soltakss

On 2/22/2024 at 10:24 AM, glarkhag said:

Not sure everyone would go away happy after an attempted bargain to seduce! 😂

Here is a classic example.

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+wurzels+the+combine+harvester+(brand+new+key)+lyrics

I play that using different skills influences the thing that is attempted. As an example, let's look at a seduction attempt:

• Charm: Classic seduction, using the strength of personality and experience to seduce someone
• Fast Talk: Great for one night stands but the relationship is unlikely to last and there may be some regret afterwards
• Orate: An appeal to the intellect and heart as to why the seduction should work, maybe the sense of doing one's duty
• Bargain: Simply transactional and everyone goes away happily afterwards
• Intimidate: Essentially non-consensual and not to be recommended

So, I wouldn't give out penalties to the skill depending on the skill used, but I would tailor the consequences of the use of the skill.

By Simon Bray

By Elisabeth Kirshtein.

I have never seen any skill as being useless.

All skills are useful in some way.

Putting Adventurers into a mile-high Ivory Tower and asking them to find a certain book will be challenging, unless they have the right skills. In that situation, those skills tend to be not useless at all.

On 9/12/2021 at 11:48 AM, Nozbat said:

Alex wrote: There is archaeological evidence to suggest that many nomadic tribes were accomplished at working copper, bronze, tin, silver, and gold

It reminds me of the nomadic Greek tribes of metalworkers that tattooed a concentric ring on their foreheads that Robert Graves postulated gave rise to the legends of the Cyclops. The metalworkers being represented in iconography as a single eyed person metalsmith and misunderstood when the meanings of the icons were forgotten and taken as literal representations.

Third Eye Blue in Glorantha.

Don't forget rugs, carpets and cushions. They could have a lot of art, are portable and can be used to line tents, keeping the wind and cold out.

Why did I start playing RPGs? Because Dave Rewhorn, a student when I was in my first year at University, said "Hey, I play a game where you can play other people on adventurers, want to give it a go?" 

Why did I love RuneQuest? Because I read Homer's Iliad when I was a kid and was transfixed by the battle scenes. When I played RQ it seemed as though those battle scenes had come to life. Also, I was brought up on swords and sorcery, swords and sandals and so on, which fits RQ perfectly.

Why do I play RQ now? To build worlds, go on HeroQuests and be a Hero, or a Villain, I am not really fussed which, as long as it is big, bold and impressive.

I hope you enjoyed playing. It couldn't have been too bad if you are playing a second time.

3 hours ago, Dethstrok9 said:

If you haven't already, go listen to their podcast, it's awesome!

I was one of the Podtesters. My comments were that I don't normally listen to Podcasts, but it kept me listening to the end, amongst others. Yours are the same.

Good video.

You pronounced Glorantha correctly, at least it's how we say it. Lozenge was a bit trickier, I pronounce it Loz-Inje, but some people say Loz-enje, it's as the old fashioned cough sweets or shape.

Interesting that you have spent a lot of money on Glorantha/RQ material, I hope you like them and look forward to your videos about them.

Liked it, as always.

I read a horror novel based in New Orleans, where a detective was trying to solve a series of Voodo ritual-killings of children and a cult was trying to kill 12 children to avert a disaster. The detective solves the puzzle and saves the last child, escaping to a farm in the mid-west. The book ends with him sat on his porch, looking over the plains, when he sees the mushroom clouds appearing in the distance. By the way, the film they made of it skipped the last scene, which spoiled it slightly.

That fits in with your moral dilemmas theme, doing the right thing that turns into the wrong thing.

A good video, interesting and useful.

I listened to a few of these and I really liked them. You have a very engaging personality and know your stuff.

Call of Cthulhu isn't really to my taste, but you made it sound interesting and fun.

Ummm, that's not a cow! 🙂

It is really good and reminds me of Orlanthi poetry.

Yes, very interesting and atmospheric, thanks.

However, I have found that using things like these in game sessions actually goes something like this:

[First Time] "O, hear me Orlanth, King of Storms, Master of the Middle Airs!
Your most worshipful follower calls upon your divine grace for a boon!
In this, my hour of need, I seek your Mighty Breath to aid me against my foes!
Always have I kept your laws, and given unto you the worship that is yours,
always have I remained virtuous in your eyes!
Now, I call upon you to Clear the Skies of Clouds, as once you did clear the skies for your sons, the Vingkotlings to protect them against hostile Cloud Raiders!
Protect your faithful, and I will bring you honor, always!

