Martin Dick

It doesn't really matter whether the god is conscious or unconscious, what matters is if you are aligning yourself with the type of behaviour that the god approves of, Humakt won't/can't answer a DI for a resurrection, Chalana Arroy won't/can't answer a DI for an earthquake to strike the enemy etc. I agree with Soltakss 100% that Storm Bull is not going to grant a DI to teleport away from Chaos. In the Sun County example you quote: "Yelmalio had been shamed by the defeat of his haughty templars and so had chosen not to answer their pleas for salvation all day. His heart was turned by Yamsur's request for the Light Son asked not for his life, but only to have his ashes safely interred." So they aren't really relevant to the question of whether they made DI rolls, as they weren't asking for something that Yelmalio can/will grant. To be honest, the whole teleport 10 people by any God seems a bit out of kilter for any god who isn't Orlanth/Mastakos or the like and even the resurrecting the dead thing is a bit weird. For a DI to be successful, the first hurdle that needs to be crossed is that it is something that the god can/will grant. Once that hurdle is crossed, then you can talk about POW and points in rune pools and the like. The point I was making about failing their devotion tolls, was that they all chose to fail their devotion rolls (except Yamsur the Splendid who then got unlucky (for the Sun Dome that is and made his DI) just like a PC can choose to ignore a passion. The two options to my mind are Gods only care about your POW and how many points you've sacrificed to them (though that makes the difference between a Rune Priest and a Rune Lord a bit strange as they have the same level of POW (possibly higher for a Rune Priest) and will have similar rune point pools) when deciding whether they will answer a DI. The Gods care (for some meaning of care) about the strength of the relationship between them and the worshipper, with POW and rune points in your pool being an important factor in whether they answer but not necessarily the only one. If we go with this second option, then it would make sense to consider adding Devotion in the mix (not necessarily as an augment as this has some weird consequences) as Passions are an important part of the game now and a high Devotion to your god fits in well. As you say, which one you choose is a matter of taste, but I actually think that including Devotion and possibly a relevant Rune is actually more about prayer and religion than option 1

No, but I think it means they failed their Devotion roll

Finally, another use for my D12! Are Rune Priests treated as Rune Lords or Initiates? I would only allow Devotion (Deity) to augment as it the measure of your link with your god

The mechanic is already a bit different from earlier editions, as you get to use your current unspent rune points as part of the total if you are a Runepriest or Runelord, so it is no longer smooth, if you only lose rune points, that's far less damaging than if you lose POW

I've always thought that RQG should have adopted the Hard level of success from CoC, which would reduce the number of ties a fair bit, so you would have Critical (5%), Special (20%), Hard (50%), Normal (51%-100%), Fail and Fumble. Doesn't resolve the ties completely, but then you can go with one of the solutions above

One of the things that I liked about Hero Wars/HeroQuest was using extended contests to model conflicts that took place over a lengthy period of time. One example was the wooing of an NPC over several seasons, with an action taken every season. It fits in well with the seasonal cycle of RQG. Something like one of the systems mentioned above would be good in RQG2 🙂

Posted this on the Facebook page but think it works here as well - I think passions should be quite fluid. That Love (Husband) turns into Hate (Husband) when you find out that they have betrayed you. The Loyalty (King) vanishes or turns into Hate (King) or Revenge (King) when they swear allegiance to the ancient enemy. I also don't think that there is any obligation for passions to be reciprocal. For example, my character has Love (Ernalsilva) and is even in a year marriage with her, but I wouldn't be surprised at all, if she didn't have the reciprocal Love (Arkast) given that she used weird Ernaldan magics on me to create the passion for her own purposes. Unreciprocated love is far from uncommon, especially if you read shoujo manga . Fear is clearly not a reciprocal passion and Hate isn't necessarily reciprocal either. Loyalty doesn't have to be reciprocated, I can be loyal to someone and they aren't necessarily loyal to me in return. I can still use my loyalty to ask for favours as they might have an indirect/broader loyalty (e.g. Loyalty (Clan) and I'm a member of the Clan or the Red Emperor might have Love (Citizens of the Empire) ) and as well, I want to maintain that Loyalty, so I will grant the favour to maintain or even increase their loyalty. Rulers in history who ignore or tread on the loyalty of their subjects often lose it with bad consequences arising and of course having loyal followers is a pretty useful thing too. Harrek probably doesn't care about having loyal followers, their Fear passion is all he needs to use, but he is a bit of an exception I also think that in manga/anime style, you should be able to do call on a Passion after the roll in dramatic circumstances

So, when the deeper mysteries become apparent through Monrogh's revelations, why was Yelmalio guarding the stead in the Greater Darkness while Orlanth was on the LightBringer quest?

