Cloud64

3 minutes ago, Steve said:

Stonehenge is a lot better since they built a proper visitor's centre there, and moved the car park etc.

Have to say that’s not opinion I’ve heard aired before. Carbuncles I tell ye, carbuncles. And don’t get me started on that fence and slapping a tarmac path over it. I get that it needs some protection – I confess to be one of those kids who scrambled over the fallen sarcens back in the <cough>ties – but they could’ve done it a little more elegantly. That said, the visitor centre does provide some background (the handsets are great) but it’s basically a glorified gift shop. For all that, the henge is one of those things that just has to be seen and is a worthwhile visit. Now, Avebury, up the road, that’s a lovely circle, very atmospheric and with the added bonus of a pub in the middle of it. 

Anyway, Morien, you’ve an interesting itinerary, best wishes for good weather  for you. And don’t believe albinoboo about the Battle of Badon Hill   Us Dorset dwellers know it was actually at Badbury Rings, just outside Blandford Forum (not a Roman town despite the name) and on an old Roman road.  Of course, the battle itself is bit of a fable, its location more so, but that’s the claim we stake on it.

Careful, some of us haven’t watched it yet. I shall stay away from this thread till I have, just in case. Not having a moan, just a gentle reminder that  there’s spoiler tags. 

My answer to the thread title is, of course! From the beginning the show was clearly a Call scenario. Sadly the D&D mob have claimed it, even producing a new starter set which, frankly, looks a bit poor. Given the makers have licensed for D&D, might they be interested in licensing to Chaosium? A Stranger Things Call of Cthulhu starter set could bring the game a lot of new attention.

Well, the players won’t know how many HP the door has, so let them roll damage to it and have it give at the optimal moment for maximum drama. 

On 7/7/2019 at 11:22 PM, EricW said:

Monsters which can pass as human are the most terrifying. … I could have been carrying a contagious deadly disease straight back from a hotzone into Europe and nobody would have known.

And there you have described institutional incompetence. A terrifying beast lurking in the worst, yet perfectly normal, aspects of the human condition. It can eviscerate economies, stigmatise racial groups, poison populations with poorly tested pollutants, lead to the naysaying of efficacious preventative treatments, and the promotion of useless alternatives. At its whim wars have been won and lost and history changed, warnings not acted upon in time and proven solutions to dire problems not implemented. It lacks self-awareness, it bears no malice, it just wants an easy life. It is mindless and often unseen, hiding as it does behind many other names, kept alive by denial, wilful or wishful. 

That’s what makes me turn uneasily in my bed of a night. 

Last weekend I stumbled upon what is surely a leak from Glorantha into our reality – a tipple clearly favoured by ducks must have slipped through a wormhole to find itself at a pub in the New Forest on the south coast of England. Alas, as the designated driver I cannot vouch for the efficacy or otherwise of this tempting cider, and I confess to wondering at the provenance of the apples from which it is brewed – could they be from a certain famous village on the road to Runegate?

This is actually brewed fairly locally to me, so I shall report back on its gustatious qualities when I next track down a pint.

Forgive me for relinking to this pic, but I feel its time is due, again…

Ah. I’d not seen that.  

How about filling it with some shield designs? I’m thinking of the sort of art Greeks used, which seems to chime with the new style of images for the Gloranthan gods. 

I must complement you the great work you’ve done so far. I wouldn’t know it’s not professional. 

Ah, the legendary andouillette. Tried it once down in Annecy. I didn’t get on with it and it didn’t get on with me. The next morning the toilet was declared a fallout zone, full noddy (NBC) suit needed for access. I’ll give most foods a go, but I found my match with that. 

Edit.

I can imagine the amusing scenes when Sartarites serve this ‘delicacy’ to honour visiting dignitaries. 

16 minutes ago, Kloster said:

The result was a mix of hard G for those who had a… english linguistic package

This puzzles me. ‘Gen’ is almost always soft in English: general, gene, genesis, androgen, hydrogen, gender, genitive, gentlemen. I can’t, off the top of my head, think of an example of the G being hard at the start of a word when followed by EN. Want a hard G, follow it with an A. 

I shall, if course think if a hard G example as soon as I post this.

