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5 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

We had an initial batch printed for Chaosium Con. In all likelihood we will set this up as just a POD title.

Why not PDF? I would love to have all of these, but I don't think I need dead tree, especially to the extent I already have dead tree of some of it (not being sure of what's included, I'm not sure what percentage I already have in dead tree)...

8 hours ago, soltakss said:

Cult Compendium contains Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror, as well as a lot of cults from other sources, including the White Wolf magazine.

It is very well worth buying and I can't recommend it enough.

Also handy to have a single volume.

And yet most of the time I use Cults of Prax... Except for PCs in a cult not in Cults of Prax....

17 hours ago, icebrand said:

You needed two weeks of downtime to reflect on your deeds to roll checks on rq3, so triple that time!

Also, having an adventure every week (or every 3) seems like... Too much?

In RQG those 4 years become 40!!! Much more reasonable!

I think that 4 years and an adventure every week was intended to be player time, not character time.

I gamed with John Medway many years ago. I haven’t heard from him in years. I’m in Portland but only do virtual table top. I run two 1st edition (1978) games on Roll20. I just got two Portland players via the Facebook group. 

INT 2d6+6 was introduced to RQ2 in Trollpak.

I run RQ1 with some bits from RQ2 plus 2d6+6 INT (but still 3d6 SIZ).

I house rule that the experience rolls are made as 1d100 + Ability Bonus > Skill. For a while I was doing training costs based on Skill without Ability Bonus but that turned out to make training high skills too easy and cheap.

I have a few other house rules.

If you just want PDF, yes, the Gloranthan Classics Volume III: Cult Compendium is a good buy. It has all the official cults published for RQ2 plus a couple from RQ3.

If you want print, you need to go with Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror.

I would also add that any of the new RQG scenarios should be pretty easy to use with RQ2 though you may have to wing a few numbers (does RQG have "Defense"?) and you may find the opponents a bit tough for a starting RQ2 character, even if you use the previous experience from the appendix.

And there are even a few of is around who still run classic RQ who would be happy to answer questions. I personally run 1st edition, but I understand where and how RQ2 and RQ1 differ.

And good suggestion to look at the rule book and Apple Lane. I'd also add Cults of Prax which mechanizes more of the Gloranthan culture in the form of a good set of cults. And Cults of Terror if you want to make some of the nastier foes more than just a set of combat stats...

Face to Face (if I ever get there again) - battle mat and tokens or miniatures. I have a bunch of the D&D plastic miniatures that I can use (even got some "broos" back when I was buying them... 🙂 )

Online - Roll20 with maps and tokens.

Cool bit about online. For my Thieves Guild campaign, I took the 11"x17" 50' to the inch map of Sontra from Columbia Games Streets of Gems and resized my hexes so I have 1 meter hexes on it for RQ... With 1" hexes that would be a 15' long map for face to face play...  There ARE some real advantages to virtual table top...

11 hours ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

Depends on the referee and the playerees in the end.

Very good point. My campaigns would register as Classic per those categories... I've been running RQ mostly the same way since 1978, and I still run 1st edition. I'd probably run RQG more or less the same way... (well, OK, the Passions would drag a change, and that's probably part of why I resist RQG...)

41 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

But there's always Indlas Somer! 😉

Yea that one is only a little better…

There is a nice harper cult. And if Cult of the Tiger  hasn’t been published elsewhere that’s  a good one. 

2 hours ago, Beoferret said:

Wasn't there an article in one issue outlining the Cult of Geo? (Maybe Jeff's written that into the forthcoming Sartar material though.) I've got a soft spot for DW, even though I only have two issues. The issue with the "Cult of the Tiger" article by Steve Perrin was my introduction to TTRPG. The cover illustration totally caught my eye and fired the imagination. Thankfully my parents were willing to buy it for me, even though I was maybe 8-9 years old. 

I know the map of Geo's locations has been re-published.

I love my collection of Different Worlds, and I have some willingness to use some of the non-Gloranthan material in my campaign, but yea, there is very little that hasn't been included in some way.

