Quest Digest 5/2/95

From: ">>-Josh->" <J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk>

Date: Sun, 05 Feb 1995 17:32:46 +0000

____________________________________________________________________
|                                                                    |
|                          THE QUEST DIGEST                          |
|             The forum for the E-mailing Quest-players              |
|       Compiled by Josh Gallagher: J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk       |
|                       Date: xx February 1995                       |
|____________________________________________________________________|

o This is not an automatically generated compilation, so if all
  contributions could be sent to me in a seperate e-mail with paragraphs
  initialled, I would appreciate it a lot.
o Please do not use this list for your own purposes; people do not
  appreciate thousands of pieces of mail arriving a day!  Send all
  replies directly to me.
o If you ever want taking off the list, just say, and I will be happy to
  do so.  I don't want telling off for any nuisance mail!
o All material here is the exclusive property of the author and may not
  be used elsewhere without their permission.

JPG>  I have Stefan Andersson to thank for the doody box at the top,
thank you!  This will now be the standard intro for the Digest.  Welcome
again to the new people on the list.  As you know I have updated and sent
out the list of Questers for your perusal.  Paul Madden asks that
everybody send in their group's names and what game they play in.  Of
course, if you wish your group to remain secret then that is up to you,
but it does make it a lot more fun to find other people in your game have
access to e-mail too.  Shame there's only me and Paul in Game 11 KJC. :-(

JPG>  Today you will notice the third part to Chris Clarke's diary
story.  If you are new and want to know what happened before in the
stories, then I have back issues of the digest (dating to the beginning
of the year), so if you want copies, please e-mail me.

JPG>  On with the e-mails!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bill Godfrey <godfrey2@coventry.ac.uk>

Quest Helpline service.
This helpline is chaired a by a panel of experienced Quest players, who
will be available to answer any queries or solve any problems to do with
Quest. Send e-mail to <godfrey2@cov.ac.uk> and give "Quest help" as the
subject line. Contact me if you want to join the panel.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 01 Feb 95 14:15:47 MEZ
From: Kai Hortmann <CHBRIN5@nyx.uni-konstanz.de>

KH> Someone told me that to avoid monsters running away I could cast
Battle Lust on them. Would the same work against a group of mages using
the hit and run tactics? You would just need some strong fighters and
one mage casting Battle Lust as first ranked spell and the attacking
mages would find themselves in melee combat with your fighters.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 15:04:10 +0000
From: tyler@europa.lif.icnet.uk (David Tyler)

DT> In response to Neil Benson's roleplaying ideas last time, and no I
can't be bothered quoting:

DT> Yes, I would like to see more roleplaying, yes I would like to see the
newsletter jam packed with character oriented stuff rather than player
oriented stuff. In the ideal world there would be so much in the
newsletters that they'd have to be published every three or four game
weeks....(sorry Bill!)....BUT I think Neil's suggestions go too far in
defining power structures and Kharne-wide politics. Many players just do
not see Kharne in the same way as Neil does; I for one see the place as
much less organised than this, with any political power having a maximum
range of an arrow's flight from a city's walls. Except come to think of it,
cities are too anarchic for even this...

DT> For roleplaying to be at all successful, it has to be acceptable to ALL
the players in a given game. Only if ALL the players in game 5 were to go
along with Neil's sugestions would they work - I for would be willing, but
I think it would be too hard to organise. The answer, of course lies with
the existing alliances, and with any emergent official alliances. My group
is not an alliance member yet, so I don't know how much communication and
role-playing goes on within alliances, but there isn't enough of it in the
game newsletters. What communication there is in the newsletter tends to
revolve around inter party combat; surely we can do better than this? Let's
see more letters written by characters than by their players...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 10:30:10 +0000 (GMT)
From: Allan Hooper <A.O.Hooper@herts.ac.uk>

> PN> I too would like to know the effectiveness of Deflect III,

AH> I have heard a couple of different veiws to Deflect Magic III's
effectiveness from 'sod all use' to '90% from all death spells' no doubt
I'll find it to be of the former.....

> PN> I can't and won't pretend to speak of the older games, but
> in G16 there are only three eventualities, 1) You hammer them
> with so many spells that they run away 2) They mash you with
> spells and you run away and 3) Both groups spell each other and
> run away.

AH> I cant say I speak from much experiance but G3 seems to be reasonably
safe from the curse of magic and missiles tactics and only rescently have
people started to wipe out other groups . All my groups fights to date
have been via failed S orders so spell combat is something I would like
to get to know alot more about if anyone else has some advice .

