Pentallion

So does that make Waha a Brithini? Does that mean the morokanth beast men refused to abandon their beast-selves after the Brithini cast the sorcerous form of Release Intelligence upon them? They "cheated" because they got their intelligence unfixed, but retained their beast form?

I think there are two conversations going on here and also differing views on what constitutes magic items. First off, at least two of us are responding to the comment that RQ characters don't have lists of magic items like D&D players do. That has nothing to do with "the game system" so what you're talking about is not the comment we're responding to, we're challenging the assumption that RQ characters don't acquire long lists of magic items. Also, we differ on the view that crystals/matrices are not magic items. They are. They are the most common form of magic item. What in D&D is a sword+2 in RQ is anything with a bladesharp 2 matrice on it. What in D&D is a ring of magic missiles in RQ is a ring with disruption matrice on it. So you can't rule out crystals and matrices as magic items, because they are. And PCs acquire somewhat long lists of them. If you play the published material, you can't help but acquire long lists of such items. That's not a YGMV thing nor an alter the rules thing, that's the game as it is written. That is literally what's in the books.

We've integrated Rune Pools into our latest RQ 3 campaign and it's excellent. Suddenly, it's a hard choice: drain one point out of the rune pool for a spell that would be incredibly useful right now, but not be able to cast Resurrection until you can refill your pool or hang onto it? Hang onto what could be a needed healing trance later or boost up a big ole Crush spell now? Choices are good.

Even annihilation by chaos is not permanent if one completes the 7 Sky Games Quest. But it would have taken Yelmalio or Yelorna to do it and now they cannot. So one would have to be an avatar of one of those two to succeed now. Unfortunately, the 7 Sky Games Quest works best with unassuming participants so as to not arouse the mythical powers and anyone who loved Yamsur enough to bring him back from Oblivion would be too powerful to succeed in the quest.

I think you nailed it. I use Roll20 almost exclusively nowadays since my group has scattered across the country and we can now only meet up online. I will pull up a character sheet and create my major NPCs for some occasions. Especially the recurring ones. OTOH, my greatest nemesis of all time, the God Learner Tezzerre Aton, never had a single stat created for him. Yet everyone agrees years later that he was the greatest villain I'd ever created. I wouldn't want to put stats to him. It would lessen him. Which is why I understand the reason to never statting up Argrath or Harrek.

You know what I get out of this? In HQ you have all the narrative, none of the crunchy. In RQ you have all of the narrative and as much crunchy as your heart desires.

In truth, nearly every encounter in every Chaosium RQ adventure, at least one NPC has magic items, many times, two or three NPCs possess one, if not several magic items. It's a foregone conclusion that the PCs are going to be walking around with a list of magic items they got as plunder. Plunder even being the name of the official book listing some of the more remarkable magic items.

Orlanth is the embodiment of the Air Rune. If you emulate Orlanth and become as near to being an avatar of Orlanth, you're said to have mastered his rune(s). That's the Quest in RuneQuest. Not some physcal rune. The writers for MRQ1 didn't have a (expleted deleted) clue what the (expleted deleted) they were talking about.

Here's a great list for your perusal:

Better include a shovel too - for that moment they realize the forest of trees tumbling towards them isn't going to be swayed by wind words and they better get to diggin !!!

There isn't really such a thing as needing to convert an adventure. Even if it is a RQ adventure, it must be tailored to the level and abilities of the players. In HQ, they give you the adventure. That's all you need. For instance, I've run the Battle of Iceland twice. Once with miniatures. (WarHamster works great for this btw) In both cases, I just gave the bad guys some stats that made sense, at skill levels that the PCs could handle, but not too easy. I did this at the moment each particular enemy engaged. Only prep was understanding what spells, weapons and armor they carried. Once you have that basic idea of who they are, the rest is done on the fly. As for roleplaying, you don't need stats at all to play a part. I felt Mythras' fatigue rules wer far superior to RQ 3 in handling the long term effects of such a huge battle. Mostly you just wing it, which is what you do anyways with any adventure. At least, I do. I've run the entire SKOH adventure, pretty much everything in HQ and I just wing it on the fly. It's easy if you've been playing RQ long enough. They hit my sorceror for 16? Okay, I don't want him to die, but I don't want him to be invincible either so he's got a damage resistance 20 up. Does it matter how long? Then it will be long enough. My players quickly realize that the more they force me to define things, the worse it gets for them so just roll with it.

Seems like every candle could be a station of a heroquest gone horribly wrong.

