[Wilshire]

Yeah roll to see if you can see the Onta at least.  Whats an RPG without Mages?? Would be a real shame if you don't have a real option to become one.

All that See aren't Schoolmen. I think it has a lot to do with being recruited at a young enough age. Those who come from High Ainon from a big city like Carythusal or Aoknyesus (sorry spelling), or from a Norsi fishing village/city, would have a decent chance at being discovered and trained from a young age. Those in Sumna might be recruited to that sect of schoolmen hunters, the Luminaries, Momnem recruited to the Saik.

If you aren't from a major city, there is almost 0 chance you are a schoolmen, or at the very least you are way behind learning. Also, Caste-Nobles are less likley since its taboo.

What I'm getting at is I think that there are far more people who can see the Onta than we are lead to believe, but depending on where you are born, your upbringing, religion, etc., you start limiting the number of people really quick. I think limiting it to 1%, or another such flat rate, seems unfair and unrealistic. Through the character generation process you will decide many things about your character, some are player choices, some are chance rolls (like family status I know for sure). It will be important early on to roll to see if you can see the Onta, but the final roll should be left until later on when you know more about your character. We could develop a small table, based on the factors I described above, which will give you your success range when you roll that D100.

A nobleman from Sumna will have about a 1% chance, but a Nobel from Ainoi might make it. A caste menial in Norsi would have a greater chance still.
 
Maybe that is too convoluted, I don't know , but at least then the player can make choices and have some options rather than a flat No or low/impossible odds.

[Somnambulist]

I think that if a player wants to play a sorcerer, they should be free to.  Or play a member of the college of Luthymae, for that matter, with the sight or whatever.  Basically, if you want to be one of the Few, you should get to be.  If you're ambivalent about it as a player, maybe the GM makes a secret roll about whether the character is of the Few or not.  That would keep players who never cared about magic advancing their characters to a badass warrior, then deciding they wanted to be a sorcerer as well.  Maybe they could, maybe they couldn't, based on the roll made when the character was created.  Also, I like the idea of more or less chance based on population density.

[Wilshire]

Are there examples in RQ6 or any other RPG that has a character class that exhibits something close to what Kellais said? Or, in the same vein, examples of games without a magic user class? My biggest concern is that removing schoolmen will limit the options too much.

I could see either way, low chance vs conditional vs player choice.

The potential player in me says, hey, if I want to be a schoolman then I should be able to. The Earwa historian in me says schoolman are rare and not everyone gets to be one, tough luck pal. But, remember that the player characters are not mundane people. I believe that there is something in the beginning of the manual that mentions this fact. PC are inherently different than everyone else, and as such are not subject to every statistical rule that is apparent in Earwa.
If you want to make a group of 4 schoolmen, fine, but the first chorae you encounter will kill at least 2 of you .

Side note, I feel that unless you are a Quya or a Dunyain (probably not player options?) there will be no monk/magi/warrior combos.  Being a successful schoolman will take a lot of skills that are useless to a warrior and would probably take too long to develop.

[Somnambulist]

I agree that players should be allowed to be sorcerers if they want.  Absolutely.  My whole thing is that you should be able to play ANY character you want within the guidelines of the ruleset and world setting.  I think there's enough complexity in the books to allow for just about anything you want.  I guess the point I was making about the random GM roll was only in the event of players who were ambivalent or didn't care if they were of the Few or not.  If they explicitly state 'I don't care/dont' want to be one of the Few,' the GM makes a secret roll.  Most cases they wouldn't be, but maybe, just maybe, they would be anyway.  That would be a great component in a story-driven campaign, something about themselves they didn't realize but may come in handy one day.  Whatever.

Years ago, D&D had a thing called psionics that you could only get as the result of a random percentage roll.  But that was just flavoring for the game.  It didn't really apply to anything unless you came up against someone else with psionics.

As far as I can tell, acquisition/betterment of skills is how characters progress in RQ6, versus class advancement in other systems.  A sorcerer could learn to fight, or a warrior could learn magic.  Just means the character would be more versatile, but not as good at sorcery/fighting as a 'pure' character (one who focuses on a single skillset only).  But, not having actually played RQ6, I could be talking out of my ass.   

