d(sqrt(-1))

On 2/17/2022 at 6:27 PM, AlHazred said:

"Yes, step right up ladies and gentlemen! Only I, initiated into the mysteries of the Blue Moon and a devotee of Annilla, Lady of Secrets, can see the Blue Streak! Only I can interpret the subtle sways and warps of her flight from the top of the Sky Dome down Magasta's Pool! But, for a fee, I will share this wisdom with you! For twenty lunars I phrase the answer in clear and actionable language; for ten I use the language of cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five, I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one lunar, I babble in an unknown tongue."

Jack Vance fan, perchance?

On 1/21/2022 at 5:28 PM, svensson said:

I'm personally not sure if it's AD&D, RQ, Pendragon, or Tekumel.

It has style elements of all four and each property has similar illustrations [a defended tower under siege] from the '75-'85 era.

My wife used to be layout and typesetting professional for a major game company and I had her look at it. She doesn't recognize either the art itself nor the artists and says that the proportions are 'weird' for US standard game book dimensions. It's too large to be quarter- or half-page, and too narrow for a full page. In her opinion, it's possibly a rough draft or promotional piece of artwork.

Doesn't look like Tekumel to me - the shields and swords are fairly plain, as is the armour.

5 hours ago, g33k said:

I had thought it was just out in time for one of the big gaming conventions, and mostly sold there...?

Do you know how many of those 5000 RQ1's went out to the distributor/retail channel?
(Or have I misunderstood, and there was not a majority sold at a Con?)

 

I certainly managed to get a copy of RQ1 in the UK when it came out, I think as a result of seeing adverts in White Dwarf. Can't remember if it was by post or in a shop though! The RQ2 box set I have is the Games Workshop version.

Not sure how many of those 5000 copies of RQ1 would have made it to the UK at that time.

On 11/10/2021 at 4:17 PM, Gaynor the Damned said:

If ever a relaunch did happen please support vtt. Preferably foundry. Stormbringer is a niche game and difficult to get a local group. Our current group has Swiss, a German, Brits, Scandinavians, a Pole and a Spaniard.

From that group it sounds like you should cross planes to the Tragic Millennium!

4 minutes ago, GMKen said:

What I like about Griffin Mountain is that while it is Glorantha, it’s not really tied to the meta-narratives that have taken over the more recent iterations.  It’s just a place to go exploring and have adventures.  It’s easy to slot in miscellaneous small adventures from a variety of sources, like the Judges Guild adventures.  So Duck Tower and Duck Pond could be located in a swampy area on the north shore of the Elf Sea, or the Hellpits of Nightfang up by the Gork Hills.  Broken Tree Inn can be slotted in somewhere west of Elkoi.  Lair of the White Wyrm could be part of the mysterious Dragonewt activity in the region.  The list goes on.  Jon Hunter’s “Back to Balazar” website offers many interesting encounters, like Blueface’s Green Age cabin, where I intend to hide a pair of 7-league moccasins.  So the narrative potential is much more open, while still allowing for easy linkage to the stuff going on in Dragon Pass and Prax.

Completely agree. I much prefer to have a setting like this.

Thanks for the mention of Back to Balazar - I'd not come across it before.

The two separate boxed sets of the initial AH RQ in the UK were about £40 each in 1984 (and that's £40 then, not £40 now). Luckily those were the days when students still got grants, and beer was about 50p/pint. I believe a similar thing happened with the Empire of the Petal Throne box Gardasiyal - it was also expensive and paper cover rulebooks (not a bad set of rules but hardly any Tekumel info in it)

I used to amuse myself in the early 90s going into Games Workshop stores and asking if they had any copies of Runequest...

I have to say that I did watch their Call of Cthulhu 5 part playthrough and really enjoyed it - they had the rules down mostly and the GM was very good at evoking the right atmosphere.

Flashing Blades (also FGU) and its supplements would also provide useful/stealable info, d20 based but easily convertible to d100. Pretty good game in its own right too. The High Seas book includes rules for ships, and a mini campaign including possibility (or not) of some voodoo being involved.

On 10/10/2021 at 10:39 PM, RandomNumber said:

I have a hunch that this is probably the future.

So many aspects of our lives have been digitalised (anyone still using slide rules?), I see no reason why TTRPG should be any different. Many of the crunchier aspects of games can be enabled through technology - no more looking up on tables, tracking of durations etc.  What we mark off with paper and pen (2 damage to my spear that made a parry...) should be accounted for digitally in the future if we wish. If true this is VERY good news for crunchier games like RQG and WFRP as the incremental benefit to the customer is so much greater than it is for a more narrative rules-lite game. A customer (and future customer) pain-point is being mitigated and the addressable market for the game is increased.

