Ian Cooper

You are of course free to handle this anyway you like in your game, but in the 11L we pretty much pick off the Telmori heirs one-by-one until their blood-ties to the dynasty are done. So why does Argrath wipe them out. Well, this is my speculation, unless it appears in print, but to fulfill a prophecy Argrath has to hunt Aurochs in Dragon Pass. Of course there are no Aurochs, but the Red Cow clan often quest for them on the Other Side, though they only get the red cows. In return for Argrath's agreement to kill the Telmori, the Jonstown Federation clan agrees to join a mass effort of the Stealing of the Giant's Cows heroquest, and instead of using the Red Cow secret, launch a full scale frontal assault on the giant's steading. The result returns the aurochs to DP. You might surmise that the Wolfrunners have their origins in that act of ethnic cleansing.

Thanks, that is useful feedback. I will bear the feedback in mind for a couple of forthcoming projects, where we might be able to address these concerns.

TBH we tried to calculate advancement based on the premise that you spent 2 hp a session on advancement, and benefited from catch-ups. But its hard to get right that way. My leaning towards upping the resistance at the end of each season, is that is how fiction works - our heroes get better until they can take on the big bad, but next series effectively resets. But you could figure the new season base resistance by any range of techniques.

Chain mail has certainly declined in usage in our art direction etc. in favour of scale mail. Simply because, as others point out, chain mail is more of a late dark ages thing. I am sure dwarves make iron chain mail, but I suspect that bronze is uncommon. I would treat references to mail as scale, unless it is a god or hero, in which case it might well be dwarf mail. I know Orlanth has a hauberk of mail called Turnspear. That might well be something he 'stole' from the Mostali, and iron.

Because HQG uses resistance based off a difficulty, not an NPCs stats i.e. Easy, Moderate etc. you don't need stats for NPCs. What is helpful is colour when describing what they do. You have the colour, its the RQ rules description of them, just leave it in its original format. One trick is to pick color based on how hard you think resistance is, and scanning for what the NPC is good/ bad at. If you check out The Coming Storm and The Eleven Lights, you can see the format we use there for NPCs. We focus on three runes, cult affiliation, occupation and some key appearance short hands. Another way to think of it is building a PC but stopping at Distinguishing Characteristic and Occupation + 3 runes. What you do need our cults, where they are used by PCs (and possibly keywords). As @David Scott says, get hold of Pavis if you can, as the Yelmalio cult is there. I would say that in Sun County men have the Fire Rune and women have the Earth rune.

I'm definitely thinking in my next game of dropping the increase in base resistance by number of sessions played. This actually gives the PCs the ability to succeed more often. I would be more inclined to increase the resistance at the beginning of a new 'season' of the campaign (we play about 12 sessions in a run, and I think of it as a season in a TV show). That feels more like how stories work, new season is new opposition who are a match for our heroes. I might bump by the same amount, at that point i.e. 12 sessions worth, it's just during a season I feel that fiction shows our heroes becoming more competent, within a season. I'm also inclined to borrow from PbTA by making failure what grants you experience. So instead of handing out three hero points at the start of a session, I would give you a hero point every time you failed at a 'plot obstacle' contest (so no failing just to gain experience). The main reason is to encourage players to accept failure, instead of buying it off with a hero point, so that the story branches in a different direction.

Any time you find yourself imagining a sequence of rolls think: that is an extended contest. So begin an extended contest, and make the first roll about perceiving the danger etc. Also remember that you can treat any contest as simple--in this case the PC picks a key ability to triumph from their sheet; that might be using a perception ability to avoid the contest in the first place. But don't chain simple contests outside of an extended contest, partially because this should prompt you to understand if it could be a simple one instead.

The Heroquest books would continue to focus on the Sartar Rising era. As described in HQG we focus on two eras. RQG is only going to focus on the one.

I would do one of the following in the subsequent exchange, depending on the stated intent of the contestants: Force an unrelated action: If the person who lost their weapon decides to recover it it is an unrelated action for that exchange. New conditions, new resistance: If the person who lost their weapon decides on a new tactic I would figure their numbers anew. What I would not do is use a situational modifier for an exchange to reflect temporary swings in the battle 'I have the high ground Anakin'. Your RP exchage already represents that ebb-and-flow and unless you explicitly want to use the death spiral option, I would avoid applying something like a situational modfier

I think it was an early attempt to take the engine from HQ1e and create a generic ruleset, that took a long time, stuttered, and was then forked into something quite different. Heroquest Core also essentially replaced any Other worlds project as the generic version of the engine.

You might find this helpful too:

It's an interesting observation about a point that may be unclear though. I always tend to explain mastery in the same way as David, think of 3W at 23, calculate the TN from modifiers etc. then figure out whether there are masteries in the conflict.

