svensson

I think character sheets equipped with Pankor Jackhammers /Atchisson AA-12 probably exceed the actual number of Jackhammers /AA-12 ever constructed. They're the kind of thing people who've never fired a 12 ga. or carried a 20 lbs. rifle in their arms all freaking day long like to equip their characters with 🤣😁

In many games with modern-ish settings a great many players choose to generate characters with military backgrounds, especially ground military backgrounds that give access to high-end weaponry skills. This can sometimes be a problem when there's a veteran or 'gun nut' at the table [and depending on personalities it can orders of magnitudes worse those are combined in the same person]. The constant litany of "Grunts don't think /act /do that way!" gets pretty annoying after the 731st rendering and derailing the game for the sake of gun or military minutiae is boring as all get out for everybody else at the table. As a lifelong gamer and US Army veteran, I thought I would address this problem by writing an article that gives a civilian some tips on How To Think Grunt. I had input from Commonwealth and German veterans and am very well aware of how much service life has changed between now and when I got out of the military, so I have done my level best to make this article generic, short, and as anecdote-free as possible. I sincerely hope that you folks enjoy the article and it will prove to be of some use at your table. Military Life In Games Final.pdf

THAT'S the kind of shit that happens when you let engineers design stuff without real people explaining 'consequences' to them...

Well, it beats 'ninja notes' at the table. Another thing you can do is confer with your player in between game sessions and explain the RP situation to him. Email is a handy tool for that because it actually makes you consider what you want to say to him and what to leave out, and you have a record of what you told him if any question arises.

A couple of years ago, I offered a bit of American firearms history to a European friend about what weapons were common in 20's and 30's America and the social conditions therein. I opined that the reason why so many CoC meat puppets, er... investigators... liked the 12 gauge shotgun was that it did a lot of damage for one attack roll. And that most things in the Mythos that could be damaged by a physical attack really did need all that damage to punch through their various protections. I further advised that the Winchester M1898 12 ga. pump shotgun was a dandy weapon and did stalwart service in the trenches of War One and that it even had a bayonet lug! And then I saw THIS little bit of OMFG ironmongery... My fellow ne'er do wells, allow me to introduce to you.... The pump action 40mm grenade launcher / bloop gun. Like Olivia Munn in a string bikini, this thing is just another one of God's little ways of saying He loves us and wants us to be happy.... [forgotten weapons link below -- because Gun Jesus has ALL the cool toys] https://www.forgottenweapons.com/china-lake-40mm-pump-action-grenade-launcher/

OK, quick explanation of the meme. Redd Foxx was a great comedian in the 60's and 70's. His most famous role was a TV series called 'Sanford and Son', about a scrapper and junk dealer in Los Angeles. Every time something outlandish or annoying happened to him, he'd clutch his chest and fake a heart attack, claiming he was coming to Heaven to be with his deceased wife.

Oh, yes. I've got a collection of over 300 various Osprey titles and they've gotten quite a workout. I used the Warriors of Greek Hoplite, Carthaginian Warrior, Bronze Age Greek Warrior, and Iron Age Greek Warrior. I've pulled The Scythians and the Assyrians for later use, as will Zulu Warrior and several of 'Queen Victoria's Enemies' titles.

So, just a little bit about me... Like most of you, I'm on the shady side of 50. Like a lot of you I'm a veteran. I did 6 years in the US Army way back when Cold Warriors and other dinosaurs proudly roamed the Earth. But my wives [I've had two] and I have never had kids. What we have had is a long involvement with historical reenacting and through that we've watched a lot of young men and women grow up. My US Civil War company has two wonderful boys who've been with us for years, Chad and Chandler. Both the boys were involved in JROTC, both the boys are seriously stand up kids and we love them to death. But both of them are just average guys... they're not athletically gifted or super smart or got phenomenal grades. They are, well, average. And both have had to work their asses off to get through the process to join the US armed services. Well, Chandler leaves for Basic Training next week. Chad is still working on getting waivers worked out. And as an old war mutt and half-assed step-uncle, I couldn't be prouder of the boys. And I got down on my knees and prayed that the President's plan to pull out of Afghanistan works out. And I prayed for the health, well-being, and prosperity of 'my boys'. -- [/s] CRH Jr. -- Corporal, US Army Cavalry -- C Troop, 2 Sqdn., 11th Armored Cavalry. -- "BLACKHORSE!'

If you're in your 50's and if I am to infer from your screen name that you're an American, then you'll recognize this one....

Certainly it's a technicality, but isn't that the direction the conversation segued to? And, as I said, I think that stacking that many buffs into one attack chance is over the top.

