Runequest: The Battle For Trueford

The Battle For Trueford

No, dear reader, you are not mistaken. Previously I did write about the battle of Trueford when I posted the overview for the adventure, "Urvantan's Tower" in the Smoking Ruins and other Adventures book for Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. However, while discussing the post with a few people online, I realized that was more detail I wanted to give about the big battle at the end of the adventure I wanted elaborate on. I had initially expected to post this a few weeks after the first, but I've been busy with work, and it took some time to get my thoughts together.

You can find the previous post about the Urvantan's Tower by following this link here.

The Battle of Trueford - How to Run a Large-Scale Battle (Easy Mode)

In the Battle of Trueford section, it reads, "If desired, rather than delve into a round-by-round battle where every single combatant is tracked. The gamemaster is encouraged to make this fray more visceral than specific, using narrative description where possible to keep the pressure and intensity driving, and breaking combat into short, brief, and brutal encounters." 

I'm sure, like me, many GMs have never run large battle set pieces, or if they have come close to it - it was done like normal combat but with waves of combatants. Each combatant was tracked individually or in groups, and every attack and parry rolled so that the players slowly but surely played through the whole thing. We all have been there, slogging through combat round after round, and how unfun that can be. So the advice the adventure gives the GM is above and beyond the best advice an adventure can provide. As much as anyone can decide not to run the whole battle in rounds, it is one thing to decide for yourself and another to be permitted to do it. As much as Roleplaying games are a unique form of entertainment, they are a game nonetheless, and we often feel that we need to use the rules that come with the game to play the game. But if that game tells you to ignore the standard procedure and to do this other thing instead to make it easier and less stressful for the GM, all the better.

Unfortunately, the adventure doesn't give much advice on "make this fray more visceral than specific, using narrative description where possible." So that's what I hope to do with this post. Give some guidance on how to set up the battle for your game to make it easy to run and enjoyable from a gameplay perspective while still being more thematic than a slog full of moving pieces. 

I suggest that a GM breaks the battle into several manageable chunks. Some are marked as Narrative Scenes. These scenes reflect the passage of time and inform the players about significant shifts in the battle overall. The adventure gives you a few of these, so the GM won't need to create all of them out of whole cloth. 

The First narrative scene and how combat starts has a fantastic narrative description within the adventure's text. There are also two more similar scenes described in the adventure that shift the story and the battle's direction and momentum. Both of these are near the end, but the GM will need maybe one of two more similar scenes placed between the start of the battle and the end of the battle. Below I'll give you an idea of the narrative scenes I came up with for this battle.

The other chunks are actionable scenes placed between narrative scenes. These scenes use Combat Rounds but don't have to be specifically about combat actions, and I'll give examples for these scenes that I wrote up for my game down below as well. Urvantan's Tower does provide the GM with two of these actionable scenes in the adventure. In one of the actionable scenes, the heroes must get to the Town Hall and free some important NPC hostages. The second actionable scene that the adventure gives is the one that will end the battle one way or another.

Playing my RuneQuest game online had a few advantages. First and foremost, I could set up all my combat scenes beforehand. I could also have lighting effects and even animated fire, which I took full advantage of. 

Breaking Combat Down Into Chunks

When I sat down and broke the battle into groups, I listed simple phrases for each scene using bullet points to create an easy-to-follow order. The other goal I had when designing each scene was that I wanted them to be more than just combat by adding elements to the scene that gave the heroes more non-combat actions they could take. A lot more happens in a battle than just individuals fighting, especially when all the fighting is happening throughout a town. Logically, you would have non-combatants trying to escape, people who are injured and in need of help, wagons being overturned and used as cover and barriers, etc. The GM's goal is to have a broad vision of what shape the battle takes and how to reflect the passage of time. But also paring that with keeping the game from feeling like a slog.

For ease of tracking which is a narrative Scene and which is an Actionable Scene, I use Letters for Narrative Scenes and Numbers for Actionable Scenes below.

