Cloud64

6 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Just got Joerg's joke, little slow today. Bolded for those as slow as me ...

<slapsforehead>

Ok, you got me. I must be slow today.

1 minute ago, Joerg said:

I think I said so...

Are we talking at cross-purposes?

15 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Who is supposed to get such references

It's a Doctor Who reference. Only one of the most popular sci-fi shows in TV history. I'd expect plenty of people to get it. There's alway Google, but I supplied a link, so what's the problem?

In response to the Campaign Book comments, there’s clearly room for both approaches – historic events can happen as writ or their outcomes can be changed by campaign events. Speaking as a returning GM who enjoys Glorantha but has discovered there’s a huge body of lore that wasn’t around when he was playing back in the 80s, the thought of changing the timeline is daunting. I don’t know enough about the politics, the armies, the military campaigns, the personalities, etc., to work out what the domino effect is if outcome X changes. I am more than happy to work within a pre-determined timeline, knowing that the world my players are in will maintain consistency. 

My respect to those who have the knowledge, time and inclination to forge their own path. You go for it. But I’m putting my hand up for a  nice supporting framework that gives me and my players an interesting background to work within. Roll on the Campaign Book. 

9 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I'm going to disagree a bit.

That’s fine, and I think inevitable with a subject like this. The big trouble we have is that we never can really know for sure. All we have is anecdote and intelligent conjecture, and we can only make our best guesses based on the evidence to hand. 
 

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Having sentences without spacing for words, or punctuation, does mean it's easier to understand but trying to sub-vocalize. Especially with poor materials, lighting, etc. 

I’m assuming auto-correct has done its corrupting work and that you meant to say, “…it’s easier to understand by trying to sub-vocalize.” I would agree, but not that difficult for a practiced reader, though still annoying and ultimately tiring. 

On 1/23/2020 at 1:34 PM, Akhôrahil said:

Now do it for 30 pages. 🙂

It's probably easy to overestimate how good people were at reading in antiquity. Us moderns have over a decade of learning how to read, amazing amounts of experience with it, and we're suffused in a world of letters (often with a pleasant layout, too!). You and I have most likely read more text than any single human being did before the year 1500 or so. So when we think of reading in antiquity, picture someone with much less reading experience, reading text that doesn't have spaces, upper and lower case, standardized spelling, paragraphs, or anything like that. That may have been written by poor scribes, or aged into poor legibility. At this point, it becomes a whole lot more understandable that they would sound the letters out in order to understand the text, rather than doing what people like us do when reading, which is identifying the images of words and not reading out the individual letters even silently.

I believe I made the same points, though not with the depth you have. A good point re the quality of the material they may have had available. Having just had four fails on a captcha I can sympathise with them, though my out loud was rather more of the ‘What the *%&* is that supposed to %^&*ing be,’ rather than saying the letter out loud

19 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

As an ESL teacher, trust me - it makes a difference! Regularly (every class??) seeing students struggle with a word on a page, trying to pronounce it in various ways - finally getting the 'ah-hah' moment when it clicks...  that is, words they've heard and said before (Speak Other) they now recognise on paper (R/W Other).

 I don’t doubt you, and have experienced this myself when dabbling with other languages, but that’s not the readers I was talking about. I was talking about those who knew how to read, reading their first language and the suggestion that they couldn’t internalise it. Now less regular readers, as there were probably many in antiquity due to there being less written material physically available, may well have found it helped to sound out the words, but regular readers and scribes needing to do so rather than doing so merely out of habit doesn’t add up to me. This boils down to how the brain handles reading, and the brain hasn’t changed, so we wouldn’t expect how it handles reading to have changed. 

