svensson

Well, Quack, this is for the most part an old RQ grog board. In my observation, there's a whole bunch of discussion about Glorantha trivia that seems to creep in to a lot of discussions. As an old grog in several games myself, I very much appreciate the existence of a portal to ask the deep lore questions of the devs and writers.

But that doesn't solve your problem much, does it?

Have you looked in the 13th Age publisher forums? You might find what you're looking for there.

Like a lot of us, I'm thrilled that JWE is coming under the Chaosium umbrella. Wick is one of the designers of one of my all-time favorite games, Legend of the 5 Rings RPG, and one of my favorite sets of game engines, the d10 Roll/Keep system. These are, hands down, the absolute best set of rules for gaming the tension and deadly earnestness of a quick draw duel, be it Japanese iaijutsu or an Old West quick-draw contest.

But my question regards the 7th Sea game. Is Chaosium planning on changing the basic mechanics of 7th Sea or keep publishing materials as the game currently stands, or do BRP crossover content?

I realize that this is very likely too early in the process for any firm plans to have been made, but I did want to put the question out there.

All of them are good ideas, but if we are to bring RQG to a wider public we have to give them more to do than just read more rules. We need scenarios, stat blocks, quests, adventures. The next thing we need is more info on Sorcery. As I see it, those are the two biggest needs at this stage of the process.

Well, to answer your question, one of my favorite TV shows as a kid was 'Tales of the Gold Monkey'

But it depends on your gamers' preferences. Some like 'Indiana Jones' and 'The Rocketeer', but some prefer Prohibition and flapper girls. As with any game, your mileage will vary.

1 minute ago, colinabrett said:

This 🙂 .

Though I, of course, got John Wick and John Constantine mixed up. In my defence, it's an easy mistake to make: both were played by Keanu Reeves. Now BRP Matrix ... there's an idea.

Colin

I dunno, man. Gonna be kinda hard to fit Gun Fu into Strike Ranks...

OK, everybody who thought there was gonna be an RPG staring John Wick the assassin, raise your hand.

*waves* *ducks*

But I AM thrilled that a setting as wonderful as 7th Sea is being kept, preserved and added to. It was a damned interesting game when it first came out and I still have warm memories of left-handed Castilian duelist, Senor Rodrigo Maria Theresa de Sanchez de la Punte del Este, caballo legendario [tagline: 'Because I am, of course, Rodrigo!']

Side note, if you're running a CoC game in the classic Roaring 20's era, HBO's Boardwalk Empire is pretty much required viewing and it gives a good idea of the kind of weapons available and their use appropriate to the time frame.

OK, lifelong shooter, combat veteran, reenactor, and military historian here. I'm certainly not saying that my comments are the be-all and end-all on the subject. Just like with everything there's always someone who knows more, but I'm pretty confident of my knowledge.

I address this answer to the OP, who stated he didn't know much about guns or their history. I am also not going to engage in any Second Amendment discussions here. This is strictly history as it relates to a game with strong historical ties.

I. Firearms Culture in the US between the Wars.

America in the post War One era was a heavily armed society, more so than now. While there were fewer guns in private hands in actual numbers, more households owned guns per capita. These were by and large pistols and hunting rifles, but it wasn't until the first Federal Firearms Act of 1934 that actually banned automatic weapons! It was perfectly legal to own  a Thompson submachine gun or a Browning Automatic Rifle, for example, and most sales came with a complimentary box of ammo. HOWEVER[!] please note that even the most laid back sheriff's deputy or G-Man is going look very askance at private ownership of a Maxim gun It was not uncommon to see gun ads in everything from Colliers Magazine and Saturday Evening Post to the local newspaper. While the Old West had pretty much faded in the national consciousness, the veterans of the Spanish American War /Philippines Insurrection were still prevalent and many men came home from the Western Front as hardened and damaged as any gunfighter or survivor of Gettysburg ever was. Gun safety was widely taught in the majority of the country, with some schools even having gun safety courses in Physical Education and guns were nearly de rigueur in Boys Scouts, which was growing in popularity. Hunting was not only a pastime but a family tradition and often a subsistence skill. Famous personalities as different as Alvin York and Audie Murphy a generation later hunted to eat, not for sport. This was the era a certain 'muscular Christian manhood', as Kipling put it. A 'proper' man had an outdoors streak that naturally included firearms, although just like with the Old West that was more a myth than a fact.

