Ian Cooper

It's possible. A lot of it depends on getting a pitch from a writer...

We may plan on doing it so that its essentially sourcebook + genre pack + scenarios so that you could drop in an RQG genre pack at some point. But that would be up to the RQG team to resource.

On a simple contest yes. In an extended contest you roll for the series of actions. One of the early steps to mastering HeroQuest is to get used to using simple contests for most things, including violence, whereas traditional RPGs tend to have a subsystem for violence.

Augments in HQG are permitted at discretion. Is it interesting, is it revealing. That rule appears at HQ2+ because players had begun augment-hunting as a mini-maxing strategy. So that rule would say: is the player augmenting the ability with itself interesting or revealing. Does it entertain? if not, they can't.

Maybe we need a WF article on 'limits of Gloranthan magic' aimed at helping folks determine what is credible. Hmmm.

So we dropped it for HQ2, for precisely the reason you suggest, it added complexity. As did ideas like Elemental Progression. Now, it is your game, so if you want to pick up that idea from HQ1, that some forms of magic are inherently harder, or that elements have advantages over other elements, the go ahead. It's hard to know what works at your table. And details that stealth magic and mind control magic are 'hard' in Glorantha may be important to you. So impose a modifier. But with the intent being for HQ to be a fast-paced, rules-lie, story-focused game some of the 'detail' in HQ1 was a compromise to inclusive to RQ players, who wanted HQ to 'model' Glorantha more. HQ2 tried to reset that, to focus on fast-paced play the kept the story flowing. BTW, even when I know that 'invisibility' is hard, I also know that Greg simply disliked it because he didn't like the game results of their inclusion in standard spell lists derived from generic fantasy gaming. Narratively you would be far better off not making that magic available to many cults instead of penalizing its use.

Right. A genre pack, as defined in HeroQuest is the keywords special ability definitions etc you need to play the game.

It's not bad, but it does miss framing what the contest between Luke and Darth is about. Darth has stated the prize as "Turn Luke to the Dark Side". He plan at the outset is to capture him and take him before the Emperor, who will turn him to the Dark Side. Luke's prize is to escape (with his friends). The prize in the fight is not survival, it's who owns Luke's future Vader or Yoda. [I would offer that in HeroQuest the actual contest initially ends as described with a defeat for Luke. Luke is injured and looks certain to be captured - Vader has won the prize. But Darth decides he wants to convert him to the Dark Side himself so that they can challenge the Emperor. The narrator rules that he needs a Complete Victory for this. So he opts for a Parting Shot with "Luke, I am your father!". This doesn't work, and Luke gains enough RP to get back into the contest. He then jumps and escapes via Leia and the Falcon, defeating Vader, and getting the prize 'escape with friends'. But as a Rising Action so some Luke doesn't escape unscathed. There is that missing hand (in SF this could be easily narrated after as a minor injury, because cybernetics) and the knowledge that he is descended from Vader.]

Most likely we will end up with an HQG genre pack for a systemless or RQG book. But its a little way off to call as yet.

TBH increasing the number of folks running HQ at cons in the US would be really great. The OGL and genre packs seem like a time to persuade more folks to do that. HeroQuest is a game that does benefit from people seeing it. Running games online for new players helps and recording Actual Play could be a thing too, if your players were amenable to it. The more people can experience HeroQuest, the easier our push. And massive thanks to everyone who already runs games at cons.

Yeah, licensed IP would be beyond our budget right now I suspect. But if Dune shows up as available I know some folks are keen on us bidding 🙂

Indeed, we would tend to avoid settings that are get their kicks from gearheading and look toward what could be done with space opera or social SF more. Garvity's Rainbow though. Pynchon?

Me. ian@chaosium.com

All, Just to keep you up to date with UK Games Expo news. We discussed HeroQuest and Glorantha. We are committed to continuing to support Glorantha via HeroQuest We will focus, for now, on 1625- whilst RQG establishes 1625+ material At some point we will produce a genre pack that shows you how to play HeroQuest A boin the later Dragon Pass material We think continuing to play in the classic period prevents product duplication Our projected books right now are: A book focusing on the Sartar Rising material that is 'offstage' in The Eleven Lights. The big one is The Dragonrise. Your PCs can be the ones who lead this feat. A book introducing Fonrit as a setting. We think this will be an ideal Sword and Soul setting, and a great place for new campaigns, that comes without some of the 'weight' of Dragon Pass, and is thus accessible for folks who want a 'ground floor' to get into Glorantha. As we see HeroQuest Glorantha as our fast-paced story engine, the presentation here will reflect that approach.