A: Urvantan appears. The battle starts.

1: Players, Save the Hostages in the Town Hall.

B: The hostages spread out to help free other villagers or pick up weapons and fight. The Local Ernalda Priestess requires the players to defend her so she can get to the earth temple. The Temple is locked.

2: Defend the Ernalda Prirestess. Find a way to unlock the earth Temple so the Priestess can get inside.

C: The Ernalda Priestess unleashes the Temple Guardian once the Temple is unlocked, and she has access to it again. the Overall battle continues.

3: a section of the town is on fire. The Heroes need to either help put out the fire, help heal the injured, or defend the firefighters, healers, and injured townsfolk. 

D: Fighting continues. Three Centaurs appear and run through the town, attacking any hero or townfolk they can reach.

4: Fight or defend against the Centaurs' attacks while villagers flee to safety.

E: The Leader of the Company of the Manticore challenges one hero to a duel; the winner takes all.

5:One Hero duels the Leader of the Company of the Manticore for control of the region.

F: Describe the end of the duel and what happens after whoever wins.  

About half my players are none combat-focused heroes, so when determining what actionable scenes I wanted to make, I wanted to ensure these heroes had moments to shine. I choose to have the next actionable scene happen outside the Earth Temple instead of during the move from the Town Hall to the Earth Temple to avoid the scene's focus being just combat-based. I felt that one gave the heroes more actions that they could take than the other. Same as why I have the heroes choose whether they help put out the fires, heal the injured or defend. 

From the image above, you can see how I set each actionable scene in Roll20 as its own battle map/stage. The images don't show the effects I added to these scenes either. For instance, Each battle map uses Dynamic Lighting so that the players can only see what is in line of sight of their Pc's token on the map. On the map with the fire, the fire was also animated, which added to the scene's tension. 

My Scenes

I'll give you a breakdown for each scene I have listed above; this way, you can either steal them or use these as a springboard to develop your own.

A) Urvantan has appeared in Trueford and starts attacking the soldiers of the Company of the Manticore. The adventure gives the GM an excellent visual description of the Sorceror's sudden appearance in the village and the hell that breaks loose from there. The only element I added to this scene that wasn't in the adventure was to narrate how the heroes and their allies rush forward to take advantage of the confusion sweeping through the soldiers. During this confusion, the heroes make their way to the Town Hall to free the hostages. This scene ends with describing what the heroes see outside the Town Hall, setting up the next scene.

1) This scene is our first round of combat once the battle has begun. You can see from the battle map above the number of enemies the heroes were to face at this stage. I used the map of Trueford from the adventure as the battle map for the Actionable Scenes. The adventure tells the GM the number of enemies stationed in the village and their deployment. The Mercenaries are a well-trained and battle-tested group who have seen better days. Their equipment needs repairs, and some of them have old wounds that are still healing. The enemy is running on fumes, making them easier to fight against than if they were fresh. I took this also to mean that none of the common - unnamed NPCs have any Rune points left, which gives the heroes an advantage over them. 

However, they are well trained, so when the players encounter the group outside the Town Hall, they are in a formation that makes them difficult to overcome. We have the classic Wall of Shields with ranged attackers from behind. The biggest and strongest target is the Minotaur, who will enter melee if the heroes can break past the shield wall. 

There is a Satyr inside the Town Hall whose job is to keep the Ernaldian High Priestess asleep. The GM can also have the Satyr come out and fight if they think the combat is too easy for the heroes. The GM can also have Urvantan appear behind the enemy if the heroes are doing poorly.

The mercenaries have controlled this town long enough to create choke points for defense throughout the village. Not shown on the map, I also have simple alarm systems strung up in crucial areas. String with bells placed low to the ground that a character might trip while sneaking if they don't notice them. Based on the size of the village and the number of villagers captured compared to the number of mercenaries in the village, I figured that the mercenaries would have ways to minimize the gaps in their watches to prevent hostages from escaping and rescuers from sneaking in at night. I love the Tenchu Stealth Assassin games; these simple devices come straight from there.

