soltakss

I wasn't dismissing your ideas, just saying why I wouldn't think they were necessary. As to solving the problem: Extra Luck Points for other races - You work out a system of handicaps for races, with each worth a certain amount of Luck Points, then assign the difference to the other players. So, if a human is 0, an elf/dwarf/troll is 1, a centaur/minotaur is 2 and a dragon is 3, a party with huamsn, an elf and a dragon would mean the elf gets 2 Luck Points and the Humans get 3 Luck Points. That way, they can be more heroic and can do more than the dragon. GM Luck Points - The GM has the same number of Luck Points to be used against the problematic PC, so the GM would get 3 Luck Points for NPCs to use against the Dragon. Disadvantages - You assign a number of Disadvantages to the problematic races, which makes them weaker. These could be general disadvantages or ones specific to the PC. So, a Dragon might have a religious geas of Never Breathe Fire Indoors, or a Troll might have Never Hide Under Bridges. Restrictions - You restrict the Professions available to problematic races, so a Dragon might only be a Warrior or Sage. Also, restrict the skills they can use or the spells they can learn. Some races might not get cool stuff, so you give out human armour, weapons, things a dragon cannot use, that way the other PCs get more kit and the dragon gets nothing Enemies - Problematic Races get more enemies. A Dragon is a Dragonslayer magnet, for example. In combat, who are the NPCs going to fight, the humans or the Dragon?

Ah, you see, I treat NPCs the same as PCs. I don't have one rule for PCs and one rule for NPCs. That, for me, was one of the great strengths of RQ, NPCs get experience rolls, can join cults and obey the same rules as PCs.

Cacodemon is Son of the Devil, son of Ragnaglar, brother of Orlanth. I like the idea of Ragnaglar's Hall being a place where bad Orlanthi are drawn, something I've never really thought about before. Thanks.

It's not entriely accurate, though. Ringworld owes more to RQ3 than BRP Thieves' World Companion is based on RQ3, not BRP Hawkmoon derives from Stormbringer/Elric rather than BRP Revolution D100 comes from the same root as Legend, but is missing Nomad Gods 2nd Edition is missing and should come from Dragon Pass Magic World should have a strong dotted line from Stormbringer

And RQSciFi, on my website.

I haven't seen Moana, but I did watch The Whale Rider, which was definitely a HeroQuest. Grr, can't get Spoliers to work properly, so have moved it to the bottom ... In Glorantha, a HeroQuest conects to a Mythic Event, not a PreTime one, so you could do the Red Goddess tames the Crimson Bat HeroQuest and come out with a Batling, even though that happened within Time. It had an effect on the God Plane/God Time, so can be accessed. I normally say that a HeroQuest is a Myth overlayed onto a Situation. To have a HeroQuest, you need a Myth and a Situation. Without a Myth you haven't got a HeroQuest. Without a Situation, you are just telling a story. Put them together and you get a HeroQuest. In Glorantha, the God Time is very similar to what I understand Dreamtime to be. HeroQuests as Singlines and Walkabouts are very appropriate, I think. Have a look at Mummers' Plays, they are HeroQuests. Passion plays are HeroQuests. People in the Philippines who crucify themselves are doing a HeroQuest. The Orangemen Parades in Ireland are HeroQuests. All have a large part of theatre. If you want to see HeroQuests in action, watch HBO's Rome, there is a scene where someone clearly invokes Pluto (?) and curses someone in a ritual that is a HeroQuest.

Slave Collars, as pointed out, are the most applicable solution, but they are magic items and not everyone has a slave collar. Drugs that reduce Magic Points would also work. Forcing a slave to cast almost all Magic Points in the mornign might be good as well, perhaps to fill up the family POW Crystal. Cutting off Foci, if you use Foci in your game, might be OK, as that stops the spell from being cast, but you can just imagine the Focus, so that might not be any use. Restricting access to shrines used to stop the regaining of Runemagic, but I am not sure if you still need to go to a Shrine/Temple to regain runemagic. Making the slave become apostate might work, as that normally cuts off access to magic

