Ian Absentia

What are appropriate Attack/Parry% and MOV for different types of door? !i!

We're talking about imbibing it? My first thought was, a significant chance of instant and irrevocable death, followed by a lesser, but still significant chance of "draconic" madness. If one survives, well, the boon should be equally significant. It's the draconic equivalent of putting your tongue in a light socket. !i!

Dang, I forgot to suggest that, too. Simplify, simplify, simplify! We are, of course, discussing the very things that make Pendragon what it is, what draws us to it, and what's going to give Carter a game that's different from his D&D or Pathfinder game. Not better, necessarily, but different. And wonderful. But as @Atgxtg points out above, for the unfamiliar, it's easy to fall back on muscle memory and resort to point-and-click roleplaying. I've done it myself. Personality before physics! My apologies for my lack of irony flags. Welcome to the party, pal! !i!

Land of Giants is fabulous as a grey-to-sepia adaptation of KAP. Primarily, it's a cinematic 'port to a different setting (Beowulf!), with little in the way of changes to mechanics. As Morien points out above regarding Saxons!, LoG is written for an earlier edition of the rules, but with few changes that can't be adjusted if you know the difference between the two. Chronologically, it's contemporary with KAP, but playing a cross-over between the two might show some strain. !i!

Two of them, in fact. Twice as streamlined! !i!

Oh, God, please no. Not comparative ethnography*, too. !i! [*Yes, yes, "comparative anatomy," though what I really meant was "racial typology". Carry on!]

Pro Tip for Noobs: Ignoring the Passions and Traits mechanics streamlines game play significantly! Enjoix! !i!

Again, enh. I'm aware of molecular chem, quantum physics, genetics, chaos theory, and global climate change, I understand some of them better than others, and I believe that they affect and drive daily life. But they seldom come up in general conversation. From where I stand, the sun rises and sets on a flat world made of plants, animals, dirt, and air. Presumably everyone else around me operates on the same functional assumptions, because that's all we basically need to know. Until the big, red bat turns up, of course. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but a starting character in Glorantha, while he or she may be assumed to have more in-depth knowledge of the world, doesn't need it on a crib sheet to start the game. The sun rises, the sun sets, you take a deep breath of air, you apologise to the elf for cutting his sister's arms off. Now would be a good time to explain to your fellow players some common lore regarding Aldryami. (Though, to be fair, when was the last time anyone in your village saw an elf or dryad?!) The points at which the tropes of Glorantha diverge from the real world or common fantasy can be encountered as part of play. Start small, then expand outward. !i!

Enh. Molecular chemistry, quantum physics, genetic mutation, chaos theory, and global climate change. Sometimes it's not of practical use to wrap your head around the Big Stuff when you're trying to get home from the grocery in time to make dinner. !i!

Think about the big questions of real world science and Why Things Are the Way They Are. Then consider how often you really concern yourself with them on a daily basis. Thus is it with Gloranthan mythology and cosmology. You're just a bunch of people doing what you do to get by on a daily basis. Which happens to involve magic. And giant, red bats that decimate entire populations, though that hardly happens every day. But neither do hurricanes and earthquakes, and when was the last time you seriously wondered how and why those things happen? For most people, Earth or Glorantha, they just do. Start small, ignore the Big Stuff, then specialise as you gain proficiency. !i!

Agreed! Though, to be fair, there's a wide variety of "working physiques." Working with track & field athletes, for instance, there are the throwers. Discus and, especially, javelin throwers tend more toward your classic V-chested, narrow-waisted Greek warrior physiques. But the shot put and hammer? They're barrels, with a solid low-to-middle center of gravity, like our Vingan here, or the Rune Lord on RQG p.266. Definition? That's for runners, especially LD. !i!

Because they are! 😄 Almost straight adaptation from the excellent Book of Knights (Green Knight, 2000). And I love the Genpei era -- almost always overlooked in favor of the Sengoku. Around 2004 I was in talks with Greg and Arthaus about developing it fully, and around 2010 Greg was in talks with a Japanese author about something similar. I wasn't aware there was a current project in development, but @sirlarkins, if you want a bundle of 15-year-old development notes, ah'm your huckleberry. !i!

UGH!!! Stop it. I'd give you guys barfy-faces in response, but it's not an option. That said... That's part of the beauty of this painting. Not only does the Vingan warrior look like someone who could endure the hardships of combat (and that's a critique that can be applied to many depictions of male warriors, too), the generational connection to the game world is subtle, but powerful. !i!

Nah, if that was truly a worry, we'd be having this discussion in the HeroQuest forum. 🤐 RQ is all about the mechanics. Well, mostly. !i!

Beating this analogy into the ground... Individual combat skills and equipment = PPE and task goals Battle skill = HASP and task management Ugh. But, yeah, Battle skill is management of suites of combat variables as a whole. It's more of a squad-level tactical and strategic skill than a directly oppositional combat ability. !i!

