glassneedles

8 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

Each will have nice handouts. Not sure on the number of volumes. Gazetteers would make sense, plus we are thinkig of doing a starter set for each of these as well. Keeper Screens are less likely. They don't sell as well as you might think. That's not saying "no", just not saying "yes" at this time.

I was just going by what was in the Masks set so not especially disappointed by the lack of screens. I will be happy with whatever way they are published to be honest, I am always up for more content set in the UK so been excited by Gaslight since I got into Coc. With Dreamlands I'm still not entirely sure what it is but from reviews I've read and comments I've seen made it makes it seem like CoC trying to do a spin on fantasy which sounds very dope.

I have to say that starter sets have gotten me very excited. I got into CoC from purchasing the starter box back in 2019 and I'm eagerly awaiting the RuneQuest and Pendragon ones. Anything that gets more boxes on the shelves for me (also as an aside I really really appreciate how thick the Chaosium boxes are, I got the City of Mist starter set recently and I feel like I need to be so careful not to damage it because of how thin it is) is a big win. 

Thanks for the quick response 🙂

@MOB in that interview Rick said:

“We recently redid Masks of Nyarlathotep for the 7th edition as a slipcase full of books and handouts. Similar treatments for Dreamlands and Gaslight are fairly far into their updates as well and will be debuting in the near future for the 7th edition.” 
 

can I take that to mean I should get super hyped for a slipcase set for Gaslight and Dreamlands with multiple volumes, a Keeper Screen and copious handouts and game aids?

So Rick has done an interview with Enworld about the CoC classic Kickstarter and their plans to bring more classic CoC horror back from the grave. He also said they are looking for suggestions on what material to start with.

He has already that old editions of Masks of Nyarlathotep are low priority because of the recent update. Same for Gaslights and Dreamlands so please no asking for those. Obviously the products already in the Kickstarter have been done (for those who aren’t aware, the 2nd edition rules, Cthulhu Companion, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, Fragments of Fear, Trail of Tsathoggua and The Asylum and Other Tales)

I’ve only been playing CoC since 2019 so I’m just going by what I’ve had recommended or I’ve seen reviews for but I’d like to see:

• Blood Brothers 1 & 2
• Spawn of Azathoth
• No Man’s Land
• Strange Aeons 1&2
• Tatters of the King

I’d also like to see things like Tales of the Miskatonic Valley and Adventures in Arkham Country but I don’t know how that would interact with the Lovecraft Country updates Mike has been working on.

I also am aware quite a lot of those things are from the 90s or 00s unlike the Kickstarter stuff but that’s what is interesting to me based on what I’ve read. I also know these are available in PDF but I’m a big fan of dead tree versions and I know these are very likely to go straight to POD rather than regular print runs and Chaosium have said previously that it’s not possible to do a PDF coupon for these due to the increased costs of POD so I’d much rather wait until I could get both at the same time.

oh and finally I’ve heard mixed things about the Secrets of books but knowing my stupid completionist habit I’d probably buy them all anyways… Anyone got further good or bad info on these?

11 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

As allowed previously, the movie was okay as it's own thing, even good in its own way.  Oof, but that TV show...I'd rather you hadn't reminded me.

You know the actor they had playing Constantine in that has been appearing as him in Legends of Tomorrow the arrowverse time traveling show. It's actually pretty good and just tries to have ridiculously stupid time traveling plots that are eminently watchable. There is one where they have to fix George Lucas dropping out of film school and becoming insurance salesman of the year. 

It got up to 28 Celsius here today. First hot weather we’ve had in a while and immediately everyone has switched over from complaining about the lack of a summer to it being far too hot. If there’s one thing you can count on a British person for its complaining about the weather despite not really having much to complain about. We grow wine at the same latitude that Canada has polar bears and while it does rain a fair amount here we don’t get monsoons or any real extreme weather.

