simonh

I think one of the major problems with the *World games is lack of flavour. At least Stormbringer and Elric had a strong, recognisable world associated with them. Something to get your teeth into. It’s a major problem even RQ3 faced as a generic system, although at least the RQ legacy and its previous association with Glorantha kept it relevant. Nowadays games really need to have strong settings to hang the system on. The OSR games actually have that. The D&D setting conventions are actually really well defined and well known, so these lightweight games can hang themselves on that. I really think any new BRP games need to come with a really well presented setting, or support a really well known pre-existing setting and support it in compelling ways. There’s only so much space in the world for generic systems. Just look at RQG. Apparently it’s out sold the entire historic sales of the Big Gold Book in just a few weeks.

If I can reference real world examples without in any way discussing their merits, but there are real world examples of religious beliefs that are serious obstacles to some forms of practical activity. Some religious people believe it is wrong to do blood transfusions. That would make it very difficult to be practicing doctors in certain fields. Similarly some real world religious beliefs are pretty much incompatible with functioning as a palaeontologist or evolutionary biologist, yet might even go to the same church as people who have a more allegorical than literal faith don’t find any such incompatibility. Similarly a Lankor Mhy scholar might find most sorcerous practices quite compatible with their religious beliefs, while most Orlanthi personally would not.

I just want to clarify something about this game. It’s not a ‘bad guy’ campaign. The characters should be well meaning, patriotic Citizens that believe the Empire is a force for good. They’re not immoral assassins or chaos worshiping monsters.

We can revise later, we’ll have the bestiary within a month.

Trollkin You get your CHA in Trollkin Points. A Value costs 5, Warrior costs 3 and Worker (Mahout) costs 1 and comes with a pack/riding beetle. You need at least one of each. Value Trollkin get skill bonuses on any five skills of +50, +40, +30, +20 and +10. They get 3 points of spirit magic Warrior Trollkin get skill bonuses of +30 to two combat skills, then one skill each at, +20 and +10 and come with 3pt armour, 1H spear and shield. They also get 2 points of spirit magic. Mahout/Worker Trollkin come with a riding pack beetle and trade goods. EDIT: Don’t dismiss the value of trade goods, these can be used for bribes, exchange for goods of services, leverage etc. You will pretty much need to have at least one, and might it hard to get by without a few more although there may be alternative ways and means. It depends on whether you see your character as primarily a deal maker or spy. A character with more than 5 trade goods is a wealthy wheeler dealer with major financial and material resources. However a few trained spy/stealth Trollkin can be your eyes, ears, messengers and all sorts. A handful of warrior trollkin or a tough value bodyguard might mean your character could focus on other areas than any combat skills and give you muscle when you need it.

Stats for dark trolls are in the first bestiary preview, available from the Chaosium preview mailing list. You can sign up here,and they’ll send you a link. Use the skills, language, passions, etc provided there as your base chances. I’ll give you 35% New Pelorian for free, but as a trader you should be trying to pick up as many useful human languages as you can at a functional level. I’ll rarely give you a hard time with a language you have over 25% talking to a native speaker. For their Power Rune affinities they should have Darkness instead of Beast. That creates a problem because it’s also an elemental rune affinity. For now Ill rule you create the character as normal, using Darkness instead of Beast, but in the end the highest Darkness rune rating takes precedence and counts for both, if you see what I mean. So e.g. if your Darkness Element affinity ends up at 60% and your Darkness power rune affinity ends up as 80%, then your Darkness elemental affinity is also 80%. You won’t have a family background from the provided tables, but feel free to make one up. You will have a few Trollkin assistants. I’m working on a way to represent that.

A documentary about the history of the myth? I’d watch that, but hardly cinematic. A historically accurate drama about Romano-Briton warlord set on the 5th/6th century? It’s been attempted, not entirely satisfactorily. A straight telling of the myth of Arthur, embracing it as mythology? That’s Excalibur. The above are not the story.They are stories about the story. One is a story about the writing of the story. The second is a story about the historical basis of the story. Excalibur is an attempt to tell the story of Arthur, King of the Britons who lead the Kinghts of the Round Table. It’s the actual thing, and the best attempt at it so far.

Interesting, I can see that working. Karse is Near the Shadow Plateau, a major troll stronghold, and was part of a Troll empire long ago. There is a troll enclave just across the river, and Trolls are commonly seen about the city especially at night. Troll scouts guide the city watch night patrols, they work in the sewers and a squad of troll mercenaries called the Hellborn serve the lord of the city. There will be an Argan Argar temple nearby, and a shrine within the city. An Argan Argar Troll could also make a fantastic spymaster. Dark Walk, Speak With Insects, Glamour. All useful stuff for getting around unnoticed, espionage and grooming informants.

Anyone who expects historical accuracy from Excalibur is beyond help. It’s based on a fantasy novel written by a rogue knight in the Middle Ages, a thousand years after the period it’s set.

