LordNigel

Going back to the game discussion, I hope the OP has had success running his FATE game. I'm really eager to hear more experiences. Since I really like Generic systems, I checked Cortex Prime out some time ago and really liked the idea. However, I mostly play online through Foundry and so far the other systems I use have better support there. There is a recent package for Cortex on Foundry, but it's unofficial and not as complete as others that I've used. When it comes to systems that we need to customize to our needs, the more tools and resources available the better. Nevertheless I do consider trying it in the future. Feel free to share your experiences using it at the table.

No, no, no! By no means! hahah It's because you mentioned that English was not your mother language and through your user name the highest possibility was either Spanish or Portuguese! I'm Brazilian, so it wouldn't hurt to check, haha! I also speak Spanish btw. But nevertheless, your English is great, there was nothing in there specifically that made me think otherwise, don't worry! (and I can say that being a professional English teacher and translator! 😉 )

Any news on this? I usually GM GURPS, CoC, but also like Savage Worlds and FATE. For a bunch of reasons I've been preparing to migrate into FATE for a while (mostly for its practicality, the fact that I wanted to test it out more, and also because I'm really into Mythic GME as a GMing tool and think FATE will blend in magically with that). I've been thinking a lot about how to port my RPG plans into FATE, and one of them is finally getting some Glorantha to the table. I've had all RQG and HQG books (in a mix of print and digital forms) for some years now but never manage to make it happen. RQG attracts me a lot because of the grittiness and simulation side, which appeals to my GURPS side, but I really don't have time to deal with the fiddliness right now. HQG attracts me a lot because it scratches my narrative itch, but it's a specific game to learn and since I'm already going to use FATE for other games/campaigns I might as well stick to FATE for that (and steal a lot of ideas from HQG). I really liked this discussion here and think that mostly I'd follow what @ZedAlpha ended up deciding on, but I also made a copy of @Mameluco's document for extra inspiration. Lots of cool ideas in there (You're not a Portuguese speaker by any chance? If you are let's talk more about this). Anyway, this is a very recent and fresh discussion (which is great honestly), but I'd like to know if @ZedAlpha has put any of this into practice already. I'd really appreciate following your experience and learn from it. I probably won't GM a Glorantha game until sometime next year, so I'd like to plan carefully.

Which Facebook pages do you recommend?

Thanks for the kind words! Yeah, I tend to be a bit paranoid with the preparation process. I'm already experienced enough as a GM to know when to "wing it" and to not worry about creating and improvising details when needed. Being able to get a masterpiece such as Glorantha and making it my own is actually part of the fun, but I think that I owe it to Greg Stafford and everyone else involved to respect all the hard work and thought behind what we already have. I think this is because I'm a worldbuilder myself and every time I read anything on the Glorantha Sourcebook, for example, I get dumbfounded at how deep it goes and how real it feels. Even the inconsistencies are realistic, because they represent different scholars and points of view. So even though that gives me a lot of leeway to intervene, I do want to help my players actually feel this creation firsthand. They already play through my creations when I invent other worlds and campaigns, so for Glorantha I want them to feel how unique it is. Sure that when I start to run the adventures everything will be quite new to me and I will miss many opportunities to insert some amazing lore fragments, but hey, such is life. All the elements that I have to improvise will have to be written down and end up becoming part of "my" Glorantha, haha. I just think it's very heartwarming to know that I can always count on this community if I ever have specific trouble dealing with all of this. I think that the seriousness and hospitality that I feel here are one of the best parts of learning about Glorantha in the end. There are serious hardcore fans for many games and worlds, but not all of them are patient and welcoming like this, haha.

Wow! I can't believe I actually got a direct answer from you and didn't see it! Please forgive me! I absolutely loved all the videos that I watched and it should be me thanking you guys for taking such a time to introduce people to Glorantha. The passion you both show during the video is very contagious and makes me want to devour all the books I can get my hands on! And yes, I've grabbed Cult Compendium, but I still need to learn more about the ropes before that makes any sense to me. Let's see if I can enjoy it before it is overtaken by the next book, hahaha. Cults of Terror indeed is one of the materials I'm more curious about reading. Thank you once again for your great contribution and for taking your time to answer my post! I'm looking forward to more material from both of you and also for the release of the book that is mentioned in your signature here!