Ouch. I dunno about that one. That may have to be table-ruled. Were I a referee and ruling on just how many arrows/bolts/javelins a Dullblade spell effects, my almost automatic answer is 'one'. And let's address the game balance issue here. Dullblade has traditionally been presented as the 'opposite' of Bladesharp, just as 'Extinguish' is the opposite of 'Ignite'. Bladesharp [RBoM description] says it effects 'any cutting, hacking or stabbing weapon'. This implies to me that missile weapons also count there as well. And, were I the ref at the table, the answer to 'how many' would still be 'one'. AND the missile loses the spell effect after being thrown /fired. Unless 'maximum game fun' [Greg's Rule] means stacking Bladesharp, Speeddart, and Multimissile into one attack chance.... Which seems a bit over the top to me, **especially** since the RQG rules have done away with Armoring Enchantment.

You can to a degree but since I'm not using either a variant of Imperial Rome [the Lunars] or a pseudo-Gaulish-Saxon hybrid [Sartar], that only goes so far. I needed something more Mediterranean looking without the heavy Gloranthan Earth cult motifs of Esrolia. The RQG illos do a great job of illustrating the action of the mechanics and I do use them for that, but for the more cultural stuff I had to look elsewhere.

Nope. They got Speedart and Disruption for that...😉

It's the age old question of 'buff or debuff, THAT is the question'...

Lodril is a good choice for farmer folk with a strong revolution ethic. OTOH, there's nothing whatsoever wrong with a male Maran Gor initiate... but good luck passing the examiners for Rune levels 😁

Except, unfortunately, that too is entirely unproven since, as you say, it is not well recorded. Your can't regard Herodotus as a reliable historian either, truly you can't. No, no you can't 🤣 More than anything else here, I was looking for good illustrations that I could show the girls instead of regaling them with the Wall of GM Text [tm] and watching their eyes glaze over. With a few well-sorted Google image searches and my go-to Osprey collection, I'm able to give them a sense of the material culture without having to use the phrase 'material culture' to a 'tween-aged' kid. Beyond that, my audience is female. On the one side I want to avoid the 'chainmail bikini' archetype but I also want to avoid the whole 'Amazons cut their left breast off' thing too. The happy middle ground is a certain 'Assassin's Creed: Odyssey' vibe, where society is vibrant and alive but without the whole bimbo sugar-cookie thing or being so historical that I take the fun out of it for them. I'm looking for more this [photo of Minoan girl from the BBC] and less this [cosplayer Jacqueline Goehner, Red Sonya 'costume']

I've had friends who were in evangelical churches and my dad married a Pentecostal minister, so yeah, the subject has come up 😁 I don't mean to imply that I go around looking for conflict in religion. I absolutely don't. To me, someone's path to God is a deeply personal thing and isn't a subject for casual conversation. I'm well aware of the political origins of the Bible, as well as the, um, 'editing process' of which stories were included and which weren't. So when someone gets all holier than thou, I have a couple of answers for them.

I did indeed. But I entertained the Norse /Druidic discussion because I've given the girls an option of changing the milieu if they want. That's a fact I hadn't shared. I basically gave them 4 choices: - Keep on with the Atalan [Atlantis] game, for which I will develop a bigger milieu for them to play in; - Going with a historical period that might interest them -- I have plenty of Viking Age and Medieval Japan material, for example. But this would be a lower-magic game; - Doing something more 'mainstream fantasy', where murder hobos are accepted, there's such a thing as an 'adventurer's guild', and basically making the game a bit more 'DnD-ish'... but I warned them that RQ rules DnD is much deadlier -- my great quote is 'RQ combat is vicious. You don't enter a battle without full preparation and intent. There is no such thing as a 'warm up fight' in RuneQuest and you NEVER just wade into an orc lair for the experience points."; - And lastly, bringing them into Glorantha wholesale.

VERY true. It's like when you talk to Biblical literalists and ask them how their Attic Greek, Vulgate Latin, and Common Aramaic are 😁

So I reenacted in the SCA [Dark Ages and medieval reenactment] for many [all too many] years. There are two basic problems with researching FUTHARK or old Germanic runes: the War Two Nazi 'Aryanism' nonsense [which has some base in archeological fact, but is hugely politicized] and modern Heathenism /Paganism /Ashatrur worship [who tend to water down and apply 'politically correct' meanings to make the traditions more palatable]. I have some born-again Pagans in my personal extended tribe [Wiccan, Ashatru, and an odd Welsh-ish thing I don't understand] and this is a fault I find in some their research. I'm a lifelong military historian, so when I go on a history research jag, I'm pretty picky about sources and editorial license. Because of these issues, I've decided to go with the RQ runes as politically and socially neutral. I have a table full of new gamers and, more importantly, new *female* gamers and I don't want to start up any social wars with misplaced references. Besides, the RQ runes are simple and intuitive in their symbology... once you see it, you almost instinctively know what it means.