I couldn’t ever use a hard G for Genertela, even if it does invite a few fnarr fnarrs. My pronunciation has changed, it used to be ge-NERT-ela

An interesting discussion. We too had queries about SR and your thoughts are giving me ideas on how to resolve them. Anyway, my thought is that some empirical evidence is needed as much conversation about how weapons were used is conjecture. How many of us have been in the sort of fights being talked about? Certainly not me, though I wouldn't be surprised if some of you have done some re-enactment. IIRC, the original RQ combat rules were created by members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, re-enactors who did simulate such fights (and a quick search show's they're still going strong https://www.sca.org). They presumably created the rules to match their actual experience of wielding weapons, so lets assume the rules model that to their satisfaction.

But what evidence do we have? Well, 40 years or so on, YouTube comes to the rescue. The following video pitches spearman against swordsmen in various combinations – without shields, with shields, in groups, great sword use, etc. – and does enough trials to give us an acceptable answer*: 'Spears are better than swords' (but shields make a big difference).

https://youtu.be/uLLv8E2pWdk

Interestingly, Lloyd (Lindybeige) on the video has played RQ and D&D and prefers the mechanics of RQ. Alas, the video makes no attempt to test how spell casting works in real life, so we're on our own there  It's arguably just of bit of fun, but informative fun nonetheless. The big take away for me is how good long weapons are at getting a strike in first and keeping a shorter weapon at bay. This matches what we see with long weapons having a faster SR.

* The pedants amongst us can argue whether or not it's statistically valid, but  at least it's over the magic number of 30, even if the test cases aren't strictly controlled and vary a bit in set up. 

Count Duckula wasn’t around until 1988. Delecti was in the White Bear Red Moon (Dragon Pass) Boardgame 1976. Therein lies your answer. An amusing idea though, hoards of zombie ducks splashing around the marsh. 

My Pinterest stream has coughed up the goods again. More figurine busts. The page has pop-up pics so it's a faff to link to the particularly relevant ones, I'll leave you to look at those that take your fancy

https://www.planetfigure.com/useralbums/busts-2.733/view

But to give you an idea, my mind immediately named this, 'Shouldn't that bear be white?'

Just now, PhilHibbs said:

Don't worry about me, I've been around a while and should have seen that slug coming! Jeff knows I don't need the kid gloves.

OK, I figured that may be the case. Still, to newcomers it doesn't look good.

27 minutes ago, Marty Jopson said:

It’s all good stuff but... Honestly? We are now very far off topic from my perspective. While undeniably interesting to fans, a discussion of the relative merits of this or that historical culture and if RQ is Bronze or Iron Age is not going to help my players.

Apologies Marty. Seems I inadvertently kicked this off asking for cultural comparators for Gloranthan cultures. I should have known better really.

To those who seem to have missed the point of the question, it was to give a quick hook to players who know nothing about Glorantha and at this point care not one jot about the details and differences. Of course the culture used as a hook is not the same as the Gloranthan culture, it's an approximation. Let's face it, these cultures didn't fall magically formed out of the authors' heads, they were influenced by ancient cultures from our world. So which are the best matches to get the idea across without a lecture on, say, Sartarite history and religion, or showing them pictures that have no context to them? I want a player to be inspired, "Great, I can be a native American bison rider," or "I like the sound of a chaos hating, flying-bull worshipping celt." At this point it doesn't matter that those comparators aren't quite right, if they're good enough the players won't be disappointed when they find out more about their character's culture in game.

27 minutes ago, Marty Jopson said:

Hmmm. On reflection maybe the issue is that I don’t know what the characters will be doing. Sure I have a handful of scenarios but I don’t have a one line, elevator pitch of the campaign arc. I don’t have a campaign arc. Chaosium has not given us a big meta plot yet. Sure - it’s the Hero Wars and this Argrath chap is on the rise, but so what? What will the characters be doing? I had figured that once I knew what the characters were I could build something suitably epic tailored to them. It’s a bit of a dilemma. 

Do you need to have a campaign arc right at the start? We tend to start something new with rolling characters and the intention of giving the new game a try with a one-shot. If people like it we carry on and it becomes a campaign, the story and the fleshing out happening as it goes. I guess it's a matter of group style and expectation.

27 minutes ago, Marty Jopson said:

Latest suggestion from a couple of players was for me to run Dragon Heist (DnD5) set in Ravnica world. Has the benefit that three people know the word a bit already. 