I just wish it was currently cooler at night. It’s almost midnight and it’s 22 degrees and checking the weather it’s not going to drop to 16 at night for a week 😞

4 hours ago, David Scott said:

There is a general QuestWorlds group, and Ian posts from his personal account as Chaosium isn't his day job. Crossposting from Facebook isn't possible, likewise wading through the non-linear way FB orders messages searching for Ian's posts is time consuming. Copying a thread is messy and always needs editing (I've only blanked names):

Thanks for doing that David, it's very much appreciated. I understand crossposting takes extra time and I'd much rather you guys work on new material rather than making sure every social media format is fully updated. 

Also didn't realise Quest World was on Github! I am already on there so shall check it out. Thanks for the tip 🙂

On 7/15/2021 at 5:20 PM, Nick Brooke said:

I'm limiting my recommendations to stuff that's easily available in print or digital formats, or I could go on!

Thanks for that Nick! I decided a while ago to limit my RPG purchases to things available new or POD to save my sanity and wallet. I have added all of those to the list 🙂

17 hours ago, RandomNumber said:

I did have a deeper look at the Theogeny section of GSB last night. If your objective is to immerse yourself in Glorantha then definitely read it. OTOH, if your objective is to know enough to run an RQG game in Glorantha then I'd recommend only referring to the bits that seem interesting to you. I found some sections I'd like to read for interest so will most likely do that.

Thanks, I think I will read all of the chapter and see how it goes. the GSB is both less daunting as bedtime reading and light enough that I don't risk breaking my nose if I fall asleep while holding it. 

11 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

The Irishman playing in my regular winter game seems to do alright by it. Still, I am incredibly reluctant to run a game that someone has read recently. In my regular game a member or two read some of the games I run, but about 40 years ago so just with dementia alone there is memory attrition never mind the decades toll, as well. Plus they understand the game and are GMs, so acting accordingly is natural... but for me I do not see the attraction of knowing what is coming... Main reason for my hatred of spoilers, I suppose.

Before I commit could you clear up my confusion regarding the times? Do you normally run 9am-1pm GMT-6 or 9pm-1am GMT-6? 

As for the Gringles Pawnshop thing it was if you are comfortable with the idea and how set you were on using that as the starter adventure. I'm not familiar with the RQ system yet but I do run CoC and D&D games so can keep a lid on metagame elements. I myself don't mind if I play an adventure I've already read, I mean I'm obviously not going to read stuff beforehand to cheat but under these circumstances I'm happy to play the scenario (just to reemphasise as long as you are comfortable with it). 

11 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

So, that’s a possible three, if everyone likes the hours and the trip to the past using classic scenarios. 

The trip to the past sounds great! What I like to do when playing a scenario is afterwards reading it and seeing all the different paths and how the GM ran it, really helps me learn to be better at running it. Of course I check beforehand to make sure that I'm not inadvertently going to spoil anything by doing this... 

15 hours ago, Godlearner said:

Yeah, I am biased though being a co-author on the Holiday Dorastor books. I think both the Temple of Heads and the Spider Woods would work for even starter groups. There are scenarios there for any power level. 

I shall check them out! You negate any penalties for being biased by being up front about it 🙂

13 hours ago, RandomNumber said:

I'll preface what I'm saying by being clear that Glorantha is interesting to me as a setting in which to play RQ. I'm here in the RQ forum, not the Glorantha one. Glorantha appeals to me on many levels including by being a coherent setting with its own depth; its denizens are not simply a bunch of 'extras' there to amuse or antagonise the PC's.

My advice is not to worry too much, or to be intimidated. Because Glorantha has been around for so long and has such a committed fanbase the quantity of content is overwhelming. I'm no Gloranthan scholar but what I think can take a while for newcomers to understand is that there is often no one true answer to the way Glorantha "is". In many RPG's the setting information is a monoview universal truth. What we read in the published materials on Glorantha is how it is perceived through the eyes of the (imagined) narrator/reporter/scribe whose work we are reading. Another account may vary or contradict.  In the Glorantha Sourcebook you can read one version of events in 'History of Dragon Pass' (pp9-37) and another slant in 'The Redline History of the Lunar Empire' (pp.153-189).  I'm sure the Theogeny section is interesting but I haven't read it, I refer to it. I've dipped into the second half of the book and have enjoyed what I have seen but I haven't read much of it. I don't need to know it to run an RQG game. But... I've probably built up more baseline knowledge since 1981 than I care to think about.

