icebrand

On 5/19/2022 at 9:00 AM, Bill the barbarian said:

the 3 trollkins that killed Ruric thrice...

Ruric's death was EPIC and exemplifies all thats awesome and right about RuneQuest. I will fistfight you over this Bill!!! 😂😂😂

PS: please don't hurt me too badly!

29 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

Tactically, Yelmalio has two key Runespells involving light.  Catseye allows the player(s) to function normally in extreme dark conditions.  So you have an automatic edge at night fighting, troll fighting, and even cave fighting, if it comes to it.   This is a 1 point spell that lasts for 12 hours and negate a -75% modifier that should be in effect frequently.  

Using runepoints to see in the dark (especially if it affects only you, as per catseye) is a very unwise RP expenditure.

Light lets your whole group see, while catseye is an awesome spell to throw your shield and run away, expertly navigating the cave while you let your party at their fate.

You can also use lantern, or if you really must sunbright lets everyone see.

Also theres a thing called torches. In any case the edge is far from automatic.

37 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

With Shield and Heal Body, a PC would be set for everything except offensive magic, and so is looking to win a grindfest type combat.   I would armor up, try to learn a high level bladesharp, and lean on Dispel Magic to knock down enemy super spells.  

Problem is yelmalio doesnt offer shield, nor heal body, nor bladesharp, nor dispel magic (nor shimmer) so kind of a moot point?

41 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

  If the GM has every combat encounter on a sunny day, at high noon, or the trolls never bother to use darkness spells then sure, a Yelmalio PC has just been robbed of the advantages that he even does bring to the table in a combat scenario. 

Well, my starting character has 5 torches...

43 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

  No work on the part of the GM nor the player is necessary to make spells like Truesword or Sever Spirit useful

Sever spirit isnt actually that useful. You are gambling 3 RP on a pow roll; many people seem to think this is the ultimate spell, but most of the other 3pt spells are actually mechanically better (ofc this doesnt count if the gm zergs you with npc humakti that suicide cast all their RP at the PCs).

47 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

.  Humakt might have better killing magic, but if the Humakt PC is perpetually at -75%, then it is going to suck for him no matter his Rune Spell selection.

If the humakti is that stupid... Does he have at least 4 int? Most playera characters don't even go pee with total darkness, much less go fighting.

Anecdotically, the humakti can Sword trance with 10 mp or so and now your yelmalio is still 25% less than him (LOL)

51 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

my take, as a GM is that Yelmalio is tactically okay, and strategically very powerful.

You consider it very powerful, we see it as a one-trick pony, and the trick aint that hot.

You know what would a very powerful strategy be?

Fight the trolls at high noon. Flush the chaos out of the cave then fighting them outside etc...

You can't tell me "we all go into the enemy territory unprepared but im a strategic genious because i have darkvision"

39 minutes ago, svensson said:

So let me ask the important question:

Why are we still flogging this dead Alticamelus?

IKR? like this shouldn't have went beyond page 2, 3 maybe.

I guess we all just bored 

45 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

Both Waha and Yelmalio have proven perfectly viable gods for my PC followers over the years.   This is from the point of view of being able to assist or generate a narrative, have a cultural story to tell, and sometimes even a mystery to solve (I used the Elmal/Yelmalio thing as a hook for a Lhankor Mhy player to go after.)

🙂

But every single character can generate a narrative and stuff.

45 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

There is also no denying that in terms of straight up killing things, neither of these assist especially greatly with that most typical of heroic activities.   There is a narrative hook there as well: "follow your god's example and learn to do things yourself rather than calling on cosmic powers to resolve petty feuds all the time."

The problem is that neither assists in anything. Yelmalio has light, and Waha can cremate the dead... They are utterly useless.

You don't see people complaining about lhankor mhy or issaries, do you? Because they are very good at what they do, it's not about killing things, it's about fulfilling your role.

Do you play yelmalian to be a loser out of their depth? RAW works fine!!! You play yelmalian to be a spartan-like badass? Well, then you better be the only initiate in your group, because every other god is badasser than you.

Yelmalio, the Soldier god whos only magic is light!!!

45 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

But these days, older and perhaps a touch wiser, the story told is more important that dredging the last ounce of power out of a game mechanic.

We play different styles of games. The story i tell comes from how the PCs interact with the setting/scenario and what the dice roll. Heck, most of the time i have no clue on what's gonna actually happen, just a place where it may happen!

