Jeff

There is a MRQ1/2 thread in the Legend forum. Can we move this discussion there, please?

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I was a (poor) kid back in those days, and living down under also meant delays in shipping anyway.

My reference to the extended time of decades was actually from a post on here about HQ coming "next year" for (apparently) 20 years. ("Apparently"... I don't know. HQ wasn't/isn't my thing.

 

Re: timing. What you wrote I understand and agree with! I was trying to point out a rushed finished product (for whatever reasons - not defending them) is better than no product at all. As I mentioned, MRQ gave the first HQ rules in the 30+ years of Runequest's existence. And still. For those who want to do HQs now, the options are house rules, or a fleshed out MRQ. I'd probably take the MRQ (it's not bad!) When chaosium has theirs in print later this year (or next year... Or whenever), I may change my mind... 

I mostly think there's a middle ground... Current ETAs with regular updates of what's happening. 

In most cases outside of a kickstarter or other presold product, a rushed product is almost always worse than no product at all.

41 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

see...so, baby ... bathwater ... bye bye.

There's absolutely nothing they did well (and different), huh? Sad. 

So, no Magic book. No specific races books. No pretty soft-cover books... 

I've loved Runequest, and especially Glorantha, since the mid-80s. As have many others here. I still have time for some of what they did (even if they did ignore the lore... ). 

Let's be perfectly frank here. The Mongoose material was plagued with low quality production, bad art,  rushed writing (Mongoose's deadlines were absurd), and poor editing - and the collapse of their sales after the first book says a lot about how they handled the line. Greg and I stopped reading the books as in with few exceptions we were not even given the time to review them (despite any terms to the contrary). There are plenty of other publishers out there that have done more interesting and successful things with product lines to learn from. 

Delecti is the paramount leader of the Vivamort cult in Dragon Pass and he began as a Vivamortist.

5 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I am aware. 

I'm also aware that Mongoose published a lot. And developed some aspects of RQ that 40 years otherwise had never been handled (well .. Or at all). Obviously, some things were stuffed up (badly), but there are lessons Chaosium should learn from.

Babies and bathwater... 

Given that we have Mongoose's RQ sales figures (as part of the royalty statements), I think it can be safe to say the most important lesson is Don't Do What Mongoose Did.

On 5/22/2019 at 11:04 AM, 7Tigers said:

Mongoose RQ is most of the time ignored on this forum because:
. it is out of print and even not (and will never be) available as pdf these days, so not really useful for newbies to be refered to
. not set in 3rd age and even the depicted 2nd age has evolved since
. art was (unfortunately) almost non existant anyway so nothing here to recycle
but if people can manage to find them, at least campain books and living campaign scenarios were excellent stuff.

Idem, as long as excellent RQ3 books are not available again in pdf, you will not see a lot of reference to them in newbies threads.

There are many additional reasons why MRQ is ignored on this forum, especially by anyone associated with Chaosium. The polite way to put it is that Mongoose was not one of our better licensees. 

On 5/20/2019 at 1:29 PM, klecser said:

I hear you, but I also feel like I'm receiving mixed messages. Either in this thread or another one, multiple people said that Rune magic should not be used in intro games because it encourages players to erroneously use what is a very finite resource. Since Rune points only regenerate at festivals/certain times of year.  I'm trying to balance this advice because my players aren't fools. If I encourage them to try it out, but remind them that points don't come back potentially for months, they'll understand that. On the other side of the coin, I see the point that blowing all your Rune points all at once is not how the game is played.

Spirit magic makes total sense to use since it is largely based off Magic points, right? 

I sure as heck would have Rune magic and spirit magic in an intro game.

3 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Or whatever the gamemaster decides is the appropriate limit for that particular wyter. The Ernaldori are a very powerful clan that has been around for three centuries. They are the royal clan of the oldest and most powerful Orlanth tribe in Dragon Pass. Normally its POW is 32, but if player characters want to sacrifice up to 10 points of their personal POW, they can increase it up to 42. But that is their call. As the GM, I'm not going to let NPCs do that for them.

As an aside, that is a key bit of my own design philosophy. The rules are designed for modelling the player interaction with the setting - it is intended for running RPG games. They are not intended to be a clockwork machine running in the background, determining how NPCs interact with NPCs. Or as I have said on more than one occasion to my line editors - "The GM should not be rolling dice against themself!"

3 minutes ago, Pentallion said:

thank you.  I hope I didn't come across as being argumentative.  I just wanted clarification of what was intended from a game power level perspective.  That clarifies things greatly.

Often it is preferable just to get a concept out there, with the assumption that enough information is there that people can start including them in their games. And then we can wait a bit for a later opportunity to handle some of the deeper nuances. For 95% of the games, what is in the core rules about wyters is likely enough. The RQ Campaign Book gives an opportunity for a little GM facing nuance.

