Roko Joko

Art: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/chaosium/guide-to-glorantha/aldryami-art-direction/

+1 to Shannon Applecline's book Elfs: A Guide to the Aldryami.

Also, another version of this first-person essay from Belintar's perspective on how it was to be an elf , with some additional stuff, appears here: http://ruleonemagazine.com/Iss9/WorldOfPlants.php .

He wanted his wife.

Try taking it out of Glorantha for a moment.  The bad guys summoned a monster and ate half the army in the reaches and now the orcs or mammoth riders or whatever are mustering on the horizon.  So maybe you're... fighting off raiders; discrediting warlords; slowing down armies; disrupting evil rituals; stealing accoutrements of power. 

I'm not that into worlds but probably shortish, maybe 5-20 pages of setting information to either clone a known setting or lay out a compelling background concept for a short game.

Crunchwise I'd want a lot of guidance about what magic can do and how to play it in QW.  I feel that the spell list (as it were) is the main meat of any fantasy RPG.

They've been programmed in AnyDice by @Scott A: http://anydice.com/program/adbc

I expect people will have feedback.  For example I just found a confusing sentence that I think was probably mis-edited (the second sentence of section 2.0, beginning "Stories advance by ..." - it's a run-on sentence and very confusing to me.)  There might also be typo reports, questions, and other kinds of feedback.  Could you tell us what kinds of feedback you want and where/how we should give it?

No, the peasants don't keep pace.  "Medium for beginner PCs and easy for experienced ones" is the peasants not keeping pace.

7 hours ago, Richard S. said:

[for example] a peasant mob will pose the same threat to a group of experienced adventures that it would a gang of beginners because the base difficulty will have increased.

No, the GM is supposed to take into account the experience of the PCs when they set a contest's resistance, so for example the same peasant mob might be medium for beginner PCs and easy for experienced ones.

Here are two HQ2 hacks.  They both transpose HQ2 numbers on to a smaller scale that's more like FUDGE / FATE, Apocalypse World, Barbarians of Lemuria / Everywhen, PDQ, and FU.  That simplifies the numbers, makes it easier to consider using different contest dice for HQ2 (the probabilities in HQ2 are not transparent), and makes it easier to compare all of these games.

=== Punk rock d20 HQ:G ===

This is just a sketch.  There are three things to see here:
1. Divide all the numbers by 4, so that 5 points is like 1w.
2. The punk rock part is to roll contests using one die with a wide range of outcomes, like playing HQ2 using a d80.
3. Fixed resistances instead of a treadmill.

__ Character sheet __
6 keywords (culture, community, occupation, and 3 runes), levels +4, +3, +2, +1, +1, +1.
6 abilities or breakouts, levels +4, +3, +2, +1, +1, +1.
0 to 3 flaws, each -1 to -4 and allowing you to add an extra ability or breakout of the opposite value.
The numeric template is fixed but you can develop a character by switching abilities into different numeric slots, and by adding +0 abilities and breakouts.

__ Contests, 1d20 with modifiers: __
relevant flaws: -1 to -4 each
no relevant ability: -1
ability augment: +1
stretch/specific ability: -2 to +2
situational modifiers: -2 to +2 each
plot augments: +1 to +5 each
hero point: +5
If you want to make it really punk rock, add
natural 1: -5
natural 20: +5

__ Resistances __
DC 5: low
DC 10: moderate
DC 15: high
DC 20: very high
DC 25: nearly impossible

__ Outcomes __
< DC - 15: complete defeat
DC - 15: major defeat
DC - 10: minor defeat
DC - 5: marginal defeat
DC: marginal victory
DC + 5: minor victory
DC + 10: major victory
DC + 15: complete victory

__ Notes __

Starting from the goal of simplifying everything in HQ2, I considered doing this with 2d6, which is kind of like opposed d20s, but then I considered expanding the rolling range to represent crits and unexpectedly it suggested the standard d20 scale.  But that's interesting.

Two comparisons between this and HQ:G:
* A 1w advantage wins 75% of the time here, and 85%-90% of the time in HQ:G.
* The chance of a marginal outcome is usually 50% here whereas in HQ:G, it's "average" 50% but more variable: 50%-75% for an equal contest and 10%-25% with a 1w advantage.
* Reference for HQ:G probabilities: http://anydice.com/program/adbc

=== FUHQ ===

What if you like HQ, but FU dice pools?
Obviously, the world needs a FU-HeroQuest hybrid named FUHQ.

__ Character sheet __
12 points of abilities, keywords, and/or breakouts.
0 to 3 flaws for an equal number of bonus points.
Keywords cost 2 and are fixed at +1.  Breakouts are +1 or +2.
Solo abilities are +1 to +3.
Conversion: below 1w ~ +1; 1w ~ +2; above 1w ~ +3.

__ Contest results __
1-3 major, minor, marginal defeat
4-6 marginal, minor, major victory

__ FU dice pool __
(In FU you roll X d6s and take the highest, or the lowest if you're at a net penalty.  X is 1, with modifiers.)
no relevant ability -2
stretch -2
flaw -1
ability +1 to +3
augment +1
specific ability +1
situational modifiers -1 or +1 each
plot augments +1 each
FUHQ point +1 each (3 per session)
Moderate resistance (routine check) -1
High resistance (challenge check) -3
Very high resistance (adventure boss) -5
Nearly impossible (campaign boss) -7
 

Yeah, and I said no advancement.