45 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

"There is a always another way".  This does require that the GM flesh out the friendly NPC's to not just all be a bunch of mooks who stand around with arrows over their heads, handing out quests that they cannot hope to accomplish. 

Actually, if you think carefully about this, which IMHO is the crux of the problem...

1- Not always. People are fallible, both players and GMs make mistakes, and some days you are just tired/not inspired

2- it's not "another way" if your chatacter cant do it the "regular way". And the issue here is that almost every single other other chatacter can either do it the normal way, or excels at it (this isnt límited to combat)

45 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

In summary: the disparity in combat power is real.  But it doesn't get in the way of a role playing experience if they players want that.  If they only want hack and slash, then yes, they are better served in other ways. 

Why does it have to be one or the other? If you play the game as intended you have both. What happens when your roleplayers come face to face with 6 Scorpion men trying to break into a farm and eat the farmers? (This is a published scenario btw). 

Does your yelmalio throw their shield and go cry to daddy humakti weaponthane to come kill the bugs, letting the farmers die? Maybe his party memebers chose good cults and they are able to succeed at the scenario???  DRAMA!!!

You are right, Yelmalio has tons of opportunities to shine hahaha. (Not mine, in my campaign yelmalians are badass)

3 minutes ago, Eff said:

1. Mircea Eliade was a Romanian-American scholar of religion whose works serve as one of the primary sources for Glorantha and how Glorantha approaches religious topics, especially shamanism. 

2. Well, I'm probably being imprecise- I'm drawing on Levi-Strauss's arguments about mythemes and the extent to which structural analysis enables people to use structural relationships as formative analogies, as in the critique of totemism in Le Totemisme aujourdhui and La Pensée sauvage. Animal totems being adopted because they're good to think with. And in Glorantha, this is frequently turned into a literal shift of reality- I can cast Lightning because I can break down the structure and see how these instances where Orlanth threw a lightning spear are identical in their structural relations to my current situation. 

For Eliade, something similar is happening with mythology, but it focuses on the reenactment of the mythological events rather than the structural focus on the relationship between components. 

So by "psychosocial phenomenon", I mean that mythology in these methods of analysis operates on a relationship between the individual's mind and the social world they're embedded in, and needs both parts to function. 

3. Well, I'm mostly talking about Jung's theory of archetypes here- the idea that there are mental equivalents to instinct that stem from the collective unconscious. So the "something more Jungian" is a literalization of his beliefs about archetypes. 

I use the term "cosmogony", (after John Lindow) which in a literal sense just means "model of the origin of the universe", to refer to a very common mythological motif- the world is the way it is specifically because of the particular and specific actions of some entity- a god, a hero, a demon. An immediate example of this in the real world would be the folklore around Roland's Breech in the Pyrenees, that it was formed by the hero Roland cutting apart the mountains with his sword Durendal to see France one last time with his dying breath- the rock formation exists because a hero cut apart a mountain as a last deed before death. 

One model of Rune magic is that the magic gods provide is derived from cosmogonic acts- Orlanth has thunder, lightning, rain, snow, hail, gale-force winds, etc. in his storms because he stole the Lightning Spear, befriended Heler, brought Valind to heel, made a magic stone to fight a monster, calls upon his wild brother Storm Bull out of their sibling bond, etc. 

But another model would be that there's an archetype, which I'll call The Storm Dude, and the archetype has thunder, lightning, rain, snow, hail, strong winds, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. because that's just what the archetype is, and Orlanth is a manifestation of that archetype. And you get those things from Orlanth because Orlanth is what Jung called the "archetypal image" that you use to contact the primal archetype and this is literalized into conjuring thunder and lightning through magic. 

And the questions around the Yelmalio and Waha cults and their magic and so on are related to these different models- if we understand Yelmalio as an archetypal image of the archetype of The Light Dude, then of course his magic only involves light and birds and horses and the phalanx. But if we understand Yelmalio as an entity that engaged in cosmogonic acts, then of course his magic should reflect his status as a guy who falls 99 times and gets up 100 times because that's the biggest thing he did. 

These are simplified models, and they overlap substantially for someone like Orlanth or Ernalda, but at points they really diverge. Now, my personal approach is more structuralist, but I don't have as many problems with the Yelmalio cult as it is structured as a game object- I think I have most of my differences of opinion on it as a metagame object, whether it's good to present it as a cult for warriors to new players. Because I have an understanding of the Yelmalio cult as a structure where its strangeness has a sensibility to it- the Yelmalio cult acts to hide and conceal the truth about itself. 