Prohibition did effect all this, of course. Gangsters with guns were making inroads into the American consciousness and the beginnings of gun regulation were everywhere during the Volstead Act era. However, other than in the major urban areas very little actual confiscation was done outside of these areas.

II. Game Facts:

CoC has always been a little bit leery of unlicensed heavily armed independent monster hunters in service to society [nod to GhostBusters there], and the fact is that a significant percentage of Mythos beings will shake off a burst from a Lewis Gun and laugh at you. Of the weapons that do effect Mythos creatures, the 12 gauge shotgun is favored because it does a whole bunch of damage for one attack roll. Furthermore, the ammunition is cheap and available pretty much everywhere. In the Twenties you could go to the average county store and buy boxes of .22, .45, .30 cal., 30-06, and the various shotgun gauges for the asking. Even teenagers were allowed to buy ammo. Note that this would not be the case in a major metropolitan area with organized crime problems... New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco predominantly. These dense urban areas were already beginning to regulate firearms as early as 1910.

So, shotguns specifically. By far the most common shotgun would be the double-barreled shotgun for bird hunting. It was not illegal to cut one down, but if you were accused of a crime and caught with a sawed-off shotgun, you were almost instantly presumed to be a criminal. Pump action shotguns were in the common-to-uncommon range. Many poorer families were suspicious of mechanical things and felt that a pump- or semi-auto shotgun was just another machine to break down and cost money to fix. Semi-auto shotguns were the most rare. in 1925, the first semi- shotgun, the Browning Auto-5, was only 20 years old and still seen as a rich man's toy. As a hunting implement, is was seen as unsporting. Even Teddy Roosevelt said so! However pump actions had wide acceptance, and the Winchester Model 1897 went to war with the AEF with a bayonet lug on the muzzle!

I hope this answers some of @sTmykal questions. If you have any more, I'm happy to help. Happy gaming and keep the lights on!

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Magic IS everywhere, yes!  But... no uber-mages?

The Hero Wars are coming.  We don't know how powerful the mages are gonna get, but my bet is VERY powerful indeed.

Harrek the Berzerk just recently killed his god, and now wears the god's pelt as clothing and arguably wields his gods magic in combat!

And he's somebody's sidekick... because Argrath is here.

You remember Argrath?  Last known as "Arkat" 600 years ago?  The guy who killed Gbaji the Chaos God, and damn near unmade the world, doing it?

Yeah... my bet is on uber-mages to show up.

 

I mean mages in the d20 Forgotten Realms sense of Khelben Blackstaff and Elminster... mages who babysit the world and control entire continents with their plots. Argrath, Harrek, Hon-Eel are all significant magicians, certainly the most significant magical practitioners since Jrustela, but they are not The Harpers or The Circle of Eight [from Greyhawk]. Because we're discussing different rules systems, the discussion of magical power and control are naturally going to be different, if not 'apples and oranges' then certainly apples and pears.

OK, RuneQuest /Basic Roleplay 101

1. No classes. Do what you want to do, expect to fail at tasks, get better at it. There is no magic *ding!* moment of leveling up and suddenly getting powers. If you want to sneak like a ninja, your skill starts at somewhere in the 25-35% range and you practice and train it up to 85+ 1d6 at a time.

2. Magic is EVERYWHERE. Everyone has access to magical training. But magic in RQ is fundamentally different than d20. Magic augments the person's abilities, magic interacts with the Spirit World, magic does not change everything. There are no uber-mages throwing fireballs about, but I wouldn't want to be in the blast zone of a Sunspear with enough Rune Points behind it. There are no Gandalfs, Elminsters, or Mordenkainens in Glorantha. But I wouldn't tug the beard of an Orlanthi Storm Lord if I was you. There IS a Strahd-like character. His name is Delecti and you want absolutely nothing to do with him under any circumstances.

3. Your character is part of several communities; your family, your clan, your nation, your cult. There is no room in Glorantha for murder hobos and lone wolves are usually outlawed from their clans and probably excommunicated from their cults. In Glorantha, actions have consequences and characters are held accountable for their actions.

4. There is no Good, or Evil, or Lawful, or Chaotic. There is Us and Them. 'Good' is defined as 'that which is beneficial to my people' and 'Evil' is 'that which is oppressive to my people'.