Well, I'm definitely going for more of a mythical Homeric vibe here. One probably-helpful NPC the PCs will meet is a grumpy old centaur named Khauros. 😁 I've already got the RBoM and have designed a special spell for the Temple Initiate PC... 'Sharkskin', which not only provides a good number of AP, but also damages anyone who hits her with a natural weapon. I considered the demi-god idea and decided against it. I didn't want the game to devolve into a Gods War By Proxy as cultists of Athena have it out with Ares or whatever. Making magic a bit more common than that also humanizes the gods to a large degree. Sure, you've got Zeus with his thunderbolts, but the Rain spell is far more useful to the vast majority of the people. Thanks! I admit that I'm still mulling over and modifying things but I thought that there needed to be a clear divide between civilized peoples and bone-through-the-nose barbarians, and the Runes give me a clear avenue to display that. Thanks for the input!

Will do. She thought this was gonna be a trollish 'get me a sammich' type board and I told her that we were all old grogs who were well past that nonsense.

First off, experienced gamer wife, Aunt E, waves at the assembled grognardia 😁 Thanks for all your thoughts and suggestions. Let me respond to the thoughts and ideas that strike me as most useful... - I used RQG for several reasons. It's the new edition, currently being published and supported. It's obviously a high quality effort with excellent artwork in full color. Lastly, if the girls get curious enough to do some reading into it, they'll find a lot of women heroes playing prominent roles in the setting. Any one of those reasons will do, but they also add up to a good intro to the hobby even if it means a little more work for me. - I've seen TDM's Mythic Rome, and it looks alright, but I hadn't heard of Mythic Greece and will be on the lookout for it. - I like the idea of using the cult archetypes from RQ3. Hadn't thought of that one, and I should have. - I'd like to include the Runes as an underlying basis for the magical universe, although I'll be substituting another symbol for Chaos. As I have it envisioned, Chaos is represented by the rebellious titans who wish to return the world to a chaotic state where each titan has his own little kingdom instead of the one Gaia ruled over [however imperfectly] by Zeus. However, Chaos is not 'evil' in and of itself. Humanity would not be destroyed in a titan-ruled universe, just more enslaved to more capricious and varied personalities. Any other thoughts or ideas you gents have is certainly welcome, and thanks again for those you've shared thus far.

One of the maps is of the Rainbow Mounds, too. That'll be fun.

OK warning: Long post. If there's one good thing about the COVID lockdown [and God knows we could all use some 'good things' right about now], it's been that I've had time to get my gaming thing a bit more together than in previous years. One thing that I'd been meaning to do for years and finally got around to is teaching my grand-nieces and nephew the mind worm that is tabletop RPGs. Naturally, I've avoided d20 systems and am teaching them RuneQuest. But let's be honest here... Glorantha is a pretty big milieu to drop on 'tween' and early teenaged first-time gamers. The only exposure they've had is some computer/console games and a few movie franchises. So now Uncle Carl and Aunt E are taking upon ourselves to introduce them to the wonderful world[s] of fantasy gaming. But I needed a more generic novice-friendly milieu to get them started in. So naturally, I fell back into movies. BUT WAIT! It's not the two franchises you think! Instead of LotR or Thrones, they were interested in Percy Jackson and the Olympians! Yeah, that kinda threw me at first too. So what I did was watch the first PJO movie, and the Clash of the Titans remakes to give me some inspiration and came up with an 'Atlantis of my very own' setting and a starting shipwreck adventure to give them the idea of the basic rules. So I have some questions for the Elder Brain Trust. What I've got at the table is a niece in her 30's, her daughter [grand-niece] in her early teens, another grand-niece in her 'tweens', my experienced gamer wife. So yes, it's a table full of girls. Their characters are shipwrecked 'Atalans' [Atlanteans before the downfall] who must work together to retrieve as much equipment as they can from the hopeless wreck of their ship, and then find out where they are and how to get home. What I've done so far is this: - given them a copy of the RQG Quick Start adventure to familiarize them with the rules; - generated starter characters for them... they're just average every people [no super stats or magic powers] but of different professions and training; - given illustrations from my Osprey collection to give them visual cues as to what to expect [Atalans are fully Iron Age Greeks, the rest of the world is pre-Bronze Dark Age Mycenae] - introduced them to the magic systems; - run a couple of games where I familiarized them with what happens in a tabletop game and we've done some challenging skill checks; - warned them that the next session would include combat. So my questions for you all are these: a] Are there any non-Glorantha milieux out there that use the RQG rules as yet? [With the Runes affinities, Passions, etc.] b] Does anyone have any suggestions for RQ cults based on the Greek mythos? I've seen Warlords of Alexander, but I'm looking for additional materials c] Can anyone suggest anything else I might do with a table full of young women to keep their interest? Thanks for you time everyone