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There is a bit more to it that it just being various people wanting to put their own stamp of things , or to mollify those who are not pleased with the current style of the game. I think the original reason for the rule was to actually try to make the game more accessible and forging for GMs. Prior to it, a Glorathan GM felt like they needed to know more about Glorantha before they were ready to run it. YGMV basically said, "whatever you know id fine, it's your game, as long as you are having fun, it's good" Yes there are differences among fans about things, and some stuff has changed over the years, but the I think the original idea behind YGMV was to easy the minds of new GMs who were overwhelmed and intimidated by all the Glorantha lore out there. Especially when dealing with people better versed in Glorantha than they were. If the fledgling GM did something "wrong" it was okay because it was their Glorantha. This was kinda a thing because most other games tended to have more generic, GM customization settings. YGMV also sort of important when the experienced GM want's to play and someone else tries to step up and run something without being intimidated by the experienced GM ("a colony of Yelmalion trolls?!!") When? I've seen it used to stop a couple of arguments to to just shrug off or accept an argument, but I've never seen any RQ product sold with YGMV as a selling feature. Some other Chaosium games, such as Pendragon have Your Game May Vary, with a similar intent. Basically whatever it might say in the rules or in a sourcebook or story, untimely it 's the GM's game so have fun and don't sweat the details.

Yes, but not more powerful than in D&D. The thing you got to keep in mind is that in D&D everything scales up at the characters level up. In BRP is doesn't and isn't supposed to. And that is also good in it's own way. Wizards can't really wipe out hordes of weak monsters with powerful area attack spells, but stuff that works continues to work even as the characters advance. And as for apples and oramnges-that is what you've been doing since the start when you comapred a direct damage spell to spells like dominate, control, change, or lift. They are all doing different things.

It would help if you had more experience with the game system than just " a quick stop in BRP on my way from Mythras to Revolution D100..." First off let's look at those costs a little more closely. First off 1MP per 3 SIZ means that it is probably going to cost a minimum of 5 MP, and 5 DEX ranks to change the target into something else, during which time he might just, oh, shewer the mage. Notew that I said something else, not anything like you did. He change has to be into something the same relative type. So a human, would be turned into any animal, but it would still be the same SIZ. Now a SIZ 13 housecat might be a bit of a problem do deal with. Other man sized animals also also dangerous, especially when controlled by a intelligent human's brain. Teleport and LIft spells are similarly going to cost around 5 MP to be effective against an average character, and are ineffective is not cast at a high enough power level. CONTROL (your big baddies) is cheaper at 3 MP, but requires the full concentration of the cast to get the target to do anything other than fall down, and thus ties up the caster. It additional they all have to overcome the opponent's POW. to work at all. On the other hand, Fire does 1D6 damage everything in a 1 meter circle, no roll to overcome, and could disable or kill an opponent for about 6MPs.

Yes. BRP is unclear in many ways regarding magic becuase the magic systems included were from separate games, and cobbled together to form a sorucebook. They were not designed to work together, and all underwent some changes from their original sources and so work a little differently than their originals. That does affect their checks and balances. But in general, no version of BRP has magic quick as casual or wide reaching as D&D. RujneQuest has the most magic, but it balances out quite a bit because everybody has it, but they also don't have a lot of MPs to spend, or need to wait to get them back. In most of the games with FRPG style magic, those who can cast really devastating or area effecting spells becomes a target of missile users. It's an occupational hazard.

Well, your wrong. Fireball, a third level spell in D&D that does a 5D6 (or more if the caster is higher level) in a 20 foot daimeter ball. And can littlery kill dozens of characters. Nothing in BRP touches that. First off where are you getting your domination spell from? Magic World's Advanced Sorcery supplement? It is a very powerful spell at a very low magic cost, because it is designed to be. It is far from a "not very dangerous spell" It is quite dangerous, especially under the right circumstances. But is is not the sort of spell to use as a benchmark. That would be like comparing Burning hands to wish. That depends on which armor system you use. If you used fixed armor you can get 8 points of armor. Also protection can be blown down, and wears off farily quickly compaired to armor. I don't know what sort of BRP game you've been playing but I've never seen a character who has enough MP to keep Protection 8 going all day. Well sounding from your examples, I can see why. You seem to think Domination, a rare and every powerful spell is "no very dangerous" spell and use it as a benchmark to rate other spells, seems to give the characters alot of extra magic points if they can keep Protection 8 up all day, and probably don't factor in the level dealy for casting. Spoeaking of which, how often do characters in your games get interrupted while trying to cast a spell? D*&D does the same thing. Spell Levels do the same thing. The big differences are that D&D has increasing hit points, let's characters survive below 0 hit points, and makes coming back from death much easier. The only reason why fireball isn't a TPK in D&D is becuase D&D deliberate esnures that the average damage from a fireball (or pretty much any other spell) is less that the average hit points of a typical character. A wizard gets a 5d6 fireball when the fighters are up to 5d10 hp, cleric 4d10 hp, etc. Plus CON bonuses, factor in for saving thows and "Save or none") and you really just end up nerfing the damage. To get a similar effect in BRP you'd have to drop Fireball to do less damage that what it would nornall take to incapacitate a character in BRP. So maybe 1d4? Well congrats. Consiering how much you want to upscale the power of magic, I don't see how you r players can survive it.