Honestly, as much as I do like constructive criticism, to me this is just straightforward mean and passive-aggressive sound (if not downright aggressive). I haven't read the book yet, but that's beside the point. Heroquesting is obviously a touchy subject, after all the RPG has all these decades of history and people are still debating about the best way to actually make it happen in a campaign. It's clear that it's something that is much easier to realize through more narrative ways, like just telling about them, or using a system like Heroquest (Questworlds now, right?), than a crunchy and more detailed system like RQG. Nevertheless, precisely because it's such a hard topic, we should be encouraging people who have the courage of trying to help write more material about it not bashing them, IMHO. The argument that many things derive from other books completely misses the point, in my view. Many people, like myself, haven't been reading all Glorantha related books from the last 30+ years, and it's very hard to do so. If someone took the time to actually compile those ideas, that's very helpful. Even if they're not revolutionary or even if they don't guarantee that creating a heroquest will become a breeze after reading it. The whole problem of how heroquests seem to work, with simple people being able to survive them and legendary people failing them, shows that the idea never was to “crunch it”. Even though the percentile system of BRP allows for lucky crits in both direction (allowing those things to happen), that could still be problematic for coming-of-age rituals where, indeed, people should be not dying like flies. Notwithstanding, although I'm a Glorantha noob, I'm an experienced GM, and solving that seems simple enough. Either dying in a heroquest shouldn't kill the characters (or maybe they can't be directly killed by story related resources, only from intruders like the Lunars trying to ruin things), or maybe the quest should be made in a more narrative way, without rolling the dice too much (or at all). I like how King of Dragon Pass made them happen and it sounds like a plausible solution. Anyway, @soltakss was one of the first to come and help me with this question. Everybody has been kind to me and to each other since I arrived, and that's how I'd like this discussion to remain. Good criticism is welcome, but should be done respectfully.

This is what I feel, even though I'm a complete beginner, so my opinion doesn't carry much weight. IMO, from what I've been seeing, heroquests are just another type of quest, a very fascinating type that is particular to Glorantha. Thinking of it that way, it's more about choosing a myth and reenacting it as an adventure for the PCs who are going through this ritual, just like writing any other adventure. The system really doesn't change anything, since, IMHO, it doesn't need any sort of "minigame" mechanic for when the Runequest is ongoing. It's just another adventure which will make the characters relive famous mythical moments in the history of their world. It's a great way to help them get into the whole mythology of Glorantha. My very amateurish 2 cents anyway.

Good idea! Yeah, I thought about that. I even have an unofficial supplement for GURPS Glorantha. However, I bought every Runequest book for the new edition, and the main Heroquest book, so I'd really like to taste the system, you know? I'm aware that in the end it's all about the world and the lore, but it sounds nice to use a system designed to take that to it's fullest. That being said, I do consider GMing Gloranthan adventures in GURPS when I'm comfortable enough with the world, even if it's just to see how it feels. The character creation mechanics indeed have more than enough detail to include the family history details and whatnot that are so common in Gloranthan RPGs. GURPS Thaumathology also has everything I need to delve into Rune Magic. But I don't know, the Runequest character sheet is so amazing and beautiful. The books are so complete and the Bestiary is awesome. I think I would only fully migrate if Runequest didn't feel as good to play as it is to read. Not needing to convert all those monsters is also a plus, hahah.

Wow, thanks for taking the time to answer my already forgotten post! Yeah, it sure helps! Every idea and every material is welcome. I really like your suggestions for the "players as enemies" story! I am currently still GM'ing my GURPS cyberpunk campaign to my group, but before I bring a new GURPS campaign to the table (which will require some preparation, I want to take my players to Glorantha for a ride. Initially I think it will be wiser to use the current stories I have from the books I bought, like the GM's pack adventures and the two adventure books that have been released. That should be quite enough for all of us to get used to the system and the setting. After that, I plan on starting to get bolder with my ideas.