 Wow, that was cool!"

[Second Time] "O, hear me Orlanth, King of Storms, Master of the Middle Airs!
Your most worshipful follower calls upon your divine grace for a boon!
In this, my hour of need, I seek your Mighty Breath to aid me against my foes!
Always have I kept your laws, and given unto you the worship that is yours,
always have I remained virtuous in your eyes!
Now, I call upon you to Clear the Skies of Clouds, as once you did clear the skies for your sons, the Vingkotlings to protect them against hostile Cloud Raiders!
Protect your faithful, and I will bring you honor, always!"

[Third Time] "O, hear me Orlanth, King of Storms, Master of the Middle Airs! etc"

[Fourth Time] "O, hear me Orlanth, yadda, yadda yadda"

[Fifth Time] "I say the prayer to Orlanth and cast my spell"

[Sixth Time] "Look, I just cast the spell, we know my PC says the prayer, but I don't have to repeat it every time I cast a spell, do I?"

Sounds as though you had a good session and everyone enjoyed it.

For some reason, I couldn't quote things, so had to cheat.

3 hours ago, klecser said:

1) What do you think about the Shadowcat situation above? Do Shadowcats "follow orders" like familiars? Whether they can or not, how would you have avoided an effective "no" under that situation?

It depends on what the Player thinks the Shadowcat is, really.

If it is a trained beast that can go off on its own on forays, then I'd say that a successful Beast Rune roll would be OK for it to do that. However, I'd limit what it could do to its INT in basic commands.

If it is just a pet, then a critical Beast Rune roll would probably be needed.

If it is a familiar, or awakened Shadow cat, then it is effectively an NPC and can be sent off on its own.

As for the issue raised in the writeup, about becoming Sakkar-fodder, you could do it in several ways, if the Shadow cat encounters a Sakkar:

1. Have the Sakkar eat the Shadow Cat without the PC knowing what had happened
2. Have the Sakkar chase the Shadow Cat into a hole/up a tree, for the PC to have to go and find the Shadow Cat, hopefully when the Sakkar is not around
3. Have the Sakkar chase the Shadow Cat as it runs back to the PC, followed by a Sakkar
4. Have the Shadow Cat avoid being noticed by the Sakkar and return to tell the PC where the Sakkar is
5. Have the Shadow Cat ambush the Sakkar, jumping on it and clawing it to death from surprise

I would avoid 1 and 5, but any of 2-4 should be reasonable.

3 hours ago, klecser said:

2) Is an elemental's damage physical or magical damage? In other words, does Armor apply? I wasn't sure in the moment, so I made it physical, with the hope being that Yanioth would roll a 4, 5, or 6 on its damage to overcome armor. She rolled a five, and it was appropriately epic, but I'm wondering if I played it correctly. It just seems odd to me that you'd drop four rune points to control an elemental, roll a two for damage result when it engulfs, and have the elemental do no damage to a foe with armor. Seems a potentially huge waste of a large rune point investment.

From RQ2 memory, as I haven't memorised RQG Elementals:

• Earth Elementals deal physical damage, so armour protects. Typically, they open up a pit and grab the opponent, smashing it as the pit closes.
• Fire Elementals deal magical damage, although it is physical fire it attacks General Hit Points. In RQ2 Armour didn't protect, but spells did (Shield/Protection)
• Water Elementals attack by drowning, so forcing their way into your mouth/nose and into your lungs, so armour wouldn't protect
• Air Elementals pick you up and toss you, so you receive physical falling damage, so armour protects (Maybe you have to make a Luck Roll, I can't remember)
• Darkness Elementals attacked with a claw in RQ2, so armour protected from that, they also dealt cold damage and armour didn;t protect from that, but their main attack is Fearshock.

3 hours ago, klecser said:

3) I wasn't sure how creatures with natural weapons "parry," so I just used their claw statistic. Correct?

That's what I would do.

3 hours ago, klecser said:

4) Any skill not in any NPCs list happens at base value, correct? The biggest aide that was missing was a list of skill base values, and I will have that for the next session.

There are several ways of handling this:

1. The NPC hasn't got the skill listed, so hasn't got the skill, so uses the basic chance
2. The NPC has a general skill (Fighter 50% or Scout 60%) and you just use that default value for non-listed and appropriate skills
3. The NPC has a general skill (Fighter 50%, Scout 60%) and you just use the appropriate default value for non-listed skills

I prefer approach 3, personally, so I could have an NPC with Wizard 60%, Fighter 50% and Hunter 70%.

