styopa

Re the Broken Tower, any idea on how long that is going to take to run? Assuming a table full of people reasonably acquainted with the concepts of RPGs (ie gamers), but perhaps not with RQ specifically (or broadly familiar with RQ3/6 and having to un-learn some paradigms)... If we started early - say, 10am for the first game - would it be feasible to run it a couple of times in a day? Happy to write an after-action report, if such is warranted. Also, any idea when Chaosium will throw up a registration page? Thanks!

Unfortunately as far as I understand we're only really going to see sort of the red-headed stepchild of sorcery, as the only reason it's being included in this set is because with the latest imagining it's been determined that Lhankor Mhy folks use sorcery.* I'm glad we're going to get a PEEK at the sorcery mechanics, but I can't imagine it's going to be fleshed out much. *a sort of Morokanth-moment for sorcery, if you will...

Thanks, I wasn't clear that "roll against the rune of the spell" was necessarily a direct, unmodified roll.

Except we have several folks here specifically complaining that the only stuff AH brought out for Glorantha was reprints of old material...exactly what you're asking for?

Jason, if you don't mind pulling back the covers a little more on this, how do such point pools and spell access work for associated cults? Is it just more spells in your castable list, or do they cost an extra point or...? Also, from your explanation it sounds like Rune Magic will NOT be the 95%-near-certainty that it was, either?

Not to mention the fact that CoP, CoT covered 23 deities in total. GoG covered 60+ and alluded to what, another 20? Maybe more in the prospaedia? It's a little harsh to say that a work like that didn't cover them as comprehensively as CoP/CoT when (to do so) would have made it a 300-page tome. Hell, there were those of us reasonably involved in the Gloranthan community at the time who learned a TON from that publication about gods we'd never even heard of. PERSONALLY, I think the "official" opinion on AH's tenure is pretty unfair but that's water under the bridge. The future of RQ is RQG, and we're all healthier and happier looking forward to that, and a general RQ rennaissance under its banner. Then we all win.

I could see a system where your (melee) damage was based on your strength, and the quality of your to-hit roll, CAPPED by the weapon's max damage. Ie you have a table of damage based on your strength, like a 12 STR does 1 point, 16 does 1.5, 20 does 2, etc. Then, for each 10% you are better than your to hit, you do a multiple of that damage. So if you rolled 40% better than your to-hit, you'd do 4x that number LIMITED by whatever weapon you're using (ie a safe couldn't do more than 4, a 1h sword max of 8, a 2h sword max of 12, etc. Just as an example.

Well, now you've even written your 'designer's note' for inside the cover!

Imo that is frankly the most encouraging part of the entire RQ renaissance. As much as I hate waiting, I'd rather wait a few more months for the rules to release, if it means the game has a robust collection of supporting material following-on immediately. So MUCH more market-survivable, which means a better chance of it really catching hold.

Ah, thanks for the explanation! Anyway, viva la RQG!

BTW delighted about the decision to simply publish and sell. Glad for no Kickstarter, thanks!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC Avalon Hill only bought the rights to RQ, but did NOT buy the rights to Glorantha. Those were held by Greg. At least for the first several years, weren't they UNABLE (legally) to bring out Glorantha products? When they did come out, they were flippin' fantastic. Sun County, River of Cradles, Borderlands, Dorastor, etc. are some of the greatest campaign/adventure supplements for any game ever. In any case, it's a little...misleading to bash on AH for delay in bringing out a product line they legally couldn't, at least for a while? I guess it depends on your definition of "official"? Is what was in the notes of RQ2 'official', still today? Old Chaosium products CoP, LoT? AH products SC, RoC, Dorastor? As I recall just in those sources alone there were not-infrequent contradictions explicit or implied (I recall an entire mountain range ENE of the White Sea that kept shifting and has, I believe, finally determinedly vanished in the AAA?). Not to mention the not-precisely-canon-but-pretty-firm-anyway reams and reams of discussion in the Glorantha Digest (http://glorantha.temppeli.org/digest/)? Or does the "canonical" world of Glorantha now begin with the Guide? (ie the Guide essentially rationalizes 'all that stuff' into a reasonably-coherent whole) I'm not really even disagreeing with you, but we have to recognize that the logical flip side of a richly detailed, broadly consistent world that's the product of 50 years of creative imagining by Greg plus ample and worthy contributions by authors including yourself is the concomitant burden of a lot for a new DM to potentially deal with (even if they decide to discard some of it in their version).