> PN> In G6 two old groups were reduced to 1 char, both had
> trouble getting the last char dead, Stefan do you care to tell
> of the Twilights?

AH> I dont really object to a group getting wiped out if they stay in a
warzone after being in several battles losing characters in each one and
they dont have the sense to run away . However when I see a 100+ turn
group getting wasted in one turn due to multiple attacks (14 in all) by two
other groups despite holding their own in the first few fights something
*has* to be wrong . Strangly this group too had one character left with
the equipment of 13 dead comrades from indecicive fights .

> CMD>	By the way, I've been experimenting a bit with recruiting recently,
> I've cast a 203 and a 903 before doing the J order and the results have been
> more than acceptable. 3 "good" elf mages (47 skill, 47 skill plus amazing
> other stats, 52 skill) in 3 successive turns for 588 (accidentally!), 1017
> and 1117 gold respectively .

AH> The best recruited character I have heard of so far was a 61SK 86TO
DF at the cost of 2000gp's . I'm doing some recruiting at the moment so I'll
try a few variations of miracles and cash and I'll let everyone know what
comes up .

> IRA>Something needs to be done about Hit'n'run style and generally
> groups with lots of spellcasting ability as the more fighter orintated
> groups just dont stand a chance .

AH> This gave me an idea - how about dropping the magic phase completly
and instead merge it with the melee rounds . So while the fighters are
swinging their axes , mages will fire off spells according to those
listed after their ASL's . This would mean the mages would have to be in
melee for at least one round . Still its not perfect but the basic idea
sounds good to me .

> Magic Rings, potions, Wands do work. Books do not. As for what they do, I
> the item to get the blurb!

AH> I have the blurb for rings but the one I bought was supposedly
protection but seemed to do nowt . I also have a potion which one of
 my thieves 'borrowed' from a magic shop , whats it likely to do ?

> Investigate the relevant item number or shops to find Plate, Books etc - I
> found +3 Armour like this.

AH> I've found +3 armour but just never the plain Plate or Scale , also I've
seen magic books but never religious books . Thanks for the other advice too!

> SETTLEMENTS
> All I am saying is that PRIOR TO THESE NEW ATTITUDES the safest place was
> in a settlement (once the major damage-causing spells were removed). And
> it's hardly fair to let someone think "I'm safe!" once they'd limped into
> town and then hit them with Wraths, Call Monsters and 55 sk DF's on ACE!

AH> I agree . Cities are centres of civilization and I would say that minor
wars going on via S orders magic blasts and call monster are hardly
civilized . Why have city walls or town militia if groups could summon a
horde of monsters using Call ? If you really want to fight just step
outside but while you are inside you should be safe from all except S
orders . Perhaps an arena would allow fights in a city but only on a
challenge basis .

> If spells/miracles could kill
> (not death-spells) then I would have lost about three characters.

AH> Are you saying a character cannot be killed by Call , but just knocked
down to 1HP ?

RESURRECTION
> NDC>  I think this is fair because as a shop service it is available to
> everyone, new and old groups alike .

AH> But only old groups would have access to the kind of money you are
talking about . Also in my experiance the only thing experianced groups
fear is having their 99sk mages or thieves killed - fighters can be
replaced easily , especially using the method in Chris's FAQ . Compared
to the time and money to get a 99sk mage the time to get 10000gp's is
nothing , just one good TQ (for those who get such things <sob>).
However no doubt I'll change my mind when my character mortalities start
mounting <g> .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 1995 00:35:00 GMT
From: editor@elbon.demon.co.uk (Paul Noble)

JPG>  Had to cut down on quoting for size, sorry!

> PN> Mintram is in G17, supposedly he has the money to make his
> alliance official, only he doesn't have an alliance....yet.

PN> He *is* starting another alliance <groan>

PN> Dean told me that Bless improves the hits delt out and
halved the damage taken.

> AT>does anyone on the digest play in g14 if so wanna join the phoenix
> alliance
PN> Brilliant!!! Can I join??!! I am a member of another little
alliance though. =)

> IRA>Something needs to be done about Hit'n'run style and generally
> groups with lots of spellcasting ability as the more fighter orintated
> groups just dont stand a chance. Magic is too powerful, total death
> style spells are virtually unstopable and can cost as  little as 8
> power points(engulfing globe) so with a  few mages and a couple of

PN> I was shocked when I realised how little it takes (power) to
actually cast a death spell, it should be increased
dramatically, perhaps it would stop groups running with
Deathspells ranked all over the playground.

> cast (50+ so only one can be cast a round) and  magical resistances
> could also be added to give the opposition(I like the tougness=magic
> resistance idea, except mages should get some bonus due to skill) a
> better chance.