B) This scene describes the freed hostages in the town hall. If the Satyr is still around, they would probably be fine with becoming a hostage. I told how the heroes undid the bidding on the hostages that were tied up and had to find some way to wake the sleeping Ernalda High Priestess. Once awake, so she can use her power to assist in the battle, she tells the heroes to accompany her to the Temple. Along with the High Priestess is the Babeester Gor Cultist, who is the Priestess' main bodyguard. But when Heroes get to the Temple, it appears the Company of the Manticore has used magical binding to lock the temple doors. 

2) In this scene, the heroes need to defend the High Priestess while she or another hero finds a way to break the magic that keeps the Temple locked. Here we have more overturned wagons acting as defensive points for the enemy. The heroes and the Priestess at the Temple are fully exposed on three sides, making this a difficult position to defend. Most of the mercenaries have both ranged and melee options. Once the High Priestess can get inside the Temple, she can use what Rune points she has left to summon the Temple Guardian, which ends this scene and moves the battle into the next narrative scene.

C) The GM should describe the Temple Guard rushing the enemy forces, freeing the heroes from the need to defend and allowing them freedom of movement. The GM should describe the battle's progress before switching to the next actionable scene. Between Urvantan and the enemy, there are several spots throughout the town where fire has spread. One such area is also near where many of the wounded from the battle have gathered. 

3) In this scene, the heroes can help the village battle the fire, heal the wounded, and defend both groups from the onslaught of the enemy. 

When playing through this battle, I ended up skipping scene three. My players had been running low on MP and Rune Points by the time the Ernalda Priestess was able to enter the Temple. I skipped this scene and moved on to the next, blending the description of Scenes C and D. However, it's always possible the situation could be different for your group. It comes down to what kind of party of characters you have in your group. 

D) Here, we have the Centaur Leader and his honor guard rush into the battle. I figure they all have Mobility cast on themselves to get to the village as fast as possible. A hostage is carried on the Leader's hindquarters unless the heroes' previous actions have removed this possibility from the adventure.

4) Here we have the Heroes who need to defend against this sudden attack while trying to get villagers to safety. 

E) The Leader of the Company of the Manticore changes a single Heroes to duel them for the fate of the Lost Valley. Even though he is an enemy, he has honor, and this is just a job for him. Though he knows that if he loses here, this is the company's end. 

5) One Hero and the Leader of the enemy forces duel each other. The duel ended pretty quickly in our game between a Humakti and the Leader. 

Anyway, I hope you found this helpful and insightful in running the Battle of Trueford during the Urvantan's Tower adventure. Until the next time: I Fought, We Won, and May Your Glorantha Vary.

Runequest Adventure Review: Urvantan's Tower

It's been a few months since I ran Urvantan's Tower for my game group, the second adventure in the Smoking Ruins and Other Stories. The adventure takes place near the Smoking Ruins site and in the Beastlands in Lost Valley, which can be challenging to find. Most travelers are likely to trip over it when lost or never find it because they get killed or run off by wandering Chaos beasts.
The adventure overview is that the people of Long Home, in Lost Valley, have sent a messenger to Queen Lieka for help with foreign invaders. There are no alliances or ties between Long Home and the Colymar tribe, but the Queen is no fool and thinks of sending a handful of loyal Colymar tribespeople to act as her observers during the trip. 
The Queen's observers, the heroes, travel from Clearwine to the Beastlands as quickly as possible, with the messenger now acting as a guide. Though they were expecting to get there before the invading force, the party is not so fortunate and gets there many hours too late. The invading mercenary Company, made of humans and Bestmen, has successfully taken Long Home under their control and is now trying to put down the final embers of resistance.
Once the heroes reach the Lost Valley, they quickly see that they have arrived too late and that the army has already entered the valley and taken the village of True Ford. The only person who can help the lost valley and the Village of True Ford now is the Sorceror Urvantan, whose tower appears to have vanished. The heroes need to discover what happened to Urvantan while dodging the patrols of the invading mercenary Company. The heroes need to find Urvantan, a local sorcerer, and help him so that he can help save the valley. 