5. Combat is without a doubt a deadly affair in RQ. Almost every character that retires does so with no more total hit points than they were generated with [but usually LOTS more scar tissue]. There no such thing as a 'warm up fight' because every trollkin [RQ's equivalent to a DnD goblin] with a spear has no less than a 5% chance of ending your character's life [for the RQ rule wonks out there, that's an Impale to the head with a 1d8 spear that does more than double HP, resulting in a severed 'limb', i.e. decapitation].

RuneQuest is as different from DnD as Starfinder is different from Star Trek. It might be to your taste, it might not. But you'll be a better, more thoughtful gamer if you give it a try... which is something that can be said for all of us. Everybody should give those 'other games' a shot. Your thinking on magic, combat, world building, and everything else will be way different after a session of Ars Magica or Legend of the Five Rings, etc.

8 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

If you like that, then you might like the idea of Takeda Shingen hearing about it and hiring a double. So the PC's future Daimyo essentially inspires Kagemusha.

Gotta be careful with the Kurosawa references. Too many at one time and players will figure it out

A PC death is NOT 'a mistake', RB. The whole point of adventure games is risk and death is a natural consequence of that risk. In a full-on battle like your scenario, that risk multiplies and sometimes that means a character loss.

The real question is 'does the player feel he got jerked around'? If he does, talk to him about it and see what you can do to improve your GM skills. Also, make sure that the character's sacrifice is honored in-game. Perhaps the teenaged liege lord has grown up a bit, seeing one of his honored retainers butchered for the sake of education....

And just because we're talking Toshiro-sama, Japan, and what all else...

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

If you really want to scare them, have them find a dead body of an ashigaru that looks like their daimyo (not beyond the realm on possibly in munitions grade,  mass produced armor, especially if covered in blood and gore). While the PCs are agonizing over his death, and hopefully before they commit seppuku or do a suicidal revenge-counter attack,  the lord could show up and ask if the deceased was a relative of theirs, and then lead the PCs off to the find the killer to avenge their "kinsman". 

BTW, Why would the lord ask the PCs for permission? He's the lord so why doesn't he just go? Then some  ashigaru who recognizes the lord rushes to tell the PCs. That drops the PCs in it without the foreshadowing, upping the panic quotient. 

Oh DAT FUNNEH! We like!

And the one old NPC standing on the parapet of the castle holding a sign...

"Our liege lord is being an idiot and we have to protect him. Please excuse us. We mean you no harm otherwise..."

[Like the old retainer holding the sign in the street in the tale of 'The 47 Ronin of Lord Asano'

Okay, confession time.

I'm a lifelong military historian and gamer, but just like with every historian there are gaps in my knowledge. I'm very up on the Dark and Middle Ages, I'm OK on the Renaissance, but after about 1500 or so, I completely lose interest until about Queen Victoria's reign. And my real knowledge of Asian military history is pretty spotty. I know some Chinese, a fair bit about Japan, a little of India, and absolutely nothing of Thai, Burma, Viet etc.

BUT my wife is a huge Japanophile. She loves anime [which I tolerate at best], is a big fan of Japanese culture etc. Now, I like a Toshiro Mifune movie the same as anybody [and if you don't like Toshiro Mifune, you need therapy], and I love the L5R RPG, but I didn't start putting Japanese military history together until I met my wife. And I did it just so I could have a somewhat intelligent conversation with her. And we have a deal... she doesn't talk to me about Naruto and I don't go into great depth about my concerns about my [American] football team's off-season trades

Anyway, be sure to tell us all how your game works out.

Alright, let's go with the 'middle of the night betrayal' scenario. The key here is to present each character with a scene where they're called on to something they're good at AND something that'll be a challenge.

For example:

While the players are representative of their liege Sugura, they also have a duty to protect the interests of Sugura's ally. Do this with complications and additional goals other than just simple escape.

The players are quartered in the castle's guest room floor. The changeover is happening in the middle of the night. Therefore, the PCs are unarmed and unarmored at scenario start.

Complication 1: Getting to their gear. That's worth a couple fights right there. Remember, it would be very bad for them to return without their family's ancestral swords....

Complication 2:  Wouldn't you know it, also present is Ally's favorite concubine, who was visiting her aged and ill mother. As the changeover begins, the concubine realizes that she'd make a valuable and very damaging hostage for Takeda to take against her lord, Sugura's Ally. She decides to attempt jigai, the samurai noblewoman's version of seppuku. Can the players talk her out of it AND escape with her and her mother??? Naturally, the concubine is on the guest floor with the players and they have to protect her without their full gear.

Complication 3: Can the players escape with the supplies Sugura has delivered to their Ally, which would otherwise be captured by Takeda?

