Psullie

As the GM you are fully equipped to reward or deny experience checks when ever you feel appropriate. For me I only ever allowed a check when the test was relevant or if the adventurer made signifiant efforts in game time to study (long sea voyages or winter breaks are a great time to catch-up on skills). If the combat was quick and not challenging then no check regardless of the rolls, but a hard fought result (even when peppered with failure) is worthy of a check or even automatic increase.

Also don't forget that as the GM you also set the challenges and difficulty levels and the pace at which the PC's advance. Also try to encourage broader use of skills to avoid mono-skilled two-dimensional characters. If players come up with a good strategy that wins the fight apply the check to Battle or Set Traps rather than their weapon skill.

I also feel one needs to look at how do shrines and temples communicate with each other. Even within a cult there may be local politics or personalities to content with. Just because you say your are a paid up member of cult A in X town, would cult A in Y town honour that even if proved to be true. Sure you may get bed and board, but access to temple wealth may not be so easy. I imagine some divinities are better than others at networking support (Issaries, Seven Mothers) but some would be very parochial (Orlanth, Lhankor Mhy).

Also who's to say that even aspects of the same god communicate, or even are the same god (don't believe what the Learners have told us). Sure in Glorantha the gods really do exist and reward worship with magic, but it's still people (or what ever) that act as gate keepers. 

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

No. Only within the scope of the God. It depends on a lot of things, especially the context of their worshippers. Eg. Yelm should never be assigned any other element rune other than Fire. We know that he is the current owner of the fire rune. As for the difference, my current mind set is that the Guide shows us the quintessential runes defining the God within that Pantheon - source of Fire, stasis - hard to change culture all about order, Mastery as he's the ruler. RQG is from the rpg aspect - fire the same, but life and death provide opposite poles for a character to struggle with. Only the enlightened can truly overcome this and raise both runes. What a great goal.

Thanks David, I prefer this answer to the OP's question as it hints to the potentially fluid nature of Rune ownership and that heroes can exhibit Runic tendencies separate from their Gods which makes sense in a truly polytheistic society. 

Also one worries that the Guide should have an advisory applied given it's GL heritage :-)

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

The runes are correct for the RuneQuest rules. And keep in mind that ANY Rune assignment is fundamentally a God Learner exercise.

So the Runes can assigned to any divinity?

On 8/19/2017 at 6:14 PM, David Scott said:

In RQ Glorantha having The Moon as your Primary Rune gives you +2 to CHA or POW (secondary +1) so yes.

I'm sure that once those who are lucky enough to be at Gen Con can add more to this statement, but the fact that in RQG your choice of Rune affiliation can impact on your characteristics sounds pretty cool to me.

the three main combatants on the QS all have armour around 5-6 and Parry skills of 90 - 100. Oddly none have Protection magic which was near ubiquitous in RQ2. So for the most part they avoid serious wounds, although when I ran the game Vasana took a special to the a leg forcing her to withdraw,

All have Healing magic and Harmast has three very potent Healing potions. Any combat should be quick, decisive but rarely fatal. 

On 8/15/2017 at 5:44 PM, Joerg said:

On the other hand, the graphic presentation of the runes and possible interactions is great. The handwriting in the background makes it look like there is a decipherable text.

For pages 146 and 147 I was trying to figure out whether this was an old original parchment in Old English or Latin, but the diagram on p. 148 has the black-inked Gloranthan runes in the vertical bar overlaid on the sepia- (or hawthorn bark-) inked text, with a correction or annotation of that text left of the bar between Mastery and Law, and again between Infinity and Magic, so I am inclined to assume that these are actual alchemical diagrams a couple centuries old.

I believe these pages are from the Voynich Manuscript

I do love how these pages present the Runes, especially now that we'll have Runic Passions I imagine these pages getting a lot of use

I like the font, but it's the embossed pseudo stone work that I dislike. I just don't see the need to wrap a cloud around a logo or title, if the design is strong it will stand on it's own. I can see the appeal of this, and clearly it is targeting new younger players which I doubt many of us here fit that demographic.

However, it's what's between the covers that counts, so far we've seen fab art and the QS has given us a taste of whats to come. 

As strike ranks are simply a way to sequence events I'd stagger the Trollkin attacks as Soltakss suggested. RQ2 had equal SR's being decided by DEX so that allows multiple actions within 1 SR, only when DEX is equal are attacks simultaneous.