It's always felt like a self-correcting problem in the RQ combat system to me. I've never felt confident enough to change weapons away from my best weapon in combat voluntarily. If you do, you get a few extra ticks in a secondary weapon, at the cost of not attacking for at least a round and likely leaving yourself exposed to an attack with a reduced parry at best and no parry at worst. The fate of Rurik awaits you in every RQ battle and frequent swapping strikes me as tempting fate. In terms of how many ticks, it jumps around all the time, depending on what skills are in use during the session and how lucky you get. A couple of sessions ago, I got 1 (and failed the experience check), a few sessions before that I got over 10 (and even made the experience check for my broadsword which was at 135%). RQ experience is a random thing. As a GM, the number doesn't matter, but whether the players are progressing at a rate that you and they are happy with for your campaign.

Or cast a Disruption spell or a Befuddle or a Demoralise etc. etc. or a javelin or grab their bow and shoot an arrow, I don't think it makes them an idiot (most effective and expedient doesn't read like doing something stupid), all it does is change the focus of their attack.

Not hard at all, if you have a shaman in the party 😈

Given how unusual the spell is to normal spirit magic spells and with it being a bit OP, I can understand why you would look for an alternative reading, but the RBoM makes it clear that the literal meaning that it works on spirits and corporeal beings identically in all of its effects. And I don't think it has a POW vs POW roll either on my reading of the spell: "When targeted at a spirit during spirit combat, if the spell is successfully cast, the spirit is automatically drawn away from its current target and now attacks the caster" My emphasis, but to me automatically means no POW vs. POW roll, if there is a roll, then what does automatically mean? Now, if my GM had house-ruled that it was needed, I wouldn't have complained, but RAW seems to me to be no roll

It worked liked that in the core rules as well: "If used against a corporeal enemy, the effect is identical." My Orlanthi thane has it as the rest of the party aren't tough in a stand-up fight (Yinkini hunter, Odaylan hunter, Chalana Arroy priestess, Kolati shaman and an Orlanth Thunderous herder), sometimes the guy with Shield and heavy armour and Protection has to get in the way and Distraction can really help with that. That's not to say that they aren't powerful

Ahh, okay, my Orlanthi warrior does that all the time 😈

Skill tanking?

RQ experience occasionally does very weird things, my Issaries merchant who was born in Pavis, had 15% swim when starting, as opposed to everyone else who started with 10%, so when we ran into a situation where someone had to swim, he was it. After finally rolling under 15%, while being dragged out of the water on a rope before drowning several times, he then rolled a 6% increase. Exactly 11 short swims later, he had a Swim of 75% and was averaging 5 on his experience roll. It did come in useful when we ended up in a competition with a Praxian clan at an oasis and I challenged them to a swimming competition!

I think the difference in RQ Glorantha, is that a character who is in this position is going to say "I'm going to head off and do Yelmalio's Golden Bow heroquest" which rewards the quester with improved skill in the bow and even a mean GM is going to let them do that after 6 months, rather than force them to make that roll (which would probably be 4% anyway). I think the Lunars are almost certainly pretty good at fast-tracking through HeroQuests promising candidates to Rune Lord and Rune Priest and I'm sure Argrath learns to do it as well.