19 minutes ago, MOB said:

Yep, checks out (vid has major spoilers for The Good Place)

Think I’ll stick with ‘wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey’, thanks, and take Jeremy Bearimy as an homage rather than a rip-off  <not blinking, not blinking at all> 

13 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Wikipedia: “Scholars assume that reading aloud (Latin clare legere) was the more common practice in antiquity, and that reading silently (legere tacite or legere sibi) was unusual.^[47] In his Confessions, Saint Augustine remarks on Saint Ambrose's unusual habit of reading silently in the 4th century AD”

Thank you. I also found this

https://web.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Manguel/Silent_Readers.html

The problem with this is it’s based on anecdotes, and the Stanford article contains much conjecture. If anything the article points to reading out loud being a habit rather than a necessity to understand what’s been written. Given the number of non-readers, it makes sense that people would be used to hearing text being read out loud, as it had to be to reach a bigger audience. It also mentions cases of people reading silently in antiquity, notably a Greek play where this was acted out, implying that the audience would have been familiar with the concept. While accepting that the scholars know far more about it than me, I’m afraid I don’t buy that the skill of reading silently was ‘amazing’, but am happy to accept that it appeared unusual as it wasn’t done regularly, out of habit rather than out of inability. 
 

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One big problem with silent reading was that the writing didn’t support it. Without punctuation, spaces and in ALL CAPS, ITBECOMESPRETTYHARDEVENFORMODERNREADERSTOREADSILENTLYWHILEMAINTAININGCONCENTRATIONANDFOCUS.

I have no problem with this, nor with the non-standard spelling version. Of course, the amount of reading we do these days is likely vastly more than anyone did in ancient times, damn near all day reading/writing for some of us, so we are far more practiced. That said, a lot like that would be tiring, but I don’t see how it’s any easier speaking it as opposed to reading it silently. 

There’s another rabbit hole to disappear down here, and that’s how the brain processes reading and if there’s any different pathways between turning it into speech and internalising it silently, but that’s for another day

10 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Caesar was considered amazing for being able to read silently

Do you have a citation for this? I find it very hard to believe. If people can think in their language they can surely internalise it through reading. It takes kids very little time to internalise reading,  that ancient readers couldn’t do the same doesn’t add up, even though the skill was rarer. 

5 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I don't know of any languages that are that completely phonetic... 

Modern Italian is pretty phonetic. The spelling was standardised after unification and once you learn the pronunciation rules it’s consistent. Helps with learning. Of course, it’s  not perfectly phonetic, but you’re more likely to be right than wrong if you follow the rules. I don’t see how any language can be 100% phonetic; there’ll always be regional variation, and language changes over time in pronunciation as well as usage. Being an “amateur” I shan’t “harass” you with a list of English words that have a different “pronunciation” (take your pick with that one) than they had when I were lad. 
 

As a Brit  I’m very comfortable with non-phonetic writing. I’ve no doubt Messrs. Cholmondly, Featherstonehaugh and Marjoribanks would agree. [For those not au fait, they are pronounced Chumley, Fanshaw and Marchbanks.] And don’t get me started on the utterly pointless arguments over scone. 

Well, having played Dragon Pass last summer,  we played it this way

1) ALL defenders can take damage, from the top down.

2) The three topmost major units after casualties are taken get to counter attack. Beware the defensive doubling – it is devastating.

5 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I note that you have not mentioned the number one selling point... Ducks!

I'm afraid I must give you a fail on your reading comprehension test, Bill  

12 minutes ago, Cloud64 said:

…. And, well, it's ducks – how could I not? …

On 1/17/2020 at 10:47 PM, Runeblogger said:

That is a great idea. Yozarian's Bandit Ducks! was made with new players and GMs in mind, so it will definitely be a good scenario to run. I had a blast when I played it. In fact, it would be interesting to know how your game went after you run it!   🙂

On 1/18/2020 at 2:18 AM, Bill the barbarian said:

Hmm thank you for this. Having got to work on it, I assure you it is well put together and fun. It would not be a bad choice for beginners as there is some great handholding with the rules (especially passions) as well.