Those rows of dice in the lower front-and-center are far too tidy. You need to keep that trouble-maker busier. !i!

This... ...and this... Scale up or down to your group's tastes. That part's actually pretty easy. The heart of the question in the OP, I think, is: Do I like the shift toward superheroics implicit in the mechanics and setting of the new edition? And that's open to debate, but is still the subject of personal tastes. Me? I trend toward Zero-to-Hero, too, but I have to admit that it's refreshing to be able to jump into a battle (I'm sorry, Leap, per the now-readily available Rune spell) with my 1H Spear augmented to 145% in the second session of play. I often start campaigns with rag-tag assemblies of farmhands, cowherds, trade apprentices, and squires, then ramp up on an accelerated schedule. Which reminds me, I really need to write up my Doom Comes to Vinland scenario. !i!

Wouldn't the existence of a codified Rune deny Free Will itself? You knew that was coming, right? !i!

There's our huckleberry. This is essentially how I envisage a Nathic twin-scimitar trance. As for broadening the interpreted use of Meditation, yeah, I've been going down the house rule path. But don't we all in actual play? That said, Meditation can still augment the casting of non-ritual spells, if not bonuses to spell effects. And thematically it's totally in keeping for someone preparing for a [Weapon] Trance spell. !i! [Edit: Dang, and there's Arrow Trance in Gods of Glorantha, all the way back in 1985.]

Wouldn't it, though? I'd momentarily forgotten about the Rune spells Axe Trance and Sword Trance, both of which clearly state that they're incompatible with Berserker and Fanaticism, suggesting that there's more method than madness to the trance. I reckon this is the Theist's path to trance-induced combat, and I'd allow the Meditation modifier discussed on RQG pp 244-245. And here we have the Mystic's path. It'd be nice to have a method comparable to Axe and Sword Trance (+10% per magic point expended) that could be augmented by Meditation, but without the connotations of Theistic Rune magic. Maybe we're looking right back to something like RQ3's Ki Skills, though those explicitly require mastery (90%+) to develop, while Rune magic can confer the trance state on anyone with the spell. Perhaps that's the essential difference between Theism and Mysticism, though -- in Mysticism, you're the master, not your god. !i!

"Ki Skills," which started as the Critical ability of a normal skill that reached 90%+, then tracked and developed as a separate skill. So your character might develop Ki Archery, Ki Sword, Ki Calligraphy, etc. It represented the expression of one's Ki energy through a mastered skill of almost any sort, not necessarily combat-oriented. You'd power the Ki skill with Magic Points, then make a single roll against both the target skill and the Ki skill; if you succeeded on both, you were allowed a special effect. Aside from spending the Magic Points, it didn't necessitate formal preparation and time commitment, though there was an allowance for augmenting the Ki skill with a successful roll on Ceremony. Thoughts: a) Ceremony as a precursor to Meditate. b) What happens if you develop a Ki Ceremony skill? !i!

This is essentially my thought. Meditation is preparation for performance. If there's a delay between mediation and action, then one is no longer meditating. Think of it like the zen process of contemplate-contemplate-contemplate-EXECUTE. It's clearly not intended as a "Vancian" spell one can keep loaded in the chamber ready to fire. If a delay is occurring between meditation and the expected action, why not keep meditating? Build that incremental bonus as high as you can while you wait. Now, I'm fascinated with the possibilities of the potential skill modifiers suggested on RQG p.183. Stretching the rule allowance way beyond what's intended in the text, I'm envisioning meditation-induced, mystical combat trances. In the simplest implementation, it'd be like the zen process I suggested above, culminating in a single blow, shot with an arrow, etc. Stretching it farther still, one can imagine the whirling Nathic mystic with twin scimitars carrying the Meditation bonus well into combat. !i!

In current print... G2G, vol.1, several but most notably page 27. G2G, vol.2, several but most notably page 589. For some brute mechanics, you can track down the original Gods of Glorantha under the entry for Hykim & Mikyh. There a couple of tantalising threads here with even more tantalising (and generally out-of-reach) resources, few of which agree with one another. !i! [Here's one of the threads I mentioned. In it is an even more deeply nested thread on the same topic. And somewhere, somewhere, I have a copy of the totally non-canon Basmoli article from Tales of the Reaching Moon No.14.]

For the record, I'd like to know how small a dent I could make in Harrek. !i!

This has long been my problem with the "Mock Contests" element of HQ2. I almost called it a rule, but it's really more of a GM's tool. I understand that the GM is supposed to be creating an atmosphere of chance and suspense. As a rule, though, it skirts dishonesty and has to be handled carefully, and with player buy-in. If an obstacle is clearly insurmountable, but the players still want to take a run at it, they need to know that they're rolling to see how small a dent they can make in it.* !i! (*It's almost worse when they realise that they're rolling just to see what kind of spread they're making on an automatic success.)