God Learners and raping the Hero Plane. Was all very fun. Everyone wanted to play a God Learner. And not a nice one either. It was like suddenly being able to play Melniboneans in Glorantha. Somewhat religious zealot Melniboneans, but definitely Melniboneans.

I don't get this talk of "modern". I've played quite a few rpgs since the 70's. All D&D did was try to copy RQ2 and become more like it. And why wouldn't they? Had not the whole AH debacle happened, D&D would have went the way of the betamax and RQ would be the standard. What cracks me up is "modern" turned out to be more like classic RQ. Everything else literally comes down to twiddling with dice roll mechanisms. But other than the joy of rolling up a traveller character, nobody else has actually done anything that standard-setting since. So I hardly think RQG will not be "modern". OH, and I find it a bit disingenuous for the people who are telling me to be accepting of other people's tastes - I'm always accepting that other people like other game systems - to be the ones who started this thread by thrashing MRQ. ie, while being highly critical of another game system is NOT the time to tell people they should be accepting of other people's preferred game system.

First, and I'm sure it will be the last, time I've ever seen George Carlin lumped in with Shock Jocks.

I accept that some prefer something different but I do not see how that's even relavent to the conversation. I think the sales numbers on RQ2 compared to everything that came before is proof enough as to what is most popular. That is, if I were to entertain your concept that I even need to prove it - especially to your satisfaction - which I don't.

Never had much problem with this in RQ 3 as shields and weapons tended to get trashed by the stronger opponent and fatigue set in. Plus specials tend to either end it or put one at a serious disadvantage.

You generally tend to reinforce the rules of regular existence, though changing them can be a goal too, usually of Lunars and GodLearners though. There are many dangers, of course, but when you've reached that power level, you're dangerous too. A timely critical can have you leave with a heroquest ability, but an untimely fumble can have you destroyed or having a cursed ability (never succeed in climbing, a trickster who can't hide from his bonded lord, etc.) And of course, there's the myth itself and what can be gained from it and what can be risked within it. some myths change the character in ways they wouldn't expect and with almost no way to avoid the change (take saving Hofstarang from Lunar Hell for example). Heroquesting is the heart and soul of gaming in Glorantha. You should send your PCs on occasional minor quests early and build up to ongoing epic quests eventually.

Yep, what I understand from those closely associated with the project, it was really well done and I hope that one day we get to see what Loz has done. I doubt we ever will, but it would be great to have the HarrekSaga.

The only Mongoose Glorantha I've played was Pavis Rises, but for all the things you knock the product for it gave me one thing that neither HW or HQ gave me: Hope for Glorantha Runequest to continue. David Dunham's excellent KODP was the only other product out there that gave anyone any hope. But let's be honest, the return of RUNEQUEST is what has everyone fired up. The rise of HW an HQ was a time of gloom for most of us fans. Now let me say this, because I know you take that observation to heart quite personally and I don't mean to hurt your feelings about a system you put a lot of love and pride into, Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes is a must have piece of work even for Runequest players. However, I only recently purchased it and wasn't even aware of it until about two years ago simply because the rise of HQ had made me lose all interest in the game period. You literally drove off a rabid fan. Only the Guide to Glorantha brought me back and then I learned that a new RQ was in the works. Had more HQ been in the works, I wouldn't be here right now tossing money at you guys. It has nothing to do with the quality of the work, which you guys are the best at. No one compares to your quality of work. It has everything to do with a game system that was the best and remains the best and that's Runequest. So no matter how crappy the artwork, the quality control, the lack of canon, all of it. No matter how crap it was it was RUNEQUEST. So it was superior, period, end of story. Because it was all we had. HQ didn't cut it. I wish the best for HQ products and I'll be buying Red Cow pt II, but I'm only here to buy that because RQ is returning.

Tim Hiddleston has my vote for the role of Elric. Or Jude Law.

How can you say that? There really were weapons of mass destruction in Prax and the Morokanth get gas frequently. Oh, and in other news, Yelm is not rising tomorrow.

I love heroquesting and the best stage of our campaigns comes when the heroes reach such levels that they're basically always heroquesting. I'm really looking forward to the Hero Book coming out.

So just how did your Trickster get deep into the temple with his horse-headed idol? And more importantly: How did you keep him from carving the idol into something more phallic?

"Profoundly uninteresting" cannot be emphasized enough. When one considers that the alternative to MRQ was HQ, one had to avidly wish for the former's success if only to sway the powers that be not to saddle us with an infinite future of cattle raids and tulas. Those were dark times indeed.