Digitalisation of TTPRG can really level the playing field and actually offers a bright future for RQG.  Such innovation is often fan-led - the Foundry mod for WFRP and the Alien and Forbidden Lands Foundry mods for Free League being cases in point. The Chasoium acquisition of the Dholes House is another fine example. Innovative digitalisation of RQG could be very powerful.

 

 

I suspect that you are right - this may well be the way a lot of games go. However it does come with a significant downside in that it removes a lot of the flexibility of GMs and players to arbitrate rules and change/invent things on the fly, which for me is one of the major strengths of RPGs. D&D 5+ is already heading this way with classes and powers predefined (pretty much the nature of a class system) in a much more constrained way that 0e, 1e, 2e or even 3e did. I don't mind 5e - it works well, but it does tend to shoehorn people into what the rules say, and once you've got a hard-coded rules implementation it starts becoming difficult to change things without unintended consequences and/or people saying "but that's not what the rules say". I play a lot of board games, and I am quite happy there to thrash out the exact meanings of rules, in RPGs not so much as I prefer them to allow for creativity in interpretation.

(Strangely enough I came across a couple of slide rules the other day and was thinking about learning to use them!)

Advantage in RQ2 usually came about as a result of ganging up on people - most people only got 1 Attack and 1 Parry unless they had two weapons, so if two of you attacked an opponent they could usually only parry one of you. RQG changed this with the -20%(?) per parry/dodge, but you can still run people down if there's enough of you...

Any chance of a POD version?

I watched the first one and am finding it hard to muster any enthusiasm for the others. Continually saying how hard the rules are, and then making it obvious that no-one seemed to have done much actual reading of the rules beforehand seemed weird to me, but I find that in  a lot of streamed games. If I'm running something new I make sure I know it fairly well, and if I were streaming (which thankfully I'm not) I would be making even more certain I had a decent grasp of it.

Also I got a bit annoyed at the constant "oh here's some names and words that don't mean anything to me so I'll just dismiss them" thing.  Either take time to explain stuff or don't mention it until later. 

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Speaking as a UK resident Brit, I would not howl with outrage if it were available elsewhere in the world first. I think that was the case with the RBoM in Australia, they had to wait a little longer.

Agreed  - I don't see why ROW should be delayed because of UK stupidity 

Yelorna for me too. Which is ok except for the, you know, not being an Amazon in any way...

9 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Now, you were referring to your own take... 

I will admit to having the small problem of late. I hear several multisyllabic names, each a suitcase full of begots and beentheres and donethats and got thet-shirts that my head begins to spin and my incoherent stare stops at a vacant 1000 yards... Is that were you going?

love, love love the moniker!

Not quite - I'm usually ok with the language and with undefined things - I'm a big fan of Vance and Wolfe who do this all the time for evocative purposes, but in those stories they are there to provide a wider scope and stir imagination. A myth /story is usually there to provide some insight into expected behaviour or moral code but I often find myself thinking "what am I supposed to have learnt from this? How would hearing this alter my behaviour?". I have the same problem at weddings and funerals!

Glad to hear you picked up on the name - I think you are about the third person ever to have mentioned it!  

On 9/9/2021 at 3:07 AM, Bill the barbarian said:

Sounds like a problem many gamers have!

I have the opposite problem - I read the myth, whether it be Gloranthan or something else and think "I have no idea what that is supposed to mean". 

5 hours ago, Archivist said:

I just bought the game. Where will the eratta be posted?

See above posts from Leketh. I assume that the official errata will be posted on the Osprey site.

Very sad to hear this. A huge part of RPG history belongs to him.

I had a very quick response from JMD to say that he is working on errata, and will try to answer the questions from this forum ASAP....

Re Imbue Lesser Elements, I suspect there will be a reason to use it for item preparation in future supplements - for the moment its use seems to be for the invulnerability benefit and the +1 to damage/protection.

I agree re errata, and I wish we could get some answers (anyone know JMD's email address, or can point him at this thread?) but the play throughs are useful in that they do show how JMD runs the game.

AFAIK Travellers on the War Road is another book with expanded rites, magic items, etc. It is certainly mentioned a few times in the Cult of Ceenon playthrough,  where the PCs come across a Gerwan item that can restore Mettle quickly(!)

EDIT: I found a mail address for JMD so I will send our questions across and see what he says...

The Corruptive Actions table (p152) I think "Raid" is referring to Banditry specifically, and Murder I would take to mean premeditated killing rather than just in a fight, so I'm not sure it would be that much Corruption. I guess it might mean that bandits generally are corrupted though!

"Imbue Lesser Elements" (p86) does have the useful effect of making something indestructible and gives +1 damage or Protection until the rite is dismissed.

BTW there are some playthroughs with the author here: Jackals Actual Play which do cover some of the rules questions, and also mentions in passing that there is another book "Travellers on the War Road" which has new rites etc. 