Its suitability for newbies was what struck me and made me change my choice of starting scenario. Not too many passions or spells to overwhelm, clear opportunities to use passions as they directly relate to the characters themselves, situations that allow for a variety of skills to be exercised and some combat.  All elements that will help them learn the system, and with no potentially off-putting cultural milieu  to worry about – that can come later. And, well, it's ducks – how could I not? For my part as GM, the fact that I won't have to do a lot of explaining of Gloranthan lore also appeals. I want to be able to focus on getting the rules working smoothly for us all, rather than explaining the finer points of inter-tribal diplomacy.

22 hours ago, soltakss said:

It's a good scenario, in fact I played it last week and enjoyed it.

It is very good that you want to GM RQ, welcome to the club.

That's good to hear, I m expecting it to be entertaining. It won't be my first time GMing RQ, but it will be the first in <cough> decades, so it might as well be   The tricky part has been getting the players to bite, but they were at mine when the slipcase set arrived and were suitably wowed by it's prettiness and promise. One technique that I have used to get them to play, which others may find useful, is to point out that we can treat scenarios as more or less self-contained episodes, rather than having to commit to a continuous campaign. This is how we've run Call of Cthulhu, same characters running through stand-alone scenarios, with suitable modifications for ongoing shenanigans. I feel that the one-adventure-per-season idea presented in RQG suits this style of campaign well. It allows us to drop in and out, trying other things as suits.

Lots of good advice above, which is useful for me too as I’ll be running my first RQG soon. Here is what I am intending to do to introduce my players, which maybe of interest to you.

I was going to use Cattle Raid from the screen pack adventure book to start my players, who are unfamiliar with Glorantha, but I have decided instead to run Yozarian’s Bandit Ducks (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/296285/Yozarians-Bandit-Ducks?src=hottest_filtered). 

My reasoning is that its a light hearted story in which they can get on with learning the mechanics of the game without worrying about the history and politics of Glorantha. It’s also a bit more like a DnD adventure in how it is structured. I’ll give them a very brief intro to the world at the start and, as has been mentioned above, explain differences such as they all have magic, combat can be deadly, etc., but I want to get into the game quickly. My group are familiar with the percentile system having played Call of Cthulhu, which will help. They also like the idea of playing ducks for a bit of fun – other groups may not.

My intro, roughly, will be a picture of the whole world, map of continents, map of Dragon Pass and point out where they are. I shall mention the ongoing troubles with the Lunars and the beginning of the Hero Wars, but tell them that as a bunch of outcast bandits that’s of little interest to them. Anything else that comes up in play that needs explaining will be dealt with when it arises. 

The goal is to introduce them to RQG in a way that is fun rather than earnest; a way that will incline them more towards playing again. If they like it, then I’ll have a session zero where I let them roll characters and give them a more in depth understanding of the culture and politics of world. After that, it’s using the published scenarios as episodes in a campaign.

That’s a tidy explanation, Klecser, as I would expect from one who teaches and has explained something many times

11 minutes ago, klecser said:

I'm having a difficult time getting a read on your post. Because if I take it literally, and not as a joke, it seems to imply that you think that you can have a thought and suddenly invalidate the work of thousands of people thinking and observing for millions of hours.

Sadly, this is the basis for much of the anti-science sentiment we see today. Layfolk thinking they’ve found a flaw in a scientific principle and, for some reason (which Dunning and Kruger ably explain), not realising that their usually obvious question will have been considered, thought about, knocked back and forth and proven wrong by those with solid knowledge of the subject and the experimental data relating to it. Note: I cast no aspersions about the OP, preferring a generous take that the question was mooted as, “Surely I’m wrong,’ rather than, ‘How could they all have missed this obvious flaw?’

2 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Again it seems realistic

I politely disagree. Just look at real world monarchies and the limited number of names they use. Us Brits now have a George VII coming down the line, our next will be Charles III and his son will be William V. Imagine the insanity in the papers if they risked a King Kevin, King Wayne or Queen Kylie. Not that there’s anything wrong with those names – don’t blame me for the snobbery inherent in the British class system. Even dynasties of the rich have a habit of passing down names. 