I wouldn't really go down that route. Dragons are big, they are scary, people do out of their way to attack them. You can't fit a dragon down a small tunnel, so dragons cannot take part in a lot of adventures, they can't even be the guard that waits outside the tunnels for the party to return, as the party wouldn't trust it not to eat the horses. Trolls are big and scary, people don't like them, they take double damage from iron. Elves take double damage from iron, they don't like cities, they like the forests. Dwarves are dull, boring, nobody likes dwarves, trolls and elves doubly don't like dwarves, they are agrophobic and don't like the outside, so make poor wilderness adventurers. Minotaurs are big and scary and everyone is scared of them, they go into Battle rage when injured, so can kill their friends. They fall asleep when their Battle rage is done, so are vulnerable. Centaurs are horsey and can't climb cliffs or squeeze through narrow places. Shergar Sunhoof, my centaur PC, had a block and tackle as part of his equipment, so that he could be lifted up and down cliffs. That's more than enough drawbacks for me. What is the difference between a Dragon as a PC or an NPC? For me, the answer should be "nothing". So, does that mean that all Dragon NPCs have disadvantages as well? It makes no sense to me.

Ok, I am not going to read the RQg rules to answer this, because it probably doesn't mention how Shield and Countermagic act in those examples. Here's how we played it in the old RQ2 days: If I have Shield 1 and Countermagic 2, I have an effective Countermagic 4 and can block 4 point spells. If I am hit by a 4 point spell, this eliminates thre Countermagic, so the Countermagic goes down, but Shield specifically does not get blown down in the same way, so you keep your Shield 1. If you are hit by a 6 point spell, or a 20 point spell, the same applies, the Countermagic is blown down but the Shield stays up, with its own Countermagic effect. For Dismiss Magic: We played that you could target spells using Dismiss/Dispel Magic, so targeting the Shield 1 makes sense. However, Dismiss Magic 1 is blocked by Countermagid 4, so the Shield 1 and Countermagic 2 spells stay up. Dismiss Magic 2 just blows down the Countermagic and is blocked, so has no other effect Dismiss Magic 3 blows down the Countermagic and also Dismisses the Shield 1 Far better to use Dismiss Magic 1 and back it with 3 Magic Points, however, how do you know they opponent has Shield 1 and Countermagic 2? We used to throw around big Multispelled Dispel Magic spells, I had a Dispel Magic 9 and a 9 point Power Enhancer, so tooled up I could throw 4 Dispel Magic 18s, it drained my Magic Points, but that's why I had 500 points of Stored POW! 🙂 I hadn't noticed the difference between Shield and Co9untermagic, we just used to play it as Countermagic, so it blocked the extra point, perhaps, I can't remember.

Now, that is fantastic and to scale. If only it had been a giant lizard instead of a troll ...

And jolly good it is, too.

When I first read the Iliad as a kid, yes I was that kind of kid, I was impressed with the descriptions of combat as they made sense to me. When I first played RuneQuest, I thought "hey, it's just like the combats in the Iliad".

Eurmal doesn't really like cults with the Truth Rune, as they are opposed to Eurmal's Illusion Rune, so I'd have Eurmal and Humakt as Hostile. Although Eurmal enabled Humakt to get Death, Humakt always think that Eurmal cheapened it, stole it to give to Orlanth and had a number of other nasty little tricks, hence Humakt is hostile to Eurmal. You might have a subcult of Eurmal Deathbringer, who may well be friendly to Humakt, but that would be a very restrictive version of Eurmal.

Except among Glorantha fans

I have seen somewhere a drawing of the route the Lunars took going through Sartar, with dates of the key events. However, I cannot remember where I saw it.

I don't think anyone is saying that is a good thing and that we should always have Rapey Orlanth and his Rapey Kin as a major part of the game. In fact, it could easily be ignored. So, Orlanth would get the Scarf of Mist, but instead he would be given it as a gift rather than claiming the goddess as a prize. Vadrus would not conquer the Blue Woman. Broos would be disgusting, filthy, murderous carriers of disease.

I saw the "Orlanth fixes his mistakes" and the "Ernalda wears the trousers" ideas really easily in the myths. It adds a layer to the culture and how people work. However, other poeple will see the myths in different ways. Someone with problems might read the myth of Ragnaglar and identify with it for all the wrong reasons, for example. That would be really bad, in my opinion.

Anthropowanking is done by people without anthropology degrees, generally.

