soltakss

I use Excel, but I like blocky character sheets with things in tables.

My Suggestion: 1. Have all these things as House Rules and give Yelmalio Shield as a House Rule

Thanks for the link and comments

Spells for cults are not about game balance. Some cults get spells that are patently useless for some people who follow those cults. For me, cults are not minimaxing things that you join to get the best spells for your PC. One good way of attracting converts is by showing that your spells are better than the spells they currently have, as not every cult has the same spells. Not sure about Shield for Argan Argar or Yelmalio, although both are spearmen-oriented. For me, if a spell isn't Common, what is the rationale for the cult getting it? If you use the RQ3 templates, then a War Deity gets Shield, so are Argan Argar and Yelmalio War Deities? Kyger Litor isn't but Zorak Zoran is. If Humakt gets it then so should Yanafal Tarnils, but does he give it to the Seven Mothers? Sword Sages shouldn't get Shield, in my opinion. As for punch-through spells, Humakt gets Sever Spirit and Truesword, Storm Bull gets Berserker, all of which are effective in combat. Why should Yinkin get combat spells? He's not a combat deity. Orlanth, maybe, but Wind Lords get Great Parry so can be good defensively.

The ritual is fine, as long as you have repented and told people what you have done. I don;t think it should work if you commit kinstrife, then perform the ritual to purify yourself before anyone knows about it. I'd play that the character would be tainted in some way, but a HeroQuest could be performed to purify them. You would have to make amends as well, either by becoming a slave, replacing the slain person in some way, or financial penalty. You would also probably get Kinslayer as part of your name, which is rarely a good thing.

Surely you mean "Oh dear, the top part of the book jacket for the Gamemaster Screen Pack must have been damaged in transit, can I have another one?" 🙄

Or ask "Which are better, bows or slings?"

POW can be gained by overcoming opponents' POW using a spell. So, of you cast disrupt, Fear or something similar, at an opponent and overcome POW on the Resistance Table then you have a chance to increase POW, up to the Species Maximum, 21 for humans. I can see where you are coming from. In RuneQuest, you go insane through magic (Madness, Luneshock) or by a magical effect (Hearing the Crimson bat scream, taking part in the Nights of Horror, seeing the Crimson bat appear for the first time). Just seeing a troll,, elf or broo won't send you mad, as you already know they exist. However, in RuneQuest, having a low POW means you are susceptible to opponents' spells and Spirit Combat. Having a low POW isn't the end of the world, but having a high POW is normally better. Not generally, but I suppose it depends on the context. If you are generating a PC for a one-off that you'll never use again, then this is a valid tactic, as you get more starting spells. However, if you are in a campaign, you'll get far more Runespells as the campaign continues than you gained at the start during character generation. For me, chargen is the basis of a PC, the interesting stuff happens as the campaign progresses.

In theory, yes. However, for game play I'd say that it worked on anyone with Praxian ancestry, which could be almost anyone.

In Revolution D100, Shoot Three Arrows at Once could be a Stunt that just applies a Penalty to the attack chance and allows all three arrows to be shot.

What happens if you bash the official RQ shield with the official RQ sword?

It really depends on individual GMs, but RuneQuest (and HeroQuest) have the feel of "Yes you can do that", whereas for me, D&D has a feel of "No, you can't do that". What I mean by that is "I want to play an evil elf who isn't a drow", RQ "Sure, you can do that", D&D "No, elves are good and drow are evil, you have to be a drow". "I want to play a wizard who uses a sword, RQ "Yes, OK", D&D "No, Magic users can't use swords". RuneQuest seems more open to that kind of thing to me. I remember seeing an episode of Tucker's Luck, way back in the 80s, where they were playing D&D and he said "OK, my fighter is going to nut him", pointing at an NPC, to be told by a horrified DM "You can't do that", as I was playing RQ at the time, I thought "You can do that in RQ" and that thought has stuck with me ever since.

What I would do in those situations is to apply Bonuses/Penalties for tactical choices. So, you get +5 for being Under Cover when in an arrow storm, +5 for having height advantage, -5 for being on unsteady ground and so on.

As @Ian Cooper says, Chained Contests are simply having a number of Simple Contests running together, with the results being used to solve a Contest. In fact, in much the same way that Extended Contests now work in HQ2. I took part in a HQ2 playtest game for Glorantha Games a few weeks ago and found Extended Contests to be playable as written. Much better than the HQ1 version and very similar to Chained Contests.

Same thing as happens when a normal Spirit loses its Magic Points, nothing. You cannot possess a Spirit, you cannot bind an Allied Spirit, so nothing happens. I'd just allow the attacking spirit to move on to the Rune Lord/Rune Priest.

I've mentioned before, maybe here maybe in other forums, that I think that a Jeeves and Wooster 1920s setting would suit Call of Cthulhu really well. You'd have between the wars decadence, flappers, cultists masquerading as chinless wonders, chinless wonder, Wooster wandering about without a clue what was going on and Jeeves solving all the problems and avoiding going insane.

