smiorgan

20 hours ago, svensson said:

Griselda IS initiated. Just not in any cults that the locals are familiar with.

OD says in The Complete Griselda that she's fully initiated in both Lanbril and Eurmal the Thief. And she's friendly with most of the other Lightbringers, if not an actual initiate.

Fine, then Complete Griselda and Big Rubble say contradictory things. Probably OD changed his mind over time. My point was not which one is the one and true Griselda, but to point out the Griselda of Big Rubble as an example of RQ2 expert character who is not initiated.

6 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Since RQG made rune spells reusable, an uninitiated PC would be at a huge disadvantage.  You have to really really stretch to come up with any justification.  Or be running an unusual campaign.

Yes, the famous "initiate trap" made initiation a less attractive choice in the short term. Now it reaps huge advantages.

One would need substantial bonuses to skill training to justify the viability of a lay PC. And a pretty unusual campaign setup.

If every other PC is on a mission for god and tribe, the godless PC is not having fun.

Thinking of Griselda, a Lankhmar like campaign set in Pavis or in Refuge would probably work. 

In the Big Rubble RQ2 book the famous rogue Griselda is not initiated into any cult, being a Lanbril lay member and a Geo's lay member, praying Olrlanth but feeling no particular loyalty to him. Her description comments about that saying that this is "symptomatic of her detachedness". This makes me think that not being initiated into any cult, was already in RQ2 days, regarded at least as uncommon for an expert and competent character like Griselda.

Now, RQG assumes that all PCs start as initiates of a cult. This makers a lot of sense: being initiated ensures a richer interaction with both the mythic and the social world of Glorantha and initiation was in any case the first step towards rune mastery already in the old days. All in all, it looks like more fun.

But what about those who do not commit to any cult?  Those who are irreligious, not very pious, or simply don't like bonds and commitments. Are they very rare in Dragon Pass and Prax? Are they inevitably loners, drifters and outcasts of their communities? Or there is a place in Orlanthi society also for that strange uncle who rarely goes to sacrifice at the temple and who never took the gods too seriously?

In fact, fairly competent non initiated PLAYER characters must have been relatively common in RQ2 days, given that initiation was to some extent competing with other character developments goals in the zero-to-hero trajectory. For instance, none of the pregenerated characters of the Borderlands campaign is initiated. And they are fairly competent fellas about 60-70% with their weapon of choice. 

Would it make sense to have the occasional uninitiated PC in RQG? Or would it simply be unfun and penalizing?

9 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

Thanks for the insight Jason.

Can you share at this point how Mythic Iceland compares rulewise with the previous edition?

Does it lean more towards RQG? CoC7?

Last time I heard something about this new edition it was to be definitely more like RQG than CoC - which makes sense to me. It's true that the previous edition had a split personality - half BRP/RQ3 with Strike Ranks and all, half CoC.

Is Charles Green involved in Mythic Iceland? Is he the editor Jason is talking about?

@Jason D- you briefly mentioned Mythic Iceland's writing style and editing in a recent video (below). Is there anything you can share with us about the book/ books and how they are shaping up?

In the meantime, I'm pretty excited by what I've seen of Lords of the Middle Sea...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ledepartement/elric-rise-of-the-young-kingdoms-0/posts/3613024?fbclid=IwAR0q37f1TXcpXv4I47AWbFhpWY5vRfuuuSVj0GZD6cVRg8PCGGg4Q2OqlSs

From the crowdfunding campaign. Apparently a herald of things to come...

14 hours ago, Metalzoic said:

Awesome thanks. So sounds like my 1.1 is the newest version then.

Checked the one at the store, saw the ads, and thought maybe I had deleted them or just not printed them. Good to know it didn't even have them 

 

Bummer they never printed a revised version though. I'd buy it in a second

If enough people ask for it they might put out a POD version on Drivethru. At a certain point @Rick Meints was on record saying this was a possibility. I however fully understand how Chaosium people have to decide how to allocate their precious time in a way that makes commercial sense. 

My printed copy is (c) 2012, but published in March 2011 and counts 262 numbered pages + 3 pages of character & ship sheets + 7 pages of advertisments = 272, excluding covers. No indication of revision in the frontispice. 

