Ian Absentia

Signature Lines How do we change them? I have one that I must've set when I joined back in 2008. I can't seem to find a means of changing it now in my profile settings. !i! [Edit: Found it! Though it clearly wasn't where I expected it. Go to your profile icon in the upper right corner of the page. There's a dropdown menu to the right of your profile name. Drop down to Account Settings, click. When taken to the next page, the last Settings option on the left is Signature. Click, and signify away.]

So...when an Ostrich Rider sticks his or her head in the sand, the ostrich becomes invulnerable? I approve! !i!

I'm trying to think if there's a single cereal grain in the real world that isn't roasted and steeped to make a drink. I'm fuzzier on the New World grains and seeds, but I think even a number of legumes are used for beverages -- certainly for making "milks". Provided they haven't been 'effed out of canon, Glorantha has most counterparts and a few new ones. I have some boricha right here -- roasted barley "tea" -- though I'm drinking it cold, and some genmaicha (roasted brown rice with green tea) up in the cupboard. How 'bout some hot bloodbean milk? !i!

How did the US Postal Service know how to deliver your package with the address blacked out? They're amazing! !i!

😲...😵 !i!

Boo! 👉😾👈 This smells as bad as "Pavis isn't prone to urban fires because of runes." Too much "mythic" hand-waving is boring. Save the mythological relevancy for heroquests. !i!

And your brevity was much appreciated. Take another bow. !i!

Thus sparing the dilemma of Newtonian Physics vs Divine Order when calculating falling damage. Well played. !i!

Go on. I'm unaccustomed to this degree of brevity regarding this topic. There are films? Must I watch them? !i!

A book on pachyderms alone? You're my hero! !i!

I'm unfamiliar with this "Prisoner of Azkaban". Could you explain the context of this reference at length? !i!

In my Glorantha, the gods love real world physics -- the effects, if not the actual calculations. They're enamored at how our physics so closely model the effects of their divine order. They adore stall speeds, gravitational pull, tidal effects, molecular chemistry, etc. Took them ages to get all that just right, and it's a marvel that our real world mirrors those effects on a sphere of all things, and apparently without demonstrable divine guidance. It's rare that they go mucking up the divine order to suit the whims of mortals, and when they do it inevitably turns into a runic pissing match on high -- or on low, depending on the gods involved. None of this, of course, is a surprise to the Mostali. !i!

To be clear, no pigs, real or imagined, were harmed in the production of this illustration! !i!

You have my attention. I'm still iffy on bows while airborne, but, hey, if a horse archer can manage it.... You have me re-thinking javelins, if used like a large dart in a tucked dive. The real point, though, is that Wind Children generally hold the advantage of elevation and mobility against grounded opponents. Spock, re: Khan -- "He's intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates 2-dimensional thinking." Hrm. Next up: Aquatic combat among the Triolini. Dog-fighting with spears and nets! !i!

The primary limitation that seems to get overlooked when dealing with the Wind Children is that the action of their wings occupies a huge volume of space (assuming they need to pay at least some lip service to physics and flap their wings to fly -- God, I'm growing weary of this "cuz magic" Rune-affiliation hand-waving). Swinging a sword? Spinning a sling? Unh-uh. Bows, problematic. Javelins? See swords. Poignards and naginatas make great sense, as do skillfully managed grapples and nets. Keep those wings free. !i!

Yer slayin' me! Maybe hooks or barbs on the backside of the swordstick blade? I'm blanking on the home defense martial art where samurai wives would train in using a pruning hook to disarm -- sometimes quite literally -- intruders. That could be nifty. In general, though, I assume that Wind Children adopt the tactics of peltasts and light cavalry -- don't stay in one place and get whomped by heavier arms. !i!

...but mostly for the slash-and-draw effect, a vestige from early development as cavalry weapons. A variety of utility, though. Check out the sasumata, or man-catchers. I have to wonder why Windchildren would carry such things about, though. !i!

Not so much a story from my RuneQuesting as it is a key element of my childhood... !i!

For a project i'm working on, I'm testing the meta-game assumption in play that individual people have no inherent "pool" or battery of Magic Points that can be summoned by force of will or expended psychically. Instead, Magic Point accumulate in a variety of places and can be liberated by a variety of events -- to wit, ceremony and sacrifice, sacrifice being the more immediate and explosive method. It can be as simple as destroying an object of intrinsic or emotional value, or as extreme as ritual blood-letting. In this paradigm, no power comes without a lasting price. We'll see how it goes over with the players. !i!

I always imagined a naginata, but six of one, half dozen the other. !i!

It's mostly genetic memory, so I'm on the hook, too. Don't even ask me about the Dutch. !i!

I blame the Irish. For so many, many things. But with regard to style guides, check out the Chaosium website (linked through the banner up top), if you haven't already. Their site features submission guidelines for all of the active publications, though I don't recall off hand how specific they are regarding structure. There's generally wide berth for how you present your personal work, but I recall suggestions for common elements to include. My suggestion, for what it's worth, is to take a survey of your favorite published adventures, make note of what worked (not necessarily why), and find the commonalities in structure and presentation. What's worked for you consistently is probably the best guideline for communicating your adventures to others. !i!

Such delicate flowers we have to play with these days... This is for general reference, of course. And very, very Medieval Irish. Start at "Did you break your gease?" and replace events, options, and outcomes with substitutions of your choice. Ending with "DIE" might very well be "ICE CREAM" if that's what your players need. A version of this that I tried once was to create a cast of about 10 NPCs, grouped into overlapping subsets of 3 or 4. Each NPC had a short list of motivations and goals, and each subset of NPCs had a short list of interpersonal dynamics among them. As the player characters entered into the orbit of any subset of NPCs their actions would activate those goals and dynamics; moving into the orbit of another NPC subset would activate those characters, including any influence carried over from previous interactions. It worked great as a GM, but was much more difficult to write as a publishable script for someone else to play. On paper, though, the flowchart was not unlike the once above. !i!

Regarding Flowchart Structure, here's the sort of RPG adventure I've wanted to write for some time (and tried once!)... Point being, I don't think there's just one way or a best way to write a RPG adventure. I do think there's a better way to actually play them, though. And a very good way to write them is to not provide too many (or any!) dead-ends that obstruct play. Always provide an exit strategy, a Plan B. !i!

This may drive straight to the heart of most published scenario problems -- an adventure being either written or perceived by the GM as a linear progression of contingencies. You know: A --> B --> C --> D --> Conclusion ...with no deviation from the path. Can't get to D without going through C, and can't get to C without going through B, etc. Continuing the analogy with a linear path, what you describe as a "scene" is a landscape or environment in which B, C, and D can be encountered in a variety of places and not necessarily in ordered succession. And where sub-plot X --> Y --> Z may occur, but not necessarily affect A-B-C-D. Getting back to the OP, where we ask where an all-purpose adventure outline can be found, I think we're going off into a branch of literary theory that relies more on a flowchart approach that may fan out and reiterate through characters, places, and events before arriving at an endpoint, rather than a traditional Three-Act Structure. !i! [Edit: So, yeah, maybe the OP was looking for examples or explanation of the traditional Three-Act Structure. I apologise for including an advertisement for the MasterClass series, but most of the relevant information for this topic is available online for free through the link.]