It might help if you tell us what the corrected rule says, with a comparison to the original. Anyway, seems to me the SAN losses are from the same cause, so effectively simultaneous. It’s reading the tome that causes SAN loss, not the change to MAX SAN. I’d apply the SAN loss from reading the tome first, and then change the MAX, and if that reduces SAN further, so be it. 

38 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Or to find convoluted excuses about why modern-day people are slightly better at listening.... like... errr, we can use our smartphones to record things and then play that back at higher volume! That's worth 5%!

“Hey Siri, did you hear something?” 
“I’m sorry Dave, I can’t play that. I wouldn’t want to scare you, Dave.”

32 minutes ago, Stew Stansfield said:

Funnily enough, though (and as is usually the way), Greg's initial ideas even a whiler backer whener were quite different. (We hadn't realised when the above was written.) Here's a snippet (again thanks to Scott) from some of Greg's early notes.

I apologise for taking this a bit off topic, but that boat image has sparked something that has intrigued me for many years. I see Greg has used metric, as did the original rules. This is very unusual for an American. As a Brit I work happily in both, though I have my preferences depending on what’s being measured, what I’m doing or the context. For example, metric always seems slightly incongruous in a fantasy setting to me. Anyway, does anyone know why Greg used metric for Glorantha? Was it his general preference? Did it come from spending time in Europe? 

Last night whilst browsing Amazon Prime Video I stumbled across ‘Knights’, a German documentary. It describes knightly life, starting at the beginning, so, for example, we see knights in mail, as we would expect in early Pendragon. There’s three episodes, with English commentary and subtitles. At times the commentary feels a bit wooden, but that’s easily forgiven as it does a good job of explaining the historical milieu and the social structure. Part 1 tells the story of a a warrior becoming a knight and the responsibilities that brought him. 

Being German, it is of course about their historical knights rather than the Arthurian Romano-British ones, but I find it pleasantly refreshing to see them from a different perspective and flying different colours. And Arthur does get a mention in one of the part 2 cameos  

I did a YouTube search, and you’ll find a playlist here

Not sure I’ll get around to playing Pendragon, but if I do I’ll certainly send my players to watch this first. 

4 hours ago, Mike M said:

the artist must rely on their interpretation of the briefs

Aha! That explains why some people find it a bit pants. <badum tish>

OK, I know, I’ll get my coat. 

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Monster art provides another form for Keepers to picture the monster in their heads and is a big help when describing said monsters to others around a gaming table. 

This exactly. A little bit of lubrication in the creative juices is always appreciated when you’ve already got enough to think about when running a game. If the art doesn’t match your personal vision of the entity then you don’t have to use it, any more than you would have to use  a text description of the monster exactly as written.

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The overwhelming response to our new monster art across social media has been very positive. 

It gets a thumbs up from me too. Very evocative, which is what we want if it’s to be useful. 

How about Doug Jones. Plays Cmdr Saru in Star Trek: Discovery (which doesn’t help much, admittedly). He has the build and the slim face, but not sure his face is quite right.

10 hours ago, klecser said:

updates (yet to be disclosed)

Exactly. When I asked the cheeky question I was not aware of what was going to be in it. I repeat, Mike offered reasons why I might want to purchase it that revealed more about it's content.

10 hours ago, klecser said:

Are you buying Gateways to Terror in PDF or hard copy? We've had the text of those for a long time.

Really? I've not got the scenarios, weren't they for Keepers running demo con games? I'm likely to buy the hard volume when it gets into my FLGS. I have in the past bought books that contain scenarios I already have: the  Sandy Petersen collection for example. In that case getting three new scenarios made it still good value. Purchases are value judgements – "Is it worth it for me?" – one new scenario when I have plenty of others yet to run, I'm not sure it holds enough value for me. Me not buying it will hardly ruin my life, nor will it send Chaosium into receivership.

I find it ironic I'm getting bashed here in a thread where (it would seem) people's complaints have got a book cover changed. For the worse IMHO – I think we now have something tropey and derivative instead of something vibrant and modern – but I don't judge books by their cover, so ultimately I'm not that bothered.