See where I'm going with this?

OK, let's all just accept that DnD is the elephant in the room, but it isn't the only game with fireballs and such. Most fantasy games roll with the tropes that DnD pioneered... the '4 food groups' of party composition [tank, blaster, healer, skill monkey /stealth] for just one example. Games as different as L5R and WHFRPG  use them and that's what the gamer public has come to expect.

59 minutes ago, g33k said:

Yes, the Necromancer was Sauron, a Maia (a MUCH more powerful one than any of the Istari, but still).

However, the Council (the most ancient, wise, & powerful elves left in Middle Earth, and the 5 Istari) knew of "the Necromancer" for YEARS before they knew he was Sauron.  Had they known he was Sauron -- or ANY of the Maiar -- they'd have acted MUCH sooner.

So they thought he was some lesser being... But what?  A renegade Elf?  A Black Numenorean?  And they just gave THAT free rein?  I don't think so!

All the JRRT-canonical ideas I can come up with are worth a MUCH more worried and pro-active attitude (despite Saruman's wait-and-see advice).

I can only conclude that an ordinary Man, not even one with any notable degree of Dunedain/Numenorean blood, might reasonably be supposed to be this "Necromancer."  That magic (at least necromancy) must be accessible to Men.

YMEMV.

 

YMEMV, indeed.

In the case of the White Council [which was made up of literally the wisest and most knowledgeable people available] discussing the Necromancer of Dol Guldur, I think there was also an attitude of denial to their discussions. By the time the White Council began to discuss the Necromancer Arnor had long since fallen, Gondor was a shadow of its former self [its King dead, the Numenorean blood running increasingly thin, beset on every front by enemies and no help to be had], Khazad-Dum was gone and the six other Dwarf Kindreds scattered. The Last Alliance of Elves and Men had defeated a fully capable Sauron only by the skin of their teeth, and every one of the players in those battles were much less than they were. They didn't want to believe that Sauron was back, given how far the Free Peoples had fallen since the Last Alliance. And Saruman, held to be the wisest of them, deliberately misdirected them. Only Gandalf had the courage to try and investigate and see the real threat.

Well, I'll happily give you that 'ChartMaster' was a lousy system to work with. Even the various watered down versions were cumbersome.

I think, however, that many of the starting character magic items might be considered Fine to Exceptional quality normal weapons, 'masterwork' if you will, rather than actual Magic Items on par with Sting or Glamdring. Even the Numenorean daggers that Merry, Pippin, and Sam got after Aragorn rescued them from the Barrow Wight had some extra 'oomph' to them compared to the local but perfectly serviceable manufacture.

As to spells themselves, you illustrate my points. While some beings who are absolutely dedicated to destruction but who are not born within Ea [Elves, Dwarves, even the Ringwraiths] might be able to cast direct damage spells, pretty much no other beings can.

A question for the Hive Mind...

How would you present RQ magics to someone who's only known the fantasy tropes? Disruption can take the place of Magic Missile, for example, especially when you explain just how much deadlier the spell is in a world without 150 hit point uber-Gawdz running around.

But how would you assemble a 'Wizard' [aka unarmored professional academic spellcaster] for an RQ campaign for someone whose only experience is DnD? Or is this a question best left until the Sorcery Sourcebook [tm, pat. pend.] comes out?

Well, just like with RQ, we have multiple interpretations to work with. We have the core books and appendices as hard, fast Canon, we have the various interpretations from games, the LOTRO game etc. But for sake of this discussion we'll keep it to JRRT's work.

Several races craft magic items... Elves, Dwarves, the Dunedain and their successors are all capable of it. All three seem to be capable of ritual magics like divination and concealment /illusions.

As to the Necromancer, that was Sauron and he is of the same class and power as the Istari [Gandalf, Saruman, and company]. All of them are Maiar, lesser spirits present at Creation who are in service to greater spirits, the Valar. The Valar hold roles similar to gods and goddesses, while the great[est] being is Eru, the One, the source of the spark of creation. Eru is not worshiped much, at least not directly. Only the Numenoreans are mentioned in worshiping him by name and even then it was only the Crown who did so once a year.

But all this does not fit into the spell-slinging tropes of the classic DnD or RQ game.

6 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

Thanks for your ideas! 👍

I would like Takeda to dig up dirt on Our Heroes, but I don't know what dirt his agents could dig up. How would you run that?