I think you give the writers -all of them- too much credit. Yelmalio sucks because "he lost his fire powers". Only that yelmalio DIDNT suck, and it got progressively nerfed (self fulfilling prophecy!!!) 

Seriously, if you watch how cult *mechanics* drift (many times without reason, since they keep the lore) you need to realize most of these changes are accidental / unintended.

And given the explanations received here, i believe it's not a playtest fault, but when playtest feedback came through it was met with "this is how it should be because i said so".

44 minutes ago, Jeff said:

You are welcome to do whatever you want, but I see no reason to add any such spell to the published cult or to the Cults Book.

Don't take it the wrong way Mr Jeff, but this is like the 2nd or 3rd time you replied something similar. We already know the cult is how you want (i seriously doubt someone was there with a gun forcing you to nerf yelmalio), but clearly theres a bit of miscommunication.

My theory is that you (and other old-timers) maybe play the game in a different, more "narrative" way (ive watched Jason durall of YouTube saying he just lets you slay enemies with a single attack roll (no parry, no damage) if he considered you should win that fight.

Thing is, some other people play the game with sandals on mud, dirt and blood on their greaves and their shield skill and a bit of luck are the only thing between them and death.

In these cases, some extra omph would be welcomed, especially when you are just a dude with a pointy stick and a shield, and your buddies stroll (or fly) around raining lightning, or resurrecting people, or causing earthquakes, or becoming the avatar of death...  Maybe i'm missing something and having a flashlight is super powerful ...

Whoa, you are using a bunch of really difficult words, and i can't seem to follow you. Please help me understand (im dumb and not a native speaker).

So, what do you even mean here???

2 hours ago, Eff said:

Yeah, it's a shift from the kind of understandings of mythology as a psychosocial phenomenon that someone like Eliade or Levi-Strauss would have written in the 50s through 70s to somethin more directly Jungian.

1- who is Eliade?

2- what is a psychosocial phenomenon and what's it's relationship to levy-strauss structuralist theory of myth?

3- i'm not a psychologist and i have no idea about Jung & myths (i only know about collective unconscious and ideas being instinctual as a result of human Nature)? What would be "something more jungian"?

Like i'm probably stupid or something but what are you even talking about???

Just now, Baron Wulfraed said:

Which means what, exactly? Ignore all your modifiers for the moment and just state when a character with a DEX of 12 acts vs one with a DEX of 18?

The only way I can make sense of all this is that you are using "highest /modified/ DEX" acts first, and go down from there.

This seems more complex to me than starting with a base SR0 and adding modifiers based upon DEX/SIZE et al. since there is no mental inversion needed -- higher results are "slower".
 

It's the BRP 4e rule with weapon sr added in...

44 minutes ago, soltakss said:

People say this, but I don't understand.

Personally, I find Strike Ranks intuitive and very easy to follow.

The only bit I don't like is the big/fast Adventurer with a long weapon acting on SR 1 and then not doing anything for the rest of the round. That is the only unsatisfying part, for me. The rest is OK.

Let me explain what i use:

You act on your DEX

-5 prepare weapon/arrow/spell

0 to -4 for melee (weapon SR)

-MP spent on spell

-1 / MOV, up to 4 -i allow full MOV but it's different to raw-

I think thats it? Yeah, it doesnt take siz in account. I considered having a "melee SR" which would be DEX -(siz sr) but it's not worth the completity to me. I dont like siz sr that much either... 

It produces exactly the same results as standard sr (or close enough) and it's waaaaay easier to use & explain (at least for me).

49 minutes ago, EpicureanDM said:

You may not realize how close to the truth you are.

Under Chaosium’s current management, RQG and Glorantha have a strong conservative streak. Not politically, but in the sense of being traditional, resistant to change. This manifests in both the game’s design and the setting’s development.

As far as game design goes, RQG is essentially RQ2 with a little Pendragon/Stormbringer bolted onto it at an obvious angle. If you remember your history, RQ2’s main competitor when it was first released was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, i.e. AD&D 1e. So in The Year of Our Lord 2018, Chaosium decided to essentially reprint a game designed in 1979 with better art.