The QS only states that "may attempt to parry additional attacks on subsequent strike ranks", all this means to me is that your first Parry must be the one at full value, after that you can parry as many as you can, each with cumulative -20. So to use the Trollkin example, if they all attack (staggered) at SR 3 but the massive Cave Troll attacks at SR 8, by the time time the cave troll swings you'd be out of Parry's.

The one caveat here is that if indeed two attacks were deemed simultaneous, then you could not use the same weapon to parry both, but you could parry one with a shield and the other with a weapon but then you could not attack this round.

Bottom line, being outnumbered is bad, even if they are Trollkin

Aye, if there is a remote chance an ally can get to the character, and actually makes a good attempt at doing so I generally fudge this. However I also make it clear that the character is stable and not dying, still out of action etc. unless major magic is involved.

Page 14 in the Success bullet point? 

"The attack is parried, but the parrying shield or weapon loses 1 hit point. If the attack is a failure, the parrying weapon or shield does its full damage against the attacking weapon, breaking it if damage exceeds its weapon’s current hit points."

5 hours ago, Septimus Kendaro said:

Looks great, I really like Andrey Fetisov's style.  I see all the quickstart characters there, well almost all, Cousin Monkey is conspicuously missing.  Interestingly they're in the same travelling order my group was in the other day when we played the adventure.  I think they'll be excited to see this.

he's obviously hiding someplace

it's a violent place to live, injury and death are commonplace, but due to healing magic recovery even from death is quick - though this does contribute to violence

polytheism is the norm

democracy and the rights the individual do not exist

for me the fact that Healing is by location is a strong indication that locations take damage, also the fact that locations can not benefit from a second heal spell for 5 rounds can be an issue, especially of all you have is Healing 1 or 2, for example if your character takes 3 wounds in different locations, then they can all be healed in quick succession (thereby upping your current HP), if you have multiple wounds in one location you need to wait before rising your HP

all joking aside, are the concepts of racial stereotypes grotesque broad stokes of prejudice like they are here on Earth? It seems contrary to the whole principle of Glorantha to say that all elves hate dwarves. Sure at any given time a particular group may harbour animosity towards another and with long lived species these grudges can last a long time, but these usually stem from some past slight or insult. 

Apple Lane was my first introduction to Glorantha/RuneQuest and not only was Xarban's gang an eclectic mix but having Pinfeather and Quackjohn on opposite sides clearly stated that sentient beings are free to make their own alliances, a welcome relief from the all Orcs are Chaotic Evil mindset. 

The River of Cradles cover is my all time favourite piece of RQ art, along with Sun County and Borderlands really captures the style of RQ. I also like how it's the same woman on RoC & Borderlands and that her scar hasn't quite healed on the later (although the LOVE/HATE finger tattoos are a bit cheesy)

16 hours ago, styopa said:

I think it would be great and appropriate if subsequent campaign books presented the various elder cultures (kind of like Elder Secrets did, but ...better art, at least  ) and then provided PC-generation stuff for campaigns to use.  The 'background generation tables' that have gotten good commentary in every 'insider' comment really would have to be pretty carefully crafted for each, obviously, and that's a big task.

I think this would be great. the common thread seems to be that mixed groups are uncommon, but the history/mythology of Glorantha is full of cooperative enterprises when the stakes are high enough. As we aim to re-enact the myths as part of our games then mixed groups would be quite common.

Ideally I'd like to see the Elder races getting a similar level of uplift in RQ as they have in other sources (the Guide for example). Right now RQ2's dwarves and elves do not reflect those races as we see them today. 

cheers guys

the random dragonewt sounded like fun, perhaps a potential for vaudeville, but did have a game mechanical element that supported the creature type

homogenous groups are probably the easiest, at least by being able to present a common lens through which to view the world. Even here, as Yelm's Light suggests, it would take a lot off work on the GM's part to create the truly non-human world of the Aldryami or the Mostali so that the players are able to see humans as alien invaders 

It is the 'can I play a dwarf/elf/hobbit?' type of player though that I'm most interested in. The 'Gimli v Legolas' stereotype haunts our games. It relies on all players to see beyond tolkien's ghost (what Glorantha aims to do) and perceive the elf as something different.