6 hours ago, soltakss said:

I thought it was used all the time.

You just push a Heal through it and it boosts the Heal by up to its POW. 

So, a Heal 2 pushed through a POW 3 crystal gives you Heal 4, but a Heal 4 pushed through a POW 3 crystal gives you a Heal 7.

Yea that’s the conclusion I’ve come to except as I run RQ 1 there is no Heal 7 so I’ll copy the rules from Power Enhancing crystals that say that you can’t exceed the max for a variable spell but instead can cast multiple spells. 

1 hour ago, Dragon said:

That makes a lot of sense then. Sounds like a pretty inexperienced group of characters (not players). When I first joined Glorantha, back in 1982 or 83 and RQ2, the rest of the party were pretty experienced characters, so many had paid for Heal 2 at least. The one Rune Lord (our leader) had Heal 6, and the Xiola Umbar had Heal 6 by the time I joined.

Some of the characters are reasonably experienced, they just haven't actually got that much treasure and the players haven't really given much thought to rounding out their spells.

6 minutes ago, Dragon said:

Yes, back in RQ1 and RQ2, the limits could not be exceeded. So if you have a POW 3 Power Enhancing crystal, you are still limited. If you cast Bladesharp 2, you get 4. If you cast Bladesharp 3, you get 4. If you cast Dispel Magic 4, you get 7, because iirc it had no limits. RQ3 and RQ:G have no such limits.

I would suggest you avoid that temptation. The scenarios just seem so odd to me. Examples with a 3 POW crystal: I can cast Heal 2 and heal 4 damage. I can cast Heal 3 and get 6, but if I cast heal 4, I only heal 4. If I cast Heal 5, I only get 5 damage healed. It would be hard to rationalize, and contrary to the rules as written.

A POW 1 crystal would be useful only when casting Heal 1? Just weird.

But it is your Glorantha and you can choose what works for you.

Granted, a POW 3 Healing Focusing crystal is one of the best standard magical items in the game. But I don't see that it really needs to get wacked hard with the nerf bat.

I commiserate with the party. Having two people who can reattach a limb is great. Especially when the PC with Healing 6 is the victim. On the other hand, I presume that PC with Healing 6 has been healing the party more than most other party members, and it seems a fitting reward for such (presumed) steadfast dedication. If that is not the history of that party, my preference may be to give it to the one who heals most often and/or has the bigger magic point pool. They can make the best use of it.

Yea, good point about nerfing the items. I won't add that restriction.

The PC with Heal 6 has not done a lot of healing because he only recently got it. Previously there was an elf PC who had Heal 6 but the player was asked to leave. When the party realized Heal 6 was an issue, and noticed the current healer had started with Heal 5 (rolled from previous experience) they gave him a larger share of treasure so he could learn Heal 6. In fact right now he is the ONLY PC in the party with Heal at all... Everyone is bummed the player of the PC with Healing 3 had to drop out... He was also a shaman which would be useful in their current endeavors...

OK, that was my gut feel. Given playing RQ1 (with some RQ2 bits), I plan to apply the comment about Power Enhancing where the normal limits of a variable spell can't be exceeded, but you can also effectively multi-spell. And yes, Heal 3 doubled to Heal 6 only takes +2 strike ranks and does knit severed limbs.

Part of me is tempted though to say that using the crystal you can't cast a variable spell with more points that the powered crystal has, so a POW 1 crystal could only be used to cast a 2 point spell using 1 POW (or 2 1 point spells simultaneously) not add 1 free point to whatever you cast. But maybe that would be annoying.

In any case, the 3 point Healing Enhancing crystal they found will be much appreciated... They are lamenting that the player of the PC with Healing 3 had to drop out since having that character use the crystal would have meant two PCs with Healing 6. Instead, they will have the PC with Healing 6 use it.

I looked over the questions about Powered crystals, and I'm wondering how often you can use a healing enhancing crystal. I'm running RQ1 in case anyone knows of a ruling from the RQ1/2 era, but current ruling would be a valid place to start from. It's interesting but not that exciting if it's only once a day.