From here, the adventure gets into the meat of the story and has a lot of options available for the Gamemaster and players to decide how they want to proceed. The whole adventure can turn into a prolonged campaign of freedom fighters if need be or only take place over a few days. It all hangs on what choices the players make. Do they help or don't help the folk of Long Home is entirely up to the group. 
Once the adventurers have either failed and are captured or helped defeat the invading force, the adventure ends with the group's return to Clearwire. Possibly leaving further trips to Long Home open for the future if the citizens of Long Home become allied with the Colymar Tribe. 
I find running this adventure and the other adventures in the Smoking Ruins Adventure Book quite different from how GM's Adventure book is laid out and written. The main Smoking Ruins adventure and Urvantan's Tower require more work on the GM's part to run the adventure successfully compared to the GM's Adventure book's adventures. Urvantan's Tower suffers from the same layout issues that Smoking Ruins has. Information that is a bit scattered shoot throughout; Player info, GM info and advice, and other details are all mixed unhelpfully. I had difficulty keeping track of the various threads of this adventure due to layout issues in the book. I reread the adventure five times and still got parts confused and had difficulty finding information during the game. 
Around the middle of the adventure, I presented an NPC's plan to the players and completely misunderstood a sentence in the adventure, which led the players to make the wrong decisions. There is a part of Urvantan's plan where he needs the heroes to spread the enemy out in the open. The current deployment of the Company of the Manticore would make his task more difficult. Some of this is on me; I found the whole section somewhat oddly written, so I know it wasn't just me misreading the information. After reading this several times, I got it into my head that the heroes needed to get the army out of the village and spread thinly out in the open. I'm pretty sure it was that whole spread the enemy forces out into the open part that led me to portray the plan in this way. It wasn't for a few weeks until I realized my mistake when I was thinking about how all the action, in the end, happens inside the village. I kept thinking to myself. How do the heroes and villagers fight the enemy in the village if the enemy is no longer there? The enemy was drawn out of the village by the heroes. I reread the adventure for the 5th time and finally noticed what I messed up.
 It became clear that I needed to change how I made notes for these game sessions because my usual note-taking method wasn't cutting it. This one big mistake caused issues for the players and changed how the game would have played out in the end. I had to course-corrected, and everything worked out in the end. 
Yes, GMs can make mistakes. It happens. I was honest about this mistake with my players. They were having a hard time trying to find a way to make this all happen, and when I let them know that I messed up, it helped relieve some of the tension they were feeling. Also, as a bonus for my mistake, I gave them each a card from the Whimsy Deck that they could use at any time they wanted. This situation was the first time we have used the Whimsey Deck, so we'll see how it works out. But Generally, a player can play this card in a situation where it makes sense to use it to change the current story. These cards give the players more input and agency in the game. It doesn't always happen immediately either; sometimes, it sets into motion some event or person for a future situation.
As much as I had problems running this adventure, overall, it was a lot of fun, and my players had a great time with it. It did what every great Runequest adventure I have run so far does: expose your group to something new they may not know about or how it works. Until then, we hadn't done anything with sorcery, so this was a first for me to run Characters who used sorcery and the first time for my players to encounter it in combat. This adventure was also the first time my players came across anything to do with Arkat and discovered more in-game lore about the world. Most of my players haven't read the lore of the Glorantha, so being exposed to these small bite-size chunks of lore opens the world up for them.