"I'd let players shuffle points around between ratings over time to reflect what aspects of their character they wish to emphasize in play, (Many Fate-based games take a similar approach.) "  That.

Character development like in literature, but not advancement which is an illusion in HQ2 since resistances are defined relative to the PCs and advancement is independent of whether a character becomes more skilled in the fiction.

5 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

That was the way they did it in the earlier editions.

No, I didn't mean HQ1 style, I meant what Laws said in the sidebar and JonL said in the post: HQ2 style, but without the treadmill.

On 11/5/2019 at 3:37 PM, JonL said:

Advancement & escalating resistance are one of the big warts on HQ2/G as written.

Laws's "Why advance Characters at all?" side-bar in HQ2CR is a totally legit approach if you're leaning more towards "Ratings are relative measures of abstract problem solving power" and away from "Ratings ratings reflect in-fiction capabilities and effectiveness."  In that context, I'd let players shuffle points around between ratings over time to reflect what aspects of their character they wish to emphasize in play, (Many Fate-based games take a similar approach.) 

Yeah.  The resistance treadmill is pointlessly confusing.  If fixed resistances had been the default that would have been so much clearer, and they could have added value by providing rules for character development rather than advancement.

It identifies you as a friend when you're a lunar spy and the Crimson Bat comes in.

or

Use it to weigh down a human body underwater and it creates a walktapus.

I think of Safelster as having the look and feel of a D&D setting, like the Nyr Dyv lake in Greyhawk.  It has the ingredients.

If I may paste two paragraphs from a sidebar on p. 105 of the HeroQuest 1 book:

Quote

Charlatans and False Belief

A world full of magic can also be a world brimming over with charlatans, hucksters, and exploiters claiming magical powers they do not have, espousing false religions, and promulgating useless magical techniques. Many crackpots and deluded souls wrongly believe that deities, spirits, pure forms, or entities of their own fevered imaginations have favored them.

Just as there is never a shortage of deceivers, the supply of gullible Gloranthans is also inexhaustible. The many false claims about magic partly explain the extreme conservatism of most Gloranthan homelands; the people who have thrived are those who refused to try alternative magic.

Seems like Orlanth Adventurous initiates would be on the elite side, more fighters than farmers... so she should have a sword.  Particularly with the new rules and fluff.  I wonder why she doesn't.

Edit: and the caption says she is in fact a rune lord.  So yeah, what's up with that.

On 4/24/2019 at 8:15 AM, Sir_Godspeed said:

Maybe there's a Beaver Spirit that makes this easier. Sounds very beaverish, at least.

IMG the lowland Dragon Pass duck clans herd beavers for carpentry, for pulling swamp chariots and sleds, and for fur and meat.  So they're kind of like horses.  The lowland clans also herd giant snails, and they're kind of like cows.  Then there are highland clans that herd and ride sheep.

I dunno if I'd consider it "*the* common reaction"... it happens in the King of Dragon Pass game but are there other references to it?  Might be more YGWV.

About traditions, I'd say a new clan will recognize the same ancestors (including the new clan founders, eventually) but has to find/get/create/invoke a new wyter.  And traditions can evolve, like if the new clan ends up giving special honors to different minor gods or subcults for whatever reason.

About land, I think Greg said informally that all the best agricultural land was occupied in the first age.  Of course wars and disasters such as the Dragonkill cause depopulation sometimes.  And with magic you can sometimes make bad lands better.  Anyway, fuel for storytelling.

Yeah.  Although whenever the gods book comes out there might be a few hints about Teshnos in the form of local cult descriptions like "Solf is like Lodril but ___" where the ___'s would constitute the hints.

There is a very good Glorantha mod for Age of Wonders Shadow Magic called Age of Glorantha (link).  I think it depends on motivation.  Good total conversion modders are out there, but they don't grow on trees.  I once aspired to make a Glorantha Civ 4 mod and asked Issaries for permission to start, at the time a console-style adventure game was also in pre-development, so for that reason Greg politely said no.

I can't believe nobody else thought of naming the book that would be known as RuneQuest: Glorantha "ReQuest" instead.  Missed opportunity.

> [Joerg] Or rather the leak the Mostali have been trying to plug under the Long Dry?
> [David Scott] The assembly gantry ...[snip]

I don't remember ever hearing about this Mostali Prax / Dragon Pass tunneling stuff before, but it sounds cool.  Is there some background text on it somewhere?

> Where do sea trolls come from?

I dunno, hell in the storm age like everyone else, but through the ocean?

Or maybe they were there before that, since darkness and water are the two oldest elements.

For one thing I think trolls run trade ships out of the Shadow Plateau along more or less the same trade routes as everyone else.  Maybe using some alternate routes if they have different navigation skills, or help or contact with sea trolls, or contact with different communities like in Jrustela.  But I think sea trolls are mostly not intelligent so they would have to be very primitive materially.

There's a mention somewhere of ice skating troll ships on the frozen White Sea.  Maybe they run west out to the glacier and who knows, maybe even up and around the other way to Koromondol.