PN> some sort of resistance is needed I feel, may be a lucky
item which will protect a certain member, ie a mirror shield
(crappy cliched idea I know) or just a magic rabbits foot, or
perhaps this was the intial use for mage prisms?

> the attitute and flee factor stats could be merged so if say
> you wanted a hostile attitude your flee factor would be automaticay set
> to an appropriate level. This would mean if you want to fight a group
> you will have to be willing to actualy get in to melee combat.

PN> Yup I agree, if your going to be pissed off all of the time
you must face the consequences.

> IRA>Aligned citys are a very nice idea, some nasy cities where groups
> can lay into each other as they want, theives run riot, town guard are
> a bit useless and few respectable shops to be found whereas other nice
> citys where any groups trying anything naughty like fighting or robbing
> will be thrown out or fined (or quests offered for their death).

PN> Good, but I don't think KJC will *ever* offer quests to go
and kill another group as this may lose them a paying player.
How was the bank punishment to be implimented? This was probably
it but they realised it may piss people off. Get in the Head
Hunters so people can become Bank paid lackies.

> IRA>Temple quests need improved, or at least sorted out so they make
> sense, being offerd gold to kill Gnomes at the temple of novala then
> not being able to because I had a +15 to novala at the time and so did
> the gnomes is just sillly.

PN> I too think the alignment should effect the outcome of the
TQ, that and the group XP - more xp larger quest. Obviously this
would have to go only so far.

> IRA>Most monsters need to be toughened up, my group has yet to meet the
> monster that gives it any hassle in melee combat, and most startup
> groups have to be very unlucky to have any characters killed by
> monsters. The only execption to non-nasty monsters are the ones with
> special abilitys such as shadows or puple fungi which seem a bit too
> nasty compared with any other monsters I have seen, dose anyone know if you can
> actually stop them draining toughness or turning a character to stone?,
> dose killing them off in spellcasting help?.

PN> Yeh it seems that there are monsters you can kick about no
bother or they wreak you up and you can't even get 1 hit on
them, I think all the monsters need beefing up except the magic
hitters which already take donkeys years to kill unless the
Black Void is available.

PN> AT asked about the mage skill training thing. Yes your skill
does go up if you've learnt all the spells below your present
level and you buy another. What I want to know is what happens
if you already know them all?

> Investigate the relevant item number or shops to find Plate, Books etc - I
> found +3 Armour like this.

PN> you have to oracle the items once bought, I had to do this
with 3 scrolls I stole. Turn undead 1 kill undead 1 and sleep 2,
super. =)

> Groups go into a town to recupperate from fights, bank gold, change armour
> (and in my case, rob it silly), not to get beaten-up. If you want a fight,
> go and stand on the road just outside the settlement and wait until
> everyone and his mother walks into you.

PN> This is all very good but when the point where you want to
attack someone in a city is when they've been shouting off about
how it's their city and that they'll chin yer if you come up.
You do and they won't sit outside but they continue to go on
about how they're great because you haven't done them in yet.

> NDC> I don't know if this subject has been discussed here before, but i have
> heard other people's opinions about it.  The subject is resurrecting dead
> characters.  I think that the fairest way to implement a method of raising the
> dead would be as a shop service costing no more than 10000 gold per character.
> The shop would be a temple, of course, and so party alignment could have a
> bearing on whether the resurrection is allowed in that shop, and possibly on
> the price.

I don't think there should be any way of bringing back an old
chum unless A) he was stoned B) he was very fresh (within two
turns of death. But the problem is is that the teams effected
the most are the younger groups not the older groups, selling
the sevice at a high price would make the elite even more
elitest. Perhaps a cap on the age limit of the group? The
process needs the presence of a certain body produced dug which
is absent in older members and thus can't be brought back.

> PC > How would i go about becoming a magazine editor? I quite fancy the idea of
> playing for free!

PN> I think the positions are all full at the moment but what
you have to do is send a 8 page trial newsletter showing off
your amazing nay dazzling editorial talents to KJC with a
covering letter, then the waiting begins, first you sweat then
you cry, hair falls out, the eyes become red with bloodshot, the
palms become itchy. Eventually you'll get a reply saying yay or
nay.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Stefan Andersson <t94stean@und.ida.liu.se>
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 95 10:45:14 +0100

SA> Hi all Quest-folks! First, many apologies to all who have sent me
E-mail without getting any reply in the latest time, but my hard
university-studies have caused me to face the fact that time is more
valuable than many things. The game 6 newsletter and my alliance also
have a slightly higher priority than all the letters I am supposed to
answer (but I will do it, I always do!), so once again - sorry!