Thanks for sharing this! People mentioned that tweaking here or there would be necessary, but for me as a newcomer it would be harder to handwave things since I don't know what level of challenge to expect. It's always great to have more details about what other people did or didn't do when adapting!

Thanks! Yeah, I feel that I lean toward this philosophy. The group and the story dictate what is possible, not the gaming system. Sure, some systems lend themselves better for certain things and this might facilitate certain styles of play, but that would be like saying that D&D is only made for min-maxing murder hobos with no interest in roleplaying. It seems to me (in my utter ignorance) that HeroQuesting is one of the things that make Glorantha so special, and even if it is a rare thing, rare things do frequently happen in the stories we play at the table, because we're after memorable moments after all. However, it's very nice to find a balance between everything that's being said here. This avoids making HeroQuesting too commonplace, which would water down the "epic" factor a little. It serves to show, though, that indeed HeroQuesting seems to be something for a more experienced GM, especially before the official rules come by. In the series of videos I'm watching on youtube, J-M mentions that he created an adventures he calls "Ernalda's Horn of Plenty" (IIRC), where he introduces the players to the concept of HeroQuesting through what he calls "reverse HeroQuesting". The idea is that the Broo are conducting a HeroQuest for their own needs and when the Quest requires an "enemy" to appear, the PCs are summoned to act as the menace agains the Broo. This sounded fascinating to me, but I'd never know how to even begin GM'ing this without proper guidelines.

Yes! It's on my wishlist! I'm just waiting for the credit on my credit card to "refresh", haha

Decimation is a lot indeed! I thought the conversion guide dealt only with character conversion. It's nice to see it also includes this sort of tip!

Great insight here! I always thought of HeroQuesting as something "not so common", but this is the first time that I heard it described this way. It makes sense that it would be rare and terrifying though. Nevertheless, it sounds absolutely amazing, especially for more advanced characters (which makes sense; it would be weird for newbies to go on HeroQuesting and save the day). However, the "real GM book" release sounds too far away and I hope some adventures include HeroQuests here and there just to whet my table's appetite. I'm also aware that the Heroquest system is much more "high level" and heroic. But it sounds also very good for that. That's why I have previously considered playing some HQ sessions with my players as well, just to change the feel a little bit. However, until I get to play all that I have for RQ it's likely that the new RQ rules for HeroQuesting get published. This is the first time that I have the chance to use two robust systems to play in the same game world, so it must be fun to play with that. (or perhaps not, pehaps playing HQ will spoil my players and then they'll hate to go back to the "normalcy" of RQ...)

Good to know!

Yes, this is the one I have! I was about to ask if it was complete of it there was something useful that I'd need the original books for. Also, since Cult Compendium doesn't cover the other things covered by the books such as Trollpak, just the cults, are there things that I'd miss from the original Cults of Prax or Cults of Terror, among others? Some of you have already mentioned the things included in Trollpak, but I wonder about the other titles.

Found it! Thanks!

Those are great guidelines! Thanks! It might be really fun to use the younger characters as a "tutorial" of sorts, with less fuss during character building, then "upgrade " them and return to a familiar place! I might actually start with that!

Thanks! Where exactly? The books is more of a city guide.

Thanks! I had never heard of that one. The one called "Cradle" which you and @jajagappa mentioned is from what book?

Nice! I hear that the Troll (Uz) culture is fascinating in Glorantha! I've been watching a series of videos on youtube by a guy called JM and a very knowledgeable fellow called Evan Franke. It's great! And besides Trollpak they recommended to read Dorastor as well.

Oh, I see! Yeah, it does make sense, hahaha. When I read that Cult Compendium gathered the material from Trollpak, Cults of Terror, etc, I assumed that it included ALL the material, including adventures and such.

Yeah, I've been hearing more and more about Griffin Mountain. I knew it was a classic, but I didn't know it was such an epic! I will surely check it out!

That's true! It's a great and easy alternative! Great! I Have the Trollpak PDF, but I assume that all of that is covered in the Cult Compendium as well, right? Thanks for all the suggestions!