So... I would definitely recommend the GSB and tend to think of the level of relevance as starting high and waning as you progress through the book (to me at least) for a campaign set in Sartar.  The History of Dragon Pass chapter is excellent. The sections on the Elder Races and the Theogeny will be great primers. By that stage you've read 128 pages on top of the RQG rule book and if your objective is to run a fun RPG session for your mates then I'd venture you're into the zone of diminishing returns by that stage in terms of reading up on the background.

I do recommend the Adventures Pack from the GM Screen - this is first class and a credit to all involved. The early sections on the Colymar complement the History of Dragon Pass in GSB very well indeed. The setting information, the scenario hooks, the NPC's - this is exactly what an RPG product should be - high levels of playable content. All that I see tells me that the RQG Starter Set will be the same.

What gave me the greatest 'feel' of Glorantha so many years ago were the 'Tales of Biturian Varosh' in Cults of Prax (https://www.chaosium.com/cults-of-prax-pdf/). Whilst that is set in Prax, the commentaries on well known gods are first class. As a teenager I was bewitched and knew immediately that I was onto something that would offer me more than any AD&D scenario ever would. Horses for courses though...

Overall my advice would be to read what you feel you need to run a game.  Don't try and 'catch up' on background knowledge. Much depends on how much time you have available. My free time for gaming is limited and must be used judiciously. I find Glorantha very interesting and have to resist the urge to go down rabbit holes of research. The published works (GSB, G2G etc) are great references but are not 'required reading'. If you were going to commit to reading one, then make it the GSB (it's far shorter).  In terms of 'other' scenarios/material - the Tales from Sandheart series is absolutely worth a look as it is set in Sun County which is a way from anywhere and its locals are quite content with having nothing to do with the outside world.

Hope this helps. Other opinions are available etc.

 

I have already internalised YGWV so I'm not worried about running a game exactly by the book but more this system seems so cool to me and I want my players to get as much of that as possible, without it dissolving into them sitting around while I give lectures on Glorantha for 3 hours at a time. At this stage I know Orlanth and Issaries as gods. With Lunar Gods I'm aware of the red moon and she was resurrected by 7 people who are now also gods and there is an emperor who is her son? I'm not even sure if the red moon goes by another name I can easily look stuff up by, at one point I thought it was Yelm but I think that's the sun god who Orlanth killed? As you can tell I haven't gotten to the chapters on Theogeny or the Lunar Empire yet. (If anyone has any further things they think I should read as a primer on the topics above please do let me know). 

I have done a quick pass through the Colymar tribe bit in the GM screen pack and it was really interesting. I started reading the GSB afterwards and bits have already started to click together! I do like what I've read of the scenarios in the screen pack but I'm going to wait to read the ones in the starter set first to see if being the thane of Apple Lane might limit how far the characters might travel for stuff from other books. 

With Cults of Prax the Tales of Biturian Varosh are the equivlenet of Vasana's saga from the main book right? Short segments to ground the stuff with a character throughout the book? I already own Cults of Prax so can easily read it, would you recommend reading it all or just going through the tales bits and if I see something interesting reading more about the cult?

As I said I do have the guide but I'm not planning on reading it cover to cover. I mainly bought it as I had the money for a new RPG system and I figured even if I ended up not liking the system I could probably sell it for close to retail and not lose too much. Thankfully this won't be needed. My short term plans for the guide are to use it if there is something I see in another book that I'm curious about. So far it's mainly been to find out stuff about Upland Marsh and Delecti, I started of reading about the ducks and how they were usurped from the area by the Colymar but then the zombies came and the deal was struck. My main question has been what makes the ducks so suited for zombie killing? So far not found the answer. 

So far on my list of Jonstown content to look into I have:

• Six Seasons in Sartar
• Yozarian's Bandit Ducks! 
• Temple of Heads and the Spider Woods from the Holiday Dorastor series 
• Tales from Sandheart

That is probably enough to keep me going for a while, especially considering I'm still digesting the main books but if anyone else has any suggestions please let me know!

