styopa

19 hours ago, svensson said:

Just gonna go with 'ick!' and leave it at that...

From World of Warcraft:

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Sacred_Mojo

• Sacred Mojo
• "A bit stickier than your average mojo."
• Sell Price: 50

On 8/26/2018 at 12:28 AM, Mechashef said:

The (D&D) system is much more unified and internally consistent. A high roll is always good. It is good for: Character Attributes, To Hit Rolls, Damage Rolls, Skill Use and Saving Throws

D&D also appears to be better at resolving the ever present RQ issue of two skills working against each other such as sneak vs listen.

Absolutely I'm a RQ fanboi, but to speak frankly this is where RQG sadly failed to accomplish what D&D5 really did: take a fundamentally older game system mechanics and make it much smoother, more coherent, and faster while still managing to hold onto the 'feel' of the original game.  I believe D&D5e is the closest version in feel to AD&D yet manages to still take advantage of much more sophisticated modern approaches to mechanics where needed.  The advantage mechanic, for example.  I think a lot of the D&D renaissance credit should go to that work.

Sadly, RQG's over-reverence for RQ2 systems and well-intentioned but IMO misguided need to make it backward compatible with products from 40 years ago leaves RQG in places feeling like an inconsistent CnP job with some stuff bolted on, not a soup-to-nuts refreshing of RQ that it could have been.  I still hope it's successful, and hope (particularly) new players can overlook/rationalize the gaps to enjoy the game - they seem to be, so far?  

21 hours ago, soltakss said:

Hah! Soltak Stormspear had a 9 Point Power Enhancer, rolled up as a 6 pointer and then got an extra +1d4 on a HeroQuest. I could blast off Dispel Magic 18, Detection Blank 18 and Countermagic 18. Pity we played RQ2 not RQ3, otherwise I'd have had Bladesharp 18 and Parry 18. 

Of course, campaigns at this power level (like mine) the bad guys have evolved to comprehend (and s-l-o-w-l-y the good guys are figuring it out)  that a hefty blast of dispel magics or 2 at the start of a fight can work WONDERS for stripping all sorts of fancy one-shot buffs from they-believe-themselves-nearly-undefeatable opponents.  Or, as mentioned above, stalling to parley at the front end of fights can be infuriating to PC's that don't want to be obvious murderhoboes but feel their short term buffs tick-tick-ticking down as polite, civilized discussions take place.  LOL

On 3/18/2019 at 9:04 AM, EpicureanDM said:

Because it was two minutes in RQ2

It may not be useful, but that's the actual answer.

On 3/19/2019 at 12:14 AM, Joerg said:

I more than once managed to parley a rune spell into expiration

Exactly.  The whole "trollkin zerg" strategy works best with shorter durations, and frankly 2 minutes is so short - 10 rounds of 12 second rounds - that it materially constrained how much buffing one did before a fight, knowing that each additional round spent buffing reduced the in-combat duration of everything previously cast by a cumulative 10%....that's a lot!

In re multispell and disrupt, that always felt crazy overpowered to me, that a relatively trivial 2-3 point multispell makes disrupt a one shot killer for even relatively nasty enemies ignoring armor entirely.  We always ruled that multispell spirit magic was just that: allowing the simultaneous casting of the spell, not boosting a single spell.

15 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Been happily doing it for the past 4 decades, can't see changing for the remaining decade or two. If you are genuinely unhappy, I do not mean to belittle your discontent. I understand and feel your pain.

Myself however, I really like the game and have for awhile. What I don't like,  I home rule. On the other hand you should have seen the amount of home ruling I had to do in the 80s with AD&D by Gygax and Arneson. Gadzooks and zounds, man!

Cheers

Yeah me too but I sympathize.  Some of us have been cheerfully houseruling for decades...in fact it's sort of a hard habit to break.

But in terms of salability and attractiveness to NEW players, the rules should be effectively complete and functional WITHOUT GM HRs.

17 hours ago, svensson said:

As to the specific question in the top post, I would work a trade-off with players. If they will use Runes to augment one roll a session, the GM can only use their 80%+ Runes to direct character actions once per session at an appropriately dramatic time. That seems reasonable to me.

Oooh, I like that.  Well played, sir.

1 hour ago, Mechashef said:

This limits an adventurer to doing this action once (or arguably twice) a session.