There is a plan, but it is some time out. There are only a few genuine rules questions, and most have been answered elsewhere. We can respond the specific inquiries.

When wanting to know how the Orlanthi look now, I would opt for the artwork in The Coming Storm, which represents discussions that Jeff and I have had about how the Orlanthi look, over the King of Dragon Pass art that represents an older perspective on how the Orlanthi looked. That said, I would offer that the Orlanthi are a composite of European cultures, both around the Mediterranean (Mycenaen, Minoan even Assyrian) and the North Sea (Celtic, Nordic Bronze Age). We draw from both. As some have pointed out, areas on the Black Sea coast may also represent that fusion.

Although, it is possible that the Assyrians have some of the techniques above: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr000d.htm Still magic should have similar impact to such engines

There are two types of magic to consider: immediate and ritual. Immediate magic is the kind of personal augment that HQ has an initiate using via an affinity, and even a feat used by a devotee who has heroformed. Immediate magic makes you a more effective fighter, more accurate, more deadly, etc. and will certainly be used to augment shock troops trying to break a siege or defenders trying to hold a line. it doesn't really change the nature of conflict though. Of course if you are looking at the Trajan War as a model, you might decide that the defenders don't simply sit behind their walls, they may sally forth and fight battles of champions or massed forces. Bronze Age warfare has a lot less seige equipment availble, beyond scaling ladders or rams, and so there are fewer decisive weapons for the siege (unless dwarf made) Immediate magic is going to allow the more enhanced heroes to triumph there. The Eleven Lights has a discussion of that kind of warfare, derived from Thunder Rebels and Gathering Thunder. Ritual magic takes time, but of course in a seige both sides have time. Ritual magic can weave far greater effects than personal magic as it is priests working in concert, particularly with something like the Lunar College of Magic. Ritual Magic may well make a difference to a siege by creating area attacks that attack combatants or fortifications. One way to improvise this is to think about anachronisitc weapons from the medieval or even later period, and imagine how magic might be able to create a similar effect: siege ramps or tunnels, siege towers, battering rams, flaming oil etc. Don't make the creation to obvious, think about the effects of medieveal siege weaponry and have a ritual that achieves a similar effect, otherwise not possible for a bronze age culture. The Cradle. from the old RQ Pavis example is a great example of attackers and defenders of a 'fortification;. In The Eleven Lights we do also include details of the Liberation of Red Cow Fort, but more specifically The Freedom Battle, which will give you an idea of how Gloranthan battles can be influenced by magic.

It's worth noting that Core on the Hero Points in Single Contests issue

I've never played using the errata. I'm not sure what I am supposed to not be able to do.

Orlmakt is covered in the Eleven Lights. The incident where the spear was broken was an accident during a diplomatic mission, but the Dolutha don't believe that. (BTW all credit to Simon Bray and Martin Hawley who originally created many of the Dolutha characters and their backstories). He is due to return in 1623, but before that he will be fighting either as a mercenary, or later as a rebel, in Dragon Pass. If you want the PCs to track him down early, nothing in the campaign will be compromised by that. I would use the opportunity of tracking him down to either introduce the PCs to one of the rebel leaders in the campaign who he is hiding with, or to give your PCs a trip further afield in search of where he is serving a mercenary company. Jonstown? The Grazelands? Pavis? Hendrikiland...

I tend to go with Indonesia for Haragla (Java and Bali particularly), with Polynesia the smaller islands of the East Isles.

Over time the runes have been grouped differently. Doubtless, they will be again. I would think of this as closer to scholarly argument than a problem at the table. However, generally prefer the Guide as it is later, and an attempt to be definitive. As others have stated, in play this does not make a difference.

There is an intent to fix that, but... We only have limited manpower and it is behind some other things in the pipeline. That could mean months. In addition, there is a difference between errata - the game text is wrong - and typos (many of which are opinion based). HQG has little to no functional errata (I never play with a copy of the errata to hand). So you can wait, but I think you might regret that choice if you really want the game.

Here is my advice. What is play like at your table. If you like telling a story with your players, are happy agreeing what is credible or not, or how hard something is among yourselves, and want to roll to inject a little bit of uncertainty in the proceedings, but don't want to step out of the fiction into mechanics too much - opt for Heroquest. If you like to emulate what it would be like to live in Glorantha, want arbitration on what is possible, and like a tactical combat system - opt for Runequest. There are other trade-offs, prep-time, what you can cover in a session of play etc., but for my part it mostly amounts to a stylistic difference, so you have to figure out what you want to play. For my part, I like the fast-paced play of Heroquest, the feeling that I don't interrupt the role-playing for roll-playing that often, but you may prefer the feeling that you are living in the world with a realistic portrayal of what that means

I don't know of plans to do that

Thanks Simon