soltakss

I've got some of the tables in a Word document.

There is a lot of information in Revolution d100 that wouldn't be needed in a Player Aids booklet and some of the rules would need to be condensed to make them easier to read in a Player Aid booklet.

I remember partnering with Andrew Wood at the Trollball competition at Tentacles a few years back and had a real blast.

The rules we used are somewhere in my documents, they worked really well and were even better than the rules from Trollpak.

It would be good to see Trollball making a comeback.

Is it me, or do all morokanth figures now resemble ALF?

16 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Note the requirement for untainted water.

It strikes me as fairly funny that the archetypical phallic deity is at a loss how to make children. What did his followers do with their phalli before?

You are confusing sex and procreation. You can have sex without procreation. Mythically you can have procreation without sex (the Six Earth Queens). So, Agimori could stick it in and wiggle it about, but the burning fire that resulted burnt away any chance of procreation. The water puts out the fire enough to allow procreation.

Of course, Lodril, being the archettypical phallic deity, quite happily reproduced, his control of fire was presumably better than his children's. 

In King of Sartar, Argrath rampages through Peloria, killing Lunars all the way. He brings back Sheng Seleris who rampages through the Lunar Empire, killing Lunars all the way, then kills the Red Emperror and becomes Emperor himself. Argrath and Sheng Seleris then fight each other, having exhausted other enemies. Then Argrath, or his Trickster, catches all the deities in the Net and slaughters them. This are the acts of someone like Arkat the Destroyer and result in the end of an age and the total destruction of many of the staples of Glorantha.

Harrek realy isn't anywhere near as bad as Argrath, in fact Harrek just ends up as Argrath's attack dog.

On 7/4/2017 at 11:14 PM, pansophy said:

What would a Double Advantage be like in a Normal Conflict? Doing 2d6 damage against the opposing RPP and getting 1d6 back to your own RPP's? Or inflicting 3d6? Could be a total 'Game Changer', but depending on the setting it might fit the mood well. As this would be an Optional Rule, I could see its use.

In an opposed roll, it would just be a better level of success, so a double advantage beats an advantage.

In a contest, a double advantage would do 3d6. Using the "Getting back RPs" rule, which didn;t make it into the Rd100 rules, it could do 2d6 damage and get back 1d6, or even do 1d6 damage and get back 2d6, depending on the player's wishes.

In combat, a double advantage simply acts as a better level of success, so allows more combat effects to be gained.

I much preferred movement in RQ3, nice and easy to use.

However, I have not yet had the chance to study the RQ QuickStart rules.

On 7/7/2017 at 11:53 AM, Darius West said:

So, please, where are the technical developments (for example) of the Orlanthi?  I can point to plenty in Europe during 1000BC to 1000AD.  The adoption of stirrups and aqueducts, Hydraulic Mechanization, Steam Power, the separation of wheels from their axles, hermetic seals, tension powered siege engines, crossbows, etc.  Perhaps Orlanthi have adopted the crossbow?  Perhaps the guild system wasn't around in the time of the Vinkotlings?  

The establishing of cities in Sartar, the move to rule through Orlanth Rex, establishment of Guilds and Mayors, adoption and rejection of draconic ideas. All these were made within 1600 years or so. 

Technology doesn't change so much, but there are probably changes to pottery, clothing and so on,. Weapons don't change much, as you can only do so much with a spear. sword or bow. Mostali are very protective of their technology and send people out to destroy competing technology. So gunpowder won't be developed outside the Mostali, even technology such as Windmills or Watermills are probably destroyed once developed, even though the orlanthi have small windsails they won't become industrial. 

On 7/7/2017 at 11:53 AM, Darius West said:

Also, I am surprised that you consider Esrolia to be Orlanthi, I certainly don't, it is Earth Pantheon dominated with a veneer of a variety of other pantheons.  This is in keeping with the system of elemental territories that make the Holy Country holy.  

It is Earth and Orlanthi. Don't forget the Orlanth-Ernalda match is very strong amongst the Orlanthi and the Earth People. Esrolia, despite its name, is dominated by Ernalda and counts Orlanth as the main Husband-Protector, sure there are others, but much of the culture is Orlanthi.

On 7/7/2017 at 11:53 AM, Darius West said:

Also, the rise of Imperial Systems, City-State Confederations and Republics in the 1000BC-1000AD period are distinctly different to feudal and tribal societies.  The only Orlanthi republic I can think of is that period in New Pavis between Dorasar and the Lunar Invasion.