Most shows based upon supernatural elements do not last as long, as what are problem the two longest Supernaturally themed TV series,and don't normally have a have a connecting structure more complex that some McGuffin that causes the monster problem every episode.. Yes, but Supernatural changed showrunners several times and got to reinvent itself. X-Files wasn't exactly a "monster of the week" show. Some stories spanned multiple episodes, or had cliffhanger endings that weren't resolved for sometime or were never resolved. Both shows are more about longer running story arcs than the individual episodes. A good deal of both shows success was that the deeper stories going on were what kept the viewers watching (as long as they kept getting tidbits of information). X-Files also avoiding a lot of confrontations with monsters that returned later; it went out of it way to ensure isolation of characters; the main heroes managed to survive an unreasonable number of close calls (Mulder mostly by his Occult knowledge actually being useful, like when he knocked over some rice to delay a vampire).The three elements would make writing and running a similar RPG more problematic, as the GM couldn't reuse the same monsters, break the party up constantly, or benefit from Script Immunity. I think for a Keeper to run something long lasting then standard CoC probably won't work. With random dice and isolated Investigators, the turnover for main characters would end up being much to high. The Keeper would probably want something more cinematic for that-maybe Pulp Cuthlhu?

I disagree. Domination or being turned into a rat will both wear off, while that enemy who got burn't to a cinder is still dead a couple of days later. So if killing your opponent was your goal, direct damage or any sort is usually the best value for the cost. Uh, no. First off damage to hit locations (What you call localized hit points) is also subtracted form total hit points in every BRP game, so you can't take any more damage. For example a character with 10 HP who takes 3 points of three different locations is reduced to 1 hit point and rendered unconscious. The only real differences between using hit locations or not are with what it takes to disable a location, vs. infcliting a major wound. and the differences in what it takes to armor a character. Fire will give you a quick kill while the other two spells you chose won't. Hardly. D&D is one of the worse magic systems is any RPG, and the main reason why every version of D&D breaks down at higher level. The magic outclasses everything else. A 20th level fight is not on par with a 20th level magic user. If anybody tries to make magic work like it does in D&D in BRP, then no one is going to want to play anything other that a mage because magic will overpower everything else.A low level D&D spell like fireball can completely wipe out an experienced group of adventurers in BRP very easily, with one action. That is precisely why a fireball with a 20 foot diameter isn't a low level spell in BRP.

Basically the fact that many physic abilities can't really be defended against (other than by already having a high POW), tend to bypass things like armor, and there is very little someone can do about them.

I think it depends of just what you want to add, and to what degree. You will also need to consider the vulnerabilities that come with so much psychic ability, both in terms of plotlines and in terms of PC survivability.

Uh, that depends on the Keeper. It may well be a waste of points. Yes, and you didn't have to assigned those skills out of a collective pool of points. What Numtini points out is that players who a re building characters for an RPG will focus on those skills that have some useful and ignore or put few points into those skills that don't have much use. If Occult just ends up being "Mythos Lite" with no real benefits and no SAN loss, then it will be marginalized in play. It also depends on the style of the GM. If Occult, or any other skill, has little to no game effect, then yes it's a waste. Imagine if there were a skill called Financial History which was like Credit Rating but didn't given any of the benefits of Credit Rating. How useful would it be? No to me I think Occult should be a useful skill, just that is doesn't focus a of Mythos stuff, so it would be very useful for any sort of mystical/supernatural/paranormal phenomenon that isn't strictly Mythos based. Now if the Keeper is running a game where all such things are Mythos in nature, then Occult is a weak skill if not outright useless.

Not useful at all, by that interpretation. Basically Cthulhu Mythos would give all that plus more. I think Occult is much more useful if there are non Mythos applications for it.