Just now, PhilHibbs said:

 

So this probably explains it - they might all have 42 POW on the high holy day, or the clan's foundation celebration day, but throughout the year this will get used up leaving them with 6D6+6 at any random moment.

Or whatever the gamemaster decides is the appropriate limit for that particular wyter. The Ernaldori are a very powerful clan that has been around for three centuries. They are the royal clan of the oldest and most powerful Orlanth tribe in Dragon Pass. Normally its POW is 32, but if player characters want to sacrifice up to 10 points of their personal POW, they can increase it up to 42. But that is their call. As the GM, I'm not going to let NPCs do that for them.

I for one would be very reluctant to let the wyter spend more than 10-15% of its POW without an existential threat to the community.

23 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

I apologize for starting off any sort of argument. 

Does this mean that the wyter cannot be raised to macimum possible power through sacrifice at every ceremony? Do you roll dice and that is the CAP for that stat for that wyter until the community gets older or bigger? 

I included enough on wyters so people could include them in their games. Here's the Notes on Wyters section in the RQ Campaign book:

NOTES ON WYTERS

Wyters are intended to be a potential resource for player characters and their community. The description of wyters in RuneQuest Glorantha (pages 286-287) provide a useful overview of wyters. A wyter is the spirit of a given community. Weakening the wyter weakens the community. When a wyter weakens itself through expenditure of points of POW to cast Rune spells, it weakens the spiritual health of the community. If the wyter reduces its POW by half, the community may begin to collapse. Additionally, the wyter must be persuaded that using the magic is appropriate for itself. No wyter will endanger its community simply to function as a rechargeable POW battery for its priest!

The wyter is responsible for the spiritual well-being of the community, and among its important roles are protecting the community from hostile spirits, vengeful ghosts, enemy gods, and more. Although such things trouble even those communities with a powerful wyter, this happens far more frequently when the wyter is weakened. Pity the doomed community whose wyter becomes weak enough to be defeated by an ordinary spirit or enemy shaman!

Although members of the community may sacrifice points of characteristic POW to the wyter, this is in practice more complicated than the RQG rules might suggest. Normally such sacrifices only occur on the high holy day of the wyter, although a kindly gamemaster might allow an adventurer to sacrifice a point of personal POW to prevent the wyter from being extinguished. It is perfectly reasonable for the gamemaster to only allow adventurers to make such sacrifices – perhaps that the wyter’s characteristics assume that other community members are already making whatever the sacrifices that community can be expected to make. Alternatively, the gamemaster may decide that any community that has been significantly weakened by the wyter’s loss of POW is too spiritually weak to sacrifice POW for the wyter unless that sacrifice comes from the player characters.  

10 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Huge shout out to JAS. Friend Of Greg.

One fiction title that doesn't come up much is Richard Adams' Shardik. Apparently made a big impression.

Man, I loved the Tomoe Gozen series. I'd also add Delany's Tales of Neveryon. 

1 minute ago, Pentallion said:

Because if 40 Humakti worshippers each sacrifice a point of power they gain Shield 27 for a year?  Not just the rules-lawyer chieftain, ALL of them.  The wyter goes right back to 42.  and next season, those same Humakti get Trueswords for a year.  Those ain't getting knocked down when you've got 54 countermagic up.  And that's just Humakt.  Why wouldn't 40 Orlanthi all have permanent Flight for only 1 power per year?

And the fact the rules state you can sac power to your wyter means everyones wyter will always be at max power because those benefitting from its powers stand to gain from saccing power to it.

Knock 40 POW off that wyter and that wyter is going to be terribly magically powerful until some big ceremony could be held to replenish its POW. If I was the GM, I'd probably say that needs to happen during Sacred Time or the high holy day of the wyter. This isn't the sort of event that should be done casually. 

In the meantime, that wyter is spiritually weak. Who cares if you have 40 nigh-invulnerable warriors for a year, if your wyter is gone. The cosmos tends to react strongly against rules-lawyers who abuse the spirit of the rules.

2 minutes ago, Jeff said:

So you have a maximum POW wyter for your example, rather than the normal 27 POW, CHA 14. This is obviously SUPER-clan, whose wyter is some god.

Your wyter has 42 points of POW. In theory, it could blow 41 points of POW to cast Rune spells, but that is stupid unless this is a murder-hobo wyter. That wyter's POW has all sorts of other functions, like being the spiritual force of the community, keeping hostile spirits out of the clan sacred lands, etc. Reducing the POW of the community spirit weakens your community - this should go without saying (and not something that should need clockwork mechanical things). Why are the other clan members going to give up their POW - their SOUL - just so that our rules-lawyer chieftain can feel super-swell?

Heck, reduce your wyter to POW 1, and maybe just it gets captured by a hostile shaman. Maybe some weak hate ghost with POW 15 decides to take its vengeance. Maybe a ritual enemy that normally is obeisance now can manifest. 