That would make me quietly sob a little if that was chosen over Glorantha   I jest, of course, and know my own biases. TBF, D&D5e has rather nailed it IMHO, and it's what we're playing at the moment. My lot are new to RPGs, though very seasoned boardgamers, and wanted to try it. It stuck… for now. RQG is next. 
 

10 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

My apologies, I had not realised it was such a touchy subject.

It seemed a rather strong response to me to. I was going to respond to an earlier post saying they thought the bronze age feel was pushed aggressively in the rulebook, by saying it didn't come across to me like that at all, but Jeff's response to you was, well, pretty aggressive. Not what I'd expect from a game's designer. Maybe you know each other and can give as good as you get.

6 minutes ago, styopa said:

What?  Really?

If so, that would sort of a remarkable corner-turn from a Staffordian "rollicking community of fearlessly creative explorers in a shared mythical world" toward something a little more darkly 'dogmatic central committe' thing.

Found it!

Chaosium Fan Material Policy 6b: Maps can be resized or cropped, but must not be color adjusted, edited, distorted, or otherwise modified.

https://www.chaosium.com/fan-material-policy/

On 5/16/2019 at 8:30 PM, lordabdul said:

Nice... I'd love it if you could share some of those A5 cards you made, the political map, etc. (in a format that would let me and others improve on them if needed, too!)

I have uploaded my adventurer creation worksheets to the file section

As I said, I'm pretty sure I can't share the cards, but I don't think I can share the political map either. I read in the usage guidelines (which I can't immediately find now) that altered maps aren't allowed. 

Anyway, someone's bound to spot a typo I missed, or find something I left off of the worksheets, so do let me know in the file's thread. Not here, as it'd be off topic.

Thanks @g33k.  Variance is nice, but I like to keep fairly canonical as it makes it easier to stay in synch with published material. I’m not that worried about it, mind  

The Lunars’ organisation and assimilation of invaded territories is what makes me think of the Romans, but their style and culture Persian. I think we’re on a similar page there. I shall check out the Halstatt culture, thanks for the tip. I’ve heard of them, but that’s about it.

Yep, Sun Domers always struck me as classic hoplites, with a strong Spartan bent. The Vedic take of the gods, especially with the new art work, is interesting and fits nicely for me. 

47 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Nice... I'd love it if you could share some of those A5 cards you made, the political map, etc. (in a format that would let me and others improve on them if needed, too!

As the cards stand at the moment, I don’t think I can share them. They have images and text ripped from the pdf. Personal use only for now I’m afraid.

On 5/12/2019 at 8:37 PM, Marty Jopson said:

Is there any fiction to throw at them? What is in King of Sartar? The old Griselda tales are all set in Prax, is there any point in digging them out - and how do they read 30 years after the fact? Is there any good fiction set in Dragon Pass?

I have a couple of books by Penelope Love which I've picked up again recently. I like her take on things. I thoroughly enjoyed Down the River, one of the stories in Eurhol's Vale and Other Tales. It's a comical farce of a duck, a thief and a Lunar guard running about trying to recover the Governer of Pavis’s laundry. The other stories are more serious, perhaps with a tad of earnestness, but are still entertaining. I think for teenagers the capers in Pavis and the Big Rubble might be more persuasive. It's apparently based on an actual play, so could be sold to them as an example of the fun they could have playing RuneQuest.

Alas, I'm not sure where you would pick up a copy these days.

Well deserved. I'll be there and you can be assured of my votes.

I've been lucky in that my slipcase set arrived whilst my group were playing, and they were suitably impressed by its prettiness and not put off by its heft. They let me wave maps and pictures at them and witter on raptly about it all before drawing me back to our ongoing game. Their interest is piqued and they're up for giving it a try. Glorantha just clicked for one, and he's hoovering up Glorantha knowledge, has badgered me into helping him roll a character and has even started sculpting himself a mini! And I have one wanting to be a duck. There's always one, and that's fine by me as it I used to be that one.

I have been giving some thought to how to introduce it to them, and as they all prefer to roll characters rather than use pre-gens, a session zero will be necessary. They have been warned that there won't be time to play, just create the characters. This has some pros, in that there's time for discussion of the milieu and they can take a little bit of homework away with them before the first session of actual play. The con, as I'm sure all GMs know, will be getting players to do their homework, as well as not actually getting to start play.