SA> I will use some lines to send some short messages to some I am
supposed to send mail to. Saves me SOME time...

SA> To Allan Hooper: The safest way to play around a city is of
course to be inside town, or on a good distance from a town, or
hiding outside town. A fatal error is to fail with the 'S' order and
end up outside town, becoming a sitting duck for the groups in town.
The best way is probably to use hiding outside town, and then do
raids on the groups in town, and then back hiding in the wilderness.
The funniest way is of course to arrange a fight with your enemies,
and useful restrictions are shown below... I don't know how good
Deflect Magic 3 is, but rumours tell it stops Total Death.
323 xp points for a fight means that you did 323 points of damage,
minus AR for each blow.

SA> To Chris Clarke: Feel free to use the weapon bits in your FAQ.

SA> To Paul Noble: Thanx for your messages, they will be in issue 30.
And don't worry about proof...

SA> To Jerry de Vos: Thank you for all the info about your group. You
will be introduced in the next Observer which will be out soon (I hope
...). Then it's just to await the judgement of the members... Good
luck!

SA> ...and there were probably some more waiting for mail, but I write
this at home (on a good old Amiga...) and haven't all the latest
E-mails here at the moment, so I will come back to you later.

SA> What do I hear...? Groups should be able to become impossible to
attack?!? KJC, get serious, does this really improve the gameplay?
There is a few cases of new groups being wiped out, and this is
certainly not a big problem in Quest today. If KJC implements the
immunity against attacks, it is just to congratulate all hunted
groups and alliance spies, which can work undisturbed in the future
(As A. Thomas pointed out). If this stupid ability should be
implemented, it should only be for groups younger than 30 turns or so,
an older group should be prepared to defend themselves! We don't want
a lot of protected chickens to run around on Kharne, do we?

SA> Oh dear... The alliance implemention risks to become a total
failure. I haven't received the final ideas yet, I have only the ideas
described in the digest to judge upon, so maybe my critisism is wrong.
As the leader of a big alliance, with many members willing to pay a
part of the 30000 gold we have to cough up, I am very curious what
will hapen when someone rob the HQ... Will the thief go free as it
is today, and the only looser being the alliance? Also an interesting
aspect of this dealing with money is the practical process when all
shares should be collected to ONE group and then paid in. If not all
the money is payed the same turn they are received, the local thieves
implemented by KJC will rob around 10% of the money, resulting in a
loss of 3000 gold... And all the player groups that will attempt to
rob the alliance leader all the time. I wait eagerly on the alliance-
papers from KJC, to see how the final work looks like...

SA> Some comments to follow on the latest two Digests sent out...

SA> About the fighters' starting skill:
Your fighter will get his general skill as weapon-skill in the first
weapon he BUYS at the TURN HE IS RECRUITED. He must BUY the weapon,
to receive a weapon from a fellow group member doesn't work. An old
trick which might have been stopped now, I'm not sure, is to recruit
the fighter, cast some strength miracles to boost up the skills, and
then buy the chosen weapon. The fighter would now get his raised skill
as weaponskill. In this way I have recruited a dwarven fighter for
50-100 gold (don't remember) with a weaponskill of 74, and that's not
bad for a starter... As I said, this might have been a bug, and it
might be removed, but it's worth a try.

SA> The priest skill increase and P0 praying works like this:
Each priest have a hidden value. When this value is above a certain
limit their prayers are rewarded, and when it is below they don't get
the skill increase. If you don't pray with P0 the value will drop,
and the ONLY thing to do if you want to get your skills increasing
again is to pay tithes and pray A LOT. I personally have only prayed,
never payed any tithes. It's ALWAYS the first attempt in a turn which
result in a skill increase, and when you pray a lot to get it working
again, you might spend 10 orders on P0, but it is only the first which
might be successful (but the 'value' still rise). I don't think it is
good to pray to the gods, this might lower the 'value'. I never do it,
and have three P0 as standing orders, and when the priests stop
increase their skills, there is just some extra P0 needed on the turn.

SA> About magic rings, wands etc:
These come with randomly chosen abilities OR they alter between two
abilites each time you buy an item, not sure of this... There are
rings of protection and also rings of resurrection (And probably some
more types), and what these do is unknown. Maybe the character wearing
it will be restored if killed?