I mean the more I think about this, the more I would absolutely ruin a chief or high priest who tried to do this. "You broke our ancestral god - OUR ANCESTRAL GOD! - to do what? Our clan is dying, we have kin slaughter and more than half the community left to form a new clan, so that you be invulnerable? We have summoned the assembly and have decided to strip you from that office so that we might survive."

15 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Are Wyter's too strong? 

Minor Temple, Clan, or Regiment - Community Members 251–1,000     POW 6D6+6     CHA 4D6 

Assuming the High Priest of the Wyter is an Orlanthi Rune-Lord Clan Leader with a CHA Full of RP and knows all the spells sited, at the minimum. 

"That 42 Power Wyter could - on full moon days - cast a Shield 35 with Extension 5 on itself lasting 2 years (full moon doubles temporal spells).  Next holy day, having been brought back up to 42 from worshippers, it can cast Shield 30 with Extension 5 for 2 years upon 25 members of the community.  Next holy day, do it again or cast, idk, lets say Spirit Armor Enchantments.  30 points worth on 25 worshippers.  Next holy day, make 30 point magic matrix enchantments on 25 items.  Make 25 items each with 15 Mindblasts seems good.  Will that work?

It would seem so according to RAW. 

The math works out to this:  use 8 power to hit 40 worshippers.  Shield 27 with extension 5.  For lunars, that lasts 2 years and cost the wyter 40 Power. The guys getting the benefit from the wyter then sac 1 POW to the wyter each in exchange, bringing the wyter back up to 42 power.   In two years, you can imbue 200 worshippers with Shield 27. 

Why don't we see Lunar patrols and lunar army with Shield 27?  Why not everyone who has a wyter?

I don't see any limits on how much power can be sacced to the wyter other than species maximum.  The rules don't say the wyter can only gain power by marking it, they say the worshippers can give it.  So the 20 points David talks about make no sense to me.  That's paltry compared to a minor wyter's power or the power that it imbues its worshippers with.

I'm guessing these troublesome words need to disappear from the RAW?  and sometimes even points of characteristic POW (which could bring its POW up to a maximum of 42)." -Pentallion ( I have no idea how to quote into a new post)

Is there some missing link not being seen here?

Should a clan or temple, or a Tribe with a BUNCH of Temples be able to muster a couple dozen members of the community with what amounts to immunity to normal damage and all but the strongest magics?

 

 

So you have a maximum POW wyter for your example, rather than the normal 27 POW, CHA 14. This is obviously SUPER-clan, whose wyter is some god.

Your wyter has 42 points of POW. In theory, it could blow 41 points of POW to cast Rune spells, but that is stupid unless this is a murder-hobo wyter. That wyter's POW has all sorts of other functions, like being the spiritual force of the community, keeping hostile spirits out of the clan sacred lands, etc. Reducing the POW of the community spirit weakens your community - this should go without saying (and not something that should need clockwork mechanical things). Why are the other clan members going to give up their POW - their SOUL - just so that our rules-lawyer chieftain can feel super-swell?

Heck, reduce your wyter to POW 1, and maybe just it gets captured by a hostile shaman. Maybe some weak hate ghost with POW 15 decides to take its vengeance. Maybe a ritual enemy that normally is obeisance now can manifest. 

16 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Most of the Iron Age had all that, though.

Please stop with the "well, this is also Iron Age too" nonsense. As lordabdul said, "Bronze Age" has connotations and associations that lets Glorantha strongly contrast itself with other fantasy settings. In a popular culture where medieval-Viking-pseudoIrish-Scottish-Roman Empire settings are a dime a dozen (GoT, Skyrim. every fantasy series on Sky/Netflix/Amazon/etc), the more "Bronze Age" Mycenae/Hittite/Urnfield/Danubian/Sea People/Villenovan/Gilgamesh stuff all stands out as distinctive and different. Which is a good thing.

Are we using "Bronze Age" like careful archaeologists would? Of course not - this is a fantasy setting. But Bronze Age gives us a good and handy aesthetic tool for describing the setting.

4 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

This is highly circumstantial, but the numbering scheme of the texts in the Knowledge temples based on how they're written in the Guide and Sourcebook, with the multiple numbers and letters, seem to imply that there is quite a lot of written pieces to keep tabs on. Such lengthy and highly abstract designations wouldn't really be needed otherwise.

If Lhankor Mhy Knowledge Temples and Libraries are also used as repositories for censuses, royal accounting, property evaluation, contracts, and other largely non-narrative documents, that could explain some of the need for complex numbering systems though.

It's very possible that the actual number of narrative documents in those temples compared to archived inventory lists and legal documents (genealogies, etc.) might be quite small.