Orlanthi towns are ruled by a Mayor, Orlanthi clans are ruled by a chieftain who is normally elected, Orlanthi tribes are usually ruled by a king, as are the Orlanthi kingdoms. So, there is a mixture at various levels.

On 7/7/2017 at 11:53 AM, Darius West said:

As this isn't much different to the Orlanthi before time, and given that time=change by definition ergo you can't step into the same river twice, what has changed other than the history?  The adoption of a few technologies invented elsewhere?  One minor city decided to adopt a republic model of government rather than being a hill clan with a ring?  Not much change, and not much progress, because every time they seriously try something new they get wiped out.  Homeostasis.   

It does appear that major change causes a major reaction and eveyone goes back to how they did things before, with a few changes. 

I think that any culture in Glorantha that makes major technological/social change but which doesn't change the way they worship is probably OK. It's when they change how they worship, which gods they follow, how they interact with the mythical world, then bad things happen.

On 7/3/2017 at 1:32 AM, 1000buffalo said:

Merrie England covers the same general period as the old Columbia Games sourcebook Lionheart, right? Loves me the map on that one.

Assuming that Lionheart covers Kings Henry II, Richard and John then yes. Robyn Hode is normally Kings Richard and John, though.

Double Advantage as a new level of success. If an Adventurer has a skill over 100 and rolls below the excess skill they get an Advantage accoding to the RD100 rules, but what if the roll is also an Advantage? The adventurer should get a Double Advantage that beats a single Advantage. So, someone with 120% bow and rolls 10, this is below 20% so gets an advantage but the tens dice (2) is higher than the units (0) so he gets a double advantage.

It might be useful to use something like the Cult Compatibilty Chart for the various tribes, to give a matrix of which tribes like/hate the others. In fact, something exactly like the table that Darius West posted, but filled in.

Burglary at Duke Raus' House is a good oneshot. Useful if you run Borderlands later as well.

Argrath probably had Harrek helping him and I am fairly sure that Harrek laughs at a priest using City Harmony before sticking the priest's staff where the sun doesn't shine.

On 6/20/2017 at 1:26 PM, Darius West said:

According to Cults of Prax when you join Chalana Arroy as a lay member you swear an oath to "never harm a living creature and to aid all within the limits of your ability".  At the same time you swear never to learn any combat abilities.  For the latter it is fine if you knew how to fight before you joined Chalana Arroy, but you must put such things behind you.

So the question is, how do Chalana Arroy cultists cope with their radical pacifist agenda when it entirely collapses into paradox?  For example:

The below answers are all in my opinion and may be wrong, but this is how we played Chalana Arroy cultists in the past.

The Chalana Aroy principle is that members of Chalana Arroy cannot harm a living being by choice.

1) The Broo Baby conundrum.  A victim of broo rape is going to die unless the broo baby inside them is removed, and it can only be removed by killing the broo baby.  Thus do you allow chaos to live and the victim to die?

Yes, that is what Orlanthi are for, to kill chaos. The healer can try to heal the pregnant person afterwards, but cannot harm the broo baby. 

I think that Cure Chaos Wound can be used to cure a gestating broo, but that might have been a house rule.

Hero Wars had a spell that forced broobirth to spontaneously abort, but I am not sure if this was retained. If it still exists then that could be used as the broo larva is not harmed by the CA cultist and they can still let it die or get an orlanthi to kill it.

2) Diseases are technically alive, and curing them is effectively killing the disease, which is harming a living creature and therefore against Chalana Arroy's requirements.  And if diseases aren't alive, why not?  Are they more or less alive than a whirlvish or an elemental?  Where exactly is the line drawn?

Diseases are not alive. They are caused by disease spirits or by magic but are not themselves alive. Spirits are not living beings and can be harmed with impunity.

3) You can grow healing herbs but you cannot pick them because that will harm a living creature.  Or don't plants count?  If plants don't count as living creatures, how do Aldryami feel about that?

Plants don't count. Animate plants might count and intelligent plants count, but picking a fruit is the same as pulling out a hair, so is probably OK.

4) You cannot perform surgery because that involves cutting people with a knife, and that is technically harming a living creature and using a weapon to do so.

Yes, that is correct.

Chalana Arroy cultists do not perform surgery, at least that is what we played.