A lot has happened in RPG design since 1979, especially after 2000. We have all of the games that emerged from the Gaming Outpost/Forge/Story Game era, including Burning Wheel, Powered by the Apocalypse, FUDGE/Fate, Cortex Prime, and Blades in the Dark. We even have a series of games descended from RQ2 that tried to build and improve on what Steve Perrin and Greg Stafford began: RuneQuest 3, Mongoose RQ, Runequest 6, and Mythras. But the designers in charge of RQG both ignored the last 40 years of RPG development and rejected the design efforts of folks who tried to improve RQ while preserving what made it unique. They went all the way back to 1979 and basically printed that game again. I don’t know how to describe that except as deeply conservative.

I concede that RQG made some cosmetic, largely quality-of-life changes to how RQ2 works. But how it plays is pure 1979. You see that reflected in the published scenarios. I mean, they’ve republished classic RQ2 scenarios like Apple Lane and Rainbow Mounds. RQG characters resolve those RQ2 scenarios the same way the RQ2 characters would in 1979. Those are the scenarios that Chaosium explicitly marks as being for beginners and newcomers to the game.

I’ve watched Actual Play YouTube videos in which Jeff and Jason Durall, another credited RQG designer, have introduced RQG to new players. In both cases, RQG’s putative game designers avoided using the Strike Rank system when the PCs got into a fight. They just managed the battle narratively, coordinating actions based on the fiction and player enthusiasm. In one case (I can’t remember which), one of the designers answered a combat-related rules question by quoting the RQ2 rule rather than the new version of that rule in RQG.

It’s telling to me that the people who controlled what rules would be printed in RQG didn’t want to use those rules with new players. Who better than the game’s own designers to shepherd newcomers through the rules that they endorsed and published? Why not use Strike Ranks, their game’s centerpiece rules about combat, the ones that structure combat itself? My answer is that the game’s own designers probably don’t use the rules they’ve published. They probably house-rule or handwave parts of it. They just rely on the traditions and memories they’ve built up over forty years of playing RQ2.

Based on what’s been published so far by RQG, I see no reason to think that the people steering the ship have any intention of moving the focus of play too far from where it sat in the RQ2 days. Are they going to design (or approve freelance designs) rules that expand the mechanical powers of PCs to include things that only Gloranthan Heroes can do? It looks unlikely to me. RQG’s designers don’t seem interested in any sort of game design that happened after the mid-80’s. So we probably won’t see anything terribly new. When RQ players try to model Heroic characters within RQG’s current rules design, Jeff and RQ’s other defenders sneer about the desire for PCs with skills at 500%, “Super RuneQuest”, and red herrings about a return to the bad, old days of Deities & Demigods. Deities & Demigods was published in 1980. That’s the frame of reference for RQG’s current stewards.

Is Chaosium going to take a chance and publish some new, innovative rules for heroquesting so that your PCs can stand on the same footing as Jar-Eel? Given the disdain for high skill ratings and Super RuneQuest, we’d need rules that are very different than RQG’s old chassis from 1979. I can imagine a set of heroquesting rules that draw strong inspiration from how Heroquest (now QuestWorlds) works. Didn’t I read that Andrew Montgomery is designing the upcoming rules for heroquesting? That guy loves HeroQuest. But if you’ve got to translate your RQG’s character’s stats into quasi-HeroQuest stats in order to do the new heroquesting stuff, then we’re not really playing RQ2/RQG anymore, are we? And RQG’s current designers really seem to like RQ2 and that mode of play. Ironically, creating heroquesting rules that work more like the old HeroQuest game seems like how the game’s current designers and fans actually play RQG. But there doesn’t seem to be any awareness or consciousness of this (mild) irony in the halls of Chaosium.

So I don’t know what in this thread reassures you that Things Are Going To Be Different, @Wheel Shield. From where I’m sitting, I think you’ll end up where you don’t want to be: back in RQ2.

So, im basically writing a handbook for my players (they are new to rq) explaining mechanics and combat and Magic.

The sr part was as long and the rest of the damn combat rules. It's overly complicated!

I did this..

DEX RANKS! it's like, chaosium themselves fixed this in the 90s!!!

5 hours ago, g33k said:

A bit hyperbolic, eh?

But to be blunt:  NO.

Over the whole course of his career?  Well... yeah.  In fact, HELL YEAH !

Ok, i dreamt too big! Ill settle starting with the six-string of storms (which is Made of vingas hair, btw vinga is my mother) and having kicked gramps orlanth in the nuts. The rest can come later!

13 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

What's a fitting boon if your Yelmalio character survives the Hill of Gold heroquest?