Well, I'm getting contractory answers from various people, some stating that a one sided "influence" is okay. Precsiely. It's why this whole take on buying loyalty is so bewildering to me. I just don't see or accept that somebody suddenly becomes loyal to an institution because he threw money at it. Or that he can avoid having a loyalty is he doesn't want one. It's why I brought up the Cacadaemnon cultists example. I could see the Cacodaemon worshipper conning the temple into thinking he was a upstanding member of the community, but I could see him actually be loyal to that temple. To me that looks like putting the cart before the horse. People donate money to the temple so they are loyal instead of loyal people donating to the temple.

Thanks, I'm giving it a quick search for the relevant info, but maybe it would take less time to reinvent the wheel that to find a needle in a haystack.

Exactly, and none of those people are actual loyal to those organizations.They are just buying influence and favors.

Because peoples feeling and emotions to someone or some organization do no change just because they give money to that someone or organization. Just because I give money to a church shouldn't make me more loyal to that church. It's also a bad game rule that cheapens passions and loyatliies since they can be had and improved so easily. Someone can litlerayy go from zero to hero in a cult by giving a bit donation. Yes, except that is not a loyalty, nor any sort of passion. Rich people donate large sums of money to various churches and charities but it doesn't generate any sort of loyalty between them and those organisations. First off is the passion optional? Secondly, Can they keep the "pull" without taking the loyalty?

Except you'r buying their loyalty to you, not your loyalty to them.

By noting significant traits and passions of both parties. So you can have a knight with Loyalty (King) at a high score but his King could have a Traits, directed traits, and Passions that are against that knight. Yes, but what does that do with this situation? In which case the loyalty isn't actually a passion then is it? The key thing abotu Passions in Pendragon, including Loyalty is that you feel them and they pull upon you to act in a certain way. Someone with a high Loyartly would have a very hard time betraying someone they were loyalty to, and ususally that would happen when the loyatly was overcome by another passion.

If someone still has them and can find them. I know Pendragon has: Arian Christian, British Christian, Cathar Christian,Roman Christian, Byzantine Orthodox, Judaic, Saracen, British Pagan,Germanic Pagan (and deity specific sub-versions forOdin, Frig, Freyya, Forsetti, Balder, Aegir, Tyr, Thor in Land of Giants), Pict Heathen, Nomad Animist, and Evil

The difference is that in Pendragon a passion is something that the character feels strongly about. THat is why it can affect his actions and drive him towards inspiration. It's not. Just because you have Loyalty (King) at a high rating does not mean that the King has a high Loyalty to you. He might, but he might not. Romantic passions are the classic example. So someone can pick up a fanatical loyalty to a particular Temple (say Sun Dome) by donating a lot of money to it. Again I say, Yuk!

Now I'm getting confused. If a character shells out a lot of lunars to a temple does he now feel an obligation to that temple? I don't just mean the faith, but also to the orgnaization that is that particular temple?

I don't see how this is a passion, but more a matter of how much "pull" they have within the organization. In Pendragon, there is a Loyalty (Vassals) trait and even Loyalty (A particular Knight) and Concern (My commoners) to cover the reciprocal aspects of a relationship. Also if is can be either either way, then what determines when a character can ignore their loyalty, or if they are entitled to use it for inspiration? And is devotion required to achieve high rank in an organization?

Loyalty is defined as a strong felling of support or allegiance, and in Pendragon means just that. Based upon the posts about it is RQG, it just seems to be influence and status, and not really a passion at all. So basically having a high Loyalty passion has nothing to do with Loyalty in RQG. What does cover actual loyalty?

I also agree with Spence. In my experience just what makes a good adventure can vary quite a bit depending on the actual adventure and players. Sometimes more freeform adventures work out better than carefully plotted ones. Horror adventures in generally tend to be more successful in non-horror RPGs than in horror RPGs, as in a horror RPG the players come of expect the weird and supernatual take stuff more matter of factly than in a non-horror RPG . I'm also not a fan of the overly descriptive D&D style. In many cases I find such descriptions to by hammy attempts at story telling and mood setting, but usually inappropriate under the circumstances. For instance a three paragraph description of a room, right down to the wallpaper, despite the all the mon sters that would have attracted the PCs attention and taken thier minds off of the decor.

There are several regions tucked away in K&L, most variations or offshoots of Christianity, and good material for someone who wants to use those religions in BRP. I might also be fun to try and assign traits for followers of a particular Greco-Roman, Norse, or Celtic Gods. Pendragon did touch upon the Nordic Gods in one of the supplements, but the underlying idea for assigning virtues would help, as would defining them by cultural beliefs.

So what does loyalty encompass then? If someone has a high loyalty to their church could the rob, betray, or destroy it? And again, what to keep a lunar governor from buying enough influence to run roughshod over a cult?