(And apropos Iceland, I seem to remember something about it being the most literate society in the High Middle Ages in Western Europe.)

That is how I see Knowledge Temples as well. Most of their texts are records - contracts, property lists, construction drafts, recorded judgements,  foreign correspondences and engagements, aristocratic declarations, and financial matters - but they also include literary compositions as divination, religious, omens, incantations and hymns to various gods, lexical, medical, mathematical and historical texts as well as epics and myths. Not to mention plenty of wisdom texts, used to train people to scribe.

15 minutes ago, Sumath said:

YGMV. I think it's a major strength of the new version of RuneQuest and marks it out from almost every other fantasy RPG. 

Reading the RQG book has inspired me to start reading up on Bronze Age societies (and also RW myths that I haven't read for years or had never read).

Not surprisingly, I agree.

36 minutes ago, hkokko said:

Running Glorantha happily in Mythras + Aig. check my blog. Notesfrompavis.wordpress.com

Please move this thread to Mythras.

3 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

No, the only rule question is "What are Hwarin Dalthippa's runes", and since I'm unlikely to have a Seven Mothers priest in my campaign it's fairly niche.

The other question is about a house rule.

Especially since Hwarin Dalthippa is not one of the Seven Mothers. Her runes are Movement, Moon, and Light btw. In Jillaro she is often associated with Harmony as well.

38 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I know it's frustrating Bill. There is a certain logic behind it though... and it does directly related to the thread.

Charisma (and Lie and Clever Tongue, Glamour) can all be used on/against friends and allies in an attempt to 'manipulate' them to get them to do what you want.

Bladesharp having a visual aspect mostly doesn't matter (except for aesthetics, and occasionally stealth rolls).

 

And that's all I'm going to say on the C-word matter.

I don't think spells like Disrupt, Demoralize or Befuddle should have a visual component... but that's very much my idea. Seeing someone casting - absolutely. Not knowing what they're casting, and at who/what makes the game more interesting. (ie, have they just upped their defences? Have they upped their offence? Have they just tried to summon something? Did their spell succeed or not? Why is Bill hanging back and not attacking like the rest of us?)

And this is why descriptions of the visual and audible aspects of the spells are NOT given except in rare cases. 

3 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

p 315... "Using a Rune spell literally channels part of the power of a god to affect the Mundane World; it is not an invisible act! The caster always exhibits some form of manifestation of the
magical powers at their disposal. The caster might appear to grow larger (even if their SIZ is unaffected), burn with an inner glow, crackle lightning from their fingertips, or even start to physically resemble the image of the deity."

(some might argue that the 'burn with an inner glow" might be very subtle...)

No, the Ernalda Priestess is not casting that spell in the middle of the meeting with the Lunars and Yelmalians in occupied territory just to get the upper hand in a debate...

Is she doing in the council meeting with the Orlanthi, LM, Issaries, etc etc tribal council? Still, in my Glorantha, I'd consider it grossly inappropriate and disrespectful to the other leaders.

Maybe so in your Glorantha, and that's fine. But in mine (and Greg's), this stuff happens all the time. Earth Priestesses cast Charisma and make sure that they can get the upper hand against warlords, Wind Lords, and the like. In our Glorantha, they do that in council meetings when it matters. Heck, they might be prudent to save those Rune points for the assembly meetings....

31 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I'm still not getting whether you think this is ok all of the time, or only some of the time... (even if that 'some' is 'most')

Happens all the time. Its "acceptability" depends on what god gets brought in and how powerful they are. Your community of Neolithic farmers gets visited by a tattooed stranger who wants you to help him fight against the lowlanders. Your spirits and elders, led by your Light Priest, say no, but the stranger says his god is mightier than yours. He challenges your Light Priest to the Contest of Manifestations. The Light Priest agrees and summons forth a a light as bright as the sun. "I am the light of the Sky," he says. The stranger laughs and a dark storm gathers in the sky, blotting out the sun and the blue sky. A terrible explosion is heard, as a thunderbolt crashes down upon the Light Priest, slaying him. "I am the King of Storms," he says.

The shaman says that the Storm King is a dangerous and deadly god, and that god is more powerful than the light of the Sky Dome. Your village agrees to let any adult who chooses to follow the Storm King into war. The stranger offers gifts and plunder, and many agree to follow him.

Just now, Shiningbrow said:

In the other example we're using, and to try for an analogy, if there's a meeting (say, the Lunars are chatting with the Orlanthi and Yelmalians about property rights, tariffs, taxes and tributes), and someone brings down their deity with a big showy flash of light and huge glowy aura - how will the others react? "Oh, cool - yeah, ok, you've convinced us"? or...???

Again, this happens in many Gloranthan stories. Gods show up, and people either acquiesce, summon their own gods, or run away. Sometimes the "gods" have a contest and people carefully watch who wins.