SA> About temple quests:
I don't know if there is any truth in these rumours that character
one's charisma or something else should affect this, I have tried a
lot without success (a priest with 77 charisma would certainly do a
good work if it worked...). One thing is sure, though and that is
that each monster-class has its own value which the temple offer as
reward. This 'base-value' is multiplied with the number of squares
from the town, and the number of monsters in the group doesn't
matter, only class and distance. To draw some conclusions from this,
it would be more challenging in mountanious and swampy terrain since
these offer harder monsters, while travel is deadly slow in these
areas, so maybe some orcs outside a city with a lot of plain is just
as effective to kill as a dragon in the mountains...

SA> About the Twilight of the Gods destruction...
First they got a lot of Call monster miracles cast on them, but the
effect of these was unknown since they the same turn bought some
healing from the Baldor temple. And to all who are not aware of it:
When buying with all your members '99' all will be fully healed and
only one of them pay. Fully healed for 50 gold is rather effective...
Anyway, they entered the wilderness to solve a temple quest with what
they thought fully healed members... The only thing was that the
Lambs of Phyloqure launched another bunch of monsters effectively
reducing the health of the members, many down to 1. They accidently
fought my friends group and lost three characters in just some rounds
(They all were killed at the first blow they got). There were still
11 members of the group left, and I planned to return to the city
after the monster kill and get the reward of 480 gold/member and
recruit some other members, but the Lambs attacked me again in the
wilderness and in this fight 10 members died. One was left, the
recently recruited elf mage who walked around with a 250% load...
He should be killed by another of my groups, so they could get the
items (rather many chain mails for example), but this was easier said
than done... After MANY attempts (spells, missile weapons, melee
combat) they had to give up, it was impossible! Instead he handed
over the most valuable items, and if noone has killed him yet, he is
still walking around with a lot of equipment (North of Munsk, game
6...). The destruction of the well known Purebloods was just the
revenge... The Warriors of Virtue, played by Markus Roper, reduced
them to one character.

SA> The highest paid temple quest I have seen was 1260 gold/character
for killing a valkyrie...

SA> About raising dead characters...
I have discussed this subject a bit in Dungeoneer issue 3, but I agree
much with what Neil David Callaway said. It is not the money that is
important in this matter, it's the long time your favourite character
has been in the group which can't be replaced in any way. A cost of
10000 is a good value, not too high, and certainly not too low! A mage
with a start skill of 40 have cost 4000 gold to get to skill 80, so it
would not be that economical to raise him if he is killed, but it
would save a lot of valuable and boring time.

SA> To Phill Coleman:
> How would I go about becoming a magazine editor? I quite fancy the
> idea of playing for free!
...I guess you mean you 'quite fancy the idea of editing a
newsletter', or why would you else go for it! Too many editors have
taken the job because they want a free group, and the game has
suffered a lot because the editor doesn't do what he should - editing
a regular and entertaining newsletter! The last (?) example is Graham
Ribchester who became the game 6 editor and choose to play a group
free in another, weekly, game, and didn't even played in the game he
was editing the newsletter for. Not many newsletters came from this
man for some time... If you feel you want to edit a newsletter, tell
KJC, and you MIGHT get the chance when a game needs a new editor.
Also be prepared to send in a sample issue.

SA> Okey, this was probably all for this time, except the message-idea
included at the end of this letter. It has been published in the game
6 newsletter, and other editors should feel free to use it in their
games. I know you should send letters to eachother, but some people
just haven't the time, or can't afford it, so then it's great to be
able to communicate via the turncard! Hope you like the idea, and
feel free to send in more messages to put on the list.

____________________________________________________________________
|                                                                    |
|                           Message codes                            |
|               By Stefan Andersson and Markus Roper                 |
|____________________________________________________________________|

Markus Roper have come up with a brilliant idea how to send messages
to another group in the same town, and I have improved it (e.g.
adding the challenging idea + adding more messages) and can now, as
the first editor (?) present the message code table! I am sure this
will be a success and other editors who will use this idea in other
games, feel free to do it, it only improves the atmosphere of the
game and save us players money and time (We don't need to send a
letter to another player we want to contact, just use some orders).
The whole idea is based upon the 'Give money' and 'Hand item' orders
and the possibility to give money and items to other groups in the
same town. This is THE OFFICIAL VERSION used in THIS GAME until I
publish a new version. It is far from finished and you should feel
free to send in more messages as you notice there is something you
need to say to a group but can't be done with the ones below. Have
fun!

