Jon Hunter

30 minutes ago, g33k said:

 

• "Vinga" should be Note'd as "often taken as a female incarnation of Orlanth" (or similar Note).

 

I decided not to just to annoy Jeff

6 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Overall, good initial set.  My only complaint is with Ernalda as not good for a starting character, but that probably reflects what was available in the old RQ material though.

Hopefully that's something that we'll see corrected in the new RQ like it was for HQG.

I think Ernelda should be a possible starting character, but I don't think the materials is there to support the encouragement.

Its a hole that needs fixing.

Saying that it maybe to subtle a character for a player new to Glorantha.

5 hours ago, styopa said:

Nice!

I'd only add that Xiola Umbar (if the party context supports it) is generally considered by my players to be a far more "adventuring" PC-friendly 'healing' cult.  Her special spells from GoG: (Attract Attention, Group Defense (no duration!), Healing Trance, Shield of Darkness, and Turn Blow) are crazy good, verging on the overpowered.

 

Chalana Arroy's complete pacifism might be a fun challenge for some players, but others just find it annoying and rather dull.

If i was doing a troll list id do that, the lists pretty much for Satar and environment.

I have a Prax/Pavis list ready to go if he wants that.

After 36 years gaming many of them in Glorantha i still don't feel qualified to write a lunar list

5 minutes ago, Nick J. said:

No offense, but this just feels like a hammer looking for a nail to me. There's already a mechanism for players to get the skills they want outside of organic 'learn-by-use' and that's paying for, or otherwise obtaining training from a tutor/mentor.

To each their own I suppose. I wouldn't object to some kind of optional system being outlined in the new rules, but as a relative new-comer to d100 games in the last couple of years I can't say it's been any detriment to the games I've run (Magic World). So far in my experience, players typically stay in-character and don't do a lot of meta-gaming.

I'd agree I don't think its broke. I'm just not sure if its the best.

I also like my character in game time to be about character and plot not, not running round trying to gain advancement. 

15 hours ago, davecake said:

I see no reason why you can't have a system that is playable for PCs and good for NPC master sorcerers at the same time. 

I'm hoping to be proved wrong here, but if low level sorcery is a powerful as spirit or divine magic and very flexible and highly highly powerful at the top[ end, its an unbalanced mechanic.

I more worried about the former than the later. if sorcery has its own spells which are very similar to the battle/spirit magic equivalents, its different words and mechanic but a similar result.

When I was considering sorcery for WOD:Glorantha i was considering at the following ideas.

• Take the mage rules in terms of direct manipulation of the world via runes.
• Substitute runes for spheres
• No set spells direct manipulation of the world via runes
• Limit instant effects, this stuff is planned and structured spellcasting, so either stop it completely or give needed bonuses for ritual and preparation.
• Uses each success to determine effect, duration or range, do lots of success needed for potent spells. Low level sorcery is not really effective
• Keep the concept like paradox as it fits glorantha snapping back towards the great compromise, and reflects the stories of the end of the 2nd age very well.

However id like to see what the new rules come up with.

OK what I would argue for is a spent experience system which covers skills, stats, spirit magic and rune magic spells.

The major reason for this are not because I object to "golf bagging" as i used to call it.

But for the players control of character development and the one combined experience system.

However every system as has pros and cons, here is how I understand it.

Skill Check System

Positive

• It is what everyone knows

• It rewards activity learning matches action

• It can encourage skill diversification

Negative

• No Player control on character development

• Can be relatively messy to administer

• One of 4 or 5 advancement mechanics in the game

• Random

• Can be abused without proper gm'ing

Spent Experience System

Positives

• Player control of character development

• One system can covers all advancement

• Not random players always rewarded

• Relatively simple to administer

Negatives

• Can lead to players over specialising characters

• It is a change from what we have

You mean something like this? If you want another culture adding to it shout

http://www.backtobalazar.com/runequest-cults-starting-players/

I had a half hour on my lunch today.

also

Opinions can be wrong.  Just because they're opinions doesn't make them sacred and unassailable.  The complaint that players take advantage of skill checks is invalid because the DM has full control over whether or not the players can check the skill.  Invalid arguments are not valid opinions.  Sorry.

And excuse me for being sick and tired of hearing this argument dredged up all the time.  It's old. 

You are being rude and flippant and arguing against i point I hadn't made. I never made that argument. I actually started my position by saying "the skill check system isn't broke."

I just think better options have been developed in the last 40 years.   

On a different thread this was said, i thought id like the right to reply

It's called levels of experience. Many people like them. Go check out D&D for their merits and drawbacks 

Seriously, an advancement system that is "evenly balanced between players" is a myth or joke. Why should all characters advance at the same rate? Should somebody who just sits like a lump and contributes nothing advance as fast as someone who is doing all sorts of things? 