5)  Do the undead count as living creatures for the purposes of harming them, or can Chalana Arroy cultists cut loose on the undead with their childhood weapon skills provided they don't increase their skills subsequently?

Undead don't count as they are perversions of life. Chala Arroy Cultists can quite safely bash undead to their hearts content. In fact, we had a Chalana Arroy Healer NPC who was armed with two shields that she used to bludgeon undead, she was a Jack o'Bear as well ...

6) If a living shaman attacks a Chalana Arroy cultist in spirit combat, are Chalana Arroy cultists unable to fight back in spirit combat because it will potentially harm the shaman?

Yes, a Chalana Arroy cultist can engae in Spirit Combat against a spirit, as spirtis are not living beings. Discorporate shamans are spirits, so don't count. 

7) Can a Chalana Arroy use a shield to defend the fallen?  Or is a shield a weapon?  You can certainly use a shield as a weapon, and there is the chance that the attacker will fumble as a result of being parried and cut their own leg off (for example).  Will that constitute a breaking of the oath?  What about dodging?  It is certainly a combat skill, but does that mean that a Chalana Arroy is not allowed to step out of the way of a charging Rhino?

Shields are fine and can be used to defend the CA cultist and to bash undead, see above. Bashing her own leg is fine, as the restriction applies to other beings. Fumbling and bashing nearest friend probably breaks a vow, so don;t stand to close to a shield-wielding CA cultist.

Dodging is fine as it is not offensive. I would nguess that CA cultists are not trained in dodging, though.

8) Is a Chalana Arroy thrown out of the cult if they stub their toe or burn themselves cooking?  Technically their little accident has caused them to harm a living creature, i.e. themselves.  What about accidental malpractice?

No, hurting oneself is fine, they just cannot harm anyone else.

Accidental malpratice probaly results in a temporary suspension of cult powers, in the same way as becoming inactive, but a short HeroQuest should sort that out.

9) To what extent does the "harm no living creature" issue impact on a Chalana Arroy's diet?  Are they all "fallists" (fruit only), "breatheairians" (sylph eaters), egg eaters (provided the eggs aren't fertilized), or can they eat meat and veg if someone else did the killing?  At what point are they required to take moral responsibility for a death so they can eat?  This is a minor issue compared to some of the others.

Chalana Arroy cannot themselves harm another being. So, they couldn't kill a sheep and then cook it. However, they can happily watch a sheep being butchered and eat its meat.

Some are vegetarians, as they don't believe in killing others.

10) Are you permanently banned from Chalana Arroy for absent-mindedly sitting on a bug and squashing it?

No.

If you want to be harsh then tyhis might cause the cultist to become inactive for a while, perhaps until the next cult ceremony.

11) Given that riding a horse can cause saddle chafing even with a blanket, are Chalana Arroy cultists unable to ride a mount?  Does riding constitute a combat skill?

No, this is fine.

Riding is not a combat skill.

Ordering a warhorse to attack someone would probably count as breaking cult vows. Sitting on a horse that then attacks someone of its own accord is fine.

Hint) Be very careful that your answers don't create fresh paradoxes.

Thanks for telling me how to answer your questions.

So, as you can hopefully see, there need to be some points of clarification on these issues.  To what degree are Chalana Arroys subject to regional variance in the interpretation of their cult oaths too?  For example, is an Aldrayami Chalana Arroy more or less squeamish about killing plants for food and medicine? Also, how rigorously is the oath enforced?  Is breaching the oath an instant and permanent dismissal from the cult, which may constitute harming the individual worshipper by destroying their livelihood, or is the oath breaker merely required to atone?

The cult has no regional variation in its vows. 

Aldryami are fine with killing plants as they can use Food Song to send the spriti back to Aldrya. They wouldn't kill intelligent or animate plants anyway.

Praxian Chalana Arroys would not use Peaceful Cut to send a slaughtered anmial's spirit back to Eiritha as that involves killing an animal, which is not allwoed.

Is that an inconsistency? Maybe, but it is fine as plants are not living beings in the Chalana Arroy sense.

The closest real life alternative to the Chalana Arroy oath would be the Jains, and their philosophy is so rigorously anti-harm that some Jain holy folk walk naked so the insects may feed on them freely, and wear only a huge broom-skirt that sweeps the path ahead of them of bugs (of course they completely ignore the billions of micro-organisms their body destroys every day just by breathing in and out).  Increasing the the poor Jains become masochistic prisoners of their own compassion, and in many ways Chalana Arroys have the distinct potential to go the same way.  In short, it is very difficult to be a Chalana Arroy unless you are also an illuminate.