So , my session zero thoughts are to get them into adventurer creation quickly and let the details come out naturally as we go. Thanks, Marty, for this thread as it is giving me an excuse to get my plan out of my head, and it goes sort of like this

1. Intro to Glorantha. Show them pictures of the world ("Yes, it's a flat Earth on a cube.") , explain the gods are real, it's a world of living myth, with its own funky calendar, then show the continents and zoom in to Dragon Pass/Prax.
2. Brief bit of history and that they are in the Hero Wars now, with an update on recent events like Starbrow's Rebellion and the Dragon Rise. 
   These two steps are meant to be 5 mins, a lecture this is not, just context for the relationship between the Lunar invaders and other peoples.
3. Give them a summary of the steps they're about to go through – hopefully this will give them an idea of the whole picture they're working towards.
4. I've made a political map of the homelands (basically just colour overlays on the PDF map) so they have a geographical context, and will describe each briefly in historical terms that they understand: e.g., Prax, think native American tribes; Grazelanders, think horse archers, hun/mongols. They can then choose a homeland, after some questions no doubt.
5. Family history is an opportunity to explain tribe and clan structures. I intend to keep the rolls only to the stuff relevant for their homeland. No fleshing out of anything at this point. I don't want them to get bogged down thinking they need names for all their siblings, or even their parents and clan – this can be homework.
6. The aim is then to likewise work through each aspect of adventurer creation, with contextual explanation as necessary. For example, I expect some talk of gods and cults will come about during choice of rune affiliations.
7. Once we're done, their homework will be to read a bit more on their homeland and its people's traits, flesh out their background story and tidily fill out a character sheet. Hopefully this will reinforce what they've learnt while rolling their character, and give them some attachment to who they will be in game.

I've made some scratch sheets for capturing the character details with much more room than those provided. I've also made A5 cards up with all the homeland details (skills, occupations, gods and cetera) on them as they are all over the place in the book. This will give them a better idea of what their choices will be in each coming step, as well as save my book getting destroyed with lots of flicking back and forth. On the back is much of the homeland description, which they can take away for homework. I've done a similar thing for occupations and it'd help if I did a set for cults too. I'm not expecting them to come to the first play session with a fully detailed background; that can build as and when seems fit as the campaign progresses. 

Phew, it almost feels like the adventurer creation system needs a support system all its own. The intention is to give them enough understanding of Dragon Pass to see their place in it, and to ease the whole process so they don't suffer info overload. Thankfully, they're used to Call of Cthulhu so have an understanding of the system principals.

Now, I'd like some advice on what I mentioned in point 4 above, how to briefly compare each homeland to a real historical people. I get that there's no direct mapping, the idea is to give them a vague hook to hang their character from. For me, this is what each homeland brings to mind, and each is very much suffixed with …ish (for non English speakers, read that as 'vaguely like this'.) 

• Sartar – celts, maybe vikings, though they seem to have a distinctly Minoan cast these days.
• Lunar Tarsh – think Roman Empire, Persians who fought the greek
• Grazelanders – horse archers, hun, mongols
• Esrolians – arty and elegant, corinthian, carthaginian
• Tarsh – hill and forest tribes who hunt, goths, maybe saxons
• Prax – plains native Americans

That was actually rather difficult, and unsatisfactory, so I'd be interested to hear what others think might be suitable one line comparators to give those who have no idea a feel for the cultures.

On 5/13/2019 at 9:07 AM, Jeff said:

One great moment in a recent run of Cattle Raid - having the player who only knew DD5e realise that his character might get killed when he was in the middle of a cattle stampede. He was both horrified and filled with excitement - "I might be killed by a cow! This is so awesome!"

4 hours ago, Quackatoa said:

Thank you, Aonstream, that's very kind!

I'm currently working on a fan-created project that is less a traditional 'ducks book' (i.e. it won't function like a typical splatbook with culturally inflected character options and background and the like) than an adventure pack set in Duck Point. I'm writing and illustrating everything myself, so I'm afraid it's a terribly slow process! So, nothing immediately on the radar, but will hopefully have something ready next year.

I must agree with Aonstream, a delightful thread for duck lovers. Great to hear that you are working on a scenario pack. Chaosium, are you listening? DuckPak is decades overdue, here's your scenarios and your artwork, now get that source material together and let me throw money at you