The skill check advancement system has some flaws, but it sure beats any of the abstract, controlled and so called evenly balanced systems I've ever seen. Generally they are either so controlled that the players have little choice in what advances (i.e. D&D level), or so evenly balanced that characters are forced to become one trick ponies and you wind up what is essentially a class system in all but name, where players are afraid to "waste" improvement rolls on a skill that's outside their narrow focus.

Pentallion has a point. Skill check hunting does get raised on a fairly regular basis, and does get shot down pretty quickly. In most cases, skill check hunting is a problem that is created and enpowered by the GM. Not necessarily intentionally so, but done so never the less.  

And since people are raising opinions, one of mine is that since we now have all sorts of versions and variant of RQ that have incorporated such divergent ideas such as GM allocated improvement  rolls, action points, custom specials and critical hits, opposed rolls, etc. etc. could it be possible to have at least one version of RQ on the market with actual RuneQuest rules? The systems been changed, adapted, simplified, revised, re-envisioned, renamed, revised, resurrected, revamped. updated, altered, and adulterated in just about every way imaginable.  By now, there should be enough variants to please just about anybody who wants to play something related to RuneQuest. Why not actually have the actual RuneQuest rules in print, and not just some variant system that swiped the name?

To respond;

Who was mentioning D&D or D&D based experience system? Nothing I have suggested has remotely gone close to that. The desire to argue a point it about suggests point scoring as an agenda not engaging with the arguments presented.

If the skill check issue comes regularly it suggests many people aren't happy with it as an eternal ideal solution, and though you may thinks its the ideal solution a significant number of others may not, and its fair conversation for people to have.

The over specialisation issue that comes with the spending experience point system is a real issue i have seen, ( with one or two players in particular) over the years. However prudent g'ming, varied plot obstacles and a couple of minor rules tweaks can limit that weakness. 

As regard what I regard as the 'real Runequest has skill checks and anything else is a deviation from real Runequest' argument, if you followed this argument we would all be sat round playing RQ1 and nothing would ever change.

RQ was first printed over 40 years ago, RQ and d100 system was a massive leap forward from the D&D class based systems. But RPG's have had 40 years on innovation since that point, and I believe that are numerous concepts which have developed in that time which are better than what was done as a first draft in the 1970's. Debate and discussion about them is not trying to kill runequest off and steal the name, but ensure that Runequest is a game which is accessible, playable and up to scratch 15 years into the next millennium.

I was a big WOD:Storyteller player before my 15 year absence from gaming, many of ideas I like hail from those system. However those systems are now old hat and there are probably better ideas out there again, which I haven't encountered yet. I need to flexible and open to those ideas.

If the RQ community wants remain solely in the halycon days of the 80's and reject all good role-playing developments since I think we will have to wave goodbye to RQ as a commercial game. 

Stifling honest debate can only be bad for the game, even debates you think you have settled in your own mind many years ago. I bothered to respond because i got what i thought was a emotional and rather rude response to a fair and valid opinion.

I will fully explain my preferences and reasons in another post, so you can throw things at my actual opinion. 

Cheers Rod,

Sometime writing and playing about with ideas gives you insight. You get into what you imagine to be somethings head and you start to understand it. I hadn't thought much of giants about this, but right now I have a feeling that Giants are just lonely. Due to there size, food requirements, long life span, ties to the disorder rune, grumpy behavoir and minimal numbers thy spend a lot of time alone.

Hopefully that sense of isolation comes out in the write ups. It will when i'm playing giants as npc's now, befriend a giant and you have a friend for life, a grumpy, angry, troublesome difficult friend who may want to eat you, but a friend never the less. 

Also chaos and corruption is the horror element of the Glorantha setting, if you are not able to create some elements of sympathy for what has been corrupted it looses the impact. Corruption what was always of evil isn't horror, corruption of what was good and then the ongoing consequences can be truly disturbing.

I think Rasalun is a lot more disturbing a character than Annis as he has a sympathetic edge to him.

In both however maybe art reflects and magnifies areas of life more than i'm comfortable with.

Thanks again for the kind words.

Jon

1 hour ago, Pentallion said:

Once a year at least.  This old excuse for not liking skill checks raises it's hoary old head at least annually.

Seems like you have an opinion, are other peoples opinions excuses?

With me its not just skills checks its a fractured experience/improvement system,we have separate mechnanics for skill experience,training, spelling learning, power gains and rune magic improvement.

I'm all up for an abstract system which deals with all advancement in one mechanic, is controlled and is evenly balanced between players.

Another encounter post

http://www.backtobalazar.com/twisted-giants/

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

The map in the Guide and Atlas excludes most of the Elder Wilds and Balazar from Sheng Seleris' empire (and there are still griffins there, but little to no mention of them in lowland Peloria). Given that there were far richer pickings elsewhere, there seems little reason to do more than briefly scout those regions, with a fair risk the scouts wouldn't come back. Sending a demigod into the wilderness doesn't seem strategically or logistically sensible.

