soltakss

On 4/15/2019 at 5:19 PM, g33k said:

As per the wisdom of @soltakss

That is going to be a very short sentence, if ever written up.

8 minutes ago, Crel said:

How would you rule they help, mechanically?

I was thinking about the old versions of the spells, which effectively reduced the POW of the attacking spirit. The new versions of the spell just reduce damage taken, so they wouldn't help.

On the subject of getting help against the Bad Man in general, Vasana's Saga says:

I asked if he had been cursed by Tada’s spirits and he replied, "I was cursed and blessed. I have one eye in the Spirit World now. There are places in the Spirit World I must travel to repay my debts—the Earth Serpents aided me against the Bad Man and I  owe them dearly. I travel to them in the night, but do not worry, for my spirit-self keeps watch over me."

So, maybe it is OK to get outside help, or use magic, against the Bad Man.

On 4/15/2019 at 1:09 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

My question is mostly this: if there is a new clan broken off from an old one, how do they choose a name, do they continue to remember/mark their origin from another clan, do they preserve the mythic traditions of their previous clan (I'd imagine yes, can't see why not, unless they make some new connections in their new area, like finding a nymph or something).

I'll use the typical Gloranthan answer of "it depends".

If you just create a clan because the old clan is too big, then, yes, they would keep a lot of the traditions. I'd say that they probably create a number of bloodlines first, then those bloodlines forma a new clan. 

However, if the split is because of a schism, then there might be problems. If the clan is split between two leaders, then there might be bad blood between them. If the clan splits because one side wants to support the Lunars and the other is against the Lunars, the clans would be rivals. If the clan splits because a member finds a new power and people flock to him, then the old clan might resent that, reject the power and otherwise hold a grudge.

On 4/15/2019 at 1:09 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

Realistically, how many people, and how far can you imagine moving off? (this will be mostly women, children, elderly, farmers and livestock after all, not a band of dedicated warriors) Is this even a feasibly tactic in the more densely populated areas, such as in Heortland? Do you think it's common to send out an exploratory party first? Can one perhaps negotiate with a clan that has a claim to an area, but can't effectively populate it? (of course, this would call in question their claim to it, so the point might be moot).

I'm watching the excellent Resurrection: Ertugrul at the moment. It's a Turkish serial about the father of the founder of the Ottoman Empire and has a lot in it about clan politics, both within the clan and  with clans in areas they move to. It's well worth a watch, but has a lot of episodes, around 100 per series and has 5 series in total.

So, a new clan can start off with its own regalia, which might be a copy of the old clan's regalia, or it might create new regalia through the actions of the clan leaders.

There might be bad blood between the clans as the new clan might have taken some items from the clan regalia, leaving the old clan with pale copies. Sun County in Prax has something similar, where the Count's Regalia is a copy of a copy or the originals.

On 4/15/2019 at 1:46 PM, Shiningbrow said:

Q: do spells such as Spirit Screen, Spirit Block etc have any affect on the Bad Man when the wannabe shaman goes up against her/him to get his/her fetch?

Yes, they would help. However, I have always played that a prospective Shaman should not use magic when going against the Bad Man, as it is considered cheating. Nothing to stop them doing it, though, except for it being bad form.

On 4/15/2019 at 7:39 PM, gochie said:

Are there mechanics that enable a player to become a "god". By that I mean some sort of demi-God that has minions sacrifice POW to him/her. 

I believe that this kind of thing is going to be included in the Campaign Guide, or whatever the Games Masters Guide is called nowadays.

That includes rules on HeroQuesting and on gaining Heroic Powers and Abilities, with a Heroic Character Sheet showing your Heroic Part. One of those Powers should be "Being Worshipped". If not, I'll house-rule them pretty quickly.

On 4/15/2019 at 7:39 PM, gochie said:

It happened to one of my characters many years ago, when my earth elementalist (mage) convinced a group of little goblin creatures to sacrifice POW to him. Let's just say he was suddenly pretty strong at 30-something POW. 

If such mechanics don't exist, I would love to hear what you guys think a house rule would look like... 

Is he restricted to 21 POW (as a human) or can he get in the 100s or 1000s? Would he be able to offer spells, or perhaps only protection? Would the player be exiled from his existing cult(s) when he becomes a "god"? 

We play that one benefit HeroQuests is gaining POW and a benefit from doing a HeroQuest on the Other Side is the chance to increase Species Maximum POW (Same mechanism as a POW Gain Roll, but the increase is to Species Max instead). That allows PCs to gain POW levels above the normal 21 maximum.

As for Being Worshipped, we play that someone who brings back a spell or ability from an Other Side HeroQuest can choose to keep it themselves or teach it to their Cult. If they choose to teach it to the Cult, they get to start a Herocult, or Subcult, with a shrine in their local temple where people can sacrifice at the shrine to learn the spell. In theory, such sacrifice should increase the POW of the Hero, but we never really formalised that. I'd say +1 POW per 100 worshippers, which just adds to the Hero's current POW in all situations, as a bonus.