Some notes and things to remember when running Urvantan's Tower:

• The Gamemaster should figure out how many square miles the Lost Valley covers. In Roll20, I set the Lost valley map up with a hex grid, where each hex was 1 mile, with 16 Hex crossing the map from east to west. Looking back, though, I should have made it smaller since, at one point, the enemy has to travel from the fort to the village in a short time. On my map, that was 5 miles, and I think it probably would have been better, so those two locations were more like 2 miles from each other.
• To get the best impact out of this adventure, I suggest having the heroes travel to this valley at least once before, if not more. The Gamemaster can have the Heroes defend the valley against a Talmori Wolf brothers raid. This way, the players can meet all the main NPCs beforehand, develop ties to the community, and establish relationships and history with the local NPCs. This way, when the call arrives for help, the players have those emotional stakes that Robin Law often talks about as crucial motivators for adventure. There is a lot of information about the Lost Valley and the important NPCs that the players will not get into or meet if the Urvantan's Tower adventure is the first time they have visited Long Home. I wish I had done this just so the heroes/players would understand and feel the loss of life involved with this invasion. Before the heroes arrive in the valley, about half the Village Elders die in the Company of the Manticore opening attack. The knowledge of these deaths has zero impact on the players since they don't have any pre-established history or connection with these NPCs. Hell, my players killed one of the Elders because they didn't know she was an elder in the village. They only saw a Seven Mother's Priestess with the enemy at the time. The best way is to have them visit Long Home for supplies while at the Smoking Ruins or after they finish going to the Smoking Ruins for the first time. Maybe a Merchant meets them on the road, the number of guards he has hired have been killed off or wounded by some wild beast(s), and he engages them to help get his wares the rest of the way to Long Home.

• Captain Danbar, the Warden, sent to seek the help of the Colymar, doesn't travel alone. When I ran the adventure, I had Captain Danbar travel to the lands of Colymar alone. It wasn't until later after the captain and the Heroes had entered the Lost Valley, that I noticed that the Captian was traveling with two other Wardens. Having Captain Danbar travel alone was a mistake at first, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense that he might travel independently. The Valley only has so many defenders and only so many Wardens. The number of people the village would send on this mission meant fewer defenders to protect the valley. 

• Work out the numbers before you start the adventure. I should have tracked the numbers a little better than I did at the start of running this adventure. The adventure gives you specific numbers for the number of locals to the valley and village and the mercenary Company. Keep track of them so you can readjust those numbers as characters die or are held captive. 

• The players might feel they won't be able to do much against an army. But it's essential to describe how worn-out and ill-equipped the Company of the Manticore is. Letting the players know that the Mercenaries appear to be a fighting force that is not at their best or in the best condition - that they most likely have used up their Rune Spells and may be easier to fight than a well-prepared and well-rested army would be.

• I had a lot of leftover questions about the Black Arkat. The main one that still bothers me is how the Black Arkat got into the tower. The Black Arkat didn't come through the tower's front door since the spirits on the first or second floor did not know that the Black Arkats were inside the tower. As far as they know, Urvantan is in the Tower alone, but the Black Arkat entered at least the 3rd floor because they destroyed the Guardian Spirit on that floor.

• It confused my players that the Black Arkat and the Company of the Manticore weren't linked together; it was just a coincidence that both events were happening around the same time. Though I did point out to them that they don't know how long the Black Arkat has been in the tower. According to the spirits, they hadn't seen Urvantan for weeks; the Black Arkat may have been in the tower that whole time. I think I figured that the Black Arkat had been in the tower for five days. One way that has been suggested for the Arkat to enter the tower is through the magic gateway on the fifth floor. I question this since the leader of these Black Arkat is trying to figure out how to use the chamber on the other side of the gateway. His action suggests that they didn't enter through the hero World by the gateway since they don't know how to use the room beyond it. One thought I did have about how the Black Arkat gets inside is that they know of other secret ways into the tower that Uravantan has not yet discovered in over a hundred years. After my group killed most of the Black Arkat, the leader bargained with them for his life with treasure and a promise to leave. He gave them a Serpent Staff from the old Runequest Plunder book, one he pulls from a hidden storage space in the towers. Sorcery was the only way to open the secret hidey-hole, only if you knew it was there.