10 hours ago, 21stCenturyMoose said:

This is what I've recommended to newbies for years as the single best bite-sized introduction you could possibly get. It also functions as a great mini-gazetteer of Prax for prospective GMs. The only downside is that you might end up falling in love with Prax, whereas the bulk of RQG content is for Dragon Pass. 

I shall bear that in mind! The main thing that would put me off Prax currently is the lack of RQG material for it. I know the books are all very compatible with the latest edition but the material is written during the Lunar Occupation so I imagine I'd need to do some fairly heavy lifting to move it forward to 1625 and the character creation stuff in RQG is geared for that timeframe and I'm not comfortable enough yet with the system to change something like character creation.

Are you sure you mean 9:00-13:00? That would be 9:00am-1:00pm so morning to early afternoon. If that is correct then it would be a very pleasant early afternoon game for me!

As for Gringles pawnshop you could still run it. I wasn’t reading it with an eye to running it or anything just as bedtime reading and don’t remember it very clearly. If it becomes necessary I can DM you what I remember and you change aspects of the adventure to confound me. I could also take a backseat in any planning aspects or solving puzzles (not that I remember a lot of puzzles but still). 

Would be very nice to take part in a series of sessions while I learn the rules before introducing Glorantha to my group in person. 

I am potentially interested. I’m very new to RuneQuest and Glorantha having only bought the books in the past few weeks but know my way around Call of Cthulhu. Ive never played or read any of the campaigns from the classic days. I have read parts of the RQ2 rule book and Gringles pawnshop from Apple Lane (not rainbow mound though). 

The potential part comes from my location. I’m based in the U.K. so time is a bit of an issue. It really depends on how late it runs. As you can tell from the time I post this at I am a bit of a night owl but if it runs past 10 or 11pm that’s 3-4am here and that would be my limit. I wouldn’t commit to an open ended campaign based on US time but I can do 6 weeks ok. Also I’m already committed Tuesdays and Wednesdays so depends on that as well. 

1 hour ago, Runeblogger said:

Yozarian's Bandit Ducks! is good for newbies. You can play it, get a feel of the rules, and then create your actual PCs.

You sold me at ducks! Just as a general thing the ducks were what interested me in Glorantha in the first place, I saw someone joke that RuneQuest had ducks and that seemed weird enough that I looked into it and liked what I saw. I also saw some people on forums argue that RuneQuest would be much more popular without ducks so feel free to use me as an example of someone who saw there were ducks and went out and bought everything. 

Also Runeblogger, thanks for your site, I went through all your reviews of the latest edition when deciding whether or not to buy in and you were part of my decision to buy in 🙂

14 hours ago, Godlearner said:

Welcome aboard. There are a number of good adventures both from Chaosium and Jonstown Compendium for you to get started. 

Thanks! I went a bit crazy and own all the RQG books (except Red book of magic as it came out physically as I was placing the order) and all the RQ2 stuff available. I got some unexpected money in and put some of it towards the new system. I'm probably going to run the Pegasus Plateau after the starter set ones then do The Smoking Ruin book afterwards, by the time I get through all of that will hopefully be some more books released. 

With Jonstown Compendium I am definitely going to buy  Six Seasons in Sartar (Andrew's blog along with Refereeing and Reflections reviews convinced me that buying everything at once was a sensible idea), do you have other suggestions for Jonstown content that is good for newbies?

4 hours ago, RandomNumber said:

The art is amazing. Glorantha allows some fabulous adventures to be had and tales to be told. And Runequest meshes so very well with the background. Particularly with the innovative new approach to character generation. The learning curve is sometimes steep but worth the journey. 

My friends and I were playing AD&D in 1981 (?) when I got the GW RQ2 boxed set, probably on the strength of a review in White Dwarf. We never played AD&D again after our first RQ session.

Welcome.