I have two  PDFs I downloaded from Chaosium (not Drivethru):

1. No indication of revision, counts 276 PDF pages, including 262 numbered pages, same sheets and ads as the print version, 2 pages with the Chaosium logo, front and back cover 

2. Revised version 1.1, counts 269 PDF pages, including 267 numbered pages +front and back covers. No ads. It still says  (c) 2012 and published in March 2011

My understanding is that there was only one print run ever of Magic World. Sales were very bad and Chaosium took several years getting rid of inventory at big discounts. I also think there were only 2 versions of the PDF (the ones I have). But I'm less confident about that.

Here's a question that came up in relation to the Italian translation of RQ. 

I've read about the Syndics Ban and how Prince Snodal inadvertently caused it, but why is it called SYNDICS ban? The English word syndic can denote a mayor (like Italian "sindaco") or some other sort of official, an advocate or representative of the people, a trustee acting in the name of some group or community, etc. But who were the syndics of the ban? Does the term refer to the socerers and priests that accompanied Snodal and performed the ritual on the corpse of the God of the Silver Feet?

 Thanks!

Smiorgan

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

I got the Quick Starter because of the Mallards.

This is a fine reason.

1 hour ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

[@Scotty] Think about writing that up and publishing via Jonstown Compendium, so that other people can benefit from what you have learned about adventures for very young players.  You have revealed something   that is not obvious.

 

Great idea!

Lock up @Jason D with food provisions (maybe also alcohol) and have him finish the damn thing! Here people badly need to shoot down an airship or two 😜.

1 hour ago, radmonger said:

A simpler math-free system is to use the value of the single-digit die after determining success or failure. On a pass, a  '1'  is a critical, a '5' a special. On a fail, a '0' is a fumble.

Another system, inspired by other d100 games, could be: specials are 1/2 skill, specials that are also doubles (11, 22, etc.) are also criticals. Additionally, 96-00 are autofail, autofails that are also doubles (99-00) are fumbles. It entails that a) specials are vastly more common (good for adjudicating opposed rolls, possibly bloody for combat), b) you never crit before your skill is 22%, but when you are 100% your critical chance is 4%, the maximum critical possible is 8%, reached at 200%; c) fumbles are fixed.  I dont think it would break the game.

1 hour ago, radmonger said:

Replace strike ranks with:

I might be delusional, but I don't think Strike Rank is that a big headhache, especially because you can have them written down on your sheet and you can use a cool SR tracker.  They're different from D&D, but not that demanding per se.

4 hours ago, Questbird said:

 However I don't think I need another fantasy game. I have my Elric! and Magic World, and OpenQuest and Mythras Lyonesse. It's enough. I'll pass on Drakar och Demoner.

You are wiser than me, apparently. I also do not really need it. 

11 hours ago, Crel said:

The biggest turn-off to new players I've experienced has been that the rules are complicated. Calculating crits versus specials, POWx5 (or other characteristic rolls), resistance table rolls, figuring out which spells or other character options to use when, all tends to overwhelm newer players. 

This confirms my impression. And it seems recent game designs try to keep math to a minimum. 

I wonder whether changing the way specials and crits are calculated would really break the game: like having specials at 1/2 skill CoC style.

13 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Then a few years later one of them played in a game with friends her own age, and she came home and said "Now I get it, I know now why you love playing these games". They need to play with their peers, not just their parents. Even if their dad is as awesome as Simon.

This is very true. My kids never went beyond playing with dad an his friends, so they basically quit playing. I was exctatic when my older son was starting a D&D5 game with his high school classmates but then the Pandemic came and killed it.   

Hi, 

This post is possibly at odds with this forum's demographic.

But I'm curious/ interested to know about younger players playing Rune Quest Glorantha. People who weren't playing RQ2 and RQ3 in the previous century and maybe not even MRQ or RQ6.  I was surprised that the RQ starter set did not get any Ennies, and I wondered how much the game is attracting new players. I also hope to run RQ demos for new players when the game is out in Italian (early next year, hopefully).

What do you think of the game? What do you like most of the system and setting? What kind of stories do you tell of Glorantha? Do you play meticoulously by the rules or fast and loose?  What kind of characters do you like to play? Are ducks/ Durulz still a problem when you want to sell RQ to someone?

Grognards can post if they have stories about playing with younger people.

Best,

Smiorgan

It's interesting to see what people think outside the little BRP/ Chaosium bubble. I was reading opinions on Dragonbane on Reddit. 