Sunspear, Shield, Bladesharp, Protection, Re-roll into an actually useful cult... The possibilities are *ENDLESS*!!! 😂😂😂

So, i want to dive deeper into my newest original creation, Jon Pol-Joni, an orlanthi hero who wields the six-string of storms.

What horse breed do the Pol Joni ride? I read something about it being seredae, is this true?

How do you pick a warhorse then? (The average seredae cant carry a warrior into battle!)

How does rustling praxian beasts work? Do the Pol Joni raid as the orlanthi do, or as the animal nomads do? How do animal nomads raid anyway? 

Do they kill everyone and take those who surrender/fell to befuddle as slaves? 

Also, i read Pol-Joni are buddies with the zebras and others, how come? Dont zebra riders consider horses taboo, and should avoid associating with?

Lastly, any pol joni resources to read more about? Thanks in advance!!!

Just now, Akhôrahil said:

From a rules perspective, the upcoming Shield spell is all that’s required to make Yelmalio a passable cult for warriors. Right now though, you get more martial magic out of Ernalda (which is admittedly hilarious).

But you get to use a pike!!!

2d6+1 > 1h weapon with some magic

5 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

YGWV, @icebrand. Knock yourself out. (I'm told Derek the Troll is way tougher than Harrek, anyway)

Of course Derek is tougher, that Harrek guy is a poser!!!

Btw, do you think Derek would be interested in a gig playing the drums?

On 5/13/2022 at 12:19 PM, Jeff said:

Babeester Gor is not specialised in fighting Chaos - she fights whatever threatens the Earth with equal vehemence. She does not have specialised Chaos-fighting magic. That's pretty much the province of Storm Bull and Kyger Litor. 

To be fair, she needs as much specialized chaos-fighting magic as an f-35 needs anti-personal ammunition (which is not at all).

3 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

Because each Rune spell is supposed to be a reification or incarnation of a God Time event, and Yelmalio sticking it out past all hope is a core mythic event for him.  Same reason he has Sunbright and Catseye.  He's got good magic for Light, you'd figure he would have good magic for Last too.

Just give him shield and call it a day?

9 minutes ago, Ludovic aka Lordabdul said:

Seriously, 90% of the questions in this thread (and many other similar threads) can be answered by playing a CoC campaign or two

And the answer to those questions is "you die" (alternative: you go insane)

12 minutes ago, Ludovic aka Lordabdul said:

and the reason CoC is a great teaching experience is because you don't have any other choice than to figure it out. It's not like "SuperCallOfCthulhu" is even a thing, and you can't just shrug and go dungeon crawling or whatever. You either play CoC or you don't.

Oh man, i hate to be the one to tell you this, but its 2022, and that means you can punch cthulhu in the face...

https://www.chaosium.com/pulp-cthulhu-pdf/

(He's even getting SHOT AT in the cover, ROFL)

18 hours ago, Wheel Shield said:

Stepping outside of being a Glorantha fan, I see Orlanth as a God and Harrek as a high level adventuring NPC. A really powerful high level adventuring NPC, but not a god. Not the literal wind or ALL the STORMS, but a pirate who travels by boat and robs people. I'm sure you guys can argue he shrugs off sunspears from a dozen rune priests or whatever, but again, I qualify it by saying that "he sounds like a really powerful adventuring NPC to me." I'm not trying to be dismissive of Harrek's heroic tale, but I am trying to share a different perspective on the subject material from someone less personally invested

Orlanth is a god and theres nothing wrong with him.

Harrek is Mary Sue's more incredible cousin.... Let me pitch you my OC adventurer, then tell me if you would allow him 

"Orlanth came back after orlanth is dead, and in the first worship ceremony, a young initiate by the name Jon Pol Joni surprised everyone by kicking the god in the groin harder than any mortal would think a groin kick could be delivered.

After that, while all the runelords, runepriests, the high priest and the Queen of Sartar looked in disbelief, he reached out and grabbed orlanth by the pubes, ripped them off and fancied them as cords for his six-strings of storms.

The ceremony assistants tried to stop him with great magics, but Jon blew their minds with a sweet tune and got away.

Later he stole some horses with his buddies and they ended up raiding every settlement (yes, Every. Single. One). The ammount of cattle the Pol Jonis got was so great that started global warming in glorantha, bringing valinds wrath upon them.

The fight was terrible, and all seemed lost, but then Jon Pol-Joni remembered Orlanth *really* liked the brazilian waxing and named him Master of the Wind Lords, Pitch of all Storm Voices, Bearer of All Orlanths weapons, and keeper of the faith, so he jumped on his enchanted iron horse and defeated the enemy god.