 Well thankfully I have been going through these forums and reading advice so I am started small. I'm working my way carefully through the sourcebook and paying particular attention to the history of Dragon Pass and the history of the Lunar Empire. I'm going to focus on the Colymar tribe for the moment then work my way out but knowing the broad strokes of Dragon Pass and the Lunars seems like it will be helpful. I have to say the most intimidating bit is learning about the gods and how they interact with the world. Is the Theogony chapter in the sourcebook the best place to start?

So I recently fell down the RuneQuest rabbit hole and purchased most of the available books and have spent the last few weeks immersing myself in the system. I’m lucky enough that my main friend group expanded out of a weekly D&D group and there’s a good 15 or so of us who are in various games and campaigns the others are running. It’s mainly D&D 5e that gets played but I ran a Call of Cthulhu game before the pandemic rudely interrupted and I realised how much I dislike running games online. 

We’ve started playing D&D in person again and tonight I took along a few books (Core book and Glorantha Sourcebook) to see if anyone was interested in playing it. Most of them had played in my Call of Cthulhu game so aren’t going in blind on the rules. Everyone loved the art and if anything that alone sold them on the system (I think they could see how enthusiastic I was about the system too). One of my friends is strongly considering just buying the books because he loves the art so much (I also shared the forum topic with sneak peak art from the gods book and Belintar alone might of convinced them). I’m going to spend the next few months learning the system inside out and hopefully will have the starter set at that point to ease me in. I do have Pegasus Plateau but the starter set looks so good!

On a first impressions side I’ve never been more impressed or enthralled by a setting than I have Glorantha. I’ve been playing 5e (and pathfinder before that) for years and I do not care about the Forgotten Realms or any of the other settings like I now do Glorantha and I haven’t even played in it yet! It’s just so in-depth and weird (in a good way) that I can’t look away. I’ve got a long way to go in my studies but I’ve got a copy of the guide sitting ready for when I need to go in depth. In the mean time I’m trying to absorb the info from the sourcebook and rule book. I also have to say the more I read the more cool ideas for adventures and even campaigns I get. 

Someone on the Pendragon Discord server (there's a link to join in the first post if anyone is interested) asked if there was any news on 6e. I've copied the relevant messages below:

@Sir Sir
Any news of kap6 ? Release date ?

glassneedles — Today at 14:27
In this post (****) David Larkins said PDFs for the core books would be next year. I had heard at one point that they wanted to get a starter set out this year but not sure if that's still on the cards. Chaosium don't like to release the PDFs of their starter sets first like they do their other books and with shipping this year being as bad as it has (easily doubling the amount of time it takes to print and get the books to warehouses if not tripling or quadrupling) I would be very surprised if we got it this year

Knight of the Lark — Today at 16:45
@glassneedles has the measure of it. With shipping so chaotic right now, it's impossible to give an accurate estimate of a release date, and we won't be putting out the Starter Set PDF before we have physical copies ready to go. (See the RQ Starter Set for an example.)

Everything is proceeding smoothly and on-schedule on the production end; it's just that damn shipping complicating things. What I can say for certain is that once everything is rolling out, it will continue to do so, and that 6th edition will continue to be very strongly supported and promoted for the foreseeable future.

**** Previous message:

Knight of the Lark — 05/11/2020
Yeah, I don't handle the Kickstarter side of the business so I'm not sure about the launch date for that other than "very soon."

As for the new edition, it's budgeted and will not need a KS campaign. Right now it's looking like we'll be putting out the Starter Set first, followed by the core rulebook sometime after. Still on track to get both out next year. I'll stay mum on more precise details, as these can change over the course of the production process.

(And since I'm sure someone will ask, we're making it so that the Starter and CRB complement each other, but each can stand fully on its own in terms of utility and playability in case someone just wants to purchase one and not both—though perish the thought!  )

So hopefully next year will be full of Pendragon goodness and this gives us all time to make sure we have enough money at the release to get the books.

4 hours ago, David Scott said:

Latest version is 0.944 https://github.com/ChaosiumInc/QuestWorlds/blob/master/docs/QuestWorlds.pdf

The last commits were a few typos: https://github.com/ChaosiumInc/QuestWorlds/commits/master

Updates on the Core Book are as usual over at FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/205528290149281

Ian last updated on 2nd July: Just an update, I'm still plugging away at the examples.