On 1/30/2022 at 9:14 PM, Hendrik said:

This thread seems to focus on the skills based aspect, which is fair enough, but it was WAY more than that.  I won't even go there with the nonsensical saving throw system, a mage unable to pick up a sword to defend themselves, thief skills that are made obsolete by magic before you get them to a useful level, arbitrary lines between good and evil, monsters with(out) motives, xp for gold, magic that eclipses all else at 'high level'....oops, I'm going there!

More importantly Glorantha represented a real break from the Tolkienesque tropes and opened up a compelling world integrated by its magic system, giving it an internal logic and reason to exist.  It really felt like the world shaped the rules, rather than the other way around. That is the thing that makes RQ what it is, IMO.

9 hours ago, JRE said:

As probably others, my first exposure to skill based games was Call of Cthulhu, so when I encountered RQ2 in 1984 it was already well established in my mind, so RQ was instead the game where everybody used magic, and magic really was everywhere, specially outside combat. I only started playing when I got RQ3 Gods of Glorantha. Erocomatose lucidity for the win.

These points are definitely notable, and points to the revolution not being any one thing, but the whole, though "everybody uses magic" is actually a first for RQ and is actually still pretty unique because it contrasts even to games which are all about the PCs being magic users of some form (like Ars Magica). Non-tolkien fantasy of course had already been done with Empire of the Petal Throne (which was otherwise pretty close to D&D), though RQ was only the 2nd non-European/non-Tolkienesque fantasy RPG (well, third if you want to count Bunnies & Burrows). It was also among the first or truly the first game to stat up everything the same way as PCs.

In one campaign I started to give players some number of checks at the end of an adventure, or other reasonable check point. The checks had to be made on skills the PC had earned a check on, or were something logical like Riding or Speak Language to have gained experience on without making an explicit check. Another option, back in the 70s and 80s, I used to give +1% to the check roll for each additional check beyond the first.

These days it's just RAW, one check, one gain attempt granted.

Trying to download the latest version and getting a failure.

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

If those pyramids use equilateral triangles (which some dice might not), the octahedron is a platonic polyhedron - the triangle-sided inner and outer body to the cube, similar to the relationship between dodecahedron and icosahedron.

But yes - I prefer icosahedral D10, too.

I think there have been some stretched d8s produced, but yes, the original d8 shape, a regular octohedron, is a platonic solid.

I prefer using icosohedral D10 also. Sometimes I'm tempted by those d10 sets with one die numbered 00, 11, .. 99 (and some sets even have a 3rd die for the 100s place), but I prefer my platonic solids.

My one odd one is the Zocchi octohedral D4 since a tetrahedron has always been tricky to properly roll.

Oh, hey, another reason I love RQ1 over later editions... It uses all the polyhedral dice... Later editions got rid of d12 for damage...

9 hours ago, Bren said:

And Space Quest used the not really all that revolutionary D30. I don't know if the designers thought it made the game 50% better than D&D which used a D20 or that they would commit some sort of IP infringement if they used a D20.

You are the only other person (besides me) I've ever seen reference Space Quest.

And the D30 hadn't even been invented yet. You had to use a d6 and a 0-9 D20 (because the d10 hadn't been invented yet either) if I recall.

I really wish I hadn't got rid of Space Quest, it was definitely a unique game.

6 hours ago, Alex said:

Y(RQ edition)WV, but RQG covers this explicitly.  "Spells that have a 95% chance of success against an enemy do not provide sufficient stress to allow a POW gain roll."

Well there you go... (Note I still play RQ1...)

I've never considered when to not allow POW gain roll, but rather than saying 0 MP/POW means no gain, I would say no gain if you have a 95% chance of success, or maybe have a mathematical 100% or better chance (which pegs at 95%). Someone with a single digit POW deserves all the opportunities they can get to improve.

I had this same question a couple months ago... It surprised me that it had never been answered in over 40 years...