I infer from RQG that augments are meant to be a special thing - NOT meant to be a tool hauled out for just "any old purpose".*

*Some editorial comments:

- I frankly dislike breaking the 4th wall with abilities.  Having a character's ability reset-time based on PLAYER activity frequency is unappealing for a lot of reasons.

- I rather suspect from the 'balance' of the augment table & results (that crit/fumble, and success/failure balance each other exactly leaving your 'special' chance as the only advantage to even using augments in the first place) that originally it was intended to be used more frequently but the vagueness of the wording in testing led to abuse.  Honestly, I'm not a fan of the RAW.

A far simpler approach for skill augments with less fooling around would be that if a character recognizes and explains to the GMs satisfaction how one skill can synergize with another, give the character a bonus on the main skill +% equal to the special chance on the supplementing skill.  And then "use limitations", I'd toss them out the window for skills.  If sing can help them in a dancing competition, and then can help them orate 10 mins later, who cares?  If it works, it works.  And then let them take any resulting skill check on one OR THE OTHER.  It encourages players to train in generalized skills too, which is realistic.  (The fumble chance for the augment goes out the window unmourned; you already have the fumble chance of the base skill.)

As far as Passions and Rune augments, yes, I'd probably limit them to one per season or per high holy day, respectively.  But then I'd certainly make the buffs more significant - these are basically one-use buffs to be used in meaningful circumstances, to the point of maybe making their use hero-point-ish (to the point of surviving a lethal blow ala "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die").  A rune augment might give you back a rune point to be used only with a spell of that runic association. 

IMO use of a passion would result in it either increasing, decreasing, or staying the same.  Using a runic passion should always increase a players Runic affinity.

1 hour ago, Julian Lord said:

Some practicalities and principles of HQ as opposed to the smorgasbörd of HW are simply common sense as and when translated to RQ -- a GM *could* in particular circumstances allow more than one active augment ; but fundamentally, that's just not how RuneQuest works.

I think augments as a concept are new enough that "how it works" is still pretty up in the air.

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

The way in which I don't miss the skill is in having to remember how to spell it.

Simple: Maneuver.  Cast off your imperial masters and embrace colonial simplification!

Stumbled on this relatively short (8 min) video (there are 2 more parts, each also about 8min) broadly discussing the mysteries of the collapse of the Bronze Age IRL.

If we regard the God Learner era as a peak of civilization, is RQG set essentially in a post-collapse era, or more specifically the climb back out of this collapse?

11 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

There is s a Beowulf out there delivered in middle English  by Benjamin Bagby  in classic garb accompanying himself with a saxon harp... Thing else, no sets, nothing but costume harp and voice. Evokes Hallarax the Singer of Pavis riverside for me.

Cheers

https://bagbybeowulf.com/video/index.html

Brilliant, he's got a great voice as well.

7 minutes ago, Joerg said:

(And what does a jack-o-bear do, in the woods or elsewhere?)

And, if nobody is left to hear it after he's harmonized and eaten them, did it even make a sound?

3 hours ago, svensson said:

 

OK, this guy really, really overplays it,

Honestly?  I wouldn't say he does.  Certainly the modern amplification is played to effect here, but I fully believe (the best) professional musicians of the time would totally have delivered it just as emotively.

BTW thanks, totally using that in my next game.

For those wanting an ESSENTIAL feeling of Glorantha, I'll just remind you there's a terrific game already out there today: https://store.steampowered.com/app/352220/King_of_Dragon_Pass/

King of Dragon Pass is outstanding, entertaining, fairly hard, and above all quintessentially Glorantha.

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

I have some vague recollection that Traveller had some proper studio made games in the early 90s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaTraveller_1:_The_Zhodani_Conspiracy

It was fun, for the time.  Combat was so damned fast players had little chance, I think that was the biggest beef.

It's available for download as abandonware https://www.myabandonware.com/game/megatraveller-1-the-zhodani-conspiracy-y7 I'd love to hear that someone got it to run on Win10.

Curious nota bene: For a year I had permission from Marc Miller personally to explore the development of a Traveller MMO.  Pretty sure I kept the letter, as a trinket of what could have been.  I couldn't make it happen, as we had 4 children under 6 at the time, as well as having a full time job that (despite my love for it generally) was not computer programming.  