• The rewards for this adventure. I used this adventure as a teaching moment in order game to remind the players that this wasn't Dungeons and Dragons. When rewarded with treasure and trade goods, the heroes should give these to their leaders (in this case, the Queen) when the heroes return home. Their leaders will reward them, though they won't receive all the treasure and trade goods. As much as the heroes should receive a reward, their actions help and benefit the community as a whole. It's the leader's duty to the community to use the wealth these heroes have brought back for the betterment of the whole group. It's an excellent way to help shift their thinking from being individualistic and more about the community.

Drawing Durulz (Ducks)

 

Bronze Age Ducks

For a while now I've been drawing character portraits of Bronze Age Ducks. 

If I remember correctly, I started doing this because there was an art Jam over on itch.io to create paper minis. I started late and honestly, never finished any of the first batch o Ducks I drew by the time the jam was over. However, I really enjoyed making them and they were turning out great, so I keep up with it. Now I have finished my third batch of Ducks; originally these were supposed to be my last set of ducks that I drew but I have been informed by multiple people that I'm not allowed to stop drawing them - so I guess  I'll be making more of them.

So what now?

Even though the paper min art jam is over I still wanted to use these Ducks for minis In fact, someone has even reached out about possibly paying me to turn these concepts into real miniatures. So hopefully that will still happen, but only the future will tell. However, until that happens I decided for my first Jonstown Compendium offering, I would put out the first set of Dururlz (Duck) Character Tokens.

 

I couldn't decide which Token frame I wanted to use so I gave three different ones in this set.

These Tokens will both come with a PDF so you can print them out and cut them out if you want, but when you purchase the PDF you'll also get a Zip file with each token inside so that you can easily drop them into whatever VTT program/site you use. These probably won't be the last of the tokens I'll end up making - I would like to also make some Aldrymai ones as well, as well as some of the other elder races. 

I also have other plans for these illustrations, such as a Duck town with NPCs, Adventure seeds, etc. I'll have more info about this at a later date but for now I'll be starting to draw the map for the town and already know which town it will be. It won't be Duck Point. I had thought of using this well-known location but it sounds like there will be an official product from Chaosium that will have everything about Duck Point in it coming next year. So as to not complete with that product, I'll be going with another Duck-centric location. But I'll make a separate post about that at a later time when I have more to share.

 

Runequest: Climbing to Greater Heights.

This is going to be a short post. I had a thought the other day about Climbing skill checks and how they normally are approached in tabletop role-playing games and maybe how Gamemasters can improve upon what we have been doing up until now. I'll be approaching this from the rules of Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha (RQG), but I think this can be applied to other RPGs as well.

Some Details about the Runequest Rules (Optional Reading)

In case you didn't know; when making a skills check in RQG, The player rolls a D100 and compares the result against the percentage next to the skill being rolled. It's a Success if the roll is equal to or less than the percentage of the skill. If Ragnar has a climb skill of 50% (written as Climb: 50%), it's a success if they rolled 50 or less on a D100. 

RQG has degrees of success as well; A Special Success is when the roll is equal to or less than 1/5th of the skill's percentage and a Critical Success is when the roll is equal to or less than 1/20th of the skill's percentage. For Ragnar, they would have a Special Success on their Climb: 50%, if they rolled 10 or less. It would be a Critical Success if they rolled a 3 or less.

The roll can also be a fumble and a fumble is when the roll is equal to 5% of the range of failure for the skill. Rolling a 100 on a D100 (which is when both dice come up with 0's) is always a fumble. In Ragnar's case, this would mean that they would fumble if the roll was a 98 or higher.

Degrees of Success

The degrees of success have various effects on the type of actions being made. In the case of climbing, how successful the roll was can affect how quickly or how far you climb each round. With a Success equal to traversing 5 meters up a wall, twice that for a Special Success, and 25 meters for a Critical Success. A Failure, on the other hand, results in zero progress up the wall and a Fumble means something bad happens. Something bad doesn't have to mean that you fall off the wall either. It could just mean wasted time as you've gotten stuck and have to climb down a bit before any progress can be made again. It could also mean that you made enough noise that a nearby guard or beast heard you and comes to investigate. 