[Wilshire]

But, not having actually played RQ6, I could be talking out of my ass.   

I have been doing much ass talking. Back to my earlier question then, could we have a game via skype or some such with the 4 of us?

[Somnambulist]

What time zones are we in?  I'm in the US, Central time (I think that's GMT-5).  I guess it depends on everyone's availability.  I'm approaching my holiday, so I'm probably out of the picture for a month or so.  Maybe after that for me.

[Wilshire]

What would be absolutely ideal would be to get a group together and somehow play one, but with different timezones it might be impossible. I'm EST, or well actually EDT until daylight savings time ends.

We could do something super simple like Skype? I dunno, maybe that wouldn't even work, but I'd be willing to try. I'd also need to get a set of dice. 3 people doesn't seem like enough, but I have literally 0 experience. If we need a 4th, maybe Raizen will play (he posted on the other thread)?

EDIT:
btw with the "bundle of holding" i got some extra campaign books and quests, etc., so we could just use some of the preset stuff just to get a feel. It would make starting a game easier, especially because only Kellais has RQ6 experience.

[Garet Jax]

I would play without hesitation.  I have my set of dice already... Assuming my original D&D dice would work.

[Somnambulist]

Yep, it's mostly percentage dice (2 d10's) but most of the regular D&D dice are used (d4, d6, d8).  Not sure if d12 or d20 are used, but definitely the others.

[Garet Jax]

I think I have an 8 or 9 piece set.  Let me know what you guys decide!

[Wilshire]

GJ are on Pacific time right?
I will need to buy a set of dice before we start, but that should be quick. If a standard set of D&D work I'll just get those. We have at about a month before this starts anyway.

I guess we will have to pick a time and a day, probably a saturday or sunday since we are all spread out, sometime near the end of July? So like July 28 or 29?

[Garet Jax]

Arizona actually doesn't switch for daylight savings time... So us in the desert do not know what time zone we are in when it switches.  But I am -7 GMT right now.

[SilentRoamer]

I have literally no experience with this type of thing but I would play and make up the numbers until the community is well established.

TBH its the sort of geeky guilty pleasure I would have anyway!

[Wilshire]

Another nerdy recruit. Sweet.

Just a reminder, we need people to siphon out all the knowledge of places and culture provided to us in the books, including but not limited to TTT appendix which needs to be somehow converted into a useful format (probably by geographical location).

SR - we are playing RQ6, i.e Runequest 6th edition. If you want to play, you'll probably have to buy a copy of the ruleset unless something else can be arranged. PDFs are available to DL and are cheaper than the bound book, but are still kind of pricey imo. No need to pull the trigger on that yest I guess?

Also, everyone involved will likely need to help with converting the RQ6 ruleset into our own Earwa relevant rules. This can't really be done before the data is collected, and we'll need to be familiar with the all the rules and how they work as a whole so that we don't change something and break the whole game.

OpenQuest, while not the same, was suggest earlier in this thread or one of the other 2, as a jumping off point. Its can be DL'd for free, is shorter than RQ6, and has enough similarities to potentially grasp content for the newbie. I read through it, decided it would be entertaining to work on this project, and bought RQ6 later (went on sale at just the right time). Mayhaps you'd like to start there and see if its worth jumping into this rabbit hole.

[Kellais]

My problem with the "everyone can play everything" is, in this case, setting dependent. Normally i totally agree with Somna. A player should be free to play what he wants  (within reason, of course).

But, as Wilshire put it, i am torn between the usual rpg conventions (see above) and the Earwa-"Scholar" in me. As i am leaning more towards the scholar side in an earwan rpg, i guess i'd limit the availability of stuff for an TSA RPG. Not saying we have to build the game this way. It's just how i would handle it at my table because first and foremost, i want to have the authentic Earwa experience. And i would choose my players accordingly.

Anyway... for the rules set we want to put together, we certainly should build all the rules necessary to play everyone and everything in Earwa. So i think we should even put thoughts into how a Dunyain will be handled, ruleswise, etc etc .

As for a Skype game - I see two problems for my part: 1) i am in europe, so most of you guys are between 6 to 9 hours behind my time 2) I am not sure my spoken english, especially via skype or teamspeak or whatever (so without any kind of mimic and bodylanguage), is up to this task.