I *still* think it's an IP absolutely ripe for MMO play, planets being essentially server shards, with in-space activity spawned as instances that could conceivably merge.  As a proof of concept, more than anything, I'd built a 100t Scout/Courier, as well as the Far Trader Marava (complete with working iris valves, hatches, and some basic textures) in QERadiant (Quake2's engine) that you could run around in, climb ladders, shoot stuff.  That's about as far as I got, my next big project was going to be a full-fledged Kinunir with grav-shaft elevators and everything.

29 minutes ago, g33k said:

It's still showing the data I saw this morning.  Wherever it is now, it isn't THERE.

Zooming-out, I see signs of "shipping routes" showing, looking at all the ships.  XIN LOS ANGELES doesn't appear to be very far, if any, outside the channels that might reasonably be turning southward.

And, as speculated, the containers of RQ may no longer be aboard.  Maybe they're on a train, or a truck.  They may even be heading toward Chaosium more directly, instead of via Long Beach...

 

And it's also possible that we are seeing one of the reasons that Chaosium hates to state a firm timetable:  the books may indeed be en route back to China, through no fault of their own and because of unforeseen and unpredictable events.   I hope not!!!

Hey @styopa -- can you give us any insight?

 

Xin Los Angeles is definitely headed W from Van/PrRup.  Outbound to China, and no, I guarantee the containers were offloaded barring error - vanishingly unlikely. 

From what I can see it's on the Cosco PE2 route, meaning it never actually was scheduled to call Los Angeles.  (https://www.shipmentlink.com/tvs2/download_txt/PE2_2.pdf) or also at http://www.coscoshipping.gr/vessel-schedule/  .   I'm not sure who said it was stopping @ Long Beach...as the destination is northern MN, Van/PrRup is a perfectly reasonable (and actually better) port of unloading.  The containers then travel by CN rail possibly direct to MSP or ORD.

As MOB said port ETA was 3/6, then I'd guess they were unloaded at PrRup...COSCO likes to find cheap unloading ports and PrRup has been very aggressive in the market over the last couple of years, particularly as US west coast ports have high costs and some of the s/lowest throughputs due to union strength/issues.  Easier to go to Canada even though the ports are smaller and rail connections worse.

FYI MOB mentioned 2x40's, you guys realize that's something around 40 TONS of books just to the US?

Unload at PrRup @ 3/6, I'd guess unload at MSP terminal around 3/13-15, should already be cleared customs on arrival (barring exam) and maybe at the DC conservatively 3/20?  If it's going via ORD it'd be a few days later.

These are guesses, mind you, and entirely my error if wrong.  Don't get your hopes up based on my blather.

Chaosium (or their forwarder) are going to be the only ones with actual ETA information, although if you have a container # I can still track where they are and where they're going inland.

5 hours ago, Quackerjack said:

Is the audience for Glorantha really smaller than the audience for FFH??

Yes.

Edit: it's less about the audience as about a talented, dedicated person to drive the project.  I've seen fantastic things with no audience...it's all about the passion.

Implementing immediately.

14 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Shades of a different colour,  p'raps.

It's a troll; the shades could be absolutely opaque, really.  As long as her ears were cleaned out, no problems.

2 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

That's one of the pieces that's been missing for me. Spirit "combat" suggests that it should have similar stakes to physical combat (injury, dire consequences, death). This comment suggests deploying spirits as hazards. If the PC loses the fight, there's a generally non-lethal or mildly harmful consequence. The stakes for spirit combat don't have to be high at first. A lost battle might result in a small penalty to certain skills until a possessing spirit's kicked out. A victorious guardian spirit might place a geas on the defeated PC to recover an item that will strengthen the guarded location (or to correct an existing flaw in the location's defenses). When reading old RQ material, I usually see spirits and spirit combat included as part of a fight to the death or involving disease spirits to harm the PCs. There are probably examples when that's not the case, so I acknowledge that I've probably got some confirmation bias going on.

To say nothing of the Ancestor Worship and animist traditions that WELCOME possession (I mean, granted, this wouldn't be a fight, but perhaps part of an initiation ritual is 'losing' a fight to a friendly spirit to 'open the pathways' to easier non-contested possession by such a spirit later)....or maybe an adventure where being possessed by the 'right' spirit lets you get past some otherwise impenetrable defense.