On 6/25/2018 at 8:07 PM, simonh said:

I used to run RQ2 scenarios in RQ3 with no conversion. Just used Strike Ranks, HP by location, etc as given. It worked out very slightly in the PCs favour mostly but not enough to care.

That's exactly how I do it.

On 2/24/2018 at 12:00 PM, Conrad said:

It would be interesting to see if you could use some of the stuff from the Mythras Classic Fantasy version with OQ to run a game. 

You can run any scenario from any RQ-like game with any other RQ-like game with varying levels of difficulty.

Mythras/Legend/RQ6 - Very Similar/Easy to use

RQ2/RQ3 - Very Similar/Easy to use

RQ2/3 with BRP or OpenQuest - Similar/Fairly easy to use

Revolution is similar to Mythras/Legend/RQ6, but treats skills quite differently, so is a bit harder to fit into Mythras/Legend/RQ6, but should be easy enough to use Mythras/Legend/RQ6 for Revolution.

After all, does it matter that a troll NPC in RQ3 has Sneak rather than Move Quietly, or a troll in Legend has Stealth, or a troll in Revolution has Stealth [Move Quietly]? As a GM, not at all.

What I do when using supplements written for one system in another is:

• Use Characteristics/Skills/Hit Points/Armour/Hit Locations as they are in the supplement, no need to convert, no need to recaulculate
• Use spells as they are in the rules you are using, if the spell isn't there then use the original spell description
• Recalculate Strike Ranks, if your systems use different types of Strike ranks, so for RQ2/3 keep them the same, Mythras/Legend/RQ6 keep them the same, but using an RQ2/3 scenario with Mythras/Legend/RQ6, recalculate them.
• Do all recalculations on the fly, rough and ready, they don't need to be exactly right

3 hours ago, Conrad said:

He is the High Druid of Britain.

Alive when Claudius landed on Britain’s shores.

An advisor to Boudicca when she challenged the Romans.

Alive when the Romans massacred the druids at Ynys Mon.

Alive when Vortigern ventured north with mercenaries to destroy the Picts.

Alive when Uther’s bastard was begat by Ygraine.

He lives still. This is his world.

It is made of the breath, scales and bones of the Great Red Dragon.

It flows through him, and he is Britain.

He has walked with gods and counselled them.

The ancestors revere and respect his presence.

The Saxons tremble at his name.

 

He is Merlin.

 

Fear Him.

 

In my Age of Arthur writeup, Merlin is the brother of Fflur and helped Julius Caesar invade Prydein as he wanted his sister to marry someone more important than Caswallawn. Caesar took her back to Rome and Merlin realised that he made a mistake and helped Caswallawn bring her back. He then spent the next 500 years plotting against Rome and trying to drive them out of Prydein. In my version, he met the young Jesus when he was brought to Prydein by Joseph of Arimathea and they came to an arrangement that Jesus was a part of Prydein, but his priests should wear their hair in the druidic fashion, explaining the Celtic Church's distinct tonsure.

Restructuring an entire company takes time, yes, but how many employees does Chaosium/Moon Design have? It isn't like General Motors and Ford are merging.

I expect everything will turn out OK in the end and that our favourite games continue.

The more you play with it, the harder it gets.

That's why I don't like updates, at work or at home,

Most memorable moments:

1. Flying ever closer to the sea before the pilot seemed to find a runway sticking out into the bay.

2. Fearing that I was the only one in costume.

3. Realising that people played until 3am - (Wasn't there a rule/guideline about that? Isn't the time moving slowly backwards as we all get older? It'll be 10 o'clock soon)

4. Meeting old friends and new ones.

5. The Money Trick and the revelation of the Satrap of Prax, seeing the new member of the Sazdork Whackoffs and Tackle team run off with my duck and seeing my rhino broo backstabbed by a broo that had been hiding in the marshes.

6. The sheer enthusiasm of some of the players. Truly refreshing.

Anyway, I made my coach connection at Gatwick, despite a half-hour delay, but had to run the 100m in what seemed like 5 seconds with a rucksack and suitcase - I left my lungs couching on the tarmac, though.

How can I persuade my wife to let me go next year?

Many of the figures will be on sale later this year, by a company called Mad Knight. They are waiting until they go live before publicising their website, but will be taking online orders soon ...

The skirmish rules need a few tweaks and more unit writeups, but could be coming to WFs soon ...

Everything is coming soon, even Merrie England ...