All, Just to let you know the thrust of our announcements at UK Games Expo. HeroQuest OGL and SRD We are going to release the HeroQuest engine under an OGL There will be an SRD soon (before end of July) The OGL engine will have a different brand name, we will reserve HeroQuest for HeroQuest Glorantha. It is a Gloranthan term, and by calling it HeroQuest Glorantha we avoid collision with the boardgame "HeroQuest" Genre Packs We want the ODL to make it easy for folks to produce 'genre packs' for "HeroQuest" either relying on our core rules, or including them as our Glorantha genre pack, HeroQuest Glorantha does To show what we think it can do, we plan on releasing a number of genre packs Ron Edwards is going to do a supers genre pack for us We are in negotiations for a pulp license We want to do a SF genre pack We want to do something the breaks new creative ground We are very open to pitches for new genre packs If you want to write of us, this is a good starting point.

Let me do a new thread...

But he gets the prize! (I would point out that in a Climatic Extended Contest the Consequences table allows for both Winner and Loser to suffer consequences.

Because someone asked for Doblian Dogeater stats. I would start with the Silver Shields peltasts stats as given in The Cradle scenario. p140 on the Moon Design reprint of Pavis. I would tweak from there.

A few folks have asked about this, so let's set this up. This thread, you are going to want to bookmark it, is for crowd sourcing stats for anyone who is running The Coming Storm and The Eleven Lights with the new RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha. I'll try to keep and eye on it, and provide what help I can, but generally you should ask for help with stats, and provide it. Eventually we might be able to create a community PDF of suggestions from folks who have worked their way through the campaign for those coming along.

Here is my canonical example of a HeroQuest contest. The Viper vs. The Mountain. Now this would seem to be a fight to the death, but actually the prize is a little different. The Mountain has a prize of: prove Tyrion's guilt. The Viper has a prize of: Force a confession that the Mountain raped and killed his sister. The GM declares that these are graduated goals. He tells the Viper's player that any victory will free Tyrion but only a Major Defeat or better will force the confession. The Viper beats the Mountain, but its only a Minor Victory. To get a better Victory, and win the confession, the Viper tries a Parting Shot against his falling opponent. He fails, gives RPs to the Mountain, who then turns the tables and kills the Viper. The Mountain gets the prize, Tyrion is found guilty. The Viper is dead too, but that was incidental to the prize (though not to the Viper...)

And that is fine, really. Sometimes the prize is the obvious thing. The story may be about survival at this point. In that case any victory kills the orc. Things to watch for: - This contests, kill the orc, leads to another contest, kick down the door, and another contest, seize the gold from the room. In this case the prize is seize the gold. - In a simple contest victory tells you if you seized the gold, and the level of victory tells you if the orcs ran off, to fight another day, or were mercilessly slaughtered. Its a simple contest because you just want to know whether we grabbed the gold and get to the next story beat. In an extended contest victory the steps are important to play out. As we narrate gaining RPs we move through the narrative. Gain two RP - the gate guard falls to your blow, and you are into the main room where a couple of orcs spring from their seats to attach you. So by the time we get to the victory level we know a lot more about what 'seemed' to happen narratively. But because we don't know until the end, exactly how well you did we can't be sure if the orcs were really dead or just badly wounded etc. so we are cautious around 'his head flies off' narrative at this point (unless there are enough orcs a dramatic flourish won't impact our ability to assess results at the end).

I'm not sure that we need worry about repeats, plus I think that Life is problematic for the chief of a war clan, whereas Harmony can be rationalized better with his personality

Darkness is tricky for a Sartar game, unless as Joerg points out you go with one of the troll-friendly clans and pick Argan Argar (SC p.245). Now that doesn't help you with the plant rune unless you somehow have access to Mee Vorala which seems unlikely. But if you did ...

Do you have a source for this?

Sartar Companion p.184 "To learn the Dragonbreaking power, the heroes must pilgrimage to Old Wind Temple...At Old Wind Temple at least one of the heroes must beseech the Stormwalkers to accept him as a student. After a full season of service to the Stormwalkers, the hero awakens Orlanth’s Dragonbreaking power within him (see page 74)." Choices listed include Elmalandti and Heavy with Weight