6 hours ago, g33k said:

That's an interesting thought.

I might put it at some remove from normal cult practices, a gnostic-style "inner secret" or similar ...

 

I think all gameplay rulebooks are sort of written from a god-learner-y perspective, necessarily.  

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

If you want to print out the PDF and punch holes in it, you are welcome to do so.

Great, thank you Jeff!

It may have already been done.

2 hours ago, Oracle said:

In fact I think, this idea is really good. Maybe not so much because of the dynamic nature of Gloranthan mythology, but because of upcoming additions to the pantheons in new Gloranthan publications like Pavis or the Big Rubble of Trollpak or Fonrit ... you name it. This way you could keep all your cult descriptions in one place ...

I loved the approach, when it was used for the Encyclopedia Harnica ...

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

That approach has the downside that there are no three-ring folders outside of the USA (and possibly Canada). Additional holes would have to be punched for European customers.

WIth rather lengthy Mythos and History sections, an electronic "full version" of available cults and cult special spells would be easier to produce and to distribute. Signed pdfs would open up the content for newly purchased content (through updates rather than collecting from the pdfs, I assume).

My suggestion would be that the product could be of course produced in books if people really want that...and/or offered as straight printed pages.  Chaosium could offer prepunched for either US 3 ring binder, or Leitz 2-hole binders (or whatever is common regionally) or both (if that's feasible) just unpunched....you can take it to Kinko's and get it drilled to whatever is your local preference for nearly nothing.  (Hell, you can have them top-drill it, so it flips up, like a legal pad, if you wanted)

This would a) massively save cost as covers/bindings are expensive and complicated, b) speed distribution (they could just send to various regional printers), and c) allow players to buy as elaborate/sturdy/expensive binders as they wish, or break the text however they like into pantheons...whatever.

I originally meant it humorously, because the cost of actually shipping binders would be WAY more expensive, but then with Oracle and Joerg's comments, I realized: it actually would be better to offer it without a binder.  (Further, by doing it this way players could get new bigger binders as needed.  ASL did the binder thing brilliantly...the problem was that a 2" binder seemed enough but by the end of all the expansions, the 2" original ASL binder cover wasn't thick enough and the sections didn't all fit...)

Plus, personally, I *far* prefer binders and ring-bound products to books books; while slightly less durable and nowhere near as aesthetically attractive, they lay flat and stay open...about the only thing the shitty crap AH paper books had as their advantage.

This is even setting aside the obvious advantage of rules in this format, where errata or expansions can be issued as a single reformatted page "replace page 77/78 with this correction".

1 hour ago, EpicureanDM said:

Magnificent. 

For the veterans, was this sort of thing common in past RQ games? How many groups reached this level of play? To me, it looks like people discussing high-level D&D play: often theorized, rarely practiced.

I know you're speaking from personal experience, @Thyrwyn. No slight intended.

We have a couple of players, in particular a sorcerer that has done this level of astonishingly complex analysis.  We play a bastard mishmash of RQ3, Sandy's sorcery, and Sandy's Tekumel sorcery, so basically none of it would be useful in this RQG advice context.

The other player, more of a warrior type, long since felt his investment of POW was best used in strengthening enchants for his hit locations.  At +1d6hp/point of POW as a long, long serving Orlanthi RL he's probably invested 20? Pow into various locations, I don't honestly know how many hp he has in the various places anymore off the top of my head.  On average that's +10hp per location, but I know he's heavily biased his head/chest/abd and weapon arm.  IIRC his chest and head each have 20hp each.

Given the dynamic nature of Gloranthan mythology, perhaps GoG would make more sense as a 3 ring binder where the printed word could be updated with the "new reality" as needed?

Only 90% joking.

On 3/6/2019 at 12:12 AM, Jeff said:

I'd suggest that it was only partially successful from DX's initial goals. The new book gives a ton of insight into each of the Seven Mothers. 

And is worth keeping in mind that none of the Seven Mothers are directly tainted by Chaos. 

The Red Goddess on the other hand.....

Except isn't there at least some connection (and perhaps more than that) between Gbaji and the Red Goddess, implying that chaos wasn't incidental or accidental in her creation, but more or less fundamental?  Or inevitable?  Maybe the distinction is important here.