The problem comes when you are something that is impossible or contradictory according to what you know. Or you know that you are not something your religion says you are.

Here in the UK many if us got the Games Workshop edition of RQ2. This came boxed with a UK printing of the rule book, a copy of the Basic Roleplaying rules pamphlet and a copy of Apple Lane, so for us it was almost an intrinsic part of the game.

It does say Gringle has travelled widely, so maybe he got the idea for the pawn shop from some distant foreign land with strange ways. Taverna or something like them have existed for a long time in the real world. There must have been some form of hostels catering to travellers in the ancient world. It’s just that more recent forms of such things are more familiar to us. I don’t worry too much about anachronisms like this, it’s just too much like hard work.

But then what is magic, if it isn’t a form of religious practice? For me thats a defining feature of Glorantha. The different forms of magic entail fundamentally different ways of thinking about how the world works and that implies different ideas about what is right or wrong, and different ideas about the foundations of moral authority. How is going to a Malkioni sorcerer and learning western magic different from going to a Lunar temple and learning Seven Mother’s magic? Clearly the latter would imply initiation into a different religious practice and trigger spirits if reprisal, so why not the former? Honestly I’m not entirely sure how to answer that satisfactorily. It does seem that it is possible to learn and use some sorcery outside a materialist or Malkioni religion. Non religiously affiliated ‘philospher’ characters in RQG can do this. But I think that’s a bit like a theist character learning Spirit Magic without being an Animist. Clearly some types of magic are more closely tied to religious practice than others. Rune magic is very closely tied, Spirit magic and sorcery less so but there is still some connection. Maybe the suggestions in Heroquest of how to think about the three forms of magic can help. Spirit magic is something you have, rune magic is something you are and sorcery is something you know. Having something doesn’t say a lot about who you are, what you believe or how you think, so spirit magic should be usable by anyone. Being something is pretty fundamental to your identity, beliefs and values. It’s hard to see how a character can be more than one thing at a time, so many different theist religious practices are likely to be fundamentally incompatible. Knowing something is somewhere in between. It’s not as fundamental to identity and faith as who you are, but it’s certainly not irrelevant to it. So some sorcerous knowledge might be compatible with a theistic character’s religious practice and others not. How to manifest that in game rules though?

After spotting a target, lining up the shot, adjusting for range and movement, drawing the bow on the nocked arrow, then releasing the arrow. Which only takes a few seconds, but it’s not instant. I think I’ve said on another thread I prefer the RQ3 rule, 1SR per MP. It’s much easier, and the fact that even the rule book can’t keep it straight just shows how awkward the special exception for the first point of the spell is.

The BRP forum front page still has topics on it that haven’t been replied on for 3 months. What problem would fragmenting it solve?

Aside from which, splitting attacks is fun! You get to roll to attack twice, watch you opponent sweat twice, potentially roll damage twice, potentially get double duty from your magical offensive enhancements and are the awesome object of envy of all your lesser skilled allies. Sure sometimes the numbers don't quite crunch in your favour and I wouldn't necessarily do it all the time especially against a highly skilled opponent, but Huzza! Two attacks!

Joerg is right, almost all of the discussion of past editions I've seen recently have been in comparison to RQG. Splitting the forums would just mean crossover threads like that wouldn't have one logical home. Also I find the fragmentation of the G+ groups for different editions really frustrating. In general I think forums should only be split when there is a real practical need to do so due to excessive noise, otherwise it just makes finding the discussions you're interested in awkward and time consuming, especially when some of the sub-forums only ever get the occasional post. I do think the non-Chaosium editions should be in different forums as many of their core mechanics are quite different, but if someone just wants to discuss RQ2 or 3 on it's own terms here I'm fine with that.

Back to rules, your characters put in enough extension, or boost Bless Champion with enough rune points for the magic to last long enough to do the thing. You then narrate how this looks in-world, describing the ritual preparations and prayers offered to the gods, to identify the champion with Orlanth and invoke divine favour.

Otherwise known as the Ernaldan rune spell Bless Champion. I think the magic we have is precisely what you are talking about, just expressed in game mechanical terms. If you asked an Ernaldan priestess casting Bless Champion, or a Humakti uncle casting extended Truesword what they were doing, they would describe it exactly as you do. None of them would give names of spells, and may not even have recognisable names for those spells to give you. Any names they did use would likely be descriptive, inconsistent and vary locally.

I'm sure True Sword doesn't stack with Bladesharp, it never has in past editions. Hey, at least it isn't capped to the maximum normally rollable damage of the weapon, as in RQ2.

The description of Multispell makes a special exception for Disruption, so they all combine into one attack against a single location.

Previously I thought they were separate products as given in Jason's list, but above I was going from MOB's post up-thread:

It sounds like actually the GM Book, along with a screen and maybe a few other component, will be part of the GM Pack?

Apothecary?

I wouldn't be surprised if Roan-Ur has a few as pets, but he's hardly 'The Lunars'.