I've mined all those books you mention for scenarios. Although in the case of L5R I havent't dug very deep. I have read the current edition downloadable con scenario though.

Last session I had read The Ambassador's Tales 7dot suggested and I was going to run that, but then the players decided to first deal with Takeda's ongoing campaign against Shinano, so next session will deal about that. They reckon they need to help their ally so Takeda does not go after them afterwards, even though I have been sending them the message that their ally in Shinano is weak and mostly doomed.

Takeda has already conquered the central part of Shinano and most of the north, so he's going to focus on the south now, and that's the part my players want to help defend. Since they knew there is a powerful daimyo in Echigo (the province north of Shinano ruled by Uesugi Kenshin) who has been helping the samurai lords on the border against Takeda, they arranged a meeting with him and suggested that he attacks the north of Shinano at the same time their  ally in the south of Shinano is going to be attacked by Takeda's forces.

In the south of Shinano there are only 5 fortresses shielding the main castle against the takeda army. The players have struck a non-aggresion deal with Takeda, so they can't attack him, only help their ally defend from his attacks. Next session they are going to one of these fortresses. What wil happen there? 

I've read a bit about Takeda's campaigns in Shinano. He was successful and conquered the whole province. He managed to do that mainly because of his lightning attacks, because many lords chnaged sides to him and because these Shinano lords were not unified. So I would like this to be very difficult for my players to go well. But how can I do that and still have a satisfying session? 😕

1. Dirt on the players.

Do any players have a dark secret? Have any of them profited from their service in an unlawful way? Have any of them said anything disloyal about their lord?

In both KAP and in Sengoku era Japan, there are two constants that are always present: servants are invisible and servants want money. It's easy to bribe the server girl at the local sake house or the ashigaru who takes care of the horses to find out all kinds of ugly things about player characters unless they've been very careful.

As the old Japanese saying goes, there is only one safe place for a secret... the grave.

2. The Shinano situation.

The players are sent to aid one of their ally's castles. They are at the castle delivering assistance [be that rice, gunpowder or whatever] and they are specifically sent to reassure the ally that Sugura is behind him. As high-ranking officers of Sugura, it is also intended to send a message to Takeda... 'this is the line in the sand'.

Unfortunately, Takeda has gotten to the castle lord first. This lord decides that he has seen which way the wind is blowing and doesn't want to be around when Takeda Shingen starts taking heads. Shingen is well known for his mercilessness versus those who resist him, after all. This lord decides to switch sides while the players are present, with the takeover happening in the middle of the night. Can the players escape the trap with no preparation?

Alternatively, the castle lord is still on the fence when Takeda's forces arrive. Can the players keep the lord from falling to pieces and switching sides out of fear long enough for the castle to hold out?

I've been interested in this kind of thing as well.

One problem with getting gamers interested in new campaigns is the learning curve that gives the players the info to make informed decisions. Games like RQ or Traveller have deep backgrounds that don't always appeal to the 'ooh! I saw that movie!' generation.

LOTR is a *dandy* way to get around that and MERP had some of the absolute best off-canon writing I've ever seen for licensed game product.

But it does bring up a question...

Magic is LOTR is both pervasive and very, very subtle. Very few fireballs are flung about and there are only 5 'wizards'... and even they are actually demi-gods given mortal form.

So how do you folks see magic in Middle Earth in a BRP format?

5 hours ago, Charles said:

The Lightbringer Clan Ring is quite constrained in who may take each role. To make a stupidly exaggerated example to illustrate the point: if the Orlanth role is taken by a female Ernaldan, then the clan will be substantially weaker in magic, in internal respect and in external politics because the position holder has negative depth and identification in the role. If there is no Issaries worshiper in the clan (relatively common), then the choice gets restricted to the best trader. Etc. for the healer, the loremaster. The Flesh Man role and the Ginna Jar role can be handed out to politically important people, regardless of their religious affiliation (and to a lesser extent the Eurmal role too).

You make good points there.

However, I would also say that a Chief or Ring that makes decisions based solely on political expediency would probably suffer magically too, especially in the ring roles that are not specifically cult or role related. Ginna Jar is nebulous, even her role during the Lightbringer Quest is not really defined. She doesn't have specific mythic deeds attributed to her and is not worshiped as a Goddess by herself the way that, say, Chalanna Arroy is. So if a clan appoints a politically safe person to the seat, worrying more about the their power in the ring instead of the good of the clan as a whole, then the clan's luck and magic would likewise suffer.