Pentallion

1 hour ago, Yelm's Light said:

The only magic involved with rune metal items is keying them to the individual owner and eliminating the magic-dampening effect of iron.  Do they inherently register to Detect Magic in your world?  In that case, your Rune-levels must veritably glow.  As for crystals/matrices, they're pretty much an extension of the spell casting rules, but at least they have some form of origin story, if very general (the blood of the gods or inscribed conduits for casting).

Aside from Snakepipe Hollow, which I cited myself, you're talking about huge campaign packs, and even in those the vast majority are crystals/matrices.

Again, you miss my point, which Styopa understood and obviated the need to regurgitate it. The game system is what I'm talking about.  Anyone is free to alter the rules in whatever way he/she pleases, but that doesn't change what's in the book(s).

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.

On 6/17/2016 at 4:13 PM, Ali the Helering said:

Indeed, he is not simply dead, but gone.  I would be more inclined to suggest that any attempt to Quest to him would simply be an automatic fail.  Hope, however, springs eternal in the human breast, and some people simply will not learn.  Therefore I can well imagine a side-chapel in some Sundomes that is little used & where worship is unproductive.

"Ah yes, well, the lack of response indicates that Glorious Yamsur is too heavily engaged in the fight against Chaos to respond.  Let us send him more of our souls to struggle with the krjalki!  Have faith!"

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.

4 hours ago, g33k said:

Most of my group really likes to have "notable" foes have stat-block sheets comparable to their own.  They have no problem with mooks being tracked with utterly-simple check-boxes (drops on one normal hit, two minimum-damage hits), and Plot-Element (unassailable) NPCs having RP-only (no "mechanics") notes; but it really chafes if I'm too hand-wavey with near-peer NPCs' game-mechanics.

Or else what's the point of even having/using those mechanics?

That said -- no, sorry!  I haven't converted any (but I may be converting in the future, and will try to recall this thread and revisit it, if/when I do).

 

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.

11 hours ago, Wolfpack48 said:

  One thing we thought might be a lot of fun would be a Monsters & Treasures book that contained all the baddies, but also a book of **new** magic items and possible treasure finds.  The Plunder book is great, but would love to see lots of new items for the system -- smaller treasures up the epic finds.

 

 

Here's a great list for your perusal: 

6 hours ago, Jeff said:

We will be doing Rune spell cards, as for many players it makes it very easy to know what Rune spells they can cast can do. Cuts down on the amount of memorization a player needs to do - and helps at the last minute realizing that Wind Words is exactly the right spell for the situation at hand.

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.

On 4/20/2017 at 1:20 PM, JonL said:

This kind of got lost in all the edition warring earlier. I'd like to not only reiterate but broaden it further. For those of you who played it, are some things about the Second Age as a setting made for particularly good game experiences for you? Somebody mentioned enjoying Blood of Orlanth, that's a very Second Agey concept from what I read about it. What are some things that the Second Age brought to your table that you wouldn't have experienced otherwise?

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.

8 hours ago, g33k said:

Tell it to the George Carlin who delighted in his "Seven Dirty Words," and other "foul language" comedians, and their derivative "Shock Jock" stars.  

 

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

8 hours ago, Charles said:

You say this. You may believe this. Can you prove it?

Among the many possible interpretations of YGMV, one that I submit should be taken to heart - there are many ways to play Glorantha. RQ; HQ; 13G; KoDP; freeforms; board games; and coming: card games and the I don't know quite what to call it: The Gods War. What I enjoy is not your preference, and I accept that you know what you like and that's OK. Can you accept that I prefer something different?

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.

On 4/15/2017 at 2:15 AM, Ebaninth said:

I am keen for the new version to address the high 90% skills.  Our games would get to rune levels but we then tended to immediately retire as we were sick of the attack/parry/attack/parry/attack/parry/attack/parry/attack/parry/Fumble Attack or

attack/parry/attack/parry/attack/parry/attack/parry/attack/parry/Fumble Parry.

Please address this.  I always thought limiting skills to 80%, with anything higher reducing the opposing skill had potential...

Regards

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.

On 4/15/2017 at 5:43 AM, styopa said:

Honestly, I'd like to hear more about this.  As my understanding of what heroquesting is, is both staggeringly hard and fundamentally changing rules of regular existence, I can't really understand how one could do that a lot or find it much fun?

 

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.

14 hours ago, Jeff said:

Lemme see, the cattle raid and tula game par excellence, King of Dragon Pass, sold hundreds of times as many copies as any MRQ supplement. I'd say there are quite a few fans of cattle raids and clan rings.

From a business perspective, the Mongoose stewardship was a disaster. Despite having a good distribution network (much better than we at Moon Design had at the time - we relied primarily on direct sales), Mongoose RQ sales dropped off a cliff. Compare the care that a licensee like David Dunham or Sandy Petersen takes with their Gloranthan product - well actually there is no comparison.

Artistically, we consider it a disaster as well. Mongoose's approach to making books meant even good writing went poorly edited. Glorantha concepts and themes got reduced to pastiches. The Zistorites were reduced to steampunk abominations, the EWF little more than D&D Dragonborn. You might disagree with that assessment - as is your right - but objectively we think you would be wrong.  

But if you enjoyed playing MRQ materials - great for you! Follow your bliss in gaming! Just don't expect us to share your sensibilities. 

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.

On 3/27/2017 at 3:30 AM, Jason Durall said:

The Weitz brothers were working on a trilogy, but that was 10 years ago. The license was re-optioned in 2015, but I don't know if it's escaped development limbo. 

(The Wachowski bothers are just "The Wachowskis" now, also.) 

 

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

7 hours ago, styopa said:

At least in Glorantha everyone knows to blame Eurmal for "fake news".

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.

13 hours ago, soltakss said:

In my campaign, the Pol Joni were not a Praxian Tribe, so the PCs could make them a Praxian tribe. They took some Grazelander HeroQuestors who had come to Prax as the reborn Pure Horse Tribe and showed that the White Bull was also the White Stallion. When they showed that some of the Pol Joni were also members of the White Bull/White Stallion sacred society, they showed that the Pol Joni were partly Praxian. When they went to the Paps, they found a horse-headed idol, deep within the temple and showed that this was not a zebra idol, so proved that the Pol Joni were Praxians.

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?

On 4/13/2017 at 3:06 PM, deleriad said:

I s speaking as someone who found the whole clans and cattle-raiding era of HQ profoundly uninteresting, the Glorantha second age material, for all its flaws, really reinvigorated Glorantha for me. I loved the drama and excitement in the era for all of the failings of the products.

"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.

One of the secret goals of the elves could be that during the Reforestation, the elves gardening the oases suddenly sprout defenses all around the oasis so that the Praxians are cut off from the water.  They could over strain the oasis ability to supply the sudden profusion, but that would be a feature, not a bug.  Not only would the defenses be more formidable, but the elves only have to hold out until the Praxians die of thirst.  While the oases that fall would be depleted by the time they were reconquered, making it more likely the elves could hang on elsewhere.

Even if the attempt ultimately fails, it would tie down the Praxians at a time when their aid might be requested elsewhere.