Not at all. Orlanth is a rapist. He, and his kin, have a history of abducting women from different tribes and fathering children on them. It is all glossed over, but it is there in black and white. A friend of mine, who played a Yelmalion Light Son, always wanted to list the Bad HeroQuests of Orlanth and his kin, to show them up as the murdering, lying, stealing rapists that they are. Not all myths are justifications, This might be the myth of how Ernalda calmed down the stupid bullying air god. It might be acted out and people laugh at how stupid Orlanth looked courting Ernalda and how much better he is when he has married her and has clamed down a bit. A very few Orlanthi might look at how Orlanth behaves and emulate that, but their wives would play the part of Ernalda and get their own way.

Sure, but when the new rules are unclear or contradictory, then we go back to the old rules, where they are clear and uncontradictory. Also, it allows us to grumble "That's not the way we have always played it ..."

In my opinion, and I am sure others will disagree, forget about using Extended Combats, For me, they add nothing to the game, bog you down for ages and are extremely unsatisfying. Each Archetype is a Keyword. They should have abilities under the Keyword, but inly listed if they are important enough to stand out. I have only played Shadowrun a few times, and many, many years ago, but you could have Netrunner as a keyword and have breakouts of whatever you want, say Dark Net and Break Ice, you would write it as Netrunner 18 (Dark Net, Break ICE). In a game, you could use the Netrunner keyword to do some hacking, but if you met some ICE then you could use Break ICE to break through it, or perhaps to stop Black ICE. I wouldn't bother replicating armour and weapons, as they don't mean much in HeroQuest. They might give you a bonus to your combat skills, but that's about it. If so, list them as Armour +3, Sword +3, or Black Sword of Elf Chopping +3. If you want them to be special, then make them a Keyword, so you might have Black Sword of Elf Chopping 18 (Black, Chop Elf, Hate Elf). In my opinion, HeroQuest should be quick, snappy and fun. Don't get bogged down in the rules, don't look for loads of sub-rules and just narrate your way past problems. If a PC wins a Contest, they can do so by just scraping past (Margical Victory), by a bit (Minor Victory), by a lot (Major Victory) and by a mile (Complete Victory). Narrate the results of that. So, if a PC tries to seduce a guard to let the rest of the party sneak by, then a Complete Victory might mean the Guard is entranced by the seduction and they get down to it there and then, or it might mean the party sneak past and the seducer leaves and blows the Guard a kiss, leaving him begging for a taste at a later point, or you could have a Marginal Victory meaning the Guard wants something for the seduction and the Complete Victory means the Guard gets a blown kiss and is happy at that, Basically, whatever seems right at the time. If you want something like a health system, then just have each Defeat that goes against a PC gives a Penalty to that PC, so if the PC cannot act then they are floored. Healing might reduce the Penalties. So, from Marginal to Complete, you might have a -2/-4/-6/-8 Penalty, so suffering 2 Complete Defeats means you are at -16 and pretty messed up. It's not ideal, but it is quick and dirty, and I really like quick and dirty.

Orlanth is the god of Men and Ernalda is the goddess of Women, but Vinga is the goddess of Women who worship Orlanth and nadan is the god of Men who worship Erlanda. Nothing hard about that! 😉 It shouldn't be contentious, as Orlanth Rex has been around for donkeys years and OrlanthDar has been around since Hero Wars. Not all Orlanthi Clans have an Orlanth Rex or Orlanthdar chieftain, it is possible to have a different worshipper as a chieftan or king. However, the best fit is Orlanthdar or Orlanth Rex. I can't remember if Orlanth Rex is the reformed version of Orlanthdar, or if they are separate subcults, or what their relationship is. Ernalda is the Earth Queen, so in areas where Earth is stronger than Storm, for example in Esrolia, the Queen will worship the subcult of Ernalda the Queen. In typical Orlanthi areas, it is possible for a woman to worship Ernalda the Queen and rule, or to worship Vinga with Orlanth Rex and rule, it is rare but possible.

Eurmal is Associated with Lightbringers, Friendly with Thief Cults, Illusion Cults and Trickster Cults, Neutral to most others and Enemy to Chaos, I would think.

Of course. Any conversions are interesting.

Not necessarily. The Sun Counties are a way for Yelmalians to be separate from other people, in a Sun-based theocratic state. Individual Yelmalian Temples are just temples, not temple/farming communites. A Yelmalian Temple might only have a hundred staff, ready to cater for visitors and so on.