Smells better, too.

But doesn't RQG look just too much like RQ6 if it's handwritten? I kid, I kid! I think it's a great move grabbing a solid reference *AND* sort of taking it off the version-number treadmill simultaneously. RQG it is.

Thanks Rick!

The immediate problem I see is that critical and special hits will do crazy high damage, as they are intrinsically quite a bit under the needed to hit, and have a much higher maximum possible. You say this "doesn't apply to specials" I'm not sure how mechanically that exclusion would work? So it does apply to criticals?

BTW Jason & Jeff, we sincerely appreciate you guys taking the time to respond here. I'm not sure how many people realize how relatively unique that is in the gaming firmament.

Point completely conceded! Yet...looking more broadly at the progression from AD&D to 2e, 3e, 3.5e, 4e, and 5e there are a few meta-points that stand out to me: - aside from the anomalous 4e, games are getting less crunchy, ie simpler, less 'mathy' - characters are getting more capable, meaning formerly narrow specialty capabilities (ie healing) now are more broadly available (obviously this is less specifically relevant to RQ mechanics vs class-based games) In short, and I think this is the meaningful parallel between MMORPGs and RPGs - characters are getting more powerful, to start and throughout the arc of their development; not just intrinsically but vs NPC capabilities ...thus my point.

Brilliant. I love this stuff. The background development will really be a great tool to pull characters into the world. I look forward to seeing them developed for other regions as well.

That's fantastic, thanks!

Of course the advantage of the zero-to-hero is programmed learning of your character's abilities. NOTHING is better to teach you (as a player) how to maximally use the abilities you have, or to appreciate the abilities you gain, than hard experience from zero-to-hero. It also makes the game a little harder to teach if players are starting with lots of abilities and options, particularly if the players are new to the game concepts entirely. I too agree with - as Jeff more accurately describes it - 'veteran but not yet quite Rune Level' being generally more FUN to play than stickpickers afraid of their own shadows...personally (and this is an entirely personal preference) I fear the power-creep necessary to make people who start at that point really feel heroic. If, as an arbitrary yard stick, we say toon development needs to progress an order of magnitude in power for players to "feel" accomplishment/powerful, then it doesn't really matter where you set your starting bar, you need to have an end-point 10x the power. If you start as a stickpicker (say, 45-60%), and move to mastery (say 125%) you're within what I'd call the RQ/d100 'sweet spot' of operations. If everyone starts with their main relied-upon skill at 90%, where does that toon go? Then again, every MMORPG has also (d)evolved away from challenge and progress paradigms. So probably that's the commercially wiser choice for the mass market.

I was getting "Damnit, I already have a check in 1h sword and shield today!"

I'd like very much to run RQ game(s) as demos for new players at my FLGS. It sounds like the 48pp quickstart's only really going to be available that day, but hopefully those of us with relatively deep history with RQ shouldn't have too many issues running a pickup game. Honestly, the hardest part for me is going to be looking through the QS rules and then running a game ONLY based on them and none of the other iterations in my head... Chaosium has offered a lot of support to folks interested in doing this for CoC - I hope there's a plan for this on/after FreeRPG day too? What do we need to do to connect our FLGS with Chaosium for FreeRPG day or what do we need to do to run games? THANKS

...and let's not forget: the key is that it REMAINS LARGELY INTERNALLY CONSISTENT. Other non d100 games have so many rationalizations and stuff, if you add this feature or that ability, you're likely to be tripped up later by a powergamer who recognizes that you've just given him a loophole to execute infinite actions a round or somesuch.

Not to mention that remember Jeff's focus on this is basically STARTING at rune-level.