Witchcraft is all my own, and is quite an interesting little one. Hunter Skill is one that I've added based on a number of my players who wanted it in the game, and is different than the variant that appeared in one of the issues of the Dragon. {In his letter accompanying this submission, John indicated that he will send these in for the Newsletter in the near future, too. -- ED} -- John Kahane (John.Kahane@p5.f198.n163.z1.fidonet.org) ----------------------------------------------------------------- MINOR MAGIC MODIFICATIONS -- Charles Summerhill (charles.summerhill@grapevine.lrk.ar.us) ================================================================= [This slight modification to Minor Magic makes a reference to Minor Skills, something else I am proposing for a major change to DragonQuest. In essence the skills presented in DQ at the moment are really packages of skills -- Minor Skills are single individual skills that characters can purchase, somewhat like what is found in GURPS and Champions as well as the NWP in ADD. They have not replace the DQ skills packages, just enhanced them.] XX.XX Increasing chance to perform Minor Magic. A character, for reasons of his own, may attempt to study Minor Magic, and become more proficient at using it. Each of the three type of Minor Magic, Glamour, Cantrip and Trance is treated as a separate Minor Skill [see Minor Skill rules, XX.XX] and can be increased through practice and the expenditure of Experience Points. Each Minor Skill has a Experience Multiple of 150 and each rank (not including Rank 0) gives the character a +3% chance to successfully use that Minor Magic type. The maximum rank in any case is 10 for each one. -- Charles Summerhill (charles.summerhill@grapevine.lrk.ar.us) ----------------------------------------------------------------- COMPLEX CANTRIPS -- Philip Proefrock (psproefr@miamiu.muohio.edu) ================================================================= Introduction and Note to GMs: This allows for an expanded system of minor magic, and for magic to take on a greater presence in the "flavor" of a campaign. My campaign world is fairly magic-rich, and it only made sense to me that mages would have worked out how to do simple tasks with minor magic. If this method of adding more complex minor magic seems too out of line with 'regular' DragonQuest for your campaign, you can instead use this as an idea list of some further things Adepts might do with minor magic. This section is adapted from a larger collection of my DragonQuest material, and is Copyright (c) 1987, 1990 by Philip S. Proefrock. Permission is given for distribution through the DragonQuest Newsletter. 108. COMPLEX CANTRIPS Complex cantrips are a form of minor magic more difficult than regular minor magic talents, but less difficult than spell magic. While general minor magic is a spontaneous use of magical talent, complex cantrips are more difficult feats of minor magic which require a rehearsed trigger. For this reason they are sometimes also called TKey Magics,U because they use a mnemonic key in order to be triggered. These are some of the Tnickel-and-dimeU stunts that surround an AdeptUs life. [108.1] Because of their more complex nature, an Adept must spend Experience Points, time and perhaps money to learn a complex cantrip. Complex cantrips require 1 day of instruction from another Adept who knows the cantrip or one week of study if learning from books only. The cost of instruction is equal to (Experience Point Cost + 30) Silver Pennies. [108.2] The Base Chance to cast a complex cantrip is 4 x CasterUs Magical Aptitude. Modifiers for the casterUs particular college of magic do not apply to the casting of complex cantrips. As with other minor magic, the GM may add modifiers or vary the Base Chance at his discretion. Casting a complex cantrip costs one Fatigue Point, whether the spell is successful or not. Complex cantrips operate in essentially the same fashion as does minor magic (see DragonQuest 4.2 for more information). [108.3] An Adept may learn an unlimited number of complex cantrips. All complex cantrips the adept knows count collectively as one spell for purposes of having sufficient Magical Aptitude to learn them (see 34.6 and 34.7) Complex Cantrips are not Ranked like spells. Once a character has learned the TkeyU to the cantrip, there is nothing else to master. [108.4] (Optional Rule) A character who is not an Adept may learn complex cantrips. Normal minor magic may be performed by any character (see DragonQuest 4.1). However, depending on the character of the campaign, the GM may wish to limit the access to complex cantrips to Adepts, or the GM may allow all characters to learn complex cantrips. A character who is not an Adept must spend one week of instruction, or two months of study if learning from a book, in order to learn a complex cantrip. The Experience Point Cost for a non-Adept will be [100 + (2 x listed Experience Point Cost)], and the monetary cost will usually be higher for non-Adepts as well. [108.5] Complex Cantrips List Each complex cantrip is followed by its Experience Point cost in parentheses. The descriptions of these cantrips are left rather broad, and they will require interpretation by the GM depending on the situation in question. BUG - summons a few insects to a point within (2 x Magical Aptitude) feet from the adept. (15) CALL - summons a horse, dog or other non-magical familiar animal from up to (Magical Aptitude V 3) miles. (40) CHILL - cools a bottle, cup or other small quantity of material by (Magical Aptitude x 2) degrees. (45) CHIMNEY - protects a bare candle or other small flame from gusts. (30) CLEAN - lifts dirt, dust, liquids, etc. from a small area. (55) COLOR - temporarily shades or colors a surface. (80) CURE - heals one point of Fatigue and serves as a PhysikerUs Kit or Rank 1 healer skill to staunch bleeding, etc. Can only be used once on a wounded individual. (150) DAMPEN - covers an area with dew or dampness. (30) DRY - removes dew or dampness from an area. (30) DUST - stirs up a small dustcloud. (25) GATHER - collects like objects or material from a localized area. (85) IGNITE - causes a flammable object (such as a candle, dry kindling, lamp wick, parchment corner, etc.) to ignite. (50) KNOT - magically tangles a knot making it more difficult to untie or loosen. Takes (2 x Magical Aptitude) minutes to untie by hand. (70) LUCK - allows the player to make one die roll (no more than once every game day) which may be substituted for any other die roll at any time. The player does not see what number he has rolled, and it may sometimes be worse than what he had rolled initially. (70) POLISH - shines objects and removes tarnish. (35) PRESERVE - slows or stops decay or rotting. (90) PROD - causes a shocking jolt. (50) RAVEL - unsews a seam or unravels a piece of cloth from a broken thread. (60) SPILL - tips small containers and otherwise encourages spills. (30) STITCH - causes a thread or string to sew itself into a seam, attach a button, etc. (60) TANGLE - snarls thread, hair, string, vines, etc. (20) TEMPERATURE - protects the Adept from extremes of temperature. {Wizards donUt sweat} (150) TIE - ties two threads, two cords, etc. together. (50) UNTIE - undoes a knot or removes a snarl. Can be used to reverse the effects of oneUs own TKnotU cantrip instantly, or will untie another AdeptUs TKnotU in ([30 - Magical Aptitude] x 5) seconds. (50) WARM - heats a small object. (45) This list is not exhaustive. Other cantrips may be introduced by the GM or may be researched and developed by player-characters. However, the GM should be careful to limit the effects of Complex Cantrips to stay within the guidelines of the DragonQuest rules for Minor Magic (see DQ 4.2). More powerful effects should be developed as spells, rather than as cantrips. -- Philip Proefrock (psproefr@miamiu.muohio.edu) ---------------------_D_Q_ _A_R_C_H_I_V_E_----------------------- ================================================================= [Archive ftp site is at: ftp.netcom.com in the pub/dr/drache directory. [ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/dr/drache] Archivist and ftp Guru: Drake Stanton (drache@netcom.com)] Dragon Quest Character Generation Program and Point Tallying Program ARCHIVE NAMES: dq.pas dq_tally.pas ***Dragon Quest Character Generation Program (dq.pas) The Program is relatively straight forward. It is menu driven and relatively crash-proof (although I won't guarantee that). Basically it can generate character stats in two ways. The first is to randomly assign points into the six stats. The second option is to enter the stats manually. In either case they may be modified up or down later. After selecting race, armor and a shield (the last two may be modified later) the user is shown the main screen along with a menu. The user may now choose up to 5 weapons and a magic college. The character may then be printed out and saved to a character file, from which it may be recovered and further modified. The one notable omission of this program is Skills, which I deemed too difficult to deal with. A possible problem with this program is printing. Turbo Pascal version 3.0 had relatively crude output procedures (or at least what I could figure out was pretty crude) so it may be difficult to print on deskjet or laser printers. It does work fine on dot-matrix printers. ***Point Tallying Program (dq_tally.pas) The second program is much simpler in scope than the first. It was designed to simplify large combats with troops or wandering monsters as combatants. Its two redeeming features are the ability to generate opponents with a range of stat values above a user selected minimum and the ability to keep track of fatigue and endurance values during a combat. In addition it will keep track of the NPC's status and subtract the armor value from any damage entered. It also shows values for defense and COS which is an abbreviation for "come-out-of-stun." The program was meant to overcome the clonal problem of wandering monsters and guard type combats in which the GM, for simplicity's sake assigns the same EN and FT as well as SC and DM to all NPCs. Its one drawback is that it can speed up combat so much that DD type adventures can result, with waves of guard types being dispatched by characters, and one final combat with a worthy opponent. **Notes on both programs: I have provided the source and object code for both programs. They may be freely modified and used. I simply ask that my contribution be mentioned in any future revised versions if they are distributed. Since I don't foresee any great monetary value attached to these programs now or in the future, I'm not going to worry about copyrights and such. Have fun with them and don't get too angry with me when the programs don't work right. You may e-mail me at "dselinger@molbio.uoregon.edu" with any questions or problems. ################################################################ ### End of DragonQuest Newsletter v1/n10 -- December 1994 ### ################################################################