___TO CHALLENGE ANOTHER GROUP_________________________________________

* The challenge procedure.
If you want to arrange a fight against another group in town
somewhere outside town you simply give the group you want to fight...
1. A weapon.
2. A sum of gold which symbolizes IN WHICH GAMEWEEK you want to
   fight (No 1 is the first of the year, No 2 is the second and so
   on...)
3. A sum of gold which symbolizes the flee factor you want.
4. Fighting conditions (gold):
	1 - No magic (spells or miracles) at all may be used.
	2 - No killing/equipment-destroying spells/miracles may be
            used.
	3 - No Call Monster miracles may be used.
	4 - No spells at all may be used.
	5 - No damaging spells/miracles may be used.
	6 - No miracles at all may be used.
	7 - No 20 points miracles may be used.
	8 - No 30 points miracles may be used.
	9 - No 40 points miracles may be used.

* The reply procedure.
The challenged group now have THREE alternatives:

If you don't want to fight at all you simply don't do anything at all.
(Or send them a message...)

If you want to fight under the given conditions you should give the
challenging group...
1. The weapon you got from them.

If you want to fight with other rules you should give the challenging
group...
1. A weapon (of another type than the one you got!).
2. A sum of gold which symbolizes THE GAMEWEEK you want the fight to
   take place.
3. A sum of gold which symbolizes the flee factor you want.
4. The conditions you want (see table above).

Remember to include EVERYTHING again, even if much of the conditions
are the same. If you don't include anything at all at point 4 you
might mean that you don't want to change anything but what it in fact
means is that you don't want any restrictions!

* The end (?) procedure.
Now it is up to the challenging group to decide if the conditions,
which might be changed since they first wanted to fight, are OK.

If it is OK, and the fight should be fought under the given conditions
you give the other group...
1. The same weapon as you got.
2. The location you want to fight at:
	1. Direction from town (use the movement table) in gold.
	2. No of squares in this direction in gold.
Note that the location must be reached in one turn and not require
too many movement points.

If you don't want to fight under changed conditions you don't do
anything at all. (Or send an appropriate message...)

If you want to fight under other conditions you repeat the reply
procedure, answering on the new challenge from the from the beginning
challenged group...

* The fight.
This whole idea is of course based upon the honour of the groups
concerned, and the following rules should be added to the ones set
by the groups:

1. No engage orders may be used to do repeated attacks. Just walk to
the square with a hostile attitude towards the other group, STAY
THERE at the end of the turn, and hope you are not both fanatical
followers of the same god (or hope that KJC change the way the
attitude works!) and a fight should occur, and who is engaging who
depends on who came first to the square. Even if there was no fight
on your turn-result this only means that you came first to the place,
and if the other group wasn't too chicken a fight should be described
on the next turn-result.

2. You should of course not get help from any other groups, this is
a fight between TWO groups.

3. No spells may be cast after the fight to hurt the other group.

4. FOLLOW THE CONDITIONS GIVEN! Things to change for the fight can
be: Flee factor, ASL and Spell/Miracle rankings (Removing forbidden
spells/miracles and maybe replacing them with other).

______________________________________________________________________
Here is an example of a challenge:
Lets say that a group called "Heroes" (1677) want to fight a group
called "Knights" (1887) in the fourth gameweek of 1995 (If you check
the calendar you find out that it is Feb 21st - Mar 7th (For game
6!!!)) with a flee factor of 40%. They also want to forbid the usage
of death/destroying spells and the Call Monster miracle. The Heroes
decide to show how mighty they are and give away a long sword
(belonging to character no 1) to the Knights. The orders for the
Heroes will be the following:

H  1   1887   104  (Hand over the the weapon)
G  99  1887   4	   (The gameweek when the fight will be)
G  99  1887   40   (Flee factor 40%)
G  99  1887   2    (No killing/destroying spells)
G  99  1887   3    (No Call Monster miracles)

The Knights look up what these codes means and decide that the
conditions is OK and want to fight with them:

H  1   1677   104  (Give back the same weapon)

The Heroes shouts of joy and are very glad they have a fair fight to
look forward to! They check the map and decide that the fight should
take place in the fields three sectors south-west of the city:

H  1   1887   104  (Give back the same weapon)
G  99  1887   6    (The direction was SW)
G  99  1887   3    (3 sectors away from city)

The both groups now prepare for the fight and tell their friends to
stay away from the other group. They make sure (by doing the right
movement order...) they end up at the right square at the right turn
and if everything goes right an arranged fight will occur!

This procedure leads to a loss of a weapon plus a small amount of
gold for the challenging group, and that is not much for a guaranteed
fair fight. The weapon does not has to be a Long sword, it can be a
cheap club too if you want, it's not the weapon that is important,
but the challenge it symbolizes.
______________________________________________________________________

___GENERAL MESSAGES___________________________________________________

If you want to challenge a group in the same turn as you want to
send them a message, remember to put the challenge AFTER the message
or it might get messy... Here come messages you can use and the
number is the amount of gold given. After some of the numbers there
are items you can give instead to improve the roleplaying. Finally,
remember that if you want to give another group something without
sending them a message, tell them so (And don't just give them a
weapon...).