The issue here is that a PC has been tainted by Chaos and the rest of the party knows that they have been tainted by Chaos, and the question is "Can we still keep playing this character?" Now, one answer to that is No, you're playing in Sartar, all Sartarites hate and fear Chaos, so the party just kills them outright or the PC commits suicide. Perfectly within canon, but pretty boring unless the player wants a new character and doesn't feel like doing some grimdark anguished roleplaying. But if they do want to do some grimdark anguished stuff and don't want to roll up a new character, then as a GM, the best answer as always is Yes. Once you get to that, then the question is how do we do it? Which is what the OP asked. Now, we know that an Orlanthi all is 85%, so that means there are people who are willing to go beyond that good old Storm Bull maxim of "Any Chaos is All Chaos". So followers of which gods could tolerate a chaos-tainted party member, especially when that person is a friend/ally who hasn't actually done anything wrong (all IMO, of course😞 Eurmal - Hey, sounds like fun! Orlanth - this could be difficult, hopefully he doesn't have a Hate (Chaos) passion, but if Orlanth can tolerate Eurmal, then they can probably come around for a friend who hasn't harmed anyone and of course won't hesitate much to kill him if he shows any signs of chaotic behaviour Ernalda - Is he useful? Can he be controlled? Can we eliminate him if he causes trouble? Can we hide this from the rest of the clan? Yes, to all of that means he can live Humakt - Are they violating anything to do with my Code of Honour? No, then he can live until he does Lhankor Mhy - I'm sure I can come up with a way to cleanse my friend of the taint, lots of interesting things to test on him until I find the cure Issaries - He's my friend, he's helped me lots of times, he's not doing anything wrong at the moment, it's a fair exchange to allow him to live for the moment Chalana Arroy - he's not harming anyone, so let him live Babeester Gor - is her harming the Earth? No, then I'll go with the Ernaldan Storm Bull - He dies, now! Alternative, he fumbles his Sense Chaos role and becomes convinced that his friend isn't tainted. Lunars - Welcome to the club! So, lots of rationales for allowing him to live, all of which will lead to hellish complications and difficulties for the party, sorry, I meant interesting plot developments

Chaos itself is not really a problem for Humakti, the things they do are the problem, so if the character isn't doing those things, a Humakti can probably live with that. Storm Bulls on the other hand are a very different beast, if there is a Storm Bull in the party, then the player is screwed

I agree entirely and I don't think I said anything to the contrary, I think it's much more interesting in the above situation to keep playing the character and have them struggle to control their chaotic desires and being tempted to use the +4D6 to Strength when things are tough but being aware that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions and knowing that the rest of the party has their eye on them and only need a small justification to kill them. As I initially said: "Then the desperate struggle not to be caught out as a Chaotic being can begin 😈" but that can be the struggle to not become a Chaotic being. There might even be a kind Lunar who might help them with that struggle - Why must one consider the cheese carefully? The alternative is to just kill them or commit suicide, which as you say is hardly inappropriate as nearly all Orlanthi think Chaos = Evil, but not as much fun for the GM and maybe the player?

I thought we were agreed, that there is no big E evil in Glorantha. Zorak Zorani - mad, bad and dangerous to know and when Chaos comes calling features 1) and 2) become applicable, but otherwise they're really bad neighbours. I guess you could make a case that Tusk Riders and Vadeli are veering in to Big E evil, they seem to have no redeeming or even useful features and can't be negotiated with, but on that basis you would say the same about broos, ogres, vampires, krarshtkids, walktapi etc.

Yes, no Evil as such, but the great majority of beings touched by Chaos are definitely evil and often twisted and perverse. It's clearly very difficult to have the Chaos rune and remain a reasonable sentient being and yes, I agree a lot of Storm Bulls are evil but not Evil, their two redeeming features are 1) they are not as bad as the things they go and fight and 2) they are sort of on our side

"We do this by making our game world the best simulation it can be" I disagree with this, in many cases too much simulation actually detracts from the immersion. One example would be massive info dumps in novels, which while making the reader well-aware of the details of the world, i.e. improving the simulation, yet for most of us end up taking away the immersion. Another would be Monet, if you've seen his paintings and visited his cottage, you know what a wonderful evocation of the gardens comes from his paintings, far superior for me to a photo, but in terms of simulation, not really. Now, everyone has their own scale on this, some people hate simulation with a passion, others adore every last word of the info dump, each to their own! But Jeff doesn't feel that bastard swords fit into Glorantha and neither did Greg, so that means if you end up writing something for Chaosium, don't give the Orlanthi chieftain a bastard sword skill. For all of the rest of us, that just means we add a new sword skill if we want that does 1D10+1 etc. which is a truly tiny YGWV. Now, it would be interesting to see from people who actually know their stuff some info on how to make Glorantha truly Bronze Age as a variant Glorantha for people like Ali who like the Bronze Age thing. What goes, what needs to come in, but it's almost certainly a niche thing.

Give him a Chaos rune, default starting at 5, maybe more if he really played around with the Chaos. If you think he would change personality, then give him a Passion at 60% relevant to the type of Chaos e.g. if it was Ogres, then Love (Murder) or Love (Cannibalism) Then the desperate struggle not to be caught out as a Chaotic being can begin 😈

That bears no relationship to reality - Winter in January/February?? Hello from the Southern Hemisphere 😆