On 2/7/2021 at 4:49 PM, d(sqrt(-1)) said:

 

A few things I noticed on a read through. Not sure if there is a specific forum for questions other than here?

• Some general typos but not major ones e.g. "Encumbrance" vs "Encumberance"
• p52 : Weapons "Light melee and ranged weapons", I assume this is Light melee and light ranged weapons"?
• p52 : Light weapons gain +1 Clash point due to speed - this ought to be mentioned elsewhere either under Fighting Styles (p66) or Clash points (p69) as it's easy to miss here.
• p53 : Armour says "Soft armours provide less Protection but are less fatiguing to wear (p 74). p74 doesn't seem to say anything about this, I think it should be p 55 Encumbrance
• p57 : Is there a minimum chance of success? Modifiers could easily knock it down to 0%
• p63 : Initiative example, 18 rolled for Oritakan and 15 for the Norakan. On p 244/255 Norakan and Oritakan have Init 15, so the minimum would be 16 for Norakan.
• p65 : Attack. The section on Clash spending sounds like it applies to melee only but doesn't actually say so. So if someone shoots at me can I make it a Clash and shoot back, highest successful roll hits? What if I dodge, obviously I can't damage them then (p 70 sort of implies this)
• p66 : Criticals/Fumbles Jackal can spend Clash points for Power Attack after a critical for +6 damage (see p 66). This should be see p 70. Also maybe explain it is +6 because damage is maximised on a critical?
• p70 : Clash Point costs - Clash a charging enemy. Highest success deals the damage it would seem, but it doesn't stop the movement etc (there's no definition of charge?)
• p79 : Rite Defence/Save Effect - do I have to spend clash to resist a rite or is it just a normal opposed roll? p70 doesn't mention it as something to spend Clash on.
• p83 : Crack of Flame. Enemies suffer penalty to non-defence skills equal to twice Devotion. Is that maximum Devotion or current Devotion?
• p107 : Advanced Skill Talents (AST). Is it at 100% or 120% you get your first AST? Text here makes it seem like 120%, but p 117 under Rite and Fate talents says 100%. p208 Nahunum have Combat 120% and it says they get a talent, which implies at 120%
• p109 : Healing: Triage and Respite say limited to once per day. Is that 1/day total or 1/day/subject?
• p109 : Healing Arcana specialist says use acalana resin for 1 Clash instead of 2 in combat. where does it say 2 Clash points to do this? p70 doesn't mention it.
• p196 : Many creatures have a Corruption rating.Does this do anything or is it purely for the purposes of rites like Touch of Law (p82)?

 

On the whole looks like a good system. 
 

Having received "Fall of the Children of Bronze" I also reread through Jackals and found a few more questions:

- p68 : Mettle : Says to recover lost Mettle requires a full day of rest, plus make END check to regain 1/1d4/4 Mettle. p74 says "One night of rest in a bastion removes 1 point of Mettle damage". Is this in addition, or is there a contradiction here? Also is there a specific definition of "bastion" - Village? Town? Orsem?

- p85 : Powder of Ibn al-Hanef : Range 3 yard radius, Advancement : range 6 yards. Dust of Geb (p86) has range 3 feet, and advancement says increase range to 6 yards - should this be 6 feet? Looks a bit like a copy and paste error.

- p111 : Quick Reflexes, repeated in Unarmed Combat (p112) - do these work for both? i.e. if you choose Quick Reflexes (Melee) does it only apply to Melee rolls? Skillful Strike explicitly says "Unarmed Combat check" but Quick Reflexes doesn't. Others that cross over e.g. Graceful Reflexes (Melee/Unarmed) just add +3 to initiative score so do they stack?
 
- p117 : Imbue Rite : When the imbued rite is activated does this require a skill roll? Presumably of the maker's skill (at time of manufacture?) as the holder may have DEV=0 and therefore no relevant skill. Or does it just work?

- p169 : Awakening an Item to greatness : rule says Wisdom x 3, example says Wisdom x 5.

6 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

So, btw what is this d() function?
I left uni so long ago! 😢 

XdY = roll X dice of Y sides each. 3d6 = 3 x 6 sided dice.

Square root of -1 is an imaginary number.

The perfect dice for RPGs therefore have a number of sides equal to the square root of -1. Voila.

2 hours ago, AndreasDavour said:

I sometimes get the impression that there are more Tekumel conversions than there are people playing it!

Possibly true! I believe that Prof Barker basically just had opposing sides roll d100, highest roll prevailed, and went with that.

The basics of Tekumel are not much different from what any set of RPG rules could handle, the magic is specifically structured though. But the cultural differences are what makes it what it is, and those are usually generated by the interactions between the players/NPCs rather than rules per se.