Sure, play it that way if you want, but I don't think it is intended that way.

Chalana Arroys are fine with Orlanthi or Storm Bullers doing their killing for them, for example, so they are not like Jains in that respect.

Thanks for the link.

It is basically because a gnome that opens up a pit and then claps it shut does damage to all affected hit locations, at least that's what we used to play. If a gnome sucked you into a pit and then smashed it shut, hitting all hit locations it would probably be instadeath. Breaking both legs is tame by comparison.

8 hours ago, Psullie said:

From the Optional Adventurer pdf:

Once a corporeal being is engaged in spirit combat, they may not attempt any skill or engage in physical melee combat with a separate physical melee target without first succeeding at with a roll of INT×5. Corporeal beings engaged in spirit combat may cast a spell if they succeed at a concentration check. Spirits may cast spells if they possess that ability and do so in the same manner as other combatants. 

Does this mean that an adventurer can melee attack their discorporate assailant and engage in Spirit Combat in the same round without the INT test?

I haven't read the rules yet, but I would say that an adventurer who is in combat and has finished that round's worth of combat and then gets attacked in Spirit combat can engage without making an INT roll.

However, any adventurer who is in Spirit Combat must make an INT roll to do anything else but engage in Spirit Combat.

8 hours ago, Psullie said:

Spell casting Spirits do not have to make an INT test to target other targets?

I would say that any particpant in Spirit Combat should have to make an INT roll to do anything outside Spirit Combat. So, a spell casting spirit enganged in Spirit Combat should make an INT roll before being able to cast a spell.

8 hours ago, Psullie said:

Do discorporate Shamans count as Spirits with regard to casting spells? And can a shaman travel in the spirit world to a middle world location, become visible (or forced to become visible via Visibility) and cast spells etc.

I would play that a discorporate shaman is in all respects a spirit. Discorporate shamans could become visible at will, so I would guess that is still the case. 

Of course, I am probably wrong, as always.

On 6/24/2017 at 11:44 PM, Archivist said:

I just bought Merrie England. it's very good. Good for general purpose Middle Ages adventuring.

Many thanks, that was the intention.

The new RuneQuest is looking as though it is very similar to RQ2.

One of things I hated about RQ6/Legend/Mythras was the very small skill set, as compared to RQ2's many detailed skills. 

Now, having seen how revolution D100 uses an even more reduced skill set, with Traits, one of the things I hate about RQ2 compared to Revolution is the bloated skills. 

I would definitely use the Traits mechanic in future games that I run and in any SRD that I produced.

26 minutes ago, Mankcam said:

Starting to sound similar to HQ in many ways

Which cannot be a bad thing!

1 hour ago, Baconjurer said:

I'm thinking I'll do it as a bring-your-own-skill-list type thing. The trick is that all skills must be verb.  I'll limit the verbs by saying that skills can't be what you intend to do, i.e. "kill", "murder" "win", "solve" etc. The check is that the skill has to be grammatically correct when I plug it into the sentence "I [skill] very well" and I should also be able to clearly visualize your character on the holodeck using that skill "very well" without clarification. Skills are capped. Specialized skills have a higher cap. Further specialized skills have a still higher cap. In order to specialize, you add a noun to the verb. The more nouns you can add that grammatically make sense, the higher your skill cap. Examples I can think of are "Swing bastard swords", "Fire longbows*" , "Punch rat men", "Climb castle walls", "Drive Dodge Vipers". If you already have a skill, any further specialization starts at the root skill. E.G I already have "Swing Swords" at 50%. If I add the skill "Swing Bastard Swords" that would start at 50% as well, but would have a higher skill cap. Each are treated as separate skills. Some skills would face an Impossible modifier (-100) if used without any training. Every skill takes up a skill slot, and skill slots are limited by your intelligence score. You don't need a root skill before you get a specialized skill, e.g. you don't need "Swing swords" before you take "Swing bastard swords" if that's how you choose. If you remove skills, you must remove the furthest specialized skill first, eg if you have "swing swords" and "swing bastard swords" you must remove "swing bastard swords" before you can remove "swing swords".

Can anyone spot any game breaking problems with this? 