For example Brown Elves are deciduous plants. The rely on photosynthesis, they need water, cycle CO2 & Oxygen rather than breath, they feel pain differently than mammals, have different senses (perhaps see in a different wavelengths (as troll hate red)), and need to 'hibernate' each winter. While all this alters their view on the world, it also alters how the world interacts with them. What happens if an elf is denied sunlight, (Yelm's Light ), can they drown, if they don't sleep. These mechanics can really influence and underline racial differences so that your elf is more than a long haired bowman.

Another (bad) example is the Agimori, how many GM's have regretted showing the character gen table from River of Cradles to players, all they see is 3d6+6 STR & SIZ, 2 pt natural armour and they're off with little interest in their actual social background. 

17 minutes ago, g33k said:

(otoh, this strikes me as a fine instance for using Passion rules; and having a Passion involved in declaring an all-offense or all-defense combat strategy seems a very fine idea!)

that is a great instance for a Passion roll, even a fumble could send a PC off into a careless frenzy...

The weekly discussions relating to the Guide have highlighted the alien nature of the Elder Races. I've always stuck with humans as PC's in my RQ games as there is enough cultural diversity for me in Glorantha. 

Broken dwarves, aldryami scouts, exiled dragonewts not to mention all the beast men offer interesting role-playing opportunities. However I often found that as written in RQ2 they lacked a truly alien appeal, they were the same as human but with a slightly different Characteristic spread and perhaps an aversion to iron. They really were no different than elves & dwarves from D&D. I hoping that RQG addresses this but I though I'd like to through it out to the community too.

So, what have you done in the past that worked or not when having an Elder Race PC? Also, has anyone ever played an entirely Elder Race group?

6 hours ago, styopa said:

I have plate armor and shield 8, I'm being attacked by pixies with toothpicks that do 0-1 damage.  I wouldn't need some special circumstance to feel completely safe from harm.

Again, I'd say leave it to the PLAYER to decide their own survival instinct.  If they want to throw caution to the wind, I'd say it's an extraordinarily intrusive DM to say 'you wouldn't risk your life like that'...

(As I've mentioned before, because NPCs rarely care about "tomorrow" I would definitely restrict NPCs from using it unless they had some sort of special circumstance ie Minotaur berserk rage, etc.)

I believe that players can be just as impetuous as your NPCs. One of the great things that RQ laid down was the universal nature of the rules, players could play monsters, and monsters were subject to the same skill advancement and (barring social limits) open to the same opportunities. (perhaps one of your pixies is a rune lord with 185% toothpick skill :-) ). So what ever ruling is put in place it would be open to all (fanatic tigress protecting cubs, you could state an equal number of examples to support NPC use).

I also feel that having NPC's as sword fodder is a D&D thing. RQ has favoured placing NPCs in scenarios for reasons (admittedly some of the earliest scenarios were dungeon bashes). There are no morale rules in RQ because it accepted the fact that the GM would 'play' the NPC's with sense suited to them. RQ's lethal combat means that risk of death or serious injury is always present. Now how much restrictions a GM places on their player's action is a style thing, I personally favour a guided approach as I find that often players would happily forget character restrictions for player benefit.

2 minutes ago, Yelm's Light said:

Hmm.  Sorry, but to this scientific mind, the concept of tiny Runes as the basis of reality is going a bit too far.  I see no contradiction in there being fundamental physical laws upon which Runes can act.

but just think, somewhere in Seshnela a team of Malkion lead by the famous wizard Oppenheimer seek to end all wars… 

4 hours ago, styopa said:

Our read on this is simple: barring high-skill splitting, you can perform 2 actions in a round.

Attack, defense, or spell casting each count as an action.  You can do two of any them as long as you have the tools (ie two weapons for two attacks) and sr available.

but you cannot magically attack and physically in the same round while engaged

that last pic is great!

Always a tricky one and very much case dependant, however if I was the GM of that particular encounter I would be inclined to suggest:

Casting Mobility on another counts as attacking/offensive magic (even if the target is willing, but in your case the bull is not), therefore I would not allow the player to cast then melee attack that round, he/she may parry though, as per p8

I generally read that casting during combat relates to spells on self. Bladesharp on your sword for example, but not on someone else's. 

My rule of thumb is that spells targeting others are considered 'attacks' even if beneficial.