One guy was saying it looked like a fine game, but since it had ducks as a playable race he was out. (Note that D&D5 has just released Spelljammer where you can literally play hippos, with-guns, in spaaace!).

Another said that the game was great but his players "don't do roll under" (😮).

17 hours ago, Rich Tom said:

 

So,does anybody know anything about the developments? Has it gone to the Magic World Graveyard in the sky? Oh and play isn't much like MW which is sad although it is still good.

Hi, it is indeed possible that RM goes the way of Magic World and fades into nothingness, but maybe not.

The facts I know:

Riotminds was releasing a retro edition of Drakar och Demoner in Swedish and a Ruin Masters in English, which is DoD inspired but different. DoD was sold to Fria Ligan, RM was sold to Cmon.

Fria Ligan kickstarted DoD in Swedish and in English (with the Dragonbane title). It reuses art from RM but it's not compatible. It however covers the same niche of RM. It's still BRP derived but with d20 roll under. See the other thread here.

Cmon RPG director is Francesco Nepitello, whom I really trust as a designer. If they decide to do something with RM I'm sure it will be good. The problem is they also have got the rights to Trudvang, which might be a higher priority for them. 

I hope the at least put the bestiary on sale on Drivethru ...

22 minutes ago, Mugen said:

 

EDIT : if I truly wanted to speed up combat, I would take inspiration from Tenra Bansho Zero, where a successful parry can be turned into an attack, just like in Pendragon.

In the DoD Quickstart you get a free attack from as critical parry. 

51 minutes ago, Mugen said:

Oh, I just saw something I utterly dislike, concerning Parry and Dodge :

So, that means that if I parry or dodge, I can't do anything else in the round, and if I chose to attack early in the round, I'm a victim to anyone attacking me...

That's completely opposite to the kind of resolution systems I appreciate these days, where combat skills are opposed and the best roll hits. Like in Pendragon and Tenra Bansho Zero.

I instinctively disliked it quite a lot and I wondered what could be the reasoning behind that.

1. Making parries rarer so that combat is faster. 

2. Creating tactical choices / dilemmas do I take the damage or parry and forfeit an attack? Do I attack first or wait to see if the other hits me so that I can parry?

3. Exception based design. Interacting with advanced special abilities we have not seen. We know nothing about experience and additional actions / reactions could be given to expert characters. 

I think I am on the fence on that and I want to see it in play. Note also that monster attacks are 1) auto hits, 2) normally impossibile to parry (dodge only).

Fria Ligan is collecting feedback on the Quickstart rules via forum. They say rules are not final and could still change.

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

-I really don't like how opposed rolls are resolved. First because the lower roll wins, but also because there's no winner if both fail, which is something I find more problematic.

It's a bit early but I cannot help thinking  of a Pendragon-style house rule. With dragons at your exact skill rating instead of 1. Higher success wins in opposed rolls. And skills not capped at 18. A less radical house rule could be using levels of success/ failure like in WFRP. Anyways lower roll wins sucks.

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

-Il like the fact magic uses variable spells, but I don't get why all characters seem to be able to spend 1 to 6 WP in a spell, no matter what their expertise level is.

 

Yes, this is good. I got it wrong in my first reading...

Relationship with Ruin Masters:

- The Dragonbane Quickstart massively reuses art from the Ruin Masters book. That's not bad at all because it was excellent art.

- Apart from that, the two games are incompatible in every possible way (d100 vs d20, d10 damage vs variable dice damage, hit locations vs general hit points, different initiative system, resistance table vs opposed rolls). Very different interpretations of the DoD heritage, I gather. I'd say Ruin Masters makes some design choices that are consciously "old school", while Dragonbane is more modern in feel, and strives to keep it simple.

-Minor disappointment: I liked the variable RM spells - derived from Magic World. From the Quickstart it seems that the level of Dragonbane spells is fixed for each spell, ranging 1-3 power points. Edit: I got this wrong in my hasty reading, spells are variable, which is good!

- Very minor disappointment. Opposed skill roll: with the same level of success lower roll wins. WTF? Not as elegant as Pendragon's system. But I suppose it goes with having 1 as crit and 20 as fumble.

1 hour ago, Ravenheart87 said:

Just what I've been waiting for! There is a strong influence of other Free League games, like in the utterly simple yet brilliant way Conditions are handled.

Indeed conditions are very cleverly designed and look very fun to role-play.