1 - Answer message (SEE TABLE BELOW!)
2 - Alliance message (SEE TABLE BELOW!)
3 - "Greetings! We have arrived in town and plan to stay here a while.
    Maybe you could help us find our way around here? Can you please
    help us with a shoplist?".
4 - "Greetings! Should we plan something together?".
5 (or a torch) - "We know about a dungeon outside town. Do you want
    to join us in our expedition?".
6 - "Do you know of any dungeons outside town?".
7 - "Congratulations!" (If you read anything special in the news e.g.)
8 - "Help me! Group (....) is attacking me!" (The (....) indicates the
    next sums of gold given after this and build the group number. If
    you are very wealthy you can give 1677 gold, but in this case it
    would be wiser to give 16, 7 and 7 gold (or 1, 6, 7 and 7 if you
    have lots of orders and not so much gold).
9 - "I'm a member of the alliance (....). It's great! Why not apply
    for membership?" (The (....) indicates the number of the alliance.
    The alliance numbers are the same as the order the alliance
    messages appear in the town news papers.)
10 - "We are a new group, maybe you could help us get started?"
11 - "The fight between us earlier was just an accident! It was not
     our intentions attacking you. Can we forget about it?"
12 - "The fight between us earlier was just an accident! We're sorry
     about your great loss and hope we can give you something to
     cover it. Contact us if you are interested."
13 - "If you don't leave town we will kill you!"
14 - "If you don't leave town we will attack you again! Scum!"
15 - "Now we are even!"
16 - "Chickens!"
17 - "Bullshit!"

Answer code table.
First give 1 gold stating that it is an answer message. Then you can
choose amongst these answers (The number is the gold given after the
first coin):
1 - "Yes."
2 - "No."
3 - "I still need some turns, then it's OK."
4 - "Maybe."
5 - "Are you crazy!?!"
6 - "Of course!"
7 - "They are our allies..."
8 - "Yes, contact us."
9 - "No, but contact us."
10 - "We have other plans."
11 - "We are members of the (....)." (Where (....) is the alliance
     number (= the order the alliance messages are printed in the
     newspaper you can buy in towns)).

Alliance code table.
This is for members of alliances. First you give 2 gold coins
indicating that it is an alliance message. Then it is up to each
alliance to make their own Alliance code tables with messages.

NOTE: This Message table has only been implemented in Quest game 6
so far, so don't start sending messages in other games... We all
know that letters are to prefer, but this is an ideal way to
communicate for groups who doesn't have the time to write letters.

END OF STEFAN's LETTER!!!

JPG> *grin*  That was a long one!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 12:54:23 +0000 (GMT)
From: Chris Clarke <ctc@coventry.ac.uk>

DEAR DIARY (Part 3)
By Chris Clarke

You knew, didn't you? You you didn't bloody warn me! You mean bastard!!
Well, I'm not going to fight - I've decided to atone for the sins of my
heathen parents and devote my life to a god. A nice peaceful god like
Phyloqure, God of Knowledge. But I'm not clever enough for him, so I'll
stick with Novala. YOU'RE GOING TO REGRET INTIMATING MY WORSHIPERS ARE
STUPID, CHILD. Easy-going as regards prayers and tithes, nice to cheats,
liars and thieves and if the rumours are true, a sense of humour. Just what
I like in a god - I should have converted earlier!

First things first, though. I'll have to destroy that shop list we've spent
the last month compiling. I wonder if Novala knows why they build the shops
so far apart? THEY DON'T, YOU'RE JUST INSIGNIFICANT. If they can't find the
shop which sells chain mail, there's no point in having a fight. Right, I'm
off to serve my god. GODDESS, IDIOT.

Right, shoplist destroyed. Taunus isn't happy, but there's nothing he can
do now. Rochine is ecstatic; she's trying to pursuade Helca to let her
spend the money at a magic shop she's found. Helca isn't convinced,
though. The argument should be interesting: a charismatic (for an elf) elf
mage against a half blood fighter (need any other info?) fighter. Going by
hat alone, I'd say Helca, but Qara's been tutoring Rochine, so that makes
her my favourite. Helca's never lost an argument yet, so she'd be upset
anyway. but losing to an _elf_, and _elf mage_! She'd destroy anything in
sight. I'm really looking forward to it.