A rule that Rune Points cannot be regained until the spell expires sorts this out. I'd play that it can't. I play that Extension is Extension is Extension. It is a spell, it has an effect and doesn't matter where it came from, Divination/Sanctify aside. So, Extension from Orlanth is the same spell as Extension from Issaries, for example, and I could use Orlanthi Extension on an Issaries spell and vice versa, I could also use Orlanthi and Issaries Extension together. Regarding Rune Pools for different cults in general, of a Runespell is common between the cults, then I'd allow Rune Points from both sets of rune Pools to cast the common spell. So, Flight, Lock and Analyze Magic are common to Orlanth and Issaries, though the Associate Cults, so a member of both Issaries and Orlanth could use Rune Points from either Rune Pool to cast those spells. For Divination and Sanctify, I'd actually make those cult-specific, so Divination (Orlanth) and Sanctify (Issaries), which means they are restricted in scope. Otherwise, you could use Sanctify gained from Orlanth to set up an Issaries shrine, which makes no sense to me.

When I looked at the Character Sheet, I shuddered. For me, it is awful. Regarding weapons, a good Character Sheet, for me, should contain blank spaces for weapons so that I can write whatever weapons I wan in the Character Sheet. Having weapons explicitly stated is a complete waste of space. It makes sense for the skills to be weapon categories, as those are the skills that you use, except that weapons have different damage/AP/HP. What I would do is to have the different weapon categories as skills and detail weapons with the skill listed. So, you would have a skill of 1H Sword in the skills list and a Broadsword listed as a weapon with its stats and 1H Sword as the weapon skill. That way, you have the weapons categories to hand, in case you pick up a weapon, but don't clog up the character sheet with things you don't need.

Slavery can be difficult, especially when it touches on people's family or cultural experience. Other people have given very reasoned answers, but my view follows. In Glorantha, as in many Real World World historical settings, slavery is a thing. In many cases, slavery is an alternative to death. If I capture prisoners in a war, what do I do with them? Kill/Maim them, ransom them, set them free or enslave them? If I set them free, they can fight me again. If I ransom them and the ransom is not paid, then what do I do? If I blind them or cut off their hands so they cannot fight, that is very cruel and bad for them. If I kill them, it solves my problem but is cruel and could cause resentment. If I sell them into slavery, I gain money and they remain alive. There are many routes into slavery. Prisoners of war can be sold as slaves. Poor families can sell themselves, or family members, into slavery. People can be born as slaves to slaves. Criminals can be sold into slavery as a punishment. Whether these are good reasons or bad reasons is up to Games Masters and Players. Slaves are treated very differently, depending on the culture. Pentians routinely geld their male slaves. Praxians don't keep slaves, as it is too hard to keep them, instead they sell them to slavers. Morocanth can turn some slaves into Herd Men. Sartarites have Thralls who work the fields. Grazelanders have vendref who farm for them. Part of playing a RPG is suspending your own moral views and playing the part of a character with a different set of morals. Slavery can be part of this. However, simply not owning slaves, or freeing slaves whenever you can, is a perfectly valid choice.

Pantheonic membership could have a Lay Member status, in which case you are loosely tied to the Pantheon. For the West, this would mean becoming a Lay Member of the various Malkioni sects and gaining some benefits in terms of Spirit Magic spell access. I doubt whether Lay Membership would give you access to Sorcery, in the same way that it doesn't give you access to Runemagic. Lay Membership of a Tradition might allow you to learn some specialised Spirit Magic or skills, but not more than an Initiate would get. For me, Malknioni Sects and Animist traditions are effectively Pantheons and can be treated in a very similar way.

HeroQuesting Rules, as that is an area that I am really interested in. The order I would like these in is: Gloranthan rules supplements e.g. GMs book, sorcery rules expansion Gloranthan campaign/area sourcebooks e.g. Barbarian Town, Upland Marsh Gloranthan scenario books e.g. easy-to-use scenarios that can be dropped into any campaign Racial/cultural supplements e.g. Gods & Goddesses, Trollpak Non-Gloranthan material e.g. Fantasy Earth Game aids e.g. spell cards, miniatures, adventurers journal

Only defending the Rune Priest/Rune Lord. If an Allied Spirit needed to attack in Spirit Combat, it would have to use Discorporation, which we did sometimes.

I prefer a strict SR implementation for things such as Disengaging, Fleeing and Moving. Swifty the Great Troll has DEX 21, SIZ 30 and a Quarterstaff, so attacks on SR1. Slowy has SIZ 6, DEX 3 and is using a dagger, so attacks on SR 11. If Swifty and Slowy are in combat and Slowy wants to disengage, is that the same as if Swifty wants to disengage? According to the rules, the person who disengages can and the other person gets a free attack.

Potentially. It all depends on the situation. A Great Troll with a Troll Maul and high DEX would attack on SR1. If facing someone with a low DEX, who cannot act until SR4, why should they lose their attack just because someone moves away? If moving away gives your a free attack, then sure, the attack happens without SR considerations. But someone trying to follow should get their normal attack in first.

We played that an Allied Spirit not in a familiar could intervene in Spirit Combat. However, that was always a House Rule.