 

*I might allow the skill "fire longbow bows" if the player argued, because "fire recurve bows" would increase the skill cap twice, whereas fire longbows can only increase the cap once, and I think it still grammatically correct to say "I fire longbow bows very well", even though it is a bit awkward sounding.

Iwouldn't bother with both Swing Swords and Swing Bastard Sword, as skills, to be honest. Sure, have Swing Swords as a skill and Bastard Sword as a Speciality, to give a bonues, but having both is redundant. What happens if I start Swing bastard Sword at 50% and then increase Swing Swords to 60%? Does my Swing Bastard Sword stay at 50%, meaning I am worse with it than other swords, or does it rise to 60%? Sounds like a bookkeeping nightmare to me.

6 hours ago, HorusArisen said:

So I own the book and think it's a great supplement purely in It's own right but in the spirit of discussion I'd like to know your top three reasons for running this over a core Mythras game.

Purely positive if you don't find it to your taste that's fine but I'm all about the reason to run it.

You can play 13th Age in Glorantha with Mythras Classic Fantasy.

23 minutes ago, HorusArisen said:

Some great recommendations but given that I have King of Sartar and the guide what should I get first?

Cults Compendium - It has a lot of mythology and God Time background, basically the ones from Cults of Prax, Cults and Terror and bits from Borderlands, Griffin Mountain and Pavis.

On 6/8/2017 at 1:31 AM, Michael Hopcroft said:

Anyway, one of my favorite RPGs for decades is the anime-style game Big Eyes, Small Mouth published by Guardians of Order back in the day. Guardians are long gone, but before the company folded they released the SRD for the d20-based version of the system. This kept the core of the game, in terms of Attributes and Defects, in particular, adapting them to the then-ubiquitous version of D20. Especially with superheroes as a challenge in d100, it's occurred to me several times that merging that subsystem with BRP/D100 might be a solution to the issue of how to build a supers game in D100 in a somewhat more intuitive way. And since d100 also has several open-content flavors, there's a base from which to start.

A surprising amount of D20 stuff can be ported over to D100 fairly easily. Although D20 is a Class/Level system and D100 is a skill based system, a lot of D20 variants add skill-based things to D20. O haven't seen Big Eyes Small Mouth, but have heard a lot about it. If there are D20 rules then you should be able to port across fairly easily.

On 6/8/2017 at 1:31 AM, Michael Hopcroft said:

Of course, it's going to be a lot of work, and I have design decisions to make still. The one I made first was to completely get rid of die rolls in character creation. Characteristics are purchased from the same pool of Character Points as everything else, at the rate of two Characteristic Points for one Character Point. Character Points are a single pool used for those, Attributes (powers, essentially), skill purchase and leveling, and so on. How many characters start out with depends on the level of the campaign, which can range from starting characters with modest powers to full-fledged superheroes.

Character points used to purchase Characteristics, skills and powers works, after all HeroQuest uses a character pool to build characters. 

That kind of system is self-balancing, to an extent, because emphasis on one area reduces the spend in other areas. That isn't necessarily something I like, but I understand it.

On 6/8/2017 at 1:31 AM, Michael Hopcroft said:

I'm curious what other challenges I am likely to face in the design, which will include some substantial work of my own in addition to borrowing open content. (Relying solely on open content strikes me as a lazy way to do it, of course, I can make decisions of my own if they're good ones,). I'd rather get a lot of it written before I even begin to contemp[late how it will be published.

Ah, if you are planning to publish it, that makes more sense using OGL material. You can use any OGL material with any other OGL material, as long as you reference it. 

In any case, I would use HeroQuest for Supers, not a D100 variant. I love D100 games but would not use them for SuperHeroes, having played Superworld for a bit it just didn;t work for me. Super Heroes with HeroQuest just works for me. It isn't crunchy but allows a lot of control over what your powers are and avoids problems with point-buy/point-spend systems.

The beauty of the OGL is that it allows you to take bits from various different SRDs and merge them together, as long as all the content is from an OGL supplement and you list the Intellectual properties used. So, for games designers and publishers, it is very useful.

For home brew stuff, it doesn't matter whether something is OGL or not. For my campaign, I can happily pinch bits from HeroQuest, Mythras, RuneQuest or BRP and combine them into a homebrew system with no worries that none of those systems are OGL. If I wanted to publish the rules, I would have to be a bit more careful.