Going from a Subcult of a deity to a deity worshipped alone is either a case of performing a big HeroQuest or GodQuest to have a permanent place in the God Plane, or where you become powerful enough to have you own temples. However, this means you spend time maintaining those temples and doing godlike things, so it tends to take you out of the picture for Adventuring purposes.

For use, there was a wrench going from RQ2, where Shield was a Common spell, to RQ3, where Shield was only available to some Cults. We rationalised that RQ3 had a War God template which had Shield, Yemlalio was a War God, so Yelmalio should get Shield. Other cults lost Shield, which was a big blow for players with PCs in those cults.

On 4/16/2019 at 12:17 PM, Aprewett said:

My ghoul wants the same outcome as them, to kill them and in its case eat them. So if it wins by just the least victory level it gets that outcome also? But I remember reading advice that this is not how you do it, instead you assign the consequence of defeat level - hurt etc to them. I just can’t see how to use the Extended Contest in a physical conflict. Other contests I can see working.

Look at the results. If the PCs have been defeated, then they might have been captured by the ghoul, who wants to eat them later. 

Look at the combat, each loss of Points means something, so you can narrate how each PC fought and what happened to them.

There are many different ways of doing this and the trick is to find the one that suits you.

If you like running each combat as a set of Simple Contests then fine, that works for you. It's what I normally do, but I combine the PCs and NPCs and roll once.

19 hours ago, boradicus said:

Although I have only played CoC thus far, I love Chaosium's game system.  As for the skills, what immediately occurred to me as an enhancement, would be a skill "tree" by era.  In other words, some skills are related to each other in such a way that there might be enough in common between them that they could provide some cross-over capabilities.  But in order to model this accurately and neatly, a tree would be needed, wherein more general skills serve as umbrella categories for more specialized skills.  Of course, both technology, and culture progress (or, sometimes regress) from era to era, and this would provide an opportunity to create specialized skill trees based on eras - and this could be done in the form of monographs or supplements for the particular era/world/culture in question.  

Revolution D100 does this kind of thing well, in my opinion.

You have a few very general skills and then Traits that give your specialisations.

So, for example, Agility is a skill and you can have Traits of Jumping, Climbing, Dodge or Parachuting. Craft is a skill and you can have Traits of Blacksmith, Farming, Fishing and so on.

In a SciFi setting, I'd have Science as a skill and that would have Traits such as Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

For extra Specialisations, you just add Traits. So someone with Science could have Quantum Physics, Astrophysics and Mathematics, allowing them to apply all the Traits when looking at a problem involving Quantum Gravity around a Black Hole.

For me, it works really well.

HeroQuest and Legend have Hero Points and Mythras has Luck Points. Some people hate them, some people love them. When I introduced them in our RQ game, my players loved them, as we had just finished a HeroQuest campaign.

I use them for many things:

• Reroll dice, own or NPCs
• Flip the result of a D100, so 50 becomes 05
• Nudge the result of a D100, so failing by the Critical chance can be nudged to a success, so a skill of 65% has a Critical of 3, so rolling 68 can be nudged to a Success
• We use Revolution d100 at the moment, so we allow the choice of a Combat Effect if you spend a Hero Point in advance, so you get a Disarm no matter the roll, as long as you succeed
• Making something better, so you use Fast Talk to convince someone, but they are not really sure, so you spend a Hero Point to really convince them
• Move the result of a Hit Location D20 roll by one up or down
• Plot Device - You have been captured and thrown into jail, but you spend a Hero Point and the guard is an old friend from your village
• Taking time back - You went to see the Grey Wizard last season and in another scenario you need something that he could have given you, so you spend a Hero Point to have asked him for it
• Whatever - If you can justify it and it makes sense then I normally allow it

For me, Yelorna is clearly a hunting goddess, with Tracking and Missile skills. The Unicorn Riders of Prax use her hunting abilities instead of Foundchild in my Glorantha.

For me, Rabble act as normal NPCs, with Hit Locations, attack chances and so on.

However, they break very easily. If you hit one of the Rabble and take a limb out of action, it takes them out of combat. If you take half of them out of the combat, the rest will turn and run. If you use scary magic then they are likely to turn and run. If you kill some and demand the surrender of the rest then they are likely to do so, especially if you can make an Intimidate, Fast Talk or Orate roll.

Adventuring parties generally don't come under Rabble, neither do soldiers, thanes or nomad warriors. Bands of trollkin might, groups of broo probably don't. It all depends on what you class as Rabble.