In fact for the Elder Wilds there's the Uncommon Event: Griffins hunting horses; horsemen beware!

This threat is not mentioned elsewhere, but explains why Sheng attempted to exterminate them.

Its a nice find, one of the things i'm not happy about of the BtB site is the history of Griffin Mountain post, when its redone this titbitwill probably be included in the history.

26 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

His realm didn't extend far into Balazar or the Elder Wilds - poor grazing. The griffins there are a small relict population.

Page 142 of the guide, its on the border, so debatable. They have also had a few hundred years to repopulate also.

Make sense that the horselord Sheng depopulates Griffins, but the top of a mountain is a good place to go to survive.

On the skill check system.

It's old school, not broke, but are there better options out there?

I think so, d100 and buying advances with xp is by no means incompatible(open quest uses this system), and I think gives advantages in both game balance( pcs advance at the same rate, once everything is factored in) and player control of character development( allows character specialisms to develop).

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

Searching for something else, I came across this snippet from Mr. Stafford, regarding griffins:

http://glorantha.temppeli.org/digest/gd8/2001.01/1793.html

It may no longer be canon, but it seems very possible that the reason worshippers of Yelm the Rider no longer ride griffins is that Sheng Seleris exterminated all of the griffins in Peloria. His intent might have been to weaken Galgarenge as an eater of horses, but it also removed the possibility of massed aerial cavalry.

Seeing as Griffin Mountain is in Peloria and shengs  sphere of influence he didn't do a good job.

Anything been written on her thats not in the guide or Griffin Mountain?

I've been reading Lords of Terror, thinking about delecti's get out from the Dragonkill. 

We have

• Appeared just prior to the Dragonkill
• Continually Mutates from Human to Chaos Beastie
• Cults of Krjalk and Pocharngo
• Appears to have a tie to the man rune ( can only posses people with it)
• False immortality 

I think there maybe a viable back story in that ? Anyone else opinions?

Back Again;

Some new giant encounters with WOD:Glorantha Stats

http://www.backtobalazar.com/new-giants-encounters-elder-wilds/

Its seems that EWF were the ones off doing biological experiments with half-breeds, seems to have dropped out of Glorantha after the Dragonkill war. 

Could this be one of the major reasons the dragons fell out with the EWF?

2 minutes ago, 1970 said:

I totally understand and agree, but with having to pick spells for NPCs and such having pregens would be a godsend if I were to go off the beaten path, which I would end up doing sooner or later.  If I were running for a group that wouldn't be a problem, but as a solo player I have to take those things into consideration, unfortunately.

Both campaign settings have stacks of pregen NPC's and encounters. 

44 minutes ago, 1970 said:

I missed the Kickstarter too and never would have thought to look there.

What does anyone have to say about the Old School RQ Resource Pack?  Once again, it seems to have stuff I desperately need, specifically bunches of pregenerated NPCs, plus a couple of adventures.  I don't know if I want it more than a campaign setting or whatnot, but I am curious.

My preference would be the campaign settings every time.  These are what made runequest stand out from the crowd in the early 80's.

Old school resource pack i think is curiosity compared to them.

Like most things the devils in the detail, and it will be the implementation that determine whether sits a workable and balanced system or not.

I was hoping for something different with sorcery, to my mind in Glorantha its the magic that breaks the rules and has the most potential to change things in unforeseen and  possibly catastrophic ways ( EWF, Godleaners, etc ).

I think here we have something which too equivalent and comparable to the other magic systems.  I'm  not sure the use in creating something that sounds like another recipe for making a very similar dish. (ie different mechanic similar outcomes.)

Stuff game balance! Give me something which is horrid and rubbish for all none wizard cast users, but in the hands of a arch mage can alter the very fabric of Glorantha.

Balance this out in the Game by making it slow and ritualistic, no quick casts, or reactive magic. Good powerful sorcery takes days of preparation.

Now to be fair that is not good for PC sorcerers, but great for in game bad guys and NPC's which is probably what i wanted.

Anyway its sounds more workable than the RQ3 system, and as I said at the start the devils in the detail, a good implementation could win me round
 

I've got say im a Big Griffin mountain fan but if you want easy and out of the box it has to be Borderlands.

If you want easy for players to pick up and a slightly different experience, but some rewarding work for a GM Griffin Mountains great.

There are a few extra Griffin Mountain resources over at www.backtobalazar.com all non canon but you may like to use some.

43 minutes ago, Iskallor said:

What are the Pavic Tradition spirit societies?

Make some up have some fun !!

OK more material starting to be dropped onto the site;

Some newtling background here;

http://www.backtobalazar.com/newtlings-elder-wilds/