She won; Rochine actually won! She was last seen heading to the Magic
Cyrcle; no doubt hoping Helca won't recover until she's learned a Confusion
spell. Hope she remembers she's out of 305 and 304; I think she has some
of the other component, though. Qara's wandering around as if she's just
robbed a bank and two jewellers in the same night - she's still rattling as
if she has too. When I get a chance, I'll hide her lockpicks. No point
trying to de-dagger her though, it would take hours; she had eight at the
last count.

Oh, oh. Hang on a sec; we've got to go and get Helca out of jail; she's
just severely injured a troll. The (few conscious) guards are very
surprised, it was thought that Trolls were indestructable. Apparently, it
was supposed to throw Helca out of the Pink Djinn, but it had to open it's
big mouth and grunt "Time of the month, darlin'? Go home and pester your
master 'til it wears Off." GARTHRANA! YOU'RE A WAR GODDESS; KILL!! Helca,
unusually, gave him an opportunity to apologise. He laughed and asked what
damage could a woman do to him? Quite a lot, as he found out. She's never
been the same since she met up with that Belinda Bludgeon. Odd type: built
like a barn, carries a two handed mace and is totally psychopathic. An
absolute menace; she attacked a town once.

Whey, hey! That mages skill paid off; Rochine's learnt a useful spell -
Teleport II. No more long, bum numbing carriage journeys, just three spell
reagents and boom! We're there, like magic. Well, you know what I mean.
Anyway, Rochine has decided it would be a good idea to do a practice
teleport. She doesn't know how far we'll go, but she doubts that we'll get
out of sight of the city; it's all fields and open to the south, you can
see for sectors. Anyway, now that the battles have subsided it's quite safe
around here. HEE, HEE, WHERE'S MY ATLAS?

NEWSFLASH
Reports have been flooding in from all parts of Kharne, of Trolls
spontaneously combusting. Garthrana is thought to be responsible following
announcements from her priests the she has ordered her worshippers to
remove "The vile, ignorant savages known as Trolls". In unprecedented
actions, both Novala and Molwanh have let it be known that they wish their
worshippers to aid Gathrana's groups by healing them. No reasons have been
given for these sudden hostilities towards Trolls.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: maximus@iaehv.IAEhv.nl (Frank Maximus)
X-Disclaimer: iaehv.nl is a public access UNIX system and cannot be held
      	      responsible for the opinions of its individual users.
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 00:25:20 +0100 (MET)

In my questgame I found a 'JAR'(Item number 455) in a large chest.
But when I did 'I 455' I only got the following message:

Our Party examined the Jar belonging to Xa Axe.
(Xa Axe is a Fighter in my group.)

I even did not get a Blurb!
Are they forgotten to implementate the Jar?
Or else, what do I have to do with it? (Sell??)

JPG>  Ermm... leave it there?  I always find it easy to ignore jars and
tables and chairs in shops and dungeons.  Perhaps you should do the same!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Finn Theodorsen <theodor@diku.dk>
Date: Sun, 5 Feb 1995 01:22:16 +0100

FET>A nice addition to the chatlist would be, if - when encountering
other parties who have similar words on their chatlist (non hostile
encounters only!) - you could get a message like these:

"We exchanged greetings and had a chat with Wily Wanderers. We learned
that they are also interested in Phyloqure, Meditation and Peace."
(When moving into a party)

"We learned that they are also interested in Mapping, Beastology and
Clean Living. Then they left."
(When being moved into by a party)

FET>This way you could use the chat-list as a list of interests other
than those NPC's can respond to.

FET>By the way - Does it make any diffence if you use singular or plural
on your chatlist? E.g. do NPC's respond equally well to MAP and MAPS,
GHOUL and GHOULS etc.? (After all "They are also interested in Dragon."
sound make like an advert for T$R than "They are also interested in
Dragons." - I would like to use plural if at all possible.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

JPG> A message from me to Chris Clarke now... once you have the Amiga
Guide format of the FAQ done, I'd love a copy!  Precious few documents to
use on Amiga Guide, and that one would be good.

JPG> Well, that's all from me for now.  If you know anyone who has e-mail
access and is interested in Quest, please give them my e-mail address.  I
won't put anybody on the list unless they e-mail me themselves (unlike
previously).  Does anyone know whether this list has been mentioned in
first class yet?  If not, I would really appreciate it if it would be.  A
little message (like the pub meets) on the bottom of the turn sheets
would be good as well if possible.  (pleeeeease Steven??)

JPG> Keep stuff coming in.  There have been some great ideas to
improvements for the game so far.  All it needs now is for them to be
considered and IMPLEMENTED, so keep opinions coming in.   :-)

Happy Questing!

>>-Josh->
"Dreamer...  Nothing but a dreamer..."