I wasn't aware that updates on the core books were on Facebook, I don't have an account and try to avoid that area of the internet as much as possible. Would it be possible for someone from Chaosium to also post these updates to this forum?

Not asking for anything too fancy, maybe if there was an update thread and the Facebook post could just be C&P'd in that would be great. 

Nameless horrors is already available POD. I have a copy sitting on my shelf. I would like to see it joined by Secrets of Tibet however. 

My money would be on A Time to Harvest which was used as part of the Cult of Chaos program a few years ago and there have been postings it is being worked on recently (I can't recall exactly where, probably in one of the Chaosium interview series on the Chaoisum website blog or somewhere on this site). I'm just hoping to see Dreamlands and Gaslight by the end of 2022.

25 minutes ago, revshafer said:

Fangs is a poor scan though. It’s not the same quality as the recent Classic RuneQuest titles, and I’m assuming the Classic Cthulhu titles being kickstarted.

I knew Fangs existed and had the PDF downloaded but hadn't looked through it previously. As far as scans go it seems pretty decent quality but I hadn't seen what exactly the content looked like, presuming Foes is just like this I 100% see why Chaosium chose not to even include this as a stretch goal in the Kickstarter. As I have idiot brain I would still quite like a POD copy (I have rationalised my purchasing of RuneQuest and Cthulhu Classic by amending my no old editions rules to only old edition reprints/POD) just to complete the set but the voice is fairly quiet so it should be easy to repress with a minimum of sanity damage. 

As a recent convert to RuneQuest I’d like to complete my collection of RuneQuest 2 material so second this. I know it’s not set in Glorantha (from what I’ve been able to gather from comments on here and reading about it but it still sounds interesting. Also I’d really like to see Thieves World even if it is just started for RuneQuest (in case there are licensing issues with other publishers). 
 

1 hour ago, revshafer said:

Realize that this fell short in the Kickstarter, but aside from Foes and Fangs this is about all that’s left to have the entire line scanned and made available. Any chance this could happen?

Thanks, Scott

Fangs is available as a free PDF off the RuneQuest classic page. You can grab it here https://www.chaosium.com/content/FreePDFs/RuneQuest/Classic/CHA4002- FANGS - Monster Stats.pdf

Sadly not in print though. 

With the HeroQuest stuff it has been confirmed by Chaosium that they will be rebadging old books to use the QuestWorld logo so maybe just put a note saying that some old material is temporarily unavailable while that happens? Oh though we don’t know how much will be rebadgered and what formats it will be available in. 

Scotty remember the check the skill for sacred time!

1 minute ago, JLBrown7289 said:

Yep, did the same thing...but I've been with CoC since the first edition, so the signed edition is calling me, crying out to me...but so far I'm resisting. 

My resisting was based on logic. I knew if I bought it I’d leave it pristine in its box as a collectors item and I’d be adding another 2”. (If not with a 1” as well) to the order later on and while I love Chaosium products I don’t think I love them $340 in one go enough…

(Sorry Rick, MOB, Mike and the rest it turns out you can put a price on love for an RPG company)

Well it’s up! I went in for the 1” and 2” box combo. Was a bit tempted by the signed one but decided to be slightly (ha!) thrifty. Roll on $100,000 for the screen!

One small thing I noticed, Rick mentioned in the video stretch goals but unless drooling over the Kickstarter has resulted in sight damage somehow I can only see the one stretch goal. Are there more to be announced if the screen one is met?

50 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

The ones for "HeroQuest" have been removed from sale because Chaosium no longer holds that trademark -- in due course, we're told, they will be rebranded and reissued as "QuestWorlds" titles, but that's not anybody's current priority.

I can't help you with the "Hero Wars" ones. Maybe they are collateral damage?

I checked the HeroQuest section of the site. Looks like Hero Wars and original flavour HeroQuest were moved at the end of May. See Rick’s post here