When to Make Skill Checks

In RQG, characters normally succeed at routine actions in normal conditions. However, in stressful situations, the Gamemaster can call for skills rolls. Essentially, this means that if the pressure is on and failure can have a detrimental outcome to the story or character(s) then a roll should be required. But this post is about those times when we need or are required to make a skill check. 

Arguments

In RQG you can also use an ability to give a boost to a skill check if you make a successful check with that ability. This is referred to as Augmenting; which is also adjusted based on how successful the argument check was. If failed, however, you can gain a penalty instead.

Climbing: A Group Effort

With all the details out of the way, let's get down to brass tacks as they say (IDK who says this or why).

From my long history playing tabletop RPGs, Climb has always been treated as an individual action. This usually looks like:

1. Each player says they are going to climb something. 
2. The GM calls for some kind of Climb Check.
3. Each Player makes a Climb Check.
4. GM tells them what happens as they succeed or fail. 

In this situation, each player makes their own skill check to climb. It's almost like they each take a different section of the wall or cliff face and begin to climb. But that's not really how most people approach climbing half the time in real life. When people go out on the weekends to climb a cliff face they function as a team, with one member of their party taking on the role of leader; going up the cliff face first - setting up the safety line and stakes as they make their way to the top. Everyone else follows behind the Climb Leader. They are following the same route that the leader has picked and trying their best to use the same handholds and footholds that the leader used. As a team, they make it to the top because of the work of the leader.

So I think the way climbing should be treated in RPGs is more like this unless the players state beforehand that they are trying to compete against each other. The way this would look is like this:

1. The party decides they are going to climb.
2. The Group figures out who the strongest climber is; this would be the character with the highest skill in Climb. The group makes this character the Climb Leader.
3. The Climb Leader rolls their climb skill check. 
4. Using the Degrees of Success that are present in RQG, if the Climb Leader is successful, the other players gain a bonus when they roll their skill checks. In RQG this would be a +20% if successful, +30 is a special success, or a +50% is a critical success. No bonus for a failure or fumble.
5. Each other character makes a Climb Check, adding the bonuses they gained from the leader if any. 
6. GM tells them what happens as they succeed or fail to climb the cliff or wall.

This best reflects how climbers work together to ascend mountains or cliffs and I think will, on the other hand, remove some of the more awkward aspects that can crop up when it's time to climb anything. You always have those characters who are terrible at climb checks and will always fall off the wall. This lowers the possibility because, as a team, the better climbers would be helping the weaker climbs. 

Other Options:

There are other options for these situations, as well, that maybe you will find more appealing and would rather use instead. The following are two ideas that I could think up while writing this post.

One Roll

You could have only one character make a single Climb Check for the whole team, which works similar to what I wrote above except it is just the Climb Leader who makes a climb check. The team succeeds or fails based on how well their best climber does at the roll. 

Zero-Sum, Maybe?

Another option is where we determine the success of the group climbing by having each character make a Climb check as per normal. The GM then counts up the successes, then counts up the failures. If there are more successes than failures - the party succeeds as a group. If there are more failures than successes, the party fails as a group. If there is an equal amount of Successes and Failures, then they cancel each other out. The group both succeed at the climb but the task took longer and was more tiring than it should have been. Fumble rolls should count as two failures instead of one, as the fumble has caused an issue for the whole group and not just for one single character. 

Wrap Up

Well, that was the thought I had about climb checks. I think, at least in concept, one of these optional approaches to handling Climb checks should be easy to apply to any game system. Not every game system has Degrees of Success. Most tend to have a simple Success or Fail for skill checks. In those situations, a single bonus will still work for success. It is up to the GM to figure out what an appropriate bonus or penalty would be and what works best in their game. I'm going to be testing this out in my game the next time we have a situation that calls for it. Climb Checks don't come up very often.