We played that the Ritual of Rebirth has two outcomes, a clutch of eggs or a single egg. Both hatch after one season, but the clutch produces cute little baby scorpionfolk and the single egg hatches to produce a fully-grown scorpionman with all the abilities and memories of the original.

The cute little baby scorpionfolk grow to maturity as normal scorpionfolk, however long that takes.

23 hours ago, Tigerwomble said:

Does anyone know what the plans are generally to update older publications such as Sartar and Sartar Companion

"Older" publications, sob. I still think of these as being quite new.

On 4/15/2019 at 4:27 AM, hkokko said:

What about ordinary prison time, no ransoms at all. 

For example thieves and other criminals, people who have not paid their debt and may go to prison for a debt, even merchants who have broken laws. Any additional views this brings..

Pavis has the Salt Mines, where prisoners do hard labour for the duration of their sentences.

I think the Crimson Bat writeup said that people empty the prisons to provide food for the Bat, so that implies that there are prisons.

Serious crimes are often punished by mutilation or death, especially with Heortling's eye for an eye culture. So, prisons are really applicable for those. Perhaps there are holding cells where mutilated or executed people are kept for a week, so Regrow Limb and Resurrection don't work.

On 4/17/2019 at 4:49 PM, PhilHibbs said:

Back onto "What the heck check that out" features, if you beat off a Disease Spirit you immediately gain 1D3 POW. Bestiary p.169. Risky, but lucrative.

Right, off to summon a POW 5 Disease Spirit and set it on my mates, again and again and again ...

On 4/17/2019 at 4:26 PM, styopa said:

Wait, you get a POW check for resisting?

Checking, and yeah, that seems to be the implied intent of the paragraph:

That has always been the case, in the rules. We have never played it that way, we have always played that Overcoming POW is an Active thing and that is how you get POW Gain Rolls, just resisting is Passive and doesn't get anything. However, the rules have always said differently.

On 4/16/2019 at 2:06 PM, Richard S. said:

Speaking as teenager right now, I honestly can't remember the last time my group actually followed combat to the letter. It just feels really clunky and slow in some parts, especially for those of us who play CRPGs in which combat is a noticeably quick affair. And no, I don't think there's ever been an instance of any of us cheating.

A lot of people adjust all aspects of the rules to suit the way they play. Combat can also be adjusted without any problems.

Glad to see that you have found a better way of doing combat. Would you be able to post what you do differently?

6 minutes ago, EricW said:

The God Learner Goddess Swap was attempted because the God Learners thought there was only one Earth Goddess. The Goddess Swap failed because they have were wrong.

The God Learner Goddess Swap worked because the God Learners proved there was only one Earth Goddess. The Goddess Swap failed because they were wrong.

2 hours ago, ThornPlutonius said:

I find it amusing that your group took the meaning of the word "race" in the Traveller rules to be the corrupted meaning used in D&D (i.e., to mean "species"). 

The Human Race, The Vulcan Race, the Minbari Race, the Aslan Race and so on.

41 minutes ago, The God Learner said:

Touch your magic-rich prisoner with an unattuned truestone.

I thought about that, but it is a bit of a waste. Great to use their own magic against them though.

I am easily excited and soltakss is very easy to spell. The long version is Soltak StormSpear, which spellcheckers really struggle with. Thanks for the thread.

Rune Pools being available to everyone is a new and improved thing.

Runes themselves are newish for RuneQuest.

Have a look at the Six Flying Dragons TV Series. It is set in medieval Korea and has a lot of Confucian philosophy and mysticism. One thing it looks at it how Chinese Characters/Ideograms are built up, what happens when you combine several into one and what is the hidden meaning behind them.

On 4/10/2019 at 8:51 PM, Beorne said:

On 4/10/2019 at 8:24 PM, Iskallor said:

A copy of RQII and Apple Lane. Ignore everything else until you have played the 2 adventures. Nothing will make sense but believe me it will be heaps of fun.

What ever happens in those will be your Glorantha.

Then buy some other books, cherry pick what you like and then spend the rest of your life arguing over whether or not Lunars wear sandals or boots when visiting their grandmother.

Are you trying to scare me? 

Welcome to the Forums!

We can argue about/discuss/disagree on pretty much anything.

Do Lunars wear sandals or boots when visiting their grandmother? Which are better, bows or slings? What colour are Zorak Zoran's eyes? What colour are Uleria's Panties?

With both the clan rules from Dorastor Land of Doom, those in Red Cow and the rules for Sacred Time in the RQG Rulebook, there are a lot of rules for Clans.

What would be useful would be something to tie them all together, whether something official or a fan-page somewhere.

We used to keep prisoners for ransom drugged, as we had Sleep Potions.

We sometimes used Extension with Spirit Magic to keep them docile for long periods of time (Back when Extension worked with Spirit Magic, in case it doesn't now).

Once we gained Slave Bracelets, we used them on powerful foes.