Right now hes wooing JarEel with his music, so he can get intimate with her and kallir (simultaneously) so he fixes the hero wars before they start"

Now, i assume since harrek is a thing, Jon Pol Joni can be a thing too right? 

On 5/14/2022 at 4:56 AM, Giovanni_Cambria said:

I have seen a game, called Open D100, with an expansion for heroic fantasy that grant to each PC or NPC double HP.

(basically HP = STR + COS)

I think also Pulp Cthulhu follows this path. (I have read this somewhere in the forum)

I do not own Pulp Cthulhu: are there other mechanics that make the life of the players easier?

Luck points/Fate points?

Something that could be imported into Basic RPG without any adjustments? 

Pulp chtulhu is for cthulhu 7e. The system is a bit different (more evolved?) than BRP. You need to understand how CoC mechanics work before you can use it, so i wouldnt buy it as a stand alone unless you have a friend that owns CoC and helps you with the different rules or lends you the book.

CoC rules have:

D100 stats

Different combat system (attack vs fight back or dodge

Penalty and Bonus die (instead of hard and easy skills halving and doubling skill ratings, you just roll two tens d10 (and a single unit d10) and chose the worst/best. This works the same as advantage/disadvantage in DnD only it stacks.

Slightly different success system and skill vs skill.

And of course, cthulhu skills, specializations, SAN etc.

Hope i helped!!

"In the end, every adventurer faces mortality’s sharp bite."

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, pg.7

So, do you actually kill your PCs? 

Once i TPKed with a waterfall. Everyone missed the jump roll, only one PC managed to swim out, but went back to save a friend and both died. That was super realistic, but man i got bullied for like 10 years after that... (This happened using RAW RQ3)

How often do your players manage to die?

One of my players once died 5 sessions in a row. I got a few stabs from some other players but as always, everything was rolled in the open, not my fault! 

In my current campaign i'm getting about one close call every session, but so far they managed to avoid dying (they have a really strong group composition and some luck)

Do you cheat?

I roll everything in the open, but some use a screen. If you do, do you change rolls you don't like?

If not, do you use your GM Powers to change fate?

For example, once a traskar ate one of my players, but the humakti critted it in the head the same round, instantly killing the monster. RAW the snack player should be have died to asphyxiation, but i let the humakti pull her out and revive her with 1st aid because MGF and reviving a drowned person with 1st aid while they lie on the beach is a classic movie scene.

Do you do traps?

If you do, how is that working out for you?

I use the same trap twice in a row. Always. Its up to the PCs to figure it out; 1st ocurrence of the trap is usually easier to spot or already triggered.

When i want to screw with my players i just use 2 different types or i put just one (maybe broken) trap with no follow up (but thats pretty evil so i do it with tact)

Also my traps are not the automatic kind, if you fail to spot it you get some sort of skill or characteristic roll to avoid or reduce damage. Having said that, if you are unlucky you better succeed at your DI.

How about really tough monsters?

I always describe those, and give them a fair but vague idea of how tough they are.

"The broo has metal regalia and holds their weapon like a Master, clearly this is no ordinary foe, and it would bring honor to take it down in single combat"

Also i let the players run their mouth at least once in tense social encounters, and then tell them next time that means a fight.

With minis this get easier, noone pictures the Scorpion man, at least twice as big as them, as being a pushover.

Well, thats it, hope you find the topic interesting and share your GM style with us!!!

12 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Shamanism is a big part of the Waha cult, so of course that counts.

Thanks for taking the time to clarify my (dumb) questions Jeff, you are the very best!!!

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

One might say that is exactly what you are doing here.

I'm sorry i don't understand what you mean

24 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

It just changes the focus of the discussion from a generic "Waha is the worst" into (sort of) a more appropriate and accurate "Waha cultists are the crappiest murder-hobos" or similar.

Noone here is a murder hobo.

Waha has the worst tools of them all if you want to play published adventures.

26 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Yes - and no.

Depends on what type of game is being played a the table. If the GM and other players are playing that type of game, then it can work well. If not, then there's going to be friction.

Oh man, having your gameplay judged by people who never saw you feels sooo good!! (/S)

33 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

.... yeah, and I think you are wrong. Thed, is what she is and is permanent part of the world. 

Id rather not touch certain topics, MGF and all that